Murim Troubleshooter Dan Mujin

Chapter 108: Absolute Shrimp

A middle-aged man in a blue official robe opened his mouth with a sullen face.

“Just what kind of fellow are you.”

“I’m a guy called Dan Mujin.”

Even when a close aide of the Imperial Family asked in a crooked tone, I answered back without flinching.

That was me, Dan Mujin.

“What I’m saying is, why do we keep running into each other in situations like this, you brazen brat.”

An eunuch and the Royal Guards who seemed to be on the Crown Prince’s side, and from the Third Princess’s side the Eastern Depot Official and the Clan Head of the Seomok Clan.

The powers of the Imperial Palace had all gathered in one place.

And among them, the fact that I, a mere troubleshooter, was brazenly standing was apparently absurd to them.

“Well, that’s just how it turned out.”

Explaining would take too long again, so I tried brushing it off like that.

At that, Cheonsugong raised an eyebrow and furrowed his brow.

When I saw the white Qi wrapping around the hand he was clenching and unclenching, I quickly answered.

“Well, I heard her husband was cheating. I came to confirm it as part of the request, yes, yes.”

I pointed at the target of the request, the Clan Head of the Seomok Clan.

“…Cheating?! I told you, I’ve never done such a thing!”

The Clan Head of the Seomok Clan jumped up, protesting as if gravely wronged.

“Hmph. Even if you didn’t cheat, you clearly were two-timing.”

Cheonsugong pointed at the Royal Guards who had shown up without being summoned.

The armed Royal Guards and Wang Jinggong, his face ghostly pale from powder, were glaring at us coldly.

“So, you were testing the waters between the Crown Prince and the Third Princess to see where you could profit? Bold of you.”

It seemed he had intended to keep a foot in both camps and side with whichever called the higher price.

“Kh-hm.”

At Cheonsugong’s words, he only gave a dry cough and pressed his lips shut, unable to respond.

But then Wang Jinggong, who had dragged the Royal Guards here, scanned us all and suddenly pointed his finger at me.

“You, you brat…!”

His expression was as if he had spotted a lifelong enemy on a narrow bridge.

The other Royal Guards also turned their gazes to me, curious what was going on.

“You damned brat…! Aren’t you the little runt who constantly interfered with our work back at Eunseong Trading Company’s sericulture chamber!”

The eunuch on the Crown Prince’s side, Wang Jinggong, screamed in his characteristic sharp tone, scrunching his pale face.

“To see you here with Cheonsugong! So you were a spy sent by the Third Princess from the very beginning!”

He huffed and puffed as though he’d known it all along, thrashing about furiously.

He had once dreamt of rising to the rank of Grand Eunuch, but that dream had been shattered by that incident, and now he was venting all that pent-up rage at me.

On top of that, he had lost the Crown Prince’s trust for failing to handle a mere trading company.

“How ridiculous. Princess Peach Blossom has never once sent this ragamuffin anywhere near us.”

Cheonsugong immediately refuted, defending his liege against needless slander.

He wasn’t wrong—I really had nothing to do with her.

But still, ragamuffin? This man’s word choice had been a bit off since earlier.

“If you’ve got no relation whatsoever, then you won’t intervene when the Royal Guards beat that brat to death here, will you, Cheonsugong?”

Taking advantage of Cheonsugong’s retreat, Wang Jinggong asked with a fishy grin.

The man seemed intent on settling the grudge of his downfall right here and now, gloating at the perfect chance.

Srrrng.

Three Royal Guards unsheathed their long imperial swords and slowly closed the distance.

Each one’s aura was extraordinary, and sure enough, sharp blue Sword Qi flared vividly in the darkness.

“Son of a…”

Back then, it had clearly been Princess Peach Blossom who toppled Wang Jinggong at the sericulture chamber.

But since that veiled lady was someone against whom the word “revenge” could not even be uttered, he was taking it out on someone as easy as me.

“Excuse me, Cheonsugong.”

“What is it, brat.”

The lofty man of the Eastern Depot turned his head at my low call.

With the abnormal stamina and regeneration of the Heaven-Slaying Star, I had somehow managed against two Peak Martial Artists before.

But no matter how I thought about it, against three, I couldn’t confidently guarantee victory.

If that were possible, I’d already have surpassed Peak and become Super-Peak.

“Would you, by chance, be able to assist me?”

Perhaps sensing some déjà vu in my question, Cheonsugong smirked.

“I could.”

He said that, then stomped the ground and withdrew far back, as though unwilling to get further involved.

“….”

That was literally just telling me he could. Not that he would.

I blinked blankly for a moment at that unexpected twist of an answer, before snapping back to reality at the sight of the Royal Guards closing in.

“Hey, don’t just stand there—help me out!”

Apparently, this man still remembered when I had answered and bolted from the mulberry field.

Eunuchs sure held grudges for a long time.

“I’ll decide after seeing how you do.”

With that, he clasped his hands behind his back and withdrew, taking Ilhong—whom he had once tried to scout—along with him.

“Son of a…!”

While I was spitting curses, the Royal Guards tightened their encirclement with expressionless faces.

The footwork of the Royal Guards’ combined technique was different from the very first synchronized step.

There were only three of them, yet the pressure was far greater than being surrounded by a hundred mediocre martial artists.

Even when I glared with the Heaven-Slaying Eye, I couldn’t find a single gap to escape.

The atmosphere screamed that I had no choice but to face this trio’s Coordinated Formation Strike head-on.

“Ohohong, kill him!”

At Wang Jinggong’s vile laughter, the Royal Guards of the Imperial Household—whose reputation I had only heard of—rushed toward me.

Ssshhhk—!

Tatadak—!

Sword Qi and crimson arcs flashed madly before my eyes.

I retreated step by step, desperately dodging the storm of sword strikes with my whole body.

Clack!

Each time Sword Qi and Staff Qi collided, violent shockwaves tore through the alley.

Every single heavy step I took became a desperate dance to slip past their sharp blades.

Slash!

A blade grazed my side. I had no time to even grimace before pulling my body away.

Even my ghost-like Whirlwind Steps were useless against the web of blades woven by these bastards.

“Haaah, haaah!”

If I could only counter properly, I might knock them down one by one and turn this around. But whenever one stabbed, the next was already slashing, and if I avoided that, another blade came crashing down toward my crown.

Their mastery of group combat steadily strangled the range of my movements.

“Damn it, I’ve been sliced up all over again.”

I had a feeling I’d be stabbed the moment I took on this request.

Today, I was getting skewered by blades to my heart’s content.

“Ohohong! How does the taste of steel feel? You shouldn’t have meddled in imperial affairs, flapping your mouth so carelessly.”

And then came the grating voice of that despicable eunuch, scratching at my nerves from the back.

Somehow, it felt even more hateful than the swordsmen stabbing at me from the front.

For the first time in a while, the Heaven-Slaying Star within me resonated, and killing intent rose thick in my chest.

“Hohoh, at first I was surprised, thinking you were a Peak Martial Artist… but there’s no way a stray mutt from the streets can defeat these Royal Guard elites personally dispatched for this task!”

Even if I had to take a sword deep into my body, the urge to crush that bastard beyond this combined technique was burning strong.

“Captain!”

As the imperial elites pressed harder and harder, Ilhong’s worried voice rang out.

“Stay there, don’t even think about stepping in.”

Thankfully, Cheon Yugang was firmly holding her back. How could a second-rate martial artist possibly interfere in a Peak Martial Artist’s battle?

She’d lose her head ten times over before she even realized it.

“As they say, one must not reach beyond their station! If you act above your lot, disaster strikes you down! Hohoh!”

Shhhhk—!

Distracted by his scratching voice, another blade tore into my arm.

From left to right, blood poured out in a gush.

“Kh!”

It was a deep wound, the kind that exposed bone. An ordinary man would have lost the use of that arm entirely.

The Royal Guard attacking next clearly aimed for the blind spot at the very same wounded side.

Baaam!

But thanks to this body of mine that could regenerate tendons, I repaid him with a heavy fist strike.

My fist slammed into his face, and with a choked grunt, the Royal Guard staggered back several steps.

“Ugh, you fucking bastard……”

The proud yellow martial uniform had been stained bright red by the blood that came dripping down and the nosebleed that fell away.

“What the hell are you doing! You couldn’t even chase off that mangy stray! And you still call yourselves the Royal Guards!”

Wang Jinggong, riding high on the title of being the Crown Prince’s retainer, raged arrogantly.

I sucked in a ragged breath and stepped back slowly, trying to buy time for the severed arm to finish regenerating.

Over the shoulders of the Royal Guards as they reformed their formation, I could see Wang Jinggong’s grin.

‘살(殺)’

It felt strange. It had been a long time since I’d wanted to kill someone like this.

“Yeah, you feel the same way, don’t you?”

The Heaven-Slaying Star was at death’s door, and a bloody aura was rising around him.

At my mutter, the Royal Guards began to look at me as if I were a lunatic.

“Then help me.”

Opportunities like this weren’t common. I didn’t want to die — and I wanted to kill.

Tsutsutsutsu—

Wrapped in the crimson aura that only I could see, I threw my shrimp-body into the crack between the whales.

“Get him!”

When the imperial power players gathered in one place, Dan Mujin and a brat had said the same thing.

That we were like a shrimp caught between two fighting whales.

They muttered words like ‘When whales fight, the shrimp perish’.

But look — where in this world…

“Kraaa!”

…was there a shrimp that could sweep through three Peak Martial Artists?

Cheonsugong stared at Dan Mujin with a strange expression as Dan Mujin, taking a blade driven into his belly in stride, blasted off the head of one Royal Guard.

The young man stood drenched in blood from head to toe and fought back fiercely.

“Hm, I’d heard he reached peak level.”

Cheonsugong had held back on purpose to see how far the boy had advanced, because some of it had been hard to believe.

But the youth in front of him was performing even more impressively than expected.

“The last time I saw him he seemed a second-rate martial artist, but his growth speed is unbelievable.”

I had only thought of him as a guy with an amazing sense for killing intent.

Now, coupled with unusually strong martial skill — the moment Cheonsugong’s gaze shifted from seeing a thunderbear to seeing something else entirely was upon us.

“Iik! What are you doing! Can’t you catch a single bastard like that and you still wobble about!”

Wang Jinggong shouted, leaping about when a Royal Guard fell and the tide of battle became uncertain.

“Hah, hah. Damn you, I’ll smash your head open.”

I didn’t know what “smash your head open” meant exactly, but he pointed at the fallen Royal Guard, so it seemed clear he meant to bash his skull.

With a squeal, Wang Jinggong took a couple of steps back from the blood-splattered man.

The back alley quickly filled with the harsh breaths and thick stench of blood exhaled by the martial artists.

“Hit him! Do it! Cut that bastard’s throat now!”

He tried to egg on the Royal Guards with words, but unlike before they didn’t rush forward so readily.

These were people who rarely wavered, yet they were visibly shaken by the fierce resistance of that mangy dog.

“Damn these eunuch sons of bitches……”

Dan Mujin ground his lips and flared with anger at Wang Jinggong’s sharp, hopping shouts.

Then he glanced back casually.

“Ah, I wasn’t talking to Cheonsugong. You know how I feel, right?”

“…….”

No matter how much he wanted to please, he was just the sort of thunderbear who always managed to cock things up.