Genius Martial Arts Trainer

At first, the atmosphere became somewhat chaotic because of Muyul, but the exchange with the man from India continued in quite a serious manner.

The Shaolin warrior monks were flustered at first when movements they already knew appeared, but later, bizarre movements that even they had never seen began to emerge.

Mujin had spread yoga throughout Shaolin, but yoga had never been Mujin's field of expertise in the first place.

What Mujin had mainly studied in the modern world was rehabilitation exercise(manual therapy and Pilates) and the muscle-extension art(stretching).

He merely knew yoga because manual therapy, Pilates, and stretching incorporated many yoga movements. There were also numerous yoga poses that Mujin had never learned.

In addition, there were differences created by the fact that the modern era and the current era were separated by time.

On the other hand, the man from India also learned several things through the exchange.

They were not Buddhist doctrines emphasized by Shaolin, nor were they stories about Shaolin's martial arts.

“......This movement helps loosen the iliopsoas muscle?”

“Ah....... So that was why people's health improved when they practiced yoga. I thought their bodies became healthier simply because meditation cleared their minds. Hahaha.......”

He came to understand the specific effects of the yoga movements he himself had demonstrated without knowing them.

Before leaving Shaolin, Mujin had explained in full how the muscles loosened through rehabilitation exercise and the muscle-extension art, then compiled everything into books.

In other words, the Shaolin monks were extremely well versed in every movement demonstrated by the man from India that Mujin had described in those books.

It was an absurd sight.

The person demonstrating and teaching the movements did not know their effects, while the people learning them did.

In any case, thanks to yoga allowing them to teach one another new knowledge and movements, the atmosphere softened considerably.

Thanks to that, the religious discussion that followed also proceeded without any strong resistance or problems.

After finishing both the yoga exchange and the religious discussion, the man from India said he would remain at Shaolin for several more days and headed toward the Guest Hall.

On his way back to his quarters after the exchange, Mugung thought.

'This isn't even a case of a dead Zhuge Liang making a living Sima Yi retreat.'

The historical tale of 'A Dead Zhuge Liang Makes a Living Sima Yi Retreat' naturally came to mind.

After all, the exchange had ended successfully thanks to the legacy left behind by Mujin, who had not even been present.

'Ah. He isn't dead yet.'

Whenever he thought of Mujin now, Mugung found himself letting out a hollow laugh without realizing it.

And when he arrived at his quarters.

Mugung discovered that a guest had come to see him.

“......Miss Baek.”

“It has been a long time, Monk Mugung.”

At the greeting filled with various emotions, Mugung forced himself to put on a blunt expression.

As a peculiar atmosphere formed between them, Gonghwan, who had been training in the courtyard of the hall, wore an expression that showed he had no idea what to do.

“First, please come inside.”

There was no need to send his disciple away, so Mugung entered the hall with her.

“......Have you been well since we last met?”

After searching for something to say, Mugung barely managed to ask the question, and Baek Garyeong answered with a faint smile.

“I would like to say that I have been well, but I have suffered somewhat in my heart.”

“.......”

Without realizing it, Mugung subtly turned his head and avoided her gaze.

His feelings were complicated.

After all, she was the woman against whose naked body he, a monk, had once pressed his own.

Of course, it had not been in an obscene sense.

On the day they had first fought the Chief Bandit Commander. At the moment when the blazing yang energy of the Tathagata Divine Palm had run rampant and left him hovering between life and death. She had used the yin energy of her Seven Yin Severed Meridians to calm his blazing yang energy.

Conversely, because the Chief Bandit Commander's attack had caused her Seven Yin Severed Meridians to flare up, she had only survived thanks to the power of Mugung's rampaging blazing yang energy.

They had saved one another's lives. Rather than obscene, it could even have been considered a sacred moment.

If there was one problem.

It was merely that, after that day, he had begun feeling emotions toward her that a monk should never possess.

And she, too, seemed to harbor emotions toward a monk that she should never possess.

'This, too, is because of that bastard Mujin.'

He later heard that all the elders of Shaolin had opposed bringing the two of them together.

Apparently, it had only been possible because Mujin had practically started a riot under the justification that 'saving a person's life comes first.'

Just as he was thinking that, whether something was good or bad, it somehow always seemed to become entangled with that bastard.

Baek Garyeong's calm voice awakened Mugung from his thoughts.

“Do you truly find me so uncomfortable?”

“......It is not you who makes me uncomfortable, Miss Baek. It is merely that when I look at you, my own heart becomes uncomfortable.”

Though the words could have been offensive depending on how they were taken, for some reason, she instead smiled brightly.

“At the very least, that means you feel the same way I do, Monk Mugung.”

“Ahem....... That is precisely why I believe it would be better if we did not meet again. I am a monk of Shaolin, Miss Baek.”

At Mugung's firm refusal, she tilted her head and asked,

“But is there not also the League Leader's example?”

“......Th-that bastard is an unusual case.”

Mugung sighed when Mujin's name appeared yet again, then added,

“Junior Brother Mujin may be a strange bastard, but from the beginning, he was a vessel far too great for Shaolin to contain. Today's events alone prove that.”

Mugung told her about what had happened with the man from India before her arrival.

“Like this, Junior Brother Mujin's capacity extends beyond the Central Plains and reaches even the lands outside its borders. How could I compare to him when I cannot even contain a single sect, Shaolin?”

He was belittling himself to some extent, but this was also Mugung's sincere belief.

That did not mean he harbored any ambition to become the Abbot of Shaolin.

'Merely taking Hwan as my disciple was burdensome enough, and now the position of Abbot?'

Mugung believed that Mujin was the unusual one for casually taking on the position of Leader of the Zhengmu League and continuing to carry out the role without any major problems.

Baek Garyeong, who had been gazing steadily at Mugung, suddenly said something unexpected.

“Actually, I came here because I heard an interesting story from the League Leader.”

“???”

While Mugung wore a puzzled expression, she briefly recalled what had happened several days earlier.

When she had visited the Leader's Hall after being summoned by Chief Strategist Zhuge.

Mujin had asked her a truly unexpected question.

- If you could be together with Mugung in exchange for covering yourself in the filth of the world and becoming known as a wicked woman, would you choose that path?

The question was so absurd that she had wondered whether he was teasing her, but Mujin's expression had been so serious that she considered it for a moment before answering.

- If Monk Mugung feels the same way I do, then I would.

Mujin solemnly nodded once at her answer, then told her of a truly preposterous plan.

It was a plan that even she, who had been blessed with exceptional comprehension in exchange for suffering the curse of the Seven Yin Severed Meridians, had never imagined.

No, it was so absurd that it was precisely the sort of plan strategists who used their heads too much would find difficult to conceive.

Naturally, the plan was full of holes, but strangely enough, after hearing it, she felt as though she had been struck hard on the head.

It was a solution she had never considered.

She merely needed to use her own comprehension to fill the countless holes that had occurred to her the instant she heard the plan.

After organizing her thoughts, she immediately headed toward Mount Song.

And rather than explaining the plan from the very beginning, she had subtly tested Mugung first.

She needed to confirm that she had not merely misunderstood things. Whether Monk Mugung truly felt the same way she did.

After going through that process, at this very moment.

“.......”

After hearing the entirety of the plan first proposed by Mujin and refined by her, Mugung wore a dumbfounded expression.

It greatly resembled the expression she herself had worn when Mujin first told her of the plan.

As Baek Garyeong smiled softly at the thought that the two men were strangely alike despite seeming nothing alike.

Mugung composed his expression and opened his mouth.

“Could you give me some time to think?”

“I have already waited for several years, so I can wait that much as well.”

She answered with a faint smile, but in truth, her own heart was far from at ease.

It was an utterly absurd solution, and it was also a solution that would bring disgrace upon both herself and Monk Mugung.

It would not have been strange if Monk Mugung rejected it after careful consideration. Naturally, Baek Garyeong also felt as though her mouth were drying up.

She was merely striving not to show it.

A suffocating silence passed for a while.

At last, Mugung opened his mouth.

“I also wish to be together with you, but I believe acting according to your proposal immediately would be far too irresponsible.”

“.......”

At the [N O V E L I G H T] indirect refusal, she felt as though her heart had dropped.

She had certainly considered that she might be rejected, but it seemed that reason and emotion were indeed separate matters.

She wanted to somehow hold on to her composure and pretend that nothing was wrong, but it was not easy.

Though devising strategies as a strategist had always been so simple.

At that moment. Mugung's voice once again reached her ears while she had yet to regain her senses.

“So please give me just a little time. Should I not at least teach my disciple properly before leaving Shaolin?”

“!!!”

When she raised her head with a startled expression, Mugung was looking somewhere else.

Toward the courtyard, where his disciple Gonghwan would be in the midst of training.

“It will not take very long. Hwan is highly talented, so I believe that in approximately one year, he should be able to learn at least all the fundamentals of the Tathagata Divine Palm.”

Perhaps because her emotions had repeatedly surged up and down.

Even she, who possessed such outstanding comprehension that she could immediately grasp the point even when someone explained something incoherently, needed a little time to fully understand Mugung's words.

And when she belatedly grasped the situation, she hurriedly covered her mouth.

A scream of joy seemed ready to burst from her without her realizing it.

However, the fountain of emotion she had forcibly held back eventually burst out somewhere other than her mouth.

“I-I'm sorry, Miss Baek.”

At the tears flowing down from the eyes of the woman covering her mouth, Mugung began fumbling helplessly in a manner that did not suit his huge, menacing frame.

Perhaps because love had already blinded her, the thought that he looked like a cute bear entered her mind, and laughter finally escaped her lips.

“Pfft. D-don't worry. Pfft. I-I'm crying because I'm happy.”

“......Are you truly all right?”

“Of course. I told you a moment ago, did I not? I have waited for several years. What is one more year?”

Perhaps because her heart was soaring, she became unusually playful.

“Or surely you will not change your mind because I grow even older over the course of that year?”

“Wh-what are you saying?”

At the sight of Mugung becoming flustered once again, she finally gave up trying to cover her mouth and burst into refreshing laughter.

***

After the warm and harmonious atmosphere subsided.

“In a way, this may actually have worked out for the best.”

“What do you mean?”

Baek Garyeong smiled faintly at Mugung's foolish-looking expression and answered,

“You needed time to train 'that' anyway, did you not? Even if you left Shaolin immediately, you would still have needed time.”

“Hmm. Now that you mention it, that is true.”

After answering, Mugung turned his head and looked toward one side of the room, where a certain book lay sleeping.

At that moment, Baek Garyeong bid him farewell.

“Then, once all your preparations are complete, send word to the League. If I come and go too frequently, it may cause problems.”

Before they knew it, she had returned to her usual calm manner.

A farewell of approximately one year, so that they could spend the remainder of their lives together.

Several days after she left.

Gonghwan, Mugung's disciple, sensed something strange.

It was not greatly different from usual.

If there was a slight difference, it was that his master, Mugung, had begun teaching him with far greater strictness and diligence.

And on very rare occasions, he would smile to himself before hurriedly making his expression serious again.

The first time Gonghwan saw that smile, he had worried that he had made some grave mistake.

Because Mugung's appearance was so menacing, the way his face twisted did not look like a smile at all.

Still, after seeing it several times, Gonghwan had now realized that it was indeed a smile.

Then, one day.

“......Master. Why are you chopping the firewood yourself when you have your disciple here? I will do it.”

For some reason, after ordering Gonghwan to train, Mugung began chopping firewood in one corner of the courtyard.

And he was doing it with a massive double-bladed axe that Gonghwan had no idea where he had obtained.

No matter how he looked at it, it appeared more like an axe for felling trees than one meant for chopping firewood.

Or perhaps an axe meant to split a person completely in two.

“This, too, is training, so do not worry. It is enough for you to focus on the Tathagata Divine Palm.”

After saying that, Mugung swung the axe alone and resumed chopping firewood.

The still-young Gonghwan could not understand Mugung's actions.