The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 63

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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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The Declining Se Ga’s Time-Limited Covenant — Episode 63

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A full month of studying under Dan Mok Han So by day and with Ryeon by night had passed without break.
The Bi-mu with Geum Jong Ha loomed tomorrow, and news of it had set the Seo Ho region ablaze with gossip once again.
“Tomorrow is the Bi-mu, so there’s no training today. Rest well,” Dan Mok Han So said.
Yet Dan Mok Seong replied with a stern face.
“Master, if you would at least spar with me—”
“Not necessary.”
“But still…”
“What matters now is deciding what comes after.”
The moment Dan Mok Han So spoke of the distant future rather than tomorrow alone, Dan Mok Seong’s attention shifted entirely toward it.
Watching Dan Mok Han So’s expression as he regarded Dan Mok Seong, Ryeon caught the hint of mischievous amusement in his eyes and inwardly shook her head.
Oblivious to that expression, Dan Mok Seong asked with visible gravity.
“Will I not be able to learn the Dao any longer?”
“Hmm. If you wish it, we could continue.”
“…!”
“But I wonder what your mother will say about that.”
“My mother…”
At the late recollection of his mother, Dan Mok Hyeon Yo, Dan Mok Seong’s expression stiffened somewhat.
Was there any being as sensitive to their parents’ wishes as a child? Dan Mok Seong understood what his mother desired.
When he had first taken up the Bi-mu with Geum Ga Jang, and thus begun learning the Dao, the reason his mother had said nothing was that she believed this would be the one and only time.
Observing that expression, Dan Mok Han So let out a low laugh.
“Hmm. When I was young, no one in this house approved of my taking up the Dao either. This place is full of such fools who understand only the sword, is it not?”
Dan Mok Seong nearly burst out laughing at Dan Mok Han So’s abrupt criticism, but realizing belatedly that his mother, Dan Mok Hyeon Yo, was included among those fools, he pressed his lips firmly shut and stifled his mirth.
“In such cases, you must show them this.”
Dan Mok Han So tapped the large Dao at his waist.
“Win decisively enough to silence them, and no one will dare speak again.”
“…!”
“The Murim is a world of strength. In a world of strength, one speaks not with words but with power.”
“…Yes!”
“And… the previous clan head was formidable. There was nothing he could not do.”
“Pardon?”
Ryeon’s ears perked up at her father’s words. Dan Mok Han So bent forward and spoke in a low whisper to the young women.
“Everyone spoke of how he was unparalleled in the sword, but that was not so. There was no weapon he could not master. Had I alone cultivated the Dao in this household, I would never have come this far.”
“I see…”
“So when it comes to catching up with him, wouldn’t it be wise to learn the Dao first and then concern ourselves with the sword afterward?”
Ryeon let out a low cough.
In truth, she doubted whether the previous clan head had truly mastered every weapon, and even if he had, such a feat would only be possible for a genuine genius of the century like Dan Mok Hyeon Seong.
But once any excuse was made to take up the Dao and achievements beyond a certain standard were attained, who would tell him to return to the sword thereafter?
Yet Dan Mok Seong nodded repeatedly, as if Dan Mok Han So had spoken something most reasonable.
Dan Mok Han So laughed with deep satisfaction.

Before finishing his day’s work, Jeong Young was reorganizing his sword and preparing to bow to Ryeon when he sensed a presence—his body tensed in an instant, then went slack as he recognized who it was.
“Captain?!”
“Well! If it isn’t our Young. It’s been a while.”
“I heard you’d arrived a month ago, so how could you not visit us even once?”
Sharp reproach burst forth immediately, and Dan Mok Han So hunched his shoulders.
“No, I’m not the captain anymore.”
“How can a person be like this? You left saying you were quitting, without a word, and came back without even saying when you’d arrived—how is that fair?”
As Jeong Young leveled his criticism as though Dan Mok Han So weren’t even there, Dan Mok Han So wore an uncomfortable expression but could not muster any further rebuttal.
“And now you just say you’re not the captain anymore and that settles it?”
“Listen, there’s a greater purpose to all this. I, the captain, that is—”
“I thought you said you weren’t the commander.”
“This kid’s grown some.”
Everyone knew that Ryeon had risen with help from the Sa Cheon Dang Moon, but no one knew exactly what Grand Technique she’d received back then.
It had been kept in strict secrecy to protect those who would later channel it.
And Dan Mok Han So had wanted to keep it secret for another reason besides.
He followed Dan Mok Cheon Gi rather deeply, and in any case, since Dan Mok Ryeon was family, however distant, it was a choice he’d made — but he didn’t want the warriors of the clan to think they ought to sacrifice their internal energy and everything they had for their master.
‘We’re not the Ma Cheon Gyo, after all.’
From what he’d heard, that lot’s leader would absorb the internal energy of his inferiors — but this was a renowned righteous faction, wasn’t it?
And they didn’t even know his noble purpose!
Dan Mok Han So swallowed a sudden sorrow with a hollow cough and tapped Jeong Young’s shoulder.
“You’ve grown quite a bit, hmm, haven’t you.”
“You said I’d grown just a moment ago.”
“You know that’s not what I meant — why are you being like this?”
“Have I really grown that much in just a year?”
Jeong Young turned the subject at once. Dan Mok Han So sighed.
“Yeah. You really have.”
“Then are you returning to the clan for good?”
A quiet hope glimmered in the stern youngest member’s face, and though Dan Mok Han So laughed inwardly, he showed nothing on the surface.
The Yeo Seong Ship Pal Suk, the elite strike force of the Dan Mok Clan, was not merely an organization of exactly eighteen members.
Below the eighteen were eighteen more in reserve, and below those thirty-six more in the second reserve.
By now that second reserve could no longer be maintained and had already been dissolved, and Jeong Young was the eighteenth of the first reserve — the youngest of all.
Even if Dan Mok Han So stepped down and everyone climbed one rank, there would be no one below Jeong Young to take his place, so he would remain the youngest still.
“…I’m thinking about it.”
Dan Mok Han So muttered this while imagining that Dan Mok Cheon Gi would laugh heartily at hearing it — the man who was already glowering at him saying, ‘Didn’t you agree to teach for just one month?’
Jeong Young noticed in Dan Mok Han So’s quiet voice a depth and gravity that hadn’t been there before he’d left.
Normally he might not have caught such a shift, but strangely these days his mind was clear and sharp — keen enough that just moments earlier he’d sensed Dan Mok Han So’s approach at once.
“Commander, have you perhaps achieved a breakthrough…?”
“What? Do I smell?”
“I didn’t say you smell…”
Dan Mok Han So stopped sniffing at his collar and laughed, dragging Jeong Young along with him.
“Let’s have a drink!”
“But tomorrow is the day we go to Geum Ga Jang, isn’t it? Your match with Miss Dan Mok.”
“Are you fighting in it? Miss Dan Mok is the one competing.”
When teaching, he called her by name, but otherwise Dan Mok Han So was careful to use “young lady.”
“Still…”
“Aren’t you off duty? Once you’re off, you’re free.”
“Oh, all right. Just a moment.”
Jeong Young spoke and turned toward the inner part of the quarters.
He called softly around the corner, and the door opened to reveal a small girl — a girl with constellations dancing in her eyes. It was Dan Mok Ryeon.
Dan Mok Han So was somewhat surprised to see that the two of them appeared to have quite a bit of rapport.
Dan Mok Ryeon gestured to Jeong Young, who bowed his head. She whispered something quietly. Though they were quite a distance apart, Dan Mok Han So could hear their conversation by listening discreetly.
— Does Commander Han So like to drink much…?
— Pardon?
— Do you push alcohol on people often?
— Oh, a little. He does love his drink.
— If you don’t want to drink, then don’t. Say I told you not to.
— Yes!
‘What do the two of them take me for!’
While Dan Mok Han So grumbled, Jeong Young finished greeting Ryeon and returned.
“Ahem. Let’s go quickly. I know a good place.”
In a somewhat secluded spot near Seo Ho, in an inn from which you could glimpse Seo Ho if you looked, they took a table. Before Dan Mok Han So had even raised his cup to his lips, he asked:
“Your cultivation has improved considerably too.”
“I still have much to learn.”
Jeong Young answered in a slightly stiffened voice.
“How are your practice sessions going?”
“Two sichen before work begins, and two sichen after, I’m refining my techniques. Beyond that, on rest days…”
Jeong Young straightened his back a little more and answered in a grave tone.
Dan Mok Han So was both commander of the Yeo Seong Ship Pal Suk and a spiritual mentor to its members.
“Is that so? Has she not been helping you with anything?”
The hands resting on Jeong Young’s knees twitched slightly.
Then he looked at Dan Mok Han So, his eyes clouded with suspicion.
“Why do you ask such a thing?”
“Because your progress has suddenly surged like water overflowing its banks, and these days there’s been no one beside you except the young lady Ryeon.”
At Dan Mok Han So’s words, Jeong Young lowered his gaze to his own knees, his expression grave as he turned the matter over in his mind.
‘Even now that he says it’s no longer so, he remains the first blade of the Yeo Seong Ship Pal Suk, a man loyal to the Patriarch.’
So what of himself?
‘The lowest-ranked member of the Yeo Seong Ship Pal Suk. A warrior who guards the young lady’s quarters… and…’
Someone of no account. Perhaps merely a man who had received a little counsel from the young lady.
Jeong Young found himself thinking of Dan Mok Ryeon once more.
A small girl who rushed to perfect her martial arts, who moved between the medicine hall and her duties, who threw herself into her struggles every day in an effort to raise the clan by any means possible.

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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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