Operation Codename: New World
"Cheon Su-gong, what's with the heavy atmosphere? What's going on?"
In the shadowed gap between buildings, I eyed the head of the Eastern Depot with open puzzlement. The man was thoroughly outfitted in pitch-black attire, complete with a skin mask.
This was the same man who normally insisted that dressing too casually drew less suspicion, wandering around like some neighborhood grandpa.
Today, though, something about him was different. The eyes behind the skin mask were sharp, and he kept glancing around as if half-expecting someone to be eavesdropping.
"And what exactly is this job you say is tailored just for me?"
I fired off the questions one after another, trying to get a read on his intentions.
Cheon Su-gong checked left and right once more, then carefully voiced a word that should never leave the mouth of anyone from the imperial court.
"Do you know of the Blood Sect?"
The Blood Sect. A heretical cult that had long since sunk its roots deep into the Central Plains and worked from the shadows.
They had kept such a low profile for so long that ordinary people knowing almost nothing about them was the norm.
At best, most only knew about the explosive spectacle they had caused at the Murim Alliance Headquarters.
"…I've had some dealings with them, yeah."
But this body was different. There had been a stretch where I ran into those bastards everywhere I went and got thoroughly sick of them.
At the Murim Alliance Headquarters in Shaanxi, on the cliffs of Liaoning Province, at the Eun family estate in Jinju—it was as if they were sworn enemies, always standing in my path. A thoroughly tiresome bunch.
"Do you know their goal as well?"
"That… I'm not so sure."
Truth was, I did know to some extent. Moyong Cheonghye, after nearly being abducted by the Left Blood Dharma, had shared what she knew of their purpose as a matter of information exchange.
They were tracking the Heavenly Killing Star, she had said. They meant to secure that body and use it for some incomprehensible grand design.
What kind of forbidden art or sorcery needed the flesh of the Heavenly Killing Star, I had no idea.
Either way, as the Heavenly Killing Star himself, they were a threat I needed to wipe out as soon as possible.
"Dan Mujin."
Cheon Su-gong's voice grew heavier and lower.
"Yeah? What is it."
Watching the all-powerful, fearless head of the Eastern Depot beat around the bush like this put a faintly ominous feeling in my gut.
What the hell was he working up to that he needed this much buildup?
"Then I take it you've also heard the recent news that Crown Prince Ju U-gi has regained consciousness in his sickbed?"
Anyone with even a passing interest in palace affairs had been buzzing about that topic lately.
I scratched my chin and gave a short affirmative.
"Yeah, I heard. Our office staff have been on edge about it too."
They had said he would never open his eyes again.
From every description, he had been barely hanging on—brain-dead, or something close to a vegetative state.
"What kind of miracle is this supposed to be?"
At my question, Cheon Su-gong let out a loud, incredulous snort.
"Ha. A miracle? What a load of nonsense."
But why had this man deliberately brought up the Blood Sect before even mentioning the Crown Prince? Those two should have been like fire and water, mutually repelling each other…
In that instant, one grim possibility flashed through my mind.
"You've got to be kidding me! Don't tell me the Empress joined hands with the Blood Sect to bring the Crown Prince back?!"
Cheon Su-gong immediately clamped a hand over my mouth.
"You idiot, keep your voice down."
That reaction was as good as a confirmation. I could only stare, eyes wide with disbelief.
The worst-case scenario assembled itself in my head with terrible clarity.
The Blood Sect would seize the Crown Prince—the very heart of the imperial palace—elevate him as emperor, and from the top down slowly devour the Central Plains.
That bleak future seemed to play out vividly before my eyes.
"Why would she bring in a heretical cult that could shake the entire nation…? Has the Empress truly lost her mind?"
I had caught a faint whiff of the madness in her eyes when we crossed paths at the palace gates, but I never imagined she would go this far.
"I won't deny it."
"…What the fuck."
I wanted him to deny it. The Emperor's wife colluding with the Blood Sect? I needed him to snap at me and call that idea insane.
"She's completely out of her mind. Seriously."
Empress Ga Hwiryung. Backed into a corner of her own making, she had gone and taken the hand of pure demons just to save her eldest son.
This was on an entirely different level from her attempts to assassinate Princess Dohwa or the Imperial Consort.
Through the revived Crown Prince, the entire nation could be swallowed whole. She had crossed a line—and then some.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
Ironically enough, both the Empress and the Blood Sect were enemies of mine. Now that the two of them had joined forces, I could no longer afford to simply sit back and watch.
Especially the Blood Sect—they were the ones after my body. I could not let them grow any stronger.
"If we make it widely known that the Empress summoned the Blood Sect and performed sorcery or forbidden arts on the Crown Prince, even His Majesty—who has declared neutrality—will not be able to remain idle."
Once the entire palace knew, even the Emperor would have no choice but to cast his own wife aside.
So find the evidence, he said, and expose their collusion with the Blood Sect. Then the Crown Prince would naturally be deposed as well.
"Sounds great in theory. How, exactly?"
Plans always sounded nice. Execution was always the problem.
Everything Cheon Su-gong had laid out so far was still just conjecture and circumstantial suspicion.
To take down the Empress of the Central Plains—the Emperor's own wife—you needed clear physical evidence or a concrete incident.
"Which brings me to you, you little brat."
Unlike Hwang Geolgae, Cheon Su-gong carried the distinctive cunning of the Eastern Depot in his gaze as he turned it on me.
He seized my arm with a meaningful look that said there was no one else for the job.
"You're going to infiltrate the Empress's faction and bring back the proof yourself."
"…"
Infiltrate deep into enemy territory and retrieve decisive evidence of collusion between the Blood Sect and the Empress's faction—orders from the head of the Eastern Depot.
This was on a completely different level from the time I had gone undercover at a rival company to root out industrial spies.
Back then, the worst that could happen was getting fired or sued. Here, one wrong move and my head would go flying.
"I'm just gonna leave now."
Once again, the old troubleshooter's instincts whispered that this was not a job—it was something I should just bolt from.
I was about to toss out a "good luck with that!" and make a break for it when Cheon Su-gong suddenly appeared in front of me with some bizarre footwork.
The old man with age spots on his face grinned at me and clamped a firm hand on my shoulder.
"Now that you've heard the whole story, there's no way out, you brat."
I had heard an imperial secret that absolutely must never leak. From this point on, there was no turning back.
"Ah, fuck."
I accepted reality and muttered a quiet curse.
Damn it. If it was this dangerous, he could have at least warned me first.
"Can I think it over a bit?"
"Think all you want, but you're going to have to take this job either way."
I had overheard a state secret of such magnitude that pretending I hadn't heard it was impossible. On top of that, the fates of Princess Dohwa, the Imperial Consort, the Eastern Depot, and the other consorts all hung in the balance.
"Princess Dohwa and the Imperial Consort place great expectations on you."
I had exceeded every prediction on the last imperial commission, so a great many people now believed I would pull something off this time as well.
For me, it was the kind of heavy expectation from high places that I could not simply rejoice over.
"I'll give you a few days. Finish your preparations within that time."
Orders to prepare for a stretch of spy work inside that closed-off, lethally dangerous imperial palace.
A spy mission, of all things, out of nowhere.
"Goddamn it."
Getting tangled up with those bastards again.
It seemed I had been born under a fate that simply could not coexist under the same sky as the Blood Sect.
That night.
I was in the middle of packing various things for the infiltration when a voice suddenly called out, and I turned my head.
"Boss, where are you going again at this hour?"
Ilhong, looking at me with my troubled expression as I gathered the skin mask and other gear, seemed to have already finished her own private deductions.
"It's a secret."
"…So it's another job like that, huh."
Tell me about it. Lately it had been the Demonic Cult, the Blood Sect—one after another, the kinds of ominous forces that could upend this world had been taking turns causing chaos.
Things that should originally have been swept away in a single wave by the Heavenly Killing Star had instead been allowed to quietly gather strength in peacetime. That was part of it too.
Just as a nation that grows strong and stockpiles arms eventually produces people who want to wield them, that kind of turbulent era had finally arrived.
"What about you, though? What are you doing?"
She usually trained under the blazing sun, sweating rivers. Seeing her out here training under the starlight of a moonlit night made me ask with a puzzled look.
"…I've changed up my training method a little. Under Master's guidance."
As far as I knew, Hwang Geolgae was teaching her the Beggar Sect's martial arts. Changing the training hours alone shouldn't have made that big a difference.
Then again, he was such an unpredictable old man that he might just have gotten some new whim.
"Boss."
But the moment I started to leave the merchant compound, she suddenly seized the sleeve of my robe and held on tight.
"You took a dangerous job, didn't you?"
Lately it felt like more and more of the people around me could read me like a ghost.
I had tried to keep my reaction as ordinary as possible, too.
"Your face looked a little troubled. I can tell even when you try to hide it."
Like some long-married couple, she picked up on every tiny change and emotion without fail.
"Please take me with you. I want to be useful."
"No. This one won't work. Stay at the office and rest."
"…"
I couldn't take Jo Harang on this job either. She was completely unsuited for an infiltration mission to begin with, and it was far too dangerous besides.
"There's that look again."
"What look?"
Still shouldering my pack, I glanced at Ilhong as if I had no idea what she was talking about.
"The worrying look."
Not the look you give a trusted fellow martial artist, she said, but the look you give when you're fretting over a little sister.
"So what if it is."
"I don't like just being protected all the time. I want to repay the debt I owe."
That very reaction of hers was what moved me and made filling out good karma so easy.
In short, whether she realized it or not, she was already repaying it.
"Just you wait, Boss."
"Wait for what now."
She clenched her fists tight, eyes full of some private resolve.
Ever since I had left her behind on the Demonic Cult job last time, she seemed to have made up her mind about something.
I still didn't know exactly what that something was.
"I'm going to get stronger. Strong enough that you'll acknowledge me. Strong enough that you'll take me instead of Miss Jo Harang."
She meant to earn the recognition of the Heavenly Killing Star and surpass the Purple Micro Star with her dazzling martial talent.
Whether she realized it or not, Ilhong had just set herself an enormous ambition.
"Alright. Give it your best."
A talented martial artist was stoking her own drive—there was no reason not to cheer her on.
A subordinate I valued was volunteering to get stronger on her own. That was only good news for me. I decided to throw another log onto the fire of her burning will.
"Once you reach the Peak Realm, I'll grant you one wish. Anything."
And that, it seemed, was the perfect carrot to yank her desire to climb even higher.
"Anything… you'll grant it…?"
Her expression turned a little too solemn, so I hastily tacked on the additional clauses.
"Within the bounds of common sense, without bankrupting me, and inside the realm of the reasonable."
Even so, she seemed satisfied, eyes sparkling—this woman only a year younger than me.
"It's a promise. You have to keep it!"
She declared she was going to train right away and would go wake Hwang Geolgae, who was surely asleep.
That old man, if you forced him awake, would send his gourd flying like a blunt weapon—but she seemed prepared even for that.
"If this goes well, I might not even need that superior-subordinate whatever-it-is."
What kind of training was Hwang Geolgae putting her through? Ilhong hurried off with quick little steps.
Perhaps because I was watching her back under the bright moonlight, I thought I could feel a faint afterglow of starlight clinging to her.
In the past, I had once gone undercover at an ordinary company and learned how to navigate office life.
Thanks to the techniques for handling difficult bosses that I picked up then, I had been able to smoothly weather the drunken tantrums of Merchant Lord Eun Hwaran back when I was young.
And now, another superior stood before my eyes.
More precisely, not so much a superior as the person I would have to serve and attend throughout this current job.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and fill the cup."
A face that seemed to have defied the years, beautiful and yet laced with venom at the same time.
"…Yes, ma'am."
Standing before me was none other than Empress Ga Hwiryung.