Murim Login - Chapter 376

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

Chapter 376
A sea of humanity.
There was no other way to describe the sight.
Word had spread that the Shanxi Sleeping Dragon—no, the Blazing Divine Dragon Jin Tae-kyung and the Huashan Divine Dragon Chung Poong were departing, and people had gathered like clouds.
Not only martial artists but fearless commoners as well swelled the crowd of well-wishers, forming an endless procession that stretched beyond counting.
“Safe travels, Blazing Divine Dragon!”
“The Sichuan martial world shall not forget you!”
“A horned serpent! The Huashan Divine Dragon possesses a horned serpent!”
“Goodness, the serpent performed a somersault in mid-air!”
“The Fire King! The Fire King is seizing the serpent to incinerate it!”
The murmur of the crowd gradually faded as the procession moved onward.
And atop a forsaken hillside, a boy sitting upon a tree stump—watching the entire spectacle unfold—suddenly opened his mouth.
“We’ve come so far.”
“Indeed we have, Master. The journey weighs heavily.”
As the elderly disciple collapsed onto the grass with labored breathing, the boy Moon-kyung murmured to himself.
“…Truly, we have come so far.”
He was not speaking of distance. Moon-kyung was reflecting upon the years that had passed.
“Do you remember when we first met?”
“How could I ever forget?”
The elderly disciple wiped the sweat from his brow, as though the scorching sun of that distant day still beat down upon him.
“The first year of the Hongwu era. That summer, which was unusually sweltering.”
It was the year a new emperor had ascended the throne after the civil war over succession had ended.
The young and ambitious emperor had changed the era name and attempted reforms, yet the common people, exhausted by the prolonged conflict, were too weary to heed the emperor’s will and participate in his vision.
“Rebellions erupted across the realm, and bandits infested every region.”
“Drought came, and locust swarms ravaged the plains. The corpses of imperial soldiers and rebels lay everywhere, and plague swept through the land.”
“Yes, truly an age of chaos.”
Death begat more death, and soon consumed the entire continent.
A young carpenter bearing the surname Dong could not escape the dark shadow that had descended upon the realm.
“Even now, I sometimes recall those days.”
Decades had transformed more than just mountains and rivers. The young carpenter, who had lost two beloved children and his wife to plague, had become an elderly physician.
“Had I been swifter, had I found you sooner, Master, might I not have saved my family?”
“Do you regret it?”
“Yes.”
Sitting upon the hillside near the heavens, gazing at drifting wisps of cloud, the elderly physician’s eyes had become those of the young carpenter once more.
“As long as breath remains in this body, I shall regret it for all my days.”
It had been merely a single day’s difference.
When the carpenter, his body ravaged by plague, had brought an unnamed elderly physician from the Slash-and-Burn Farmer Village, everything was already too late.
He had wept for an entire day and dug graves for his family. Then he made one request of the physician he had brought.
“Bury me with them. That is what I asked of you.”
Moon-kyung replied in a flat voice.
“So I struck your cheek.”
“It hurt terribly. I wished for death.”
The pain was not from the blow itself, but from the realization that I would never see my beloved wife and children again.
“You raised me up from that despair, Master.”
Moon-kyung shook his head.
“I merely extended my hand. It was your will that grasped it and rose.”
“I had to live. Because I had something I needed to do.”
By all rights, the carpenter should have perished from the plague as well.
Yet the Physician had cured him with medical techniques unlike anything I had ever witnessed, and the carpenter learned for the first time that even a mere human could alter the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death that Heaven had ordained.
“I still see it clearly—you kneeling before me, begging to become my disciple.”
“My memory differs from yours, Master. I recall you gesturing for me to follow.”
Thus the young carpenter who had lost his family found a new purpose, and the elderly physician who wandered the realm tending to the weak and impoverished gained a new disciple.
It was only after a long passage of time that Dong Bong, the carpenter who had become a physician, learned the true identity of his master.
“Sal-sung… truly a fearsome epithet. That was when I first felt my master as a stranger.”
Moon-kyung gazed beyond with an expressionless stare.
What he was about to say was something he had never once asked his disciple.
“Why did you not leave?”
“Did you truly believe I would abandon you, Master?”
“I have taken countless lives beyond measure. I was nothing but a wretched killer of ghosts, concealing my past. I would have understood if you had gone.”
“Perhaps that might have been true. But I knew far too well what kind of person you were.”
In the next moment, a quiet voice continued.
“The Divine Physician. My master is one called the Divine Physician. You are not one to commit needless slaughter.”
“…!”
Moon-kyung’s pupils trembled. It was a truth he had never spoken to anyone and that no one had wished to acknowledge.
Living as an assassin, he had taken countless lives without distinction—righteous, evil, or demonic. And each of them had possessed a reason to die.
The great hero of the Orthodox Sects, renowned for his impartiality, harbored a hobby of murdering women. A master of some heterodox sect had, for amusement, slaughtered an entire village.
Had the Demon Cult’s forces not invaded the Central Plains, indiscriminately killing and destroying all in their path, had the world’s greatest assassin not stepped forward to eliminate the notorious Demon Masters, he could never have earned the title Sal-sung.
“Had I not fought the Demon Cult, all under Heaven would have condemned me. As they always have.”
The epithet Sal-sung was merely an absolution granted to him by the Orthodox Sects, who had become masters of the Martial World, and a tribute to his strength.
Moon-kyung had always been Moon-kyung, yet the people never knew nor wished to know the truth hidden beneath.
“Why did you not reveal this?”
“It is all in the past. I wished to leave the Martial World, and I became a physician as I intended. And so I shall remain.”
Moon-kyung slowly rose to his feet. The long procession that had departed the Sichuan Tang Sect had already vanished beyond the horizon.
“Let us descend now. There are patients waiting for us.”
It was the moment he took his first step, his voice dry and measured.
“A great war will soon erupt.”
Moon-kyung’s footsteps halted abruptly. Behind him, his aged disciple’s voice continued.
“History will repeat itself. Countless will die and be wounded. Those who have lost parents and children will overflow everywhere, and cries and death will never cease.”
“…I shall be quite busy then. I must prepare.”
“Do you not already know what I am trying to say, Master?”
“I don’t wish to know.”
“Master.”
“I am a Physician. Though I broke my own vow and was forced to take lives, I shall not repeat such a mistake again.”
Moon-kyung continued slowly.
“Let them fight their battles. My duty is to heal the sick. My heart departed from the Murim long ago.”
“Then why have you not abandoned martial arts, Master?”
“…!”
Moon-kyung fell silent.
It was a question he had harbored within himself for a long time. If he truly despised killing and wished to leave the Murim, he should have abandoned martial arts entirely—the very instrument of death.
Yet his martial prowess had only advanced further. It was evidence that he could not release his attachment and lingering affection for the art.
‘Why is that?’
The elderly disciple’s voice broke through his brief reverie.
“Master, you possess the ability to heal hundreds, thousands of patients. Simultaneously, you are one who can save tens of thousands of lives.”
“….”
“Please prevent war as the Divine Physician, not as Sal-sung. This disciple shall care for the patients here.”
Moon-kyung suddenly lifted his gaze toward the heavens.
Clear and blue. Seven days ago, when the Sichuan Tang Sect was drenched in blood, the sky had been filled with dark clouds.
“The sky is clear.”
With a gruff voice, his halted footsteps resumed forward.
“I must attend to the patients. Come down slowly.”
Dong Bong’s voice scattered toward his master’s retreating back as he descended the hillside.
“The hour of Xu. They said departure is from the western harbor of Chengdu.”
“A futile endeavor. The Murim is not where I belong.”
Yet as the elderly disciple watched his master’s figure gradually recede, a faint smile played at the corners of his lips.
“May you be well, Master.”
Whoooosh.
A breeze from somewhere swept between the two of them.
* * *
“What are you looking at so intently?”
At Hyuk Moo-jin’s question, I turned my gaze away from the crowd surrounding the harbor.
“Nothing much. Just checking, you know.”
“Checking what exactly?”
“Why do you pry so relentlessly? If that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.”
At my response, Hyuk Moo-jin laughed meaningfully.
“Actually, I understand completely. Why you’re doing this, Captain.”
“…?”
I hesitated for a moment. How could he know that? Even Chung Poong hadn’t heard the conversation between me and the Divine Physician.
‘His perception is sharper than I thought.’
Just then, he whispered softly.
“Aren’t you looking at the young woman standing fourth from the right in the front row over there?”
“….”
“She’s certainly beautiful. Looks like a well-bred young lady from an affluent family. If the sect leader permits, I, as your right hand, could slip away and arrange a private meeting….”
“Moo-jin.”
“Yes? Ah, perhaps you prefer a more natural encounter? In that case….”
“Would you like to sink to the bottom of the Yangtze River?”
“…!”
“Stop spouting nonsense and keep lying there. Just don’t vomit later complaining about motion sickness.”
“…Yes, sir.”
Gung Ki-bang chuckled at the sight of Hyuk Moo-jin deflating quietly.
“What a fool. It’s not the fourth from the right, but the third from the left. Any eye can see she’s far more beautiful—your eyes must be crooked.”
“Want me to make your eyes crooked?”
“…I apologize.”
“Let’s live like decent people. Like decent people.”
With a sigh, I shook my head and swept my gaze across the crowd gathered like clouds one last time.
Both were certainly beautiful, but the third from the left that Gung Ki-bang mentioned was more my style… no, wait, that’s not it.
‘Damn it, those fools keep making me look at her with all their chatter.’
As I was thinking such thoughts, Geo Han, a man with a bronzed, sturdy build, approached me and spoke.
“Listen here, junior. Or rather, not junior but Jin So-hyup, or rather, Great Master Jin.”
What is this, buffering?
I offered a solution to Moo-song, who was changing his form of address like lightning striking beans.
“Just call me junior, sir.”
“Ahem. Is that… acceptable?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? You did it fine before.”
“Still, you’ve accomplished such great deeds, haven’t you?”
That’s true. I’ve gone from being a regional celebrity in Shanxi Sleeping Dragon to becoming nationally famous.
“And it seems Great Master Jeok doesn’t particularly favor me either….”
“It’s fine. He simply dislikes water.”
Where Moo-song glanced, Jeok Cheon-gang stood with a visibly angry expression.
Right beside him, Jin Wi-kyung was examining some bamboo slips for some reason, while Chung Poong was teaching Mi-mi a new technique.
“Mi-mi, ride the waves!”
Screech, splash splash splash!
…Was that a water snake?
Moo-song, who had briefly lost his attention to this rare and wondrous sight, opened his mouth with a slightly bitter expression.
“Anyway, the departure preparations are already complete. When should we set sail?”
“What time is it now?”
“The hour you mentioned has already passed. It would be better to depart before it gets any darker.”
“…I see.”
“Is there perhaps someone else who will be joining us?”
I pondered briefly at Moo-song’s question before shaking my head.
“No. There isn’t.”
“Then we may depart.”
“Let us do so.”
“Understood.”
As Moo-song raised his hand sharply, the water assassins who had already completed their preparations moved in perfect unison.
It was the very moment when the gathered crowd, assembled to bid us farewell, began waving their hands toward us.
“Wait, wait just a moment!”
“Stop, stop!”
The bow of the swift vessel that was pulling away from the harbor trembled.
I spotted a young boy pushing through the crowd in the distance and let out a quiet chuckle.
“Let’s take one more passenger aboard.”

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