The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 12

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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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Heavenly Discipleship Ranking (12)
Dig a little deeper underground
Once the tale of the bamboo slips ended, Jin Muok, who had been standing as if nailed to the spot, plopped down and propped his chin on his hand.
“Hmm.”
Incomplete? Our sect’s martial arts?
“So that’s how it is.”
Watching Jin Muok sink into deep thought, Baekri Unhak was astonished.
Anyone would have been expected to fall flat on their backside once the sect’s secret came to light and its martial arts were called into question. Especially a ten-year-old boy who couldn’t control his emotions.
Yet Jin Muok, rather than being shocked like a veteran of the rivers and lakes who’d seen every kind of hardship, had plopped down and started analyzing.
“Are you… surprised?”
“I am.”
A listless reply.
“That’s why I’m expressing my surprise with my whole body.”
With my whole body, my foot. You look as idle as an old man surveying his vegetable patch.
Seeing that Jin Muok had unexpectedly taken an analytical approach, Baekri Unhak felt at ease and gathered his own thoughts.
“It wasn’t that I intended to perfectly execute the Bukhae Mupa. I was merely ten years old at the time, so by what talent could I have dreamed of the Muboong Jiro of Bukhae Mupa?”
The moment Muboong Jiro was mentioned, Jin Muok instinctively cupped his fist in salute. For martial artists, the Muboong Jiro was both a dream and an object of reverence.
Having paid his respects, Jin Muok looked back at Baekri Unhak with fresh eyes.
Baekri Unhak, who had clung to variations of the Bukhae Mupa even while enduring scorn and neglect, whether he had talent or not.
Naturally, a ten-year-old brat could not have pursued a flawless sword art, so the Muboong Jiro must have been far beyond his reach.
If one judged by martial theory alone, he was a figure who could rightfully be called the foremost under heaven.
That was Baekri Unhak.
Jin Muok, gazing at Baekri Unhak with a complicated heart, creased his brow.
“But Northern Storm Wind got plenty of mileage out of the Bukhae Mupa, you know?”
In his previous life, Jin Muok had driven the Demonic Cult to the brink of annihilation with the Bukhae Mupa alone. Slaughtering the so-called Ten Great Protectors of the Demonic Cult had been a mere bonus.
Yet he never discovered any flaws in the Bukhae Mupa.
“Master was strong.”
I know.
“But the Bukhae Mupa itself was probably not strong.”
What kind of nonsense is this out of nowhere?
“Master possessed a beast-like sense of combat. You might say he instinctively grasped his opponent’s weaknesses. He was a born brawler who could press an enemy relentlessly and then know exactly when to withdraw.”
“Meaning?”
“The Bukhae Mupa was merely a tool; it cannot represent a martial artist. That is why, even with the somewhat lacking Bukhae Mupa, he achieved a legendary record of victories.”
Was that so?
As Jin Muok scratched the back of his head vigorously, Baekri Unhak delivered a decisive explanation.
“Of all who emerged from the Bukcheon Sinmun, Northern Storm Wind is the only one who rose to fame and glory.”
Bang!
“This is both proof that our sect’s martial arts are incomplete and evidence that Master stood tall on his own fundamental ability.”
Recalling their parting, Baekri Unhak smiled faintly.
“To put it plainly, Master was an Injagang.”
The man Jin Muok himself was strong!
Baekri Unhak’s reasoning was so neat that no one could help but agree.
“The only question is this: Investigator Imok said he obtained the Northern Power in the north, so why would a record be left underground here in Sichuan, in the south?”
“Right?”
“And who exactly is the enemy our Bukcheon Sinmun must face? That is another question.”
It was complicated. Having learned one thing, four or five more doubts bloomed at once, and only his curiosity swelled.
“Shall we head north right now?”
“What?”
“Or shall we dig a little beneath this place?”
When Jin Muok began rambling about nonsense, Baekri Unhak made a dazed expression.
“Since Imok Sajo gained his power in the north, we could go there at once, or if we venture a little deeper underground here, where the secret history of our sect is recorded, we could obtain the complete martial arts of our Bukcheon Sinmun…”
Unbelievable!
My junior brother is an idiot!
In matters beyond martial arts, he turned out to be the biggest dimwit of all the dimwits!
“How could you even say such a thing!”
When Baekri Unhak feigned anger, Jin Muok pushed out his lower lip.
“Why are you getting angry? If he gained power underground, then going even deeper might turn up something amazing!”
“Do you really think the previous sect elders never considered that?”
“They might not have!”
“What on earth are you!”
“What did I do!”
A childish quarrel, utterly pointless.
Jin Muok and Baekri Unhak, who had been trading such embarrassing barbs, suddenly pricked up their ears.
“Did you hear that?”
Baekri Unhak’s eyes narrowed.
“They’re finally here.”
Jin Muok curled his lips into a cold, dangerous smile.
“Our uninvited guests.”
* * *
The uninvited guests gazed down at the hut that Jin Muok and Baekri Unhak had left empty.
Chirp, chirp, chirp—.
The waxing moon hung bright overhead, and the mournful song of crickets drifted lazily around the hut on Guihwa Ridge of Jiuding Mountain, lending the scene a melancholy air. He felt nothing at all.
Swish—.
At the leader’s raised hand, a band of men rippled into view out of thin air.
Moving under cover of night, they had wrapped their bodies in black cloth and gone a step further, concealing their faces behind pitch-dark hoods.
The masked men fanning out wide around the hut exchanged glances, then drew fire-starting sticks from their robes.
Flick!
Having lit their sticks, the masked men hurled them all at once.
Whoosh! Fwoosh—.
Whether they had treated the sticks with some special compound, I couldn’t say, but the fire that sprang from them swallowed the hut in an instant.
Roaring, roaring.
Searing heat and billowing smoke.
No one could endure heat and smoke like this.
Not even a master at the peak of his art.
Nod.
At the leader’s signal, more than forty masked men slid their swords partway from their scabbards.
Should he somehow fight his way out of the sea of flames, he would still have to face forty blades.
Flash.
The eyes of the masked men flickered like wisps of ghostfire.
* * *
“So the humans have come after all.”
Jin Muok spoke through clenched teeth as he stepped out of the stone chamber. Apart from the Bamboo Slips recording the history of Bukcheon Sinmun, the chamber held nothing of use, so it would be better to seal it as it was.
“Came, they came.”
Honestly, he had hoped no one would come. The news of Bukjin Gwangpung’s return had reached only the people of the Murim Alliance, so if anyone launched an ambush, they could only be someone tied to the Murim Alliance.
And yet, he had hoped they wouldn’t come.
As Jin Muok revealed his uneasy state of mind, Baekri Unhak, who had been straining to listen to the commotion above, let his anger show.
“Shameless wretches. What a waste of effort.”
Whoosh—!
A side of him rarely seen in his usual gentlemanly bearing.
Those who are naturally lofty are fearsome when they are angry.
Just like now.
“I won’t forgive this.”
Jin Muok glanced at Baekri Unhak, his fist clenched in fury, then reached a certain stretch of the cave and rapped on the wall.
“Here, perhaps?”
“What are you doing—!”
Thud!
Gathering his internal energy into the soles of his feet, Jin Muok drove a punch into the wall with all his might, and a hole burst through, opening into some unseen space beyond.
“Oh?”
Baekri Unhak, startled.
“So there was a cave here!”
Gazing into the dark tunnel on the other side, Baekri Unhak’s eyes went wide.
“I dug diligently, but only northward.”
“Master and disciple ran themselves ragged in opposite directions. No wonder we never met.”
Chuckling, Jin Muok widened the opening in the wall.
Once the hole was large enough for a person, he pushed himself through and added, as if in passing, “Don’t blame yourself for not knowing about this. How could you have figured it out when Bukjin Gwangpung never told you?”
That much was obvious.
“Cunning hare with three burrows, I suppose.”
“You brat! Comparing your master to a crafty rabbit!”
“You dug tunnels beneath the sect without your own disciple’s knowledge. Crafty is exactly what you are.”
“Crafty is exactly what you are.”
Seeing Jin Muok stick out his lip, Baekri Unhak, who had been about to scold him, promptly shrugged.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
‘So even Master was having a case of same bed, different dreams.’
Baekri Unhak let out a snort of laughter and glanced back at Jin Muok.
“So where are we headed?”
“To catch the man who paid the arsonists to light the fire.”
“The ones who hired them?”
“Beating up the lowlifes up top won’t get us anything. We need to nab whoever placed the order.”
“Do you know who they are?”
“Nope.”
Jin Muok cut him off so bluntly that Baekri Unhak, who had balled his fists in irritation, quickly loosened them.
Why is it that every time I get tangled up in conversation with this kid, I end up feeling like I’m the one being reined in?
“Then how exactly do you plan to catch them?”
“Those bastards are delusional perfectionists.”
Picking his way carefully forward, Jin Muok turned his head and met Baekri Unhak’s gaze head-on.
“Why do you think you’ve managed to keep your post as a training instructor for the 3rd Mobile Squad, the Murim Alliance’s core fighting force, even though you can barely get through circulating your Qi?”
“Could it be…?”
No martial household or sect, no matter what, would keep an instructor who has to lie in bed for three days every time he channels his inner power.
And that goes double for the Murim Alliance.
“It’s a matter of management.”
Jin Muok declared it without a shadow of doubt.
“They’re meticulous enough to manipulate the Demonic Cult, to frame Bukjin Gwangpung, who was a thorn in their side, and to feel uneasy unless they keep even his dead disciple under their thumb. And on top of that.”
Jin Muok’s eyes glinted in the darkness.
“They’re the kind who acted the moment they heard that Bukjin Gwangpung had a new disciple after ten years.”
Feeling along the cave wall with his hand, Jin Muok cautiously resumed walking.
“With that kind of thoroughness, they wouldn’t trust the job to a hired hand alone. They’ll be watching from somewhere far off.”
Otherwise, they wouldn’t be satisfied.
“And if they’re perfectionists, they must have scouted this place over and over, and found a spot with a clear view of the hut.”
Heading straight south, Jin Muok suddenly veered left.
“Walk this way and you’ll come right out at that very spot.”
* * *
Crack! Crackle-crackle!
While the hut burned completely down to ash, no one came out to escape.
The masked men, tense and bloodshot-eyed, watched the point of ignition, then exchanged glances with one another.
—What should we do?
—Hmm.
The leader of the masked men, muttering low, pulled out a secret order detailing their instructions.
Snap.
The letter held only a single line.
Annihilate
Having checked the contents of the secret order, the leader held up four fingers to his subordinates.
Nod.
With another nod, the masked men approached the site of the blaze and set something up, and the others scattered in perfect coordination.
Three.
Two.
One.
Kwaaaaang—!
* * *
Ruurrrrrumble—!
The blast’s aftershock reached the underground cave as well, forcing Jin Muok and Baekri Unhak, who were heading for the exit, to stagger.
“W-what is this?”
“Seriously? These lunatics went and set off explosives too?”
Jin Muok clicked his tongue in disbelief.
Unexpected. If they wanted to wipe him out and dig up the problem by the roots, they would have come at him with blades first. There was no reason to choose another method, so he hadn’t anticipated they’d set off explosives.
“Are they out of their minds?”
Rrrumble— rrumble—.
As the faint tremors, soft as down, echoed back and forth through the cave’s every corner, Jin Muok lifted his chin with a haughty air.
“Don’t worry. Bukjin Gwangpung shaped this cave pretty solidly, so it won’t collapse from any ordinary blast.”
Ruuurrrrrrrumble—!
Even so?
“I’m fine. I’m fine. I can take this much.”
Kwuwaaaang—!
Even this?
‘Damn it.’
The warning sign of this explosion was different from everything before it, so Jin Muok pulled Baekri Unhak’s arm and drew him into his small frame.
And then.
Kwang! Kwarrrrrrrrr!
With the roar of Beoncheon Jibok, Guihwa Ridge shook from end to end. When Jin Muok lost his footing, Baekri Unhak wrapped his whole body around him.
Kwakwakwakwang!

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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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