I Shouldn't Have Joined the Martial Arts Alliance - Chapter 20

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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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Entering the Murim League without good reason — Episode 020
“……So it was this boy?”
He was somewhat taken aback.
No—quite taken aback, in fact.
To think that the one who had saved his youngest daughter was so young…….
Still, he had assumed Dang Won-hu himself must be at least a Veteran Master of considerable standing.
This made no sense whatsoever.
How could someone so young have removed the Yin-Yang Seal?
Moreover, how had he even discovered that such a seal existed in his youngest daughter’s mind in the first place?
Confusion gave birth to question after question.
“Yes, Father.”
His youngest daughter confirmed it was true.
No matter how closely he examined the boy, he could find nothing remarkable about him.
“……You’re certain?”
“Father, I know what you’re thinking. But we don’t have time for this now. We need to deal with my brother first…….”
“Very well. Let’s hurry.”
His confusion threatened to deepen into suspicion—the thought that perhaps the Yin-Yang Seal had never existed at all, that it might be some elaborate deception.
But soon enough, the truth would reveal itself.
Whether all of this was the work of that charlatan-looking boy and his youngest daughter, or something else entirely.
“Yes.”
* * *
Fortunately, as Dang I-ryeong had feared, her eldest brother Dang I-hyeok had not yet stirred.
Her second brother Dang I-su lay deep in slumber; the household around them remained quiet.
The moment the door opened, Dang I-su’s eyes snapped wide.
“No……, Father……. Dang I-ryeong too……?”
Jolted awake and bewildered by the surreal situation, panic flooded Dang I-su’s face.
“I-su.”
“Yes, Father. But at this hour, how…….”
“Forgive me, but you’ll need to sleep a while longer.”
“……What? I don’t understand…….”
Dang Won-hu’s hand moved faster than the eye could follow, striking the Acupoint on Dang I-su’s chest, rendering him unconscious. Yet even that seemed insufficient; the Family Head then pressed the Numbing Acupoint and the Sleep Acupoint.
Unconsciousness layered upon paralysis, layered upon slumber.
“Father, if this young man could just——”
“No. I will do it myself.”
He needed to verify with his own hands whether the Yin-Yang Seal truly existed in his second son’s mind. Only then could he dispel his doubts about his youngest daughter.
And if—God forbid—the seal truly did exist within Dang I-su’s head, then Dang Won-hu, as the boy’s father, had to be the one to remove it with his own hands.
Was he not ashamed?
To have lived in ignorance, even in his dreams, of the suffering his son and daughter had endured, all while bearing the title of father.
Had he not, instead, only dealt them harsh words and bitter complaints?
Rage and anguish threatened to overwhelm him. But this was not the moment to give in to such emotions.
Safely extracting the Yin-Yang Seal from his second son’s mind—that was the priority.
But removing the Yin-Yang Seal was no simple task. Particularly for Dang Won-hu, who had never attempted such a thing.
His concentration had to be absolute.
He drew a deep breath, centered himself, and brought his hand to his second son’s head.
Through Dang Won-hu’s palm, the majestic power of the Manryu Gwiwon Divine Art seeped slowly into Dang I-su’s mind, then carefully spread throughout.
Caution upon caution was required.
If the Yin-Yang Seal sensed the intrusion and lashed out wildly, his second son could be gravely endangered.
‘……This can’t be!’
The Yin-Yang Seal was real. He had harbored doubts, yet his youngest daughter’s words had proven entirely true…….
No. He could not waver. Dang Won-hu refocused.
‘Good Lord……!’
The Yin-Yang Seal had sensed the Manryu Gwiwon Divine Art and burrowed deeper into the recesses of his son’s mind.
‘……It’s buried too deep.’
One careless move and he would lose the seal—and reduce his second son to an idiot.
No, the boy might never open his eyes again.
‘If only Father were here…….’
The Grand Patriarch Dang Mo-jun would have handled this with ease.
Then, from behind, Sa U-rin’s voice broke the silence.
“If you continue as you are, there will be danger. Allow me to take over from here.”
He had nearly let a great opportunity slip through his fingers.
What if—what if the Family Head had removed the Yin-Yang Seal from Dang I-su, Dang I-ryeong’s brother?
Suppose there exists an Elixir that increases one person’s Inner Power by a full decade. What happens if two people share it?
Logically, each should gain half a decade of cultivation—but reality rarely obeys logic.
Perhaps only ten years’ worth is gained in total?
Sharing an Elixir doesn’t divide its effects equally. The medicine loses its potency; neither recipient reaps its full benefit.
Exactly so.
If the Family Head had removed Dang I-su’s Yin-Yang Seal, this would have been the result.
Sa U-rin wasn’t a bad man, but even so, his hand drifted unconsciously across his chest.
Dang Won-hu’s gaze turned toward Sa U-rin.
‘This charlatan-looking fool?’
He couldn’t trust that face. The type who prowled after women, clearly….
‘Damn him.’
What choice did he have?
His youngest daughter’s words had proven true. He had to accept that this charlatan had also removed his youngest’s Yin-Yang Seal.
Dang Won-hu burned with frustration that his own hands could not remove the Seal from his second son.
Still, saving his second son came first. He swallowed his pride and stepped back.
“You must stake your life on this.”
“…Father?”
“Stay quiet.”
Dang I-ryeong could sense her father Dang Won-hu’s intense agitation, so she dared not speak further.
“You. Why do you not answer?!”
She couldn’t say precisely what it was, but she understood.
This was what a father’s love and affection looked like, wasn’t it?
Father must have felt the same way as the Family Head.
Which is why he had acted so with the Sect Leader of Yunwol Sect, and the same with the Director of the Martial Affairs Office—hadn’t he?
“Understood. But before that, might you first release this binding?”
In his agitation, Dang Won-hu had wrapped Sa U-rin in a net of his own Inner Power.
‘Ah. He’s too worked up….’
An unintended mistake.
“…Right.”
‘This fellow….’
Something was deeply suspicious.
Just moments ago, the boy had endured Dang Won-hu’s crushing pressure without so much as a flicker of expression.
He looked far too young—barely past his coming of age, if even that.
How could such an insignificant child possibly…?
How could this boy manage what Dang Won-hu himself found demanding?
Had he cultivated some dark art?
Yet not the slightest trace of malevolent Qi emanated from the boy.
What in heaven’s name was this youth’s true identity?
“It is done.”
Dang Won-hu doubted his own ears. After stepping back, Sa U-rin had merely rested his hand on the boy’s head for a moment—and it was finished.
“You’re… truly certain?”
Suspicion surged ahead of joy. It made no sense. What could he possibly have accomplished in so brief a time?
“Father!”
Dang I-ryeong’s face bloomed with happiness. Yet Dang Won-hu remained bewildered.
Even so.
“Check for yourself, Father.”
He had been about to do exactly that.
Dang Won-hu’s hand moved to his second son’s head.
“…It is true.”
Such a thing in all the world….
Questions remained, but doubt had dissolved.
Every word his third daughter had spoken—all of it—was genuine.
The tension and suspicion etched into Dang Won-hu’s brow and face melted like snow in spring.
Then emotion welled up.
How much suffering had his second son and third daughter endured all this time? But he could not let them see his tears.
As the one who led the Great Sacheon Dang Family, weakness would be poison to Dang Won-hu himself.
“Father….”
Dang I-ryeong’s eyes were already streaming with thick tears, uncontrollable.
Dang Won-hu drew his third daughter into his arms.
“You’ve suffered greatly. Thank you for enduring it all.”
No one who hadn’t lived through it could ever truly know what these children had been forced to endure.
“No, Father. I was so worried that you might not believe me to the end, but you still trusted me—and I’m even more grateful for that.”
Dang I-ryeong had done so much, hadn’t she?
True, it was done against her will, but it was still her doing nonetheless.
For a moment, the warmth between father and daughter flowed between them.
Dang Won-hu’s gaze turned toward Sa U-rin.
“I’m grateful to you.”
His mind was still brimming with questions, but gratitude was gratitude. What the boy had hoped for, how he’d come by such abilities—none of it mattered now. What mattered was that he’d saved his son and daughter from death itself.
Hadn’t he done exactly that?
But it didn’t end there.
It was as if Sa U-rin had awakened the Sacheon Dang Family and pulled them back from the brink of a bottomless marsh from which there would be no escape.
No, it was more than merely rescuing the Sacheon Dang from the depths of that swamp.
Even now, throughout Sichuan Province and the Martial World, rumors circulated freely that when the Poison King Dang Mo-jun died, the Sacheon Dang Family’s standing would be gravely shaken.
And it was the absolute truth.
The Poison King Dang Mo-jun was counted among the ten strongest masters in the Orthodox Martial World today—a Supreme Master who had reached the Absolute Realm.
Dang Mo-jun’s father had been the same, as had his grandfather before him. But Dang Won-hu was not. And Dang I-hyeok, who would become Sect Deputy Leader, fell far short of Dang Won-hu’s power.
In such circumstances, the Sacheon Dang Family’s standing in Sichuan Province would soon crumble. No—more than crumble; the situation was already flowing toward an inevitable conclusion: the Baekri Family, which had been pressing down on the Sacheon Dang in Sichuan Province, would claim the family’s position for themselves.
That Sa U-rin had rescued the Sacheon Dang Family from such a predicament—how great a deed was that?
Words of gratitude alone could never suffice.
“I couldn’t have done otherwise.”
And yet Sa U-rin had found himself here, hadn’t he?
Or perhaps one might say that Heaven had not abandoned the Sacheon Dang Family.
It was nothing short of miraculous fortune that Dang I-ryeong had met Sa U-rin.
Or rather, since it was Dang I-ryeong who had taken Sa U-rin into her carriage, perhaps it was she who had created this outcome.
In any case.
“The Sacheon Dang Family is deeply indebted to you. Should you wish for anything, we shall grant it, whatever it may be. Give it some thought.”
Unless Sa U-rin demanded something absurd like the Sacheon Dang Family itself, Dang Won-hu would grant him anything.
Such was the nature of their family.
They repaid kindness twofold and vengeance tenfold.
“I understand.”
He had already decided. He could have spoken of it right then and there. But given the circumstances, he held his tongue for now.
In truth, by the customs of the Martial World, what he had in mind might be deemed unreasonable—they might refuse. Yet since they had said they would grant anything, he harbored at least a sliver of hope.
“Ah, now that I think of it, in my confusion I haven’t even asked about you.”
Where had he come from? How had he appeared here?
If his affiliation was certain, then Dang Won-hu might ease some of the doubt churning in his mind. Of course, if it was unclear, his suspicions would only deepen.
“I am a warrior of the Murim League, belonging to the Su-nyeong County Branch. My name is Sa U-rin.”
“A warrior of the Murim League, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dang Won-hu glanced at his daughter Dang I-ryeong as if to confirm this was true.
Dang I-ryeong nodded, her face still wet with tears.
“Yes, that’s right. I met him at the Su-nyeong County Branch.”
“The Su-nyeong County Branch, you say…”
“Yes. They were the ones who provided the intelligence that allowed us to eliminate the Demonic Cult Branch.”
A short, hollow laugh escaped him.
So that was how it was.
Just a simple warrior of the Murim League, and nothing more…
Well, at least his identity was certain, so there was no need for further suspicion—and for that he was grateful. Yet…
How could it be so absurd?
How could a common warrior of the Murim League possess such abilities?
Of course, he could.
But if so, wouldn’t he belong to the Secret Execution Division, the agency directly under the League Master that specially manages such individuals, rather than serving as an ordinary patrol warrior?
This very reasoning suggested that the League itself was still unaware of the boy’s true power.
And to top it all, he was a warrior of the Su-nyeong County Branch who had provided crucial intelligence for eliminating the Demonic Cult Branch.
By eliminating this one Demonic Cult Branch, the Sacheon Dang Family’s standing within the Murim League would solidify further.
In other words, the Su-nyeong County Branch had strengthened the Sacheon Dang Family’s position, ensuring that they could maintain their foothold in Sichuan Province.
Wasn’t that akin to the Su-nyeong County Branch becoming a branch not of the Murim League, but of the Sacheon Dang Family itself?
Working entirely for the Sacheon Dang Family.
No. Even that was insufficient to describe it.
It wouldn’t be mere exaggeration to call them not just a branch, but the very leadership guiding the Sacheon Dang Family itself.
He was making the Sacheon Dang Family greater than anyone else who belonged to it.

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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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