Murim Login - Chapter 621

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

Chapter 621
“Let’s move forward. Wherever your destination lies, I shall lead the way.”
I gazed at Nam Ho, the elderly Shadow Pavilion agent who displayed such unwavering resolve despite his advanced years, with a look of genuine admiration.
“To think you would lead the way even to the gates of the afterlife itself. I find myself at a loss for words to express my gratitude for the righteousness you have shown us, Elder Nam.”
“Now, I never said I’d follow you all the way to the gates of the afterlife….”
“Your joints must ache terribly these days, and your memory surely falters often, yet you step forward for us regardless. We are truly grateful for your invaluable assistance.”
“…You humble me. Listening to your words, I feel strength and vigor surging through this old body once more.”
“Please, there is no need for such gratitude.”
Nam Ho, who had been regarding me with a somewhat stern expression, suddenly opened his mouth to speak.
“But where exactly do you intend to go? My thoughts may differ, but first I would like to hear your intended destination.”
Destination. Rather than answer immediately, I glanced toward the empty space before me.
The empty space was truly nothing more than a void, utterly vacant.
Yet as had happened countless times before, my eyes perceived information within that emptiness that no one else in this place could see.
Quest
[Southern Barbarian Beast Palace]
The Southern Barbarian Beast Palace is one of the most prominent colossal powers classified as Beyond the Frontier, situated in the deepest and most secretive location within the already extremely insular Southern Wilderness.
However, the Central Plains martial world now requires their assistance for the great war that approaches. The time has come to awaken the jungle’s sleeping beast that has slumbered for so long.
Or perhaps… to rescue the beast that faces a crisis yet unrevealed.
Rank
: Transcendent
Restriction
: Jin Tae-kyung and Fire Dragon Pavilion personnel
Objective
: Arrive at Southern Barbarian Beast Palace (Incomplete)
Reward
: Linked Quest
???
Failure
: ???
This was a newly updated linked quest that had appeared shortly after meeting Nam Ho, and it served as a milestone that aligned perfectly with my own thoughts.
“The Southern Barbarian Beast Palace. We intend to travel to the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.”
At my belated response, Nam Ho nodded slowly, his eyes growing distant and contemplative.
* * *
The Southern Wilderness was vast yet treacherous beyond measure.
Though its land area was smaller than Sichuan, the effort required to traverse it was incomparable to that of the Central Plains.
“I recall the Pavilion Master once saying something of this nature—that ten li in the Southern Wilderness equals one hundred li in the Central Plains.”
Should anyone fail to comprehend Nam Ho’s words, they would surely be someone who had never set foot upon Southern Wilderness soil.
We of the Fire Dragon Pavilion came to understand all too clearly within mere half a day just how wretched this land truly was.
Whiiing. Thwack!
“Moo-jin, what was that sound just now?”
“It’s nothing serious. Just a mosquito. My neck suddenly stung, so I was wondering what it was.”
“Ah, is that so? Still, be careful. Just in case, should we call Old Master Nam and ask him about it?”
“Come on, Captain. Do you think I’m a child? I’m Hyuk Moo-jin, the Warrior of Reversal, who fought countless fierce battles at the right flank of Yeolhwa Shinryong! That’s who I am.”
And exactly one hour later, the Warrior of Reversal Hyuk Moo-jin collapsed, vomiting violently.
“Bleeeegh!”
“Gasp, Moo-jin!”
“What in the world is happening!”
“Old Master Nam! Moo-jin has collapsed!”
“Even if I’m old, I can see when someone’s fallen. Did a mosquito bite him?”
“Cough, yes. About an hour ago, one with blue stripes bit me….”
“Blue stripes? And an hour ago? Antidote. Bring the antidote quickly!”
Fortunately, getting the Warrior of Reversal back on his feet wasn’t particularly difficult.
I had fifty antidotes—both the Myriad Poison Ring, a treasure of the Sichuan Tang Family, and antidotes received as Quest rewards.
But that didn’t mean we could relax.
“Originally, they swarm in groups of dozens, hunting even ferocious beasts. If we’d been just one hour later, he wouldn’t be of this world anymore.”
With Nam Ho’s grave warning, we resumed our journey. We ventured deeper and more covertly to avoid the eyes of the foreign tribes who would charge at us Han Chinese with eyes rolled back in their heads.
And that meant we were heading toward an even more dangerous place.
“Tae-san! Tae-san’s belly hurts so much! It feels like it’s going to tear!”
“Old Master Nam!”
“What did he eat now!”
“Tae-san got hungry and plucked red mushrooms blooming on a tree and ate them.”
“Have I ever seen such a worthless fool! Despite all my warnings, he ate Blood Sacrifice Fungus, which even tigers can’t endure, simply because he was hungry? This won’t even respond to antidotes!”
Nam Ho unleashed his extreme rage in person, but his fury soon transformed into bewilderment.
This was because Tae-san, who had eaten the Blood Sacrifice Fungus that even tigers couldn’t endure, went into the grass, took care of his business, and emerged looking as clean and refreshed as if he’d been washed.
“Tae-san. Now that I’ve emptied out, I feel comfortable. I’m fine now.”
“…Is that thing even human?”
Sa Ma-pyo, who had been pondering for a moment at Nam Ho’s sincere question, answered in an uncertain voice.
“Probably so.”
“Tae-san. My stomach’s empty, so I’m hungry again.”
“I swear by heaven and earth, if you eat mushrooms like that one more time, you’ll never know hunger again.”
“Ooh. Tae-san. That sounds tempting.”
“…I regret it now. If I had learned martial arts, I would have struck that fool down in a single move by now.”
Leaving behind the lament of the elderly Shadow Pavilion agent, our steps continued onward.
Wherever our feet took us, dense jungles and humid, sweltering heat awaited us, and the eyes of ferocious beasts lurking throughout the thick grass and swamplands gleamed with a yellowish light.
‘Did I somehow end up in the Amazon instead of the Southern Wilderness?’
Literally a godforsaken land.
What kind of place was this? Tigers appeared more frequently than stray cats in a college town, and crocodiles swarmed like tadpoles in Clear Stream Heaven.
Of course, even this paled in comparison to the Exotic Poisonous Flowers and Grasses that could kill you just from their scent, and the wasps that carried stingers larger than their own bodies.
At least the ferocious beasts were noticeable because of their size.
There was good reason why Hyuk Moo-jin had groaned in pain just a day or two after leaving Yeongin.
“The Southern Beast Palace or whatever—the fellow looks like he’ll kick the bucket in a day or two.”
Even if not in a day or two, within four days his life would be in genuine danger. The man who had been poisoned four times on the first day alone had grown so emaciated over these past two days that his skin clung to his bones.
Shanxi Province, though considered a frontier region from the Central Plains perspective, far exceeded what I had anticipated regarding the Southern Wilderness.
“Why don’t we take a different route instead? Even if it’s a bit rough and treacherous, compared to this place it would be nothing short of a flower-strewn path.”
Roads did exist in the Southern Wilderness, though not everywhere.
While severely underdeveloped compared to the Central Plains, I had heard that the dozens or hundreds of ethnic minorities settled throughout the Southern Wilderness each claimed their own territories and frequently traveled between them without conflict.
Yet despite Hyuk Moo-jin’s earnest plea, Nam Ho’s answer was resolute.
“Impossible. You understand why, don’t you?”
“If it’s because of ethnic minorities obsessed with killing us, I’d rather face them head-on in battle. If we could resolve this through dialogue, that would be fine too.”
“Dialogue?”
Nam Ho blinked at Hyuk Moo-jin’s response, which brimmed with such naive optimism.
“Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“An entire village vanished. Two hundred Han people who welcomed them with goodwill were slaughtered without distinction of age or gender. And you think dialogue will work?”
“…No. Actually, I wasn’t being sincere.”
“Now that’s more honest. Fine then, shut up and let’s move.”
“Yes, sir.”
That Hyuk fellow—his stance shifts faster than light itself.
But this time, Nam Ho’s words were absolutely correct.
Engaging the ethnic minorities attacking us directly would be tantamount to waging war against the entire Southern Wilderness.
One of the defining characteristics of the Southern Wilderness was that while they snarled at each other ordinarily, the moment an external enemy appeared, they would unite as one without hesitation.
‘That’s precisely why even the Demon Cult during the Demon Suppression War couldn’t completely subjugate the Southern Wilderness.’
Even the Demon Cult’s hundred thousand demon soldiers, who once devoured half the realm, merely planted their flags at the periphery of the Southern Wilderness before withdrawing.
The Southern Wilderness’s vicious endemic diseases, treacherous terrain, and the jungle teeming with fierce beasts and poisons meant that venturing deeper would yield more losses than gains.
‘Yet we can’t exactly wander about exposing our identities either.’
Whether the ethnic minorities, saturated with Han hatred, would soften their hostility to that degree was questionable, but more importantly, there was the matter of Dark Heaven lurking somewhere in the Southern Wilderness.
‘They will definitely target the Southern Wilderness. It’s only a matter of time before something erupts.’
This was something close to certainty. It wasn’t without reason that we had moved covertly like nocturnal visitors from Hanan, where the Martial Alliance Headquarters was located.
Though we had inevitably exposed our identities to the Water Dragon Stronghold’s sailors during our journey to the Southern Wilderness, we had maintained strict operational security.
The reason we hadn’t deliberately sent word to the Emei Sect and Qingcheng Sect, with whom we had built connections during our previous Sichuan expedition, or to the Sichuan Tang Family, was for the same reason.
But if we revealed our identities to the ethnic minorities, all our efforts thus far would be rendered meaningless.
Dark Heaven, realizing that the hidden blade had drawn close, would accelerate their plans, and the gate of calamity would open alongside the ‘Rift’.
‘I must reveal my identity only after reaching the Southern Beast Palace at the earliest.’
Beast King Miao Wang, the palace master of the Southern Beast Palace, had participated in the Demon Suppression War and was known to harbor goodwill toward Jeok Cheon-gang and the Yeolhwa Sect.
Judging by the gravity of the situation and his standing in the Southern Wilderness, he was far more reasonable to negotiate with than other ethnic minorities whose eyes had rolled back in their heads.
‘Anyway, because of those Cheon-ma Escort Agency bastards or whatever, their mess is splashing onto us too.’
They say the cuttlefish ruins the fish market’s reputation, and here we were, bundled together as some ethnic package deal, our images and those of the Fire Dragon Pavilion members utterly destroyed.
And I’m not even of Han descent.
‘…Is this what they call being a Pon-Han or something?’
As infuriating as it was, there was nothing I could do about it.
There was no point trying to explain to the Southern Barbarian ethnic minorities: “Actually, I’m not Han Chinese—I’m Korean. North, not South.” They wouldn’t understand a word of it anyway.
Back when I was training at Jiuhua Mountain, I got homesick and drew the Taegeuk flag. Jeok Cheon-gang had just one thing to say about it.
“Are you from Wudang?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s clearly a Taegeuk. What nonsense is this? Taegeuk means Wudang.”
“Taegeuk means Korea.”
“What is Korea?”
“That is… never mind. You don’t need to know, Old Master.”
“Two hundred catties added to your iron weights.”
“…Two hundred catties? Why?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Even now, recalling it only stirs tears.
It feels like only yesterday I was grinding through hardship in this distant, alien land, yet the bitter truth is that this suffering remains an ongoing reality.
“Sigh.”
At the sound of my exhale, Nam Ho’s eyes sharpened with intensity.
“What? Do you want to go down there right now and settle this with words? Or would you rather clash with these ethnic minorities in open combat?”
“…You’re jumping to conclusions awfully fast. I have no such intention whatsoever.”
“That’s a relief.”
There have been plenty of chances for open conflict until now, and there will be many more ahead. Just look at the savage beasts prowling the perimeter, their cries echoing through the air.
I surveyed the densely packed jungle and swampland before turning to Nam Ho with a question.
“How much farther?”
“Four days if we’re fortunate. Six if we’re not.”
“That’s far longer than I expected.”
“When you factor in avoiding detection, even that is remarkably short.”
Nam Ho, his face noticeably aged, tapped his lower back and resumed walking with renewed urgency.
“From this moment forward, do not slacken your pace for even an instant. If we cross Ai-nao Mountain before nightfall, we can reach the Southern Beast Palace within four days at most.”
Nam Ho’s words proved true.
Exactly four days later, as we passed over a towering mountain peak, we caught sight of an enormous structure shrouded in the distance by thick, swirling mist.
“The Southern Beast Palace…”
The words escaped someone’s lips, carried away on the wind that had begun to blow.

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