CHAPTER: Chapter 14
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Chapter 14
It was deep in the night, beneath still moonlight.
The place Yuha led them to was a vast clearing, where a waterfall came crashing down as though tearing through the curtain of night.
ROOOOAR—!
Together with the roar of water pounding at the eardrums, a cool mist brushed against their cheeks.
'This place...'
Through the hazy spray, faint lights danced.
Thanks to the thunderous roar of the waterfall and the shrouding mist that swallowed every sound, whatever happened here did not leak outside.
It was an outdoor gambling ring for cadets alone, beyond the control of the head instructors.
Under the moonlight, the cadets' true natures, suppressed all day by the rules of Hidden Demon Cave, were at last set loose.
"Well? Quite convincing, is it not?"
Yuha whispered in a low voice, as though he delighted in the secretive atmosphere.
"The rules are simple. Since these are sparring matches, inner energy is forbidden, and killing moves are forbidden. They fight with nothing but pure forms."
Even after hearing the explanation, Yayul Hui merely folded her arms and wore an unimpressed expression.
"Tch, what is this? So this grand amusing spectacle is nothing more than wagered sparring?"
"If there is wagering, then how are the stakes handled?"
Since he was in need of Instruction Tokens, Uncheon asked Yuha about the rules.
"Simple. If your prediction is correct, then depending on the ratio of the tokens staked, you can earn up to twice the amount you wagered."
The groups of cadets gathered throughout the clearing each radiated their own distinct heat.
A few cadets who noticed Yayul Hui's arrival had their eyes gleam darkly through the night.
"Look there. The 'Wildflower' of Hidden Demon Cave, whom we had only heard of in rumor, has graced us in person."
"An epithet for a mere cadet? And one she got because of her looks, no less? If I stepped forward, twenty exchanges would be enough...."
Their voices were low enough that they might have been buried beneath the sound of the waterfall, yet they rang clearly in Uncheon's ears, sharpened as his senses were.
Yayul Hui herself did not seem to have heard them.
If she had, however, she was not the sort to remain still after hearing such whispers.
"He actually brought Yayul Hui here... as expected, he truly knows how to work a crowd."
"But did he drag that beggar brat along as well just to lure Yayul Hui out?"
Uncheon's eyes merely sank into cold stillness.
Outwardly, he revealed no disturbance at all.
'Yuha... You are stirring up something amusing.'
As though the time had come, Yuha stepped into the center of the clearing.
Not a trace remained of the playful boy he had seemed before.
"Shall we begin?"
Like a practiced master of ceremonies, he stirred the mood with smooth and lively words.
"Come now, all eyes here! Let us begin our own festival, enjoyed behind the instructors' backs—the Night Sparring Matches!"
In an instant, the eyes of the cadets who had been scattered about all turned toward him.
With his quick wit and silver tongue, he heated the atmosphere in the blink of an eye.
"Wooooah!"
Yayul Hui's eyes widened.
'What? I thought he was just a slick-tongued rogue, but he is a complete schemer.'
Uncheon had already guessed that Yuha was no ordinary cadet.
'Night Sparring Matches... It does not seem he arranged this merely to multiply Instruction Tokens.'
If the cadets fought voluntary sparring bouts, their rough levels of skill could be estimated before the Comprehensive Evaluation.
'Is he after not only Instruction Tokens, but information on the cadets as well?'
It was a method of seizing both wealth and information in Hidden Demon Cave at once.
Yuha had secretly arranged precisely such a game.
"The first match to shatter the stillness of this night will be...!"
"Who is it?!"
"This should be interesting...."
After expertly building anticipation, Yuha took his time before introducing the first pairing.
"First up, our first combatant is none other than a fist fighter from the Ironblood Limitless Sect, one of the Ten Sects of the Demonic Cult! Behold those heavy fists! Jang Daesan!"
A fairly large boy with excellent bone structure and a solid build adjusted the gauntlets on his hands and strode confidently into the center.
"And standing against him! A master of claw arts from the Ghost-Slaying Gate! Jo Gyeom, whose claws are said to be sharper than a viper's fangs!"
From the opposite side, a gaunt boy walked forward with steps that betrayed a measure of tension.
At a glance, the difference in size between them was obvious.
No sooner had Yuha finished the introductions than the noise of the crowd swelled.
"This is an obvious victory for the Ironblood Limitless Sect. Can that scrawny brat endure even a single punch from him?"
"Of course! I am putting all three of my Instruction Tokens on Jang Daesan!"
"Tsk, tsk. Jo Gyeom truly has rotten luck. To end up facing someone from one of the Ten Sects of the Demonic Cult of all people."
Yayul Hui, though more cautious than the others, also judged that Jang Daesan held the advantage.
"...The fist arts of the Ironblood Limitless Sect are renowned. As for the martial arts of the Ghost-Slaying Gate... even at their best, they are only at the level of a middling minor sect."
In an instant, the wagers tilted in Jang Daesan's favor by a ratio exceeding eight to two.
Yuha personally began making the rounds, collecting the bets.
The Instruction Tokens being wagered were stacked neatly in one corner of the clearing where everyone could see them.
"Come now, come now! Once the bet is placed, it cannot be withdrawn!"
With complete confidence, Yayul Hui placed two Instruction Tokens on Jang Daesan.
At last, Yuha approached Uncheon.
"And you, my friend? On whom will you place your bet?"
"Ten on the lean one."
Without a trace of hesitation, Uncheon threw all ten of the Instruction Tokens he possessed onto Jo Gyeom's side.
At the sight, a meaningful gleam flickered in Yuha's eyes.
'As expected... this fellow....'
Yayul Hui cried out in disbelief.
"You fool! That fist fighter is from one of the Ten Sects of the Demonic Cult! Anyone can see that he holds the advantage!"
Yayul Hui was not wrong.
Uncheon nodded readily.
"Outwardly... that is how it appears."
"Then why—?!"
"Ah, ah! Even if you regret it now, it is too late! A bet once placed cannot be taken back!"
Cutting off Yayul Hui with a maddening grin, Yuha called that out and returned to the center.
Still unable to understand, Yayul Hui kept chattering at Uncheon.
"You... those ten Instruction Tokens are an entire month's worth! You are about to lose them all at once!"
Uncheon spoke to her in a low voice.
"Victory is not decided only by what is visible to the eye. Especially under rules such as these, where one competes with forms alone...."
At that very moment, Yuha lined the two cadets up in the center and shouted, "Sparring match, begin!"
"...Hmph, words are wasted on you. Reap what you sow. And do not think of clinging to me later. I will not lend you a single Instruction Token."
"..."
The flow of the match unfolded no differently from what most people had expected.
Jang Daesan, who used fist arts, drove Jo Gyeom, who used claw arts, back in one-sided fashion.
"You fool. How threatening can wooden claws be when they do not even have edges...!"
Just as Yayul Hui had said, Jang Daesan, as a fist fighter, attacked relentlessly from start to finish.
Jo Gyeom could do little but desperately block the storm of punches.
Even the forearms he used to defend himself seemed to be steadily accumulating damage, and little by little, he was driven backward.
"See that? From the look of it, you wagered every Instruction Token you had. What in the world are you going to do now?!"
Yayul Hui stamped her foot in frustration.
Yet Uncheon, the very person who had placed the bet, remained calm.
"Watch a little longer. The match has not yet been decided."
BAM! BAAM!
Daesan's fists were heavy.
Every time he threw a punch, the air seemed to tremble with the sound tearing through it.
Rather than meeting him head-on, Jo Gyeom lowered his body like a serpent and let the attacks slide past him.
"Finish him already, Daesan!"
Spurred on by the shouts of the crowd, Jang Daesan pressed in to deliver the deciding blow.
It was the Ironblood Limitless Sect's Chain Fist.
Under the relentless rain of linked strikes, one of the blows Jo Gyeom had barely been deflecting with his forearms finally drove into his torso.
His body lurched hard, as though it were about to collapse.
The moment victory seemed within reach, arrogance flashed through Jang Daesan's eyes.
In order to finish his opponent completely, and to display himself before the spectators, he threw his final punch with an exaggerated motion.
It happened in that very instant.
The foot Jang Daesan planted too forcefully slipped ever so slightly upon the damp ground, wet from the waterfall's spray.
A single instant of opening.
Jo Gyeom had been waiting for precisely that moment.
His body, which had done nothing but endure on the defensive until now, sprang forward like lightning.
In the next instant, Jo Gyeom's training claw was resting at Daesan's throat.
"...!"
To anyone who saw it, it was an undeniable defeat for the fist fighter.
"What?! You idiot! You had already won, and then you slipped there of all times?!"
The cadets who had placed their tokens on Jang Daesan erupted in jeers.
For a moment, Yayul Hui wore a dazed expression as she turned to Uncheon.
"What was that...? Was it a coincidence? Or... did you truly predict even a result like this?"
"Not entirely."
Though Uncheon shook his head, he had considered it fairly likely that Jo Gyeom would win.
That was why he had thrown all of his Instruction Tokens onto him without hesitation.
"When inner energy is forbidden, fist arts require multiple effective strikes to bring an opponent down. Claw arts, on the other hand, need only a single opening."
If it had been an actual life-and-death fight with inner energy in play, then Jang Daesan would naturally have held the advantage.
But the fact that his weapon was his fists became a weakness instead.
Fists without inner energy were less lethal than other weapons.
Even a judge could not declare defeat simply because someone had taken a few punches.
Weapons that normally had edges were different.
If they had been real weapons, then a vital point would already have been cut open.
"In the end, as time drags on, the one who grows impatient is bound to be the fist fighter."
As Yayul Hui listened to Uncheon's smooth explanation, her eyes widened.
'What kind of fellow is he? He did not simply guess by luck....'
By contrast, Yuha's smile deepened.
He too had predicted the same result as Uncheon.
After all, Yuha had been the one who had arranged this betting ring from the beginning, designing everything from the pairing to the likely outcome.
'I deliberately brought in someone from the Ironblood Limitless Sect, a level above Jo Gyeom... and yet he was not deceived.'
Yuha smiled while concealing his thoughts.
'That fellow Uncheon... to think he saw straight through the board I laid out at a single glance. He exceeds expectations every time.'
Uncheon, too, had already sensed the true nature of the game Yuha was running.
Yuha skimmed off a fee from every round.
The more participants there were, the more Instruction Tokens he earned without effort.
And the more people failed in their predictions, the more cleverly Yuha could extract those fees.
'...So the harder the victor is to judge, the more money Yuha makes? That fox. He has been setting bears against one another while quietly pocketing Instruction Tokens alone.'
As Yuha handed the enlarged winnings over to Uncheon, he said, "I knew you would succeed in your prediction."
In a single round, Uncheon's Instruction Tokens had nearly tripled.
Uncheon had multiplied his tokens because his prediction had been correct, but Yuha was earning tokens regardless of who won or lost.
It was the sort of business acumen one would never expect from a mere cadet.
'With this many participants, he could sweep up Instruction Tokens from fees alone without even leaving his seat. Is the true victor of this board actually this fellow?'
After that, the Night Sparring Matches continued.
'Shall I place the maximum stake?'
In the next match, Uncheon was about to wager everything he had just won as well.
At once, Yuha stepped forward and stopped him.
"Haha... are you planning to sweep the whole board clean by yourself? My apologies, but the maximum stake is ten."
Uncheon's eyes narrowed.
'As expected... he prepared a safeguard. Even if one succeeds in predicting the victor, there is a limit to how many Instruction Tokens one can win. Cunning bastard.'
Though dissatisfied, Uncheon wagered only ten, but his prediction was correct once again.
In the bouts that followed, he continued to pick the victors one after another without error.
After hearing his predictions and then watching the results unfold, Yayul Hui felt her jaw nearly drop open.
'His eye for combat is sharper than mine, even though I have trained in martial arts since childhood and seen countless real fights?'
The other cadets, however, had not heard the reasons behind Uncheon's predictions, and so they became suspicious of him.
"What is with that fellow...? Every single one he points at turns out to be right."
"It is not luck... does he know something?"
"Damn it, should we start placing our bets after him?"
Before long, a heap of Instruction Tokens had piled up in front of Uncheon.
The murmuring gradually shifted into awe, and then into naked jealousy.
By strange coincidence, the final match of the night involved one of the lackeys from the Sagal Muk Family.
And once again, without the slightest hesitation, Uncheon tossed ten Instruction Tokens onto the side opposing the Muk Family boy.
The result once more matched Uncheon's prediction.
"The winner! Hyeokryeon Cheong!"
This had been a board carefully designed to make the outcome difficult to predict.
Yet Uncheon had not erred even once, and had correctly called five straight matches.
'...Even his eye is exceptional. At the very least, he stands on my level—or above it.'
Approaching Uncheon and handing him the tokens, Yuha spoke in a strange tone.
"With this... all the matches I prepared for tonight have come to an end. To predict every single one correctly is impressive indeed."
By now, Uncheon's Instruction Tokens had multiplied several times over.
At that moment, the defeated Muk Family lackeys surrounded Uncheon.
"I saw it clearly! This beggar brat actually dared place his bet on the side where our Sagal Muk Family would lose?!"
"This bastard pocketed dozens of Instruction Tokens just sitting there!"
At that moment, Yuha stepped in.
"Hold on there! Taking them by force without even a sparring match is against the rules!"
One of the lackeys shouted back at Yuha.
"Taking them by force? Then arrange a sparring match on the spot! The Sagal Muk Family will fight this bastard! That should pose no problem, should it?"
Shrugging as though he could do nothing about it, Yuha wore a glib expression and asked Uncheon for his opinion.
"What will it be, my friend? They seem rather eager. Will you accept?"
Without hesitation, Uncheon nodded.
He swept his gaze over the Muk Family lackeys surrounding him, then spoke one final line.
The words were not directed at the Muk Family, but at Yuha, the master of this board.
"Yuha, is this as far as the game you laid out goes?"
Uncheon's gaze pierced straight through Yuha.
It was a cold gaze, as though he knew that all this commotion was dancing in the palm of Yuha's hand.
Meeting that gaze, Yuha revealed, for the first time, a truly genuine expression.
"Well? Do you like it?"
The eyes of Yuha and Uncheon tangled in the air as they measured one another.
"...It is rather amusing. More importantly, does the limit of ten also apply to a fighter who enters the match himself? I would like to wager all the Instruction Tokens I won tonight on myself."
At Uncheon's words, the entire place erupted in an uproar.
Turning his head, Yuha asked the Sagal Muk Family for their thoughts.
"So he says. What says the Muk Family?"
The enraged lackeys of the Sagal Muk Family agreed without a moment's hesitation.
"That is exactly what we wanted! We will make you spit out every last Instruction Token you won through sheer luck!"
The smile upon Yuha's lips grew deeper and colder than ever before.
"...Good. Then it is decided. For this round only, there will be no upper limit on the wager for those actually entering the sparring match."
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