I Shouldn't Have Joined the Martial Arts Alliance - Chapter 36

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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 Alliance without good reason — Chapter 36
Left him both bewildered and confused.
But what was this familiar feeling?
The Witch drew steadily closer, and with each step the familiarity transformed into something warm and comforting.
Which only deepened his confusion.
Feeling warmth—not mere familiarity—from the Supreme of Sapha, the Witch herself?
‘Have I lost my mind?’
It was certainly worth suspecting.
Jang Hye-in and the members of Team 11 seized their trembling legs and stepped forward to shield Saurin, though their efforts fell short—the youngest member stood taller than all of them.
Still, they managed to block what they could.
The Witch’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt. She scowled, her words clipped and sharp.
“Want to die? Are you refusing to move?”
Jang Hye-in, standing at the front, swallowed his fear and spoke first as the leader.
“We cannot do that.”
The other members did not remain silent.
“We cannot permit it!”
“Please, spare our youngest member!”
“What has our youngest done to deserve this?!”
“No matter your station as Supreme of Sapha, you cannot simply slaughter people without cause!”
The Witch’s scowl melted away, replaced by a bright smile. She seemed to understand what was happening.
“Ah. So that’s it. I see. You people seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding?”
Misunderstanding, nothing—he’d freeze to death first.
He’d heard everything from Master Dok-wang!
So Jang Hye-in gripped his shaking limbs with the mental fortitude of a leader and asked carefully.
“What… misunderstanding… are we… under?”
“Why would I kill Saurin? I’m not going to kill him.”
“You’re… truly serious?”
“I’m telling you. So move aside, will you? I’d like to see our handsome Saurin’s face.”
Our Saurin?
He truly was losing his grip on sanity. Yet even so, a faint hope was beginning to bloom—perhaps she wasn’t going to kill him after all.
“You truly mean it? We can truly believe you?”
“I’m Jang Ryeo. You don’t know me?”
A Witch, no less. Which only made trust harder to come by.
“Honestly, it’s difficult to…”
“Fine. Normally I don’t like to boast, but you’ve all heard, haven’t you? That I killed those brats because of Baek Ri-se?”
Everyone nodded.
“Yes, we heard as much.”
Which was precisely why they were terrified now.
“Why do you think I killed them?”
Out of boredom?
Because I missed the scent of blood?
“I… cannot say.”
“Because they were trying to kill our Saurin. Isn’t that right? Of course it is.”
That phrase grated on him. Our Saurin.
Jang Hye-in himself hadn’t yet begun speaking that way…
“Yes, that’s… correct.”
“So my subordinates cleaned up all the assassins who were trying to kill Saurin, didn’t they?”
Cleaned up was a generous word for it.
Disposing of the bodies and cleaning the blood had taken quite some time.
But regardless.
“Then… the assassins who were killed that day…”
“That’s right. They were my subordinates following my orders. Do you understand now? I have no reason to kill Saurin. If anything, thanks to me, our Saurin survived, and I saved all of you who had nothing to do with me. Though that was only because of our Saurin.”
“…If that is the truth, then yes…”
Even so, he couldn’t quite bring himself to take the Witch’s words at face value.
“But something troubles me. Why do you think I was trying to kill Saurin?”
So Jang Hye-in recounted, in abbreviated form, the story he’d heard from Master Dok-wang.
When the Witch—Jang Ryeo—finished listening, her face sharpened into a point.
“That old geezer said that? Really?”
“Yes. That is what we heard…”
“That old fool. Unbelievable. But then…”
“……What?”
“Why is Saurin still blocking the way?”
“……Well, that is…….”
At that moment, Saurin burst through the crowd from behind.
“Everyone.”
“Saurin.”
“It’s all right. I’m the reason you’ve all come here—I should be the one to step forward.”
The Witch Jang Ryeo’s face brightened as she faced Saurin directly.
“Oh my. Handsome indeed. As expected, my features haven’t gone anywhere.”
But what did Saurin’s good looks have to do with the Witch’s face……?
Saurin’s eyes reflected confusion as he asked. The members of Team 11 behind him felt much the same.
“What do you mean by that? And why are you looking for me?”
Suddenly the Witch Jang Ryeo stretched out her hand. She pointed to a ring fitted on one of her fingers.
“Have you ever seen this ring?”
“What? This ring…….”
Saurin drew out the ring hanging from his neck. It was something left by his father——or rather, not left behind, but one of the two things Saurin had kept after his father passed away.
One was the sword Saurin wore now.
Saurin compared the ring on Jang Ryeo’s hand with the ring hanging from his neck again and again.
“What is this?”
“This ring is proof of love between your father Cheol-gang and me.”
Had he not heard it from Elder Dok-wang?
That Jang Ryeo had loved his father. But that it had not come to pass, he had heard. Yet the fact that they both wore the same ring surely proved that there had been a link in the love between his father and the Witch.
“And there is one more thing. It’s you, Saurin.”
“……Me?”
“Yes, you. You were born from my womb. So you are my son, and I am your mother.”
“……!”
Even for Saurin, who ordinarily betrayed little expression on his face, the words that had just come from the Witch’s lips were impossible not to be startled by.
In an instant, silence enveloped the entire Branch.
Yet inside the heads of Jang Hye-in and the Team 11 members, all was noise and confusion.
‘……What in the hell is this nonsense……?’
‘……I’ve heard all sorts of rubbish in my time…….’
‘……But I’ve never heard rubbish like this before.’
Jang Hye-in, shocked beyond measure, looked once at the Witch with wide, blinking eyes, and once at the youngest member Saurin’s face.
“Surely not…….”
Unable to believe it, he took another look to confirm.
“……Really……, they do look alike……. No, they’re identical, aren’t they?”
“Wh—where?”
“Seriously?”
The team members began scrutinizing the Witch’s face. Then they held it up against the youngest member’s.
“……My god.”
“……It’s true.”
“This is unmistakable…….”
“So damn beautiful……, so damn handsome…….”
“Ah…….”
They say you can steal anything in the world, but you can’t steal blood…….
“That’s why…….”
So that’s why it had felt so familiar. So comfortable.
Yet for all that, it had come so suddenly and without warning that belief came hard, and understanding harder still.
Jang Ryeo stretched both arms wide to either side.
“My son Saurin. Let me give you an embrace.”
“…….”
Saurin had never once embraced even his father. How could he suddenly embrace a woman who had appeared out of nowhere and claimed to be his mother?
“What are you doing? Won’t you come? Do you dislike me?”
“That is…….”
“Do you want to die? Come here at once!”
“…….”
The mouths of Jang Hye-in and the team members fell open wide.
Shouldn’t a moment like this be one where they embraced each other and wept?
Shouldn’t a tide of emotion wash over them, tears streaming freely?
It was much the same in stories as it was in life.
But the Witch was different.
Seeing her son for the first time—or rather, seeing him again after so long through the Witch’s lips—and asking “Want to die?” like that?
What on earth…….
Should I say she’s truly a Witch? Or just call her plain mad?
And Saurin, who didn’t shed a single tear, was no better.
It seemed they really were mother and son—the resemblance was unmistakable.
Absurdly so.
Saurin walked slowly and found himself embraced in the arms of the Witch Jang Ryeo.
He wasn’t seeking her embrace out of fear that he might die. Saurin simply wanted to experience this, just once.
He’d seen it often as a child, and hadn’t he envied it?
Watching his friends run to their mothers’ arms.
That’s why. Not because the Witch Jang Ryeo said she’d kill him.
No—she was his mother now.
Yes, his mother.
Saurin finally nestled into Jang Ryeo’s—into his mother’s—embrace.
Jang Ryeo, brimming with joy and delight, patted his back.
“Oh, my boy. How have you been?”
“Well, as you can see.”
Jang Ryeo held him briefly, then pulled back to look at him, and Saurin stepped away.
“Let me see. You’re truly handsome. You definitely take after me. If you’d inherited your father’s looks, you wouldn’t look like this, would you?”
“I suppose…….”
His father couldn’t be called handsome, exactly. Manly-looking, perhaps, but not handsome.
“But have you seen me before?”
“Of course. I nursed you at my breast until you were one year old.”
He hadn’t known.
His father had never told him, so how could he have known?
“Oh? There’s wine here, and meat too? Shall we drink and talk? What do you say, son?”
“Sounds good.”
So the Witch Jang Ryeo and Saurin settled at the wine table that had been prepared.
And following them, Jang Hye-in and the members of Team 11 gathered around as well.
“Want to die?”
The Witch’s words were directed at Jang Hye-in and the team members. Their hearts shrank to the size of beans in an instant.
“……Yes? Why…….”
This woman threatened to kill people at the drop of a hat.
“How dare you sit at the same table as me? You want to die?”
“No…….”
It was such a moving moment, and the atmosphere seemed so good…….
It seemed they’d forgotten, even momentarily, that she was a Witch.
“……We apologize.”
Jang Hye-in and the team members then withdrew, lifting themselves from where they’d sat.
But then.
“No. Just sit. You’re my Saurin’s colleagues, after all.”
‘……Wait, she just contradicted herself…….’
‘This woman’s impossible to read…….’
‘I don’t know which way to turn.’
Jang Hye-in and the team members hesitated for a moment.
“Well? Come on, sit down.”
“……Ah, yes. Thank you.”
So everyone settled around the table.
“My boy. Will you pour your mother a drink?”
“Of course.”
Suddenly the Witch turned to Jang Hye-in and spoke.
“But you’re awfully stiff, aren’t you? Is it because I make you uncomfortable? Or does our boy take after his father Cheol-gang and have that same rigid nature?”
It was a genuinely difficult question.
“I don’t know your husband well enough to say…….”
“I see. Then never mind. Saurin, what’s your take?”
“I’m simply not one who speaks much.”
“I understand. That’s fine. Just pour the wine.”
“Yes.”
Saurin poured wine for the Witch Jang Ryeo—or rather, for his mother. The team members gathered around then began holding out their cups one and all, asking him to pour for them as well.
Jang Hye-in tried to signal him not to, but the team members paid no attention to his warning.
They were all men, after all, and the Witch Jang Ryeo had bewitched them with her beauty.
Frightened, fearful though they were, before a woman who possessed such transcendent beauty, a man’s instincts could not help but—no.
They had seized control.
And so the Witch, possessed of such transcendent beauty, opened her mouth.
“You want to die? Huh? Because I do it, you all follow suit? Is that it?”
The offered cup vanished with startling speed, as though it had never been held back. Then, without being asked, they fell to their knees.
The thought that she might actually kill them weighed heavily.
“We apologize.”
“You’ve all survived because of our Saurin. I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“So from now on, treat our Saurin like he’s your master. You lot can pour and drink as you see fit. Understood?”
He was already little different from a master anyway, but she insisted nonetheless.
“Understood.”
The Witch Jang Ryeo’s gaze suddenly turned toward Jang Hye-in.
“Why aren’t you kneeling?”
“I didn’t offer you a drink, did I?”
“Aren’t you the captain of this lot?”
“Yes.”
“You trained them poorly, so you kneel too.”
“Yes.”
And so Jang Hye-in knelt as well.
“My son should have a drink too, shouldn’t he?”
And so Jang Ryeo poured a drink for her son, whom she had just met, and passed the bottle to Jang Hye-in.
“Drink up.”
“Yes.”
“Shall we toast to my son?”
Beneath the bright smile of moonlight and the twinkling eyes of starlight, Jang Ryeo’s cup and Saurin’s cup met.
And they drank.
This time Saurin spoke first.
“I’m curious.”
“About how I met Cheol-gang?”
“Yes.”
And so for a full thirty minutes, the love story of Jang Ryeo and Cheol-gang flowed from her lips into Saurin’s ears, settling into his mind, warming his heart.
And Saurin felt the coldness that had lingered in his mind and heart for eighteen years begin to thaw.
“How was it?”
“It was beautiful.”
Until now, Saurin had not known. Had never realized that a corner of his heart had been empty.
But the love story of his father and mother alone had begun to fill that hollow corner with something that had never existed before.
“So what I’m asking is—how about you follow your mother?”
He had been meaning to make an attempt at persuading him along the lines Dok-wang had suggested.

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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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