IDMV 05

Chapter 05

Bukhyang Road was a famous bustling district in Cheonsan.
Every street corner was crowded with peddlers selling all kinds of goods and people who had come out for dinner.
Blending into the crowd, I headed for Sohyeongru.

The building was old, but spacious inside—a place where one could drink while listening to the sound of entertainers’ pipas.
As I entered, I saw people sharing drinks.

“Welcome. Do you have a party waiting for you?”
A quick-witted attendant appeared in front of me.

“I do.”

So as not to draw attention, I brought my index and middle fingers together and tapped the back of my other hand twice. The attendant’s eyes flashed, and he guided me to a separate room on the second floor. With a meaningful expression, he pushed me inside.

“Then please enjoy your time.”

The moment the door closed, suffocating silence pressed down on me.
The place was steeped in the smell of alcohol, like the scent of long-stored medicinal herbs.

A man sat at the table in the very center.
He did not even turn his head toward me.
That silence itself felt like an even heavier pressure.

He appeared to be in his mid to late twenties. His seated height matched my eye level—he had a large build. He wore black clothes, yet his face was fully visible. His refined jawline and high-bridged nose evoked the image of a northern tribesman, and his dark eyes felt like a mirror reflecting everything about me.

Judging by his face alone, he seemed intellectual, but his roughly tied hair and solid physique gave off the unmistakable air of a martial artist.

I was startled.
He looked far too different from the man I remembered.

Then again, I’ve changed even more.

With a silent chuckle, I stood before him.
Everything had changed, yet something remained the same.

“Eleventh Form (Sipil-hyeong).”

At the name, he set his cup down.
Slowly. Very quietly.

“Jeok Heerin.”

He knew who this body belonged to as well.

“A direct descendant of the Jeok family of Seolsan. Twenty-two years old. A cripple with no martial arts. A hidden fiancée of the Yeomhwa Clan, kept out of sight, never even showing her face.”

Instead of answering, I nodded.

“You wouldn’t have had even the freedom to move for the past ten years. So how do you know that code and my name?”

His gaze brimmed with hostility. One wrong answer, and he would kill me.

“I came to deliver a promise Cheongrin left behind.”

Sipil-hyeong’s eyes wavered. A brief silence passed, as though he were steadying his breath.

“…Cheongrin.”

He repeated the name as if savoring it. His gaze nearly collapsed, then sharpened once more.

“I never thought I’d hear that name again.”

Twisting his lips, he gave a shallow smile.

“What kind of relationship did you have with Cheongrin?”

Those pitch-black eyes sought to uncover my true identity.

“…I’m the same as you, Sipil-hyeong.”

At that moment, he inhaled sharply.

“I learned the secret code from her, and she advised me to faithfully play the role of a powerless fiancée.”

At those words, his gaze shook.
It was the same look the fifteen-year-old boy I had met thirteen years ago once had.

“Demonic Cult members are my enemies. I will enter their ranks and obtain the information needed to bring them down. Please trust me.”

With that cold, resolute declaration, the boy had downed poisoned liquor himself.
Even knowing he would suffer unless he received the antidote once every three months, he hadn’t hesitated for a second.

That was when I realized he truly hated the Demonic Cult.

Because of that, he was given the name Eleventh Form by Sangcheondang and sent to Cheonsan.
In truth, it was no different from being sent to his death.

I hoped the boy would not die in vain.
So I taught him the secret code I had created.

“This code is a signal between you and me alone. Someday, I’ll bring a perfect antidote.”

I hated Sangcheondang’s rule of forcing spies to drink poison. I wanted to free him someday.

My life as Cheongrin had ended, but that promise still lived on within me.
And now, the fully grown Sipil-hyeong stood before my eyes.

“Did Cheongrin send you?”
“Yes.”

It was a lie—but also the truth.

“Cheongrin… disappeared a long time ago. Jeok Heerin, how did you meet her?”

“I met her in Seolsan, before I came to the Yeomhwa Clan.”

The Jeok family of Seolsan was a mysterious lineage that rarely appeared in the martial world.
It wouldn’t have been strange for Cheongrin—wandering the world after losing her martial arts—to meet Heerin there.

At that moment, Sipil-hyeong rose to his feet.
The next instant, he stepped forward.

Unyeongbo (Cloud Shadow Step)!

It was a footwork technique mastered by Sangcheondang spies. He closed the distance in an instant.
A dagger in his hand brimmed with killing intent.

An assassination technique designed to subdue an opponent with minimal internal energy.
Sipil-hyeong was executing Sangcheondang techniques flawlessly.

Under normal circumstances, the dagger’s tip would have pierced my throat—but…

Before I knew it, my body had already retreated.
Avoiding that technique was as natural to me as breathing.

When I moved far more nimbly than expected, Sipil-hyeong raised an eyebrow.

“So it really is true—you learned from Cheongrin.”

True to his Sangcheondang roots, he had tested and doubted me.

Despite thirteen years having passed, the fact that he hadn’t forgotten what he’d been taught made me feel unexpectedly proud.
But simply passing his test wasn’t enough for me.

So I lightly kicked off the floor.

Using a movement technique that required almost no internal energy, Sangcheonseong, I flew straight toward him.

Sipil-hyeong reflexively tightened his grip on the dagger.
A swift arc cut through the air, lunging toward my neck.

I twisted my body on instinct, slipping out of his attack trajectory.

His movements were meticulous and sharp, befitting a Sangcheondang spy.
But every attack of his was predictable.

In the next instant, I executed my movement technique again, and my fingertips touched his arm precisely.
As his dagger missed its mark, I struck his wrist.

I snatched the dagger as it flew away and reversed it.
The blade stopped just in front of his chest.

I hadn’t infused it with killing intent, so it wasn’t a threatening act.
But the mere possibility—that I could stab him—tilted the balance decisively in my favor.

It had been a long time since I’d held the upper hand.

His chest rose. He had drawn in a breath without realizing it.

“How…?”

His sword eyebrow trembled, disbelief written plainly across his face.

Sipil-hyeong had a small habit—
a weakness I knew because I had personally trained him.

I had simply exploited that opening.

I couldn’t pierce him with this dagger, but my goal wasn’t to subdue him—it was to persuade him.

“I just did it the way Cheongrin would.”

“…Right. Cheongrin did things like that too.”

He muttered with a complicated expression.

Had he not used Sangcheondang martial arts, achieving this result would have been far more difficult.

Holding the dagger, I stepped closer to him. Then I picked up the purple clay teapot on the table and filled an empty cup.

“Do I seem qualified now to receive your information?”

“…Halfway. Not completely.”

As expected, Sipil-hyeong was deeply suspicious.

“Then I’ll have to earn the other half.”

Sitting across from him, I set the dagger aside for a moment, dipped my finger into the tea, and wrote words in secret code on the tabletop.

[Sipil-hyeong is from Cheonsan and met Cheongrin at age thirteen.]
[He underwent four months of special training and was then dispatched to the Demonic Cult.]

Seeing the code, Sipil-hyeong let out a dry laugh.

“Fine. I’ll accept your deal. But what will you give me in return? Payment for all information must be made in advance.”

His eyes sharpened. By deliberately reciting the rules of information trading I had taught him during my days as Cheongrin, it seemed he still hadn’t finished testing me.

“Cheongrin asked me to. She told me to keep the promise you made with her.”

During the time I wandered the martial world as a cripple, I had steadily researched antidote formulas.

“I know the formula for an antidote that can completely eliminate the poison in your body. If you provide the information I want, I’ll share the ingredients and formula with you, step by step.”

If taken over the course of a year, the medicine would free him entirely from the poison.

“Hmph. I don’t know what such an antidote would mean to someone like me, who entered Sangcheondang of his own will.”

Sipil-hyeong glared at me, clearly uninterested in the antidote.

“And besides, I have a duty to report the fact that you’re suspicious.”

He meant he would inform Sangcheondang about me—
and implied that if he judged me dangerous, he would kill me.

It was the model answer for a Sangcheondang agent. Unfortunately for him, his opponent was me.

“No. You can’t turn me in. And you’ll come to want that antidote.”

As I spoke, I picked up the dagger resting on the table.

Seeing Sipil-hyeong flinch and try to retreat, I swung the dagger across the tabletop.

The characters written in tea vanished, leaving only the words carved by the blade.

The instant he saw them, Sipil-hyeong froze.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as if his breath had caught in his throat.