Murim Login - Chapter 613

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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 613
The Training Room was silent once again today.
The floor was scattered with countless varieties of weapons, and the walls—reinforced with self-repair magic—lay in devastating ruin.
And at the center of it all… there I sat in lotus position, lost in contemplation.
‘Just a little more. Just a bit further.’
I was almost there.
The final piece of this enormous puzzle.
Immediately after parting ways with Jin Ho, I had thrown myself into the Training Room, now engaged in the final work to find that one piece.
Even if stress caused all my hair to fall out, even if the worst came to pass and I faced the crisis of demonic possession, I had to persevere.
By any means necessary, I had to complete this puzzle before I left.
‘For the sake of the future that lies ahead.’
I had only recently begun searching for the final piece of the puzzle, but the decision to complete it had come months ago.
Yes, it was likely after the battle with the Arch Lich, which I had named the Minor Cataclysm.
‘If things continue as they are, everyone will be in danger.’
A thought that struck me suddenly one day.
And as time passed, that anxiety transformed into certainty.
Mana levels were rising abnormally, monsters were growing stronger in turn, and casualties—which had dramatically decreased after the Major Cataclysm—were now occurring everywhere once more.
Modern humanity needed another form of power, and after much deliberation, I made my decision.
I would create a martial art.
To face the mounting dangers and calamities, I would distribute new swords and shields to these people.
Of course, it was far from easy. It had to be stable enough for even the lowest-ranked Hunters to master, yet powerful enough that it wouldn’t be exploited by the wicked.
But… at last, I had found the final piece of this massive puzzle.
‘Yes, this is it.’
A single path, perfected after hundreds of attempts.
The moment I completed the mental cultivation technique that I had yet to name.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
As if celebrating my success, a sharp notification burst forth.
* * *
Choi Min-woo, who had recently been appointed as the Guild Master of the Peace Guild and Sub-Guild Master of the Ares Guild, was swamped with work.
During the week he had been away, the number of matters requiring his attention had ballooned to hundreds, and his hastily assigned personal secretary was breaking into a cold sweat fielding calls from powerful figures coming from all directions.
“G-Guild Master. The Blue House has sent a proposal for a lunch meeting.”
“The political and business circles are requesting your attendance at a networking event…”
“The Guild Alliance has submitted a proposal regarding Gate-related business partnerships…”
“Regarding the establishment of overseas branches…”
Some proposals were impossible to refuse, others easily dismissible, but Choi Min-woo’s answer was always the same.
“Understood. Schedule it.”
Choi Min-woo moved according to a schedule arranged down to the minute. Living like a working machine, he barely slept.
Those around him cast worried glances at how precariously busy he appeared.
“Please, just choose one. Team Leader Choi. Guild Master Choi. Sub-Guild Master Choi. Which title should we use for you?”
“Call me Team Leader. That’s when we first met, after all.”
“Alright then, Choi Team Leader. I’ll be direct with you… take a break. Cut back on your schedule, and delegate the minor tasks to your secretary.”
“That’s right, Choi Team Leader. No matter how young you are, you can’t keep going like this or you’ll wear yourself out.”
“I’m fine. Please don’t worry about me, either of you.”
“Choi Team Leader.”
“No, please don’t—”
“I’m fine.”
Faced with Choi Min-woo’s calm, repetitive answer, both Song Song-i and Lim Hyuk-jun found themselves unable to say anything more.
Yet somehow, though the words that reached their ears were the same as before, the sentiment that touched their hearts was different.
I’m fine.
Choi Min-woo, having left behind those words—identical yet somehow altered—continued to bury himself in work.
Even after letting go of his personal secretary who had offered some assistance, he spent his days in a blur of increasingly hectic schedules.
It was hardly surprising that a conversation about him arose during a private meeting with President Baek Han-sung one day.
“You seem quite busy these days.”
“That’s what makes it good.”
“I hear you’ve stopped keeping a secretary altogether… is there some particular reason for that?”
“Coffee.”
“Pardon?”
“She couldn’t make coffee properly. That’s all.”
President Baek Han-sung laughed it off as a joke, but every word Choi Min-woo spoke was sincere.
Choi Min-woo found comfort in being consumed by work, and the coffee his young secretary used to make had tasted strangely unpleasant.
And he was grateful that, even if only temporarily, he could forget the longing and sorrow for someone who kept surfacing in his thoughts.
“I’ve said something rather pointless. Shall we move on to the next agenda?”
Day after day.
While Jin Tae-kyung repeated his training in isolation, Choi Min-woo isolated himself even while meeting countless people.
Perhaps that was why, one day, a name suddenly came to mind.
On that day, as he relentlessly drove himself forward as always, the longing he had suppressed deep within his heart finally surfaced.
“Restaurant Manager, turn the car around.”
“Excuse me? But as far as I know, the next scheduled location is—”
“Cancel all today’s appointments. There’s somewhere I need to go.”
Leaving behind the bewildered gaze of the driver reflected in the rearview mirror, Choi Min-woo sank deep into the limousine seat.
Bathed in the warm spring breeze and sunlight filtering through the half-open window, he headed toward the place where he would meet that one person.
Step. Step.
The hillside he climbed alone was high and steep, and Choi Min-woo’s footsteps were heavy. Or perhaps it was his heart that bore the weight.
The sorrow and guilt for one person he could never reach, no matter how many hundred or thousand times he climbed this steep path, pressed down upon Choi Min-woo’s heart.
Pluck. Pluck.
Along the way, he gathered an armful of spring flowers whose buds had just begun to bloom. The pure white violets seemed insufficient, so he mixed in the vivid crimson flower moss that clustered along the path.
He had always said that he loved the color red.
‘Yet he always wore black suits.’
Only recently had I learned what his favorite color truly was. Why he had sold all those motorcycles.
Why he had quit drinking, which he had been so close to, and trimmed the shaggy beard and long hair he had cultivated, combing them back neatly with a part.
‘Why did you do that? You were all I needed.’
I came to understand everything, but everything had come too late.
Choi Min-woo walked forward, feeling the ache in his chest.
Atop the warm, well-ventilated Hillside, a large mound awaited him, and the three characters carved into the granite monument shone with particular clarity.
In memory of Kim Hwa-jong.
What words could I offer? Choi Min-woo’s lips parted as he gazed blankly at Noh Ji-sa, resting not on the cold Snow Mountain, but on this warm Hillside.
“I’ve come.”
Eyes that were always composed trembled faintly. Choi Min-woo clenched his quivering lips and continued slowly.
“…Grandfather.”
That single word, held only in my heart and never spoken once during his lifetime, now flowed forth.
Whoooosh.
A wind from somewhere swept across Choi Min-woo’s entire body. The grass blanketing the Hillside bowed at the waist, and tree branches waved their hands.
And in the next moment, Choi Min-woo’s body went rigid as he set down the bouquet beside the mound.
‘That is…’
His eyes widened with questioning. His gaze halted at the back of the monument.
There, where he had not yet noticed until now, another inscription had been carved.
You’ve come.
Thank you, and I love you.
Be happy.
“…!”
Who had carved these words? It was a question he should naturally have asked, but for now it mattered not.
Choi Min-woo stood frozen like a statue, gazing endlessly at those brief sentences.
Like flowers swaying in the wind, his heart too was shaken. Something that surged up from deep within his chest constricted his throat and burned his eyes with heat.
“Ah.”
In that moment when everything became numb and a stifled sigh escaped him.
“You came quickly. I thought I’d have to wait at least a few more days.”
A voice suddenly reached his ears.
In Choi Min-woo’s field of vision as he turned, the figure of someone holding a small box came into view. It was the Skeleton King.
Why was he here? What did he mean by saying he had waited?
Yet such questions vanished as soon as they arose.
What I needed now was not reason, but warmth. It was an answer to a question I could not find the solution to myself.
“May I ask just one thing?”
Had it been the usual Skeleton King, he would have answered curtly that it was not allowed.
But this time was different. He nodded readily.
“Anything.”
“If it had been Jin Tae-kyung… what would he have done in a situation like this?”
It was an abrupt question, but the Skeleton King immediately grasped its meaning.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because he is the strongest person I know.”
The Skeleton King, who had been silently regarding Choi Min-woo, answered in a low voice.
“He must have cried. Without a doubt.”
“…!”
“And he’ll overcome it, continuing to live on. Forever remembering the one who departed.”
That alone was enough.
Choi Min-woo shed the tears he had been holding back. Sorrow and regret. Longing and guilt flowed away with his tears.
And the Skeleton King quietly withdrew, his thoughts turning inward.
The items contained in this box would be better delivered a little later, he decided.
Simultaneously, he recalled what Jin Tae-kyung had said to him half a day ago when entrusting him with this.
‘I’m sorry, but I need to ask you one favor.’
‘No. Absolutely not. Go back.’
‘Pass this to Choi Team Leader. No one else. Only him.’
‘Damn human. Now you won’t even pretend to listen. Do I look like some errand boy to you?’
‘Not an errand boy—I trust you, which is why I can entrust this to you.’
‘…What exactly am I supposed to deliver?’
‘Martial arts.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll understand when I say it that way. There’s a letter in the box—make sure he reads it.’
‘No. How am I supposed to find someone I can’t even see these days….’
‘Wait at Kim Butler’s grave. Before then, even if you meet, don’t say a word. He’ll probably need time to overcome this.’
In the Skeleton King’s assessment, Jin Tae-kyung was an utterly strange human.
The way they had met at the cemetery, just as he’d said, was proof enough.
But it was even more evident from the fact that once he fell asleep, not a single eyelash would twitch even if you grabbed his collar and shook him awake.
‘Damn it. This creature dares to assign me such trivial errands, then sleeps peacefully on his own?’
He had been so emphatic about not waking him that by now he was surely dead asleep.
The more the Skeleton King thought of Jin Tae-kyung, the more irksome he found him, but if he was being honest, his mood was strangely not terrible at all.
‘I trust you, so I’m entrusting this to you. Trust, is it? Hmm. Mm.’
The Skeleton King, holding the box and recalling Jin Tae-kyung’s single phrase, nodded slowly to himself.
“…Have good dreams, you cunning human.”
Whoooosh.
The wind blows once more. One person’s quiet sobbing and the voice of a monster who had grown close to humanity were buried beneath the breeze.

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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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