Splash—.
With every drop of moisture that evaporated, body heat went with it.
Shin Yigyeom’s wet hair coiled around his shoulders, dripping cold water steadily.
Goosebumps rose along his spine.
His lips had been tinged violet for hours now.
An unbearable cold bloomed across his skin, renewing itself without pause.
“I asked for your affiliation.”
The Punishment Guard cycled through the list of questions he had prepared.
Shin Yigyeom’s refusal to make even a sound of pain only deepened his impatience.
Since this matter was directly tied to the defense of the imperial palace, a Senior Inspector from the Internal Oversight Bureau was present to observe — yet the interrogation was still going nowhere.
The Senior Inspector was an official dispatched under the direct authority of the First Imperial Prince, Wi Sagyun — the emperor’s officially recognized successor.
“What is the design of that tattoo?”
But the Punishment Guard’s real fear was not the Senior Inspector, nor Wi Sagyun.
It was the Grand Bureau Chief, who would soon arrive.
Before he came with his questions, at least a minimum of information had to be secured.
More than ten days had passed and this man had not so much as given his own name.
The physiological responses to torture were all that could be extracted — his mind could not be scratched.
“Prepare the chest brace.”
A wide leather chest brace was brought and fastened around Shin Yigyeom’s torso.
When the metal buckle was pulled tight from behind, Shin Yigyeom let out a low cough.
He gritted his teeth.
He had endured worse than this.
He had kept his body in a state ready to move at any moment as his baseline.
If not for the restraints, he could still move freely enough under his own power.
Torture was, in the end, just a more extreme form of negotiation.
If he held out long enough, the one who needed something more would be the first to reach out.
The man called the Grand Bureau Chief had kept him alive because he had calculated his usefulness — that much was certain.
— “Aaaargh!”
From the interrogation room across the hall came the voice of his comrade, Three.
At the scream that shook the corridor with a devastation almost too raw to bear, Shin Yigyeom closed his eyes.
The principle had always been to make no sound, regardless of circumstances.
That Three had broken this meant he had reached his limit.
The moment he registered a comrade’s limit, he could not help but become conscious that he, too, was human.
And so Shin Yigyeom smiled — as though nothing in the world could touch him.
“Tighten it more!”
“Hht.”
Shin Yigyeom poured every nerve he had into ignoring the presence of the chest brace crushing his torso, redirecting his focus elsewhere.
To recalling the events that had brought him here.
Wi Saheon and his attendants were approaching the entrance of the Inspection and Trial Court.
Several members of the Heugnyeongwi followed behind at regular intervals.
Dressed in black light armor overlaid with dark silver fittings, their atmosphere was wholly different from that of the imperial palace guard officers.
They looked less like living people and more like Wi Saheon’s shadow given physical form, trailing after him.
Wherever the Grand Bureau Chief moved, the Heugnyeongwi were always with him.
The lieutenant commander, who had been waiting with the Senior Inspector’s party, straightened his back and snapped a salute at Wi Saheon.
“Report.”
“Yes, sir.”
At Wi Saheon’s nod of his chin, the lieutenant commander cleared his throat.
He had already organized the report three times over.
He had reviewed the phrasing, the order of sentences, and the possibility of any omissions — yet the sweat beading in his palm refused to dry.
Wi Saheon’s eyes were sharper than usual.
“The individuals currently in custody have been confirmed to be affiliated with the Mumyeongdan. Their identity concealment is extremely sophisticated. Their appearance, scent, and linguistic habits all exceed the level of ordinary infiltration operatives. They appear to be individuals who have undergone organization-level training.”
“Names?”
“For now, the senior cadres are Two and Three. The mark on the chest was not found on the general unit members.”
Wi Saheon, who had been adjusting the collar of his uniform, gave a quiet, dry laugh.
The lieutenant commander did not raise his head.
Checking a superior’s reaction was itself an act of impropriety.
“Their real names remain uncertain. However, both individuals responded in the same manner — a combination of evasion in response to questions, suppression reactions to pain stimuli, and a subtle reaction when called by their numbers.”
For this report, the lieutenant commander, the Punishment Guard, two torture specialists, and a recorder had all participated, verifying the same points repeatedly.
“These are most likely numbers used as designations within the Mumyeongdan. All of the information reported thus far was obtained from the general inmates on the fifth floor.”
It meant the senior cadres had remained completely silent to the end.
Wi Saheon said nothing.
He had already moved his thinking to the next stage.
“And… this is still in the verification stage.”
The lieutenant commander’s voice dropped lower.
“The one called ‘Two’ displayed, early in the interrogation, a posture correction consistent with that of the imperial palace guard.”
This carried significant weight.
The lieutenant commander understood that weight.
“It is not confirmed. The possibility that it was a deliberate performance intended to mislead has not been ruled out.”
He cut the sentence cleanly, so it would not sound like an excuse.
Wi Saheon’s reaction was strangely absent.
“There is also the Senior Inspector’s view that they are not simply regional troops or mercenary-origin—”
“That is not an opinion. It is a fact.”
The Senior Inspector stepped forward and cut off the lieutenant commander’s words.
“The angle is similar to the foundational posture correction of the imperial palace defense forces. The training methods of the palace guard have never been made public, so deliberately mimicking them would be impossible.”
The silence stretched.
Wi Saheon’s gaze moved slowly toward the Senior Inspector — a look that did not so much cut as linger, as if briefly calculating.
The Senior Inspector felt tension accumulating from somewhere deep within his spine.
Even knowing that Wi Saheon’s silence was neither rebuke nor approval but simply his own time to organize his thoughts.
“…Mumyeongdan.”
When Wi Saheon finally spoke, he mentioned only the Mumyeongdan — paying no attention whatsoever to the fact of the imperial palace guard.
The Senior Inspector’s jaw muscles tightened.
That the Grand Bureau Chief had shifted the point of discussion to the Mumyeongdan was clearly intentional, but pressing further here would be a conflict of authority.
Instead, the Senior Inspector lowered his gaze and made his request plainly.
“Grand Bureau Chief, please grant me permission to observe all future interrogations as well.”
Waiting for an answer, the Senior Inspector slowly swallowed.
“…Two and Three, is it. Interesting.”
Wi Saheon rolled the words around in his mouth and shifted his gaze to the entrance of the Inspection and Trial Court.
He gave a small tilt of his chin.
It was a permission that carried no particular weight.
“From here on, I will conduct the interrogations myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lieutenant commander’s eyes widened in surprise.
The Grand Bureau Chief conducting direct interrogations was less a matter of technical necessity and more a declaration of intent.
There were typically three circumstances under which he moved personally.
When a case touched the core of the state. When the subject of interrogation held symbolic significance.
And—.
“Today’s interrogation does not need to be recorded.”
When records were not to be kept.
Meaning: the individuals known as Two and Three inside the interrogation room would not be handled within standard parameters.
The torture they had received up to now — broken fingers and torn flesh, days without sleep and starvation, limbs severed one by one — all of it fell within the category of measures taken to make a person open their mouth while still alive.
But the moment recording stopped, the standards themselves ceased to exist.
The Dark Bureau documented everything in meticulous detail: to what level of interrogation intensity had been authorized, how much of which substances had been administered, at what point psychological collapse had occurred, and how confession extraction and information retrieval had been conducted.
This served as evidence to be submitted to the Imperial Audit Office, as well as for the accumulation of data.
The Dark Bureau was as systematic an organization as its towering infamy would suggest.
But this was different.
What was about to take place would not be ordinary torture.
The lieutenant commander had witnessed an unrecorded interrogation exactly twice in his life.
One had been conducted on a would-be assassin who had attempted to kill a member of the direct imperial line.
The other had been on a spy embedded within the Dark Bureau itself.
Both had left the interrogation room alive.
However, the would-be assassin had emerged with his tongue, both eyes, both hands, and both ankles gone.
The internal spy had been dragged out howling in a beast-like state, no longer able to distinguish his own gender.
Whatever happened inside the interrogation room today would officially cease to exist.
Whether prohibited substances were administered, whether neural damage techniques banned even by the imperial household were employed, or wherever the remains were afterward discarded — in the records, nothing but a few characters reading interrogation concluded would remain.
That was the true nature of a direct interrogation by the Grand Bureau Chief.
And Wi Saheon had never had any qualms about breaking people.
“Seat him in the joint chair.”
The torture specialists, wiping sweat from their brows, brought out a chair of unusual construction in accordance with the Punishment Guard’s order.
Shin Yigyeom’s body, gone limp from the chest brace torture, was seated in it.
His knee, ankle, and wrist joints were each fixed to the chair, twisted at different angles from one another.
