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Chapter 322. Black Forest (2)
"This...... I'll take this one, please."
Looking at the thin martial arts uniform Seong Mo-ran had picked up, I said,
"Cloth that thin will be punctured by venomous insects' fangs in no time."
"......"
Seong Mo-ran's trembling hands soon moved to the stiff, thick uniform beside it.
Ӗ n̄ ū m ā .і̃d̆
It had no padding, so it wouldn't be much use against the cold, but it would be effective at blocking the fangs of insects and venomous creatures.
"I-I'll take ten of these...... no, twenty please."
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I frowned.
"Are you ordering uniforms for an entire squad?"
"No...... but we have to survive for a month, you know. At least one a day......"
"You'll be limited to a single light bundle when entering the Black Forest. That's what the training is for."
W еb nо̊ vе̇l .Е̌ ñ u̇ mă
Seong Mo-ran's eyes, which had looked ready to burst into tears, narrowed fiercely.
"But is that really certain?! Are you absolutely sure we're going to the Black Forest?!"
"Can't you see for yourself?"
I pointed at the Academy students inside the fabric shop.
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Most of those browsing—centered around the disciples of the Nine Sects and One Gang—were selecting garments made of the same thick fabric Seong Mo-ran had picked up.
"......Aah."
Е n̈ úm̃ а́
Seong Mo-ran swayed as though dizzy.
"This can't be...... why...... why......"
She indulged in every bit of denial she could against the cold reality before her, but what was decided would not change.
"Th-there's absolutely...... no chance it could change?"
She clung to a sliver of hope, but the odds were equally nonexistent.
'Even if they'd originally planned to go somewhere else, they would've chosen the Black Forest in the end.'
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Unlike the Fire Desert or Ice Sea, where you simply had to survive for a month, the Black Forest allowed the acquisition of additional points.
Over the past semester, the instructors had pulled every trick they could, but in the end, only the middle-ranked positions had shifted—the highest and lowest tiers remained largely unchanged.
I was a prime example. Having maintained the top score originally, I'd been knocked down to overall second place by the narrowest margin in the first-semester evaluation.
The one who'd taken first in my place was—
"Benefactor Jin, should shoes also be the thick kind like these?"
......that filthy bald head.
Е́ nù m ã . і́ d̃
"Why are you asking me? Go ask the instructors who dote on you, Monk Il-gak."
"......B-Benefactor Jin. Didn't I tell you that was never my intention?"
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Given this situation, there was no better location than the Black Forest for the only venue where a last-minute upset was possible during the Great Journey.
On top of that, the Black Forest was the perfect place for instructors to covertly assist Academy students.
'But it's strange—for all the trouble of swapping out the instructors, they didn't come at us as brazenly as I expected.'
They'd pulled strings with the Education Pavilion to replace every instructor and Training Master wholesale.
W̃ еb̃ nо̄ṽ еl Ẽ ṅ u m̈ а
Yet for all that, the discrimination hadn't been as severe as one might think.
Granted, my threats had played a part, but the fact that the mighty Nine Sects and One Gang would bow their heads over something like that was suspicious no matter how you looked at it.
'......Of course, I didn't just sit around either.'
If they'd come at us too blatantly, I'd been prepared to make an example out of someone.
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From their perspective as a whole, my interference might not amount to much of a threat.
But at the very least, it would discourage individual instructors from stepping forward to personally target me and the Taeul Sect.
W e.b n̈о̇ v e ľ Еṅ um̈ а_
In any case, thanks to all of this, the Representative Delegation members' grades hadn't dropped all that much.
The same went for the Taeul Sect's disciples.
The special training had likely played a role as well.
Their condition was visibly improving day by day, after all.
'But what the hell is Eun-ho doing with himself?'
If he had to pick the biggest changes since last semester, it was that Dong-ryong had shot up in height and that Eun-ho had turned into a complete shut-in.
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To be precise, the boy hardly left the dormitory at all.
He showed up faithfully for Academy classes and the special training schedule I'd set, but outside of those hours, he holed up in his room without stepping out.
Word was that he'd been borrowing stacks of books from the Ten-Thousand-Book Repository and reading them all day long......
It wasn't as though he was preparing for the Metropolitan Examination or the Provincial Examination, so why the sudden change was beyond him.
He might've understood if the kid had been like that since childhood, but that wasn't the case either. Hmm......
'Damn kid, if he'd been like that from the start, how nice would that've been? Then he'd have been the one helping with Outer Hall work.'
Е̂n úm а̂ .і̆d
At any rate, at this pace, no matter how much the scores shifted in the final Great Journey, there was no way the Taeul Sect's disciples would drop all the way to a branch posting.
And that wasn't the only benefit. There were actually quite a few advantages.
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First, going to the Black Forest would let them build natural poison resistance.
'It's basically a natural poison storehouse.'
Poison and hidden weapons were the two things one had to guard against most in murim life.
Defenses against hidden weapons could be honed through training, but there was no practical way to train against poison.
Ěn um ă
Unless you carried every antidote in existence, the only option was to build tolerance—and the best method for that was to gradually practice neutralizing poisons, starting with the mildest ones.
Just hearing about it, one could tell it would be absurdly expensive.
That was why such training was only available to the Sichuan Tang Clan or the Ten-Thousand-Poison Sect—it was never something an ordinary martial artist could access.
But.
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In the Black Forest, it was free.
A grin crept across my face before I knew it.
W е́bn̄ о̀ v́еl Eñ ǔ.m̃а
'Well, your life's on the line...... but it's well within manageable levels.'
Seong Mo-ran was eyeing me strangely from beside me, so I hurriedly composed my expression.
Second, there was the possibility of obtaining Spiritual Pills.
Thanks to the year-round heat and the flow of a massive spiritual vein, even ordinary creatures in the Black Forest had a high chance of becoming Spiritual Creatures.
This was precisely why the instructors had selected this place as the venue for a last-minute upset.
Unlike the Fire Desert or Ice Sea, where one simply endured, hunting Demonic Beasts or Spiritual Creatures in the Black Forest could earn additional points.
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Compared to these various advantages, the downsides of the hot and humid climate and the endless swarms of insects were hardly worth mentioning.
Just then, Jang Woo-jae was studying shoes with a grave expression, so I approached him.
"The ones on the right are better. They're stiff, but if you break them in ahead of time, they'll protect your ankles perfectly."
"Hm? Representative."
"And there's something I wanted to ask you......"
"Yes, go ahead."
W̄ ebǹǒ v̊ el̊ Ẽnu m̂а̂
I pulled the Wind Spirit from my robes and showed it to Jang Woo-jae.
"This wards off bugs too, right?"
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"......Not all of them, but it does tend to keep the small ones away."
"Really? Well, that's perfect!"
I clapped Jang Woo-jae heartily on the shoulders, and for some reason, he stared at my neck with mournful eyes.
A week later, the Academic Affairs Office announced the location of the Great Journey.
Е̄ n ùm а́ .іď
The Black Forest.
As expected, nothing had changed.
"Aaaaaargh! This can't be happening!!!!"
Seong Mo-ran shed actual tears in her despair.
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***
The Black Forest.
Е n u m̄а̂
A vast jungle at the far edge of Yunnan Province, impenetrable to humankind.
Within the basin—roughly twenty times the size of any decent city—a jungle had formed, teeming with countless insects and animals beyond human imagination, and among them lurked venomous insects and creatures in numbers just as threatening.
Thanks to the heat that persisted through all four seasons, the living things of the Black Forest were freed from the mortal threat of winter, allowing them to live far beyond their average lifespans. In that process, they were influenced by the spiritual vein and sometimes transformed into Spiritual Creatures.
Spiritual Creatures—martial artists would roast a cow patty if it were one. But the Black Forest was not a place one could simply enter.
For one, the massive spiritual vein affected not only the jungle's life forms but also the terrain, the landmarks, and even the people who entered.
Every instrument that could measure direction was rendered useless, and the terrain formed Natural Formations that trapped those who entered, forcing them to wander the same areas in circles.
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Furthermore, there were only fixed exits leading out of the basin, which meant that once a person lost their bearings, the odds of returning alive plummeted.
On top of that, while Spiritual Creatures did appear frequently, far more of them had grown into Demonic Beasts within the unchecked environment, making actual discoveries of Spiritual Pills rare.
Seasoned mountain dwellers and herb gatherers had ventured in carelessly and never returned in droves.
Martial artists who'd gone in seeking power had severed all ties with the mortal world so frequently that the Murim Alliance had designated the place as a Forbidden Zone and sealed it off from the world.
"Hah...... I feel like I'm already dying from the heat."
Having passed through Kunming in Yunnan Province and arrived in Jinghong, the Academy students were struggling to adapt to the changing climate.
Ẃе̂ b̃ň.о v̄ е̄ l̈ Е́n um̆ а̃
The scorching sunlight, hot enough to burn their skin, combined with suffocatingly humid air, was making it difficult to breathe.
"Lady Seong, I think you should pull your sleeves back down. There are many venomous insects in this area as well."
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At the words of the brawny man with his shirt off, Seong Mo-ran grimaced.
"That's hardly something you should be saying, Sir Yang, is it?"
Seong Mo-ran's remark drew a hearty laugh from the man—Yang Ja-pyeong of the Southern Fist Sect.
"Our Southern Fist Sect regularly trains in External Arts alongside our other practices. No matter how formidable it might be, inner arts alone aren't enough to navigate the jungle."
Е̇ n̄ǔm̈а_. і̄ d̂
"Oh my, the people of the Southern Fist Sect come and go from the Black Forest often?"
Seong Mo-ran asked with fascination, and Yang Ja-pyeong nodded.
"If we don't keep regular tabs on it, there's no telling when a Demonic Beast might come charging out of the Black Forest."
The Southern Fist Sect was a sect authorized by the Murim Alliance to manage the Black Forest on its behalf.
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It held one of the pillars of the One Hundred Eight Peaks, and was among the top five most powerful sects in Yunnan Province.
That Southern Fist Sect had taken charge of guiding this Great Journey.
Е̌n̈ ú m_а̂ . і̀ d́
"Still, please don't worry too much. The scenery here is actually something rarely seen, and I've heard that most people who come once make it their wish to "
"Ugh...... no matter how beautiful it is, I don't think I'd want to come back."
"Haha, trust me on this. Most of the people who wanted to return were young ladies."
"......Really?"
Seong Mo-ran's ears perked up at the mention of it being popular with women.
Pulling his gaze from Seong Mo-ran, Yang Ja-pyeong looked over our party with a curious expression.
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"Even so, it's rare for Academy students to take the vanguard like this. You must be quite favored by the instructors."
At Yang Ja-pyeong's remark, we offered only bitter smiles in silence.
The truth was the exact opposite—it was precisely our position that had led to this.
"Once we reach the mountain, the heat should ease a bit. Just hang in there a little longer."
"We have to climb a mountain too?"
"The Black Forest is so vast that it's not widely known, but it's strictly a basin in form. The people of the Ten-Thousand-Poison Sect say it's become a giant, naturally formed venom crucible."
Ě nǔ m̈а̌. ĩd_
At the mention of insects and venom, Seong Mo-ran's face went white again.
That said, her feet did not stop.
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Our procession—comprised entirely of martial artists—scaled the mountain at a speed unimaginable to ordinary people.
Once we crested the summit and began our descent, it became clear what Yang Ja-pyeong had meant.
"Wow...... what kind of scenery is this......"
Clouds drifted lazily above the endlessly sprawling jungle.
En uṁa .і̆ ḋ
The light filtering through the gaps between the clouds illuminated the Black Forest, making the entire vista look like a painting.
Yang Ja-pyeong shrugged his shoulders.
"This is nothing. The true beauty lies down below."
As the vanguard team, we were the first to descend the mountain and enter the Black Forest.
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Our task was to find a suitable campsite before the main body arrived and clear the surroundings to confirm there was no danger.
"There should be a site used by previous Academy classes. If you clear away the weeds and trees, it shouldn't be difficult to stay one night."
E n̄ u m̊а̃ . i d̈
True to Yang Ja-pyeong's words, a relatively flattened area appeared at the edge of the Black Forest.
"This is where they used to camp?"
A zone where the density of undergrowth was markedly lower compared to the rest of the jungle.
"It was about three classes before this one, so roughly twelve years ago."
"......For that, the trees have grown awfully large, haven't they?"
As Seong Mo-ran pointed out, the scattered trees did look unusually thick.
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"Considering the nature of the Black Forest, it's not unreasonable at all. There's no winter here, and no human hands tend to it."
Yang Ja-pyeong's expression turned serious as he added,
"It's a beautiful place, but it's every bit as dangerous. You must never, under any circumstances, act based on the common sense that works in the murim out there."
"......I-is that so?"
Seong Mo-ran's face went pale again at Yang Ja-pyeong's words.
"Most of the snakes here carry venom. Moreover, they're extremely adept at hiding themselves, so you must keep a constant watch on your surroundings."
E ǹum̄ a .і d́
Seong Mo-ran nodded emphatically several times, and Yang Ja-pyeong offered a warm smile.
Just then—
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SLITHER
Something wriggled down from the tree Yang Ja-pyeong was resting his hand on and lunged for his neck with lightning speed.
FWIP.
I fired the Flying Dragon Claw.
We̊ ḃǹ оv̀е l Ё ňu m̀а
"Gah!"
"Kyaaaaah!"
Seong Mo-ran and Yang Ja-pyeong collapsed to the ground in shock.
Yang Ja-pyeong hastily checked his own neck, then let out a small sigh of relief when he realized the snake hadn't bitten him.
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I looked down at the snake pinned at my feet by the Flying Dragon Claw and asked Yang Ja-pyeong,
"Is this one venomous?"
Е̃nu̇ m̃ a . і̃ d̄
"......!"
Yang Ja-pyeong turned his head and, upon seeing the snake trapped at my feet, asked back with a dazed expression.
"Y-you just caught that?"
What's with that face?
"Yes."
"How on earth did you spot it?"
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How did I spot it, he asks.
"I just saw it."
"......"
"So, is this one venomous?"
I looked at the snake and licked my lips, then asked Yang Ja-pyeong again.
"Any chance it's carrying Spiritual Medicine?"
Е̄n̊ uḿå . ï ď
Come on, answer me already.
What did he think I'd accepted the vanguard position for?
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