CLS-Chapter 177

Chapter 177

“Military Advisor! Military Advisor! Please open the door!”

“Ugh…”

Cho Hyeon let out deep sighs at the desperate cries coming from outside the door.

Seeing that Seok Mun-cho, the head instructor of the Dormant Dragon Military Academy, had come looking for him since morning and was carrying on like this, it was clear as day what he had come about.

The problem was that Cho Hyeon absolutely did not want to know about it. The moment the syllable “Wei” came out of Seok Mun-cho’s mouth, he wanted to kick him flying right out of the pavilion.

“Ugh…”

But he couldn’t just ignore it indefinitely. Half of the troubles Wei Yan-ho caused were his responsibility. It was his own fault for assigning him instructor duties without properly investigating what kind of person Wei Yan-ho was, and then granting him immunity on top of that.

Eventually, Cho Hyeon wearily threw off his blanket and got up from his seat. The cold wet cloth on his forehead fell to the floor with a thud.

“My, my stomach!”

As soon as he sat up, his stomach felt like he had swallowed a red-hot awl, stabbing and piercing.

The physician had said his stomach was perforated and he absolutely needed to rest…

“It’s anger illness, anger illness! Your insides are full of rage. I’ve been practicing medicine for forty years, but I’ve never seen such severe anger illness. Are you perhaps being threatened by those Demonic Cult bastards?”

“…The Demonic Cult would be gentlemen compared to this.”

At least those bastards were ignorant and violent, but not cunning. It would be much better for his mental health to face ten Demonic Cult elders simultaneously.

What kind of suffering was this in his twilight years?

Cho Hyeon felt fresh anger rising toward Wei Yan-ho and Wei Jeong-han, who had brought Wei Yan-ho into the world. Getting angry made his stomach hurt more, and his stomach hurting made him angrier – a vicious cycle was unfolding.

“Ugh!”

After throwing his tantrum, Cho Hyeon wearily approached the door and opened it.

Seok Mun-cho stood there with a dazed expression looking at him.

“Military Advisor!”

“…What is all that?”

Cho Hyeon’s gaze turned to the papers Seok Mun-cho was clutching to his chest.

“Class cancellation requests and petitions.”

Cho Hyeon squeezed his eyes shut. Just those words alone made it obvious what was happening.

“First… first come in.”

As Cho Hyeon headed to the tea table, Seok Mun-cho wearily followed and sat down.

He didn’t have the energy to brew fresh tea. He poured from the pot he’d been drinking from, and Seok Mun-cho, apparently parched, cleanly emptied his cup in one go and slyly held it out again.

Glug glug glug.

It felt like drinking atmosphere, but ignoring it, he opened his mouth.

“…Which class is it?”

“Don’t you know already?”

“The petitions?”

“You know well enough.”

“…I suppose I do.”

This was probably the first time since the Dormant Dragon Military Academy opened that students had submitted petitions.

“So. Wei Yan-ho, is that fellow still not doing anything?”

“If only that were the case!”

“Huh?”

What was this supposed to mean?

As Cho Hyeon looked puzzled, Seok Mun-cho began explaining with a sour expression.

“The kids asked him to make them train, so Wei Yan-ho started training them.”

“Re, really?”

Cho Hyeon brightened and said,

“Then isn’t that good news?”

“Good news?”

Cho Hyeon wasn’t someone lacking in perception or thought. The moment he saw Seok Mun-cho’s distorted face, he immediately knew something had gone wrong.

Moreover, if Wei Yan-ho was involved, things going wrong was rather natural.

“He calls it training, but he gathers the kids in the training ground and has them dodge stones he throws at them.”

“…”

His first thought was that this was a very folksy kind of training.

But wasn’t that level of training not really a problem?

“So what’s the issue?”

“Twenty with bruises, twelve with fractures, seven with compound fractures.”

“…”

“All those healthy lads got carried off to the medical hall. Now the ones lying in the medical hall are making a fuss, saying they’ll inform their families and definitely protest this unfair treatment. Where do you think all these petitions came from?”

Cho Hyeon quietly turned his head away from the petitions Seok Mun-cho had placed on the tea table.

“What did Wei, Wei Yan-ho say?”

“I tried telling him to please show some restraint since too many kids were getting hurt…”

“But?”

Seok Mun-cho sighed and said,

“He said kids these days are weak, and in his time, they used to get beaten dozens of times harder hundreds of times a day and still lived just fine. Anyone listening would think he’d lived for about a hundred years.”

“Haaack!”

Cho Hyeon clutched his stomach.

“Mi, Military Advisor! Military Advisor!”

“Medicine…”

“Pardon?”

“Be, beside the bed… medicine. Medicine!”

Seok Mun-cho jumped up from his seat and ran to the bedside, returning with a medicine bowl. After Cho Hyeon downed the herbal medicine Seok Mun-cho handed him, he finally calmed down and sat back down.

Seeing that Cho Hyeon seemed to have settled down a bit, Seok Mun-cho opened his mouth with an embarrassed expression.

“At this rate, he’ll kill all the kids.”

“So how many are left?”

“About ten remain, including Eon-hyo and Peng Do-hyeong. Though some haven’t attended class for days. Ninety have submitted class change requests.”

Cho Hyeon turned his head to look out the window.

‘Right, of course.’

Life couldn’t be that easy. No wonder his life had seemed smooth until now.

He had lived smoothly until now just to meet that bastard in his twilight years.

Cho Hyeon covered his face.

No matter what, what sin had he committed that heaven would send down such a creature?

“And there’s one more problem.”

“What now?”

“Yes. To change classes, you need the previous instructor’s seal. But Instructor Wei is refusing to approve the class changes.”

“Why again?”

“Well…”

Seok Mun-cho seemed to debate whether to speak or not, then soon opened his mouth with a sigh.

“He says the contract states he gets one gold nyang per person, and if he lets them all go, he’ll only get ten nyang…”

Crack.

‘That expensive bastard.’

Cho Hyeon’s hand tore the expensive rosewood tea table like paper.

“What the hell is that, that bastard doing! Right now he’s earning thousands of gold nyang, but he won’t let the kids go because of a mere ninety gold nyang?”

‘A mere ninety nyang isn’t exactly nothing.’

This gentleman had lost his sense of money from constantly looking at documents moving thousands of nyang at a time.

Ninety gold nyang wasn’t just some dog’s name.

“Wei Yan-ho! Wei Yan-hooo! When I meet Wei Jeong-han, I will definitely boil and eat that bastard!”

His anger toward the son was transferring to the father.

“What should I do with this bastard! What on earth should I do! Krgh. My stomach!”

As Cho Hyeon clutched his solar plexus and bent over again, Seok Mun-cho wiped the moisture gathering in his eyes.

‘To think I’d see the Military Advisor like this in my lifetime.’

Wasn’t this the same man who, even when that demon-like Demonic Cult leader had pursued him to within one jang, had laughed heartily saying, “It seems my life is ending now. I have no regrets, so that’s fortunate”?

If Sama Cheon-se hadn’t come with reinforcements, he would certainly have been torn limb from limb there. The man who had remained detached even facing death was now shrieking like a child because of one young man.

“Is there no way to stop him?”

“If you ask me that…”

“Right. It’s my job, my job!”

Cho Hyeon sat helplessly in his chair.

“Wei Jeong-han! Where is Wei Jeong-han now! His child is causing such chaos, and where is that carefree bastard right now!”

Just a few days ago, Seok Mun-cho thought he remembered hearing from Cho Hyeon’s mouth: “His children are all dragons and tigers… Wei Jeong-han, that fellow can now just play go at home and pass the time. Heh heh heh heh.” But Seok Mun-cho carefully erased that memory from his mind.

There was nothing good about remembering when a superior spoke out of both sides of his mouth. Especially if that person was Cho Hyeon.

Just then, a low voice came from outside.

“Military Advisor.”

“…Later, come later. I’m busy now.”

“But this is about the matter you instructed…”

Cho Hyeon’s face contorted at the voice from outside the door.

“What is it!”

“Wei Jeong-han of the Guangdong Wei Family and his party have arrived at the castle gate.”

Bang!

Before those words even finished, the door flew off and Cho Hyeon’s figure disappeared with a thud.

“…All hell’s breaking loose.”

Seok Mun-cho muttered blankly amid the swirling pile of documents.

***

“The Righteous Martial Alliance… It’s really been a long time.”

Wei Jeong-han looked at the Righteous Martial Alliance with an emotional expression.

“But was it always this noisy here?”

Earlier, there had been more people crowding around the tent in front of the main gate than at the main gate itself, which bothered him.

“…What are they doing over there?”

As Wei Jeong-han showed interest in the tent, Han Sang-ah snapped at him sharply.

“The child is here right now, but you’re interested in other things? Ah, would a man who abandoned his child to go on martial travels right after he was born have any interest in his child?”

“…I have committed a mortal sin, Sang-ah.”

Wei Jeong-han wiped his eyes, thinking he had earned another scolding for not being able to contain himself for just that moment.

Where was the end of this hellish nagging? Would he ever be able to escape it, even until the day he died?

“It’s crowded. They seem to check identities quite thoroughly too.”

As Wei San-ho frowned at the line stretching toward the main gate, Wei Jeong-han chuckled.

“Don’t worry! Who am I! I’m the family head of the Guangdong Wei Family and a junior that both the Alliance Leader and Military Advisor cherish! You don’t seem to know my standing well, but once I reveal my identity, the Military Advisor will come running out barefoot. Watch and see!”

Wei Jeong-han made his grand declaration and walked straight up to the guards, bypassing the waiting line.

“…Ah, Father.”

Wei San-ho reached out blankly watching that scene, but Wei Jeong-han was already whispering something with the guards.

After talking for a while, Wei Jeong-han hung his head low, then returned to them.

“…”

“It, it can happen, Father.”

“Everything you do is like this! Standing? Standing?”

Receiving Wei San-ho’s consolation and Han Sang-ah’s scolding simultaneously, Wei Jeong-han looked up at the distant sky.

‘When did I become someone who gets disrespected like this?’

Even after revealing his epithet and name, they said, “Understood, so please go to the back of the line.” No matter how much he hadn’t appeared in the martial world recently, there was a time when just the words “Righteous Hero Sword” could get him through anywhere.

Wei Jeong-han felt somehow lonely at this changed world and the faded power of his epithet.

But at that moment.

“Wei Jeong-haaaaaaan!”

“Oh?”

Wei Jeong-han whipped his head around.

Someone was calling his name and running toward him from deep inside the main gate.

“Huh?”

“Mi, Military Advisor?”

Cho Hyeon was running toward him with a white cloth wrapped around his forehead, literally barefoot. Even the guards looked shocked at the sight and stood at attention.

“See that! See that, you bastard!”

Wei Jeong-han’s shoulders doubled in size.

He had just said it casually, but the man really came running barefoot to greet him. Wei Jeong-han was moved to tears by such warm hospitality.

‘I shall dedicate myself body and soul to martial justice and the Righteous Martial Alliance.’

Wei Jeong-han spread both his slightly trembling arms wide to greet Cho Hyeon.

“It’s been a long time, Military Advisor!”

And at that moment.

Seeing Cho Hyeon leap up at full speed and drive his fist straight into Wei Jeong-han’s face, Wei San-ho’s mouth opened wider than it ever would again in his lifetime.