“Kyaaaargh! Uuugh— GRAAAAH!!!”

“…”

“Huk, urgh, keuk, gwaaaaah! Aaaaargh!”

This is… deeply uncomfortable.

Cho Yoon grimaced inwardly, desperately wishing for the bamboo hat he had left behind. He could barely keep his eyes open to watch the gruesome spectacle. For the first time, he felt profound gratitude for the original “Cho Yoon’s” paralyzed facial muscles. Without this body’s superhuman fortitude, he would have undoubtedly turned pale and bolted from the pavilion long ago.

I went through hell to shield their eyes from anything remotely inappropriate, but is this really okay? Shouldn’t I send them somewhere else even now?

A sideways glance revealed Cheon-oh looking as stoic as ever. Sa-hyeon appeared completely blank, while Sa-yeong was actively stifling a yawn.

Wait, why is everyone so fine? Why are they so composed? Is this really something kids should be watching?

Looking further out, the Tang Clan disciples exhibited a drastically different reaction. Upon closer inspection, however, Cho Yoon realized their expressions held absolutely zero pity or empathy for the agonizing man.

Instead, their eyes sparkled with morbid fascination as they observed Baek Ho-cheol crawling pitifully across the floor. They seemed captivated by the rare display of the poison’s effects, simultaneously marveling at their Clan Head’s exquisite skill in inflicting suicidal agony without allowing the victim the mercy of unconsciousness.

For the first time in a long while, genuine terror gripped Cho Yoon at the stark reminder that he was living inside a martial arts novel. This was a brutal world where possessing weak martial arts justified being stripped of one’s basic human rights.

Unless you belonged to the protagonist’s faction, dying a futile, agonizing death was the absolute norm.

Even members of the protagonist’s party routinely lost their lives merely to serve as awakening fodder for the hero.

Had he not transmigrated into the incredibly powerful body of the “Immortal Healer,” he undoubtedly would have perished by now.

While he was wallowing in that depressing realization, Cheon-oh’s telepathic voice echoed in his mind once more.

[Master, should we close our eyes?]

“…”

Cho Yoon silently turned his head toward the boy. Cheon-oh looked up at him with his usual cautious, polite demeanor. His dark eyes were fixed squarely on Cho Yoon’s face.

Puzzled by the sudden suggestion, Cho Yoon asked softly.

[Close your eyes?]

[You dislike it when we witness merciless acts.] 

The boy appended the thought carefully, likely assuming it was the source of his master’s displeasure.

Cho Yoon kept his mouth shut, simply staring into Cheon-oh’s pitch-black eyes. Though his exterior remained flawlessly placid, tears threatened to burst forth internally. A sudden, inexplicable lump formed in his throat.

What an incredibly admirable child.

Unable to hold back, Cho Yoon gently stroked Cheon-oh’s head and back.

How could a boy be this precious, this deeply considerate and kind?

He truly had no reason to worry. His parenting methods already defied every convention in this era. Fretting over the accepted norms of a martial arts novel and abruptly changing his approach now would only breed confusion. If this was a world where absolute power dictated everything, he simply had to raise them to be so overwhelmingly strong that no one would dare question their ways.

With a significantly lighter heart, Cho Yoon sent a telepathic message to all three children. His previous melancholy had completely evaporated.

[Close your eyes. I do not wish for any of you to become accustomed to the suffering of others.]

The siblings and Cheon-oh squeezed their eyes shut instantly.

Cho Yoon immediately cast a thin sound-isolation barrier around them, effectively blocking out Baek Ho-cheol’s harrowing screams. The agonizing shrieks that had persisted for over a gak abruptly vanished, yet not a single child opened their eyes out of curiosity.

Their master’s voice, as gentle as a crisp autumn breeze, flowed steadily into their minds.

[To remain truly human, one must possess compassion. The heart to respect other lives, the heart to empathize with and pity a pain that is not your own, and the heart that strives to help those who suffer. All of these combined create true compassion.]

It sounded a bit old-fashioned, but the children were thankfully hanging onto his every word.

Cho Yoon quietly observed the Tang Clan members.

They were entirely consumed by the competition’s outcome and the poison’s efficacy, utterly indifferent to the man being publicly tortured before them. Even if such callousness was common and accepted here, he prayed his children would never grow up to mirror it.

[This does not mean we can strictly categorize the current situation as right or wrong. But as I said, I ask only one thing of you. Do not become numb to another’s agony.]

Baek Ho-cheol was certainly no innocent man. However, carefully filtering what the children saw and heard took far greater precedence right now than debating the bandit king’s sins.

Keeping their eyes closed, the three children nodded in unison at his words. A wave of gratitude washed over Cho Yoon. They had accepted his sudden moral lecture without a single complaint.

Chuckling softly to himself, he glanced at the hourglass on the platform.

The pale sand was rapidly running out.

Finally, the last grain slipped through the glass. The presiding elder announced the end of Tang Yeom-cho’s turn, his face painted with undisguised disappointment.

“Tsk. What a pity. A genuine shame,” Tang Yeom-cho muttered, smacking his lips as he stepped back. “Had I been given just one more gak, I would have succeeded. It was practically my masterpiece.”

Just as he claimed, Baek Ho-cheol had somehow endured the horrific torment, but he was far from fine.

Blood had pooled intensely in his head, leaving his face a dark, mottled crimson. Various parts of his body twitched and thrashed with intermittent spasms. Although Yeom-cho had struck his numbing acupoints to subside the pain as the time expired, the bandit king’s eyes remained rolled back in his skull. His half-shattered consciousness had yet to return.

Judging that continuing immediately was impossible, the elder declared a temporary recess.

The seated Tang Clan members temporarily vacated the area, allowing Cho Yoon to dispel the sound-isolation barrier. The children opened their eyes, practically buzzing with anticipation as they realized their master’s turn was approaching.

After roughly two gak, Baek Ho-cheol finally regained his senses following a non-medicinal treatment. However, the deep, pitch-black hollows under his eyes aged his complexion by at least twenty years. When first dragged to the competition grounds, he had merely looked like a tired, worn-out man.

Now, he looked like a corpse with one foot submerged in the Sanzu River. He kept glancing nervously at Cho Yoon while profusely sweating, almost as if debating whether dying would be preferable to enduring whatever torture the Immortal Healer had planned next.

Meanwhile, the spectator seats gradually filled up once more.

The elder stepped in front of the platform holding the hourglass and raised his voice to announce the resumption of the competition.

“Now, before we commence the highly anticipated next turn, I must say one thing. I deeply respect this man’s spirit,” the elder proclaimed. “Though the time limit was tight, watching him endure a poison that makes one’s knees buckle just from the sight of it proves that his martial realm and self-discipline are truly remarkable. Setting aside his crimes of leading a heterodox faction, such fortitude deserves respect from anyone walking the martial path. Even if this competition ends in a draw, I believe this endeavor has not been in vain.”

“Hear, hear!” Voices of agreement erupted from all corners.

While Cho Yoon didn’t entirely despise Tang Yeom-cho, who had at least shown a genuine side of himself, his feelings toward the Tang Clan as a whole had soured considerably.

He scoffed internally.

The elder had attached the excuse of “a tight time limit” to defend the Clan Head’s failure to extract a confession. He had elevated their failed poison by praising Baek Ho-cheol’s remarkable martial arts for enduring it. And to top it all off, he had deliberately thrown the word “draw” into the mix to intentionally provoke Cho Yoon.

Truthfully, before the competition started, Cho Yoon had only felt pity for the Tang Clan. He had even felt slightly guilty, knowing their pride had been utterly shattered.

They had been denied the title of absolute best in a field they dedicated their entire lives to, all because of some ridiculously overpowered, socially inept recluse who had appeared out of nowhere.

But his sympathy had its limits.

As incident after incident piled up, his annoyance steadily grew. They were the ones who proposed the first competition twenty years ago. They were the ones who lost. They were the ones who sealed their sect gates entirely unprompted. And now, they were the ones who failed again.

Cho Yoon completely failed to understand why they were venting their frustrations on him.

Group jealousy is quite an ugly thing. I should tell the kids to avoid getting entangled with them if possible. If the Sichuan Tang Clan, who actually sided with the protagonist in ‘The Returned Hero’, acts like this, how severely messed up are factions like the Namgung Clan or the Mount Hua Sect? Maybe I should just forbid them from associating with any major martial arts faction entirely.

“Then, we shall finally begin the turn of the Great Hero, the Immortal Healer. Great Hero, we humbly request your teachings.”

“We humbly request your teachings!”

As the elder cupped his fists in a martial salute toward Cho Yoon, the rest of the Tang Clan members rose from their seats to bow once more. The only difference from the beginning of the competition was that Tang Yeom-cho, who had returned to the seat of honor, also bowed his head and cupped his fists.

Cho Yoon stared at them intently. Rising calmly to his feet, he finally broke his silence.

“Using me for your absurd little schemes, and constantly hurling insults because you cannot overcome your pathetic inferiority complex. I will pardon it just this once.”

Not that he had actually intended to phrase it quite so harshly.