The Wizard Who Endured the World of Murim - Chapter 33

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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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Surviving in the Martial Realm as a Mage: Episode 33
“It tastes even better when consumed while hot. Go ahead and try it.”
“Mmm, the fragrance is certainly rich. This is quality merchandise, isn’t it?”
“Savor it slowly while I finish the tale. As you know, I possess considerable patience.”
At the Celestial Great Sage’s words, the Nine-tailed Fox sprayed out the tea she had been holding in her mouth and laughed with delight.
“Ahahaha! The stone monkey possesses patience? If Gyeonsin heard that, he’d be rolling on the ground laughing!”
“Whether that fool rolls on the ground or does somersaults in the air is no concern of mine.”
The Celestial Great Sage fixed his golden eyes upon the Nine-tailed Fox with intensity.
“It’s been so long since I’ve heard such an entertaining story. Until you tell me everything clearly, you’re staying here with me for the rest of your life. Without my permission, there’s no way you’ll escape, no matter what you try.”
“Wow~ Is this how monkeys confess their feelings? I’m actually getting a little excited right now.”
“…Damned fox.”
The Nine-tailed Fox smiled brightly, sipped her tea, and opened her mouth to speak.
“It’s been a little over a hundred years now. It seems a talented child was born on our side.”
“You managed to observe successfully, it appears.”
“Yes. One of our children, whom I sent to monitor the Lower Realm, discovered it.”
The Nine-tailed Fox wagged her nine fluffy tails contentedly.
She paused her words here for a moment.
She brought the teacup in her hand slowly to her lips, her eyes closed as a faint blush colored her face.
She deliberately prolonged the moment, savoring the rich tea aroma bit by bit.
The monkey, who would normally have erupted in fury and pressed her for answers by now,
truly exercised patience and waited for her next words.
After a brief passage of time,
the Nine-tailed Fox opened her mouth.
“Why aren’t you angry?”
“Rushing to speak would only waste more time.”
“Hehe, when did our monkey become so clever?”
“Until now, I was merely playing along. There was nothing else to do here.”
“I suppose that’s true enough.”
The Nine-tailed Fox regarded the monkey with an expression suggesting that was sufficient.
“It was a dream.”
“A dream?”
The Golden Monkey’s expression became serious.
A dream.
A single word,
yet sufficient to comprehend everything.
“We demons fundamentally don’t dream, after all.”
“That’s right.”
Demons are beings enslaved to their instinctive desires.
This was also why demons were typically stronger than humans on average.
The desire to grow stronger.
It far exceeded the magnitude of desire that humans possessed.
After all, they were beings born to faithfully pursue their desires.
Even when yokai entered a state of sleep, they merely concentrated faithfully on the desire of sleep itself.
‘Though that becomes meaningless at higher realms.’
As cultivation advanced, they neither ate nor slept.
In truth, even at lower realms, sleep produced only fragmented dreams.
Yokai lacked the leisure of imagination during sleep to dream anything concrete and realistic.
They were always driven by the need for survival.
Yet this time, remarkably, a mutant yokai capable of dreaming had been born.
Conversely, this meant they knew how to properly control their own desires.
“That talented child who appeared in the Lower Realm dreamed with such clarity. That’s how I barely managed to employ a loophole.”
“…And the result? Did he hear your voice? Did you reach him?”
The Nine-tailed Fox nodded.
The Celestial Great Sage closed his eyes quietly.
His iron-like forearms trembled faintly.
Hope had finally emerged—the possibility of intervening in the Lower Realm.
“That’s all I have to say. What do you think?”
“…I will cooperate with whatever you desire.”
“Excellent. That’s precisely the answer I wanted.”
“What did the others say?”
“I haven’t told them yet. You’re the first.”
A golden-furred monkey.
The ruler of Hwagwasan, and during the great war that occurred in the Upper Realm in ages past.
The mightiest and most fearsome great yokai who had swept away the majority of Immortals with a single golden staff.
The Celestial Great Sage Sun Wukong.
A savage smile played across his lips, his fangs bared.
“Coming to me first was a very wise choice. Indeed, our fox bodhisattva possesses a most discerning eye for strength.”
“…If I had gone to those other fools first and told them, you would have been angry anyway, wouldn’t you?”
“Hehe, there’s no need to treat such weaklings with courtesy. And proper protocol is a matter of great importance, you see.”
“Insane monkey! A thousand years have passed and you still mimic humans like a foolish stone ape! After all these eons spent with our friends, why must you always speak that way? Stop it. It’s childish!”
The Celestial Great Sage, who had been lost in other thoughts while letting the Nine-tailed Fox’s colorful tirade go in one ear and out the other, found himself uncharacteristically hesitant.
With difficulty, he finally opened his mouth.
“In truth, I also heard a voice not long ago.”
“What? What voice?”
As the Nine-tailed Fox tilted her head in confusion.
The Celestial Great Sage set down the teacup in his hand, his expression oddly ambiguous.
“Not long ago. There was one from the Lower Realm who sent their voice to This Place.”
“…What?”
Bewilderment crossed the Nine-tailed Fox’s face.
The Dimensional Barrier that separated the Lower Realm from the Upper Realm.
Even those in the Upper Realm couldn’t pierce through that barrier to exert influence over the Lower Realm.
Yet you’re telling me that a voice can be sent from the Lower Realm to the Upper Realm?
The Nine-tailed Fox’s expression grew serious for a moment before she let out an amused chuckle.
“Come on, if you’re going to lie, at least put some effort into it. I don’t believe you one bit.”
“I don’t believe it either, but it’s the truth.”
“Golden Monkey. You know there’s nothing to gain by lying to me like this, right?”
The Celestial Great Sage regarded the Nine-tailed Fox with the same expression as before and spoke.
“The voice was too faint for me to be certain either. That’s why I’ve been sending an avatar to wait at the location where the voice sounded loudest.”
“…Is that lie actually true?”
“Yes. When I hear the voice again, I won’t miss it this time. If it comes from the same place!”
The Nine-tailed Fox swished her luxuriant tails back and forth for a while.
Then she paused and lifted her chin thoughtfully.
“Well, what else would you expect? You’re already lying in wait.”
“But there was definitely something odd about it.”
“What was that?”
“The one who sent the voice up here was searching for something in this realm.”
“Searching for what?”
“Someone called Bar… Gas? I have no idea who that is. Despite the fact that nothing in this world exists that I don’t know of.”
The Nine-tailed Fox dismissed Sun Wukong’s self-aggrandizing remark lightly and tilted her head in confusion.
“Could they be talking about the Dokkaebi? We don’t communicate well with those creatures either. But would there be any Dokkaebi known in the Lower Realm? Maybe if it were the Dokkaebi King?”
“First of all, the Dokkaebi have no king. And the one the voice was searching for didn’t seem to be that.”
“Then what is it? What are they looking for?”
The voice that had faintly reached Sun Wukong’s ears continued searching for something called the Spirit King.
Eventually, the voice grew fainter and fainter.
At last, it desperately asked if even a high-ranking spirit would suffice, pleading for a response.
But by the time the meaning had been pieced together and finally reached Sun Wukong’s ears,
all the power and traces contained in that voice had already vanished completely.
“In any case, I’ll handle that matter on my end. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”
“Good. Then I’ll leave that to you.”
The more methods they had to interfere with the Lower Realm, the better.
‘What worries me is this.’
Just as they were searching for ways to interfere with the Lower Realm like this,
it was highly likely that the Immortals had also discovered their own loopholes to circumvent the barrier by now.
* * *
Ilhyang sometimes found himself unable to adapt to the scale of this world.
It was the same now.
“Excluding the few who fled, the number of Water Bandits captured without resistance, including the wounded, is approximately seven hundred.”
“…Seven hundred?”
“Yes. More fled than I expected. Still, capturing this many is about eighty percent, sir.”
Ilhyang found himself laughing softly despite himself.
Typically, a wealthy baron’s private forces numbered around two hundred soldiers.
Yet here, a mere bandit gang commanded seven hundred.
An absurdly disproportionate number.
My entire understanding of scale and proportion was being overturned.
As I stood there bewildered by these figures alone.
Seo Jang-gwe of the Jinseong Transport Company continued his report.
“Furthermore, the water bandits arrived on thirty-eight wedge-shaped vessels, with six sailing ships remaining intact. Two additional sailing ships sustained minor damage but are serviceable without significant difficulty… In essence, you have acquired eight sailing ships and thirty-eight wedge-shaped vessels as spoils of war.”
“I see….”
The sheer number of vessels seized as spoils was far too vast to attribute to a mere bandit organization.
I had grown accustomed to most aspects of this world.
Yet these matters of scale still struck me as remarkable.
“Beyond that, accounting for the water bandits’ weapons and material possessions converted to currency… the total comes to approximately seventy-five hundred gold. Of course, that assumes hasty liquidation.”
After Seo Jang-gwe’s lengthy explanation concluded.
I found myself whistling unconsciously at the staggering sum.
“Phew~ That’s considerably more than I anticipated. Quite overwhelming, really.”
“Indeed. The assault force was substantial, after all. Such a large-scale convoy attack is exceedingly rare even among the Yangtze River Bandits.”
Seo Jang-gwe.
The man who specialized in managing finances and monetary matters for the Jinseong Transport Company maintained his consistently respectful tone as he addressed my youthful face.
“Moreover, you have acquired far more than mere vessels.”
“What else might there be?”
“The captive masters of the peak realm. They are resources equally as valuable as the ships themselves.”
“Ah, you speak of their ransom value.”
Seo Jang-gwe nodded.
In truth, compared to the vessels and water bandits’ worth obtained from repelling this assault, the ransom value of these elite masters represented an extraordinarily significant portion.
“Nine peak realm masters were captured unharmed. Calculating their lives at current market rates—three hundred gold per person—their combined ransom value totals twenty-seven hundred gold.”
“…Remarkable.”
A soft exhale escaped me.
The vessels and the bandits’ ransom.
Combined, they exceeded ten thousand gold—an astronomical sum.
‘I could purchase a lower-grade elixir with this.’
As I marveled at the figures.
Seo Jang-gwe, perhaps exhausted from his lengthy exposition, hastily reached for the teacup resting on the table and drank.
By the time I had finished my rough calculations across from him.
Seo Jang-gwe spoke again, his expression as serious as possible, his words carefully measured.
“Should you desire it, our Jinseong Transport Company will spare no effort in liquidating these spoils for you. Naturally, we would charge no commission for this service.”
“Hmm….”
I fell into thought, absently touching my rounded chin.
Simply put, engaging a trustworthy intermediary to liquidate the spoils seemed most prudent.
‘It certainly seems advantageous….’
Yet my income had far exceeded my initial expectations.
My desires took on a more concrete form within my heart.
I found myself yearning to actually construct a Magic Tower in this world.

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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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