Chapter 708: When Going Out, Maintain Your Dignity (3)

It was as desperate a scream as they came.

To Qing’s ears—who, through Evil-Slaying Slash, had attained enlightenment in a whole variety of screams—it was not the sound of someone tripping or bumping into something. This was a truly panicked scream.

A scream you let out before you can even get the words “save me” to your lips.

Qing’s mind spun tight in an instant.

An ambush? Or a grudge? He did feel like the kind of guy who’d go around diligently collecting grudges.

What about the danger level? If he had time to scream like that, then the enemy couldn’t be truly dangerous. If he’d been ambushed by something truly lethal, he’d be dead before he could scream, or the scream would’ve cut off in the middle.

Did he run into a bandit, just his bad luck?

Or was it some pre-Academy grudge? No, come on—how would anyone know when the academy would be doing training out here, and where, and then sit around waiting?

Could be a wild animal—a tiger or a bear.

It probably wasn’t that dangerous a situation.

She reached that conclusion before even a single full breath had passed.

Her intelligence, which otherwise lazed around doing nothing, sharpened dramatically only at times like this.

“Yang Chil, Wang Pil, take the front. Chang Yohong, rear. Drop your cargo and keep formation while you follow!”

With that terse order, Qing kicked off and bolted.

BOOM. The sound of the earth being stomped.

For a moment, the ground trembled, and SHRSHHH—the leaves above clashed and rattled.

Even with the trees blocking her view, Qing simply took the line she’d seen and hurled herself along it.

Tree trunks whipped past on either side of her.

She planted on earth, rock, and wood, tilting her body sideways, streaking across the mountains in a bolt of lightning.

And at the end of that—

GRRRR...!

A massive beast launched its body, a tiger with a yellow torso and sharp black stripes etched all along it!

“Uwaaah!”

“You—you dare touch my cadet?!”

Qing’s right leg snapped out straight.

Her left remained bent, level with her right.

An atmospheric high-pressure human roundhouse fired off with truly typhoon-like speed buried itself deep into the tiger’s flank.

YIPE! The kind of shrill yelp you’d expect from a dog, not a tiger, burst out as the huge body went tumbling and rolled across the ground.

People in Qing’s homeland didn’t really know this, but a tiger’s size was far beyond what most imagined.

The head of a full-grown tiger was about as big as the torso of a sturdy adult man; a single front paw was a gigantic monster the size of a man’s head.

If a beast like that stared you down from the front, even a martial artist’s martial artist would be well within their rights to scream.

The tiger lowered its head and glared in silence.

The killing aura said it might leap at any moment.

—Grrrr...!

“What are you looking at?”

Of course, that was for ordinary martial artists.

To a martial artist who had reached Harmony, a cat was a cat and a tiger was just a slightly bigger cat.

So what, you glower—then what?

The tiger stared Qing down, its breathing held.

Predators had a certain wild sense that let them instantly know whether the other side was afraid.

Some people said it was instinctive, based on signs that appeared when a living thing was tense—certain olfactory cues, stiff expressions, and body motions.

But from the tiger’s perspective, this new piece of meat that had barged in and interrupted its meal was just standing there, not showing even the slightest hint, not a single shred, not one sliver of fear. Just blankly facing it.

Would it retreat here, or attack?

The tiger hesitated.

—Instructor!

—Are you all right?!

Qing’s head whipped around.

Tigers were far more dangerous creatures than most assumed. That is, to everyone but her.

If it suddenly put on the speed, it could unleash madness that human lightfootwork couldn’t mimic. Even Qing wouldn’t be able to react in time to stop some underling’s—no, not even an underling yet, just a martial-artist hopeful’s—head from being blown apart by a swipe.

“Get back! It’s dangero—”

In that instant, the tiger launched itself.

In the world of beasts, attacking the opponent who looked away was an instinct burned into their bones.

And the new prey that had appeared was far meatier than the last one—so full and bursting with flesh that it looked much more appetizing.

The tiger’s huge forepaw came crashing down.

They said a tiger’s paw had the strength to smash a cow’s head into shards in a single blow.

Qing had that kind of strength too.

With just a half-step and a light twist of her torso, Qing slipped past that forepaw and, as a natural consequence of that movement, dove straight into the tiger’s chest and drove her clenched fist upward.

Right into the tiger’s forehead, dead center in the 王 character.

WHUMP!

The tiger yelped like a dog again.

And then it experienced a once-in-a-lifetime event that no beast should ever have to go through: its two-hundred-and-fifty-jin body getting grabbed and swung around by a human.

Qing grabbed its forelegs with both hands, heaved, and slammed it into the ground.

Then once more. And once more.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

At last, when Qing let go, the tiger flattened itself to the ground, its tail tucked tight between its legs, groaning in pain.

—Whiiine...

Its eyes, as big as the rest of its massive body, looked up at Qing with a pitiful, oddly bright and sparkling gaze.

“If you wanted to act cute, you should’ve done it before you charged...”

She couldn’t very well let a beast that had tasted human blood live.

It wasn’t that a tiger killing humans was evil, or part of some kind of scheme. It was just that there was no zoo nearby where she could send it out on loan.

The members of Righteous-Proper Martial Academy’s Sword Hall First Team had never seen anyone move that fast in their lives.

Sure, if you had a flat, open field with no obstacles and you accelerated to the limit, you might be able to hit that speed for a brief moment.

But this was rugged mountain terrain.

There was no path; the trees grew thick, the ground was a chaotic mess. Just picking up speed there was hard enough. For their instructor to sprint away at full speed and vanish—it was such an unreal sight that they couldn’t even manage to be impressed.

Before they had time to doubt their own eyes, they had to follow.

The fact that she’d assigned people to the front and back meant: move together, don’t scatter.

The squad included even third-rate martial artists, so far from lightfootwork, some couldn’t even run and were just hurrying along in a fast, stumbling walk to keep up.

Thump, thump! YIPE, ROAR—ominous sounds echoed ahead.

And then, at last, the moment they caught up—

“Instructor?”

A tiger lay sprawled out, foaming blood at the mouth, and Qing was sitting on top of it.

In front of her, Mandarlo was on his knees with both hands raised high.

“Cadet Mandarlo. Is it acceptable, or unacceptable, to leave formation without permission during training?”

“It is unacceptable!”

“Did you know that? If you knew, why did you do it?”

“I—I’m sorry!”

Mandarlo’s demeanor was military-discipline-tight.

Once you saw someone pick up a tiger and swing it around, then kill it with a single punch, anyone would tighten up too.

“Is ‘I’m sorry’ all it takes? If you’re sorry, why did you do it?”

“I was wrong...”

“No, your instructor is asking you a question. If you know it’s wrong and you know you’ll be sorry, why did you do it anyway?”

“I—I was so angry, I... I was... in the wrong...”

“Hmm. You were angry...”

Qing made a show of thinking.

“All right. When people get angry, they do lose their reason. That can certainly happen.”

She nodded along. And then, suddenly—

“But doesn’t that mean you still shouldn’t do it?”

The rest of First Team all sucked in a breath.

Their chests tightened without them realizing it; they couldn’t help the reaction.

“Answer.”

“Y-yes.”

“So, why did you do something you shouldn’t have done?”

Thus began the infinitely recursive questioning, step by slow step, that made even observers grow solemn.

Why did you do it? If you’re sorry, does that mean your academy life is over? There must be a reason you’re sorry. Ah, so that’s it. Sure, that makes sense. It happens. People do that kind of thing; people make mistakes.

But you still shouldn’t have done it, right?

“...Hoo. Since we’re still in the middle of training, I’ll leave it at this for now. But, Cadet Mandarlo. This instructor is deeply, very, extremely disappointed.”

This was Instructor Ximen Qing, specialist in disappointment.

“Even if you’re just some third-rate hack, a swordfighter ought to be able to handle a single tiger. Are you really going to shriek that pathetically over one animal? Maintain your dignity as a swordsman, Cadet Mandarlo.”

“T-the tiger—it wasn’t the tiger...”

“A tiger wasn’t a tiger? Then what, is the thing I’m sitting on right now not a tiger but a housecat?”

Mandarlo gave a wounded protest.

“It’s true! It wasn’t the tiger—some bastard suddenly showed up and swung a blade at me. Look, here, I was cut by his sword, just look at this!”

He thrust his chest forward, but no matter how you looked, it was just dirty with dirt and entirely intact.

“What are we supposed to be seeing? Does this fiend use an invisible sword?”

Only then did Mandarlo look down at his own chest and start pawing at it frantically.

“I only dodged it, that’s all—some assassin, yeah, an assassin suddenly came for me! His sword passed right here—look, it just barely missed! I was attacked by an assassin!”

Mandarlo poured out his grievance with a face full of injustice, his voice half breaking into a whine.

He’d just been wandering along without thinking when he tripped over a rock hidden under the fallen leaves, and in that moment something went FWEEEET over his head—no, practically grazed him.

Then a figure in pitch-black clothes had dropped from above and attacked, and judging from the way he naturally wielded his sword-qi, he was at least first-rate, no, definitely at the pinnacle level, a top-grade assassin.

“So I ran—no, that’s not what I mean.”

But he was no pushover himself, so he’d exchanged hundreds of moves with the assassin; in the end, he’d landed a critical blow.

The assassin had fled, saying “Just you wait,” and he’d been about to chase when the tiger suddenly jumped him.

But because he had already exhausted all his strength in a bloody duel with the assassin...

By the time he finished, everyone listening had the same expression as narrow-eyed Jang Sam: their eyes turned into thin slits.

What kind of pinnacle-level expert went around working as an assassin? (Not that it never happened, but it was exceedingly rare.)

And why, of all people, would such a famous assassin target a dog-bone bastard?

And this guy who’d just screamed his lungs out in terror over a single tiger was now saying he’d fought a pinnacle assassin for hundreds of exchanges? And won?

Never mind anything else—the timeline alone didn’t add up for “hundreds of exchanges.”

Plus, tigers were clever animals.

If they were going to hunt something, why chase the healthy one instead of going after the wounded?

And first he said he’d tried to chase the assassin, but once the tiger appeared, suddenly he’d conveniently “used up all his strength” and couldn’t react?

“This dog-bone bastard got scared shitless by one tiger and screamed his head off, and now he’s saying this crap because he’s embarrassed? Ha. No, this is meant to be funny, right? Ha, fuck, okay—this is one hilarious little bastard.”

“Cadet Chang Yohong. Maintain your dignity as a swordsman.”

“For such a noble young lord to be so terrified by a mere tiger that he nearly pissed himself—how very, very amusing. But perhaps, going forward, we should call you not Young Lord, but Young Lady instead?”

Qing nodded.

Even if you said the same thing, you had to say it with dignity.

“Wh-who nearly pissed himself! And I’m telling you, an assassin did attack—”

“Sure, sure. These days assassins go around taming tigers and taking them along on jobs, huh? The world’s turned to sh—no, what’s the word—sinister, isn’t it?”

“‘Sinister,’ Miss Chang.”

Yang Chil chimed in.

“Right. That. The world’s gotten so sinister.”

Mandarlo exploded.

“You—you lowborn wench, how dare—”

“Tsk, tsk. Dignity.”

Qing dropped a light word.

Mandarlo tried to adjust his phrasing.

“Th-then, Miss Chang, I... ngh, what is this...!”

He suddenly shot to his feet and spun around.

Qing watched and thought, mm. Guess he still hasn’t learned his lesson from just getting chewed out.

So I really do have to draw the recorder, is that it? Imagine having to put down the tiresome human tool called “words” and pick up the convenient, fun tool called “punching” when dealing with another human being.

She was just starting to quietly draw her recorder when—

“Wh-what are you all doing! Back to training—hurry up and continue the training!”

Unfortunately, words had been enough.

Qing clicked her tongue, slipped the recorder back into her belt, and smacked her lips.

Mm. What a waste.