Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 872

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 872
“But prideful martial artists won’t simply take up other work, will they? They’re hardly going to pick up hammers now to farm or work at forges.”
“That’s right. They lack the skills.”
Just as a farmer doesn’t know how to wield a blade, a martial artist doesn’t know how to handle farming tools.
Though they speak of conquering the world and cleaving the heavens with their swords, I didn’t believe those people were inherently more noble than commoners.
In a sense, one could say fighting is simply their specialty among many professions.
It was perhaps inevitable that Muyue would inherit such a perspective.
“Yes. So I’m thinking of starting a delivery business.”
“Aren’t their egos quite strong? Of course, there are ways to filter out unsuitable martial artists, but the numbers alone would fall far short.”
The question pierced like a blade.
It was a fair point.
Even with demand, without sufficient labor to supply it, the venture would be meaningless.
Muyue observed Eun Gong before him.
‘He wears a smile, but he’s far from an easy man to deal with.’
Moreover, this business was one that many within Baekrin Uiseon openly declared would fail.
That wasn’t all.
The more investigations were conducted, the more people learned of Baekrin Uiseon’s new venture, and rumors spread like wildfire.
As word rippled through the Gangho, even street urchins began spouting that it would collapse.
At this point, it was a curse.
A collective curse.
‘…Yet I believe it will succeed. Not just me. All the young ones in our department will make it work.’
To accomplish that, I had to convince the man before me.
Muyue drew a deep breath internally and continued.
“First-rate masters certainly have strong pride, but in truth, second and third-rate masters must earn money by any means necessary.”
“So delivery it is?”
“Yes. A regional delivery service. Primarily food delivery.”
“The unit economics won’t work.”
Though prices in Baekrin County had risen due to the economic boom, wouldn’t the delivery cost exceed the food’s value?
“That’s why I plan to offer to teach them lightness techniques as a condition of employment. In truth, they’ll want to work not for the delivery job itself, but because they’re receiving free instruction in the techniques. I’ve already conducted market research on this matter…”
Muyue laid down the documents.
They contained survey results from one hundred martial artists.
‘This must have been difficult to accomplish.’
Though it said one hundred martial artists, these were actually unspecified wandering warriors not affiliated with Baekrin Uiseon.
The difficulty between randomly stopping one hundred people on the street for a survey and tracking down one hundred sword-wielding ruffians for the same purpose was vastly different.
After flipping through the documents, Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
Perhaps we should upgrade this project a bit more?
“Here’s what we’ll do. First, we have them deliver while teaching basic lightness techniques, and once they become excellent delivery workers, we teach them advanced lightness techniques.”
“What happens once they master advanced lightness techniques?”
“They sign a formal contract with Baekrin Uiseon and transport more diverse goods. If they work hard enough to excel at that stage, we’ll treat them as regular martial artists of Baekrin Uiseon. Then they’ll handle medical supplies and patient transport, earning higher monthly wages.”
‘A dog… a death trap?!’
Muyue’s eyes widened at the cunning scheme.
“Once martial artists taste martial arts, they inevitably end up learning advanced techniques, don’t they? Soggakju. They can’t possibly be satisfied.”
“Yes, that’s right. So they’ll want to move forward even more.”
The desires of Kang Ho-in ultimately boil down to three things.
Martial arts, money, honor.
A hellish trap with these three elements arranged perfectly.
I spoke.
“Of course, to make that happen, I’ll need to refine the Lightness Technique myself.”
As I said this, I scratched the back of my neck.
In the end, it was my responsibility.
I continued.
“Probably many will say it’s doomed the moment they hear about it. I have no certainty either… but let’s try anyway. If it fails, at least we’ll recover the talent.”
Muyue’s face brightened.
A venture no one had acknowledged.
A project everyone agreed would fail.
Yet Soggakju was seeing it properly.
“Thank you!”
All the hardship melted away like snow.
Muyue was happy.
* * *
While my brother worked like an ox.
Cheonwoo was training his external martial power.
‘Through this incident, I’ve realized how important external martial power truly is.’
He’d known it intellectually, but feeling it with his body was different.
Cheonwoo lay shirtless, gripping a rope in one hand.
The rope was connected to a pulley system, with a heavy metal sphere suspended above his abdomen.
When he released the rope, the massive iron ball would drop and strike his belly.
Crash!
By catching it and circulating his energy, his external martial power was tempered.
Of course, there was also a course where wooden dummies beat his entire body, but for now this was the foundation.
My brother said if this wasn’t enough, he’d have me take Hwang-gu on an hour-long walk (?).
Just receiving the happy Hwang-gu’s snout strikes with his body was enough to train external martial power.
‘….’
Cheonwoo became afraid of how much larger Hwang-gu would grow.
Whenever my brother saw Hwang-gu and Noeji, he’d say they looked thin and feed them more.
Being a spiritual creature, it wasn’t just gaining fat—the very bones and muscles continued to grow.
‘The food my brother gives is delicious, but it’s not a spiritual medicine, is it? Why on earth?’
He couldn’t understand it at all.
Beside Cheonwoo, Sama Hyeon and I sat at a table discussing what lay ahead.
“That Muyue fellow. To put it nicely, he’s made a bold move~ to put it badly, it’s gambling.”
Even as he spoke, Sama Hyeon continued flipping through the business proposal to the very end—truly a born entrepreneur.
“Right? A reservation delivery service… I wonder if it’ll work in Gangho. There’s been plenty of talk from other departments saying it won’t fly.”
A delivery business conceived by Muyue.
It wasn’t a matter of taking orders and delivering immediately.
Because orders couldn’t be taken.
In a world without telephones or wireless communication, one wouldn’t send a messenger or dispatch rider just to order some dumplings.
So Muyue planned to collect payment for three months upfront and deliver at fixed times.
“My brother did reinforce it somehow. What’s this about Gangho courier networks?”
“Courier networks? That’s not it at all! We’re just trying to put martial prowess to good use.”
Jin Cheon-hee quickly asserted his innocence.
Sama Hyeon stared at him intently before speaking.
“Anyway, ordinary commoners would rather make food at home than have it delivered. On the other hand, wealthy sect members can just send servants to fetch it. Actually…”
“Actually?”
“I think courier stations and carpenter workshops would use it. They start working at dawn. Sometimes the messengers prepare breakfast themselves or the kitchen staff handles it, but even then the kitchen staff struggles.”
“Hmm? Why? Isn’t making food the kitchen staff’s job?”
“Well, things don’t work as neatly divided as that, you see. For courier stations, at dawn it’s more profitable to load one more package than to cook.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yeah. Places like Bunta’s usually stop cooking and help carry cargo when things get hectic. On those days, they eat hastily and depart. And almost every morning is hectic. That’s how it works there too.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to prepare broth the night before and just boil noodles in the morning?”
“Sure, that’s what they do—eat bloated noodles and head out. Theoretically you’re right, but Bunta’s courier station is a constant crisis. Something’s always breaking down.”
Perhaps having no system is itself a system.
In a way, it makes sense.
Once the sun sets, horses cannot run.
So departing at early dawn is standard,
and everyone wakes and prepares together, so things are chaotic then.
Moreover, a Gangho courier station might have a messenger alive today who’s dead tomorrow.
There’s a funeral to conduct, but the problem is what to do about the lost package. And what to do about that messenger’s vacant position.
Bandits trying to intercept packages mid-route, and customers conspiring with those bandits to commit fraud.
Escorting people would be even harder than transporting goods.
‘It’s war. Every day is war.’
Even large courier stations struggle to establish systems, so Bunta’s must be worse.
“Ou. That’s useful information.”
“In that situation, they won’t have time to prepare boxed meals to eat during deliveries. So if we deliver dumplings and lunch boxes every morning, the messengers will have an easier time. Since they need to move from dawn, dumplings are perfect to eat on the go. And a lunch box will be hearty enough for eating during deliveries.”
That’s useful information.
The kind only someone in the field would know.
“Carpenter workshops are the same?”
“Yeah. They can’t work once the sun sets either. Time is money. They barely have time for breakfast. As soon as the sun rises, all the carpenters gathered at the lodging wake up together, eat hastily, and move out. That’s the perfect place for lunch delivery. If the taste is good, they’d probably want regular lunch deliveries, wouldn’t they?”
“What about snacks?”
“They’re hard to make well. And as you know, except for places like our inn, most don’t care much about food hygiene. Sometimes they order wrong and all the carpenters get food poisoning, spending the whole day running to the outhouse.”
Being old-fashioned doesn’t mean one can eat dirty food without consequence.
If that were the case, so many people wouldn’t have died from diseases like cholera.
Back then, death was simply closer.
It was natural that the average lifespan was short.
“And the price of snacks for workers is more expensive than I thought. Baekrin Hyeon is especially prosperous with so many new constructions, so there’s plenty of price gouging on worker snacks~ I bet you didn’t know about this either?”
I answered honestly.
“No. I didn’t know about worker snack prices either.”
“Right, right~ That’s something you only learn by going around and doing the legwork yourself.”
“How do you know such things so well?”
Hyeon laughed softly at my question.
“I did it when I was young. I couldn’t do Pyosa work, but I sometimes worked as a construction laborer.”
“To earn money?”
“Yeah. They didn’t pay much since I was a kid, but I had good strength so I carried a lot. On days without performances, I took whatever work I could get.”
Earning enough to eat for the day.
To save Hye-a.
Sama Hyeon spoke.
“Oh! And I also did some work carrying goods within Pyo Guk for Pyosa work~ They’d give even children that kind of work. There’s nothing I haven’t done. Me~”
It seemed those past experiences had shaped who Sama Hyeon was now.
“Did you work in the kitchen too?”
“Yeah. I got paid daily wages just for doing odd jobs, but that’s how I got to see how food was made.”
Remembering those old days, Sama Hyeon frowned.
“You eat because you don’t know, but if you knew, you couldn’t eat.”
He was saying something quite shocking.
I wanted to ask what young Sama Hyeon received there, but I decided not to.
Sama Hyeon spoke.
“I think Muyue came up with a surprisingly decent idea. Of course, we’d need the Kang Ho-in trap that you planned. Without that, I wouldn’t invest a single coin~”
“It’s not a trap. Muyue calls it an ant lion trap too. Why does everyone do this? What’s wrong with seeing a bright future together?”
“Right. Anyway, that relationship of seeing a mutual future. In the end, you need to create the Gyeongsin Technique.”
“Ugh.”
For Muyue’s plan to be established, I myself had to be ground down.
Grind, grind.
“If it’s for delivery, the conditions are surprisingly tricky.”
“Conditions?”
“First of all, it’s food. It can’t spill, so balance is important~ Speed, that’s obviously necessary, right? And since delivery isn’t something you do once and you’re done, the consumption of inner energy needs to be efficient too. And the most important condition—do you know what it is?”
“What?”
“Even a third-rate martial artist needs to be able to do all of this.”
I understood it vaguely in my head, but hearing Sama Hyeon’s explanation, a strong sense that this would be incredibly difficult suddenly washed over me.
“If it uses little inner energy, maintains good balance, and is fast, that’s already a divine technique, isn’t it?”
“Ugh~ A divine technique is already difficult enough to learn. When would you even train that? It needs immediate effectiveness too. You. The people learning this are second-rate and third-rate martial artists.”
Wow, this is more difficult than I thought.
“Muyue has finally drawn up a plan to kill me.”
“Right~ That gentleman has become a complete master, hasn’t he?”
At that moment, I heard Cheonwoo’s strained groan.
He was in the midst of sparring with the Iron Worker.
“Cheonwoo. You alright? Can you handle it? If it’s too much, you can play with Hwang-gu instead.”
“Hyeong…. Ugh… I think it would be better if you did that, Hyeong.”
“Why? Why is Hyeon like this too? Why won’t anyone play with Hwang-gu?”
“Hyeong. We’ll die. We’ll actually die. Looking at how fast Hwang-gu is growing, soon he won’t be for external cultivation training—he’ll be a life-or-death sparring partner.”
Sama Hyeon spoke.
“Noeji was born as a spirit creature living in the wild, so it’s different. He lives his own life well, takes time for himself occasionally. Humans? Just about that level of importance.”
“That’s true.”
He does get along well with humans, but having lived in the wild for so long, his preferences are quite distinct.
His independence is also quite strong.
His life’s purpose is his own happiness, not mine.
Actually, that’s how it should be.
“But a dog… is a dog. Dogs have needed to live with people since ancient times to be happy, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Playing with him is on a completely different level from Noeji. He has an obsession that will literally shatter his body.”
That’s what a dog is.
Whether the other person is good or bad, rich or poor, it doesn’t matter.
He just loves me, and he loves the people close to me so, so much.
Just looking at people, his brain must be flooding with oxytocin and dopamine.
He’s just happy. So very happy.
And both Noeji and Hwang-gu seem to have gained some enlightenment at Jin Ju-eonga.
Or perhaps the spiritual medicine Eon-gwon fed them was so delicious that they grew even larger.
They’ve grown so much it’s visibly obvious.
Now they’re starting to be confused with northern bears.
At least when Noeji is in his enlarged state, he either doesn’t attempt to climb onto me at all.
Or he shrinks his body using muscle control before climbing onto my head.
But Hwang-gu still launches his happiness snout missiles.
With that massive body.
‘Woof woof woof woof woof woof♥’
Normally, my upper body would be torn away, but I endure it.
Truly the power of love.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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