Surviving as the Terminally Ill Young Lady of the North Sea Ice Palace - Chapter 93

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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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Episode 93
Hehe, as soon as I heard that Jongnam Sect disciple’s story, I dug a trap right then and there!
Using the Internal Energy explosion of the Red Dust Turbid Yang Gong, I hollowed out the pit.
Then I covered the top with branches and leaves, buried it under sand and soil, and hid it naturally.
The hardest part was striking the barrier so delicately that the sound wouldn’t carry.
But after preparing the trap so perfectly,
I sat on a rock with my legs crossed, looking provocative, ready to ambush—
And when Namgung Min approached, she stopped right in front of the pit, not falling in. You can’t imagine how anxious I was.
“……Seol…….”
From the bottom of the deep pit, Namgung Min looked up at me with an utterly bewildered expression.
“Hehe, sorry. But I did this because I acknowledge you.”
If I hadn’t viewed her as my strongest rival, why would I bother digging holes and setting traps?
Precisely because I recognized her strength, I wanted to end the fight quickly and safely.
“If you forfeit, I’ll stop!”
So I shouted that first,
Then I hoisted the large boulder I’d been sitting on.
“……?!”
Namgung Min was greatly startled.
And I threw it down without hesitation.
Boom!
Namgung Min pressed herself against the wall and barely avoided being crushed by the boulder,
But she ended up in no condition to even swing her sword.
I was about to throw another boulder in.
“I… I yield…….”
But she quickly admitted defeat.
A wise decision.
She might have managed to block one or two boulders by cutting them with her sword,
But there were boulders without end scattered all around,
And I could have even fired Sword Energy at her.
“Good! Throw the tokens up!”
“……Understood.”
She seemed to be biting her lip, ready to complain, but bewilderment came first instead.
She threw the Jade Tokens upward with an awkward, twisted expression,
And I caught them and added them to my necklace.
“Hehe, thanks.”
Yes! 110 points scored!
Getting tokens in bulk like this always felt good.
I’d gotten 10 more points than what I obtained from the Nine Heavens Hell, hadn’t I?
Clink! Clink! Clink!
Having secured the forfeit, I wandered around the pit with a broad smile,
And in the meantime, Namgung Min barely crawled up from the pit, which was several times her height in depth.
She didn’t have much experience with cliff climbing, so she couldn’t leap up the vertical wall with Lightness Technique,
And by the time she finally escaped the pit, her clothes were quite filthy.
“Huff…….”
She brushed off her clothes and sighed,
“That was hard work! A good match.”
As I laughed broadly, Namgung Min hardened her gaze.
If Namgung A Young had seen this situation, she would have spilled dozens of complaints,
“……I can’t say I let my guard down. I never imagined a trap like that.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
She seemed to be acknowledging me in her own way.
Yeah, cunning is a skill too.
“Is the Hunting Competition over then?”
Still, Namgung Min muttered with a slightly hollow tone.
“Hmm… I don’t think so?”
I wondered if the Jongnam Sect disciple had miscounted earlier, but Namgung Min’s tokens were indeed 12.
With the 44 I had been carrying, that made 56 total.
One short.
After counting, even as I talked with Namgung Min, I’d been thinking all along that someone might be lurking, waiting to achieve Fisherman’s Gain by attacking while two fighters were locked in combat,
But that last person still hadn’t revealed themselves.
“Did I miscount?”
I’d counted earlier, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake.
I unfastened the tokens from my waist and collar, stacking them in groups of ten.
But adding the one I’d just caught, the total came to fifty-six.
“Looks like one person is still hiding somewhere on the island.”
Namgung Min nodded in agreement.
“Since I’ve lost, I’ll take my leave. I hope you find them.”
Though she did seem curious about who was left.
Finding that last person was my job now.
After watching her go, I began to comb through the island.
We had until sunset as the deadline.
Time didn’t seem like it would be a problem.
But after a few hours.
I realized that was a miscalculation.
I climbed to the peak and scanned below, leaped through the trees searching for hidden cadets, and methodically combed the hillsides for any concealed caves.
I even dug through reeds, wondering if someone had buried themselves in the brush.
I cut through grass searching in every direction, suspecting someone might have crouched in the reed beds.
“What, did they dig a pit and hide underground? How is this person invisible?”
It wouldn’t be impossible to burrow into the earth, much as I’d dug my own trap.
I stomped around, dispersing my Internal Energy as I went.
I pushed my Qi Sensing to its limit, trying everything to pick up a trace of presence.
And I even recalled wuxia clichés, the way that intruder at Tae Cheong Hall had hidden.
But on a mountain, caves are the classic hiding spot, aren’t they?
Yet this island didn’t have particularly developed cave formations.
Besides the shallow cavern where I’d caught eight people on the first night, there were barely any caves at all.
“What if the Academy actually has a Water Technique master from the Yangtze River region, and they’ve been hiding underwater for three days straight?”
I even entertained this absurd hypothesis.
But in the end, as the sun began to set, I still hadn’t found that last person.
Swallowing my disappointment, I forfeited the ten points and made my way down to the shore.
A group of cadets had gathered in front of a boat.
“The champion of this Hunting Competition is Cadet Seol!”
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
The moment I descended, Paeng Jung Geol made the announcement, and the students applauded.
I waved my hand lightly.
“Seol! I knew you’d get revenge for me!”
Maeng Ryeong Ji cheered.
“…….”
Namgung Min, who’d faced me just hours before, looked slightly sullen, while Namgung A Young beside her merely seemed to regret the outcome.
Eun Hyun wore a faint smile as if he’d expected this all along.
His complexion had improved considerably since earlier—he must have received Energy Circulation and Healing from the Martial Arts Department’s guardian.
I wondered about Un Cheon and Myeong Sung; their clothes were torn in places, as if they’d been through fierce combat.
“Seol, truly impressive.”
And Gu Won smiled knowingly.
I’d wondered if perhaps Gu Won was the one still hiding until the end.
But it seemed he’d been eliminated naturally long ago.
Sigh—it was deflating to hear praise from anyone but So Un.
“Wait, where is So Un?”
I looked around.
I’d wanted to help her during the Hunting Competition once, but I never ran into her, so I never got the chance.
I’d hoped she’d hidden well enough to at least avoid being in the first ten eliminated.
“That person is this one, and the sole other survivor besides you.”
What?
“Everyone, come along.”
Muk Jin Ha took the lead, and I followed, bewildered.
I thought we were heading up the mountain, but we stopped before climbing even halfway.
“So Un is here?”
The cadets looked around uncertainly, seeing no trace of anything.
Muk Jin Ha gently pushed aside a boulder about knee-high, standing right against a large tree.
“……?”
Since the boulder was flush against the tree with barely enough space for a person to fit, I didn’t see what pushing it aside would accomplish.
“Huh? How are you all coming out together……?”
“The Hunting Competition just ended. Come on out now.”
“So, So Un?”
“You were hiding inside a tree?”
And indeed, impossibly, a hole had been bored through the tree behind the rock, and So Un crawled out from within, having crouched there the whole time.
All of us cadets who witnessed the sight let out gasps of astonishment.
“How did you manage that? Did you drill a hole in the tree yourself?”
“Good heavens!”
“Oh, no, sir. I didn’t kill the tree—there was already a hole there naturally. You see, old trees sometimes fall ill and develop hollows, leaving their insides empty!”
Some ancient timber, then, rotted through by disease or insect damage?
“You hid in there for four days straight?”
“Yes, sir!”
“B, but how did you manage water and food?”
He answered with breezy confidence toward me, though with a hint of embarrassment toward the Cheonmyeong Hall students.
“I usually carry a small Water Canteen with me……so I’d already drawn water from the river before I fell in. As for food, well, I brought Grain-Avoidance Pills from the Academy.”
He opened his pouch and showed us he still had more than ten Grain-Avoidance Pills remaining.
He’d brought that many?
A few cadets began to grumble that bringing Grain-Avoidance Pills ought to be against the rules.
“You retain whatever you bring with you—that’s the whole point of being stranded! Did I take your swords from you? I didn’t confiscate any tools you had on hand! If you think it’s unfair, bring Grain-Avoidance Pills yourselves next time!”
Paeng Jung Geol shut it down flatly.
……Was it possible that he’d grown so accustomed to hunger before entering the Academy that he simply made it a habit to carry them everywhere?
So Un merely tilted his head with a bright smile, asking if he’d really hidden that well.
“You hid brilliantly. I found everyone else—only you slipped past me.”
I informed him that I’d obtained the tokens from all the other cadets.
“What? Does that mean Miss Seol wasn’t able to collect all the tokens because of me?”
So Un actually looked regretful.
“That’s right. This would’ve been the first time in Hunting Competition history that one person swept all the tokens—but you stopped it. It’s a shame, I’ll grant you, but your concealment ability was simply superior!”
Fair enough.
I couldn’t help it if my search techniques fell short.
Paeng Jung Geol gave So Un a quick compliment, then returned to the original training objective.
“If this island had been truly surrounded, only Cadet Seol and Cadet So Un would have survived.”
So Un, receiving the praise, stood flustered.
The cadets who’d lost their survival tokens through various stratagems bowed their heads in shame.
Paeng Jung Geol pointed out the mistakes of several students.
Heo Gong, who’d been watching quietly, added that it was fortunate everyone had escaped without major injury.
“You’ve all worked hard these four days. Let’s head back to the Academy now!”
And the Martial Arts Department instructors declared the Hunting Competition concluded, then nimbly boarded their boats.
“Wait—but our boat is completely destroyed…….”
Paeng Ho, who’d become the first casualty because of me, asked cautiously.
Oh, right—I’d smashed it to pieces in the water.
And of course there was no freshly scouted replacement boat or anything.
All fifty-seven cadets stared blankly at the instructors, uncertain how they were supposed to reach shore.
“What? Build a boat or swim back—figure it out yourselves!”
Whoosh! The boat rocked.
He rowed his oars forcefully and departed first.
Buk Hae Bing Palace Young Lady, Living with Expiration Date (Serialized)
Author │ Sahyang Noru
Published by │ Kim Ju Hyung
Publishing House │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae Hyuk
Address │ 401, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Ace Techno Tower 8)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Sahyang Noru 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the publisher and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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