Murim Troubleshooter Dan Mujin

Chapter 57: Later Beggars

On the road heading to the Beggars’ Union headquarters.

From the canal slicing through the city wafted the smell of damp earth, while large and small vessels busily moved about the dock.

And the shopping district of Kaifeng, teeming with people so dense that there wasn’t even space to set foot.

The shouts of merchants ringing through every alley and the scent of grilled and stewed food spoke of Kaifeng’s vigor and prosperity.

Just walking around gave me plenty to see—truly a commercial city.

They said that when night fell, the taverns, night markets, and brothels with their green lanterns would all open at once, creating the famed City That Never Sleeps.

Since I didn’t have much money on hand, I decided to postpone visiting the night market for another time.

“Mister! Spare a coin, please!”

A scene where merchants draped in fine silk mingled with beggars clad in rags.

Yet, no one chased the beggars away with clubs or mocked them.

That must have been due to Kaifeng’s unique nature, with the Beggars’ Union stationed here. Mistreating beggars might lead to enraged union members causing havoc and forcing one to shut down business.

“If our home village had been like this, living as beggars would’ve been easy.”

I said that while watching the beggars around me stroll freely without a care.

“Our home village?”

“There’s such a thing.”

“Oh, there you go again.”

At the very least, little beggars wouldn’t have been beaten up or robbed by grown adults.

And since begging would’ve been easier, maybe I wouldn’t have had to eat that Galjeotang with barely any rice gruel in it every time.

No, thinking about it, anywhere outside of Beijing would’ve made the beggar’s life a whole lot easier.

At that moment, I felt a sudden surge of resentment toward Hwang Geolgae, who had escalated the situation by provoking the Emperor.

“Master! Spare a coin, please!”

A small, grime-covered hand grabbed the cuff of my sleeve.

A hunched posture, gaunt figure, and an empty begging bowl.

A clumsy act of begging. It was like looking at my own past back at the orphanage.

“You should be saying ‘Great Hero.’ How are you going to beg like that?”

“…Huh?”

The young beggar looked puzzled as I threw in unsolicited advice.

I didn’t know why he’d ended up a beggar, but clearly, he hadn’t yet let go of his pride.

When begging, you’re supposed to flatter—‘Boss,’ ‘Teacher,’ ‘Elder,’ and such. It doesn’t cost anything, just wag your tongue a bit.

This kid lacked the fundamentals. Even so, the fact that he’d survived until now must mean the people here were quite generous.

“Got it?”

“Ah, yes…”

“Then give it a try.”

With that, I began my coaching, and the little beggar reluctantly resumed his begging.

“Great Hero…! I have a starving younger sibling I haven’t fed for three days! Please spare a coin!”

Lying was a basic part of begging. No one’s going to check anyway.

The little beggar boy before me had fully taken my advice and applied it.

Quick feedback like this meant he’d have no trouble surviving from now on.

“Good voice. Keep up the practice.”

“Th-Thank you!”

Seems like he thought I was just being a nuisance at first. But when I handed over ten strings of copper coins without a fuss, he bowed deeply in surprise.

That’s how advice should work—you pay for it.

This was like an unspoken rule at the orphanage where I grew up. An agreement everyone followed instinctively.

“Boss, aren’t we running tight on money for food and lodging?”

If we were planning to stay several nights and eat proper meals, our current funds were indeed tight.

If she meant to book just one room to save money, I wasn’t exactly against it—Ilhong mumbled in a small voice.

“It’s fine. I’ve got a way to pull in a lump sum.”

She tilted her head at my words, then suddenly went pale.

“…Are you seriously going to leak Hwang Noya’s location?”

“Hey now, leak? What are you saying, Ilhong?”

This was merely information sharing. That thing the Hao Sect and Beggars’ Union were especially good at.

And the beggars should at least know the location of their own leader. Not that I was going to visit him personally or anything.

“If word gets out that you were the one who shared it, Hwang Noya will beat you to death, Boss.”

“Isn’t he already beating me to death every training session? It won’t really change anything, will it?”

“…Oh, that’s true, isn’t it?”

It was Hwang Geolgae who used training in Hundred-Knot Divine Fist, Whirlwind Steps, and Dog-Beating Staff Technique as an excuse to thrash me every single day.

Every session had already been a punishment, so what was there to fear now?

“G-Great Hero! My little sister’s starving in a shack…!”

Maybe he’d overheard my earlier instructions—now came a shabby little one head-butting the ground before speaking.

“Alright, you can have some too.”

At least this one had the right attitude.

I dispensed the copper coins I had scraped together like a dog but handed them out with the air of a lord.

“Don’t hog it all—share with the others.”

“Yessir! Thank you, Great Hero…!”

With bright faces, the little beggars clutched the coins I gave and darted off.

I could already see them getting excited, talking about buying dumplings and such.

“Boss, you’re really confusing sometimes. You seem like a good person when you do this, but then you’re off to rat out my master, so you seem like a bad person too…”

“Humans are inherently complex and contradictory, Ilhong.”

That man beat me up every day, didn’t he? I didn’t feel particularly guilty about reporting him.

But these little beggars—I knew what a tough time they had. Helping them gave me a sense of satisfaction.

This is what it means to have both good and evil coexisting in the multifaceted human heart.

“Now I feel a bit more alive.”

As I circulated the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method, I felt the warm flow of Righteous Energy spreading through my body.

In this harsh Central Plains, you had to fill your stomach not just with food but also with virtue. Otherwise, you’d end up dying in no time.

If left alone, the Heaven-Slaying Star would slowly awaken. I had to accumulate Righteous Energy to weaken it, then beat it up and extract its energy to survive.

‘Kill (殺)…’

The blazing red aura of the Heaven-Slaying Star writhed powerlessly inside me, slumping mid-stroke as it tried to inscribe the character.

Looks like spending that money paid off. I chuckled softly at the sight.

“Well then, shall we go fill up this skinny coin pouch?”

The headquarters stood at the heart of this bustling city.

I strolled along the commercial district with Ilhong, taking in the sights.

But then, as we walked, a commotion erupted in the distance.

“Boss, what’s that?”

Following Ilhong’s pointing finger, I saw a black-haired beauty sprinting down the boulevard, clutching a child under each arm.

On her back, a massive broadsword swayed with her movements.

“…What is she doing?”

“Yeah, what is that?”

It was undoubtedly Soho Blade Jo Harang.

I thought she’d be enjoying a relaxed sightseeing trip, but there she was, running frantically like she’d gotten caught up in some incident.

She looked like she was practically carrying out a kidnapping.

“Boss, she’s coming this way.”

“This doesn’t feel right.”

From nearby alleys, rough-looking thugs came pouring out.

They drew out cold, gleaming blades and blocked the retreat paths, forming an encirclement around Jo Harang.

“That bitch messed with our elder…!”

“We must stop her no matter what!”

Judging from their snarls, it seemed they had already crossed blades once.

They radiated intense Killing Intent, clearly set on revenge.

“Boss, what do we do?”

“What else? Pretend we don’t know her.”

Wasn’t she the one who said she’d track down and kill the Heaven-Slaying Star? I didn’t want to get tangled up any deeper.

Of course, after last night’s conversation, she seemed to think we’d grown quite close.

What did she say again? That she could feel a pure and virtuous energy coming from me.

Her tone and eyes were just like those cultists who push suspicious religions in front of subway stations—left me with a strange feeling.

“Well then, shall we slip away quietly?”

I tried to leave the scene with Ilhong as if we had nothing to do with any of it.

But then—maybe she spotted me from a distance—those violet eyes sparkled brightly.

“Mujin! Help me out!”

She looked right at me and shouted for help.

Thanks to that, we who were about to slip away quietly became the target of the glares from the nearby strongmen.

“This is seriously insane…”

People call me Luck Nine, One Hero and treat me like a lucky chivalrous hero, but honestly, no one’s more unlucky than me.

“You bastard! Are you with that bitch?!”

Now a dozen blades were pointed straight at us.

These guys reeked of accumulated Killing Karma, the stench unpleasant and vile.

I’d already gathered enough Righteous Energy for today. I really didn’t want to get involved.

“He’s not answering—get them!”

“Kill them!”

Nothing in life ever goes the way I want.

That was the first thing I realized after waking up here and getting stabbed by a sword.

“Damn it.”

Soho Blade Jo Harang.

No matter what anyone said, she was a chivalrous hero.

However, she believed that surviving in the world required money too, so she also worked as a wanderer.

The world mocked her, saying she wasn’t a real hero.

But the young man she’d recently met, Dan Mujin, had praised her practical mindset during their night-long talk.

For Jo Harang, nothing could’ve made her happier than having a man filled with immense Righteous Energy say such things.

Maybe that’s why she ended up in a situation like this.

There was no request or reward, but when she saw injustice before her eyes, her body simply acted first.

Whoosh—!

With Ilhong taking care of the children, Jo Harang’s hands were now free. Her large broadsword tore through the air with a heavy sonic boom.

Though technically a blade, her Heroic Broadsword functioned like a blunt weapon due to its weight and size.

Crash!

The massive blade shattered the chest bones of three strongmen and spilled bright red blood.

“Urgh!”

However, each move of her sword art was so weighty that it left slight gaps in one-against-many battles.

Whoosh! Whack! Whack!

Dan Mujin, back-to-back with her, filled in her shortcomings by swinging a long staff with glee, knocking away the incoming thugs.

“Hey! What is even happening here?! You didn’t kidnap those kids or anything, right?! Huh?!”

The young man, worried she might have done something terrible.

“Of course not! Those guys are human traffickers! They were trying to kidnap the kids from an alley!”

“Shit, if that’s the case, then I guess this is a good deed… thank goodness.”

With a small sigh of relief, Dan Mujin swung his staff once more.

With a solid thud, one of the thugs’ skulls dented in and he collapsed.

“Thanks! I knew you’d help without hesitation!”

She was genuinely happy in that moment. Since entering the murim, she’d been disappointed to see everyone harboring darkness in their hearts.

But now she’d finally met someone trustworthy and worthy of emulation.

“You idiot! It’s not that I’m helping willingly, it’s because you—ugh!”

He barely dodged a slashing sword by the width of a sheet of paper and countered with an angry strike of his staff.

The staff twisted along a bizarre trajectory like a living snake and struck the traffickers’ faces and groins with brutal force.

“Guh!”

Thugs collapsed, clutching their faces and groins.

It was a bizarre and exquisite staff technique. It radiated a savage, beastlike momentum as it pummeled its targets.

“Mujin! Let’s take care of the rest first and talk later!”

“…Fine! You better explain later!”

Dan Mujin grumbled but didn’t refuse to help.

For some reason, his back felt incredibly reassuring.

With a bright smile, Jo Harang swung her broadsword more confidently than ever before.

“Tsk, the Sect Leader really is thoughtless. How am I supposed to find the Later Beggar with just this phrase?”

The Seven-Knot Elder of the Beggars’ Union muttered complaints as he carefully folded and tucked away the letter he had scrutinized dozens of times, hoping there was some hidden message.

It was the first sign ever sent by the Dragon Head Sect Leader since his departure from the world.

And it was about something as critical as the Later Beggar.

But what he got was:

“Might drop by…”

That only meant he might not show up at all.

And what did he mean by “like a naked thunderbolt”?

Putting it all together, it sounded like a disciple who was technically a disciple but utterly uncontrollable.

“Sigh.”

With a heavy sigh, the Seven-Knot Elder resumed walking.

But then, something strange caught his eyes.

“Quack! Screech!”

“S-Stop! We were wrong!”

Screams rang out from strongmen being beaten by something blunt.

“Mujin. I think you can stop hitting them now…”

“You shut it too!”

There stood the young man, thrashing the human traffickers like beasts with a strangely shaped staff.