Genius Martial Arts Trainer

The siblings, reunited after more than ten years, spent several days earnestly catching up.

However, they could not remain there forever. Both Baek Garyeong and Mugung had work they needed to do.

“I will come visit again, Older Brother.”

“Ahem. Since your health is still delicate, next time I shall come visit you myself.”

After exchanging their final farewells, they left the Southern Heavenly Society.

Strangely enough, more than ten people were accompanying Mugung and Baek Garyeong.

And aside from three of them, every single one was a woman.

Five were Baek Garyeong’s personal guards, whom Baek Gahwan had forced upon her.

Baek Garyeong had tried to refuse, but Baek Gahwan would hear none of it.

- If the Foolish Old Man Road Party is to continue growing, my brother-in-law will have to move about constantly. While working alongside ruffians who have yet to be reformed, can you guarantee your safety whenever he is away?

At those words from Baek Gahwan, Baek Garyeong had no choice but to accept all five guards.

The four additional women who had joined them were courtesans.

That was because when Hao Gate heard that the Foolish Old Man Road Party needed a cook and alcohol, the Master of Hao Gate took an interest.

- What a lonely thing it would be for there to be alcohol, yet no women.

After opening the conversation that way, the Master of Hao Gate proposed a partnership.

Hao Gate would regularly send alcohol and black-market merchants, and the party members of the Foolish Old Man Road Party could use those merchants to purchase whatever goods they needed.

In return, the Foolish Old Man Road Party would add a place to the inn where courtesans could sell drinks, entertain guests, and enjoy themselves with them, creating an environment in which Hao Gate could conduct business.

Those courtesans were the women who had joined them under that agreement, while the remaining three men were one cook and two waiters sent by Hao Gate.

***

After Mugung and Baek Garyeong arrived at Mount Tianling, they immediately began construction.

They needed to add a place where the courtesans could entertain guests, share the pleasures of cloud and rain, or allow customers to stay overnight.

Since the party members had already gained experience constructing both the mountain stronghold and the inn, they were able to cut down trees and complete the additional construction without much difficulty.

Since they had spare hands after completing the road construction and beginning the business anyway, one could even say it had worked out well.

However, a problem Mugung had not anticipated arose.

“Those bastards who used to go days without washing and reek of sweat are certainly working hard now.”

The party members’ attitudes had changed.

Perhaps because nine women had suddenly appeared, they were making an enormous fuss trying to impress them.

It had practically become an everyday occurrence for some fierce-looking man, having bathed and cleaned himself up in his own way, to pick an unidentified flower from some secluded corner of Mount Tianling and present it to one of Baek Garyeong’s guards with a flushed face.

Even so, the bastards pursuing Baek Garyeong’s guards were the more respectable ones.

There were even idiots who spent the wages they had received on alcohol and drank with the courtesans.

“At this rate, all the Road Party’s money will end up flowing into Hao Gate.”

While Mugung sighed at the pathetic behavior of the party members, Baek Garyeong, who stood beside him, also let out a sigh.

“It seems those bastards are giving you a headache as well, my wife. I shall choose a day and straighten out their minds.”

When Mugung spoke in a firm tone, Baek Garyeong shook her head for some reason.

“That was not why I sighed. There is a natural principle of yin and yang, so how could it be wrong for them to make an effort to appeal to the opposite sex?”

“......Did you perhaps anticipate this?”

At Mugung’s question, Baek Garyeong nodded.

“To you, my husband, their behavior may seem pathetic, but to this humble woman, it merely appears natural. More importantly, has the atmosphere not become far gentler than before?”

Mugung considered her words for a moment, then nodded.

Just as she said, with more than forty men gathered together, the atmosphere had been unbearably bleak.

It had truly felt as though they were merely living because they happened to be alive. The mood had been one of men working only because they needed to survive.

But now, the atmosphere had become considerably softer.

Though he had begun witnessing pathetic scenes far more often.

“Then why do you look so sorrowful? What is troubling you?”

When Mugung asked with a face filled with concern, Baek Garyeong considered for a moment before answering.

“I was worried about my older brother and the Leader of the Southern Heavenly Society.”

“???”

When Mugung looked at her with an expression of incomprehension, she elaborated.

“It is the natural order for men and women to be drawn to one another. Yet neither my older brother nor the Leader of the Southern Heavenly Society has a partner.”

“Ah.......”

“I know the two of them are busy with their work, but that is precisely why this humble woman worries. When their minds and bodies are wearied by the heavy burdens they bear, would life not become at least a little happier if they had partners beside them who could ease that weight, even slightly? Just as I have you, my husband.”

At the final words Baek Garyeong added, Mugung’s face split into a broad grin.

Baek Garyeong smiled faintly at his expression, then sighed once again.

“My older brother still has no partner, yet I alone am this happy. That is why I feel guilty.”

Having gone straight into living with Baek Garyeong without any romantic experience whatsoever, Mugung had no idea how he ought to comfort a woman.

So after thinking long and hard, he came up with what he considered an answer and opened his mouth.

“Do not worry too much. Just like Older Brother, Chief Strategist Zhuge Muhuan also holds a strategist’s post in the Zhengmu League, yet he has remained alone even past the age of fifty, has he not? From what I can see, strategists generally seem not to enjoy marriage.”

At Mugung’s bizarre attempt at comfort, Baek Garyeong recalled the man who had once been her superior and answered.

“My older brother and Chief Strategist Zhuge are entirely different cases. Chief Strategist Zhuge is a cold-blooded man who sees people as nothing but numbers to begin with, so he has no interest in women. He has not merely failed to find a woman. He does not even have a single friend.”

At his wife’s crisp declaration, Mugung had nothing to say.

He merely began to feel a little sorry for Zhuge Muhuan.

***

“Achoo.”

After letting out a refreshing sneeze, Zhuge Muhuan frowned.

“Is someone speaking ill of me?”

Then he twisted the corner of his mouth crookedly.

There were so many people who might curse him that Zhuge Muhuan had reached the point where he could not single out anyone in particular.

Furthermore, Zhuge Muhuan considered anyone who merely slandered him behind his back to be a loser anyway.

That was why a sneer naturally settled on his lips.

Meanwhile, a broad, heavily built man watching him from nearby opened his mouth.

“Chief Strategist. This will not do.”

“What will not do?”

“Judging by that cough, it seems your body has grown considerably weaker.”

“Hmm. Are you suggesting you prepare some restorative medicine for me?”

At Zhuge Muhuan’s question, the broad man shook his head.

“Using restorative medicine to replenish your vitality would merely be committing the folly of moving a stone from below to the top. For a fundamental cure, you must exercise.”

“That is correct, Chief Strategist. Starting tomorrow, please join us for morning exercise.”

At the shouts of the burly men beside him who voiced their agreement, Zhuge Muhuan let out a deep sigh.

'How did the Strategy Department ever come to this?'

Amazingly, every one of those burly men was a strategist of the Zhengmu League.

Today, more than ever, Zhuge Muhuan desperately missed Baek Garyeong.

***

To understand how the Strategy Department had come to this, it was necessary to go back several months.

A few days after Baek Garyeong’s great escape.

Once the only successor worth using had disappeared, Zhuge Muhuan likewise submitted a resignation letter and went on strike.

Of course, he was suppressed by Mujin within only a few days.

That did not mean Mujin had dragged him back through violence.

One could not simply beat someone senseless merely because he had submitted a resignation letter. Even Mujin was not that much of a scoundrel.

- Although Strategist Baek was highly intelligent, several capable talents remain in the League’s Strategy Department who can fill the vacancy she left behind. Why not use this opportunity to search for another useful bastard and raise him properly? If you train someone capable of inheriting the position of Chief Strategist, then I shall accept your resignation and provide you with enough severance pay to live proudly for the rest of your life.

Zhuge Muhuan had allowed himself to be persuaded by Mujin’s sweet talk.

To begin with, he had never truly intended to resign immediately.

He was a man who lived for the pleasure of knowing how brilliant his own mind was, so the position of Chief Strategist of the Zhengmu League suited Zhuge Muhuan perfectly.

Aside from Mujin, the League Leader, he could freely work everyone in the Central Plains however he pleased.

It had merely been a scheme to make Mujin, the League Leader, recognize his value a little more clearly.

Mujin had more or less seen through it as well, but had chosen to play along.

In any case, after ending that strike that was not quite a strike and that vacation that was not quite a vacation, Zhuge Muhuan returned and began examining the Strategy Department.

It was a ridiculous situation.

Zhuge Muhuan was the head of the Strategy Department, yet only now was he closely examining it.

That was because of Baek Garyeong.

Since Zhuge Muhuan treated every strategist in the department except Baek Garyeong as an idiot, it had been Baek Garyeong who mediated between Chief Strategist Zhuge Muhuan and the other strategists while handling the work.

In other words, Zhuge Muhuan had paid attention only to Baek Garyeong, while Baek Garyeong had distributed tasks among the remaining strategists and taken care of them.

But now Baek Garyeong was gone, so he needed to find her successor.

After steeling himself and beginning to inspect the Strategy Department in search of a useful bastard among the idiots.

Zhuge Muhuan felt something strange.

“Who recommended you for entry into the Strategy Department?”

Zhuge Muhuan stopped a muscular man who was carrying a stack of letters and asked him, whereupon the man looked at Zhuge Muhuan with a strange expression.

“What do you mean, Chief Strategist? You and the retired Strategist Baek selected me together through an interview.”

“......?”

Unable to understand, Zhuge Muhuan frowned and examined the man closely.

No matter how little interest Zhuge Muhuan had in the strategists of the Strategy Department, he was still a genius.

For him to forget a face he had seen once was impossible.

Only belatedly did Zhuge Muhuan recognize the man.

“Hmm? Are you Kang Hui, whom we recruited two years ago?”

“That is correct, Chief Strategist.”

“Good grief. You have changed so much over the past two years that I could not recognize you.”

The man called Kang Hui had certainly not looked like that two years earlier.

He had possessed a modest amount of fat, little muscle, and the typical appearance of a scholar.

“How did you end up like that?”

At Zhuge Muhuan’s question, the man calmly answered while still holding the stack of letters.

“After spending several days working through the night in the Strategy Department, I developed pain in my lower back. Hahaha. While I was wondering what I should do, my seniors invited me to accompany them to the training ground.”

“......If your back hurt, you should have visited a clinic. Why would you go to the training ground?”

Zhuge Muhuan asked with an expression that said, ‘What is wrong with this lunatic?’

However, the man called Kang Hui answered with an expression that said, ‘Why are you asking something so obvious?’

“There are tools there for the muscle-extension art and rehabilitation exercises, are there not? Receiving acupuncture at a clinic is good as well, but after consistently performing rehabilitation exercises, my back certainly improved.”

After saying that, the man placed the stack of letters he had been holding onto a desk, then suddenly began taking off his upper garment.

“!?”

Regardless of whether Zhuge Muhuan was startled, the man adopted a strange pose with a face filled with pride and spoke.

“And the martial artists I met there taught me various exercises for the lower back. Hahaha. Once I developed muscles in my back, I truly stopped feeling tired even after sitting and working for several double-hours each day. Furthermore.”

This time, the strategist struck a pose emphasizing the muscles in his arms and spoke.

“After developing the muscles in my arms like this, they no longer grow numb even if I spend all day writing with a brush and grinding ink. Hahaha.”

“.......”

Zhuge Muhuan, who wore a half-dazed expression, turned his gaze away.

Only then did the true state of the Strategy Department enter his eyes.

Every strategist inside the Strategy Department hall had become just as muscular and burly as that man.

When Zhuge Muhuan, suddenly feeling a throbbing pain in his head, pressed his fingers firmly against his temple, Kang Hui, who had been proudly displaying his muscles, asked with a startled expression.

“Chief Strategist. Does your head hurt?”

“I feel somewhat dizzy.”

“Then how about visiting the League Leader?”

“......Why would I visit the League Leader when my head hurts?”

“There were exercises that stopped my back from hurting, so would there not also be exercises that can cure your head?”

“.......”

At the sight of Kang Hui preaching his theory that exercise could cure everything, Zhuge Muhuan finally realized the truth.

'The League Leader has released poison into the Strategy Department!'

The iron °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° poison he had believed had spread only among martial artists had reached even the Strategy Department.

And several months had passed since that day, bringing them to the present.

“If you increase your stamina through exercise, a mere cold will no longer dare trouble your body, Chief Strategist.”

“Even starting today would not be too late. Trust us and join us. Hahaha.”

At the sight of the strategists eagerly attempting to guide him into the world of lifting iron, Zhuge Muhuan let out another sigh.

The Strategy Department ought to have been filled with the scent of ink, yet for some reason, it increasingly felt as though the stench of sweat was permeating the entire place.