The sun was finally stretching over the horizon, golden light filtering through the trees and chasing away the last shadows of a night that had felt endless.
Kai moved steadily through the forest path, boots brushing through damp leaves. The stillness of the morning gave him room to think not about what he'd done, but why.
"This power... it's starting to make sense to me," he thought. "I can do something with it. I really can. I could fix things. Maybe even make this world better."
He smiled faintly to himself and then another thought slipped in.
"Kaelyn… wonder how she's doing."
Just ahead, the trail opened into a small clearing. Jin was waiting, arms loosely folded, hair catching the light. When she saw him, her face lit up not with shock, not with fear, just the quiet kind of relief that only comes when family returns home.
Kai: "I'm back."
Jin (grinning): "Took you long enough. You didn't go off and try to take over the world without me, did you?"
Kai (laughing): "Not this time. Nothing too crazy, promise."
Jin (teasing): "That's not exactly reassuring coming from you."
She stepped forward and gave him a quick, familiar punch to the arm light, affectionate.
Jin: "Seriously though. You alright?"
Kai: "Yeah. Better than I thought I'd be."
There was a moment of calm silence between them. The forest seemed to breathe with them.
Jin: "So... what now?"
Kai (with quiet determination): "We go back. Clean things up. It's only the beginning but this time, I'm not running. If they come for us..."
(he shrugged, a small smile forming)
Kai: "Let them. They'll have to deal with both of us."
Jin (smirking): "Now that's the plan I like."
...
Walking through the woods back to the farm felt strangely serene. The morning light filtered through the leaves, warm and indifferent to the bloodshed behind them. Neither of them Kai nor Jin had ever imagined they'd stand in a place like this again, much less return to it with such purpose.
They both knew the storm was coming. But for now, there was quiet. The kind that settled over everything just before it shattered again.
When they reached the gates of the farm, the full scope of what had happened finally revealed itself.
Jin slowed, eyes widening as the morning light cast over the carnage. Bodies strewn across the field like discarded scarecrows. Blood dried in streaks across the dirt. Her breath caught.
She didn't scream, didn't cry but something inside her recoiled. Not from the death itself, but from what it meant.
Not a single soldier had walked away from this. And Kai… Kai had done this alone.
Jin: "How the hell did you do this? How are you this strong?"
Kai's voice was calm, unreadable.
Kai: "A lot happened after I left. I'll explain everything... once we finish here."
They moved toward the main house where the fighting had been fiercest. As they stepped inside, Jin froze in the doorway.
What little color remained in her face vanished.
Kai turned just as her body jolted and puke began to be expelled from her mouth.
"Huaaagh—Guh-hhk!"
The sound echoed off the walls, wet and raw. She doubled over, hands braced against the doorframe, heaving again.
Kai: "You don't have to do this. I can clean the rest alone."
Jin lifted a trembling hand, finger raised in a stubborn no, just before another wave overtook her.
"Glrrkk—ugh!"
HOURS LATER...
The sun had fully risen by the time they sat down in what remained of the house's dining room. Dust floated in slanted beams of light through broken windows. Blood still marked the floorboards. Silence hung between them, heavy but no longer hostile.
Then Kai began to speak.
Over the next hour, Jin listened expression tightening, eyes darting as the truth took shape.
Here is what Jin learned.
Kai's Vision, He plans to form a clan here on the occupied farmland. Illegally or not, they need a base. A stronghold.
To survive, they'll need influence money, power, and people. Fighters. Survivors. Those willing to protect the land and each other.
Kai had presumably killed someone powerful, a young master of an influential family. Not just a soldier but someone with weight. Someone whose death would echo.
Worse, there were still two dangerous men unaccounted for
Jang Myung-Soo – Father of the slain Jang Sung-Min. Head of House Jang.
Jang Dae-Hyun – Patriarch. Grandfather to Sung-Min. Older, more ruthless.
And then, the most concerning...
Jang Sung-Min the one Kai had left for dead. But his body was gone. Which meant only one thing
He's alive. And if he's alive, he's coming back.
Kai (leaning forward, steady):
"We rebuild this land. We lead them into something better. I don't know what's happening to me… not completely. But with this power these abilities I have options. More than most."
He looked out the cracked window, toward the bloodied fields waiting to be cleared.
Kai: "And I plan to use every single one of them."
Kai:
"Gather everyone from the plantation. Take off their shackles. Bring them to the main house."
Jin (hesitant):
"All of them?"
Kai (firmly, with a nod):
"Yes. Every single one."
Kai (continues):
"We have positions to fill now. I need to see who's capable, who's willing, and who needs a different path.
Every pair of hands matters. Every mind. We will use everything we have or there may not be a tomorrow.
Jin left Kai on the front steps without a word.
She didn't need more instructions. She needed clarity and she wasn't going to find it standing still.
As she moved through the base releasing person after person, the murmurs of the unshackled workers trailed behind her like smoke.
Most were waiting to be told what to do. A few were already looking around like they had ideas of their own. Jin could tell the difference.
"There has to be a ledger," she thought. "Something to narrow this down. I can't pull names out of the air."
Jin stood still as the crowd shifted behind her, the sound of unchained wrists like distant rainfall. Faces watched her some expectant, others hollow. None of them asked questions.
Kai had given the command. She was expected to act.
But where to start?
Not everyone could be useful. Not everyone wanted to be. Some had already resigned themselves to the dirt, to survival without purpose. Others waited to be seen.
Jin didn't believe in guessing. She needed more than instinct.
There had to be something left behind. Something the overseers used to keep track. Records, names, patterns anything that could turn a crowd into a plan.
She turned sharply, boots crunching over dead grass, and headed for the back quarter of the estate.
The overseer's shed sat half-sunken into the hill behind the storage barns. Forgotten. Swallowed by time and weather, its roof sagging like a spine that had given up. Ivy and rot choked the corners of its walls.
Jin paused at the entrance.
If there was going to be anything left worth finding it would be here.
Inside, the floor creaked under her boots. Dust covered everything, but it was quiet untouched. Good.
She scanned the shelves. Rotting tools. Cracked ledgers with mold-eaten pages. But near the back, under a warped table leg, something was wedged into the floorboards. She knelt, pried it loose.
A thick book. Heavy. Still sealed.
She opened it.
Inside: names. Lines of ink. Small notes beside each entry.
Jisoo – field medic training. Self-taught herbalist. Stubborn.
Doyun – merchant clerk. Bookkeeping and trade calculations. Risk: high autonomy.
Hyunwoo – long-term land labor. Experienced in rice cycle and irrigation paths. Reliable.
There were dozens of names. Some crossed out. Some with no notes at all.
But now she had direction.
She stood up, tucked the ledger under her arm, and walked out. She knew exactly where to go next.
The air was thick with dust and quiet tension. A few workers looked over but quickly turned back to whatever they were pretending to do. Most didn't believe anything had changed yet.
She didn't waste time. She knew who she was looking for.
Jin moved with purpose through the day. The names from the ledger were etched into her mind: Hyunwoo, Jisoo, Doyun. She wasn't sure what they'd say. She just knew they were needed.
She found Hyunwoo first, crouched at the far end of the fields, fingertips coated in dry soil. He barely acknowledged her approach.
"Hyunwoo," she said.
He didn't look up.
"I read your record. You managed three farms before you were brought here. You knew how to keep the fields alive during drought."
Still nothing.
"We need you at the main house."
Finally, he spoke without standing.
"Why?"
"Because there's a meeting," Jin said. "A new structure. We need people who can actually hold it up."
He stood now, slowly. His face unreadable.
"So you want me to go from slave to servant? From one chain to another?"
"You'd rather run?" Jin asked.
"If I had somewhere to run, I would've already gone."
They stood in silence for a moment, dust curling at their feet.
"Then come listen," Jin said. "No promises. No oaths. Just listen. Then decide."
He hesitated, but nodded. "I'll listen. But I'm not planting another field just so someone else can eat first."
Jisoo was next.
She stood leaning against the side of the barn, arms folded tight across her chest, eyes half-lidded but sharp, watching the yard like someone expecting trouble and welcoming it. There was dirt on her sleeves and something faintly red staining the edge of her fingernails. Not fresh, but not old either.
Jin approached.
"Your name's in the ledger," she said plainly.
Jisoo didn't move. "Is that supposed to mean something? You want me to bow?"
"You treated fever cases," Jin continued. "Kept people alive when no one else could."
"And I got locked up for it," Jisoo said flatly, her mouth tightening. "Funny how that part didn't make it into your precious little record."
Jin didn't respond. She didn't need to.
Jisoo pushed off the wall, but stayed where she was. "So what is this? You come out here, read off some names, and what we're supposed to line up and smile because now we're useful again?"
"You're being asked to come to the main house," Jin said. "You're not being promised anything. No title. No apologies. But if things are going to change, we need people who can do more than survive."
Jisoo scoffed. "You want me to fix the same people who watched me get dragged away for using the wrong plants in the wrong season?"
Jin's voice sharpened. "I want you to stop the next person from dying in the dirt while everyone stands around pretending it's not their problem."
"I had a choice once," Jisoo said. "I used it. I helped people. And they still put chains on me. So why should I trust that this is any different?"
"Don't," Jin snapped. "Don't trust it. Don't trust me. But if you think standing out here with your arms crossed is some act of protest, it's not. It's just waiting for the next bad thing to happen and pretending it makes you brave."
Jisoo's eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in something colder calculation. She looked over Jin's shoulder at the others slowly gathering in the distance.
"And if I walk in there," she said, "what happens when it turns out to be more of the same?"
"Then walk out," Jin said. "But if you stay out here and things get worse and they will you'll know you had a chance to change it and chose not to."
For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Jisoo let out a breath through her nose, sharp and tired.
She pushed off the wall and walked past Jin without a word.
Jin didn't stop her.
That was two.
Doyun took longer to find.
He was behind the supply barn, seated on an overturned bucket like he'd been there for hours. In his lap, a flat scrap of wood had been carved with long, shallow grooves a grid, maybe, or a set of columns. Some system only he understood. He didn't look up when Jin approached.
She stopped a few paces away, the ledger tucked under one arm.
"You kept accounts," she said. "Knew where the grain went, how much went missing."
"I also knew how many people were eating half rations," Doyun replied quietly, still tracing the wood with his fingertip. "While the overseers took double and called it structure."
Jin said nothing.
Doyun finally looked up, eyes clear but lined with something old. "You know, there's a rhythm to theft. It's not just greed. It's permission. People steal when they believe no one will remember the count."
"You remembered," Jin said.
"Because numbers don't lie," he replied. "But people? People just get better at not listening to them."
She nodded. "You're being asked to come to the house."
He tilted his head, not surprised, just... amused. "Why? So I can sit in a nicer room and write prettier lies for someone else?"
"No," Jin said. "You're not being asked to serve. You're being asked to witness. To see if we're serious."
Doyun raised an eyebrow. "And if you're not?"
Jin's voice didn't waver. "Then I'd rather know now. So I can burn the whole thing down before it starts."
He stared at her a while, not judging calculating. Testing the weight of her words against the world as it had always been.
"I've spent most of my life recording other people's decisions," he said. "From the inside margins. People like me don't get to shape anything we just write it down so someone else can pretend it was all intentional."
"But you still kept track," she said. "Even when no one asked you to."
He gave a faint, humorless smile. "Someone had to know when the lie stopped working."
Jin held his gaze. "Then come see if this one holds."
For a long beat, Doyun said nothing. Then he folded the wooden scrap carefully into his sleeve pocket and stood.
"One meeting," he said. "And if I see the same tricks wearing new names, I walk."
"You won't be alone," she said.
He nodded once.
"Let's see if your house has more than just walls and lies."
By nightfall, the three stood behind her at the main house. Kai was gone. Torches were lit. The air smelled like something old had ended and something unfinished was about to begin.
Jin glanced at them. Then at the crowd still waiting near the edge of the plantation.
She opened the ledger again.
One page at a time, she thought, maybe this can be real!