From Now On, Call Me Master (2)

With no other choice, Eunseol changed into the training uniform Seongjin had tossed her and came out.

Even though the outfit was perfectly proper, it still felt quite unfamiliar to Eunseol, who had snow-white hair and wings.

If a Western angel took an interest in martial arts and decided to cosplay, this would be the vibe.

Still, while she looked a bit awkward, there was also something novel about her appearance.

‘I’ve never even been to a gym before.’

She hadn’t just never gone to a gym—she’d never even attended a neighborhood afterschool center.

But as the adopted daughter of the Angel guild’s leader, Eunseol had grown up in a good environment.

Instead of needing to attend something like an academy, she had received guidance from high-level hunters.

Besides magic power control and combat methods, she had also received etiquette lessons and tutoring.

In effect, she’d gotten an education on par with what one would get at a gym.

The only thing she’d never worn was a training uniform, so it just felt unfamiliar.

‘But why are we going into the mountains, not to a training hall?’

Right now, Eunseol was climbing the mountain, following after the two people in front of her.

She could see Seongjin and Sang-ah walking up the mountain path.

If you’re in a training uniform, shouldn’t you be going to a gym?

It seemed obvious to Eunseol, who associated the word “training uniform” with a gym.

But more than that…

‘I’m so tired…’

As time went by, her legs started to tremble. They must have climbed pretty high.

The sun was about to set, so what were they even doing?

In the end, Eunseol, deciding she couldn’t take it anymore, spread her wings.

Normally, if a hunter wanted to float in the air, they had to use a skill like ‘Heaven Up’.

But Eunseol had learned how to fly swiftly without such things.

Why go through all this trouble walking when she could just fly comfortably?

The moment Eunseol attempted to happily float into the air—

“Hey, you little brat!”

Ttaak–!

“Aagh!”

In an instant, Seongjin approached the about-to-take-off Eunseol and struck her on the head with a staff.

The pain was like being smacked with a switch, and Eunseol clutched her head, rolling on the ground.

“You must walk on your own two legs for it to have meaning! How dare you try to use a shortcut!”

Once again, Seongjin scolded Eunseol harshly in a tone like an elder master.

The way he held the staff and scolded her looked like the archetypal old master.

The only flaw was that his voice was that of a young boy.

“But it’s too difficult…”

“You’ll never achieve true training with that attitude! Now, walk!”

Seongjin’s sternness truly sounded like a grandfather’s scolding, so Eunseol had no choice but to get up.

As they started walking again, Sang-ah came up to the drooping Eunseol and whispered,

“Don’t worry. We’ll be there in just ten more minutes.”

“Okay.”

Sang-ah’s encouragement brought back a bit of Eunseol’s energy.

After those ten minutes of trudging, they heard the sound of rushing water.

The closer they got to the sound, the more a waterfall came into view, and a spacious clearing hidden in the mountains revealed itself.

It looked like a perfect place for martial artists to train. Seongjin stood in front of the waterfall and spoke.

“You worked hard climbing all the way up here on your own two feet. But don’t think about resting. The real training starts now.”

What kind of training was he talking about, anyway?

Eunseol hadn’t understood since before coming up here.

But Seongjin didn’t even give them a chance to dwell on it.

“These days, the young ones have so many excuses. No matter what trouble they cause, they just say they’re young, or blame it on their trait’s side effects.”

But you’re young, too, Seongjin.

The way he awkwardly pretended to be an old man just didn’t suit him.

“Every time I see such behaviors in the youth, I swear I get a new wrinkle on my face.”

Just how many real wrinkles do you have? Won’t you take off that Hahoe mask and show us?

“But! If you receive only my teachings, you’ll never be able to make such pathetic excuses! You’ll no longer suffer from such side effects!”

That was tempting, in its own way.

Eunseol herself had a big interest in those side effects.

The reason she drew that obscene painting might very well be because of them.

If she didn’t fix it, she felt like she’d never fit in with anyone for the rest of her life.

“This has already been proven true by my first disciple here.”

Seongjin put his hand on Sang-ah’s shoulder. At that, Sang-ah put on a cheerful expression and said,

“Seongjin taught me a lot, but honestly, I…”

“Hey! Aren’t you supposed to call me master?”

“Oh… I forgot. I’m sorry, master!”

With one simple mistake in how she addressed him, Seongjin instantly got angry.

At least for now, he didn’t want to be called Ma Seongjin, but Master.

That made Eunseol feel ever more apprehensive the more she looked at him.

The image of the prince on a white horse she’d had in mind now felt millions of light-years away.

“Surely you haven’t forgotten my name?”

“I would never! Seong… I mean, master!”

She almost called him by the wrong title again. She looked like she was struggling desperately to keep up with his mood swings.

“Remember this! The one who broke the false sky’s oppression and gifted freedom to the earth; my name, descending from that sky, shall always be spoken thus.”

Cheonma(Heavenly Demon).

“Cheonma(Sky Horse)…?”

“That’s right! Be proud to have as your master the one who changed the false heavens and descended! Always call me that!”

“Isn’t that a unicorn?”

When Eunseol heard the name, she cocked her head in confusion.

Seongjin ground his teeth and clenched his fists.

“What ignorant fool could confuse such a noble existence with a lowly beast!! Cheonma means the ultimate ruler of the heavens… As a martial artist who has come under my tutelage, how could you not know?!”

Faced with Seongjin’s sudden outburst of rage, Eunseol’s entire body froze.

Scarier still was that she barely understood what Seongjin was saying.

Doesn’t Cheonma typically mean unicorn?

And what did he mean by martial artist?

She had never been one. It wasn’t a joke—she was genuinely scared. This was madness.

She wanted to run away.

“Come now, master, please calm down.”

“Damn, how could you not know the romantic allure of that title?”

Sang-ah tried to pacify Seongjin, who looked truly distraught, and he seemed to calm down a bit, though he remained sulky.

That extravagant title of Cheonma really didn’t suit his current look at all.

“Look, Eunseol. What Cheonma means is…”

Only after Sang-ah explained did Eunseol finally understand.

It didn’t mean unicorn; it referred to an absolutely powerful being.

Just as a Demon King exists in fantasy novels, so does a Cheonma in martial arts fiction.

“In short, you can think of it as the martial arts side’s Demon King.”

“Ah, so it’s basically the Eastern version of the Demon King.”

Having to explain specialized terms to a non-fan left Sang-ah feeling slightly self-conscious.

At least Eunseol was able to understand quickly.

“And Seongjin actually is a Demon King.”

“Huh?”

“I bet you thought about it at least once after receiving his help.”

Ma Seongjin.

He was anything but normal.

Even Eunseol had thought the same thing several times.

The Seongjin she remembered was unmistakably a boy the same age as her.

That he had entered a gate alone and wiped out the hiding Murderer guild all by himself?

Anyone would brush it off as something from a novel.

“Now that you mention it…”

Seongjin was the one who had accomplished that impossible feat.

However one looked at it, he was a complete mystery, aside from being the prince who rescued her.

“Are you curious about your master’s true identity?”

Seongjin, now entirely calm, spoke up. The content hit Eunseol like a bolt from the blue.

A man who had lived fifty years in another world before settling on Earth.

Even that much was hard to believe. But there wasn’t the slightest hint of a lie in his words.

“My disciple, your magic power is still unstable. It feels like there’s someone else breathing inside your body.”

“…!”

Eunseol shuddered when she heard that.

The reason she sensed someone else’s magic power was that she had absorbed it into her body.

Realizing that she had killed someone, and now Seongjin was stating it aloud—of course it was frightening.

“But don’t worry. It’s not as if I’ll abandon you.”

“Really…?”

After all, it wasn’t something she had chosen to do.

The person who had suffered the most was Eunseol—Seongjin already knew that.

“But it seems that magic power utterly refuses to be controlled by you. I don’t need to tell you why.”

That flood of magic power was rejecting Eunseol herself.

The side effects of wielding incompatible magic power were far worse for her than for others.

No matter how much she tried to fix it, it wouldn’t change.

She simply didn’t know how to handle other people’s magic power.

“Baek Eunseol. You are far from someone destined to rot in a sewer. On my pride… I’ll make your wings even greater!”

“Does that mean…?”

“If you do as I say from now on, you’ll be able to control the vengeful spirits rampaging inside your body.”

The magic power she’d absorbed doubtless contained the lingering grudges of its deceased owner.

Since they’d been killed so unjustly, it made sense that they harbored resentment.

“If you learn to control them well enough to appease those spirits, you’ll be able to finally say goodbye to the nightmares that always torment you.”

Would someone who had committed such a heinous act ever be able to fit in with others?

Her own body resisted even the idea of being with people.

But for the sake of the grandfather who had adopted her, she had to overcome it.

“Have you found your resolve?”

“Yes, I want to do it.”

“Good. Excellent.”

Seongjin smiled, satisfied at Eunseol’s newfound resolve.

But it only lasted a moment before he grew irate again.

“And what’s with that informal speech again?!”

“But Seongjin, you’re… the same age as me…”

“How dare you compare yourself to someone who’s over fifty! Clearly, words aren’t enough to teach you!”

At that instant, Seongjin’s body began to glow.

His violet magic power flowed out and shimmered over Eunseol’s and Sang-ah’s bodies.

Soon, thick iron rings clamped around their arms and legs.

The weight was so immense it was hard just to stand.

“What is this?”

“What do you mean, what is it! The training begins now.”

Eunseol asked in alarm, but Seongjin conjured up something else yet again.

Behind him, a gigantic fireball formed and started rolling toward Eunseol and Sang-ah.

“Uh…uh? What?! What’s happening?!”

The massive fireball, reminiscent of the sun, looked impossible to stop no matter what they did.

Instinctively, Eunseol turned and started running away. Sang-ah joined her, dashing alongside.

But with iron rings shackled to their limbs, running was unbearably hard.

At this point, using her wings was the only way, but—

“Don’t even think about it!”

Her wings wouldn’t move. Seongjin must have done something.

“Aaaah! Save me, Seongjin! I’m sorry!”

It was enough to make Eunseol suspect this was revenge for drawing that obscene painting—after all, the model for that picture had been Seongjin’s… well, that part.

Not that Seongjin seemed to care at all right now.

“I’m not Seongjin, I’m Cheonma!! The two of you are to call me master!!”

“Seongjin, please…”

“Did you just call me Seongjin agaaaain?! You little…!”

“I was wrong, master! Please forgive me!”

The fireball of Seongjin’s fury kept coming. With the iron rings, their arms and legs started to hurt from exertion.

As they ran, Sang-ah asked from beside her,

“How is it, Eunseol? You think you can do this?”

“How does this seem doable to you?!”

While Eunseol screamed with exhaustion, Sang-ah kept running with a smile.

Wasn’t she afraid of the fireball?

Didn’t the iron rings hurt? Maybe it was because she’d come in as the first disciple.

She seemed used to everything—even to how Seongjin, her master, acted.

“No need to worry. It’s not as threatening as it looks.”

“That thing?”

The huge fireball bearing down on them—it didn’t look nonthreatening no matter how you looked at it.

But Sang-ah was right.

It wasn’t real.

It was an illusion, incapable of physically affecting anything, and was perceived as unstoppable only because it couldn’t be broken.

“And if you want to keep tagging along with Seongjin, there’s something you have to remember.”

“What?”

“Seongjin… Honestly, he has no idea he’s abnormal.”

Sang-ah, who had spent their first year together, had gotten used to it all by now.

Even the running wasn’t hard anymore.

She’d become used to it thanks to constantly sprinting from that fireball to measure her records as training.

“Then when does this thing ever stop?!”

“I said, you’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt even if it touches you.”

“How am I supposed to believe that! It’s terrifying!”

But for a clueless newcomer, it was hell.

.

.

‘Ugh. Cheonma, my foot.’

In reality, Seongjin, playing up the role of master, felt deeply embarrassed inside.

It was like being a hardcore roleplayer pretending to be a girl in a game.

Still, he had a reason to go through all this humiliation.

‘Didn’t she say she fainted from seeing the elephant trunk?’

Thanks to Vern, he’d learned something else.

That drinking party had left a hefty imprint on Eunseol’s mind.

Apparently, if she saw something similar, it would mess with her psyche.

And as for “something similar,” he himself was the true original.

So for a while, he couldn’t appear as Ma Seongjin in front of Eunseol.

‘The Cheonma persona is the best option after all.’

The mountain spirit seemed too kind, and a training hall instructor wasn’t imposing enough.

To project the image of an absolute master, “Cheonma” was definitely the best fit.

Most importantly, it suited his own image well.

‘Yeah, I’m not abnormal. I’m just keeping up with the trends.’

What could be more normal than this? He was sure nobody could argue otherwise.

————-= Clacky’s Corner ————-=

Cheonma(천마) can either be Heavenly Demon or Sky Horse.

The word Cheon(천) can either be Heaven, sky, or Celestial, depending on Hanja.

The word Ma(마) can either be Demon, horse, or Magic…

Hence Eunsol’s confusion of Cheonma being Sky Horse…

I will be using Cheonma instead of translating it to Heavenly Demon…

【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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