Chapter 710: When Going Out, Maintain Your Dignity (5)

The cadets were granted a break as sweet as honey.

The Central Plains people’s hatred of cold drinks had been famous since ancient times, but a cold, sweet drink you gulp down after three whole days and nights of marching in summer, without a single night’s sleep...

Kyaaa. Kyaaa— all over the place there was that noisy sound of people downing liquor, and they were exclaiming that they’d never known cold tea could taste this good.

All the more so because this iced tea was the work of none other than Ice-White Divine Palm Seol Iri, one of the Five Flowers of the Martial World. The taste of a chilled tea handed over by a cold beauty (expressionless, or, in Qing’s eyes, just a little pouty at having her breath-regulation interrupted), that was something else again.

And then, a brief rest until everyone had returned.

Not caring about the sandy ground, they all flopped down right there on the Grand Drill Yard, and at once the sounds of snoring—DRRR, KRRR—rolled out in a majestic multi-part chorus.

The last procession team got back around the end of Shen Hour (about five in the afternoon), and, sadly, the very last team had no choice but to march straight into the closing ceremony of training with barely the time to knock back a single cup of iced tea and not even a moment to rest.

And when they were all standing in straight lines for review—

That day, the cadets remembered it. The terror of being lectured by the Director...

“This Director is very proud of you! To have completed training without a single straggler—this is proof that every one of you looked after your comrades and advanced together until you all arrived in the end! Advancing together—this is the very spirit of the Martial Alliance!”

The spirit of the Martial Alliance showed up right at the moment they least felt like being Martial Alliance anything.

But that, too, was only for a moment.

“Training is over and you must all be tired. As one senior martial man, this Director is truly proud of you! That is all.”

It was a miraculously short address.

Were they really about to start up another three lessons that were actually four? Faces that had gone slack with shock and dread now blossomed with wild joy across the cadets’ ranks.

And then—

“Wooooaaah!!!” “Long live the Martial Alliance!!”

More fiery support than ever before, a thunderous roar bursting out entirely on its own even though Qing hadn’t bothered to shout for it.

Right after that, Qing stepped up onto the platform.

She had to announce what came next in the schedule as well—but huh. Now that she thought about it, somehow she’d ended up in this sort of emcee-ish role, hadn’t she?

Well, since she was the youngest of the instructors, it made sense for Qing to handle it, but still, hmm.

“Cadets, you all worked hard. Before we bring this closing ceremony to an end, there’s news I need to tell you. It concerns the holding of the King-of-All-Weapons Tournament.”

The life-and-death match over the pride of the three training halls—Sword Hall, Blade Division Hall, and Fist Hall—

Not only pride, but special dishes, extended leave, as well as the privileges of snacks and tea time in the dorms were all on the line in this cadets’ sparring tournament.

And once today was over, the full moon was just around the corner.

“In consideration of how exhausted you cadets are from this procession training, the King-of-All-Weapons Tournament will be postponed to the new moon, and this full-moon slot will be replaced with leave. In addition, to commemorate the successful completion of training without a single injured cadet, everyone will enjoy the winner curriculum’s privileges until the tournament is held. In other words, dishes will be coming out on your tables!”

—Wooooaaah!!

Another wave of fiery cheers.

Their bodies had just started to adapt to the Academy’s grueling schedule, and the pathetic meals they’d been wolfing down purely out of hunger had begun to reveal just how tasteless they really were. This was exactly that timing.

“Anyone who wants leave is to report and apply to their room head in their cadet room by tomorrow morning. Each room head will report the leave applications after tomorrow’s class schedule. Leave will be three days: you depart after roll call and return by You Hour two days later. Understood?”

—Yes, ma’am!!

“Tomorrow morning is rest time—finish your personal maintenance, and classes will resume in the afternoon. Then, that’s all—dismissed!”

Everyone was tired, so she just delivered the business and stopped.

The procession training had been something that got slapped together and implemented because Qing had suggested it—meaning it was a schedule the Academy hadn’t originally had.

But because the training results had left the cadets looking more worn out than expected, they’d adjusted the schedule: send them out on their first leave, and push the King-of-All-Weapons Tournament back.

In any case, even if it was a showdown between the curricula, they were still at a point where not even all the basic moves had been fully transmitted, and on top of that, the instructors had already colluded to fix Blade Division Hall and Fist Hall’s victory in advance.

After all, the nomination rights for who entered the King-of-All-Weapons Tournament belonged to the instructors. Once the three put their heads together, steering the direction of the outcome wasn’t exactly hard work.

Sword Hall and Blade Division Hall, burning with the shame of losing to those fist-using cavemen, would only get more fired up.

Fist Hall would go “Wow, we actually won, we really won,” and their morale would soar, and in the end nobody would be on the losing end of this wholesome bit of match-fixing.

On the way back to the instructors’ quarters, Peng Choryeo—who’d also just finished leading her charges—stretched out with a great big “Uuugh,” letting out a sound exactly like some middle-aged uncle.

“Ugh, staying up all night after so long, I’m dead on my feet. I’m going to hose off good and crash. What about you, Qing, want to wash up together?”

“I’m going to heat the water. I want a good long soak.”

“In this summer heat you’re getting into a hot bath? Aren’t you going to be hot?”

“Heh-heh.”

Qing grabbed Peng Choryeo’s wrist and pulled her into the space beneath her own veil.

“What the—why is it cool in here?”

“This is what cold-qi work is, you know.”

Far from being hot, Qing had been keeping herself pleasantly cool the whole time by breathing out the cold qi of Minor Water Art.

The inside of her loose clothes was a given, and she’d ringed a neat border of cold around her face to block the heat, so it was basically like she’d had the air conditioning running nonstop.

She hadn’t yet learned Seol Iri’s trick of unconsciously cooling even while asleep, but running cooling qi continuously for three nights and days without sleep was no big deal for Qing, who already possessed inner power at a level beyond Flower Realm.

So she was in a perfectly dry, fresh state without a single drop of sweat, and the hot bath was purely personal preference.

Humming to herself, she went back to the quarters—and hm. No one came out to greet her.

They say raising daughters is all for nothing; when a dad comes home from work, she ought to come scampering out and at least pretend to hug him once, shouldn’t she?

Just how fun could Abbot Wolbong’s Junior Division class be that she wasn’t even showing the tip of her nose?

Hm. Well, if she was playing with a friend, that couldn’t be helped.

Dad is Dad and friends are friends, and in terms of priorities, it was wise to play with a friend you could only meet at times like this rather than with family you could see every day.

Maybe our Jayeo’s dumb, but she’s not lacking in wisdom.

What good is being smart—what you need is wisdom, yeah.

Qing nodded to herself and was on her way back to her room when she suddenly caught sight of a little back hunched in the corner of the flowerbed.

What’s this? Playing in the dirt? Watching ants?

Qing crept up quietly.

Qing normally moved around without footsteps thanks to her No-Shadow training, and when she deliberately tried to hide her presence, a little kid deeply absorbed in something had no chance of noticing her even if they died and came back to life.

So Qing quietly approached, raised both hands, and just as she was about to go “Boo!” and startle her—

“Hee-hee.”

A child’s low giggle.

Over Jayeo’s rounded shoulders—

Hm. What should you even call this.

There was a fat little mole, but it was covered in blood from head to toe.

The twig in the child’s hand was pressing and pressing down on its body, and from the wounds scattered all over it, blood was bubbling up.

One of them must have been a deep wound in the abdomen; purplish-dyed intestines had swollen up like a balloon and bulged out, only stopping their swelling once the child drew the twig back.

Hm. The fact it was a mole made it a little ambiguous.

Moles were a harmful pest, all harm and no benefit; if they showed up in fields they ruined the crops, and if they showed up in the mountains they killed the trees—they were a harmful animal.

And as far as Qing knew, they were also a vector for some kind of deadly disease. She couldn’t remember which one, but she vaguely remembered hearing that you must never touch them with bare hands.

And that made her think—if it had been a cat or a dog, would this be a problem?

The Central Plains people boasted a diet worthy of their infamy for eating anything with four legs—cats, dogs, whatever—so they’d eat those too.

While Qing was briefly lost in thought and let her guard down, some hint of presence must have slipped out.

Jayeo jolted in fright, so startled that she unconsciously flung away the twig in her hand, as if she were dropping it, and fell on her backside.

And then the look she turned up toward Qing—

Despair, fear, terror; it was exactly the sort of expression you’d get if you drew those emotions on a face.

It was absolutely not the kind of expression a child should be making.

“Um, see, it’s, no, it’s not. It’s not that.”

Jayeo, who was usually slow and a bit slurred in her speech, rushed out a jumble of words in a hurry.

Qing snorted.

“Stabbing it and cutting it and tormenting it, it’s fun, isn’t it?”

“No.”

Jayeo only used polite speech when she was getting scolded.

Qing chuckled, grabbed her under the armpits, and pulled her into her arms.

“Not fun? It’s fun for me, you know?”

Jayeo stared fixedly up at her.

As if trying to check whether she meant it or not, and at that gaze, Qing gave a bitter smile and spoke in a gentle voice.

“I’m not joking, you know? So, Jayeo—do you think it’s fun, or not fun?”

“...It’s fun.”

Qing nodded her head up and down.

“Jayeo. There are people like us. What should I call it—maybe we should say we’re broken? A little defective? Or maybe our minds are just a bit sick.”

“Are you like that too, Dad?”

“Of course. When flesh splits, bones break, and screams burst out, there’s nothing in the world that feels as good. My legs shake and my strength gives out, that’s how thrilling it is, and... hm, just thinking about it is suddenly making me crave a slaughter. I must have been holding back for quite a while...”

It was the kind of deranged talk that would be terrifying if anyone overheard it.

But when she’d pulled Jayeo out of those flesh chunks, those mashed-up bits of meat and bone and organs, ever since then she’d had a faint suspicion that maybe, possibly...

So she’d hoped it wasn’t so, and she’d thought it really wasn’t.

She’d even just recently felt deeply relieved to see her walking around hand in hand with Hyang among the other moms, DO-DO-DO-ing along and laughing brightly.

Sure, the kid’s vibe was a bit gloomy and her eyes were rotten, but wasn’t she surprisingly normal otherwise?

But in the end, was it something they just couldn’t get around?

“Of course, I understand how you feel, Jayeo. But, hm, the people in the world don’t get it. They don’t want to get it, either. So people like us, well...”

People like us.

Qing forced a mischievous grin.

“We have to know how to enjoy it on our own, with a good sense of timing, if we want to live getting loved. Look at me. Doesn’t everybody love your dad?”

“Yeah. They all love you.”

In that sense, it really was a blessing this was the Central Plains.

In the mountains, man-eating beasts were everywhere, and at the foot of the mountains, people worse than beasts were everywhere.

What those two had in common was that you could beat them to death and it wasn’t a crime; far from being a crime, people would rush to praise it as an act of justice.

Of course, there were differences too.

If you beat a beast to death, the aftertaste was never quite right, it left you feeling sticky; a beast eating a person wasn’t exactly something you could call evil.

But as for evildoers—if you went to the trouble of thoroughly tormenting them, the more you did it, the more satisfying it felt.

Anyway, it was a good thing this was the Central Plains.

If this were her homeland, hm.

She’d just have to endure it her whole life, that was all.

So what a blessed thing this was.

Because she didn’t have to say, You mustn’t do that, you have to hold it in and hide it and conceal it all your life, you have to just endure and endure and keep enduring that burning thirst and dryness in your throat.

“First of all, you have to be careful about what you pick as your target. If you torment bad people, everyone just kind of goes, ‘Oh, well, that figures.’ Hm, in that sense, picking a mole isn’t a bad choice, either. But you still need to have an excuse ready in case you get caught. Something like, you planted a flower you really treasured and it chewed up every last root.”

“Okay.”

“There are lots of villains in the world, and if you torment those villains, I have fun and the world benefits too. And someone who benefits the world is bound to be loved.”

“Okay.”

“That’s why you have to train martial arts. Once you become an expert, you can torment bad people openly.”

It was hardly the sort of scene you’d call teaching a child something good.

But there was no helping it.

Compared to telling her something horrible like, You have to endure it for the rest of your life, this would sound far better.

And what, she was going to shave her head and send her off to the Buddhist order—what else could she do?

Jayeo’s eyes were rotted pitch-black; even if you looked into them, you couldn’t clearly see what was inside.

But did she really need to know, for her to be Qing’s daughter?

Qing yanked Jayeo into a tight hug and rubbed her cheek against hers.

Soon enough, hee-hee, a laugh came out—

A bit gloomy for a child, but still a laugh.

“Okay. Let’s go. Moles are gross. You didn’t touch it with your hands, right? We’d better get you washed.”

Qing picked Jayeo up and headed for their room.

It really was a mad little duo: a true Ten-Thousand-Slaughters Baleful Star, and a halfway Ten-Thousand-Slaughters Baleful Star.