Murim School Record - Chapter 20

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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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Episode 20: Those Who Target the Nose (2)

I Mo-baek drew a long breath.
“Let go.”
I Mo-baek gave an awkward laugh, as if bewildered.
“Hurry up and go. The bleeding won’t stop like this.”
“I’m not dying.”
I Mo-baek blew his nose hard onto the ground without hesitation.
A dark red clump fell away.
Rip!
He tore a strip from his garment and shoved it ruthlessly into both nostrils.
“So that’s how it is. After all, he vented his anger on Mo-baek.”
At that moment a man approached with quick strides—it was Gasop, one of the kitchen staff.
“Did that Umoo beat him?”
“How did you know?”
Seol Yeo-chul asked.
“I met Irun, who was attending to Master Oda and his party, and he said Umoo was furious.”
“Why?”
“He said something like: What in the name of heaven are you doing? News reaches us that something’s happened to the Martial Alliance Master, so we come rushing out here, and you—here at the source of it all—know nothing? Pathetic. He was sharp and cutting about it.”
“Naturally he would have asked who, and Naong must have mentioned I Mo-baek’s name.”
Seol Yeo-chul spoke with bright eyes, laying out how things unfolded.
“If you block both nostrils completely, what happens then? Even if both holes bleed, blocking only one supposedly stops the bleeding faster.”
Gasop said with a worried expression.
Hack!
I Mo-baek coughed up a large glob of phlegm—it was entirely blood.

Evening meal was done.
After finishing his work in the kitchen, I Mo-baek walked out to the woodcutting ground and touched his nose.
Seol Yeo-chul had dragged him off to the medicinal hall, where he received simple treatment and returned.
The moment he thought of Umoo, who had beaten him senseless, his face twisted.
Fury rose in him.
Had he been anyone other than one of the two brilliant disciples destined to lead Shaolin’s future, he would not have endured the beating in silence.
His father had sent him to Shaolin for one reason alone.
Martial prowess.
In his father’s eyes—a man without learning, without means—the fastest way to let his son rise in the world was through Martial Skill.
He’d said it was to keep him fed, but his true intention lay elsewhere.

‘I don’t need grand titles like “supreme under heaven” or “undefeated in the realm.” If I just become a First-class Master, I can live more comfortably than Father ever did.’
‘But First-class Master is no trivial thing, is it?’
‘You just have to do it. Why would you not be capable? Not because you’re my son, but because you’re steadfast. Quick-witted and sharp.’

Thinking of how his steadfast, sharp son had been beaten until blood poured from both nostrils, his chest burned hotter still.
He heard footsteps.
Yet I Mo-baek did not turn around.
They came from more than fifty paces away.
If he turned now, the other would be startled.
There was no need to flaunt high Internal Force.
It was Naong, as expected.
The fact that Umoo had beaten him must have been reported.
“I hear fortunately there’s no damage to the bone.”
“It’s nothing to concern myself with.”
Naong stood with hands clasped behind his back, gazing at the sky as if lost in thought.
Then he looked at I Mo-baek.
“Should anything like this happen again in the future, inform Umoo as well.”
Though he was the elder brother and held responsibility for Shaolin, he seemed reluctant to provoke Umoo.
Not now, perhaps, but the distant future remained unknowable.
Umoo might even become the abbot of Shaolin.
It seemed he was thinking they needed to prepare for that possibility.

He rose early that morning.
In the clearing where firewood was split, still shrouded in pre-dawn darkness, a single man moved.
Thump!
Crack!
Punches.
But they were entirely different from what he’d practiced at Shaolin.
His fists had grown supple, snapping hard at the moment of impact.
The fist snapping at the moment of contact meant gathering power, concentrating it into a single point.
The Baibao Shenquan.
It was the martial skill that represented Shaolin, yet since Bodhidharma, no disciple had ever reached the twelfth level.
He had wagered his life on this one technique.

‘What good is knowing a thousand techniques? One single, certain technique — that’s the shortcut that will keep me truly alive.’

It was something his father had said: mastering one martial skill was far better than learning many things.
Everything his father said came from the mouths of Shaolin’s great masters.
While working at Shaolin, he had come to know many of them, and he remembered the words they spoke to their disciples — then applied them verbatim to his own son.
One example was the Master Cheongmong.

‘I Mil-bok really did raise one fine son.’

Every time the Master Cheongmong met him, he would smile and say it.
Whoosh!
Swish-swish-crack!
The fist extended in a straight line twisted and bent in an instant, then surged forward like a thunderbolt.
The Qi emanating from his fist stirred dust from the ground around him.
His entire body was drenched in sweat.
“May I ask you something?”
I Mo-baek stopped his movements and turned his head.
Five men had entered the Shaolin grounds in the early dawn, while darkness still held sway.
Flash!
I Mo-baek’s eyes gleamed.

‘The Fist.’

Though it was still dark, he could read the character embroidered on the chest of their garments.
He had identified who these visitors were.
This was a continuation of the brawl that had taken place in the streets of Hangzhou four days ago.
He had always expected they would come someday.
But he hadn’t thought it would be this early.
Mak-sul, the man whose nose bone he had shattered, couldn’t quite make out I Mo-baek’s features in the darkness.
“We’ve come from the Zhenzhou Guild. You’d be the one from Shaolin’s kitchen, I take it?”
“That’s right. I’m I Mo-baek.”
At the name I Mo-baek, the men stiffened.
Through Mak-sul’s mouth, they had heard that the one who had caved in his nose was called I Mo-baek.
But that’s where the problem began.
I Mo-baek.
Was he truly that I Mo-baek?
Rumors had circulated that he was the man who had beaten Byok An-mihee to death not long ago.
Though it was said Byok An-mihee had suffered grave internal injuries from her clash with Shaolin’s Demon Subduing Circular Pedestal, she was not the sort who would die at the hands of a man from Shaolin’s kitchen.
She was, after all, something close to a witch.

‘A man named I Mo-baek from Shaolin’s kitchen killed Byok An-mihee.’

This was the rumor that had spread through the Jianghu.
Though most believed it was likely false, the unease was real. I Mo-baek, for his part, had emphasized his name as a means of seizing the initiative against his opponent.
Among common fighters, seizing initiative plays a decisive role in victory or defeat.
People whisper that Shaolin has fallen to become a third-rank sect.
It only feels like a decline because they’ve held the top position too long, but does just anyone become third-rank?
Even rotten fish are still fish, not mackerel.
Shaolin is Shaolin.
The kitchen hall is no different.
No matter what else differs between Shaolin and the kitchen, the difference remains absolute.
The Zhenzhou Guild is precisely the same.
Whether they’re people who light fires in hearths and cook—common kitchen staff—the power of a well-rooted Zhenzhou family will never diminish.
“That…that’s him, then.”
As dawn crept in and they could finally make out each other’s faces, Mak-sul cried out.
The leading man’s eyes swept across I Mo-baek with rapid assessment.
I Mo-baek grasped immediately that the man was no kitchen servant.
You could tell just by how he stood.
It seemed he’d come deliberately, bringing martial warriors with him.
Just then, commotion arose from the kitchen quarters.
Likely people were rising from their beds to prepare the morning meal.
“No point in fussing about it. We’ll break your nose just the same and be on our way.”
At the word “nose,” I Mo-baek couldn’t help but laugh.
“Damn it, why are so many people after my nose these days?”
The wound on his nose from Umoo’s strike days ago was only now beginning to heal.
“I’ve done nothing wrong, and these people from the Zhenzhou have wronged me. No matter how murky the waters of Jianghu have become, when would there ever be a case where someone breaks another’s nose first without even determining right from wrong?”
“So you won’t give up your nose?”
“Listen here. Say something that makes sense.”
The man’s expression hardened, and he stepped forward two paces.
“I am Do No-bang of the Zhenzhou Guild. Our law is simple: we repay only what we receive. As I said, I will break your nose.”
“People commonly call household servants like us the dogs of wealthy families. Unlike the dogs of poor houses, we live in splendor, so when we growl, it carries considerable weight. And from that, a saying was born.”
“What’s that?”
“Give a rich man’s dog three years and he’ll put on airs like a lord. Let’s see what happens when rich men’s dogs bare their teeth at each other.”
Though he’d used the word “dog” for both, his meaning was unmistakably scathing.
“So you’re looking for a beating.”
Whoosh!
A powerful fist shot forth, befitting a Zhenzhou martial warrior.
A soundless punch—no Sound of Piercing Air.
Worlds apart from the fist of that man Mak-sul, whom he’d faced in the streets of Hangzhou.
The greatest difference was speed.
It seemed extended, and yet a left fist was already at his face.
Shiiing!
He shifted half a step to the right.
Bulying Bo.
Whoosh!
The fist grazed his cheek by the barest margin and passed.
Do No-bang seemed to believe he’d landed it, a faint smile crossing his face before it froze solid as the punch slipped past.
Yet his right fist was already waiting, arcing from the side to drive into I Mo-baek’s temple.

‘Different.’

A linked sequence—as soon as the left fist missed its mark, the right curved outward in continuation.
Especially when the angle was wide, such a punch carried far more force than a simple straight extension.
I Mo-baek judged that the right fist would be more powerful, but the left Direct Punch would be faster.
Recalling the Bulying Bo he’d just executed to evade that fist, he now deployed his footwork with greater confidence.
He didn’t know exactly where Do No-bang ranked within the Zhenzhou Guild.
But judging by the fact that Mak-sul had brought him along with such bold courage, he reasoned that Do No-bang was no mere foot soldier among the martial warriors dispatched to the Martial Alliance here.

‘Fighting someone stronger than yourself brings great insight and advancement in your own martial skill.’
Fighting a master teaches you as you break through.
Though that doesn’t mean a first-class master of the highest order.
The Shaolin monks say the ideal opponent is half a tier above you, or strong enough that you’d lose in a thirty-breath contest.
It remained unclear whether Do No-bang was half a tier above him, or a master strong enough that he’d kneel after thirty breaths.
What mattered was that Bulying Bo had evaded Do No-bang’s fist.
“What—!”
“What’s happening!”
The kitchen staff had only just noticed the Zhenzhou Guild warriors and came rushing over in a cluster.
“Where have you people come from?”
Dang Du-chun, the person in charge, asked.
Then his expression hardened as he caught sight of Mak-sul, whose face was wrapped thickly with white cloth around his nose.
He had seen Mak-sul bleeding from I Mo-baek’s fist, being carried away to a street-corner physician.
“We were told the quarrel was started first by your Zhenzhou Guild.”
“Hah! The fire’s already lit—what good does settling blame serve now?”
Do No-bang surged forward as if fury had ignited within him at how I Mo-baek had dodged his attacks repeatedly.
Whoosh!
Do No-bang closed the distance in two strides, throwing a flurry of alternating left and right punches.
Fists extending like machine-gun fire.
I Mo-baek judged it would be dangerous to evade using the Bulying Bo, which was not yet complete in his hands.
Head-on collision was the only answer.
If his mastery of Bulying Bo were higher, he could evade and seize the advantage by striking openings while controlling the tempo of the fight—but not yet.
Thud!
Crack!
He struck at Do No-bang’s driving fists.
There was no other way when he had to defend.
A cry erupted from someone.
A scream tore through the air.
Whoosh!
This time I Mo-baek moved first.
He closed in on the retreating Do No-bang and thrust both fists toward his face—left and right.
Whoosh—crack!
Swift, linear strikes with no wasted motion.
Do No-bang gritted his teeth and threw his fists up to meet them.
Reluctant to clash directly, but with no choice.
Boom!
A gagging cry.
Do No-bang screamed and staggered backward.
I Mo-baek gave him no opening.
When you press down, press down hard and certain.
Show mercy and they’ll crawl back up.
The surest way to press an opponent down was to snuff them out entirely—but Do No-bang was a fellow member of the Martial Alliance.

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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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