Emperor Namgung Mu of the Thousand Years - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#002

“Haha, this mule bastard is howling with such vigor today!”

“–으읍!! —으으읍!!”

The bone-chilling white winter air.

With a splashing sound, my head was once again dunked into the horse trough in the stable, held by my hair, then lifted up, over and over again.

The massive, freckled brute gripping my hair shouted.

“Delicious, isn’t it? The water?! It’s your personal water bowl, so it must taste like honey!”

Namgung Cheon.

A direct bloodline member of the Namgung Family who lives in the annex and torments me, my half-brother who is one year older than me.

Namgung Cheon had been a notorious troublemaker in the neighborhood since childhood due to his large frame and violent nature.

Thanks to that, there were always several lackeys following behind him.

“Hey, drag that mule over here. I learned a new martial technique from the Swordmaster Patriarch.”

“Wow! Really?! Then!”

I was helplessly dragged away from the horse trough by the lackeys clinging to both my arms. I struggled to avoid being dragged, but it was useless.

“Hehehe, that scrawny guy struggling really looks pathetic.”

“This mule bastard, look how skinny he is with his temples and cheekbones sticking out. Really disgustingly ugly.”

A gaunt body from not eating properly, small shoulders, and protruding cheekbones with shadowed eyes—that’s me right now.

Kicking my trembling legs, the lackeys stood me in front of Namgung Cheon.

Namgung Cheon shouted.

“Now, this is the pride of the Namgung Family among palm techniques, the Great Yan Palm that only chosen direct descendants can learn!”

A thick fist infused with internal energy dug into my abdomen.

“Gack!”

This damn bastard…!

He calls it a palm technique but hits my stomach with his fist instead of his palm?

“Cough, cough…!”

I clutch my abdomen and collapse.

Saliva mixed with gastric acid flows down the corner of my mouth.

The sensation of the cold dirt ground seeps through my buttocks as consciousness fades away.

***

-… … ….

It’s the second morning since I returned to this nightmare.

My ears are ringing, and the cool wind makes my ears sting. Servants pass by the path in front of the annex, but no one looks my way.

Surely they must have seen me being continuously bullied, yesterday and before.

But they just turn their gaze away and go about their own business.

No matter how much this place is the most remote annex, far from Taecheong-won, the main building of the Namgung Family.

It remains unchanged that this is a place overlooked from Mount Cheonju, within the influence of the Namgung Family.

Within that territory, even though a member of the Namgung Family is being unilaterally beaten, no one steps forward to stop it or even gives a hint, just passing by.

Only after facing the second morning like this could I be certain.

That this is reality.

“This feeling… Yes. Such detailed unpleasantness couldn’t possibly be created by hallucinations…”

The feeling of being thoroughly treated like air.

What was more unpleasant than being beaten by Namgung Cheon.

Was being treated like air by family members and even servants, having my very existence ignored.

“This isn’t a dream or hallucination. Any further doubt is meaningless now.”

I lived a life of persecution and contempt in the Namgung Family before being cast out.

Abandoned by the Namgung Family, the world I stepped into to survive was the world of assassins.

In that place where human lives were used like grass, in that world where the average lifespan of a newcomer was merely fourteen days, I struggled like a dog.

Anyway, there are probably many who built up as much reputation as I did in that field, so how much reputation that was isn’t important—.

‘If the current time point is right before coming of age… it’s definitely an ambiguous time in many ways.’

It’s not a completely young body, clean enough for a fresh start.

Thin from not eating properly, with a small frame, but definitely a body beginning to shed the form of a boy.

Judging by the surrounding objects and circumstances,

If what I know is correct, the current time point was right before a major turning point for me.

Starting with my first bitter enemy, Namgung Cheon, I gradually became isolated, and in the Soga Clan Heir Selection Competition coming in two months, I make an irreversible mistake.

It was something that happened solely out of greed to be acknowledged by my father.

The life that began to go wrong like that encountered two more bitter enemies in succession, becoming even more twisted, and eventually resulted in being cast out after receiving a prohibition order from my father, the family head.

“That absolutely cannot happen.”

Hellish hatred toward the Namgung Family boils up from deep in my chest.

“White mask…”

I recall his appearance, clearly visible even while engulfed in flames at the end.

Even the eight cult members surrounding and guarding him.

‘Something definitely happened to the family during the dozen years I lived as an assassin. And they were completely devoured by that bastard.’

And that bastard brought in the Sun and Moon Sect, something that orthodox sects of the martial world wouldn’t even dream of.

“Do you think I’ll let things go your way again this time…?”

For whatever reason I came back alive like this instead of dying, I have no idea.

What I know is only that I burned to death. That I stole a silver neck box before burning to death.

And inside that neck box—.

“…A pearl. Is that it?”

I stop thinking about it again.

The cause doesn’t matter anyway.

The situation has already occurred.

What I need to focus on now, and the reality I’m facing, is that I’ve come back alive.

Throughout my previous life, I lived my entire life trying to escape from this persistent bitter relationship that started with the Namgung Family.

But the result was a spectacular failure.

Just destroying this damn Namgung Family that I want to tear apart and kill isn’t enough to satisfy me.

‘I will completely devour this Namgung Family.’

That is true revenge and the path to my soul’s liberation.

That Masked Man who burned me to death must also want the Namgung Family’s downfall.

If I walk the path of completely dominating the Namgung Family, I’ll inevitably meet that bastard along the way.

And for all of that, I absolutely cannot be driven out of the Namgung Family.

And most importantly.

Right now, I am—.

“Mule!!!”

A voice calling for me, echoing from behind.

Namgung Cheon.

My half-brother, one year older, who receives protection from the Swordmaster Patriarch, one of the Five Great Patriarchs who dominates this area centered on Goryong County where this annex is located.

His belly protrudes.

With that massive frame, no one can meet his gaze.

Having apparently just returned from playing at a brothel all night, the thick smell of alcohol stimulates my nose from early morning.

“Young master. Is that pathetic guy the mule you said you’d show me?”

A courtesan is clinging to his side.

Holding the courtesan under his arm, Namgung Cheon said.

“That’s right. Look at that scrawny bastard. If it were me, I would have just bitten my tongue and died. He’s living by leeching off the Swordmaster Patriarch’s Villa.”

“Compared to our Cheon young master, he’s not even manly.”

The courtesan looks down at me.

“You really look pathetic. Not befitting a man at all. How can a face be so gaunt, unsightly, and ugly that I’m afraid it might appear in my dreams?”

“….”

A familiar feeling.

The face of a courtesan I seemed to have seen somewhere before.

I held back a bitter smile.

“Ah, so today is that day.”

Getting beaten by Namgung Cheon wasn’t anything new since I’d been beaten daily after mother passed away and I was left alone.

But the nightmare that would follow.

The first of the three evil connections that had destroyed me in the past also began with this bastard.

That nightmare, ridiculously enough, became a nightmare that tormented me every night, even after I had experienced countless assassination missions and incomparably more cruel and harsh days.

Even though it was merely childish bullying I experienced in childhood from an adult’s perspective.

-…splat.

That nightmare from the past comes to mind.

The beginning of that memory was always the stable filled with wet, damp horse manure.

The nightmare always began with the cold sensation of manure water seeping up through the clothes on my kneeling knees and then freezing.

In life, there are days when you wake up in a good mood, feeling like something good will happen today.

I was like that on that day too.

Even though I was beaten daily and the servants ignored me, I was definitely trying hard at something, and I lived those days believing without basis that things would work out well.

That’s why I think I woke up early that day too and swept the courtyard.

Then I encountered Namgung Cheon, who had returned after spending the night at a brothel.

‘G-good m-m-morning, Brother Cheon.’

I still held onto the belief that everyone had some good in them.

Or perhaps it was because I had the baseless belief that if I approached him kindly, he would treat me well too.

While sweeping the courtyard, I gave such a morning greeting to Namgung Cheon, who was staggering along with a courtesan.

And then-.

-Smack.

I got slapped across the face.

‘Where does a stuttering mule bastard get off ruining my mood.’

‘Th-th-that’s….’

‘Talking back again?’

He grabbed me by the collar.

The morning when good things seemed like they would happen.

A morning filled with golden sunlight and cool air.

-Smack, smack, smack, smack….

I kept getting slapped as his head turned back and forth repeatedly.

It hurt.

It hurt so much.

I think I covered my face, begging him to stop hitting me.

But even in the pain that felt like both cheeks would fly off, what was most clearly and truly agonizing wasn’t the pain in my cheeks.

It was his gaze as he looked down at me, giggling with a woman by his side.

‘He stinks.’

It was the contemptuous look in the eyes of the prettily dressed courtesan who looked at all of it with disdain, someone I couldn’t even dare to speak to.

‘Ha, look at this bastard. Look at him whimpering and making that pitiful expression. It’s making me soft-hearted.’

Namgung Cheon paused while repeatedly hitting my cheek with his pot lid-sized hand.

‘He’s making me out to be the bad guy for no reason. Alright. Let’s do this. I can’t be cruel when our Soedu is watching.’

Namgung Cheon said.

‘Carry me.’

‘…What?’

Namgung Cheon spread his legs.

He pointed below and said.

‘You’re a mule, so carry me. My legs are tired.’

‘….’

I don’t remember the middle part.

The last thing I remember is carrying Namgung Cheon on my back and spinning around in circles.

People burst into laughter,

The courtesan also laughed, asking to be carried once too.

They pointed at me, calling me a shameless bastard.

I endured it.

Even so, I endured it.

I endured it, thinking that was the best option, and endured it.

And as the price for that endurance.

After that day, of course Namgung Cheon didn’t keep his word, and I became someone completely ignored even by the servants, treated not as a human but as livestock.

And that became the prelude to the nightmare that would occur at the Soga Clan Heir Selection Competition a month later.

“…That’s how it was.”

The end of a brief reminiscence.

“That’s how it was.”

I blinked my eyes.

And I lifted my head with a short laugh.

“Ah. Now I truly feel it. I really have returned.”

“What the hell, this bastard… did he eat something wrong?”

In the reality before my open eyes, there was a bewildered Namgung Cheon.

I looked at that face.

I looked at the courtesan beside him.

Looking at them, I muttered.

“I really have returned to the heart of that nightmare.”

First Dark Emperor Namgung Hwi.

Even I, who inherited the title from my Dark Emperor master and returned alive from a thousand assassination contracts, had such times.

“Haha, didn’t this bastard get beaten enough yesterday?”

Namgung Cheon chuckled and grabbed me by the collar.

“A beast bastard really needs to get beaten to come to his sen…ses!”

Namgung Cheon’s pot lid-like palm filled my vision completely-.

-Crack.

Namgung Cheon’s wrist snapped with ridiculous ease.

My palm heel strike, swung like lightning, had hammered down on Namgung Cheon’s wrist.

“Huh…?”

Namgung Cheon looked down at his dangling wrist with a stupid expression.

“Why is my wrist bro-.”

I grabbed that wrist and pulled. I drove my fist into his elbow in the opposite direction.

-Crack.

Namgung Cheon’s elbow broke. I struck upward at his shoulder with my toes like a whip. Namgung Cheon’s shoulder dislocated. I chopped down on his side with my hand blade. His collarbone shattered. My fist slammed into Namgung Cheon’s mouth as he tried to scream. With a crack, Namgung Cheon’s front teeth broke and flew through the air.

-Thwack!

I grabbed Namgung Cheon’s dangling broken arm and struck both his knees. They bent as if half-broken. I released Namgung Cheon’s dangling arm like throwing away trash.

And then I looked at Namgung Cheon again.

As if nothing had happened.

“…Huh?”

In the brief mayfly world of assassins, there exists a unique concept of time.

The time it takes for a water droplet to fall from a wooden floor one span high. Or the instant a single exhale passes by. We call this a ryo.

This entire sequence of events in just one breath.

Just one ryo.

“…Huh?”

The same peaceful daily life as yesterday.

Morning.

Under the quiet golden sunlight.

“…Wh…at?”

Namgung Cheon blinks his eyes. He stares at his twisted wrist, his elbow, his dislocated shoulder.

Blood flows from beneath his broken teeth.

Opening and closing that mouth, he checks once more his arm that dangles like a rag with every joint crushed—

“Kyaaaaaaah!!!!”

I watch Namgung Cheon writhing and screaming.

“I won’t endure it anymore.”

“Ahhh!! Uaaaaaaah!! My arm… my arm…!!!”

“So—”

In my black eyes looking down, red light scatters through the cold winter air.

“Now you bastards will endure it.”

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