I Shouldn't Have Joined the Martial Arts Alliance - Chapter 80

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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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Going recklessly into the Murim Alliance — Episode 080
“……Su-yeon.”
“Yeah. Say it.”
“It’s not that I was deceived by that child. Right now, you’re the one avoiding the truth of it.”
Jegal Su-yeon’s brow furrowed.
“……Me?”
Standing at the highest tier of the Murim Alliance, no less in the position of strategist—the very brain of the Murim Alliance.
“Yes. You.”
“……Then……, you’re saying it’s really true? I’m not the one being deceived?”
Bi-ryeong nodded with grave sincerity.
“What proof can you give me? That I’m not being deceived?”
“Do you know the Witch’s face?”
“Yes. Of course, only from a portrait.”
That was true.
Bi-ryeong had only seen a painted likeness, but it was not so very different from the real thing.
Though, of course, a portrait could hardly match reality.
“Call up the Witch’s face in your mind, and then lay Sa U-rin’s face over it. Then you’ll know.”
Jegal Su-yeon looked displeased, but since there was no harm in it, he obliged Bi-ryeong’s request.
And.
“……This…….”
“They’re alike, aren’t they? No—they’re identical.”
“……They are. But just this alone, to call it a parent-child relationship…….”
Across the Gangho, there were many who bore similar faces. Indeed, there were more than a few who resembled one another almost perfectly.
“Of course I wouldn’t do this on that alone. I saw it with my own eyes at the scene, Su-yeon. You don’t trust me? Have I ever misjudged before?”
“……No.”
Which made this all the more bewildering.
He trusted Bi-ryeong.
In every respect.
His abilities, his character as a person, and even the affection he held for him.
And yet, the fact that Sa U-rin and the Witch Jang Ryeo were parent and child—that was truly difficult to accept.
It made no sense at all.
“Then believe it. No—you must believe it. Because that’s the only way I can tell you the rest.”
“There’s more?”
“Yes. So you must believe.”
“Can’t you just tell me if I agree to believe?”
“If you only pretend, you might be put in danger.”
Even after hearing everything Bi-ryeong had to say, the Witch might still take other measures.
In that case, she would certainly move.
And then Su-yeon would be in peril.
“The Witch warned you, then?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“That child—Sa U-rin—warned us. Both you and me.”
“……That child?”
I didn’t see it that way…….
“Yes. So you must truly believe everything I’m telling you.”
Jegal Su-yeon gazed deeply into Bi-ryeong’s eyes.
He’d never seen him so grave.
“……Understood.”
“Good. Then I’ll tell you what that child wanted me to convey to you.”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
Jegal Su-yeon steadied himself and met Bi-ryeong’s gaze with equal gravity.
“He said he wants to make the Invisible Hand—not an invisible existence, but a visible one.”
“Bring it into the light?”
Was such a thing even possible?
It was something no one had managed in all these long years.
“Yes, that’s what he said.”
“And the message he wanted delivered to me means he’s asking whether I’ll join him or not?”
“Presumably.”
“And if I refuse to join?”
“He told me never to breathe a word about his connection to the witch.”
“And if you did?”
“……The witch would make her move. Oh, and there’s a master near her who appears to outrank me in standing.”
“……Really?”
“Yes. Do you have any sense of how strong that is?”
Jegal Su-yeon nodded.
“But since we can’t know exactly how strong the witch is…….”
The Evil Sect calls her their supreme lord, but there’s no way to gauge what level of martial prowess that actually represents.
The only certainty was that Jang Ryeo was an Absolute Master.
“I experienced it firsthand this time.”
“So?”
“The title ‘supreme lord’ doesn’t do her justice.”
Jegal Su-yeon’s eyes widened.
“……That means…….”
“Yes. Within what I know, at least among the righteous sects, there’s no one stronger than the witch. I’m leaving the Demonic Cult out of my assessment, naturally. Of course, that’s just my intuition. You understand?”
He understood.
More than understood.
Su-yeon never doubted Bi-ryeong’s word.
“……She was that powerful?”
“It shames me to say, but……before the witch, I could do nothing. I could only offer my neck.”
He couldn’t believe it.
No.
He didn’t want to believe it.
That a martial artist of the Evil Sect could be so strong.
“……Truly?”
“Yes. So bear this in mind and make your choice.”
Jegal Su-yeon fell into thought.
What choice could be called the right one?
The more he turned it over in his mind, the deeper he sank into the morass.
Yet somehow, the conclusion already felt inevitable.
All the thoughts he’d harbored, all the promises he’d made, all the goals he’d set—none of them had gone anywhere.
Su-yeon broke his silence at last.
“But here’s the thing.”
“What?”
“A thought just struck me.”
“Which is?”
“What if Sa U-rin—what if that boy somehow knows something of the Invisible Hand’s true identity? Maybe that’s why he decided to uncover who they are. What do you think?”
“It’s possible. Though no one’s ever known their identity before.”
“Because everyone who did is dead.”
“Right, of course.”
“But that boy came out alive. Which means…….”
“He might actually know something about their identity?”
“That’s what I think. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Bi-ryeong nodded vigorously.
“Exactly!”
With that, Su-yeon grabbed Bi-ryeong’s hand and pulled.
“Let’s go.”
“……Where all of a sudden?”
“To where the witch is.”
“……Why?”
“I need to tell her I’m joining in.”
“……Ah.”
“So come on, let’s move.”
“Su-yeon.”
“What?”
“Sa U-rin told me that boy said to wait until he finds what he’s looking for.”
“……That boy said that? Or the witch?”
“The boy.”
“……I see. This doesn’t sit right with me at all.”
A general receiving orders from a common soldier—that’s the peculiar position he found himself in.
“What else can we do?”
“Well, I suppose……”
There was no helping the unease that settled over him.
“So the Witch must be thinking the same way, then?”
“……It seemed different to me.”
Jegal Su-yeon’s eyes widened with confusion.
“The Witch thinks differently, yet you’re following that child’s wishes?”
That didn’t make sense.
By all accounts, Jang Ryeo should have become the leader.
“The Witch tried to kill me and you both.”
“……And?”
“That child did something then.”
“What did he do?”
Bi-ryeong reenacted exactly what Sa U-rin had done to Jang Ryeo.
He draped his arm around Su-yeon’s shoulder and spoke.
“Mother? Like this.”
“……What?”
“That child did this to the Witch and dragged her away.”
“……The Witch just went along without a word?”
“Yeah. She didn’t even squirm. That’s how I managed to come back alive.”
“……Come on.”
It was hard to believe.
The Witch, of all people.
Even if she was the supreme leader of the Evil Sect, still.
“I’m telling you the truth. That’s when I became certain they’re mother and child. You know the saying — no parent can overcome their own child.”
“……Really? The Witch was truly that docile?”
If that were the case, then Su-yeon thought he could truly, sincerely believe it.
“I’m telling you. The fact that I came back alive from standing before the Witch proves it.”
“……So the Witch is human after all.”
“No, she’s still the Witch — but Sa U-rin becomes a mother in front of that child.”
Su-yeon’s eyes opened wide with wonder.
“Wow. Our Bi-ryeong sounds surprisingly insightful.”
Bi-ryeong shrugged with delight.
“Even I have my moments, you know.”
Just then, a voice called from outside the door.
“Strategist. It is Bi-yeong Gakju.”
And so Jegal Su-yeon spoke.
“Would it be possible to come back later? We’re in the middle of an important discussion.”
Then came a reply from beyond the door.
“Strategist. This is an urgent report. There is nothing more grave than this at the moment.”
At that, Bi-ryeong nodded to Su-yeon, suggesting they hear out Bi-yeong Gakju’s report.
And so Su-yeon spoke.
“Then, come in.”
Bi-yeong Gakju hurried into the war room.
“……So the Chief was here as well.”
“Should I not hear this news?”
“No, you’ll learn of it soon enough anyway.”
“Then I shall stay.”
“Very well.”
Bi-yeong Gakju turned his urgent gaze toward Strategist Jegal Su-yeon.
“Strategist.”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“We’ve just received word that the Melma Brigade is charging toward the Honam Province Chief of Gaebang. We’ve also received word that all of the Biryong Brigade’s patrol units have departed to stop them.”
Both Jegal Su-yeon and Bi-ryeong, who stood beside him, opened their eyes so wide they resembled the glow of oil lamps.
“What?! What on earth……”
Such an absurd turn of events had erupted?
“If the Melma Brigade has moved, it must mean the Alliance Master issued the order directly?”
Bi-yeong Gakju answered with a deeply troubled expression.
“……That’s just it……, it is most peculiar.”
“Peculiar? If the Melma Brigade has moved, then naturally it was by the Alliance Master’s command.”
“……That’s right. It is, but……, the thing is……, another report came in that the Melma Brigade was ordered by the Alliance Lord to mobilize again—this time to stop the Melma Brigade.”
“What? What on earth does that even mean?”
“I……don’t quite understand it myself. In any case, word is that the Melma Brigade moved, and the Biryong Brigade moved as well.”
In that instant, Jegal Su-yeon’s eyes flew wide open. Then he turned to look at Bi-ryeong.
“The Biryong Brigade—that means Sa U-rin is…….”
Sa U-rin belonged to the Biryong Brigade.
Then Bi-ryeong’s eyes, too, snapped open.
“Surely not…….”
The Invisible Hand. Was it moving again?
* * *
The Honam Province Chief of Gaebang had been annihilated.
By none other than the Melma Brigade, which answered only to the Murim Alliance Lord’s commands.
Who could have imagined it?
The Murim Alliance, which should have stood at the center of the Baekdo Martial World—and more than that, the Melma Brigade, known as the Alliance’s supreme military force—had destroyed the Honam Province Chief of Gaebang with their own hands.
Yet the truly absurd part was this: those who had stopped the Melma Brigade were themselves Melma Brigade members.
Comrades striking at comrades, beating at comrades, fighting comrades.
Both sides claimed they had received orders from the Murim Alliance Lord.
One group had been ordered to annihilate the Honam Province Chief of Gaebang.
The other had been ordered to stop the Melma Brigade members who were attacking the Honam Province Chief of Gaebang.
In the end, the Honam Province Chief of Gaebang was annihilated. And the Melma Brigade was nearly destroyed in turn.
Only two survivors remained. Both grievously wounded.
They had drawn blades against one another. The result was brutal.
Sadly, the Biryong Brigade could do nothing. They had received their orders and set out, but arrived only after the deed was done.
And so.
Jang Hye-in, his men, and Sa U-rin had to accept the death of the Honam Province Chief.
Their spirits were heavy.
It felt like their own failure.
It was true that Jang Ryeo had leaked the information knowing full well the danger it posed. Yet even this knowledge could not ease the weight in the hearts of Jang Hye-in, his men, and Sa U-rin.
And they understood.
The Gaebang methods at the Honam Province headquarters and Chief Jang Ryeo…….
Had died in their stead.
“……This makes no sense at all…….”
There was no cause for celebration that they had returned alive from Guizhou Province.
“Damn dogs!”
They should have died that day at the Blood Rain Pavilion instead.
“……If they had…….”
Then they would not have had to witness this senseless spectacle!
“……This cannot be. It cannot be!”
How was this debt of blood to be repaid?!
The death of Jang Ryeo, who had leaked the information, one could perhaps accept…….
But the meaningless deaths of those dozens of Gaebang methods—what was the meaning of that?!
No one could answer.
No one could give an answer.
Yet whether an answer came or not, whether anyone spoke or not, they knew.
This is the Gangho.
This is why it is the Gangho.
Because all of them were living in the Gangho.

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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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