The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - 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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Cheonha Jeil Sajae (21)
Get lost.
Thump-thump-thump!
Dang Jong-o, who was always at ease, had cast aside his usual composure and hurried toward the infirmary.
“The wounded are the people from the Woomun Family and the cargo porters and laborers they hired for the escort, correct?”
“Yes!”
The Woomun Family is a martial household belonging to the Seven Families, alongside the Tang Clan.
Why would the people of the Woomun Family, who have made their home in Jeongan of Guizhou Province, have been wounded near Chengdu in Sichuan Province?
“So how many patients are there?”
“They say seventy-seven in all!”
The young physicians who followed him went pale and muttered in a rush.
“Eighteen with serious wounds and fifty-five with minor ones!”
Which means the remaining four were—
“Their lives hang by a thread…”
Without so much as glancing back at the young physician who could not finish his sentence, Dang Jong-o threw open the infirmary door.
“Aaaargh!”
“My arm! Someone, my arm!”
“Please, save me!”
Pandemonium! A sight too horrid to behold! In a word, a living hell!
The screams of the wounded, the frantic movements of the physicians and apprentices, and the air thick with the stench of blood were more than enough to plunge the once-calm infirmary into the mire of a battlefield… and yet.
Surprisingly, the infirmary was not in chaos. No, it was running more systematically and efficiently than ever.
‘What is this?’
The Tang Clan was undoubtedly a famous household among the Three Great Medical Houses of the martial world, but unlike the other medical families that devoted themselves to the healing arts, it placed far greater weight on martial study.
For that reason, it had comparatively few physicians, apprentices, and Medicine Boys.
Worse still, the clan head, Dang Junkyu, had taken the seven chief physicians, the Seven Great Physicians, far away to collect poison, leaving no one fit to command the infirmary from the front.
And yet the infirmary was intact.
At its center stood—
“Myomyo, you look after that patient. Hwa-unni and the other two, bring a little more water.”
A ten-year-old child was ruling the infirmary!
The apprentices moved in perfect unison under Jin Muok’s orders. However loudly the patients shrieked or raged, they carried out their treatments and care solely according to his commands.
“Jong-ik hyung, please look after this man. And Uncle Jun-gyeong, please stanch the bleeding for this one.”
The physicians were in the same position, so they too gave priority to the patients Jin Muok pointed out.
And then there was Byeok Eunsa.
Whirr-whirr-whish—.
His divine skill of sealing patients’ wounds with dozens of threads was, quite literally, overwhelming, and it lifted a great deal of the burden from the already overworked medical staff.
Then why did the apprentices and physicians follow Jin Muok’s orders?
“Hey! Look at me first!”
“Can’t you see my stomach? It’s pouring blood!”
When a large-scale disaster strikes, every wounded person wants to be tended to first. In such cases, unless a seasoned leader assigns the medical staff to the right places, chaos follows.
As things stood, the Tang Clan had no one in charge of the infirmary, since the clan head, Dang Junkyu, and the seven chief physicians had all left their posts.
It was Jin Muok who swiftly brought order to the infirmary, which had nearly fallen into confusion from the patients’ complaints and cries.
After all, this level of chaos was an everyday matter to him.
‘When we clashed with a thousand-odd soldiers of Bei Yuan, our casualties numbered a full three hundred. And when we fought the ferocious Nanman, I had to tend to countless wounded as well.’
From his days as a young soldier up until he earned the rank of Deputy Commander, he had fought countless battles and wars, and having faced just as many wounded and dead, such a scene was familiar to him.
On the battlefield, wherever the wounded were carried in became their sickbed, and wherever a hasty procedure was performed became the infirmary.
The guardian god who held the field hospital in the wilderness.
And most decisively…
‘I can see death.’
It was no mysterious power. Having seen countless wounded and dead, he had come to grasp instinctively how grave each wound was.
“M-me, please!”
“You won’t die, so don’t worry.”
“My arm hurts so badly!”
“I’ll see to you next.”
Passing by the patients who clutched their stomachs and arms in agony without so much as a glance, Jin Muok flipped over a man who was huddled at the edge of a sickbed.
“Hup!”
Raising his hand and gathering Qi in his palm, Jin Muok pressed on the patient’s chest, and the man’s mouth fell open.
“Cough!”
The patient vomited thick black blood and passed out.
“Please, look at this man first!”
“So this is the true art of unlicensed healing.”
Dang Ik emerged from behind the hesitating Dang Jong-o, clicking his tongue as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“That disciple of Muok’s, the youngest one. He called us unlicensed, and look at him now, he’s the worst of the lot.”
Of course he was. Jin Muok knew qi and meridians, and that was all. Acupuncture and the rest of medicine were entirely beyond him.
Still, the people brought to Tang Clan weren’t suffering from chronic internal ailments. They had stab wounds, lacerations, and injuries from internal force, so there was room for him to make a difference.
“That little fellow is scurrying back and forth like a sparrow, treating patients, then barking orders at the physicians and the Uipa. It’s a sight to behold.”
Watching Jin Muok with the fondness of someone who couldn’t get enough of him, Dang Ik kept repeating, “Well taught, well taught.”
“I suppose his master told him about all the hardships he endured in the army. Even in a moment as grim as this, he hasn’t lost his composure. He’s seasoned, more than seasoned.”
“Just as seasoned as any old hand of the jianghu, I’d say.”
Dang Jong-o murmured, staring blankly at Jin Muok.
“Yes.”
Dang Ik nodded, then let out a sigh.
“The trouble is, the youngest disciple’s words don’t seem wrong at all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The Uipa lot are every bit as skilled as the young physicians.”
Dang Ik watched the Infirmary in its wretched state and let out a groan.
“This won’t do. We need drastic measures.”
Jin Muok, having set aside his usual playfulness, rushed about in earnest. In his heart, he thought of only one thing.
Save one more person!
Those carried to Tang Clan numbered fifty-five: twenty-two Woomun Family martial artists, the cargo porters hired from Jeongan Escort Agency, and day laborers from the neighborhood. Most of the lightly wounded were cargo porters, and the severely wounded were Woomun Family martial artists.
‘They must have been wounded while trying to protect the laborers.’
Then they must be treated. The Woomun Family fighters had strived to protect those weaker than themselves, and they deserved to be respected for it.
“Bring more liquor! Are the Samchil and Baekgeup not here yet?”
High-proof liquor was ideal for disinfecting wounds. Samchil and Baekgeup, meanwhile, were the finest hemostatics available. But the sudden stream of wounded had emptied Tang Clan’s stores.
“Then Jiyu and Pohwang will do! If those aren’t available, Chohoe will serve as well!”
With medicine in short supply, Jin Muok turned to folk remedies to stop the bleeding of the wounded. He could do so only because he had studied battlefield medicine over many years.
Perhaps his sincerity reached them.
Most of the Infirmary staff also treated the severely wounded with desperate devotion, but a handful of young physicians who resented Jin Muok’s Hwadamhoe openly slacked off, mocking him and the Uipa.
―Some little brat knows medicine?
―Let’s see how well he does.
The rest, however, clung to their patients with everything they had.
“Young Master, over here!”
When Myomyo called out, Jin Muok dashed to the sickbed where she stood.
“What’s—!”
Someone was dying. A life that had burned brightly not long ago now flickered precariously.
Just like the oil lamp he had seen in Dang Cheon’s study.
Myomyo slowly raised her head to look at Jin Muok. Beside her, the physicians had already let go of their hands.
“Can you hear me? Can you hear what I’m saying?”
Jin Muok lowered his head and whispered to the badly wounded man.
“Brother?”
“This is Tang Clan, and I’m Jin Mu—”
“Brother? Brother?”
The gravely injured man was Woomun Hangyu, a seventeen-year-old youth, or rather a boy. He was the third son of Woomun Jeonggi, the head of Woomun Family, and had ridden out into the jianghu for the first time only to meet with this disaster.
Despite his young age, Woomun Hangyu had been brimming with pride and a sense of duty as a martial artist. He was the boy who had won the love and trust of every member of the family.
And now that bud, which had never once been allowed to bloom, was about to be plucked.
“Why is it so, so dark?”
Unable to see, he waved his hands wildly, searching for someone.
“Brother Hangyeong! Where are you? Please, answer me!”
The total number of wounded brought to Tang Clan was seventy-seven. Wounded, all of them.
That’s right. The Woomun Family and cargo porter caravan had not seventy-seven people but eighty in total. If seventy-seven were wounded, then the remaining three… had already left this world.
And on the list of the dead was Woomun Hangyeong, Woomun Hangyu’s second elder brother.
“Brother! Brother!”
Just then, one of the physicians approached Jin Muok and whispered the news of Woomun Hangyeong’s death into his ear.
“Where are you, Brother!”
Gulp.
At the sight of Woomun Hangyu calling out in anguish, the image of the 8th Mobile Squad, which had perished ten years earlier, rose before Jin Muok, and he instinctively clasped the boy’s hand.
“Ah! Brother! You’re right here!”
Woomun Hangyu finally broke into a relieved smile.
“…Uh.”
When Jin Muok answered in a strained voice, Woomun Hangyu’s condition, which had only just steadied, took a sharp turn for the worse.
“Cough, cough! Ugh—!”
Woomun Hangyu coughed up more than a bowlful of blood, and the vomit was mixed with bits of his internal organs. A wound this grave would defeat even the legendary Hua Tuo or Bian Que.
Jin Muok stared down at Woomun Hangyu in a daze, the physicians gasped, and the Uipa wept quietly.
But Woomun Hangyu, still believing he was fighting his enemies, reached out a hand toward Jin Muok.
“B-Brother! I dropped my sword! It’s not Zhixue, the one for when you’re learning to—it’s Zhijian, the one Father gave me on my fifteenth birthday!”
(Zhixue: the age of setting one’s mind on learning, fifteen years old)
Hmm, not that, the sword is Zhijian, the blade Father gave me on my fifteenth birthday!
“Hic!”
Myomyo could hold it in no longer and burst into tears, and the other Uipa pressed their hands to their chests and began to sob.
“Brother! The enemy is coming! Give me a sword! Give me a sword!”
Shing—.
Byeok Eunsa, who had been watching all this, pressed a sword into Woomun Hangyu’s hand.
“Ah, it’s heavy, but good. With this, even if I die, I can drag two or three of them along with me.”
Jin Muok turned his head, unable to bear the sight of Woomun Hangyu smiling again.
That’s how they went, too.
Right before my eyes.
The smiling Woomun Hangyu suddenly let go of the sword and flailed his hands wildly, just as he had at first.
“It’s cold! It’s dark! I’m scared!”
He is regressing. The composed, grown-up Woomun Hangyu has turned back into a helpless child now that death is near.
Death breaks a person apart, body and mind alike.
As Woomun Hangyu trembled in agony, Jin Muok reached out, but Myomyo got there first and sat down on the sickbed.
“It’s all right, sweetheart.”
Myomyo held Woomun Hangyu tightly. Blood and vomit soiled her clothes, but she paid it no mind and soothed him.
“Mama? Mama?”
Biting her lip hard, Myomyo answered with effort.
“…Yes, I’m here, Mama’s here.”
“Mama. Mama.”
The one person who would stay by his side, even if the whole world abandoned him.
And so, the one person he could think of with the most beautiful smile in this world.
“Mama.”
Watching Woomun Hangyu nuzzle against Myomyo with a happy look, Jin Muok clenched his jaw to hold back his tears.
Grnd—.
Far too young an age to meet the end.
What crime could this boy have committed? What evil karma had he piled up to be dying like this, so far from home?
“Mama. It’s so cold.”
Hug—.
Holding Woomun Hangyu even tighter, Myomyo stroked his cheek.
“It’s all right now. Rest, sweetheart.”
“Okay. But you won’t go anywhere, right?”
“Y-yes…”
Myomyo answered, struggling to keep her voice steady, and Woomun Hangyu let out a breath of relief before coughing up blood again and trembling in pain.
“Haa, haah! It’s cold! So cold!”
Gasping for breath, Woomun Hangyu asked,
“This… is it a dream?”
Sob—.
Myomyo raised her head to hold back her tears, and Jin Muok let out a long sigh before answering calmly.
“That’s right. It’s a nightmare.”
The kind of nightmare that means nothing once you wake up.
“Thank goodness…”
Thud—.
And so Woomun Hangyu bid farewell to this world.
Just as the infirmary threatened to dissolve into a sea of weeping, Jin Muok’s words steadied it.
“There are still many wounded. We must tend to them.”
At his words, the physicians and Uipa who had been about to sink into despair steadied their crumbling hearts and scattered to the patients who were begging for their hands.
Clap—.
Drawing a breath, Jin Muok spun on his heel and strode straight toward the physicians who were casting contemptuous glances at them.
“Get out.”

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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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