Chapter 18. The Guy Who Killed That Bastard Is a Trainee?
On the way to Ak Gyo-du's office, Won Seung tossed a bottle of liquor into the instructors' snack room. He'd always thought it would be nice if the bastard died someday—and sure enough, he dropped dead that very day.
On one hand, he felt a swell of pride. He'd made it intending to kill Jang Gyo-du, but ended up using it on Ak Gyo-du instead.
'Jang Gyo-du was killed by my master, and Ak Gyo-du by me. Cheondaemun is truly something else.'
Before long, the inspector entered. He scanned Won Seung from head to toe with cold, ruthless eyes, then spoke as if he already knew everything.
"In these mountains, how many people could even access a lethal poison strong enough to kill with just a few sips?"
Won Seung paused in thought at the inspector's icy glare before replying.
"Just me."
The inspector's eyes gleamed as the poison boy who had served Dokgoe so faithfully admitted it so readily.
"Are you confessing to the crime?"
"No way. I barely exchanged a few words with him before leaving the office. And he was still alive at that point."
"Then why did you go see Ak Gyo-du that day?"
"To tell him I was done teaching him everything I knew about poisons."
"You expect me to believe that was it?"
The inspector had already made up his mind. He just needed to pin it on someone and extract a confession.
'Circumstantially, this kid's the only one who fits.'
Whether he was the real culprit or not didn't matter. Nabbing a single trainee was child's play.
The inspector grinned darkly.
"I don't know many torture methods. Just ten. But I've only ever needed three. They all confessed before the fourth. You? I bet you'll crack at the second."
A chill ran down Won Seung's spine.
He'd rather die by a clean sword thrust than be tortured into a broken mess. Still, he trusted the poison needle hidden in his hair behind his ear. If things got bad, he'd pull it out and jab the inspector.
'Is he really gonna torture me? Should I just kill him now and escape?'
Interrogating a trainee wasn't a big deal, so they hadn't bound his hands or feet, and security was lax.
With forty years of internal energy and his Ren and Du meridians fully opened, Won Seung feared no one in these mountains. He could escape even if a horde of instructors came at him. But doing so would derail his revenge plan against Jeokhyeolsan.
'I still have to avenge my master...'
In Won Seung's mind, Dok Sabu had died because of Jeokhyeolsan too. Fleeing like a rat now—how would he ever get revenge?
Especially when he didn't even know where Jeokhyeolsan was.
As Won Seung agonized, the inspector—oblivious to the grim reaper gripping his own neck—felt quietly satisfied. The kid's shifty eyes screamed guilt. And that anxious look? He'd confess without a single touch.
Just then, someone knocked on the door as the two lost themselves in their own worlds.
"What? Don't you know we're in the middle of an interrogation?"
"Yes, sir. But... Bi Jangno from headquarters is here."
"What?"
"He demands you come at once."
Ak Gyo-du's office.
Bi Jangno hurled the trainee evaluation sheets he'd been reading across the room in a fit of rage.
"That fucking bastard. He should have died by my hand."
According to the evaluations Ak Gyo-du had falsified under duress, thirty-three out of thirty-eight trainees qualified as at least first-rate assassin material. That many first-rates? It had to be bullshit.
And without detailed classifications, there was no way to tell who was special-grade or Sipjeon Salsu material.
Ak Gyo-du had lavishly rated everyone except the kids he'd fed fake Myeonggeon Dan to, all to appease Bi Jangno's threats. He'd planned to report vaguely for now and sort them out over the next year by watching. But now he was dead, so that was impossible.
Unaware of Ak Gyo-du's scheme, Bi Jangno's face flushed crimson as fury poured from every pore. If he could, he'd torture the corpse.
'Why the hell am I even here...'
The inspector, enduring the wrath of headquarters' most ill-tempered elder, sank into self-loathing.
There was no reason for him—the murder investigator—to suffer under Bi Jangno. Yet here he was, summoned while interrogating the suspect, forced to sit and watch the elder pore over evaluation sheets for over an hour before exploding like a mad dog.
He couldn't object, though. One wrong word, and a single palm strike could end him.
Powerlessness was the real crime.
A moment later, Bi Jangno calmed and asked,
"The guy who killed that bastard is a trainee?"
"The prime suspect."
"A trainee poisoned a gyo-du? How?"
"......"
That was what he was about to find out... As the inspector chose his words,
Slap!
Bi Jangno's palm cracked across the inspector's cheek, sending him tumbling sideways from his seat.
Crunch!
Bi Jangno stomped down on him.
"You little shit! If you're incompetent, just say so! Admit you couldn't catch the real killer and are framing some easy trainee instead!"
"N-no, sir!"
The inspector scrambled away from the foot, stood at attention, and shouted,
"No. 50 is the most likely suspect—he met with Ak Gyo-du on the day of the incident! That day, he..."
As the inspector bellowed Won Seung's incriminating points, Bi Jangno perked up with curiosity.
"Dokgoe's poison boy? Find No. 50's evaluation sheet."
The inspector fumbled through the scattered papers and handed over Won Seung's sheet. Bi Jangno muttered as he read.
"Served that prickly bastard Dokgoe for four years? Impressive... Listen, if a trainee really killed a gyo-du, that'd be huge. Never happened before. What do you think?"
"Honestly, I haven't figured out the method yet."
The sharp inspector gave the perfect answer. Bi Jangno's lips curved into a smile.
"Hmm... He killed him, but we don't know how? At least a solid first-rate assassin. At that age? Sipjeon Salsu material, wouldn't you say?"
"W-well... maybe."
The inspector stammered.
Bi Jangno paced the room, thinking hard before declaring,
"Let him go. And close the Ak Gyo-du case as suicide."
Ak Gyo-du's death was ruled a suicide due to depression from long mountain isolation.
Sa Gyo-du arrived as Ak Gyo-du's replacement.
He was the gyo-du from the second assassin training camp.
Won Seung was stunned when Sa Gyo-du took the podium on his first day. Why were all the Jeokhyeolsan bastards like this? With bulging eyes and pudgy cheeks gleaming, Sa Gyo-du looked like the Monkey King reincarnated. Worse, the lecherous glint in his eyes when he eyed the female trainees was downright repulsive.
"Because of you lot, I have to drag myself back to this godforsaken mountain. Don't make me regret it."
The assassin training camp was hell even for gyo-dus and instructors—maybe worse. Kids dragged here young, knowing nothing, endured the constant terror of death without question.
But for an adult who knew the world's pleasures, a decade of mountain asceticism was arguably harder.
Sa Gyo-du had finished his ten hellish years, gotten promoted to branch chief in Anju, and was enjoying wine, women, and song when he was suddenly reassigned to the mountains. He was pissed.
Before coming, Bi Jangno had warned him sternly.
'Lots of talent this time. Pick out the Sipjeon and four special-grades, and I'll reward you with a cushy big-city branch for life. Watch No. 50 closely...'
Assured of a comfy future, he'd gritted his teeth for the remainder. But arriving to nothing but green trees, rage boiled over.
'Fuck... Stuck in these mountains again! Might as well drink.'
Sa Gyo-du showed his face briefly on day one, then holed up in the office drowning in booze.
Thanks to that, Won Seung and the trainees enjoyed some peaceful days.
As they entered the ninth year, training simplified. Mornings were assassin strategy classes; afternoons, dedicated practice of personal martial specialties.
Assassin strategy covered everything needed for the trade: intel gathering on targets, approaches, infiltration and escape, disguises and vanishing acts, schemes and deceptions—taught by active assassins from headquarters.
Won Seung paid closest attention to success stories and failure cases. Names were aliases for assassins and targets alike, but backgrounds often mentioned Huangdo.
Each time, nostalgia hit fresh.
'Nine years already. Huangdo's probably changed a lot.'
Struggling to survive, time had flown. Won Seung was now a sleek, agile fifteen-year-old boy.
'Joo Gunju, you went too far.'
After much reflection, he'd concluded his stepmother Joo Gunju sold him to Jeokhyeolsan.
Won Sochu was a mischievous brat, but not vicious enough to cut his hair, change his clothes, drag him to a remote village far from Huangdo, and sell him. Plus, he wasn't old enough to plot that meticulously.
That realization made him question returning to the Won mansion.
Joo Gunju was the smug Seong Wang's cherished sister. If Won Seung returned alive, she might send assassins next.
'But I have to see Mom.'
His father, Won Seongji, was too tough to worry about. But his mother? She might be bedridden, grieving her lost son.
He wanted to bolt right now and race to Huangdo. But without knowing the outer security net, rash moves were suicide.
No—more than that, he had no intention of just running.
His flower-like youth stolen, spent in this remote hell of brutal training and death's shadow. Countless kids had died alongside him. Without revenge on Jeokhyeolsan, that deep grudge would crush him forever.
His grandest revenge? All the assassins deserting just before graduation.
'They'll watch their ten-year tower crumble.'
The gyo-dus and instructors wouldn't stand for it. Caged in isolation, they'd treated trainees like beasts. Kids pretended not to notice, but some girls suffered horrors at night, written off as training accidents.
Won Seung wasn't alone in this. The smarter kids no longer feared instructors. They feigned obedience by day, but their eyes screamed murder from behind.
'Jeokhyeolsan... They even calculated this.'
Headquarters had foreseen growing threats and laced the Myeonggeon Dan with Swolhyeol San. The kids didn't know, but come spring at sixteen, they'd feel the poison stir.
Jeokhyeolsan wielded the carrot before the whip. Even now, the headquarters assassin said,
"Become first-rate assassins, and you'll get a house plus ten taels of silver monthly. Succeed on missions, and you pocket one-tenth of the fee."