Prologue
Light Novel: Prologue
Manhwa: Chapter 1
A man asked,
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Lee Gwak.”
The man’s eyes were cold like a snake, as his gaze swept over my entire body.
It was a gaze so eerie that it bordered on terrifying. Even though it was midsummer, I felt a chill. Goosebumps have crawled on my skin.
Still, I tried to look at the man straight in the eyes. I was scared, but I didn’t want to appear like a coward.
A cold smile appeared at the corners of the man’s mouth.
“Such powerful eyes you possess!”
I’ve heard that many times before.
As a person who lost both of my parents, if I want to survive in this harsh world, I need to be spiteful. That’s why I had lived with my eyes wide open. It was my last shred of pride.
Perhaps pleased by my gaze, the man chuckled and turned away. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was mistaken.
The man spoke to his subordinates standing next to him,
“That young man seems to have quite a lot of spite and guts for an orphan who’s wandering the world… But he doesn’t need anything like that here, so scrape them off cleanly.”
I didn’t know then.
Just how scary the true meaning of those words were…
I wonder how I looked back then in the eyes of others.
The way I am now, having been beaten and battered.
SoundlessWind21’s Notes:
This is another work of Woo-Gak, the author of the novel, Reaper of the Drifting Moon (RDM). I will try my best to translate this novel but it will not follow the same schedule as RDM (i.e. daily releases). I’ll try to upload 2-3 times a week if I can but it’s not guaranteed.
I might host another Patreon for this maybe once I catch up to the manhwa (i.e. chapter 100) or if readers want me to release more chapters per week haha (since that’ll incentivice me to constantly update).
Update – October 21, 2023:
I have now made a new Patreon account dedicated to Martial Artist Lee Gwak: SW21 Translations. You can join for free to get notifications when a chapter is posted or become a member for $1 to show your support!
Instead of another separate patreon it would be nice to just toss this in with the patreon on a different release frequency specifically for the 10 and 20 dollar tiers because as a 20 dollar tier user prior to the abrupt removal of the increased chapters per day there has still yet to be a replacement or significant benefit to those who stayed in the tier aside from the fact that we are several months ahead so unless we want to wait months till regular or lower tier releases caught up.
Would be nice if the 10 dollar tier got a chapter every other day or something and the 20 dollar tier gets one chapter daily in addition to the normal chapters we get.
Ultimately its your patreon and your decision and ill stay in the 20 dollar tier but it would be nice to get a true benefit to being in this tier. Cuz it felt more like an in too deep to quit.
Yeah I’ll take note of this! I’m still trying to sort it out on how to go around this + if my schedule would allow a consistent update for another series. I’ll definitely consider adding Martial Artist Lee Gwak advance chapter releases for current tier 3 patrons as an added benefit soon once the translated chapters are already ahead of the manhwa. But for now, every chapter I will translate will be free and posted here.
My reason for making another Patreon separate from the one I currently have is for those readers who are only interested in reading Martial Artist Lee Gwak. Anyway, not everything is set in stone and I’m still organizing it hehe
I am so happy you chose this. The manhua translators stopped translating. Also, there have been so many Lee Gwak references in Reaper of the Drifting Moon that I became genuinely interested in it. I support your choice and future decisions.
I think the last chapter for the manhwa is ch 100 since it was cancelled. Correct me if I’m wrong tho.
I’m very glad you’re translating this. Do you know what chapter of the novel corresponds to chapter 100 of the manhwa?
I think it’s around chapter 127 of the novel
yey finally u pick Lee Gwak
The lore about Lee Gwak and Demon Fist mentioned quite often in RDM story
Thank you for starting this novel, i was heartbroken when they canceled the Manhwa.