Chapter 16

The quarters of Im Sayeol and the instructors were made by renovating a naturally formed cave.

It was located on the opposite side of the area where Pyo Wol stayed, and its entrance boasted an ironclad guard.

The instructors dispatched here took turns standing guard themselves. Because of this, no one dared to even think of infiltrating the place.

It was the instructors who had taught the children Stealth Skill and Infiltration. Therefore, the instructors also knew the countermeasures best.

The instructors guarded the surroundings with sharp eyes.

As the children’s skills improved by leaps and bounds, the instructors had especially strengthened their guard. They believed there wouldn’t be a brat audacious enough to sneak in here, but since one never knew what could happen in the world, they never let their guard down.

However, they did not know.

That there was a figure moving deftly along the boundary of their perceptual field.

The one approaching without a sound or a presence was none other than Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol was simultaneously employing the Stealth Skill and the Breath Concealment Art.

Originally, to use the Breath Concealment Art, one had to remain as still as a corpse, almost completely halting the body’s biological activities. It literally meant maintaining only the minimum breath required to sustain life.

Moving was, of course, out of the question.

The instructors who taught the Breath Concealment Art naturally understood it this way, and the children who learned from them used it as they were taught. But Pyo Wol was different.

After learning the Breath Concealment Art, Pyo Wol always had a question.

Why couldn’t one move while using the Breath Concealment Art, and was it truly impossible to use the Breath Concealment Art while moving?

He pondered how he could move while using the Breath Concealment Art.

For the human body to move, it had to breathe.

No matter how much of an Expert of Internal Energy one was, they could not live without breathing.

The larger the movement, the more breath it required.

The Breath Concealment Art was a technique to hide one’s presence by reducing the body’s vital signs by making one’s breath as long and thin as possible.

Therefore, moving while using the Breath Concealment Art was impossible.

Pyo Wol pondered and tried countless times, but only met with repeated failure.

Then one day, he found a breakthrough.

The breakthrough was the Thunderclap Mind Method.

He had the idea of what would happen if he finely divided his breath through the Thunderclap Mind Method.

If he couldn’t move while holding his breath anyway, he might as well finely divide his breath to a point where others couldn’t feel it and maintain it continuously. Pyo Wol’s thought was that this would allow him to lower his body’s vital signs to rock bottom and also make movement possible.

Pyo Wol immediately put his thoughts into practice.

It wasn’t easy at first.

Finely dividing his breath to a near-halted state brought a great burden to Pyo Wol’s body. Moreover, moving while maintaining such a fine breath placed an even greater burden on him.

But Pyo Wol did not give up and kept trying. After countless attempts, at some point, he became able to move while using the Breath Concealment Art.

He had succeeded several times against the children, but this was his first time using it against the instructors, so he couldn’t help but be tense.

He had to maintain his Stealth Skill while using the Breath Concealment Art.

The pressure was bound to be several times greater.

Pyo Wol moved while simultaneously using the Breath Concealment Art and Stealth Skill.

The instructors were staring ahead with their eyes wide open, but they didn’t notice Pyo Wol passing by at all.

This was because Pyo Wol was deftly moving along the boundary of their perceptual field.

Most people think they perceive everything they see, but that was impossible in the first place.

Except for the area in focus, one merely sees the rest, and unless there is a peculiar movement, the brain does not perceive it.

A blind spot that one fails to perceive even while looking right at it.

Pyo Wol moved using this blind spot.

Pyo Wol passed between the instructors like a ghost.

The instructors did not perceive at all that Pyo Wol had passed between them.

Pyo Wol seeped into the cave without a sound.

Perhaps because the guard at the entrance was so tight, the security inside was less than expected. Still, Pyo Wol did not let his guard down.

This place was a death trap.

If he let his guard down for even a moment and his presence was exposed, he would immediately face a joint attack from the instructors.

No matter how Unrivaled Pyo Wol’s abilities were among the children, he could not survive turning so many instructors into enemies.

Pyo Wol had that much of a cold assessment of his own abilities.

Somewhere between Im Sayeol and the instructors.

That was Pyo Wol’s evaluation of his own Martial prowess.

Pyo Wol, with his senses on high alert, searched for Im Sayeol’s quarters.

Im Sayeol’s quarters were located in the deepest part of the cave.

Fortunately, Im Sayeol seemed to be away, as he was nowhere to be seen.

Pyo Wol began to rummage through Im Sayeol’s quarters.

Pyo Wol wanted to escape this place. To escape the noose that was tightening around him, the first priority was to understand the instructors and the organization they belonged to.

If he could find out who the Unit Leader was and where their base was, he would be able to escape the noose more easily.

But no matter how much he searched Im Sayeol’s quarters, no documents related to the instructors came out.

Instead, what he found was a letter with a request written on it.

[Personal letter to the Bloody Shadows Guild Leader

Requesting the Assassination of Gun-sang.

Period—Seven years.

Payment—Five hundred thousand Nyang of Gold.

Condition—Do not leave any trace related to the Bloody Shadows Guild.]

‘Gun-sang?’

Pyo Wol furrowed his brow.

He did not know what kind of person this Gun-sang, written on the assassination request letter, was.

He wondered just how great a person he was to warrant raising Assassins for a request period of a full seven years.

To kill one person, Gun-sang, more than two hundred and seventy children had died.

He wondered if that one life was truly as valuable as the combined lives of two hundred and seventy, no, the three hundred children who had entered this place.

It was then.

Ssk!

He felt a presence from the cave outside the door.

Pyo Wol hurriedly returned the letter to its original place and left the room.

A figure could be seen walking this way from the cave entrance.

It was hard to make out the shape due to the darkness, but Pyo Wol recognized him as Im Sayeol, the owner of this room.

Im Sayeol possessed Martial Arts far superior to the other instructors. His senses were just as keen.

He was not a man so easy to fool with the simultaneous use of the Breath Concealment Art and Stealth Skill.

There was no time to think.

Pyo Wol immediately leaped up to the ceiling.

The artificially smoothed ceiling was so slick there wasn’t a single crack to stick a finger into. Even if he raised his Internal Energy to drive his fingers into the wall, it would inevitably make a sound.

Im Sayeol’s nerves were not so dull as to miss a sound echoing right next to him.

Pyo Wol hooked his fingernails into a tiny groove.

He was literally supporting his entire body weight with a single fingernail.

He couldn’t even make a sound of breathing. The moment his breath became even slightly rough, Im Sayeol would notice.

Pyo Wol, supporting his entire body with one fingernail, looked down at his feet.

Im Sayeol was passing right beneath him.

As if he felt something strange, he looked around. But perhaps because he didn’t think someone would be hanging from the ceiling, he didn’t look up.

Pyo Wol focused all his nerves on his fingertips.

The old him would not have been able to hold on with just the strength of one finger like this.

After So Yeowol’s advice, Pyo Wol had abandoned the sword and devoted himself to training his bare hands. As he practiced the nameless Sword Art with his bare hands, his grip strength and the delicate senses of his fingers had risen to a level incomparable to before. That was why he could perform such a feat, close to a stunt.

Beneath Pyo Wol’s feet, Im Sayeol furrowed his brow deeply.

Although he had retired from the front lines, his instincts were not yet dead. The instincts honed over decades of activity as an Assassin were warning him that something was wrong.

But he couldn’t tell what exactly it was.

Im Sayeol scanned his surroundings once more. But he couldn’t find anything strange.

“Am I imagining things?”

Im Sayeol shook his head, opened the door, and went inside. But the moment he entered the room, the sense of unease he felt grew even thicker.

His gaze turned sharp.

Im Sayeol hurriedly scanned the room. At first glance, nothing had changed. But as the owner of the room, he could feel it. Something had subtly changed.

“Someone was here.”

Without his permission, not only the instructors but also I-geom and Sam-geom could not enter his quarters.

The sense of incongruity he had felt just a moment ago was definitely not his imagination.

Bang!

Im Sayeol kicked the door open and went out.

As a loud noise echoed through the quiet cave, several instructors came running out in surprise.

“What is it?”

“An intruder was in my room. They couldn’t have completely escaped the cave yet, so find them quickly.”

“What?”

A look of disbelief appeared on the instructors’ faces.

There was only one entrance to this place. And the entrance was always guarded by instructors in rotation. It was hard to accept the fact that someone could have infiltrated through such an ironclad security net.

But they knew better than anyone that Im Sayeol was not a man who would lie.

“Who would dare enter Il-geom-nim’s quarters without permission?”

“Could it be the children?”

The only ones here who would infiltrate Im Sayeol’s quarters without permission were the children.

The instructors’ faces turned deathly pale.

They hurriedly searched the inside of the cave. But no matter how thoroughly they searched, the intruder did not appear.

They interrogated those guarding the cave entrance, but they too said they had not seen anyone come out.

Some whispered that Im Sayeol might have been mistaken, but those who knew him well would never think such a thing.

The most thorough and sensitive person here was Im Sayeol. If Im Sayeol said there was an intruder, there must have been an intruder.

“Who on earth?”

The problem was who had infiltrated this place.

Although the instructors searched thoroughly, no evidence was found to identify the intruder.

Im Sayeol summoned I-geom Gu Shin-haeng and Sam-geom Sang Il-shin to his quarters.

“Do you really mean to say one of the children infiltrated this place?”

“Who on earth?”

Their expressions were grave.

They had thought that someday, when the children’s achievements grew, a moment of rebellion might surely come.

Anyone would inevitably harbor resentment if they were treated so inhumanely and abused like this.

They had placed a certain Restriction in preparation for that time, but the children’s achievements and rebellion had occurred much faster than they had anticipated.

It was a very serious problem.

If the children rebelled before being deployed on a mission, the efforts of the past six years would all go to waste.

They had to suppress the children’s rebellion before that.

Gu Shin-haeng asked Im Sayeol.

“Do you have anyone in mind?”

“Pyo Wol!”

“Pardon? But he…”

“There is no one who has shown greater achievement in Infiltration than him.”

“Hmm!”

“It must be him.”

Im Sayeol was certain.

There was no evidence whatsoever, but his instincts were telling him.

“This is absurd. While everyone is chasing him, he was infiltrating this place.”

“We’ve been thoroughly robbed by a housebreaker, it seems.”

Shame appeared on the faces of Gu Shin-haeng and Sang Il-shin.

They were accepting Im Sayeol’s speculation as a fact.

If they left him alone like this, he might look down on the instructors even more and challenge them. Before that, they had to find Pyo Wol and punish him.

The problem was that they didn’t know where Pyo Wol was hiding now.

It was Pyo Wol, whom all the children had pounced on but failed to find. The instructors, who had retired from the front lines, could not be confident that their tracking skills were superior to the children’s.

Im Sayeol looked at the two with sharp eyes.

“If we leave Pyo Wol alone like this, a big problem will surely arise.”

“But we don’t have any concrete evidence that he entered this place, do we? Punishing him without evidence is certainly burdensome. We’re also concerned about the backlash from the other children…”

“That’s why we must deal with him. Instead, we must direct the children’s backlash towards Pyo Wol.”

“How do you mean? Surely not?”

Sang Il-shin looked at Im Sayeol in surprise.

Im Sayeol nodded his head.

“That’s right! I’m thinking of using the Hell Flute.”

“But that is the final Restriction…”

“It’s time to let not only Pyo Wol but all the children know. Who it is that holds their lives. Who their true master is.”

“Hmm!”

“It’s a process we have to go through once anyway. It’s not a bad idea to take this opportunity to break the spirit of not only Pyo Wol but all the children.”

Im Sayeol’s eyes glinted eerily.

Gu Shin-haeng and Sang Il-shin looked at each other’s faces. And they nodded at the same time.

As Im Sayeol said, the atmosphere among the children had been unusual lately. It didn’t seem like a bad idea to confirm who was superior at this point.

Im Sayeol asked.

“Do you agree to the use of the Hell Flute?”

“I agree.”

“I agree as well.”

“Then let’s use it now. Bring it.”

“Yes!”

Gu Shin-haeng got up from his seat and went to his room. In his hand when he returned a moment later was a jet-black jade flute.

He handed the jade flute to Im Sayeol.

Im Sayeol, who received the jade flute, took the two men and went outside the cave.

Upon exiting the entrance, a huge underground cavern came into view.

Though not visible to the eye, the children were in Stealth in every nook and cranny of that place.

“I will show you hell.”

Im Sayeol brought the Hell Flute to his lips.

“……”

In that moment, an inaudible sound echoed through the underground cavern.