The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 26

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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 (26)
If it’s Bukjin Gwangpung’s technique…
It’s a killing move!
An unstoppable art that can be neither blocked nor evaded!
Dang Cheon, who had thrown it, wore a smug, triumphant smile.
Well? How was my move?
Jin Muok, whose ears were practically ringing from Dang Cheon’s shout, scrunched up his face and stammered.
―S-so you’ve looked into me, have you?
―A single day was more than enough.
Dammit.
Jin Muok had taken the killing move square on.
If someone could truly cure Baekri Unhak, I’d do anything for it.
Even if you told me to carry firewood and leap into the flames, I’d do it on the spot!
But how?
What kind of skill would let him cure Baekri Unhak?
―I said I’d have him cure your senior brother, not that I’d cure him myself.
Oh, really?
―Honestly, I’d grab at straw if I had to, but I can’t take the old man’s assurances at face value!
―Hm?
―How can you guarantee that you’ll completely heal my senior brother?!
In his impatience, his old way of speaking came spilling out.
―There’s a way for everything.
―If you’re going to be so vague about it, that won’t do.
―You don’t believe a word I say.
―I’m the type who taps the stone bridge before crossing it.
Dang Cheon and Jin Muok stood locked in a tense standoff.
They smiled on the surface while probing each other underneath, and their sudden battle of wills left Dang Wana staring at them, bewildered, before she pushed her lips into a pout.
What are you two doing?
But Jin Muok and Dang Cheon had no time to turn toward her. They were pouring tremendous mental strength into a do-or-die battle of minds.
―I asked you to tell me the method, didn’t I?
When Jin Muok pressed him through Voice Transmission, Dang Cheon’s expression twisted on its own.
This way of talking… it’s far too much like Jin Muok.
Come to think of it, from his speech habits and bearing down to the very look in his eyes, everything matched Jin Muok like a copy.
‘Wait a moment?’
A few days ago, someone had wandered without permission into the forest of selflessness he had created. He was undoubtedly Jin Muok, but his appearance was that of a boy Dang Cheon had never met, and that had left him flustered.
At the time, he’d figured it was a side effect of Simjungan.
―Could it be… you?
―Just tell me already.
Watching Jin Muok ask it back with the same unchanged gaze, heedless of his question, Dang Cheon felt the idea he’d just conjured fall flat, and he waved his hand.
By any common sense, a middle-aged man turning into a child of barely over ten was an absurdity.
And across a span of ten years, no less.
‘What on earth am I imagining?’
Jin Muok was speaking exactly like Jin Muok, and Dang Cheon, forcing himself to make sense of that Jin Muok, turned his head away.
―You’ll understand in time.
He brushed it off again, half-committed to nothing.
Could it be…
―You don’t know the method either, do you, Elder?
Startled, Dang Cheon, who had been gazing at the sky for no reason, cleared his throat awkwardly in an attempt to change the mood.
―Ahem, I’m not a physician, you know.
―So you’re saying you can’t guarantee a full recovery either?
If it were me, then yes, I suppose I couldn’t guarantee it either.
In that instant, the smug smile returned to Dang Cheon’s face.
―But if it’s him, you’ll believe him, I’m sure.
―Who on earth is he? And if there’s someone so remarkable, shouldn’t you be asking him to treat your granddaughter first?
―Any illness with a known cause can be treated, one way or another. But for symptoms whose cause is unknown even to the patient, even he says it’s hopeless for now.
Dang Cheon let out a sigh that seemed to sink the ground beneath him and wore a bitter smile.
―That’s his philosophy, you see. Banggak Mayan isn’t a disease in the sense that we usually mean it, but a kind of phenomenon, so even he said there was nothing to be done.
In short, Baekri Unhak is an illness whose cause is known, while Dang Wana is in a state where even the cause is unclear, so it’s not a matter for discussion of treatment at all.
―Rest easy. Your senior brother’s condition developed from neglecting the aftereffects of Qi Deviation, so it’s a field that he can be considered an expert in.
And with that, the matter is settled. Dang Cheon, having shut off any room for Jin Muok to resist, folded his arms.
“So, what will it be?”
That was the look on his face, as though he’d asked a question with no wrong answer.
“Hmm.”
Jin Muok feigned deep thought, his brow furrowed, before he seemed to make up his mind and parted his lips.
“Fine. But if we do it this way, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m the one getting shortchanged.”
“What kind of shortchanging could you possibly suffer, you brat!”
Dang Cheon had been bellowing at the top of his lungs, but at the sight of Dang Wana startling, he swallowed the rest of his words whole.
“Ahem, ahem. I got a bit worked up, didn’t I? Well, anyway, if it benefits you, then it’s hardly a loss for you, so…”
“Then forget it.”
“You insufferable little brat!”
From the start, this was a contest the one who wanted it more would lose.
Weighing Jin Muok’s devotion to Baekri Unhak against Dang Cheon’s devotion to Dang Wana was absurd, but it was a sort of game all the same: whoever let their eagerness show would have to grant the other’s demand.
Jin Muok’s infuriating attitude sent Dang Cheon’s face flushing red and then purple with rage, when Dang Wana, spotting a firefly, unconsciously parted her lips.
“Ah, ah.”
And that was the end of the contest.
The moment she hopped off after the firefly, Dang Cheon let out a sigh as long and heavy as a waterfall.
After all, that short, sharp cry from his granddaughter, who couldn’t speak, had been enough to bring him to his knees.
“F-fine. What is it you want?”
Smirk.
Wearing a smug grin of victory, Jin Muok lifted his chin with an air of arrogance.
“Well, I could do it myself, but I figure the old man from Heaven of Sichuan would handle it a bit more gently.”
“Enough of your nonsense.”
Ugh, that old man and his temper.
Dang Cheon’s crisp, no-nonsense manner hadn’t changed a bit, so Jin Muok pouted and got straight to the point.
“……!”
Dang Cheon listened to what Jin Muok had to say and studied him with fresh eyes, when a single leaf came loose, drifting down on the night breeze.
Flutter.
Dang Cheon caught the falling leaf in his palm and exhaled a hazy sigh, like smoke.
“Ilyeop Jichu, indeed. Ilyeop Jichu.”
It means that seeing a single leaf fall, one knows autumn has arrived, that is, one can guess at a coming great change or the course of events from a small sign.
“Even a ten-year-old boy grasps a principle like that, yet I, an old man past seventy and nearing eighty, failed to see it.”
Without so much as glancing at his lamenting face, Jin Muok gazed straight ahead and muttered in passing.
“It isn’t Ilyeop Jichu, it’s Gyeonmi Jicheo, isn’t it?”
In that instant, Dang Cheon burst into a roaring belly laugh. The man who had maintained a stern, gruff demeanor, as if he were sulking, was showing a human side of himself for the first time.
“That’s right, that’s right. What’s the difference between Ilyeop Jichu and Gyeonmi Jicheo, anyway?”
Just as he was laughing like a madman, he suddenly turned serious and seized Jin Muok by the shoulders.
“Earlier, you said Muok would have done that, didn’t you?”
“……?”
Why is this old man getting so solemn again?
Jin Muok, who had been staring at Dang Cheon blankly, shifted his gaze to Dang Wana, who was returning and cradling the firefly carefully.
Naturally.
“You tend to think of Banggak Mayan superficially.”
Of course he did. Banggak Mayan was something close to legend, a mirage as far as Jin Muok was concerned. So even when the girl before him claimed to possess it, he felt nothing much at all.
Dang Cheon’s one remark, aimed at a Jin Muok who looked so unmoved.
“Attack Wana with the form you’re most confident in.”
Dang Cheon’s earnest, desperate sincerity reached Jin Muok, and without a word of protest he picked up a branch.
He thought he understood what the old man was after.
“Watch closely, little miss.”
When Dang Cheon relayed Jin Muok’s words in sign language, Dang Wana turned her body slightly.
“Bukhae Mupa…”
Jin Muok raised the branch and pierced the full moon hanging brightly in the sky, drawing a deep breath.
The records in the sect’s history, written on parchment, had declared Bukhae Mupa an unfinished martial art, but to Jin Muok it remained the finest technique and the supreme martial skill under heaven.
Even after ten long years, Bukhae Mupa still reigned unrivaled, so this time, too, it would display its full might.
“Hup!”
Jin Muok rose into the air, and when he reached the peak of the moon’s arc, he plummeted like a thunderbolt and slashed down with the branch in the manner of Cheonwang Takdap.
“……Pa.”
Woooong—!
There was no thunderous boom. No surge of energy accompanied it. Mindful of the toll Banggak Mayan was taking on Dang Wana’s body, Jin Muok displayed Bukhae Mupa for her as though exchanging sword-talk.
“Ah, ah.”
Following the arc of the branch, Dang Wana pressed her hands together against her chest.
With that gust, the firefly on his palm was set free, fading away and leaving a faint trail behind, yet Dang Wana’s star-bright eyes kept blinking as she savored the Bukhae Mupa’s impression.
“So? How was my technique!”
Jin Muok turned his head toward Dang Cheon.
Smirk.
Even Banggak Mayan couldn’t copy that in one go, I’d wager.
Without so much as a glance at his preening face, Dang Wana picked up the twig he had dropped and raised it high.
“Ah, ah.”
“Are you trying to draw the Bukhae Mupa?”
Jin Muok stepped toward her with a chuckle, but the confident grin he had worn so proudly froze at the corners of his mouth the moment Dang Wana’s hand moved.
“……!”
Churuk.
A gesture that seemed weightless at first glance. A swing with not a trace of force in it.
Yet Jin Muok saw it. In that small, delicate motion, thirty-odd years of his own Bukhae Mupa were melting into one another. She surpassed even Baekri Unhak, who was known more for his literary talent than his martial gift.
“Huh.”
Without realizing it, Jin Muok folded his arms and rubbed his chin out of habit.
“So this is Banggak Mayan!”
“Not yet.”
Dang Cheon had appeared behind Jin Muok without a sound, pointing a finger at Dang Wana.
“Watch.”
Was she answering his words, perhaps?
Dang Wana, who had been deep in thought, broke into a bright smile and began to wield her twig like a brush, using the open air as her canvas.
“Aaah~.”
She began to sing. Her voice wasn’t as clear as an oriole’s, nor as crystalline as jade beads, but she sang out with all her own spirit and exuberance.
Watching Dang Wana hum an unfamiliar tune as she swung her twig, she looked for all the world like a rabbit frolicking in the Wolgung.
And then.
Pa-ba-ba-bak!
Lines upon lines flooded the space in an instant!
The Bukhae Mupa was being hacked to pieces without mercy!
It was still holding on, but if her song continued, the Bukhae Mupa would surely be broken!
Standing beside Jin Muok, who watched Dang Wana with a hawk’s eyes, Dang Cheon murmured in a mournful tone.
“To some, it may be a blessing, but to others, a curse. A walking secret manual and a countermeasure all in one body, a child of tragic fate.”
The moment proved why Banggak Mayan had earned its place among the Ten Great Treasures of the Martial World.
“You’re entrusting such a formidable little brat to me?”
“I am.”
“On what grounds? Don’t you know the phrase ‘don’t even dream of it’?”
Jin Muok sneered with a deliberately sly expression, but Dang Cheon answered with a smile as thin as a spider’s web.
A smile that would shatter like a single drop of morning dew.
“Whether Muok wraps Wana in his protection or uses her, I don’t mind. And.”
Watching Dang Wana swing her twig and burst into giggles, Dang Cheon added in the most benevolent voice in the world.
“You are Muok’s other self.”
Damn it.
He knows me far too well.
“Then you’ll have to die for me.”
“What?”
“Ah, never mind. Anyway… hey, you can’t erase all of that.”
Unable to watch the traces of the Bukhae Mupa being wiped away cleanly by Dang Wana, Jin Muok muttered on and picked up another twig.
“Excuse me.”
Pak!
Arriving before Dang Wana like a flash of lightning, Jin Muok set aside the Bukhae Mupa of the Bukcheon Sinmun and answered with a Bukhae Mupa of his own making.
Sa-sa-sak—.
Dang Wana, momentarily thrown off by the altered sword forms, grinned brightly and once again began to shatter even Jin Muok’s version into pieces.
“Not so fast!”
Spinning on his heel, Jin Muok answered this time with a Bukhae Mupa in the style of Baekri Unhak. Dang Wana, like a child who has found a new toy, beamed and met him head-on.
“Now this is a duel without a trace of selfish intent!”
Beneath the moonlight that fell in profusion, a boy and a girl compared their martial arts in combat, and the sight was breathtakingly beautiful.
But then.
“Isn’t that brat… an old man in disguise?”
Dang Cheon was dumbfounded.
* * *
That being was blood. Blood gathered to form points, points linked to form lines, and just as one felt they had become a plane, they turned into a space and gave birth to a human.
She called herself Hyeolyeongja.
Hyeolyeongja performed Manchun Hwau for me exactly once, then left.
That was the beginning of every tragedy.
“Perhaps once Manchun Hwau is complete, Wana will be free of the Heavenly Punishment of Banggak Mayan. So until I’ve finished Manchun Hwau, you must watch over that child for me, guarding her from the mangy dogs who would prey on the blessing and curse that is Banggak Mayan.”

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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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