Scout Captain Riel
“Smile a little more for me!”
Riel’s lips curved gently upward in front of the camera. Golden hair cascading to her waist caught the lights and shimmered. Her light-green eyes looked softer than usual, and the green bottle in her hand was tilted at precisely the angle the director had requested.
It was an extra shoot booked because the original commercial had performed so well.
“Yes, perfect. We’ll go with that!”
Shutters fired in rapid succession. On one side of the set, staff held their breath while watching the monitors. Pointed ears and features that were not quite human drew every eye on their own, yet that was not the only reason people adored Riel.
Three years since her return. One of the vanishingly few S-class Hunters, and guildmaster of Cheonlim, a top-tier guild in the country. Every time a Gate-clearance video featuring her dropped, the view counts exploded. Products she advertised vanished from shelves within days. Broadcast stations never stopped requesting her, and crowds gathered the moment she appeared at any event.
The director clapped with open satisfaction.
“Excellent. Take a short break, then we’ll do the final cut.”
The instant the camera went dark, Riel’s smile vanished. She accepted a bottle of water from a staff member, took a sip, and sat on the sofa. Cheonlim personnel who had been waiting outside the set approached at once.
“Guildmaster, your afternoon schedule.”
The secretary held out a tablet.
“Two o’clock, consultation with the National Land Management Agency. Four o’clock, final briefing for the A-class Gate raid team. This evening, a banquet hosted by the Association—”
“Cancel the banquet.”
“The Association President will be attending.”
“What am I supposed to accomplish meeting those people?”
The secretary’s mouth closed. Riel scrolled through the screen with indifferent fingers.
“Send the vice-guildmaster to the Land Management meeting. I’ll review the A-class Gate materials myself—leave only the meeting.”
“Yes.”
“The scout reports I told you to submit yesterday?”
The team leader standing behind flinched.
“Still compiling them.”
Riel’s light-green eyes turned on him. Her tone remained calm, yet every trace of the softness from the shoot had disappeared.
“I said by today, didn’t I?”
“Two field teams were late uploading their data…”
“Then you should have reported the delay first.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Upload them within the hour. Try being late for the same reason again.”
“Understood.”
The team leader bowed his head. Riel returned her gaze to the tablet.
Cheonlim specialized in scouting, exploration, and spirit arts. In sheer size it did not rank among the five great guilds, yet no one took Cheonlim lightly when it came to terrain analysis inside Gates or the rescue of survivors. At the center of that reputation stood Riel.
Barely three years since she had returned to Earth. In that short span she had claimed hunter rank, a guild, and fame—things most people could not obtain in a lifetime. She possessed the power to match.
When she moved her fingers, a small wind spirit rose above a potted plant in the corner of the set.
It’s noisy.
The spirit grumbled and burrowed into her golden hair. Riel lightly pressed the top of its head with a fingertip.
“Just a little longer. It’ll be over soon.”
People around them returned to their places without noticing a thing. Then a short notification chimed from the secretary’s tablet.
“Guildmaster.”
“What?”
“A report just came in from an informant on the black-market side.”
Riel set the water bottle down as if uninterested.
“Pass it to the intel team.”
“One of the organizations that controlled one of Seoul’s four major black markets collapsed overnight.”
Riel’s hand stopped.
“Organizations fighting each other, I assume.”
“The traces are too strange for that. The boss is dead, and more than twenty members at the loading dock were subdued all at once. Storage devices and ledgers were completely destroyed.”
The secretary flipped the screen.
“According to witnesses, one person went in with other men and walked out alone.”
Riel slowly took the tablet. Broken concrete pillars. Iron stairs bent downward. Knee prints of people driven into the floor. Organization members collapsed unconscious, piled on top of one another. The corners of Riel’s eyes hardened a fraction.
“When?”
“Last night.”
Last night. A conversation from earlier that day rose unbidden in her mind.
Where do you sell something like gold?
Riel could not look away from the tablet.
“Transaction records?”
“There’s information that five gold bars appeared on the Frost settlement network the same day. Seller still being identified.”
Five gold bars. Riel’s fingers pressed into the edge of the screen. The wind spirit hiding in her golden hair cautiously peeked out.
Riel?
“…It’s nothing.”
She answered that way, yet her voice was lower than usual. No way. Just as she tried to tell herself it was impossible, long-buried memories surfaced.
It had been a forest dense with black trees. Back then Riel had been captain of the special scout unit under the Southern Alliance of the Human Realm—twelve spirit knights and twenty archers. An elite force that infiltrated deep into enemy lines to map demon movements, sever supply routes when necessary, or eliminate key figures.
Their mission that day had been to track and eliminate one human. A man who wandered the borders, killing every human and demon who targeted him. Kang Sihyuk, before he was king or lord. Even then his notoriety had already crossed the borders.
He had erased a magical-beast colony alone. He had reverse-hunted a mercenary band that pursued him for three days and annihilated them. He had entered a demon noble’s castle and walked out after killing only the master. Rumors were always exaggerated. Riel had believed that too—until she entered the forest.
“The spirits aren’t responding.”
At her adjutant’s words Riel raised a hand. Leaves were rustling; wind was definitely blowing. Yet only the voices of the spirits were silent. The wind spirits that normally chattered from every direction had all fallen mute. Earth spirits, tree spirits—none answered.
Riel called the high-ranking spirit who had been with her longest.
Silphia.
No answer. Through the sense linked by contract came only a faint trembling. Fear. Sensing something was wrong, Riel gave the order.
“Full retreat.”
At that moment a scream rose from the front of the forest. The body of the lead knight flew between the trees. His armor was caved inward; he was already dead. Someone shouted.
“Enemy!”
Arrows poured down. The spirit knights forced power from themselves. Flames and wind covered one spot, yet the strength was less than half of normal. From within that chaos one person walked out.
Black hair matted with blood and sweat. The iron sword in his hand dripped freely. He wore only old leather clothes. A face that sat somewhere between boy and young man—yet the eyes were not young at all.
Sihyuk deflected the flying arrows with his sword. He ducked low beneath the flames, then took the head of the knight at the front. What followed could scarcely be called a battle. The spirit knights fell one by one before they could even form ranks. Wind blades failed to cut his skin; roots rising from the earth melted under black energy before they reached his ankles.
“Stop him!”
At Riel’s cry the remaining knights blocked the path. Sihyuk’s iron sword moved sideways. Three men fell at once. Even the adjutant who had protected her to the end collapsed, blood spraying from his neck.
“Captain… run…”
The words never finished. Riel released the bowstring. An arrow laden with spirit power flew toward Sihyuk’s heart. He only turned his head. The arrow stopped in front of his face, the tip caught between his fingers.
In that instant their eyes met. Riel forgot how to breathe. It was neither rage nor killing intent. Those eyes held only the next person to kill. Sihyuk moved his hand. The caught arrow flew back the way it had come. Riel tried to dodge and was too late. The shaft pierced her shoulder; her body tumbled down the cliff.
The last thing she saw was the blood-soaked forest. Of the thirty-two who had come with her, not one still moved. Riel fell into the river below the cliff and regained consciousness three days later. Sihyuk had not spared her. The cliff and the current had merely, by chance, pushed her away from death.
After that she saw him once more—decades after their first meeting. The Human Realm Alliance and the demon forces faced each other across a border fortress. Riel was on a scouting mission, high on a ridge far from the battlefield. There she found Sihyuk.
The black hair once matted with blood was neatly arranged; instead of old leather he wore a dark coat. Behind him soldiers of mixed demon and various races stood in ranks. He was no longer a lone wandering swordsman. He was a lord leading an army.
When the fortress gates opened, the waiting alliance forces poured out all at once. Magic and arrows filled the sky; cavalry charged toward Sihyuk’s lines. He did not draw his sword. He simply walked forward. His magi rose, and the hoofbeats shaking the ground stopped. The lead warhorses collapsed as one; the soldiers behind them crumbled, breaking formation. In that gap Sihyuk’s army moved. The battle did not last long.
Riel could not leave the ridge until the fighting ended. She knew even without drawing closer. The monster who had massacred their unit in the forest now held an army in his hands. And from that day onward, people at the borders began calling him by a different title before his name.
Lord.
“Guildmaster?”
The secretary’s voice made Riel open her eyes. The bright lights of the set returned to her vision. The edge of the tablet in her hand was slightly bent. She slowly released the strength from her fingers.
“Don’t leave this incident to the intel team.”
“You’re going to handle it personally?”
“Upload every related file to me. Witness statements without omission.”
“Understood.”
Riel returned the tablet and stood.
“Remaining shoot?”
“Starts in ten minutes.”
“Finish it and head straight back to the guild.”
“Yes.”
The director called for preparations again. Riel stood before the camera, green bottle in hand, and smiled. When the lens came alive, every trace of the hardened expression from moments earlier vanished. On screen she was relaxed and beautiful. Yet the spirit hiding in her golden hair never emerged.
That night Riel walked slowly down the hallway of the returnee support housing. Cheonlim had prepared a luxury residence separately, but for an elf, leaving a place once settled was never as simple as humans imagined. The rooms she had occupied since the day of her return were already home.
The facts confirmed after she returned to the guild were clear. The one who had sold the five gold bars was Kang Sihyuk. In footage separately secured by Cheonlim’s intel team he was boarding a van with members of the Mujin Association. Footage around the loading dock also showed him walking out alone much later. Too precise to call coincidence.
I told him.
The location of the black market.
Riel stopped in front of her own door. The unit next door was silent. She tried to sense any presence and felt nothing. She called the wind spirit.
Look inside next door.
No answer.
Silphia.
A trembling voice returned from within the golden hair.
No.
Just for a moment.
Absolutely not.
Only confirm whether he’s home.
You do it, Riel.
Riel’s brow furrowed. There had been almost no times her spirit refused a command. Yet the moment Sihyuk was involved, neither contract nor order worked properly. Same as the past. Spirits always grew afraid first.
Click.
The door right beside her opened. Riel’s shoulders locked. Sihyuk, dressed in casual clothes and carrying a plastic bag of recyclables, stepped into the hallway. Their eyes met. Riel’s breath stopped.
Sihyuk spoke first.
“Ah.”
He lifted the bag a little.
“I tried the booze you advertised.”
Riel’s lips moved.
“H-how was it?”
“Pretty good with meat.”
He closed his door and started toward the elevator. Then, as if remembering something, he turned his head.
“And I went to the place you told me about.”
Riel swallowed dryly.
“Did you cover your face when you sold the gold?”
“No. Most people just walk around like that?”
“Normally, yes. Only people whose faces are known or who’ve made enemies there bother to hide.”
“Then no problem, right?”
“Until then.”
“Why?”
“The day you sold the gold, the Mujin Association jumped you. And that night they collapsed.”
Riel gripped the doorknob tightly.
“The sharp ones will remember your face.”
“Ah, so those guys were Mujin?”
When their eyes met again, Riel immediately dropped her gaze. The fingertips clutching the doorknob trembled faintly.
“…From now on, cover up when you go.”
“Got it.”
The elevator arrived. Sihyuk stepped inside without another word. The doors closed. Riel could not move from that spot for a long while. From within the golden hair the wind spirit whispered, very softly.
Scary.
Riel thought the same.