The Lie Hidden in a Seal
Official Seal. It was the stamp issued by Hyeonyuwon, the office that managed not only the Cult’s finances, but also the supplies and manpower allotted to the heirs.
Unlike an ordinary seal, it carried the weight of official authentication for a senior officer’s status. The mere fact that it had been stamped there could serve as decisive proof of collusion.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“If my seal is on it, then I can hardly claim to be unrelated. Still, I must say it’s true that I find it suspicious. Might I see the report?”
“Certainly.”
After examining the report handed to him, Song Ryeong let out a sigh.
“...Just as I thought.”
He gathered the documents on the desk and held them out to Sama Ryang.
“As you can see, the pattern is different from the seal I use. They’re generally similar, but there are slight differences here and there.”
Sama Ryang checked the document. As the subordinate officer had claimed, it was indeed subtly different from the seal stamped on the report.
“So Squad Leader Il submitted this report after forging the seal?”
“I can’t say that for certain, but what is clear is that it is not the seal I use.”
Song Ryeong shot Gwak Jiryang a cold look.
“Speak. What is the meaning of this? Have you been forging seals and profiting for yourself all this time?”
Gwak Jiryang said nothing, his head hanging low. Song Ryeong’s eyes sharpened.
“Even the humblest beast knows to remember a kindness when it has been fed. Are you trying to make this difficult for me as well?”
“...”
“Gwak Jiryang!”
Even after that thunderous rebuke, Gwak Jiryang remained silent.
Sama Ryang, who had been watching the situation in silence, finally spoke.
“Forgery is not possible.”
“Pardon?”
“However slight the difference may be, if a seal of a different pattern had been stamped, the Military Council’s chief strategist would have noticed long ago. The fact that there was no mention of it until now means the seal itself had no issue.”
Song Ryeong narrowed his eyes.
“Then you mean the seal on the report is genuine as well?”
“Yes. Do you have some notion of what might have happened?”
Song Ryeong’s pupils shook violently as he thought it over. Then he gave a short exclamation.
“Ah, the seal I received from my predecessor had grown old, so I discarded it and had a new one issued. That was when the Cult Leader reorganized the Cult’s structure. If it was taken during that period of confusion...”
At that moment, Gwak Jiryang’s breathing trembled ever so slightly.
His head was still bowed, so the movement would have been impossible to catch for ordinary senses, but Hyeong Baek, whose qi perception remained constantly open, caught the fleeting reaction with razor-sharp precision.
“I’ll check the office.”
“Yes.”
After taking a long sip of cold water, Song Ryeong let out a deep breath.
“I can’t claim to know everything that goes on below us, but... to think it was this much of a mess. Squad Leader Il—no, I suppose he isn’t even Squad Leader Il anymore. Why did you do it?”
“...”
“What business did you have with some man named Yang Bong that made you commit such nonsense?”
Sama Ryang looked at Song Ryeong with eyes sunk deep and still.
It was not easy to tell whether he was hiding his true feelings and acting, or whether he was truly unrelated to the matter at hand.
“Even if your testimony is true, that doesn’t clear you entirely. Submit every document that can be cross-referenced with the date you requested the new seal.”
“Yes... If that will clear me of suspicion, I’ll cooperate gladly. Tsk, to get tangled up in a filthy affair like this.”
Song Ryeong muttered in lament as he pulled documents one by one from a drawer.
A short while later, Hyeong Baek returned at a brisk pace.
“Inspector, please take a look.”
Sama Ryang accepted the half-broken seal. He stamped it directly onto a sheet of paper, and it matched the seal on the report exactly.
So the subordinate officer’s claim was true.
If Gwak Jiryang had indeed obtained a discarded seal and abused it as claimed, the pieces did fit together to some extent.
But this alone could not prove Song Ryeong was uninvolved.
If I want to see this properly, then...
It was time to make a decision.
“Please collect all the documents. I need to examine the circumstances.”
* * *
The large stack of documents was moved to their temporary quarters. Sama Ryang explained the situation to Seo Rin and asked her to review the papers.
Then he took a seat opposite Gwak Jiryang.
“You have nothing to say about the report?”
“...”
“Yang Bong founded a sect called Jaguimun in the remote borderlands. He used his disciples to exploit Cult members and even carried out human trafficking.”
“...”
“Because of your crime, countless people have suffered in pain. Do you have nothing else to say?”
A gray light flickered in Sama Ryang’s pupils. He drew up his energy to make sure he did not miss even the slightest reaction.
Yet Gwak Jiryang remained silent, and in the end even closed his eyes.
There was not the slightest trace of guilt or shame in him.
He still cared only for his own safety, his mouth shut tight, and Sama Ryang felt a ripple of emotion stir in his chest.
“Fine. I won’t ask about the mastermind anymore. If you feel like speaking, then speak later.”
Tap.
The moment Sama Ryang reached for Gwak Jiryang’s pressure point, Hyeong Baek sent a transmission.
[I don’t know what you’re planning, but calm down for now.]
[The subordinate officer’s testimony seems correct. Every record after the seal was requested uses the same seal. There’s no discrepancy in the dates either. Comparing it with the meeting records might make things clearer, but perhaps we should return for now?]
[If they’ve taken care of the ledgers, then finding evidence in documents will have its limits. I’ll finish the investigation here without wasting any more time.]
[Finish it? Gwak Jiryang isn’t going to open his mouth anymore. Are you planning to torture him?]
[If necessary, I see no reason to refuse.]
[You... you’ve definitely changed. Pull yourself together. However he looks, he’s a Squad Leader of the Law Enforcement Hall who used to apprehend demonic cultists. He must have trained like mad, so he’ll be immune to pain. If you interrogate him too harshly and cause physical damage, his reason will snap. You’d be better off trying to coax him.]
[There won’t be any physical damage.]
Leaving Hyeong Baek to stare at him in confusion, Sama Ryang sat down at once in a cross-legged position.
Gray currents shimmered between his breaths, and his calm, lowered hair fluttered in the surge of energy.
Whooosh—
Until now, Sama Ryang had lived by the creed that saving lives was his calling.
Life itself was noble. The fact that he could help others through medicine had once brought him genuine joy.
And so he had set a clear line for himself. A line drawn from the certainty that if he crossed it, he would never again be able to call himself a physician.
He had come to the Military Council for the sake of the greater cause, yet even while working, he often found himself missing the days when he had been a doctor.
That was why he had never been able to cross that line—until now. Facing a criminal so shameless that even the word was a luxury, he found himself forced to revise his thinking.
Even if I’m not a physician, I can still save lives.
He realized that punishing a criminal like Gwak Jiryang was, in fact, a path that saved countless lives.
Once he understood that not just in his mind but in his bones, it did not take long for his resolve to harden.
Sama Ryang sent a transmission to the others.
[An accident may occur, so please be prepared.]
Tsutsutsut!
At once, Sama Ryang began pressing Gwak Jiryang’s ghost points with his finger technique.
He blocked the pressure points to restrict the flow of blood toward the brain, while stimulating the ghost points to dull the senses to an extreme.
It was Heavenly Spirit Art, a martial-healing technique created by the current Hall Master of the Medicine Hall.
Originally, it had been devised as a medical method to remove a patient’s pain during treatment, such as when sewing flesh or cutting it away, but in Sama Ryang’s hands it transformed into the exact opposite.
Moving through Jogeol, Cheonju, Biyu, and Gokji, he pressed the acupoints in reverse order, then placed his hand on Gwak Jiryang’s Heavenly Spirit Skull.
It was the first time he had ever attempted such a method, yet there was not the slightest hesitation in his touch.
Within the sensation of thought expanding as though lightning were striking through his mind, he poured the energy of Sama Mind-Deciphering Art into the task according to his instinct.
The power of Sama Mind-Deciphering Art stimulated the upper dantian, causing a single instant to stretch out grotesquely long and accelerating thought itself. In Gwak Jiryang’s consciousness, one second would now pass like an age.
“...Kuhk!”
Sama Ryang coughed up blood. It was the recoil from pouring out most of his dantian power in an instant.
By then, Gwak Jiryang’s pupils had widened, all focus gone.
It worked.
Resting the judge’s brush gently on the back of Gwak Jiryang’s hand, Sama Ryang finally spoke.
* * *
No matter what I try, there’s nothing to uncover.
Gwak Jiryang fortified his resolve with that thought.
The position of Squad Leader of the Law Enforcement Hall had not been handed to him for free. He had learned enough methods to dull the senses. He was certain he could endure any torture.
He would hold out to the end.
He could keep repeating the same story—say he knew nothing, insist he was truly wronged, and maintain that line without wavering.
There would be others who would confess soon enough.
If something goes wrong, I can just take a fair sentence and come out later. That’s all.
But Gwak Jiryang soon realized something was wrong.
The inspector kept pressing down on his crown, feeding in some incomprehensible energy again and again.
If he drew up demonic energy, he could shake it off—but he couldn’t. One of the inspectors had placed a restriction on his dantian.
Just as frustration began to rise at the suffocating helplessness,
...!
A sudden pain surged through him, as though living flesh had been carved away with a knife.
He looked down at the back of his hand, where the pain was flaring.
Because his head was bowed, it was not difficult to see, but there was no blade there.
W-what...?
In that instant, a vast terror unlike anything he had ever felt in his life seized him. The hair on the back of his hand was moving, very slowly... agonizingly slowly.
W-what the hell are you doing!!
It had only been a brush of wind.
* * *
Da? Arm? What the hell are you saying? What are you even saying? What are you babbling about, you son of a bitch.
Gwak Jiryang stared at Sama Ryang’s mouth with his eyes wide open.
The only change he could perceive was the movement of those lips, agonizingly slow.
His nerves had become so sharpened by training that he could just barely endure it. But the silence of the space, as though everything had stopped, was impossible to get used to.
He was on the verge of going completely mad.
He’s losing it. I’m losing it. I’m losing it. I’m really going to lose my mind. The sounds reaching him through his ears were so slow he couldn’t even separate them, and he couldn’t move so much as a finger, as though he had lost control of his own body.
He knew a few methods for resting without closing his eyes, but even that was impossible.
The judge’s brush pressing down on the back of his hand kept sending waves of throbbing pain through him. Every time his strength began to fade and his consciousness threatened to break apart, the agony gnawed at his mind like boiling water poured into his skull.
How much time had passed like that?
Eyes.
Gwak Jiryang stared vacantly at nothing but Sama Ryang’s mouth.
He had no strength left.
The emotions that had once raged like fire had long since burned out.
No anger. No resentment. He had even forgotten why he was in this situation to begin with.
It felt as though an age had passed. The life he had lived until now seemed no shorter than eternity.
After he had been left drifting helplessly in that state for what felt like forever,
Whooooosh!
The air around him began to circulate rapidly and poured into his nostrils.
“Haaah...!”
Gwak Jiryang’s chest heaved as he let out a long breath.
F-finally!
Release beyond words flooded through him. At last, he had escaped from the prison of years and the pain that had been flaying his limbs!
Wooooong!!
Demonic energy circulated through his body, vitality surging back into him, and his blurred memories returned as he remembered why he had been tortured.
Gwak Jiryang glared at Sama Ryang with bloodshot eyes.
I’ll chew you to death...!
It was all because of this bastard.
At some point, unable to continue coherent thought, Gwak Jiryang had kept repeating one question like a mantra.
What would he do first once he got out of this hell?
Would he carve out that throat, or rip off an arm right away?
And yet what came bursting out of the mouth that had been granted freedom was something entirely different.
“W-what did you keep say...ing all this time?”
It was a question seared into him for eternity through his own eyes.
At Gwak Jiryang’s awkward question, Sama Ryang answered in a low, subdued voice.
“I said I’d poke out your eyes next.”