Murim Login - Chapter 595

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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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Chapter 595
Unlike my first arrival, the journey back was long and arduous.
My exhausted body felt heavy as water-logged cotton, and my eyelids kept drooping against the crushing tide of drowsiness.
‘I want to collapse right here.’
But that wasn’t an option.
I still had somewhere I needed to go, and before that, I had to drive away the hyenas gathering before me, drawn by the unmistakable scent of blood.
‘Quite the gathering.’
Stumbling out of Area A, I swept my half-lidded eyes across my surroundings.
The vast hall on the top floor I’d passed through once before. There, two hundred members of Ares Guild waited for me with tense expressions.
And spotting a familiar face at their head, I let out a sigh.
“Should’ve just killed him.”
Go Se-won, the middle-aged head of the Security Team at the front, answered my muttering in a calm voice.
“Yeah, that would’ve been a decent choice too.”
Go Se-won, fully recovered as if he’d received treatment during my absence, continued speaking while gazing at the sword in his hand.
“I first gripped a blade more than thirty years ago. I was trained even before my awakening. And on the day I awakened as an S-rank Hunter, the former Sub-Guild Master gave me this sword. The other Security Team members must have similar stories.”
It wasn’t particularly surprising. I’d heard from Choi Team Leader that Lee Jung-yong had taken in war orphans born from the Great Cataclysm and raised them as his personal guard based on their mana adaptation rates.
This man before me was simply one of them.
“So, are you going to take your revenge now?”
“…Revenge.”
Go Se-won, who had been growling quietly, suddenly opened his mouth.
“Before that, let me ask one thing. Why did you spare me?”
I paused to think before answering.
“Even so, I figured I should take the call.”
“What?”
“At least tell your family you’re working late. Or that you won’t be coming home. My father did neither. I just assumed he’d come back when the time came… but he never did. Now I can barely remember his voice.”
“….”
Whether from exhaustion or not, I’d said more than necessary. Go Se-won, who had been staring intently at me clicking my tongue softly, suddenly parted his lips.
“What about the Sub-Guild Master?”
Instead of answering, I shrugged. A fight where one of us had to die. Yet only I had emerged.
Go Se-won muttered with a complicated expression.
“He’s dead then.”
“Go up and check. The sight’s worth seeing.”
The moment my words ended, commotion spread among the Ares Guild members arrayed in an encircling formation.
Among them, executives who clearly belonged to the loyalist faction ground their teeth and pressed Go Se-won.
“Team Leader Go. What are you hesitating for!”
“We must eliminate him at once!”
“I already told you. Kill Jin Tae-kyung, and we won’t hold you accountable for revealing Area A’s location. Moreover, the Guild will provide substantial compensation. You could even challenge for the position of next Sub-Guild Master.”
Voices mixed with anger and temptation.
Toward Go Se-won, standing silently among them, I rubbed my dry eyes and spoke.
“I’m exhausted. If you’re done questioning me, I’ve got places to be. Let’s finish this quickly.”
Go Se-won’s piercing gaze swept across my entire frame.
“Even for you, this condition seems… difficult to manage.”
“That’s my concern, not yours.”
“…Fair enough.”
The moment Go Se-won replied in a low voice, his hand brushed against the sword hilt.
Slash! Crunch!
Blood erupted with a sharp, piercing sound.
One of the executives—the very man who had proposed the Sub-Guild leadership position to Go Se-won—collapsed with eyes wide open, blindsided by the unexpected strike.
“This insane…!”
“What are you doing!”
“Go, Go Team Leader!”
As the executives’ shouts erupted like a downpour, Go Se-won, who had single-handedly transformed the scene into chaos, spoke in a calm voice.
“Subdue them all. The fight is over.”
The executives in this room had much to lose, but the other guild members did not.
They had no direct connection to Seok Go-jun, nor did they seem willing to risk unnecessary danger.
Especially not when their opponent was a monster who had demolished the Ares Guild Headquarters single-handedly.
Clang clang clang clang!
“…!”
The moment Go Se-won’s order fell, weapons were leveled from all directions.
As the loyalist executives, realizing they had no chance of victory, groaned and lowered their weapons, Go Se-won turned his head to look at me.
“That was quick. How do you feel?”
“You….”
I started to speak, then simply nodded.
“It was worth saving you.”
“Thirty long years. Living as a hunting dog all that time. I’d say I’ve done my part.”
“A belated redemption, then?”
“I couldn’t say. I’m not that virtuous. But it doesn’t matter anymore now. For some time, it’s been beyond my strength.”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one exhausted. Go Se-won, his eyes weary as he surveyed the devastated surroundings, stepped aside.
“Go. No one will stop you.”
I didn’t hesitate and moved forward. And just as I was about to pass by Go Se-won, a soft murmur pierced my ear.
“…Tong-hwa, thank you.”
It was only a brief word, but it was enough.
I nodded slightly and walked past Go Se-won and the two hundred or so Ares guild members.
Step. Step.
I dragged my weary body forward, walking and walking still. I had to meet someone before the sun set.
* * *
I don’t remember clearly how I reached my destination. Only fragmented scenes remain in my memory.
The countless troops surrounding the devastated Ares Guild Headquarters and the combat drones filling the sky.
And the rigid face of President Baek Han-sung, who had arrived under strict security after brushing aside the objections of his aides.
“Jin Tae-kyung, what on earth is….”
Unable to find words, I made a single demand as a condition for my surrender, and President Baek Han-sung, after much deliberation, graciously accepted it.
That was the reason I could be here now.
“Hey, you!”
“Tae, Tae-kyung!”
Familiar faces approaching through my blurred vision. I wanted to smile and wave, but my body wouldn’t obey.
In that moment, Song Song-i and Lim Hyuk-jun hurriedly caught my stumbling form.
“Sorry. My legs gave out.”
“You’re saying that now, in this situation….”
Song Song-i, who had been about to say something, clamped her mouth shut. I asked her as she rubbed her reddened eyes.
“My family—they’re not here, are they?”
“Are you insane?”
Song Song-i answered sharply, then continued in a hushed voice.
“I sent guild members to keep them elsewhere. Fortunately, your mother is in the middle of cooking and doesn’t know anything. Ha-yeon, who’s with her, is just pretending not to know.”
Relief washed over me. I couldn’t even imagine how devastating it would have been if Mother had learned about me.
Fortunately, Ha-yeon is with her, so she’ll handle it well. She’s always had a deeper mind than me.
“And Choi Team Leader is safe. Though he hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“Thank you. For looking after things.”
“You….”
As Song Song-i gazed at me with conflicted eyes, Lim Hyuk-jun’s shoulders trembled.
“I’m sorry. Tae-kyung. I’m truly sorry….”
What was there to apologize for? What was there to grieve?
I wanted to say something in response to his sobs, but my throat tightened. Because I understood exactly what he was feeling.
The helplessness and guilt of being unable to help at all. Emotions that words could never fully express.
Before long, even Song Song-i turned away, tears streaming down her face.
‘Damn it.’
I clenched my teeth and deliberately looked away from my burning eyes. Then, barely managing to pull out my voice, I spoke.
“That person… Kim Butler—where is he?”
“He’s been waiting. From then until now.”
It wasn’t Lim Hyuk-jun or Song Song-i who answered. When I turned my head, a blonde foreigner standing before a door came into view.
“You’ve arrived. Cunning human.”
Skeleton King’s voice sounded distant. It was because of the sign that caught my eye before his face.
[Mortuary]
Those three characters made my heart sink. While I stood frozen like a statue in silence, Skeleton King opened the mortuary door.
And through the gap of the opening door… I saw a corpse covered in pristine white cloth.
“It is not proper etiquette to keep the deceased waiting, human.”
“…!”
“Will you send him off like this?”
At those words, I left Song Song-i and Lim Hyuk-jun behind and took a step forward, my feet heavy.
As I entered the mortuary, the door quietly closed behind me. In this space permeated with cold, there was only me and him. Only the two of us.
Swish.
With trembling hands, I lifted the pristine white cloth, and only then could I see it—Kim Hwa-jong’s face, meeting death with a faint smile at the corners of his lips.
He looked as though he were dreaming a pleasant dream. But I knew the truth. The dream he was having now would never end.
He would never again greet anyone with that gentle smile, dressed in a pressed suit.
He would never again wake early to offer me coffee.
Today, he had parted from us, and now we had to let him go.
Patter. Thud.
Something hot rolled down both my cheeks and fell away. They were tears I shed for the first time today—tears I should never shed again.
‘I swear it.’
As if I had returned to three years ago, I made a vow alongside my regret.
I was sorry. I would never again let someone leave me the way you did.
So please….
“Rest in peace.”
With those sincere, quiet words, I retrieved Seok Go-jun’s head from my inventory and set it down on the floor.
So the monster who had met death with eyes wide open could understand what it had done. So Kim Hwa-jong could depart with at least a measure of peace.
It was a promise I had made to myself, holding the cold hand of Noh Ji-sa as he slowly grew colder on that snow-covered Snow Mountain.
Whoooosh.
As if in understanding, Kim Hwa-jong’s face flushed crimson. Through the window of the mortuary, a violet sunset was casting its light.
In my blurred vision, I gazed blankly at that beautiful light and felt strength draining from my body.
‘Ah.’
This is the limit now. Both body and heart.
I slumped against the wall and sat down, surrendering to a drowsiness that pressed down with a weight greater than Tae-san itself, and I thought.
Today. It was such a long day.
* * *
Click.
With a faint sound, the firmly closed door opened.
A slender, beautiful woman, a middle-aged man with the bearing of a bandit, and a blonde foreigner who seemed to have stepped out of a magazine—they were first startled by the severed head with no owner, then felt sorrow at the peaceful face of the corpse at rest, and finally fell silent at the sight of the young man collapsed in sleep.
‘Jin Tae-kyung.’
In the eyes of those three pairs watching him, an indescribable emotion gathered.
What more could possibly be said now?
Today he had fought desperately against calamity and threat, and by becoming an outlaw himself, he had exacted the price for an innocent death.
In this moment, there was only one thing they could do.
‘Sleep well. Don’t worry about what comes next.’
Now the flames would spread in all directions. No one could know where they would be extinguished.
Yet even if the whole world condemned him for what happened today, even if the authorities came forward to brand him a criminal, they would stand by Jin Tae-kyung’s side.
They would protect him no matter what.
‘Just as you did for us.’
The warm glow of sunset suffused the mortuary.
One person’s long day had ended, but the day of three people had not. No—it would only grow busier.

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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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