The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 154

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

The Declining Clan’s Limited Lifespan—Episode 154

Dan Mok Ryeon, who had been staring blankly at the spot where Hwang Gyu On had vanished, suddenly came to herself and clicked her tongue.
“Just a moment ago you were asking why I’d go to such a shrine.”
“We didn’t know the way there either. For a Mountain Stronghold, this place is ridiculously sprawling—I was worried we’d get lost needlessly.”
Dan Mok Ryeon wanted to reply to that in jest, but her gaze drifted back to where Hwang Gyu On had been standing.
“……Will he be all right?”
“He should be fine. Even your sister got up suddenly after being ill like that, didn’t she?”
“I suppose…… I suppose. I don’t know how it came to be that way.”
Murmuring thus, Dan Mok Ryeon made an effort to collect herself.
That was right. She had been fortunate enough to come to be this way. She had died, been buried in the earth, scattered as ash, and returned again.
There had to be a reason for her return. She could not afford to neglect it.
“Then shall we go as far as the shrine?”
Hwa Ryun nodded. They bickered about who would hold the Umbrella, but in the end, Hwa Ryun cradled Baek Ryeon carefully in her arms while Dan Mok Ryeon, being the elder of the two, took the Umbrella.
She had thought the Mountain Stronghold, having suddenly received guests, would be bustling, but as soon as they stepped away from the main building and veered toward the outskirts, all fell quiet.
Dense woodland encircled them on all sides; the sound of rain falling was clear and crisp in her ear, like grain pouring from a sack, and in the murk of night a water mist hung heavy, rendering everything cool and obscure.
The atmosphere was so desolate that even if someone had crept up behind her, she might not have noticed. The earth was damp and slick, but stone-paved paths had been laid down, sparing them from sinking into mud.
“Sister.”
Dan Mok Ryeon turned to Hwa Ryun with an expression almost like a cry of alarm.
Hwa Ryun, who had been trudging toward the shrine in an oblivious manner until now, was startled at the sight of Dan Mok Ryeon’s face.
“Why…… what’s wrong?”
“No, it’s just…… it’s so dark here…….”
“That’s why we brought the Lantern.”
“Yes, the front is visible because of that, but when I only hear the sound of rain…….”
If the downpour had completely obscured what lay ahead, she might not have minded at all, but somehow she could see through the veil of rain, and her heart kept racing…….
At that point in her thoughts, Hwa Ryun asked her with an incredulous expression.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared right now?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are too. You’re scared. That’s what it is.”
“I’m not, you insolent little glutinous cake. Really, I’m not. It’s perfectly visible and not dark at all, but this chilly wind keeps blowing, and this is such a deep forest, and I just don’t like being in mountains like this. The spiritual energy keeps growing more and more abundant, and I have no good memories from being in mountains…….”
As Dan Mok Ryeon rambled on, Hwa Ryun clicked her tongue.
“Then just stay there.”
“I didn’t know it would be this bad…….”
“But what other bad memories do you have from being in the mountains?”
“……What do you mean, what bad memories?”
For a moment her chest tightened, and Dan Mok Ryeon spoke rapidly.
“I nearly died in the mountains once, and someone passed by. It was someone incredibly strong. So I begged them to help me, but they just said they were busy and left me there, abandoned. So why would I like being in mountains?”
“When did you ever go into the mountains alone and have something like that happen…… Wait, did I abandon you? Why are you looking at me like that…… No, that’s…….”
Just as Hwa Ryun was frowning down at Dan Mok Ryeon, Dan Mok Ryeon’s gaze passed over her and fixed on something beyond.
“Ah! Found it! The shrine!”
— Yowl!
“But sister. That thing you just mentioned. You were saying I abandoned you and left, right? Could I not have been secretly helping you somehow? But surely that’s no reason the mountains should come to displease you so…….”
Dan Mok Ryeon let Hwa Ryun’s grumbling wash over her as she gazed at two lanterns that shone distinctly through the water mist.
‘Strangely, the air seems murky only around there…… Is it really a shrine where ghosts appear?’
She had come this far thinking that with Spiritual Energy within her, there was nothing to fear, but as she drew near, a slight chill ran through her.
‘I can’t even say there are no ghosts.’
Had she not herself crossed back through time in such a manner?
After death, what had it been like? Though she had forgotten it all upon her return, had she not wandered through countless realms and witnessed ten thousand sights too dreadful to speak of?
‘Could there be someone wandering lost in here?’
Upon reaching the shrine and folding the Umbrella, she surveyed her surroundings, and contrary to what she had expected to be utterly dark, the interior was visible in all its details.
Scratches suggesting fierce combat, the sound of water droplets falling somewhere as if repairs had been inadequate, the eerie creaking of timber expanding and contracting in the damp darkness.
‘Isn’t that something like a bloodstain?’
The hair on the back of Dan Mok Ryeon’s neck rose slightly. Her heart pounded.
She wondered if her face had flushed from her heart beating so hard, but when she touched her cheek, it was only cold from the rain-soaked night air.
“Hmm. This looks like a shrine dedicated to a celestial maiden, doesn’t it?”
“Ah, is that so?”
“Well, bandits hardly have any lineage to speak of, so they’d worship someone like the Supreme Lord Lao or the Nine-Heaven Immortal Maiden, I’d wager.”
“That’s not something you should be saying right in the middle of a mountain stronghold…….”
Indeed, just as Hwa Ryun had said, a large statue of the Nine-Heaven Immortal Maiden stood in the center of the shrine. A woman carved as if holding something in each hand.
Dan Mok Ryeon gazed up at the statue with an odd expression on her face.
But the statue’s face was impossible to make out, and the hands that appeared to be clutching something held nothing at all.
‘Has any treasure already been looted?’
Hwa Ryun glanced quickly around the space, then opened her eyes wide as if to say something to Ryeon, before grasping one of Ryeon’s hands.
“Goodness, you’ve been drenched by the rain?”
“Huh?”
Dan Mok Ryeon’s eyes widened, and once she understood what Hwa Ryun meant, she glanced down at her own shoulder.
She had been trying to position the Umbrella more over Hwa Ryun and Baek Ryeon, and her opposite shoulder had become thoroughly soaked.
Suddenly, her spirit flagged. Was a little rain on her shoulder really the most important thing right now……?
“It’s nothing……. I haven’t been drenched that much anyway. I’m an adult, after all.”
“If you’re an adult, you should look after your own body first. Isn’t that why you offered to hold the Umbrella in the first place? Why did you want to come to such a frightening place anyway? You said you were terrified.”
“If my little rice cake gets wet, she’ll catch cold.”
“I’m not actually a baby, and I’m certainly not a rice cake.”
It happened in that instant.
Before Dan Mok Ryeon’s eyes, a foul, murky haze swept across her vision, and characters written as if in black ink flashed rapidly across her sight.
Celestial Script. The characters floated in empty air, but the glow that encircled them made them easy to read. Baek Ryeon let out a low sound.
— Growl!

* Divine Insight 7th Star Achieved (1▲) *
You can now see the means to develop your strengths.

Dan Mok Ryeon
Traits : Wellspring of Infinite Spiritual Energy / Know a Little More / Cherished by Malevolent Spirits / A Sickly Flower in a Greenhouse
Harmony Cultivation : 7th Star – May remain unnoticed
Divine Insight : 7th Star – Can develop your strengths.
Purification : 3rd Star – Can purify malevolent spirits.
Internal Energy : Cannot Acquire
Spiritual Energy : 59 / 120

— You have arrived at traces left by the source of the wellspring. Will you purify the contamination?

* * *

Though they had spoken of hospitality, the journey here had been tiring and the road ahead long, so the feast ended at a reasonable hour.
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo, concerned that her daughter’s health seemed to be failing, was the first to leave. Hwang Chu Hun, understanding her worry well, ordered Ma Butaejoo to examine Dan Mok Seong and prepare medicine for her.
“Ma Butaejoo has considerable skill in the healing arts.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi did not say aloud what he thought—that a ragtag bandit from Hek Cheon Ryeon had no business speaking of medicine.
He merely regarded the man with a quiet gaze. Hwang Chu Hun offered a wry smile and spoke.
“My daughter…… is not well at all. In seeking medicine and healers from every quarter, this man came to serve me.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s eyes grew deeper. Few were as intimately acquainted with the desperation of caring for a beloved, ailing kinsman as he was.
“Even so, should my daughter’s illness improve, I mean to teach her something of trade—not because she is my daughter, but because the girl has a keen mind. She memorizes characters readily and can do sums in her head without an abacus. My adoptive brother
has connections
with people in the merchant houses.”
For all his knowledge of hope’s emptiness, the speaker’s anguish showed through, muted and gray.
Why would a captain’s daughter learn the ways of merchants?
Because she could not master martial arts. For Hwang Chu Hun, the future where his daughter recovered, the future where she inherited his secret arts, both remained nothing but haze.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi asked, his face set firm.
“You do not know the nature of the child’s illness?”
Hwang Chu Hun shook his head.
“Some eight years ago…… I rescued her from among the last malevolent spirits in Blood Coral Valley, so I can only suppose that is to blame.”
“So those creatures still lingered even then…….”
“They likely remain somewhere even now, like vermin. I’ve heard they’ve even appeared in the Namgung Family Estate.”
A heavy light moved through Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s eyes. The fact that news of the Namgung Family Estate was reaching him even here, in this northern mountain stronghold.
“This adoptive brother of yours, the one with merchant connections—is he not Eun So Gang, Vice-Captain of Hek Cheon Ryeon’s Third Detachment?”
This time, a gleam flashed across Hwang Chu Hun’s pupils.

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