Behind the Scenes
Song Hak-su’s life had been wholly, utterly owned by the imperial family.
It had begun at Ihwa Orphanage, a cradle for abandoned children.
A place founded by the Emperor’s boundless grace.
He had no memory of a real parent’s face, nor of a real parent’s warmth. Only the Emperor’s portrait hanging at the front of the auditorium had ever served as his father.
Every morning, on the cold wooden floor of the orphanage, the children began the day by bowing toward the imperial palace.
It was the state—not blood—that had bestowed on a nameless orphan the respectable name of Hak-su, and provided his clothes, his meals, and his bed.
Loyalty was not something forced into a person. It was closer to the price of survival, the reason one kept breathing at all.
He had to repay that kindness. Even if it meant shaving off bone, flaying away flesh, and offering up his life.
When Song Hak-su left the orphanage, the place he naturally headed for was the military. For orphans who had received the Emperor’s grace, the armed forces were the most honorable and obvious path.
Only for the nation. Only for the Emperor.
When orders came from above, he threw himself into hell without hesitation, and whenever everyone else gave up on some forbidding stronghold as impossible, he went on and took it back.
He had crossed countless battlefields and never lost.
The dozens of scars etched across his body like medals were receipts for the loyalty he had paid to the country with his life.
And so he had risen from the lowest-ranking second lieutenant to the highest place of all, the rank of Army Marshal.
The old tiger of Manchuria, revered by every service member in the nation.
With no wife and no children, he had devoted his entire life to the army, and when he finally returned, it was to Ihwa Orphanage once more.
The place where he had been born, and the place where he had been saved.
There were still countless young Song Hak-sus there.
Children without parents. Children cut off from the world’s warmth, growing up huddled beneath the cool shadow of the nation.
He decided he would be their father.
The sons followed Song Hak-su.
They revered his wrinkled face, copied his rigid stride, and mimicked his crisp salute.
Like him, they naturally chose the path of soldiers.
It wasn’t only because they admired him.
For poor children from orphanages—kids with no backing, no connections—that was the best, perhaps the only, way to live as actual people in this country.
Pride.
Yes, Song Hak-su felt pride.
Just as he had been saved by the Emperor’s grace, these pitiful children had been saved in the nation’s embrace and grown into fine soldiers.
Ah, of course, there were those who did not become soldiers. Song Hak-su also found the best jobs he could for those exemplary citizens as well.
Daughters no one could be ashamed to show the world.
Even if the country was rotting, as long as these sturdy children existed, the state would endure forever—and his own children would become the country’s pillars, strong enough to trust with the future.
That was, until the homeland betrayed them first.
The sons were dragged into one another’s line of fire by the petty ego contests of those above them.
One child was made the scapegoat and dragged before a military court to cover up that stain.
Even the daughters were not spared a different fate.
One child who had been hired into the ceremonial department of a prestigious imperial conglomerate that everyone envied to death had hanged herself.
Why had she been forced to make such a choice? Why had she not been able to cling to this father instead?
Everything that had held his mind together snapped.
They had not died honorably.
No one in the imperial family apologized. There wasn’t even compensation.
The deaths of orphans meant no more than a single erased line from the imperial ledger.
No parents meant no one to protest, and no family to mourn them made them the easiest trash to bury and forget.
No—there was family.
I can never forgive the monsters who turned my sons and daughters into nothing but toys.
What should a father do when he loses his children?
When the one who’s gone astray is not the king, then the whole world must strike him down.
What should a retainer do when he’s betrayed by his master?
This was not some grand talk of saving the country or revolution. That had only been a fine-sounding excuse, a pretty piece of rhetoric to convince the men who held the front lines.
Song Hak-su’s feelings came down to one thing.
I’ll kill them all.
He did not care about casualties. There were no such things as innocent lives anyway. Had his own children not been innocent?
He did not think about what would come after, either.
When everything was over, some quick-witted bastard with political instincts would figure out how to seize power and feast on it.
That was where Song Hak-su’s role ended.
But then, in the shattered gaps of the imperial family, a collateral relative no one had expected suddenly appeared.
At first, he thought it was a desperate fake.
But as he watched the broadcasts over and over, Song Hak-su felt a chill race through him.
That one was real.
The spirit he had never once seen in the dead, incompetent former emperor, nor in that ridiculous crown prince.
A wild beast fresh from the cage, having broken its own bars with nothing given to it at all.
In other words—
The Emperor.
Song Hak-su repeated the word to himself.
It had been a perfect coincidence, but it was also exactly what he had wished for.
He had been utterly defeated, and yet he had won.
Now he only had to die.
Finish the work that remained.
* * *
“Main intersections and arterial roads leading into central Seoul have all been secured.
Units under the Capital Defense Command have disarmed and are returning to base in full, and police forces are being deployed to maintain order.”
After the Capital Defense Command withdrew from the Ilsan broadcasting station, the situation had been settled with almost insulting speed.
Under Marine and Army escort, I finally crossed the empty roads and entered the center of Seoul.
When I arrived at the front courtyard of the Capital Defense Command headquarters, the forces that had joined the rebellion were already kneeling on the parade ground with all their weapons laid down.
Faces threaded with emptiness, fear, and a sliver of relief.
I knew the feeling. I was, after all, very much relieved myself.
“Your Majesty. We’ve secured the entrance to the underground bunker. The rebel command staff has all been disarmed and restrained, but... the traitor Song Hak-su is still in the command control room.”
“Is he armed?”
“Marine units went in to check. He’s unarmed.”
“In that case—”
I opened my mouth.
“Let’s go see him ourselves.”
We went underground.
A vast command control room hung in silence, the only movement coming from the screens blinking with severed communications.
And at the far end of the huge table in the center—
Marines had ringed him with rifles aimed at his body, yet none of them had the heart to bind him or drag him out.
Song Hak-su rose to his feet slowly, very slowly.
Time had stripped the old man of his frame, but the impeccably pressed marshal’s uniform and five-star insignia still exuded a crushing weight of authority.
Then Song Hak-su looked at me.
Curiously, there was no lingering hatred in his eyes, no burning rage, only something that seemed to have already cooled.
Soon he bowed his head with deliberate slowness.
“This traitor, Song Hak-su, pays respects to Your Majesty.”
For mockery or sarcasm, his tone was far too even.
“For a ringleader of rebellion, that’s a remarkably polite greeting.”
I kept my emotions locked down as I answered coldly.
“When the result proves everything, that is only proper. As a soldier defeated on the battlefield, it is only right to show courtesy to the victorious general.”
Still standing, he went on.
“I have already given up any desire to live, so it no longer matters to me. But from the chief of staff down to the lowest soldier, everyone else was only following my orders. Please, show them leniency.”
A declaration that he would carry everything on his own.
If I had really been the protagonist of some old-fashioned novel, I might have gasped and shed tears at this point.
But to me, who had nearly died, it didn’t move me much.
Nor should it.
“Regardless of your responsibility, those who were merely complicit, excluding simple enlisted soldiers, will be dealt with in military court according to the severity of their crimes.”
At my words, Song Hak-su closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.
“Mercy and forbearance belong to the victor as well, so all I can do is ask for your consideration.
I remained here in this bunker today to wait for Your Majesty not simply to make excuses and beg for a crumb of mercy.”
He held something out toward me.
Clink.
I frowned at the USB that slid across the table.
“What is this?”
“In order to prepare for the uprising, I needed enormous sums of money and information. Especially the sort of people who would gather at Deoksugung for today’s royal wedding. Even the imperial family members who needed to be blown away.”
“So there was an outside backer.”
“An outside backer... I suppose I should call him an ally we temporarily joined hands with. Originally, once the operation succeeded, I intended to shove him aside with my own hands. I couldn’t keep working with a gutter rat like that for long.”
Song Hak-su pointed at the USB as he spoke.
“When you open it, you’ll understand. The nation’s rotten wound is not limited to the imperial family alone.”
I saw Seo Yu-jin standing beside me, her expression shifting ever so slightly.
Song Hak-su glanced at her without interest, then turned his gaze back to me.
“Please, Your Majesty, I hope this old traitor’s hands-off cleanup has at least left behind enough filth for you to wash away completely.”
“That’s not for you to concern yourself with.”
“Perhaps not. But this USB contains the imperial palace’s internal security secrets, financial slush-fund records the man provided to our side, and the conditions he demanded in return. Please use them as you see fit.”
Without a word, I picked up the USB from the desk. The cool weight of metal. I held out my hand behind me toward Seo Yu-jin.
“Vice Secretary Seo. The tablet.”
Seo Yu-jin immediately produced a slim tablet PC from her chest pocket and handed it to me.
Without hesitation, I plugged the USB into the tablet’s port. A security program spun up on the screen, and then the files Song Hak-su had left behind began to spill out.
Swipe, swipe.
I scrolled down and quickly skimmed the documents pouring across the display.
The flow of massive funds through overseas paper companies.
Records of explosives smuggled in under the guise of munitions suppliers.
And confidential documents containing the interior floor plan of Deoksugung and the locations where guards changed shifts by the hour.
Then, at the very end of the folder, the instant I double-clicked the security file labeled Confederate Party Information—
A high-resolution photo and a brief profile of one man appeared in the center of the screen.
Neatly swept-back hair, kind eyes that looked almost gentle behind cold metal-rimmed glasses, and yet somehow hollow.
Min Do-yeong / 32 / Three-Term National Assembly Member of the Great Korean Party
“...Huh.”
The second male lead of this drama.
* * *
Tap. Clatter.
A top-quality porcelain teacup trembled precariously atop the marble table.
Seated before it, Min Do-yeong stared at the wall-mounted TV in the villa with a face gone deathly pale.
His shoulders lost all control and shook like a poplar in the wind.
“This is breaking news. Traitor Song Hak-su, who led the Deoksugung terror attack and the seizure of the capital, has just been arrested in a surprise raid at the Capital Defense Command bunker.”
“Song Hak-su and the rebel forces will be immediately subjected to a summary military tribunal on charges including insurrection and murder, among more than a dozen counts...”
“Also, Imperial Chief Secretary Seo Yu-jin stated at an emergency briefing that ‘we have secured a storage medium containing crucial evidence of the forces behind the rebellion, and the government will impose the harshest possible punishment on the hidden masterminds who shook the foundation of the nation,’ and...”
At last, the teacup toppled off the table.
Porcelain shards exploded in every direction.