Nano Machine Chapter 12: I Will Take You In As My Disciple, Pipsqueak (B)

"East Grand Lord?"

"Oh? What are you doing here, lad?"

"That is my question to you East Grand Lord. What brings you here to the dispensary? Shouldn't you be out on the training field?"

"Hey, hey, weren't you just one of the physician's minions at one point. Now you've been promoted, and you're the chief physician in the academy? Look at that!"

Baek Jong Myeong couldn't help but let out a sigh at Seop Maeng's cocky attitude and blatant refusal to answer any of the questions he'd asked. He already knew what kind of character Seop Maeng was; he simply spoke what he wanted to spoke and completely disregarded what anyone else had to say. At least when the great teacher Baek Jong Woo was there with Jong Myeong, Seop Maeng had the decency to act a little bit more refined, but now that he was alone, Seop Maeng's nasty personality all came out.

"The little minion made it out big, huh?"

"Sigh, so as I was saying, what brings you here? With your great skill, I doubt that you were injured in a fight or anything."

"… you sound a little sarcastic there?"

"Ah, hahaha no, no. How could I?"

Baek Jong Myeong was startled by the sudden change of facial expression on Seop Maeng, who was able to feel Baek Jong Myeong's annoyance towards him. But, Seop Maeng just ignored the timorous doctor and turned his gaze towards Cheon Yeo Woon. Then, as though he was intrigued by the young boy lying on the bed, he put on a big smirk.

"Huh uh? Look at this guy. He thinks he's funny?"

"East… East Grand Lord, what do you mean?"

At Seop Maeng's strange self-talk, Baek Jong Myeong suddenly felt intimidated as he took one step backward. Seop Maeng just ignored Baek Jong Myeong again as though he didn't even exist, as he quietly drew closer to Cheon Yeo Woon who was lying on the bed.

Although his eyes were closed, by this point Cheon Yeo Woon was fully conscious as nervous sweat began to run down his back.

-Wha…what's going on? Why is he here!?-

When Cheon Yeo Woon heard that the unexpected visitor was, of all people, the East Grand Lord, his heart sank. He was afraid that Seop Maeng perhaps got wind of the whole fiasco that occurred out on the field.

Even though his eyes were closed, he was able to feel a figure loom right over him as it darkened the blurry light penetrating through his eyelids.

-… darn it!-

The smell of alcohol and bad breath tortured his nose. Even though he tried his best not to show it, the smell was absolutely horrific.

As he lay there helplessly, a faint whisper was heard in his ears.

"Why are you acting like you're sleeping?"

The question caught him off guard and his body involuntarily flinched from the unexpected question.

Cheon Yeo Woon's heart almost sank to the floor.

*Hwi-lik!*

Suddenly, a random force took hold of him and sat him straight up on the bed. It was a force that was produced as a result of someone using their inner power.

Although Cheon Yeo Woon himself couldn't move a muscle because of the extreme pain all over his body, the force literally swept him up from the bed and bound him like a rope.

"If you keep this show up I'm going to hit you. In the face."

Cheon Yeo Woon had no choice but to open his eyes.

When he opened his eyes, he saw before him the drunkard who earlier on had been sitting way off in the distance on the right side of the arena stage. In great fear that Seop Maeng knew about the whole situation, Cheon Yeo Woon frantically thought about what he was going to say. After a few seconds of contemplation, he put on a serious face and timidly asked.

"How did you know?"

Seop Maeng let out a big laugh as his yellow teeth were exposed. Then he said, "Kekeke, this guy. You're really something."

Not only did the kid look unafraid in his presence, the serious face and audacious way that he was asking the question intrigued Seop Maeng even more.

After getting a good kick out of the situation, Seop Maeng opened his foul-smelling mouth again.

"Anyone of my level of mastery can tell whether or not a person is sleeping just from hearing their breathing, you little pipsqueak."

Although it took a while for him to fully realize it, he was after all in the presence of East Grand Lord, Gwang Do Seop Maeng, a demigod-level master considered to be in the top ten ranking of the whole entire Ma faction.

-He knew just from hearing my breathing?-

As Cheon Yeo Woon pondered the absurdity of this, Nano's voice rung in his head.

[On average a healthy male between the ages of fifteen and twenty takes about sixteen breaths every minute. When my lord was lying on the bed earlier, your breath count was exactly half of that amount, which was the result of the hypertension your body was going through.]

-… you really don't need to spit out unnecessary information at me like that.-

It made a lot of sense for Nano, who was technically just a machine, to know and apply this information. But he had no idea that being a master sharpened one's senses to that level of intuition.

Seop Maeng was further amused by the naivety of Cheon Yeo Woon as he smiled with his yellow teeth hanging out.

"Ke-hahaha. These days, I had begun to lose all hope in you young people because of your vanity and silliness. But, you, you really were something out there."

"Huh?"

Cheon Yeo Woon assumed that Seop Maeng had come to uncover the truth by calling him out on his little ruse. But contrary to that, his countenance showed that he was taking a strange liking to Cheon Yeo Woon.

"Young brats these days don't know how to persevere. If the road gets a little tough, they give up and take an easier path."

-Yeah… about that….-

After listening to Seop Maeng's lengthy discourse, Cheon Yeo Woon felt convicted in his heart. Technically, it really wasn't "perseverance" that held him up through the first round. All it had really been was the nano machine disabling his auditory system so that he couldn't hear anything. There was no persevering involved at all.

"You have something that young chumps these days lack, and that's a strong mind."

Cheon Yeo Woon didn't know what to do himself as the ungrounded compliments kept rolling in. It was definitely making him feel a little uncomfortable. He was also waiting for Baek Jong Myeong to finish his diagnosis so that he could tell Nano to reinitiate the auto-recovery mode because he was burning up inside.

Alarmed by Cheon Yeo Woon's perpetually discoloring face, Baek Jong Myeong interrupted the conversation.

"East Grand Lord, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think the patient is in critical condition right now, so maybe we should treat him first before you two can continue talking?"

"Jeez, doc."

He was about to tell the doctor to screw off, when he looked down and noticed that Cheon Yeo Woon's face was really turning pale. After awkwardly staring at him for a moment, he used his inner power to lay him comfortably back down on the bed.

Then he cleared his throat and made a bold, and at the same time to Cheon Yeo Woon, a very out-of-the-blue proposal.

"Okay, I'm going to cut straight to the chase. I will take you under my wings as my disciple."

Cheon Yeo Woon was unprepared for what he just heard as his eyes got wide open.

He wasn't the only one whose eyes almost popped out of the socket. Even Baek Jong Myeong couldn't believe his ears.

The East Grand Lord, Gwang Do Seop Myeong,11 was a demigod-level master who fell in the top ten ranking among all the fighters within the faction. His renown as a skilled fighter was well known even outside the faction's walls.

"I don't quite understand what you mean by that."

For Cheon Yeo Woon who had lived his whole life being systematically deceived and back stabbed, he always took everything with a grain of salt. But, the eyes of Seop Maeng that were looking down at him seemed quite sincere, although that didn't change the fact that his breath reeked with alcohol and poor hygiene.

"What do you mean you don't understand? I'm telling you that I, East Grand Lord, will accept you as one of my disciples."

"…East Grand Lord, do you not know who I am?"

Although there were many people in the Ma faction who wouldn't be able to recognize his face, everyone undeniably knew about him.

He was the seventh in line and illegitimate child of the Grand Master, whom all six pillar clans of the faction were hell-bent on eradicating.

"Is there anyone who doesn't know who you are?"

"If you make me your disciple, all the Grand Master's wives of the six clans will hate you."

Even after reminding him of the reality of the situation, Seop Maeng's face remained unflinching. In fact, he went on to assure him that it wasn't a big deal.

"Keke, that's funny. If I take you in as my disciple and they don't like it, what the hell are they going to do about it? Plus, they're going to have to ultimately compete against each other, whether you're involved in it or not."

Unlike the West Grand Lord Yi Hwa Myeong, Seop Maeng was a spur-of-the-moment type person who spoke before he thought. The only person he ever feared and respected was the sovereign of the Ma faction, the Grand Master himself.

This was the first time Cheon Yeo Woon had ever heard something positive spoken to him in his life. It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling. Although this wasn't what he had intended, it was hard to resist the offer.

"But, what if this was also a trap?"

Having lived his whole life running from assassins and falling prey to all kinds of different conspiracies from his enemies, it was his second nature to always be hyper-vigilant and leery. Now, even Baek Jong Myeong, who was watching all of this from the sideline, was filled with intrigue.

-So, he's the gong ja that everyone is talking about.-

Now that he knew exactly who the patient in front of him was, everything began to make sense to him. Whether his assumptions were true or not was a whole other story.

-I knew that something was going to go down in the academy this year with the Battle for the Princeship also being underway, but man… they've really outdone themselves this time. Tsk, tsk.-

The state of internal injuries that Doctor Baek was able to pick up from the pulse diagnosis definitely didn't do justice to how much blood came out, which was enough to completely soak his whole upper garment. But, if the six wives of the Grand Master were involved, then there was sufficient evidence to believe that such a casualty was possible.

Baek Jong Myeong's delusion was a much-needed stroke of luck for Cheon Yeo Woon.

"I'm not quite sure how to respond to your offer. Especially since I'm now in the academy, for me to be under your tutelage doesn't seem fair.

"Gosh darn it, now it feels like I'm begging you to be my disciple."

*Glug, glug!*

As though Cheon Yeo Woon's hesitancy was frustrating him big time, Seop Maeng had popped open the cork on his gourd bottle and began to chug big gulps of the rice wine.

"You are quite the suspicious one."

Seop Maeng had never offered this kind of golden opportunity to anyone before, but after hearing about Cheon Yeo Woon's epic stand against Hang So Yoo's sound waves using sheer grit, he was so impressed by Cheon Yeo Woon's determination that he went out of his way to recruit him. But, Cheon Yeo Woon's apparent disinterest was beginning to ruffle his feathers.

"Okay, fine. If you are that suspicious of me, I will throw on an added incentive to the offer."

Seop Maeng then reached into his outer garment and pulled out a crumbly, stained piece of paper and put it on the bed Cheon Yeo Woon was lying on.

Since Cheon Yeo Woon was still in a lot of pain from his internal injuries he couldn't bend over to see what it was, but he knew it had to be something big.