“…Let go.”
Firm fingers dug into the resisting jawbone.
Shin Yigyeom’s knees buckled for a moment. Had he not been held in place, he would have collapsed right then and there.
Whoosh—.
The Executor’s longsword fell.
The metallic ring of blade cutting through air, the dull resistance of steel striking bone. At the end of a wet, tearing sound, something rolled across the ground.
And then, whatever had been rolling slowly came to a stop.
A chill swept across Shin Yigyeom’s forearms. The smell of blood seeped deep into his lungs.
His stomach churned, but Shin Yigyeom did not cover his mouth. He did not close his reddened eyes. He strained with everything he had not to miss a single moment of his friend’s end.
He stared until the very last — as someone who had chosen to be his witness — at Three’s severed head rolling in a wide pool of blood.
Gil Jaesik had been a man who drove a blade into the heart of the Daeryun Federal Empire. That fact would be remembered forever.
“It’s the individual who pays the price for the organization’s choices.”
Wi Saheon muttered without expression, and only then released Shin Yigyeom’s jaw.
“…….”
Shin Yigyeom’s teeth clenched together. The faint, metallic taste of blood spread from the inside of his lips. He glared at Wi Saheon’s face as though carving him in with a knife.
Shin Yigyeom’s eyes were sharp as the thin cut of a shattered glass shard. The pupils ringed in blue swelled and trembled with fierce intensity.
Wi Saheon felt like laughing. The groundless rebellion of a former Imperial Palace Guard, a conviction built on an illusion. It was nothing more than the end that awaited someone who had thrown themselves into such hollow things.
“This was an execution you consented to.”
Wi Saheon handed Shin Yigyeom’s chains over to the guard and stepped lightly up into the saddle.
Atop the black horse, the hem of his uniform shifted faintly. The silver thread embroidered thinly against a dark navy base caught the sunlight and gleamed.
As he led the Dark Bureau agents away from the scene, a haze of dust rose and the sound of hoofbeats grew distant.
Shin Yigyeom watched Wi Saheon’s retreating figure until the very end, his eyes still red-rimmed.
“Sogun.”
Wi Sagyun followed after Wi Saheon without hesitation. The wind, carrying the smell of blood, spread across the field.
“Do you think it will… work?”
Wi Sagyun pulled on the reins and drew alongside Wi Saheon.
“It will.”
Rather than glancing over, Wi Saheon slowly curled and uncurled the fingers gripping his reins once, steadying his pace to match.
“They can’t bring themselves to abandon their comrades.”
“Are you planning to execute Yunbaek the same way you did Three?”
“…Does the Imperial Brother have a better idea?”
He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. There was a faint smile threaded through the end of his words.
Wi Sagyun looked back.
Left behind beside that pool of blood, Shin Yigyeom looked all the more desolate — perhaps because of those large, moisture-filled eyes.
With every gust of wind, the faint metallic smell drifting from that direction seeped into the tip of his nose. Wi Sagyun gave a small shudder.
“If it’s the Dark Bureau’s decision, then there must be a reason for it.”
“If that’s how you see it.”
Wi Sagyun, who had barely managed to shake off the lingering image of Shin Yigyeom by squeezing his eyes shut, spoke.
“A letter came from the Three-Nation Alliance. We need to go directly to the inner council chambers.”
“Very well.”
Wi Saheon answered at ease and spurred his horse forward. Even on horseback, his straight spine never once faltered.
A commotion had broken out in the council hall of the imperial palace’s Bureau of State Affairs.
【The Three-Nation Alliance, which shares the same doctrine as the Baekah People, is closely watching the current detention and investigation process regarding Yunbaek, and demands that the full circumstances of this matter be made clearly known.
Furthermore, the Alliance requests that Yunbaek, as the party directly involved, be given the opportunity to attend an open session and personally state his position.
Should this not be accommodated, the Alliance wishes to make clear that the Empire’s unilateral disposition may be interpreted as an act that strips him of due opportunity for justification, and as religious persecution against a community of faith.】
“We cannot allow it! Accepting the demand for an open session will damage the Empire’s dignity.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs pushed back against the Minister of Military Affairs.
“And yet you would refuse? That will surely hand the Three-Nation Alliance exactly the justification they need.”
“What justification are you speaking of!”
The Emperor had not said a word since reading the letter.
Wi Saheon looked down over the chaos in the council hall. Ministers with flushed faces raising their voices, senior officials pounding the table. They spoke over one another, each demanding accountability and justification.
The council hall was like a furiously boiling cauldron, yet everything inside it looked very much the same. They spoke of diplomatic repercussions on the surface, but in the end what mattered to them was their own standing and interests.
In the midst of that heated debate, the one question that actually mattered went unspoken — why the Three-Nation Alliance, centered on its leading state, was moving at this particular moment, and for whom.
“I have one question.”
The sudden voice that cut through the noise drew every minister’s attention to Wi Saheon. As he crossed his legs, his trouser hems pulled taut around his calves, revealing military boots of a deep, dark black.
“On what charges has Yunbaek been indicted?”
After a brief pause, the Minister of Justice answered.
“Suspicion of treason and involvement in an illegal secret organization.”
“Any charges relating to religion?”
“…There are none.”
“Then.”
Wi Saheon leaned back deep into his chair. His was the face of someone deeply absorbed in thought — so much so that he seemed unaware that every gaze in the council hall had fallen on him.
“How does this constitute religious persecution?”
The question was simple, yet it instantly settled the atmosphere in the council hall. He was not a man who asked questions because he did not know the answers.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs cautiously interjected.
“It is because Yunbaek’s lineage is connected to the priestly line of the Baekah faith.”
“Is the lineage itself the issue?”
When Wi Saheon asked, the Minister of Justice cleared his throat.
“Not exactly — it is more that the Baekah religious order may designate Yunbaek’s lineage as a subject under their protection.”
“Very well. Then we simply need to make it so they cannot.”
The composure in his tone, as though he were settling plans for the following day, caused the expressions of several ministers to stiffen.
“…Grand Bureau Chief, the letter explicitly states that they demand Yunbaek be allowed to state his position. What they want is an open session. They are saying that Yunbaek must personally speak before an assembly with envoys from each nation in attendance. On the off chance that he fabricates some claim about having suffered religious persecution—”
“We stop him.”
Wi Saheon tapped the armrest with his fingertips. That brief gesture made it feel as though he considered the other man’s words not worth hearing further.
The Minister of State Affairs, carefully reading the room, asked.
“By chance, Grand Bureau Chief — do you have something up your sleeve? How do you intend to prevent the Baekah order from protecting Yunbaek’s lineage, and how do you intend to keep Yunbaek’s mouth in check?”
Wi Saheon did not answer immediately. It was only after running his long fingers along his jaw that he raised his gaze.
“The Baekah faith holds its priests as sacred. In particular, their burial sites are treated as sanctified ground.”
Compared to the ministers who were growing pale, Wi Saheon was composed to an almost unsettling degree. The faint curl of his lips. The expression that emerged when the outcome of a contest had already begun to tip in his favor.
“So — so what Your Excellency is saying right now is that you intend to excavate the sealed tombs of the priests? Is that correct?”
“Sogun. Is that meant to provoke a reaction from the religious order? Don’t you think the burden is too great?”
At Wi Sagyun’s pushback, Wi Saheon smiled. In his view, Wi Sagyun was so excessively cautious about everything that there were many times it was simply stifling.
Being consumed with protecting only what one already has means one can never expand one’s boundaries. There are times when you have to be prepared to lose something and make a decisive gamble.
“An investigation into whether the burials were unlawfully conducted, and a verification of whether religious authority has been privately inherited — both are entirely lawful actions carried out under the laws of Daeryun.”
The silver epaulettes on Wi Saheon’s dark uniform glinted coldly beneath the lamplight. He showed no hesitation, even knowing the shockwaves his words would cause.
“If it is confirmed that Yunbaek’s lineage is officially connected to the Baekah religious order, then the ‘religious persecution’ the Three-Nation Alliance speaks of cannot even be established. It would amount to a religious faction having protected a political criminal.”
The ministers swallowed dryly. Wi Saheon’s words were not wrong.
“The order will certainly push back. If unrest breaks out at the excavation site itself….”
The Emperor trailed off with a look of concern. He also had in mind to probe what Wi Saheon was envisioning as the next step.
Wi Saheon met the Emperor’s gaze head-on. Within his deep eyes, it was not the Emperor that was reflected — but the imperial throne.
“They will push back. They should.”
Wi Sagyun, who had kept his silence, raised his voice from the far end of the council table.
“If that pushback spreads beyond our borders, what does Sogun intend to do? As you well know, the Baekah faith spans the entirety of the Three-Nation Alliance. The moment the tomb excavation is understood as a violation of sacred ground, public sentiment will begin to waver. Does Sogun truly intend to say he has accounted for even that spark in his calculations?”
