The courtyard was completely quiet. Only the sharp, clean sound of the sword cutting air broke the silence.
Wol moved through the forms. He didn't rush. He didn't linger. Each heavy movement flowed seamlessly into the next, carrying the exact same deliberate, suffocating patience he had used to endure twenty-four years in the archive.
The Calm Abyss Sword was changing. It was becoming less something he was desperately trying to learn, and more something he was finally remembering.
He swung the blade downward.
And then, he stopped.
The heavy sword hung suspended in the air, perfectly still.
Through the open doorway of the small house, Jo Mak sat cross-legged on the floor. The small pile of copper coins rested in front of him.
Clink. Clink.
Jo Mak slowly moved one coin from the left pile to the right.
Wol watched him in silence. He's been counting the exact same stack of coins for twenty minutes.
It was entirely unnatural. Jo Mak's usual behavior was dry and defensive. But right now, he just looked like a man carrying a enormous weight, terrified of dropping it.
Wol lowered his sword and stepped inside.
"What is it?" Wol asked.
Jo Mak's head snapped up. The coins slipped from his fingers.
"What? Nothing," Jo Mak fired back instantly. The words came out entirely too fast. Reflexive. "I'm just counting."
"You've been counting the exact same stack since we got back from the clinic," Wol stated flatly.
Jo Mak clicked his tongue, his eyes darting back down to the copper pieces. "I'm fine."
Wol didn't leave. He walked over and sat down directly across from him, resting the sword across his knees.
"You haven't been acting like yourself since last night," Wol said, his dark eyes locking onto the older boy. He paused. "Is it because I made you kill a man?"
"No."
This time, the word came out much slower. Much heavier. Jo Mak set the remaining coins down and stared at the worn wooden floorboards.
"It's just..." Jo Mak swallowed hard. "Something from before. Something I was thinking about. It doesn't matter."
Wol studied him. In his past life, the details of what had ruined Jo Mak had only ever come to him in broken, drunken fragments. Late-night ramblings from a man who had lost absolutely everything. Wol had never heard the full truth. He wasn't sure anyone had.
Wol thought back to the ambush on the dirt road. Jo Mak hadn't frozen when the fighting started. He hadn't frozen when the merchant's legs were cut off.
No. It was earlier than that, Wol realized.
"Is it related to the Dark Wind Assassins?" Wol asked quietly.
Jo Mak went completely still.
It wasn't the startled stillness of someone caught off guard. It was the terrifying stillness of a man who had been waiting, without even knowing he was waiting, for someone to finally ask the right question.
He didn't answer immediately. He looked at the scattered coins, then at the wall, then at some invisible distance entirely outside the room.
"Yeah," Jo Mak finally breathed. "It's related to them."
The silence in the room stretched.
"I was a disciple of the Beggar Sect," Jo Mak said. His voice dropped, stripped entirely of its usual dry edge. "The First Disciple, actually."
Wol didn't react visibly, but internally, the pieces clicked. The highest position a junior can hold. The next in line for leadership.
"Sounds significant, right?" Jo Mak let out a hollow, self-deprecating laugh. "It was. It made me the main target for every single elder in the sect who resented the title going to an arrogant bastard like me."
"You didn't play their politics," Wol said.
"I hated their politics," Jo Mak spat, a sudden flash of old anger crossing his face. "Beggar Sect politics are completely rotten. Information is the real currency. Everything is a trade. The Sect Leader gave me the position because of my raw ability, not my manners. But the elders... I never pretended to respect people I didn't actually respect. They despised me for it."
He picked up one of the coins, turning it over and over in his calloused fingers.
"They couldn't just kick me out. The Sect Leader protected me," Jo Mak continued, his voice going completely flat. "So, they needed something real. Something undeniable. A reason to completely erase me."
Wol looked at Jo Mak's hands, and then up at his face. "What did they do?" Wol asked.
"They framed me for illegal trade. Information sold directly to the underworld through black market channels," Jo Mak said, his jaw clenching tight. "But that wasn't enough to get me banished. They needed blood."
He set the coin down slowly.
"A close associate of mine... a brother... he supposedly discovered the illegal trades and was going to report it to the Sect Leader. They found him dead in the alleyway." Jo Mak's voice trembled slightly. "They said I forced him to stay quiet. And when he refused... I had him killed."
Wol narrowed his eyes, piecing it together. "It was the Dark Wind Assassins?"
"Yeah," Jo Mak whispered. "I know that now. I didn't know it back then, because silently killing someone inside the Beggar Sect's own territory is supposed to be impossible."
He looked up, his eyes burning with a mixture of rage and deep, unresolved grief.
"Whoever orchestrated it had terrifying resources. They forged official records. Transaction logs. They planted a heavily sealed letter in my own room tying me directly to the dead man and the black market trades." Jo Mak slammed his fist against his knee. "Real paper. Real sect seals. Real ink. The kind of flawless forgery that takes serious money and seriously dangerous connections to produce."
It wasn't just a petty sect rivalry, Wol thought, reading the depth of the conspiracy. Someone powerful wanted him gone permanently.
"I had nothing," Jo Mak said, his voice finally breaking. "Just my own voice screaming that it wasn't me. And one by one... even the people who had believed in me. My own subordinates. The kids I trained. The brothers who knew me..."
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"They looked at the forged evidence. They looked at me. And they made their choice."
He picked up a coin again, staring at it blindly. "You can't even blame them. The evidence was absolutely flawless. The only thing that wasn't real... was me doing it."
The room was completely silent.
"I didn't mean to hide any of this from you," Jo Mak muttered, aggressively wiping at his face. "It just... it felt finished. Like something that had already happened to a completely different person. There was no point in carrying a dead man's baggage around."
He looked at Wol, his expression caught somewhere between despair and a sudden, terrifying flicker of hope.
"I gave up on wanting anything from that situation a long, long time ago," Jo Mak whispered. "But when I heard about them from Shin Daesok yesterday, I couldn't help but think it was them. It was too similar... the way they perfectly forged the documents, and the way they did the job so silently that not even the high-level martial artists from the sect noticed."
"Your innocence," Wol said quietly.
Jo Mak stopped.
"You want to prove it," Wol stated, his voice completely steady. "Not for the corrupt sect. Not for the elders. For yourself. For the brother who was murdered. And for the Sect Leader, who you know still believes in you but can't do anything against forged evidence."
Jo Mak didn't confirm it out loud. He didn't need to. He just looked at Wol with the wide, stunned expression of a man who had not expected to be understood quite that deeply, and quite that precisely.
Wol rested his hands on the heavy hilt of his sword.
"I have a plan," Wol said quietly. "The seal we took from Shin Daesok... that can get us both exactly what we want. I am looking for my father. He went missing eight years ago during an escort mission that was an elaborate ploy by the Dark Wind Assassins. It was a massive job for a major sect, as you heard. If anything can help me find the truth about him, it's those assassins."
Wol looked directly into Jo Mak's eyes.
"So, I am going to infiltrate them."
Jo Mak had been listening carefully, but at the word infiltrate, he snapped.
"Are you joking?!" Jo Mak demanded, his voice rising in disbelief. "Infiltrate those bastards?! Do you even know where their base is?"
Wol replied with a perfectly flat tone. "No."
They remained completely silent for a second.
"That's why we use the seal," Wol continued smoothly. "We are going to Namgoong territory. I'll tell Elder Han to make another face mask for you as well. Since we are going deep undercover and your face is recognizable to the Murim Alliance, it's better to be careful."
Jo Mak let out a long, exhausted sigh, rubbing his face with his hands. "What exactly is your plan? It's dangerous enough to deal with them even when we are careful, but if you do something stupid, we'll both die."
Wol slid the ancient sword back into its worn scabbard. "I heard some things about the Dark Wind Assassins and how they operate. We are going to use that to our advantage. And you can fill in whatever else you know about them."
Jo Mak stared at him. "How?"
Without answering directly, Wol reached into his dark coat, pulled out a heavily folded paper, and tossed it to Jo Mak.
Jo Mak caught it, opened it, and read the contents.
Instantly, his eyes went wide.
"What the hell are you thinking?!" Jo Mak screamed, jumping to his feet. "If you want to die, die alone!"
The letter was a formal assassination request to be delivered with the seal. The target listed on the paper was Wol himself. He had written his own name and his exact location for the kill.
"Well," Wol said, looking up with a calm, amused expression. "For someone who supposedly gave up on life before, you certainly aren't acting like it."
Jo Mak gritted his teeth, waving the paper in the air.
"It's not that I want to die," Wol explained, his tone dropping back into absolute seriousness. "We have to use this cover to get inside. I am going to wait for the assassin they send for me. Then, I am going to kill him. I'll take his place, extract the information I need, and get inside their network."
Wol leaned forward slightly. "From my knowledge, Dark Wind Assassins don't see each other's faces. They are heavily masked, trained from childhood to do absolutely nothing but kill. They don't socialize. We will use that exact isolation against them. We take the operative out. It will be hard if he is a high-level killer, but I think I can do it."
Jo Mak stared at Wol for a very long time.
This guy is a complete nutjob, Jo Mak thought, genuinely bewildered. Even more than me.
Jo Mak let out another heavy sigh, aggressively scratching the back of his head. He looked at the paper, then at Wol, and finally sat back down on the floor.
"Fine," Jo Mak muttered, shaking his head. "It's completely crazy... but if we want info from the inside, getting inside might be the only real way." He looked Wol dead in the eye. "But if you get discovered... you will die."
"I know," Wol agreed, his voice completely calm. "It's a suicide mission for anyone else. But we don't have a choice. This is the only way in. The risk is worth the shot."
Jo Mak rubbed his chin, thinking through the logistics. "Even if you succeed in stealing the disguise, we still don't know where their actual hideout is. And I don't think an operative like that would ever talk. If he gets caught, he'd probably bite his own tongue and commit suicide rather than give up his masters."
"He won't have to talk," Wol said. "We have to watch the drop point. We place the sealed request in the letterbox outside the Black Jade Pavilion, and we wait. We switch shifts, watching it day and night until the letter is retrieved. Then, we follow the courier."
Jo Mak nodded slowly, visualizing the streets. "Namgoong territory is huge and crowded. The political situation there is deteriorating fast right now, too. The guards are distracted. They won't suspect a couple of strangers walking the streets. It might actually be the perfect time to pull this off. If we succeed, we can actually manage to get the information."
Wol agreed, but a dark shadow crossed his eyes. "The assassins are just the blade. The large sect holding the hilt is what we should be worried about. If they orchestrated an entire massacre in the shadows to cover up a kidnapping, and the Murim Alliance couldn't even track them... they are far more dangerous than we thought."
Jo Mak shivered slightly at the implication. "What about Shin Daesok? Will his death cause any immediate trouble for us?"
Wol let out a deep breath, leaning his head back to look at the wooden ceiling. "As long as the Black Market scout who fled didn't see our faces or identify us... we should be fine."
He stood up, the old wooden floorboards creaking under his weight.
"I'll go wash up," Wol said, turning toward the back room. "Hang on to that letter for now. We leave for Namgoong territory the moment Elder Han finishes our masks."
The next day.
The morning sun cut through the haze of River Dragon City. Wol walked through the familiar winding alleys, a small package wrapped in brown paper held loosely in his hand. He had bought sweets from a traveling merchant near the market gates.
He was heading to Yeonhwa-ru.
When he finally stepped through the front doors, Wol actually had to stop and look around. The shop was completely unrecognizable from how he had seen it just a few weeks ago. The interior had been heavily renovated, the broken furniture replaced, the walls repaired and painted. It felt vibrant and alive. He hadn't been able to visit because of the intense training and the chaos with Shin Daesok, but he knew Jo Mak had been quietly keeping track of the place.
As soon as he stepped inside, Cha Sung spotted him from the counter.
"Wol," the older man smiled warmly. "It's been a while."
Wol nodded, walking over. "Uncle Sung. I was a little busy these past few days. But I made sure Jo Mak kept up the supply runs and shared with the other kids."
Cha Sung chuckled, wiping down the clean wooden counter. "I understand. Jo Mak told me you were locked in training, so we made sure not to disturb you. Though... Nari was incredibly persistent about going over there, kicking your door open, and beating the life out of you." He smiled wryly. "Jo Mak somehow managed to deal with her temper and sent her back."
Wol felt a sudden, cold sweat break out on his neck. He let out a very awkward, dry laugh. Thank you, Jo Mak, Wol thought with absolute sincerity.
"Where is she?" Wol asked.
Cha Sung pointed toward the staircase leading up to a newly built second floor. "Up there in the new office room."
Wol walked up the wooden stairs. The door was closed. He raised a hand and knocked gently.
No response.
He waited a second, then knocked again.
The door violently swung open.
Nari stood in the doorway. She was staring directly at him, her face completely void of emotion. She had deep, heavy dark circles under her tired eyes.
Before Wol could even open his mouth to speak, Nari's fist swung directly at his face.
"Wha—!"
Wol instinctively dodged, leaning back just in time for the punch to graze the air past his cheek. His heart spiked. He had faced elite guards and assassins without blinking, but right now, Nari looked absolutely terrifying. He was genuinely sweating.
Desperate, Wol quickly raised the package of sweets like a shield.
Nari froze mid-way into her second swing. Her eyes locked onto the package.
Instantly, the terrifying, hollow expression vanished. She snapped back to normal, a bright, blooming smile suddenly appearing on her face like it had always been there.
"Wol!" she beamed. "You didn't forget!"
Wol exhaled a shaky breath, lowering his guard. "Yeah... I didn't forget. But you look incredibly tired. Have you been sleeping?"
Nari snatched the sweets from his hand, her smile dropping back into an exhausted glare. "And whose fault is that?"
Wol tilted his head, genuinely confused.
Nari let out a long, dramatic sigh, stepping back and gesturing for him to come inside. "Those thugs from before suddenly showed up crying, begging to be forgiven, and didn't leave until they paid a huge sum of money for what they did. And on top of that... what the hell was that enormous chest of silver you sent here? How did you even get that much money?!"
Wol blinked. He had sent a portion of Shin Daesok's hidden vault to her through Jo Mak. "I just... acquired it."
"Jo Mak just dumped it here, said 'Wol says use this,' and ran away before I could even check it!" Nari yelled, exasperated. "And then you send a letter saying you want me to start expanding the business outside the city and gain more influence? You dump all that on me, and then you ask why I haven't slept?!"
Wol stood there, completely speechless. He hadn't realized his straightforward instructions would put her under so much pressure.
"I'm sorry," Wol said quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't think about it like that. If it's too much pressure, forget it. We can find a slower way—"
"I didn't say it was too much," Nari interrupted.
She turned around and pointed at the large wooden desk in the center of the room. It was completely buried under stacks of papers, maps, and ledgers.
"It's done," Nari said proudly, crossing her arms. "I made the entire plan and did all the calculations to expand into the neighboring city. I mapped out the easiest trade routes and the closest supply distances. The only thing left is finding a good physical location for the new shop there."
Wol stared at the unbelievable amount of work she had accomplished in just a few days.
"I'll tell the Mad Dogs to come here and help you with the heavy lifting and scouting," Wol said.
Nari gave him a sharp, skeptical look. "The Mad Dogs? Are they even trustworthy? They are known as violent street thugs, Wol. They're bad people."
"I know they were," Wol said softly. "But they did it for a reason."
Standing in the quiet office, Wol briefly explained the truth. He told her about Goo Yeon's sickness, how Shin Daesok had manipulated the desperate orphans, and how the Mad Dogs had been forced to do his dirty work just to keep their sister alive.
By the time he finished, Nari was staring at the floor.
"Sniff..."
Wol looked up. Tears were rapidly welling up in Nari's eyes.
"I... I didn't know," Nari sniffled, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "That's horrible."
Wol stepped forward and gently patted her head, a familiar habit from the few quiet moments they shared.
The touch caught Nari completely off guard. Her cheeks instantly flushed bright red. She aggressively slapped his hand away, turning her face to the side and acting like she absolutely hated it.
Wol just sighed softly, a faint, genuine smile touching his lips.
The smile slowly faded as he remembered why he had really come.
"Nari," Wol said. "I might leave the city for a while."
She stopped rubbing her eyes and looked at him. "Again?"
"Yeah," Wol nodded, his tone shifting into something deeply serious. "It's really important."
Nari studied his face. She had grown up on the streets long enough to recognize when someone was carrying a weight they couldn't talk about. She didn't press him for details she knew he wouldn't share.
"When will you be back?" she asked quietly.
"Months. I don't know for sure," Wol answered honestly. "But I will come back. I promise."
Nari looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "You better. Or I really will kick your door down next time."