Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 188

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 188

“What?”
In an instant, the early morning gathering where they’d all been commiserating on their lot transformed into a conspiracy meeting.
But naturally, it started with doubt.
“Catch Seo Jun?”
“How exactly?”
“Well, by appealing to his conscience……”
“Do you really think an appeal would work on Seo Jun?”
They all nodded at Rumi’s ruthless observation that their teammate lacked one entirely.
A few days had been more than enough to know Seo Jun.
Seo Jun.
Had no conscience.
Not a little bit.
That was simply how he appeared.
Of course, Seo Jun had his reasons.
Making the team stronger was good for everyone. So they followed along.
But they all felt it somehow. Not just them.
Lee Dong-su felt it, Tae-woo felt it, even the Gym Manager and the staff felt it.
Seo Jun simply enjoyed tormenting others like this.
It was a good deed with justification and benefits, but the people subjected to it suffered greatly.
Not mentally, but physically.
Even medicine bitter for the body’s good doesn’t sit well when someone keeps forcing it down your throat.
“If that kind of reasoning worked on him, we’d have gotten some rest by now. We spend more time exercising than we do streaming normally……. How does it make sense that we can’t even rest for an hour straight?”
Rumi continued.
“It does make sense, technically. He does let us rest gradually. The problem is he only lets us rest when we’re at death’s door.”
“Which is why I’m making this proposal.”
Ha Yun-ho spoke with the sense of responsibility of a team leader who’d bid on Seo Jun at the auction.
“Let’s catch Seo Jun.”
“How?”
“Well……”
Sigh.
The team members exhaled in unison.
As if there were actually a method.
“So we’re making it today’s broadcast content, then?”
Alpaca spoke after thinking it over.
“Oh. In-game?”
“Wouldn’t that be the way to go, Rumi?”
“What if we set a trap and make a wager on it?”
At Wind Sword’s suggestion, Ha Yun-ho clapped his hands together.
“Nice. Let’s try it that way.”
As each person threw out an idea, the meeting gradually picked up steam.
A method seemed to be forming.
But.
“Hmm, but even if we get lucky and bait Seo Jun somehow, how do we beat him?”
The fundamental problem remained.
So Wind Sword asked, and Ha Yun-ho answered.
“Well, four-versus-one, we just have to raid well.”
“Does raiding even work, Yun-ho?”
“Or we get Seo Jun to play a trash character somehow.”
“Eric and Kaels weren’t trash characters?”
“Kaels is not a trash character.”
“Wind Sword, I sincerely apologize.”
“Yes, Rumi. Apology accepted.”
“Ah! What if we just make an impossible bet?”
“You saw the Eld Trial.”
Rumi shot that down in quick succession.
“Hmm. In-game……”
There’s no way?
Naturally.
Their ace was a strange existence who even pros might barely beat.
“Then can we stop Seo Jun in reality?”
Ha Yun-ho muttered, and from behind him came a raspy voice.
“I don’t recommend that.”
It was the Gym Manager. The owner of the adjacent Health Center as well.
“Hello, you’re here?”
“Hello.”
They all greeted the Gym Manager.
Though they’d only known him a few days, those days had been long hours, and thanks to that internal closeness they’d formed bonds quickly.
So even when they were caught in this strange meeting, they weren’t particularly worried.
The enemy of my enemy is my ally.
“But Manager, what do you mean by that? You don’t recommend it?”
“I mean rushing him in reality. That. I don’t recommend it.”
“Why?”
“Well, I should tell you about when that bastard first came to my gym.”
“Oh!”
“Seo Jun’s past?”
“Was that where his skills originated from?”
The Gym Manager shook his head.
“No.”
“Then?”
“It was a few years back. A good-looking high school student walked into my gym.”
“Oh. Seo Jun as a high schooler!”
The Gym Manager closed his eyes, clasping his hands behind his back as if reminiscing.
“After evening sparring practice ended and the sun had set, I was alone in the gym cleaning up. As I always did. I had a habit of cleaning up my own fighting space myself.”
The ring remaining in this building was his only stage after retiring as a fighter.
So even when the gym staff went out to celebrate after training, he stayed to clean.
Joining in at times like that was inconsiderate anyway.
“I recognized the high schooler who approached me right away. I knew his father a bit. They looked alike.”
“I see.”
“So I greeted him warmly. ‘It’s our first meeting. You must be Seo Jun.’ That’s how I greeted him, and that bastard immediately said something.”
“What?”
Everyone had unconsciously leaned in, listening intently.
“‘Could you teach me Modern Martial Arts,’ he said.”
“?”
For a moment, question marks appeared on everyone’s faces in the room.
Then they laughed.
“Wait, Modern Martial Arts?”
“Haha. Seo Jun was intense even back then.”
“Is he even a concept junkie in real life?”
While they chuckled, Rumi was thinking seriously.
‘Martial arts. There must be a connection. So he did learn from some kind of dojo or something? From much earlier? And that’s why he said Modern Martial Arts?’
“I laughed like you guys did at first. Then I told him if he wanted to learn, he had to register first. Know what he said then?”
“Well, something tells me Seo Jun probably provoked you right there……”
The Gym Manager looked surprised at Ha Yun-ho’s words.
“How’d you know? Exactly right. That bastard smirked, slipped on some messy gloves lying around, and climbed into the ring.”
“And you couldn’t let that slide?”
“Of course not. How could I have let that go? Up until then I’d been giving the gym members direct character education. For us athletes, it’s usually easier to talk with our bodies, and if you don’t keep pressing them, they get subtle about their resistance.”
So thinking it would be fun and wanting to teach my friend’s son a lesson, I climbed up.
“But that day, I fell into deep despair about whether I truly belonged in this world.”
“Why?”
“I got beaten before I could even land a blow. No, I got destroyed. By that punk. As things went sideways, I dropped the idea of going easy and fought with full intent, but it all got blocked.”
Ah.
A sigh escaped from somewhere.
“……”
“……”
“Is that why you only watch from a distance now?”
“Seo Jun was at fault for that.”
“Quite right.”
But the Gym Manager shook his head.
“No. The day that bastard left after blocking all my techniques without learning anything and saying he’d learned well, I did feel like I’d gotten old and it was a bit hard. But—”
“But…?”
“The next day, that bastard came again, and this time I watched him beat our kids the same way, and that’s when it hit me. Ah, I can keep going for a few more years.”
“……”
“……”
“……”
The impoverished team members stared at the Gym Manager in disbelief, but he burst into a hearty laugh.
“When that bastard was giving advice to our kids and then proposed a one-on-one, then asked five of them to come in at once, I was shocked, but our kids lost to him. He showed movements I couldn’t have displayed even in my prime.”
“Ah.”
“So it won’t work in reality either. Five big adult men came at him and he didn’t take a single hit. Hmm……”
The Gym Manager’s gaze drifted to Rumi’s and Ha Yun-ho’s limbs.
Skeletons.
No better description existed.
Or maybe anchovy?
In any case, with those two skeletons, a normal office worker, and a potbellied thirty-something to win—
“Even with weapons, it won’t work.”
The Gym Manager was adamant.
“If you’re really set on rebellion, I won’t stop you. If you need tools, I’ll get them. But you’ll lose? You saw him burst that sandbag before. That’s not something anyone can do, or that any human can do.”
No matter how old it was.
“I see.”
“If he can’t be beaten in-game or in reality……. what about on stream?”
Wind Sword came up with an idea again.
“A viewership bet? Didn’t you see how easily Seo Jun beat Ha Yun-ho on the first day? If you don’t want to see all hero trials ranked first and apocalypse rankings on today’s broadcast, drop that idea.”
“So we’re supposed to hold out for the sake of League players worldwide……. for more days like this?”
At Rumi’s rebuttal, they all stared blankly up at the ceiling.
The Gym Manager offered them some comfort.
“Haha. Still, if you keep at it, your skills will definitely improve. That bastard’s eye for talent is certain. There’s nothing scarier in this world than someone who’s good at something and also understands it well.”
Because of that.
‘Can’t make him an enemy.’
They didn’t see the Gym Manager’s sinister smile from behind as he offered his warm consolation.

* * *

“Wow, I really didn’t know he was like that.”
“I’m truly disappointed. Really.”
“Whoa! He’s looking this way!”
“Manager!”
They held the Ma-bo Stance—well, technically a squat—and glared at the Gym Manager with eyes full of resentment.
“What. What is it.”
He left brazenly, avoiding their gaze.
“We thought at least we were on the same side……”
“There’s no one to trust.”
“There! I thought he was a good person!”
Ha Yun-ho nodded at Rumi’s comment.
“Not a loyal athlete, but……. he looks more like—”
A sycophant?
Their legs trembled.
Not from exhaustion.
It had only been about ten minutes since they’d started exercising.
This was their whole body trembling from a sense of betrayal.
Because of the Gym Manager who was sitting right in front of them, massaging Seo Jun’s shoulders!
“Wait, weren’t you two on bad terms?”
“Didn’t Seo Jun yell at you when he burst the sandbag and all?”
“Politicians fight loudly in front, but behind closed doors they call each other senior and junior like old friends.”
“We got played!”
They recalled the situation from just before. How Seo Jun had arrived, greeted them coolly as if asking why they were here, then flashed a grin as the Gym Manager blew their cover.
“Hahaha! That’s right, Seo Jun. Go easy on the sandbag too. Actually teach them properly. And you were thinking about entering a match once……. ah. Yeah, yeah. Just take care of the kids. Keep beating them if you have to.”
And this was the result.
The content was odd for a request, but it was definitely a request. The price for selling them out.
“To sell us out just so he could say he was counting on you……”
“The world outside the blanket is……. I want to go home.”
It was their oversight not to know yet that the Gym Manager was the person who every time he got the chance tried to pull Seo Jun into the world of hand-to-hand combat with flattery.
Finally, Seo Jun’s mouth opened.
For the record, they were holding the Ma-bo Stance of their own volition.
“Well, I’ll accept that you still have plenty of energy left to spare.”

* * *

“I’m dying.”
“Still, today was pretty manageable.”
“Definitely more bearable than doing stamina drills all day. Actually getting hit like today seems better in a way.”
“Don’t say that right in front of Seo Jun!”
Lunchtime.
They’d come to a nearby shop to eat gukbap, but the team members were talking as if they’d just revealed some great secret.
“……”
“……”
They subtly gauged Seo Jun’s reaction.
For the past three days, they’d only done repetitive basic exercises.
The problem was how brutally difficult it had been.
On the other hand, today was mostly Seo Jun directly sparring and coaching them, so it was less grueling than before. And they got more rest breaks.
Of course, having been beaten quite a bit during sparring, they thought of it as retribution for the rebellion they’d plotted.
‘He was always planning this anyway.’
The past three days could be seen as simply a stance correction phase.
Stamina building wasn’t the goal.
If it had been, he wouldn’t have pushed them to the point of collapse.
Time was tight, so he corrected intensively. Not because he wanted to grind them down.
Footwork, preparation, stride—he was laying down the fundamentals through correction and repetitive action.
Then what he needed to do next was have them apply those fundamentals in actual combat through sparring, which is what he did today.
In other words, nothing would really change, and they didn’t need to worry.
‘Best to just keep quiet.’
There was no need to explain it to them.
He wasn’t a teacher, after all.
So when Seo Jun heard their conversation and said nothing, Rumi hastily changed the subject.
“Seo Jun?”
“Yeah?”
“When you first picked up a sword, were you good at it from the start?”
After hearing the Gym Manager’s story about their first meeting, Rumi had been thinking that Seo Jun probably attended a sword dojo before high school.
So the topic she’d been eager to change held these assumptions within it.
It was an interesting subject. Everyone except Seo Jun perked up their ears.
“Hmm……”
Seo Jun smiled comfortably as he recalled.
The very first moment across all his memories when he’d first grasped a sword.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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