The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 6

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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 (6)
I am the master!
Pitter-patter—.
A downpour of blood poured down without pause, turning Sipman Daesan into a sea of crimson.
Jin Muok, witnessing the scene where the snow-white earth was dyed red and the lofty summit was defiled with corpses, staggered as a wave of dizziness crashed over him.
Could this be a dream?
Someone answered.
Yes, a nightmare.
“Don’t talk nonsense!”
Jin Muok roared and looked down at his own hand, still gripping the sword firmly.
“The captain… how could… .”
“Yeo Taesan?”
The one with his mouth hanging open in disbelief, run through by Jin Muok’s own blade, was Yeo Taesan, Jin Muok’s loyal deputy, the man with whom he had sworn to assault the southern flank of Sipman Daesan!
“Y-you… you killed me…”
And the man whose head he was stamping beneath his foot was Ju Pilseong, who excelled at strategy and devised the most efficient battle plans whenever facing the enemy!
“W-what…?”
Having lost his grip on the sword, Jin Muok stumbled back three or four steps.
Around him, martial artists lay sprawled across the ground, drenched in blood. There was no need to explain who they were: members of the Eighth Cavalry Squad.
Men who followed him with their lives, men he had cherished more than his own life.
Yet Jin Muok had to realize the truth.
The one who had butchered them was none other than…
Me!
“W-what is this!”
This is wrong!
Flustered, he looked around and spotted a figure.
“Sima Yan…”
Yes. That devil must have wrought this sorcery.
Under the pretense of completing the bizarre black arts of the Hyeolma Sohonsul, that heaven-defying murderer had staged this hell, and now he sat over there, rolling his eyes.
Was the blood trickling down that vile goatee the vengeance of the Baekgwi Squad?
“Sima Yan!”
Roaring, Jin Muok kicked off through the muddy sea of blood and lunged forward.
Sima Yan was still smiling.
The fool didn’t know what Jin Muok’s charge truly intended.
Just as Jin Muok came rushing in with terrifying speed and leapt into the air at a certain distance, Sima Yan jolted and began shouting frantically.
“Block it! Block him!”
But Jin Muok had already reached the light swirling into the form of the Blood Demon.
“Bukhae!”
If I cannot kill you, then I will shatter that filthy ambition of yours.
“Mu…!”
At the very instant Jin Muok raised his sword to unleash the secret technique of his school,
Flash!
The young man opened his eyes, and his lips parted.
“After ten years, the blocked cave has opened once more.”
What?
“At last, the Gusaryeonghyeol has been pierced through again.”
What did he say?
Kwaaarrrrng!
* * *
“Haah!”
Jolting awake in a startled rush, Jin Muok sat bolt upright and let out a ragged breath.
“Damn it!”
He had dreamed something hazy yet chilling, but he could not recall a single detail of it.
It felt as though he had heard something enormously important.
What was it?
“Ugh.”
As he strained with everything he had to dredge up the memory, faint and wispy as fog, Jin Muok turned his head at the sound of the door sliding open.
“So you’re awake at last.”
Baekri Unhak set a small tray beside Jin Muok and sat down in a chair.
“Ah.”
Just as Jin Muok was about to speak, Baekri Unhak cut him off in a cold tone.
“Have we met before?”
“Well, of course we—”
Without waiting for Jin Muok’s answer, Baekri Unhak pressed on.
“We’re complete strangers. How do you know my name?”
“Hm?”
“And why did you bring up reconnaissance work in Sipman Daesan?”
Baekri Unhak had been interrogating him with the force of a judge’s gavel, but he faltered when he met Jin Muok’s gaze.
‘What, what is this boy?’
What lay in Jin Muok’s eyes was a mix of regret and pride.
Why would a boy who was a total stranger feel sorry toward him, and what could possibly make him feel proud?
Baekri Unhak stared at him with an expression of sheer bewilderment, but Jin Muok paid it no mind.
He had met his disciple again, after ten whole years.
When they had parted, Unhak had been nothing but a ten-year-old brat. Now he had become a fine, broad-shouldered man.
‘Looking at it this way, I’ve become the Unhak of that day.’
Feeling the strange reversal through Baekri Unhak’s face, tears welled up and brimmed in Jin Muok’s eyes.
“How could I ever forget your name?”
“Hm?”
“And how could I ever forget our conversation that day?”
‘Even if my eyes were blinded and I couldn’t see an inch ahead, I would recognize you at a glance.’ Jin Muok drew a breath and set down a single heavy line.
“You’ve grown up well.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’ve grown up so well. Without me by your side, you’ve become a proper man.”
Turning his upper body, Jin Muok reached out toward Baekri Unhak.
“Unhak, my Unhak. How could I forget you? Even if this body dies and dies again and I cross the Samdocheon, how could I ever erase you from my memory?”
Gripping Baekri Unhak’s cheek, Jin Muok cried out with unabashed fervor.
“Before, I was not a good master to you, but in this life I will be a worthy teacher!”
What in the world does that mean?
It came out of nowhere. Baekri Unhak had been frowning, but at Jin Muok’s next words he froze solid.
“I am your master!”
Thud!
“It must be hard to believe. Even I am dumbfounded, so how could you not be?”
Stroking Baekri Unhak’s cheek, Jin Muok continued with emphasis.
“But it is the plain truth. This useless master crossed ten years and came back alive.”
A vein stood out on his neck, and both of his palms trembled violently.
Gathering up every ounce of remorse and heartache in the world, Jin Muok poured out his impassioned words.
“I was absent at the crucial time when your martial foundations were being set! Do you have any idea how hard that must have been for you? As your master, I have no excuse even if I had ten mouths!”
As Jin Muok cried out as if vomiting blood from his heart, Baekri Unhak’s expression hardened.
“Why is your body in such a state? Your qi and blood are irregular, and your heart meridian is uneven! Surely some misfortune has—”
“Did the Alliance send you?”
Baekri Unhak cut him off.
“I wondered how you, a man I’ve never met, knew me. Now I understand.”
What?
A flicker of confusion crossed Jin Muok’s face, but Baekri Unhak’s resolute monologue swallowed everything.
“Even in this condition, I cannot leave the Alliance, no matter what contempt I endure. This is my will, and the least I can do to repay my debt to Him.”
Recognize me at a glance, my foot.
Reality was cold. Baekri Unhak had not recognized Jin Muok at all, and he seemed to take him for a spy sent in on some kind of mission.
“I’m telling you, I really am your master! I crossed through hell and came back alive—*cough*, *cough*!”
Jin Muok, who had been speaking with feverish emotion, choked on his words and broke into a fit of coughing.
“Haa…”
Baekri Unhak, unable to contain his anger as he stared at Jin Muok, rose with the tray in hand.
“Recover your strength properly and then go back!”
Bang!
When Jin Muok picked up the wooden doll that had been lying beside the sickbed, Baekri Unhak hurled the tray aside and snatched it away from him.
“Don’t touch it.”
A low warning. The growl of a beast whose territory has been invaded.
It was utterly unlike the gentlemanly Baekri Unhak he had been until now.
The wooden doll had been battered by the years, worn and faded to a dull, blackish hue, yet it meant everything to Baekri Unhak.
“Get out. Now.”
Holding the doll to his chest, Baekri Unhak showed his anger for the first time.
The only thing his master had ever given him. And so the doll had become a keepsake, a relic of the past.
That’s right. The wooden doll had stayed by Baekri Unhak’s side even on the day he parted from Jin Muok. Anyone who laid a hand on such a treasure without permission deserved punishment, but since the one doing it was a child, he let out a sigh.
They’d even drag in a little brat like this.
“No matter what tricks you pull, I’m not leaving the sect. Keep that in mind and get going…”
“So gross.”
Looking at the wooden doll, Jin Muok muttered with a flat expression.
“It’s none of your concern.”
Baekri Unhak cut him off coldly.
“Well, it’s your thing anyway.”
Lacing his fingers behind his head, Jin Muok leaned back.
“Still, if you don’t wipe it down, even a donkey would hate it, you know?”
Thud!
A donkey? That was a nickname only Master ever used!
“Y-you, how do you know about the Gunggi Ui Wang?”
It was only a lump of wood now, rolling across the ground, but someday it would spread its wings wide and soar into the sky like the legendary Qiongqi. That was what Baekri Unhak had called it: the Gunggi Ui Wang, the King of Qiongqi.
Of course, each time he said so, Jin Muok would tease the wooden doll and call it a donkey.
Baekri Unhak swallowed hard in surprise and looked at Jin Muok with fresh eyes.
At first glance, he was just a ragged boy. On top of that, he looked as though he hadn’t eaten in days, his lips so cracked that he was nothing short of a beggar.
But once a beggar child had spoken the name Sipman Daesan, Baekri Unhak could not simply leave him be.
Sipman Daesan was an eternal brand upon Baekri Unhak’s soul.
He had brought the beggar boy into his home and tended to him with utmost devotion for three full days, and the first thing the boy said upon waking was nothing but talk of his master.
At first it amused him. After that, it irritated him.
Rather than anger at some petty scheme of someone using a child to push through their own will, a human sense of pity came first. So he had meant to send the boy away without punishing him at all.
‘He knows the Gunggi Ui Wang?’
That made no sense. The names Donkey and Qiongqi were secrets shared only between Jin Muok and himself.
‘Hold on a moment!’
This was no ordinary child. He could be no more than ten years old, yet his bearing and manner of speech could outwit a seasoned veteran of the Jianghu.
Just as a shadow of suspicion flickered across Baekri Unhak’s eyes, Jin Muok lobbed another provocative question.
“Oh, right. What about the Bukhae Mupa?”
“……!”
“You’ve finished the Bukhae Mupa, haven’t you?”
* * *
“Let me say it again. The Bukhae Mupa is the starting point that forms the foundation of our school.”
Reminiscing about the past, Jin Muok smiled faintly and tapped the floor with his wooden sword.
“If you master this, then you can look forward to all the martial arts that follow…”
“Show it to me at once.”
Yet despite his grave expression, he was holding the Gunggi Ui Wang tightly against his left arm, which made the whole picture both awkward and comical.
Pfft—.
Smiling, Jin Muok raised the wooden sword to the middle guard.
Swish.
A breeze drifted in from somewhere and brushed refreshingly against the tip of his nose. Savoring the feel of it, Jin Muok let out a soft breath.
Ah, this is good.
A breeze felt after ten years. A form unfolded after ten years. And a disciple met after ten years.
First, persuading the disciple was the most urgent matter.
Thrusting out his chest and stepping forward, Jin Muok sent the breeze at his nose along the tip of his blade and began to unfold the Bukhae Mupa.
Saaaah—.
It began as a gentle breeze.
The form he opened so carefully tapped at the air as if soothing a small child, toying with the wind.
A situation that might have been dull to watch.
Yet Baekri Unhak stared intently at every movement Jin Muok made.
If the boy who had so abruptly visited the hut showed even the slightest deceit, he would be held to account at once.
For he had insulted his master, who was like the heavens above him.
And if it wasn’t that…
Hmm.
Sensing Baekri Unhak’s state of mind, Jin Muok halted the movement that was closer to a dance.
Jin Muok stood still. A heavy silence settled in.
At the very moment when the early spring breeze stirred the folds of Jin Muok’s robe and drifted past.
Sssshk!
His foot kicked off the ground, and Jin Muok’s wooden sword sliced through the air with savage force.
Kuwaaaaaaang—.
The wooden sword, which had been falling in a straight line as though meaning to split the earth in two, rebounded into the air like a salmon swimming against the current.
‘Doryu Chungil?’
Baekri Unhak’s jaw dropped, but the moment Jin Muok’s wooden sword stabbed the air, it came crashing back down, stirring up a fearsome momentum.
“Bukhae…”
Jin Muok’s lips moved, and his wooden sword slammed into the earth without mercy.
“…Mupa!”
KWAAAANG—!
A tremendous roar, and the ground was brutally torn open!
Was this not the Bukhae Mupa in its purest form, without a hair’s breadth of error?
“Hah.”
Jin Muok lowered his wooden sword and spun on his heel.
“Master has…”
Right, the Master had come.
“Master sent such a sharp-witted junior brother of mine.”
Ugh.

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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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