novelraw Chapter 186 : Counteroffensive
Chapter 186 : Counteroffensive
Chapter 186: Counteroffensive
“C-Captain. This is a little too close……”
Ilhong, who had slipped right into my arms, whispered with a slightly flushed face.
“There’s a dangerous woman right in front of us. Endure it.”
“…She’ll think I’m a man anyway.”
She grumbled and cast a sidelong glare at me, but she didn’t push me away.
Still, to think that a sinister aura had been felt from the Sect Leader of the Emei Sect, someone who devoted herself to cultivation.
“Did you tell the others too? That something about her condition seemed strange.”
At my question, Venerable Huiyul let out a long sigh with an aggrieved expression.
“Of course I did. I grabbed the junior sisters and senior sisters I usually got along with and told them the Sect Leader had become strange, that I could feel a disturbing aura from her.”
Junior sisters and senior sisters she was close with. They probably considered their relationship pure camaraderie. Whether Venerable Huiyul had felt the same way was another matter.
“So what did they say?”
“…It seemed I was the only one feeling anything strange. Even when I said a sinister energy had settled on her, they all just looked confused and treated me like I was the strange one.”
Apparently it had hurt her deeply. Her shoulders slumped as she wore a dejected expression.
Since she had brought it up right after Venerable Huiyin reached the Blazing Flame Realm, it might have looked like jealousy or envy to others.
Thus, after hearing whispers within the Emei Sect, Venerable Huiyul said she had gradually become isolated.
“You should have thought before opening your mouth.”
Skillful political maneuvering was a basic survival skill in organizational life.
“…But it was obviously strange. Why was I the only one who could feel that aura? I really don’t understand.”
She muttered in confusion, her face filled with bewilderment.
At that moment, Abbot Beopgwang, who had been quietly listening, spoke in a low voice.
“That was likely because of the Yitian Interspatial Sword that Benefactor Huiyul possessed.”
The gazes of Ilhong, Huiyul, and myself all turned toward him at once.
As expected of the Abbot of the Shaolin Temple, with its thousand-year history, he seemed deeply knowledgeable about sacred relics and artifacts of the Murim.
“You mean the sword she said she stole from the Emei Sect?”
At my question, the Abbot nodded.
“A sacred sword said to have been forged long ago on Mount Emei. From ancient times, whoever wielded that sword could detect those who had strayed from the Orthodox Path and stepped into the Evil Path.”
So it wasn’t merely a sturdy blade for cutting down villains.
A sword forged with a special purpose since ancient times.
“…I see. That’s why I was the only one who could notice that sinister aura within Venerable Huiyin.”
Her expression showed sudden realization. Huiyul reverently drew the Yitian Interspatial Sword she had hidden in the Abbot’s chamber.
Srrrng.
The blade slid out of the scabbard and shimmered faintly beneath the sunlight. It lacked flashy decoration, yet possessed the pure elegance of a treasured sword.
Then Huiyul, gripping the hilt, stared at me as if something felt strange.
“Hey. What?”
“This thing… is reacting to you.”
She pointed the trembling blade toward me.
“……”
Ah, damn it.
To think an unexpected crisis like this had been lurking.
Even masters couldn’t detect the evil star sleeping inside me unless they pressed my acupoints first.
Yet that divine weapon had somehow sensed the ominous aura that couldn’t be seen or heard.
‘Kill! If you want to live… kill!’
As my identity risked exposure, the Salseongi within me whispered with manic frenzy.
But what was I supposed to do by killing? Right beside us stood the Shaolin Temple’s Abbot, whose martial prowess I couldn’t even begin to estimate.
“You said your real name is Dan Mujin, right? The way this sword reacted… care to explain?”
“Hey now, friend. Explain? That sounds awfully cold. Let’s behave like gentlemen.”
I forced a calm smile despite the cold sweat running down my back.
But since she had just heard about the sword’s ability, the more I tried to brush it off, the narrower Huiyul’s eyes became.
I had imagined many scenarios where my identity as the Heaven-Slaying Star might be exposed, but this absurd situation had never once crossed my mind.
“Friend? Back in the training grounds you said I wasn’t your friend but a traitor.”
Her sharp remark left me momentarily speechless.
So this was what it meant to give a doe and receive a horse in return.
“…Come on. You believed something I said in the heat of the moment? If sharing even half a bean during hungry times doesn’t make people friends, then what does?”
I waved my hands as if to dismiss the misunderstanding and took a few steps back.
Yet she still looked at me suspiciously.
“Namu Amitabha. Benefactor Huiyul, please stop. He is certainly not an evil man.”
Then Abbot Beopgwang stepped between us, shielding me.
Chanting the sacred name of the Buddha who dwells in the Pure Land and saves sentient beings with compassion, the eminent monk smiled gently.
“What? But the moment I held the Yitian Interspatial Sword, I definitely felt something.”
Huiyul lowered the blade slightly, her eyes filled with confusion.
“Benefactor. I can faintly sense the good karma this young man has accumulated. Such a person could never be evil.”
His eyes seemed capable of seeing through the essence of others.
From the moment we first met, he had treated me warmly.
A monk who had pursued truth and cultivated the Buddhist Way his entire life—what exactly was he seeing in me?
I suddenly felt awe, wondering just how far his realm had reached.
“There must be deep circumstances behind it. Just as there were for you, Benefactor Huiyul. Is that not so?”
The situation had completely reversed.
Remembering that she herself had become a fugitive due to misunderstandings piling up, Huiyul slowly nodded and sheathed the Yitian Interspatial Sword.
Since it was none other than the Abbot of the Shaolin Temple guaranteeing my character, she had little choice but to believe it.
“The martial arts I learned… come from a rough and dangerous Evil Sect. That’s probably why the sword reacted.”
I hastily made up an excuse to hide the fact that I was the Heaven-Slaying Star.
In front of a pillar of the Orthodox Murim, I had practically confessed to learning unorthodox arts, yet Abbot Beopgwang showed neither surprise nor reproach—only deep understanding.
“What matters is not the martial arts one has learned, but the path of life one has walked. That alone truly expresses who you are.”
Lately, I had been thinking this often, but once again I realized how fortunate it was that I had accumulated good karma.
How many times had it saved my life now?
And just how far into the future had that Beyond-Heaven Being named Ilwol seen?
“Moreover, the old beggar of Beijing would never take in a disciple carelessly… Benefactor Huiyul. Trust me, and trust this benefactor as well.”
His words made me realize yet another reason he was treating me favorably.
Beopgwang had likely grasped my identity to some extent simply from hearing the name Dan Mujin and that I was a Troubleshooter from Beijing.
“Um… do you know my master, by any chance?”
“Of course I do. Someone who could jump anywhere without warning… much like you.”
To compare me to someone like Hwang Geolgae—what an insulting analogy.
But since he had just saved my life and my secret, I decided to let it slide humbly.
“Hmm. If the Abbot speaks this strongly, I suppose I’ll drop my suspicion and believe you.”
The wariness vanished from Huiyul’s voice, returning instead to the familiar tone of a merchant’s son.
“Oh, my friend after all… you ended up believing me?”
When I spoke with exaggerated emotion, she snorted.
“You’re too frivolous to seem like someone hiding some grand secret.”
“……”
The Heaven-Slaying Star, capable of turning the Central Plains into a sea of blood, wasn’t a grand secret?
The red Salseongi listening along flickered violently, seemingly dumbfounded.
The misunderstanding was clearly resolved—but I couldn’t tell whether I should feel pleased or insulted.
“Anyway, it’s good that the misunderstanding is cleared.”
We had overcome the immediate crisis.
But that didn’t mean anything had actually been resolved.
The suspicious Sect Leader of the Emei Sect still remained on Mount Emei, and Venerable Huiyul was still a wrongfully accused fugitive hiding under the protection of the Shaolin Temple’s Abbot.
“That’s why I desperately need your help, Troubleshooter Dan Mujin.”
The eyes of Venerable Huiyul, the rising genius of the Emei Sect, shone seriously.
These days, rumors had spread that I solved problems regardless of the genre, so all sorts of strange requests kept pouring in.
This one seemed like another such request.
Scratching my cheek, I nodded for her to explain.
“Infiltrate the Emei Sect and reveal Venerable Huiyin’s true nature.”
Since she would be discovered the moment she stepped onto Mount Emei, Huiyul said I was the only one she could ask.
“You’re telling me to launch a counteroffensive now?”
“…Counteroffensive? What are you talking about?”
What she asked for was a kind of reverse request—like changing military uniforms, switching the client and the target.
The world was already chaotic enough, but now even requests were tangled together like this.
“Benefactor Mujin, please help her.”
A clear, deep voice interrupted my thoughts.
Abbot Beopgwang stroked his gray beard and met my eyes.
“Benefactor Huiyul is a martial artist like you—upright and capable of doing good. She is not someone who should remain hidden while suffering such injustice.”
He explained that in the past, during an Evil-Slaying Campaign, he had once fought villains alongside Huiyul.
Apparently he had noticed her upright character then. So when a strange rumor spread that she had run away with a man, he realized she had been caught in some scheme and took her in.
“…If the Abbot says so.”
The very man who had just saved me from danger was asking this of me.
I had no choice but to launch the counteroffensive.
Besides, after hearing everything, that woman named Venerable Huiyin did seem suspicious.
“But isn’t the Emei Sect a Male-Forbidden Sacred Domain? How are two men supposed to infiltrate it?”
Come to think of it, Ilhong could simply drop her male disguise and return to her true appearance.
But I couldn’t possibly send her alone into a dangerous place where even the Sect Leader seemed deranged.
“Captain… there is one way.”
But then Ilhong, master of disguise, answered with a slightly excited expression.
There was a martial art called the Bone-Shrinking Technique.
It was a strange art that shrank one’s body by controlling bones and muscles, often used together with Disguise Techniques when one wanted to completely conceal their identity.
Crack. Pop.
The sound of bones gradually shrinking echoed.
Like Disguise Techniques, the Bone-Shrinking Technique placed a heavy burden on the body, so only masters who had reached a certain level could learn it.
Since time was short, I decided to handle my face with a Human-skin Mask and focus solely on mastering the Bone-Shrinking Technique to reduce my body size.
Crack!
Once the final bone had been perfectly adjusted, my sturdy adult body transformed into something slender and flexible, like that of a youth.
“You’re incredible… It took me three months to learn that.”
Venerable Huiyul looked astonished that I had mastered the Bone-Shrinking Technique in just one week.
Exceptional martial talent and genius were practically the basic passive traits of the Heaven-Slaying Star.
“Hehe, Captain. It actually suits you.”
Ilhong came over holding a finely crafted wig and smiled brightly as she looked at my now similarly sized physique.
We had needed male disguises to infiltrate a male-restricted area before, but now that the situation was completely reversed, she seemed to find it extremely amusing.
“Do I really have to wear that…?”
I pointed displeased at the delicately made wig of glossy black hair and the Human-skin Mask with gentle makeup.
The only way for Ilhong and me to infiltrate the Emei Sect.
The most masculine act a man could perform.
Cross-dressing.
“You have to. Even after shrinking your build, you still have an androgynous look. That’s a problem.”
That was the verdict of a disguise expert.
Even with the Bone-Shrinking Technique, my physique was still rather sturdy, so we decided to claim I practiced external martial arts.
“Anyway, try wearing these. I’ll go over there and put on my… female disguise.”
The ironic nuance in her tone was unmistakable.
For her, this disguise wasn’t becoming a man again—it was returning to her original self.
Soon after, she removed the padding used to alter her body shape and fully shed her male disguise before appearing again.
“S-So… how do I look?”
She tilted her head slightly, asking shyly.
Her tied hair had been let down into a short bob, revealing a beautiful young woman smiling there.
She seemed to have regained the lively charm fitting her real gender and age.
“You’re really pretty.”
I nodded and answered honestly.
Embarrassed by the sincere compliment, Ilhong scratched her cheek shyly.
And beside me, Venerable Huiyul also murmured in a daze.
“…Approved.”