Murim School Record - Chapter 21

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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 21: Okmungwan (1)

Crack!
A powerful right fist drove into his solar plexus.
Thud!
He didn’t even cry out.
Do No-bang crumpled silently to the ground.
He’d lost consciousness.
“Alliance Leader!”
“No—how could this be?”
Gasps and muffled cries erupted from every corner.
Among the ranks they’d brought, his was the highest hand.
And yet their chief had been felled.
“You all right, Mo-baek?”
Seol Yeo-chul approached.
“Get out of here.”
Seol Yeo-chul’s voice cracked like a whip.
“I’ll let it slide this time. But if any of you dare trespass on Shaolin lands again without permission, I’ll sever your heads, Alliance fellow or not.”
The Jin-ju-eon Clan warriors hefted the unconscious Do No-bang and fled like shadows.
Once the Jin-ju-eon men had vanished, everyone in the kitchen rushed toward Yi Mo-baek.
Whoosh!
Gasup mimicked the punch Yi Mo-baek had just thrown.
Kiyah!
He followed with another shout and a driving fist strike.
“Even if Shaolin’s wings are clipped, the Jin-ju-eon Clan still isn’t our match.”
Gasup watched the spot where the Jin-ju-eon warriors had disappeared, his voice thick with pride.
“Prepare breakfast.”
Dang Du-chun led the way back into the kitchen.
The others followed close behind.
Yi Mo-baek lingered a moment, then descended toward the stream where water tumbled down the mountainside.
He reached a small pool and washed the sweat from his face with cold water.
Splash!
As he scrubbed his face roughly, a sudden drumbeat rang out.
Boom-boom-boom!
Boom-boom-boom!
His eyes snapped alert at the unexpected sound.
Boom-boom-boom!
The Emergency Drum.
And it struck in a precise pattern of three.
According to his knowledge, the Emergency Drum had different grades, the most powerful being the Triple Strike Drum.
Three strikes in succession, repeating over and over.
That sound only rang when the Murim Alliance faced grave danger or catastrophic upheaval.
Splash!
He leaped up from the stream and sprinted toward the kitchen.
The kitchen staff, just beginning their morning preparations, burst outside.
Boom-boom-boom!
The drum continued relentlessly, striking its pattern of three again and again.
Across the hundreds of peaks of Tianmu Mountain, the early morning drumbeats spread like ripples, heralding something grave unfolding below.

By afternoon, people began pouring into the Murim Alliance.
Cart wheels rattled around a thousand peaks of Tianmu Mountain, and palanquins bearing powerful masters soared through the clouds.
Tianmu Mountain grew loud.
The day passed that way.

The next day, the Murim Alliance lay silent as death.
The training grounds of each sect were silent—not a single ant stirred—drowned as they were in the clamor of shouts and clashing weapons.
The Shaolin monks who normally headed to the training grounds after morning prayers remained in their quarters all day.
“Ah, this is infuriating!”
Yi Mo-baek, who had been chopping firewood, turned his gaze toward Baekpal Daejeon, where the Shaolin monks were staying.
Apart from the occasional monk who ventured out to the latrine, few of them crossed the threshold.
“It’s driving me absolutely crazy.”
He tilted his head and settled onto a nearby rock.
Something was definitely happening—that much was certain.
“Ah, this is maddening.”
While he grumbled, Seol Yeo-chul approached.
“What’s going on?”
“Something’s definitely happening, but I’m going mad trying to figure out what.”
Seol Yeo-chul came alongside him and sat on the rock, shoulders touching.
“They say heroes emerge in turbulent eras.”
“Heroes?”
“Why must a hero only appear in turbulent times? If they showed up more often in ordinary times and simply swept away despicable wretches like Woo-mu, it would be wonderful.”
He let out a wry smile.
Yi Mo-baek murmured the words over: turbulent era and hero.
Why do true heroes really emerge only in turbulent times?
When the strong’s unjust plunder of the weak intensifies and even the bare minimum of moral boundaries crumble, the Jianghu trembles.
When existing order fails and grievances spawn countless injustices everywhere, the common people hunger for a replacement who can ease their sorrow.
Someone who appears in this gap, vowing to overturn misguided customs and institutions and restore the lives of the trampled, becomes a hero.
Therefore, a turbulent era grants an ordinary person the opportunity to form a new force through ability and power.
“My heart is pounding.”
Seol Yeo-chul turned to look at him.
“Why’s your heart pounding?”
“I just thought about turbulent eras and heroes, and suddenly my lower belly grew hot and my heart turned sharp.”
Whoosh!
Seol Yeo-chul’s eyes abruptly widened.
“Could it be—”
“What?”
“Are you… trying to become a hero of this turbulent era?”
“Krhahaha!”
Yi Mo-baek threw back his head and laughed loudly.
“Why are you laughing? Heroes come out of the womb with a stamp already on their foreheads?”
“You’re something else, Yeo-chul. Ahahaha!”
Bang!
Yi Mo-baek was bursting with laughter when Seol Yeo-chul drove his elbow into his ribs.
“Stop. Don’t laugh.”
The blow was hard enough that Yi Mo-baek winced and turned to look—then froze in shock, clamping his mouth shut.
Woo-mu was walking toward them from a distance.
The man who could never be called a monk, judged by his very character, was approaching, and Yi Mo-baek tensed.
Jump!
The two of them quickly rose into the Immobile Stance.
“Who was laughing?”
“I… I was laughing, sir.”
Yi Mo-baek clenched his teeth, bracing himself for a blow.
“Why were you laughing?”
He began to say he had just been laughing, then thought better of it—a fist might come flying—and spoke instead.
“I was thinking how wonderful it would be if a hero were born in this turbulent era, and if that hero were me.”
“A hero in a turbulent era?”
“The fault is mine. When someone asked whether heroes come out of the womb with a stamp already on their foreheads, Mo-baek laughed.”
Pfft!
Woo-mu burst out laughing as if he found it absurd.
“Anyone can dream. The only problem is knowing your place.”
Woo-mu turned and walked toward the forest path.
“Keep your wits sharp. The Deputy Alliance Leader has passed, and the Murim Alliance is in critical crisis.”
“The Deputy Alliance Leader is dead—what do you mean by that?”
Yi Mo-baek spoke urgently, almost despite himself.
The walking Woo-mu stopped in his tracks and turned around.
“Precisely so. The Vice Alliance Leader delivered the Alliance Leader’s letter to the Dalai Lama at Potala Palace, and on his return journey near Okmungwan, he was ambushed.”
“But surely his escort was formidable?”
“Not a single one survived, or so I’ve heard.”
And with that, Woo-mu vanished into the forest.
The two men stood motionless for a moment.
“The…the Vice Alliance Leader.”
Seol Yeo-chul murmured.
The Vice Alliance Leader was Tae-eul Seonin, the sect master of the Huashan Sect, one of the Nine Major Sects.
“What on earth is happening? The Vice Alliance Leader is dead, and the Alliance Leader himself comes and goes like the wind.”
Slap!
Seol Yeo-chul realized his slip and quickly clapped his own hand over his mouth.
“This is utter chaos.”
Thud-thud-thud!
Seol Yeo-chul bolted toward the Kitchen.
He needed to spread this shocking news to those who would be curious about it.

‘Vice Alliance Leader Tae-eul Seonin’

The current sect master of the Huashan Sect.
Half a year ago, three Buddhist monks from Muyinsa, a subsidiary temple of Potala Palace in the Central Plains located in Sichuan, collided with warriors of the Murim Alliance and lost their lives in the incident.
The Dalai Lama was furious.
He immediately issued wartime mobilization orders not only to Potala Palace but to five hundred and fifty sects of the Western Tibet Martial World.
The target of their attack: the Murim Alliance.
The conflict between the two sides had arisen from a misunderstanding.
They had begun fighting believing the monks were from Soraeumsa, the demonic sect of the Western Tibet Martial World.
The Alliance Leader immediately dispatched a large-scale peace delegation led by the Vice Alliance Leader to Potala Palace.
Though the deaths of the three monks were lamentable, he explained that under those circumstances it could not be helped, and clarified that there had been no deliberate intent.
Furthermore, the Murim Alliance presented the Dalai Lama with many gifts to appease him: a Golden Buddha Statue standing over nine feet tall, five hundred bolts of silk, and a hundred Ochu Horses, creatures said to travel a thousand miles in a single day.
Tae-eul Seonin was attacked on his return journey after successfully resolving what could have become a catastrophic war between the Western Tibet Martial World and the Murim Alliance.

Sleep would not come.
He closed his eyes and pulled the blanket up over his head in hopes of sleep, yet his mind remained wide awake.
Whoosh!
He threw the blanket aside and stared up at the dark ceiling.

‘Why can’t I sleep?’

He had no connection whatsoever to the Vice Alliance Leader’s death.
Moreover, he was not a Jianghu warrior.
No matter how he tried to draw a connection, it remained utterly irrelevant—someone else’s affair entirely.
Yet sleep eluded him.
Woo-mu’s words kept buzzing through his mind: ‘The Vice Alliance Leader was ambushed near Okmungwan by enemies and died.’
Bang!
He kicked the blanket away and rose, stepping outside.
The Murim Alliance, which should have been shrouded in darkness, blazed with light.
Torches burned in every corner, and warriors bearing weapons stood vigilant with grim, sharp eyes.
Why was his heart racing?
Flare!
Suddenly Yi Mo-baek’s eyes gleamed in the darkness.
They burned.

‘One day, you wretch, your blood will flow backward.’

While he was chopping firewood, Cheong-mong Seonsa appeared and blurted out the words without preamble.
Yi Mo-baek, deeming the man not worth acknowledging, ignored him and continued splitting logs, while Cheong-mong crouched down and muttered.

‘The more I see, the more I like it.’
‘What is there to like so much?’

He hefted the axe and fixed Yi Mo-baek with a glare so fierce it seemed ready to split his skull wide open.

‘You possess excellent bone structure for martial training. If I had to name the finest quality among them, it would be this: a burning Awakened Determination smolders within you. For now it lies dormant, its time not yet come—but when that moment arrives, you will writhe in a hunger that borders on madness.’

Yi Mo-baek clenched his teeth.
He suspected that the maddening hunger Cheong-mong Seonsa spoke of was none other than this.
The fire that now roiled in his chest.
It was the ambition of a martial master to command the Four Seas and Nine Rivers, to trample the land from north to south beneath his feet.
“Haah.”
Yi Mo-baek exhaled in a long, weary sigh, then wandered through the taut, electric corridors of the Murim Alliance before turning back toward the kitchen courtyard.
“Ah!”
He stopped short. A figure stood motionless in the darkness.
One of the monks loomed before him, rigid as stone.
“W-Woo-mu!”
“Prowling through the night like a thief, are you? Did no one teach you that after the Hai Hour, none but the duty watch are permitted to move about?”
“Forgive me, Venerable. I was restless and wanted some air.”
“A wretch like you, restless? Get yourself ready to depart at once.”
“Depart?”
“You’re heading to Okmungwan. Now.”
Okmungwan.
“What are you standing about for? We haven’t the time.”
“Yes, at once!”
Fearing a blow might land on him at any moment, Yi Mo-baek bolted toward the quarters where the kitchen staff slept.

The kitchen staff, roused in the dead of night, stood bewildered.
Not only in the Shaolin temple, but in any sect—when martial artists moved in large numbers, the kitchen staff went along to provision them.
All twenty monks departing the Murim Alliance that night, Woo-mu included, required provisions.
From the kitchen, it fell to Yi Mo-baek and Seol Yeo-chul to go.
Seol Yeo-chul grumbled, his face dark with displeasure, but since Woo-mu had named him directly, there was no refusing.
“I really don’t want to go.”
He watched as Yi Mo-baek quietly loaded cooking implements onto the cart.
“You don’t mind?”
“It’s disgusting.”
Seeing the scowl on Yi Mo-baek’s face, Seol Yeo-chul let out a short laugh.
“Fine. Let’s just go, damn it.”
The two loaded the cart with their tools, and the other kitchen staff, including Dang Du-chun, offered words of comfort.
“Yeo-chul, don’t cross Woo-mu.”
Dang Du-chun spoke with concern in his voice.
“Mo-baek keeps his composure even when he’s furious—but you wear everything on your face. You could earn yourself a beating you won’t soon forget.”

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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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