Murim Troubleshooter Dan Mujin

Chapter 41: Escort Journey

There was a woman, short in stature, but with fierce blue venom in her eyes.

It was Tang Yeo-hye, glaring up at me with a piercing gaze, now that I had grown noticeably taller over the winter.

She had been jumping and growling like a yapping chihuahua, treating us like thieves from the very start.

“Geez, are your ears plugged? I’m telling you, we didn’t steal it, we just forgot to return it.”

“You punk, that’s the same thing!”

How could that be the same? One has no intention behind it.

If I had to describe it, maybe it could be considered something like detachment from possession.

“You were so focused on the Poison Pellet that you forgot to retrieve it yourself. Let’s just call it mutual fault.”

“Mutual fault, my foot. You ran off with one of Tang Clan’s valuable hidden weapons!”

“Look, I told you, we didn’t steal it.”

“Ahh? Then you should’ve come back to return it on your own!”

“How was I supposed to know you weren’t shut away in isolated training? What, did you expect me to comb the entire mountain range? You should’ve been the one to come find us.”

We hadn’t gone into hiding all winter; we’d been training day and night at the Eunseong Trading Company.

I had even shown the Eunseong Token at the Wanderers' Guild not long ago, so it was common knowledge where I’d been staying.

“Damn it, I couldn’t move at the time because I was digesting the Poison Pellet!”

“Not my problem.”

“This bastard’s way of talking really ticks me off!”

Startled by the loud yell, Ilhong, who had been hiding behind me, flinched.

Frankly, it wasn’t even my fault. Ilhong had brought it unknowingly, so I had nothing to feel guilty about.

“Tang Yeo-hye, miss!”

To her sharp voice, which was like a trademark of her presence, Uncle Neungsam came rushing over in a panic.

After offering us a quick nod of recognition, as if it had been a while, he hurried to calm down his rampaging mistress.

As expected, Uncle Neungsam was a man of reason and logic—very different from someone else.

“Hoo… Anyway, do you two realize how serious this is? A Tang Clan hidden weapon was temporarily in someone else’s hands and taken out of the clan.”

The properly composed Tang Yeo-hye now began pressing us with calm force.

Just as she was about to formally question us, a raspy voice rang out nearby.

“Click-click, what’s all this commotion now?”

An old man, reeking of alcohol from broad daylight drinking, casually stepped in between us.

“Damn it, what now, old man? Can’t you see we’re in the middle of an important conversation—”

Thinking he was just a drunkard, she started yelling at him to buzz off, only to freeze like stone when she saw his face.

Her mouth clamped shut, and her jade-green eyes began to shake uncontrollably.

“…Tang Yeo-hye of Murim bows before a great senior of the Orthodox Murim.”

Realizing her blunder just a moment ago, she quickly bowed deeply and offered a respectful clasped hands greeting.

Apparently, she had previously met the Dragon Head Sect Leader of the Beggars’ Union.

“Huh? What’s all this talk? Great senior, you say? This old man is but the Daoist of Celestial Presence, Divine Wind Daoist, who descended from Mount Tai not long ago.”

“……”

Hwang Geolgae confused everyone with his unexpected reply.

Tang Yeo-hye began sweating as the esteemed elder of the Righteous Sect stubbornly kept up a persona that wouldn’t fly with anyone.

“It must be that my poor eyesight caused me to mistake someone else, Divine Wind… Daoist.”

“There, there. I’m just glad your misaligned vision got fixed in the end.”

Playing the part of a sage, despite being the leader of beggars—she was probably stunned inside. Even a passing God of Beggars would chuckle at this.

“So then, Divine Wind Daoist, may I ask why you are in a place like this…?”

In response to her questioning why he suddenly showed up here, Hwang Geolgae answered with a nonchalant face.

“Just came wherever my feet took me. There’s nowhere in the world this old man can’t go.”

And that was true.

When he felt like going somewhere, he’d throw away his own sect like yesterday’s trash and disappear like the wind.

“Young Master Dan, who exactly is that person?”

Startled by her master’s rare show of politeness, the servant Neungsam asked in a hushed voice.

“An old man deluded into thinking he’s a Daoist.”

I whispered back, just barely loud enough to hear.

Whack!

A liquor bottle came flying and smacked me square in the face.

Seriously, what kind of Daoist hits kids without hesitation?

No matter how you looked at it, this guy was a fake sage.

“Now, from what I just heard, it sounds like there was some kind of incident involving the kids?”

At those words, Tang Yeo-hye snapped her head up and started to protest.

“Divine Wind Daoist! Please listen to me! These punks here…!”

“Huh, punks? That’s a harsh word for kids this old man has been teaching martial arts.”

“Gasp, Sect Leader… No, you were Daoist’s disciples…?”

Tang Yeo-hye scanned us both with wide eyes.

‘What’s with the old man’ was now followed by yet another slip of the tongue. Her expression screamed “I’m screwed” as she bit her lip.

“Dan Mujin, you rascal. Explain what happened.”

“Uh, so, here’s the thing…”

Honestly, I had acted so confidently earlier only because I believed the old man nearby would handle things somehow.

Not because he liked me, but because he pitied Ilhong, the daughter of the Hao Sect Leader, who clung to my back like a cicada.

“…So, that’s what happened.”

I had only talked about fighting the Blood Boar last time and forgot to mention how we ended up with the hidden weapon, so I added that in now.

Hwang Geolgae looked quietly at Ilhong, who peeked out from behind me.

“Ilhong.”

“…Yes, Hwang Noya.”

The boy whose beauty was hidden behind a Human-skin Mask blinked nervously as he answered.

“You weren’t trying to steal it, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Alright then, keep up the good training.”

And with that anticlimactically simple inquiry, the interrogation ended.

Naturally, Tang Yeo-hye, who had been watching the conversation unfold, looked dumbfounded.

Regardless, Hwang Geolgae received the hidden weapon from Ilhong and casually returned it to its original owner.

“Eh? Wait, that’s it…? Are you serious?”

She looked as if she couldn’t believe it. Her crimson-painted eyes twitched nonstop.

But what could she do? A big shot from the Nine Sects One Gang had decided to brush this matter aside.

The second daughter of the Tang Clan had no choice but to stand down.

“They didn’t steal it, and you got the item back. So what’s the problem?”

“But still, a Tang Clan hidden weapon was carried out by an outsider.”

“Pfft, kids not knowing any better can make mistakes. You’re making a fuss like it’s some grave sin.”

“…It’s not exactly a small one!”

Hwang Geolgae shook his head, thinking there were countless hidden weapons in Tang Clan’s warehouse anyway.

“Is that sin as great as calling this old man a geezer and telling him to buzz off?”

“…Now that I think about it, I suppose not.”

“Then we’re good.”

She pouted her lips like a duck, having run out of things to say.

Well, what else could she do? With a sin committed, she had no choice but to retreat unless she wanted to become the enemy of every beggar across the Central Plains.

Or she could bring the head of the Tang Clan from Sichuan if she really wanted to escalate things.

“Then, this girl will now take her leave.”

Tang Yeo-hye shoved the cylindrical hidden weapon into her green martial arts uniform.

She glanced at me and Ilhong for a moment, clicked her tongue, and then withdrew alongside Neungsam.

And then Hwang Geolgae sneaked a glance at the back of my head.

“You rascal, you're busy enough already, so quit causing trouble.”

“I didn’t do anything this time.”

“I shall keep an eye on you the entire escort trip.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t do it.”

Hwang Geolgae left us behind, saying he had things to do, still not believing me in the slightest.

That’s a bit unfair. It’s not like I’m always causing trouble.

“We’re in the clear now, Boss.”

Who would’ve thought we’d run into that woman during the escort trip? It felt like an unexpected storm had passed.

“But hey, are you okay with losing your hidden weapon? You’d been fiddling with it and researching it every night.”

He’d been staying up disassembling and reassembling it, constantly in and out of the Black Spot, yet his expression remained surprisingly calm.

“It’s fine. It’s called being prepared for contingencies. I knew this day would come.”

Saying that, Ilhong slyly pulled something out from inside his robe.

But the object in his hand looked suspiciously similar to the Tang Clan’s device.

Crude and unsightly, but it had holes for loading Black Powder and Bi Chim, and even a firing ring—more or less functional.

“I hired the blacksmiths at the Black Spot to create something similar in advance.”

Though its performance fell short of the original, it was a hidden weapon device sufficient for a surprise attack, which he proudly introduced to me.

Good grief, should I call this thorough or just paranoid?

“Ilhong, you really had this all planned out, huh?”

He had apparently cobbled together various items with the gold and silver coins he’d invested.

When I was his age, any allowance I got was gone in a flash.

“I was worried the design might leak, so I split up the work among several blacksmiths. Took a bit of time.”

The original had been returned to its owner, but the blueprint and design had been fully replicated in his head.

It wasn’t physical theft, but intellectual theft, really.

It made me a bit nervous, but surely the Dragon Head Sect Leader who doted on him would handle the consequences.

“That’s our Ilhong. Meticulous and calculated.”

“Hehe.”

Ilhong smiled bashfully at my praise, clearly delighted.

I decided to just enjoy the benefits. It was better to collect whatever gains I could, whenever I could.

Because in the murim, you never knew what could happen next.

It’s what they call being prepared for contingencies.

The escort trip, in name only—it was a grueling march in practice.

Day after day, nothing but forests and mountains.

I couldn’t tell whether my legs were carrying me or I was being dragged along by them as I kept walking and walking.

Originally, I had planned to ride along like luggage on a cart.

But Hwang Geolgae had roped me in, saying to treat every step as movement training, so I ended up as a full-time walker.

Thus began the seventh day of meticulously walking while circulating my internal energy.

A new inconvenience emerged.

“Ugh, what’s with her?”

Ever since it had been revealed that I was Hwang Geolgae’s disciple, a petite woman had been staring holes into me from not far away.

Whether sleeping or resting, I could feel her gaze constantly, driving me half mad.

Yet if I tried to speak to her, she would sharply turn her head away as if in disgust.

What the hell was I supposed to do? She was stronger than me, so I couldn’t shake her off.

“Boss, eat this.”

By noon, it was time for our meal.

Ilhong handed me a rice ball made from crumbly white rice, half a piece of dried pollack, and a few scraps of greens.

He told me to eat while walking, since we were short on time. This escort mission had seriously bad employee benefits.

The menu was the definition of rice-police-approved, but my past experience living as a beggar helped me tolerate it.

While the other wanderers wore scowls like they’d bitten into dung, Ilhong and I ate our food without complaint.

But as I chewed quietly, I started tasting a strange metallic tang in the rice.

“Hmm?”

And then, like back when I’d accidentally swallowed a mushroom without knowing what it was, the Heaven-Slaying Star twitched and reacted.

At the time, I just thought my tongue felt oddly cool—but it turned out I’d eaten a poisonous mushroom.

Now again, I felt the unpleasantly sticky sensation of someone’s gaze more than ever before.

“Excuse me, did you put something in my food?”

I glanced at Tang Yeo-hye and asked.

“Yeah.”

This bitch was the culprit?

Unbelievable. How could she be so shameless?

“You’re really something. That was my specially crafted medicinal mix, and yet it didn’t faze you.”

She stared at me with fascination.

Is this why they say you shouldn’t get involved with people from the Tang Clan of Sichuan?

Just to satisfy her curiosity, she tampered with someone else's food.

“Seriously, are you trying to kill someone?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. It just makes you have explosive diarrhea.”

Sure, it doesn’t kill, but it’s social suicide.

No wonder I’d felt a rumble in my stomach that quickly vanished—thanks to the Heaven-Slaying Star, I’d preserved my dignity this time.

“Hey, do you want to try another poison I made?”

What the hell kind of proposal was that?

“What kind of poison this time?”

“It just makes you vomit and crap your guts out until you pass out for a few days. Honestly, I wouldn’t even call it poison.”

Why does she only invent poisons that destroy human dignity?

Could this be related to that brother she swore revenge on last time?

“You’re nuts. No way.”

“The symptoms are really light, though.”

They were absolutely not light.

I wasn’t some lab rat.

“I’ll pay you lots of money.”

“…Hmm, how much?”

“Boss, are you insane?”

Damn, I almost gave in to the lure of money for a second there.

Then I remembered—she was flat broke.

That’s why she’d been mooching meals and riding carts, and only joined this escort trip by revealing she was a martial arts expert.

“Ugh, this world is so unfair.”

If your martial arts were strong enough, you got respect and never went hungry, wherever you went.

Meanwhile, here I was, walking all day and choking down stale rice balls.

Thanks to Ilhong, I snapped out of it and prepared to firmly reject her offer.

But just then, a sharp warning shout rang out from the front lines.

“All units halt! Wanderers and escorts, assume alert formation!”

Something was happening at the front of the procession.