A Kind Smile
"You want to learn shamanism?"
"Yes... but I'm not sure if I can pull it off."
It was a crisp autumn day when the wind was starting to bite. A sturdy-built man and a boy who looked about seven years old were walking along a forest path.
The man, hearing the word "shamanism," fell deep into thought. The boy, accustomed to reading others' moods and reactions, quickly added,
"If it's something you can't teach me or if it's a hassle, that's fine!"
Unlike his peers—born under their parents' blessings, convinced the world loved them just for existing—this boy was different.
"It's wrong for someone like me to even try learning something...."
As if some invisible weight pressed down on his shoulders, the boy's gaze dropped to the ground.
The man looked at him with a complicated expression and spoke.
"That's not it at all, young master."
"Huh?"
"Shamanism isn't something with a fixed 'do it like this' method, so I was just pondering how to explain it."
"Th-then!"
"Of course, I'll teach you the methods I learned. But that doesn't guarantee you'll be able to use it."
The invisible burden weighing on the boy seemed to snap. For a fleeting moment—just a moment—his eyes sparkled with the lively freshness befitting his age. His mouth fell open unwittingly, and a bright smile bloomed in his eyes.
He wasn't ignored as if he didn't exist. He wasn't shunned as if he didn't belong. No one averted their gaze as if seeing him meant glimpsing something unsightly, then called servants to chase him away.
What the boy desperately needed was someone—anyone—who would listen to him seriously. His father, who should have filled that role, was close yet impossibly distant. And his mother... he didn't even know where she was.
"Yes! I'll work really hard! I mean it!"
To the boy, this moment was his whole world, his sanctuary.
"...Young master."
Was it because he'd used shamanism twice after a long hiatus? Old memories he hadn't recalled in ages flooded back unbidden.
The days when he thought the world hated him. Amid a life like a thorny path, one of the few warm moments.
'A time I can never return to—and never will.'
"Deputy Warden Seolhwa?"
"Yes? Oh, yes. Sorry. I missed that—I was lost in thought."
Time had flown by like an arrow loosed from a bowstring since Seolhwa arrived at Utopia. Sorting the wheat from the chaff among the prisoners using Cynthia's documents was busy enough, but now the handover for warden duties had been added.
"H-here... this is all the material related to Utopia's operations. W-well, not entirely all of it—some's in the capital's classified archives... or maybe they were all discarded...."
"Thank you for the guidance, Second Section Chief."
Jepeto's bombshell declaration that he'd hand over the warden position. After his unbelievable victory over the mobile patrol captain, the atmosphere in Utopia had already shifted—everyone saw Seolhwa as the next warden.
The archive he'd visited today under the Second Section Chief's guidance was one even high-ranking staff couldn't easily access without the warden's approval.
"N-no, not at all! Um, well... Ah! Congratulations. Well, you haven't had the inauguration yet, but that duel with the m-mobile patrol captain—you won so spectacularly, I couldn't even figure out how...."
"Second Section Chief."
"It was scary seeing him drop like that in an instant, but since you won...."
"Second Section Chief!"
"Y-yes!"
"Thank you for the tour. I'll look around a bit more, so feel free to head up first."
She caught the subtle hint of "I want to be alone," bowed lightly to Seolhwa, and scurried away.
'Alright then... where might it be?'
Thick layers of pristine dust blanketed the neatly organized files, hinting at the previous warden's management style.
'Policies... construction plans... building safety... no, not that. Barrier documents? I'd like to read those later.'
The files were impeccably preserved despite the dust. Just as Seolhwa wondered how they managed that without disturbing the layers, he spotted what he was looking for.
'Found it!'
Even Jepeto must have reviewed this one—it showed clear signs of handling. Seolhwa grabbed a few related files and spread them on a sunlit desk.
From the start, the document was packed with legal clauses and treaties, reflecting the painstaking efforts of scholars and administrators to minimize variables and ensure safety.
'I don't need to read every detail as a third party....'
Seolhwa's hands flipped faster. Despite its age, each turn released a faint, elegant fragrance—clearly exchanged among the highest echelons.
Even Seolhwa, who prided himself on thorough contracts, was impressed by the meticulous preamble. Finally, the main content emerged.
Though written at length in ornate script, the core was simple: a request from the emperor to build a prison in a certain noble's territory.
At the end, tiny script listed every staffer involved from both sides. In the most prominent spot gleamed the emperor's seal, and beside it sprawled the signature of Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek.
"So... have ye given any thought to takin' the warden's seat?"
Even handing off a village head position would draw nosy neighbors like Marcus the miller, Kim the smith, and lazybones Jansen next door.
How much more for a plush imperial-backed post like Utopia? Sure, you'd rub shoulders with forsaken prisoners, but to landless nobles or commoners clawing for status, it was pure honey.
"No idea how many times I've said it, but my current role's more than enough."
Yet Seolhwa had rejected it outright from the moment it surfaced.
Good position or not, if you hate it, pass. But for someone without official title or backing to dismiss it so casually? Too big a deal.
And to do so without hesitation—after crushing the mobile patrol captain? That screamed hidden agenda.
Jepeto, craving fresh thrills, grinned ear-to-ear through the meal.
"Heh heh, d'ye even grasp the clout this post carries...?"
"Feels like we'd hit ten if you say it once more."
"Oi, interruptin' yer elder like that... It's all for yer own good. Just put yer name on it, and the Empire'll... "
Realizing active persuasion wouldn't work, Seolhwa shifted to passive resistance—when a familiar voice cut in.
"Why d'ye always gab so much at meals...?"
Ilka Pavola, with a beard matching the archive files' hue, set his tray opposite Jepeto.
"Ah, ye're here. Perfect—back me up. This young fella don't seem to get what the Utopia warden gig means."
A warden chummy with a prisoner, asking said prisoner to vouch for him. Seolhwa could almost hear his preconceptions about prisons crumbling.
"Deputy Warden Seolhwa must be working hard."
"Not at all. I'm getting used to it now."
Ilka Pavola dunked bread into soup pale as fresh snow and chuckled heartily, his beard quivering.
Seolhwa sometimes wondered: how did he maintain such a beard in prison?
"Th-this guy's 'workin' hard'? I'm the one sufferin'."
"Ye'll be off to the emperor's tour soon—oughta at least pretend to prep."
Jepeto grimaced openly at work talk over dinner.
"Why bother with someone who comes unbidden and ignores 'stay away'?"
He'd botched the soup-to-bread ratio, so he tore baguette and swabbed the bowl's dregs.
"I'll hit Byeon Gyeongbaek's first anyway—might as well go there."
"Aye, fair enough."
'Byeon Gyeongbaek? Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek?'
Amid banter between men teetering on middle-to-old age, a familiar name caught Seolhwa's ear.
"I thought Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek was a loyal lord to the imperial family and Empire—is that not so?"
Jepeto scraped the bowl clean, then swabbed the last drops with baguette. Ilka answered for the glutton unashamedly indulging his appetite.
"The former Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek was. The current one's... different."
"Has the Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek changed?"
Even in the provinces, news that big would've reached the capital.
Ilka smiled kindly at Seolhwa.
"Does the deputy warden recall the one who joined the expansion wars?"
"Yes, probably."
Jepeto, having licked the bowl metaphorically clean, chimed in.
"That fella crossed the river ages ago."
"Pardon? Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek is dead?"
"The 40-day rites are long done, and the family pines 'round his castle are withered to sticks."
"Don't exaggerate... It wasn't that long ago—a month or two before the deputy arrived."
Jepeto grumbled something like "same difference."
"Heard a poison arrow wound from the last war festered, and he wasted away. Didn't see it myself, mind."
'Anyone'd misunderstand that phrasing.' Ilka chided mildly.
"So the current Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek is...?"
"His son succeeded him."
"His son?"
Academy noble scions lived like hostages, drilled relentlessly in etiquette—including memorizing every major house head and heir across the continent.
Seolhwa, who'd endured that rote hell, could rattle off Manrmursk intel like cold porridge.
'But Manrmursk Byeon Gyeongbaek had no children, surely?'
"Yes, exactly. No known children."
"A bastard, then? Even a border count wouldn't legitimize an illegitimate heir."
"Rumors fly thick. Hidden son of the old count... or poisoned by the new one."
"I'd take the latter."
Jepeto grumbled as he returned his tray. Seolhwa popped the dessert orange into his mouth and rose with them.
Utopia's top two—and a prisoner. Bizarre to outsiders, but insiders passed with casual nods. Mostly to Jepeto, sometimes Seolhwa, rarely even Ilka.
"That lad's first meet with the new count was... heated."
"They fought?"
"Yes. How'd you know?"
"Huh?"
"I-Ilka, ye swore that tale to the grave!"
"Kehkeh. Ain't this my grave?"
Dodging Jepeto's mandrake-like flailing, Ilka began.
"After the succession, we visited to build rapport and discuss Utopia's unique operations...."