Murim Troubleshooter Dan Mujin-Chapter 133 : Night of the Death Seer

Chapter 133: Night of the Death Seer
When you work as a troubleshooter, you occasionally have to deal with kids.
Every time, I realize the same thing—kids don't know how to speak in roundabout ways. They just demand what they want bluntly and relentlessly.
Just like the Heaven-Slaying Star right now.
‘Kill (殺)!’
‘Kill (殺)!’
‘Kill (殺)!’
Late afternoon. The Troubleshooter Office was filled with the gentle fragrance of tea.
Even as I sipped lukewarm tea, the crimson energy ceaselessly traced out the character for “kill” in the air.
Seriously, it was enough to give me a headache.
“I can still feel it.”
“…Feel what?”
Again, without a word, she pointed vaguely around me, saying she sensed something.
‘Immediate Kill (卽殺)!’
That bastard would always harbor intense murderous intent toward anyone who recognized his presence.
So now, the Heaven-Slaying Star was going berserk, raving to kill the woman in front of me.
But unlike that bastard, I was a rational person. I stayed as calm as possible and feigned innocence.
“Since earlier, you've been spouting—no, I mean, what do you mean?”
I almost snapped as the Heaven-Slaying Star threw a tantrum.
“There’s something strange attached to your back.”
“Ah, ha, ha. There’s nothing there, really.”
“You’re lying.”
How did she know?
I swallowed my breath and stared at the tall, pale woman before me.
“Mujin, why are you lying? Do you really have something to hide?”
Jo Harang, chewing on a rice cracker, made a comment like it was strange.
“How did you figure that out?”
“How? Just look at your face. Anyone could tell you got caught red-handed.”
She playfully poked my cheek like she was enjoying this.
I must’ve let it show on my face without realizing. Even someone as dull as Jo Harang noticed.
This was all the Heaven-Slaying Star’s fault, stirring up my emotions.
I activated the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method to its limit and swept away the crimson energy with the surging white qi.
‘Kieeek!’
It almost sounded like that. The Heaven-Slaying Star resisted until the end, then vanished in a dramatic blaze.
“Oh? That energy’s gone now.”
“…Maybe you misread it from the start?”
She glanced around, then tilted her head in confusion.
“That’s strange. I could’ve sworn I felt something…”
“There was nothing from the beginning. You keep startling people.”
Felt like I’d aged ten years.
The Central Plains was vast, and eccentrics were as common as grains of sand. Guess there were people like this too.
“Hmm, maybe I was mistaken.”
This client seemed to have perception as keen as a Taoist.
No, in this case, perhaps it was a sense for things unseen? A kind of supernatural gift?
Anyway, she was someone with abilities along those lines.
“Ahem, so what’s the request about? You said something happened?”
She was the first person to ever trigger a reaction from the Heaven-Slaying Star just by talking.
I calmed my startled heart and asked the client Eun Hwaran had referred to me for details.
“First, do you know what our Jinju Eon Clan does?”
Jinju Eon Clan. I’d skimmed over it a few times in martial arts novels. I recalled they handled murim funerals and were considered rather gloomy.
“Ah, of course. I’m a troubleshooter who knows everything except what I don’t.”
Still, there was no guarantee they were the same in this world, so I acted like I was well-informed in front of the client while quietly asking Ilhong for help.
“Hey, what exactly does the Jinju Eon Clan do?”
“…You were just acting like you knew everything.”
“I can’t say I don’t know in front of a client, can I? They’d lose faith and walk away.”
It’s just a kind of sales technique.
Work wasn’t exactly overflowing, so every client mattered.
Besides, this case seemed perfectly legitimate. No way I’d let it slip by.
“The Jinju Eon Clan is a prestigious clan rooted in Hebei. Unlike the Hebei Peng Clan, though, they don’t lean toward either the orthodox or unorthodox sides—they’re neutral.”
A neutral clan. Usually, that’d make both sides see them as fence-sitters and hate them.
“That’s not likely. Both sides may feel uneasy, but in the end, they seek them out when needed—that’s what the Jinju Eon Clan is.”
Ilhong, overhearing my muttering, said this while glancing at the cold, mysterious woman.
They may be unpleasant, but you seek them out when you have to, huh?
“So, they’re kind of like the Rogues’ Guild?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“What kind of work do they do to be sought out by both sides?”
“Funerals. They jump into battlefields to retrieve corpses, return them intact using secret preservation techniques, or analyze traces from gruesome incidents to find culprits.”
In short, they handled all the unpleasant tasks others avoided.
Well, in murim, average lifespans were ridiculously low, and whenever a fight broke out, people died in heaps.
And since appearances and saving face mattered, funerals were held extravagantly. One clan monopolizing that business? No wonder they thrived.
“They also craft and sell coffins, manage burial plots, and collect protection fees like other murim clans. They do a lot.”
“So, they’ve got plenty of money, right?”
“Yes. They can definitely pay, so no need to worry about stingy offers or getting stiffed.”
Good, that was all I needed to hear.
I nodded in satisfaction and approached the client again.
“Are you finished talking?”
The Jinju Eon Clan client curled her dry lips into a faint smile and asked.
Eun Hwaran had told me her name was Eon Wolyeong.
“Yes, we just had some office business to discuss. Now then, please continue with the rest of the request.”
Maybe it was because of her pale complexion, but the more she smiled, the eerier she seemed.
“As you just heard from her, our clan’s duty is to handle the dead. Sometimes, even high-ranking individuals seek us out, and we see them off with utmost respect.”
“…Ahem, I see.”
She must’ve heard our earlier conversation.
She’d hidden her presence well, so I hadn’t noticed—but it seemed her cultivation was quite high. I scratched my cheek awkwardly and nodded.
“Lately, something strange has been happening within the clan.”
Thankfully, she didn’t mind and continued her story.
“What do you mean by strange?”
“…Corpses have been disappearing. By means we don’t understand.”
At that moment, a thin barrier of qi enveloped the surroundings.
She pleaded once more for secrecy, fearing that if this matter were to leak, the Jinju Eon Clan’s reputation would be dragged through the mud.
“I’m tight-lipped. Please, go on.”
“Since it came through the Trading Lord’s introduction, I’ll trust you… Anyway, from our own internal investigation, the missing corpses all had one thing in common.”
“And that is?”
“They were all corpses of martial artists who had reached a certain level of cultivation.”
Once life ends, even latent energy dissipates—there’s no practical use left.
Yet someone, knowing that, seemed to be up to something far from ordinary.
“Hm, corpses vanishing by night, huh? It’s not like they grew legs and ran off.”
It was a strange and perplexing case.
“Mujin-ah, but didn’t they grow legs?”
Jo Harang, who’d been listening in with interest, had leaned in before I knew it.
“Sure, but they’re dead.”
No matter how bizarre murim was, reviving the dead should still be impossible.
“Our clan’s been monitoring strictly and doing everything we can to uncover the truth, but we still haven’t figured it out.”
Until now, they’d been keeping it quiet under various pretenses. But if word about the missing corpses reached the bereaved, it would severely impact their income.
That’s why she was saying this had to be resolved no matter what.
“I’ve heard you’re a capable troubleshooter. So, what do you think? Can you take this on?”
What an unsettling request—to find out why corpses were vanishing.
But the current state of things, with no clients for over two weeks and the office coffers drying up, was far more terrifying.
“So, you just want me to find the culprit?”
I slurped down the now-cold tea and asked.
“Yes. Whether it’s discovering the cause or identifying an insider, I’d like you to find whoever’s responsible.”
Well, I didn’t have anything better to do. The bounty from the Demon-Slaying Unit would take a while to arrive anyway.
“Understood. Leave it to us. Our office will uncover the truth.”
And so, I accepted this strange request.
All across the land, the Blood Cult was being hunted down.
Especially with the Murim Alliance’s enforcement unit closing in right behind them, the cultists burrowed deeper underground.
In the midst of this, Gwang Hyeolso, practitioner of the Left Blood Law, bowed deeply toward the Blood Cult Leader, hidden behind a veil.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Even as his flesh split and his forehead cracked, Gwang Hyeolso kept slamming his head down, as if no amount of pain could atone for his sins.
“Enough.”
“But, Blood Cult Leader, I—!”
Srrrk.
From beyond the veil, a pale and elongated hand reached out.
“I said, enough.”
The voice wasn’t one of sympathy for his self-harm—it was cold and nearly devoid of emotion.
Swallowing thickly, Gwang Hyeolso stopped and slowly raised his head.
“Heaven-Slaying Star took on a woman’s body, you say…”
He seemed quite intrigued upon receiving the from Liaoning Province.
That muttered line alone carried a faint trace of emotion.
“How amusing. The stars themselves twist. I don’t know why, but now I can’t see a single step ahead.”
Even a faint laugh drifted through the veil.
The other cultists flinched in surprise.
“For now, she’s untouchable. The vigilance around her will be immense…”
“Then forget her for now. Prepare for the next grand undertaking.”
The pale hand that had emerged raised two fingers—index and middle.
“You mean… the second undertaking?”
“That forbidden art they believe they stole and destroyed.”
The hand folded its fingers and withdrew, as the Blood Cult Leader murmured quietly.
“The line between the living and the dead shall blur.”
It was something utterly impossible by any standard logic—but because it came from the Blood Cult Leader’s mouth, the cultists believed without hesitation and lowered their heads.
“Blood Asura Soul.”
“Descent of the Heavenly Blood God.”
Far from Beijing, one would arrive at a place called Anpyeong (安平), where the Jinju Eon Clan’s ancestral village dominated the region.
This was where they’d laid roots for generations, building both influence grounded in local sentiment and enormous wealth. Their authority exceeded even that of the local magistrates sent by the imperial court—a truly ancient and powerful clan.
And it was through Eon Wolyeong’s introduction that I came to meet members of this clan and exchanged greetings.
I’d heard the clan’s founder originally worked with corpses and developed Jiangshi Arts from insights gained there.
Apparently, the people here had practiced those techniques so diligently that, much like Eon Wolyeong, they all appeared ghostly pale.
“You, the qi you harbor is strange.”
“It feels… odd. As if you’re neither alive nor dead.”
“What a curious young man. Wolyeong, is this why you called him?”
Apparently, they were all cut from the same cloth as the client. Upon seeing me, the blood relatives of the Jinju Eon Clan each muttered something strange.
People saying bizarre, incomprehensible things.
‘Kill (殺)!’
Should I just snap? Saying I’m neither alive nor dead upon first meeting—what’s that supposed to mean?
“Sorry, the clan members are kind of like this.”
Eon Wolyeong offered an apology, as if she were the most normal one of the bunch.
“Ah… right.”
Imagine some random lady on the street yelling, “You’ve got bad luck clinging to you!”—how uncomfortable would that be?
I gave a reluctant nod at her apology and tried to let it slide.
“But you do seem a little drained. Be careful not to let anything weird latch onto you.”
Okay, seriously?
Besides, that warning had come far too late. Something bizarre had already latched on and kept snapping at me.
‘Pulverize (撲殺)!’
Telling me to pulverize a client my sister had finally sent my way.
I ignored the nonsense and headed toward the scene of the incident.
“This is the place. In our clan, we gather all the corpses here before embalming them.”
Her voice grew darker the farther we went, until finally she pointed to a pitch-black underground tunnel.
Even just standing at the entrance, I felt an inexplicable chill and a damp sensation clinging to the air.
It had the vibe of a catacomb, a place where corpses were buried en masse.
In other words, there wasn’t a single living soul in there—only the dead.
“Harang, what are you doing? Aren’t you coming in?”
Yet one of our group, who had been marching confidently earlier, froze at the entrance to the basement.
“Uh, I’ll just… catch my breath out here for a bit…”
Her voice was unusually subdued.
Something felt off, so I squinted and asked,
“Wait… are you scared?”
“W-What are you talking about! Do you think Jo Harang, with the spirit of a tiger, is… s-scared?!”
Your voice is shaking though.
I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
She, who was always so brave before the living—villains and all—was now acting like a total scaredy-cat before the dead.
“Ha! Look at you doubting me. F-Fine! I’ll go in first, so just follow my lead!”
Eyes trembling violently, Jo Harang stomped boldly into the underground corridor, pretending to be fearless.
“She’s totally scared, Captain.”
“Right?”
Ilhong smirked, mimicking my usual tone.
Even the mighty Jo Harang and the Divine Wind couldn’t deal with the terrifying unknown.
Seeing this new side of her, Ilhong and I exchanged a quiet grin and followed in after her.