The air was heavy and foul.
They called it an interrogation room, but in truth it was a torture chamber. Shackles and chains hung from the walls, and on one side, torture implements were laid out across a long table as though on display.
Just where were they planning to stab with iron needles of so many different thicknesses?
Sharp saws and daggers, and all manner of other unpleasant tools whose purposes she could not guess.
And the brazier and branding irons set beside the table were certainly not there for roasting sweet potatoes.
The moment Gwak Yeong saw them, her whole body trembled of its own accord. It was not a fear she could suppress by will.
She forced her gaze elsewhere, only to see red stains on the floor this time. Looking closely, she realized it was blood.
No matter how strong one’s temperament, it was difficult to remain composed in such an atmosphere. She could not shake the fear that she might be tortured, die miserably in the end, and be buried in the back yard.
But soon she slapped her own cheeks, hard.
“Get a hold of yourself, Gwak Yeong! This is the path you chose.”
On the first day she had met that man, when she had been able to get away through the White Dragon Unit Leader, she had not fled then and there. Nor had she informed them.
Going back to the tea house to meet that man had been entirely her own choice. It was the conclusion she had reached after staying up all night.
Why had she done it?
When she had looked back while walking after the White Dragon Unit Leader, he had been staring at her.
With an indifferent gaze that revealed no emotion.
Perhaps it had been because of that indifferent expression he had shown in a situation where it would have been understandable for him to display irritation or anger. In that situation, whether he had gotten angry or laughed, either would have made her feel awful.
Right then—
Creeeeak.
She flinched at the sound of the iron door opening. Her heart pounded as though it would burst.
The thick iron door opened, and two people stepped inside. Disappointment brushed across her heart. She had hoped he would come in, but the ones who entered were Branch Leader Ho Myeong and a subordinate.
“If you do as instructed, it won’t take long.”
At Ho Myeong’s words, Gwak Yeong pleaded.
“Please call the man from earlier.”
“He is an honored person.”
“Then call that honored person. I’ll tell him everything.”
Gwak Yeong felt it instinctively. She must not speak to these people.
What would happen if she revealed everything?
They would obtain all the information and then kill her. Yes, they were demons; they were more than capable of doing that.
That was why she had to stake her fate not on them, but on that man from earlier. She had to receive a promise from him.
But Ho Myeong did not listen to her.
He took a small bottle from his robe and placed it on the table before her.
“Drink it.”
“What is this?”
“A confession drug.”
Though she had not learned martial arts, she worked at the Murim Alliance. She had heard rumors about this confession drug.
“I’ve heard that those who try to resist confessing to the end can die from the side effects, or be left crippled.”
Ho Myeong nodded. There were many kinds of side effects. Someone might simply be unlucky and die even after spilling everything smoothly, and as she said, the side effects appeared more readily in those who refused to reveal the truth.
“There aren’t many people with that level of will.”
“There’s one right in front of you.”
Gwak Yeong was not bluffing. She truly had no intention of telling these people, and she trusted her own will. That was why she was genuinely worried she might die from the side effects.
“You don’t want me to die either, do you?”
Gwak Yeong forced herself to shake off her fear and tried to stand firm.
“So please call him.”
Of course, it did not work on Ho Myeong. He could have sealed her paralysis acupoints and forced her to drink it, but Ho Myeong did not do so.
At his glance, the subordinate who had entered with him lit the brazier and set a branding iron atop it.
Sssssss.
A moment later, the branding iron glowed red-hot.
“Don’t think you can scare me with fire. I’ve helped with work in the forge since I was young, so I’m not afraid of fire. It’s practically a friend of mine.”
“It will hurt all the more if you suffer at a friend’s hands.”
When Ho Myeong gave the order with his eyes, the subordinate picked up the branding iron and approached her.
He brought the branding iron toward her face. The part of the body that could most certainly terrify a person was the face. Especially if that person was a woman.
But Gwak Yeong did not close her eyes. Nor did she scream. She stared at the approaching branding iron, eyes wide open, teeth clenched.
Just before the branding iron touched her face—
A voice came from behind.
“Wait.”
Fortunately, the branding iron stopped before it seared her face.
The person standing before the open iron door was Geom Muyang.
When he stepped inside, the subordinate holding the branding iron left, and only Ho Myeong remained.
Geom Muyang walked over and stood before her.
“Why did you ask them to call me?”
Geom Muyang had heard her words from outside the door. He could tell by instinct. No torture would make her say what they wanted to hear.
With resolve like this, she would truly die from the confession drug’s side effects, just as she had said.
“I told you in the carriage. That I staked my life and fate on you.”
Geom Muyang’s reaction remained cold.
“What do you know about me?”
“I told you I trust my instincts.”
Looking at the confession drug in front of her, Geom Muyang said,
“Drink it.”
Gwak Yeong looked down at the confession drug with trembling eyes, then picked it up.
Then she opened the stopper and, staring into Geom Muyang’s eyes, drank it down in one go.
After a short while, her face flushed red as the drug began to take effect.
Now the questioning began in earnest.
“Why did you approach me?”
It was not something he could rule out—the possibility that she had deliberately approached him.
“You were the one who approached me. You came to my seat, didn’t you?”
Her voice was languid, as though she had just woken from sleep.
“Were you not ordered to approach me?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then why did you come to the tea house again the next day?”
Gwak Yeong’s eyes were unfocused and hazy.
“I thought you might be able to help me.”
“Why?”
“It was a feeling. I thought, thank goodness this is the person who came to catch me.”
Gwak Yeong frowned slightly and said,
“Is this what it feels like to take a confession drug? I’m dizzy, and my stomach feels so sick.”
Ordinarily, one answered under the influence of the confession drug while unconscious.
The fact that she recognized she had taken the drug meant her mental strength was extraordinary. At the very least, in the current situation, that was not a good sign.
Geom Muyang looked down at her in silence for a moment.
Gwak Yeong smiled faintly and said something unexpected.
“You’re handsome.”
Geom Muyang snorted with an expression of disbelief.
“Don’t just ask me questions. I want to ask one too. This scar—is it very ugly?”
She was not in her right mind. She had begun saying whatever came to her unconsciously.
“Don’t laugh at me. This is my scar of honor. Do you know how scared I was back then? Do you?”
Drip.
Blood flowed from her nose.
“Huh? I’m bleeding. I didn’t lie, but I’m bleeding.”
Ho Myeong spoke quickly.
“The side effects are starting to appear.”
“Give her the antidote.”
“Yes.”
Ho Myeong fed Gwak Yeong the antidote. It was medicine that dispelled the effects of the confession drug.
After some time passed, Gwak Yeong regained her senses.
“What happened?”
“The side effects appeared, so we gave you the antidote.”
At the thought that she had narrowly survived, she felt relieved.
“Thank you.”
“It is not over yet.”
“No, it’s all over. When I went to find you the next day, it was already all over. The only thing left is whether you will make a promise with me or not.”
“What promise?”
Earlier, in the carriage, she had said that since she had not fired the Jingyeok, she wanted him to make her one promise.
“Please save them.”
Naturally, he had thought she meant herself.
“Please save my younger sibling.”
Only now did Geom Muyang understand why she had made the counterfeit hidden weapon. Why she had come to him and struggled to obtain such an absurd promise. She had not been trying to save herself.
“My younger sibling is being held hostage by them.”
She clenched both fists tightly.
“After my parents died, that child was the only family I had left. There’s no one kinder in the world.”
One question naturally arose.
“Why didn’t you tell the Murim Alliance?”
If she was an artisan of the Murim Alliance’s forge, the Alliance would have moved to save her sibling.
“They told me there was someone on their side in a high position within the Murim Alliance. They said no matter how secretly I reported it to the Alliance, they would find out first in the end.”
“And you believed that?”
She seemed clever enough not to believe it easily.
Then she said something astonishing.
“I had no choice but to believe it. Because the place where I heard those words was my residence in the inner court of the Murim Alliance.”
If outsiders could freely enter and leave the inner court of the Murim Alliance, it meant that, just as they had said, someone high-ranking was involved.
“They said if I made it for them just once, they would release my sibling and never come looking for me again.”
She let out a sigh of regret.
“They broke their promise. Stupid me. It was a promise they never intended to keep in the first place.”
The fact that they had not released her sibling meant they intended to force her to make other hidden weapons.
“You asked why I staked my fate on you? Because I couldn’t keep getting dragged around by them. Even if I did, in the end, they would kill my sibling. I became certain of that when I saw them break their promise this time.”
With an expression that said she had judged correctly, Geom Muyang gave a slight nod.
“You can use me, or kill me. You can sear me with that branding iron, or make me drink ten bottles of confession drug. I’ll tell you everything I know. In return, please save my sibling.”
She did not hide her feelings. She thought that with this man, it would be better to be honest than to resort to shallow tricks.
“I should be negotiating with you using the information I know, but you people are too frightening. I can’t do it.”
Geom Muyang did not answer.
Gwak Yeong pleaded again.
“Even if the Demon Cult is bloodless and tearless, you must have siblings too, don’t you? If you do, you can understand how I feel, can’t you?”
Geom Muyang, who had remained silent all along, spoke to her.
“I am someone who once wished my younger sibling would die.”
For a moment, Gwak Yeong flinched.
“Please pretend you didn’t hear what I just said.”
She pleaded in another way.
“Then for the rest of my life, I’ll work under your orders and make anything you tell me to make. I don’t know how high your position is, but if you take me with you, you’ll even get promoted.”
Ho Myeong, who had been watching, laughed silently.
“My career is ruined anyway. I’ve sullied the honor of the Murim Alliance’s forge, so how could I live on as an artisan? I’ll make things for you. You saw it, didn’t you? That little Jingyeok? I made that myself too. I’ll make anything you want.”
Still, Geom Muyang said nothing.
In the end, Gwak Yeong burst out,
“You heartless man! If someone begs this much, you could at least promise, even if it’s an empty one!”
Geom Muyang said bluntly,
“I do not make promises I will not keep.”
Yes. Because she had sensed he was that kind of person, she had made this gamble.
“If you don’t help me, I’ll die, become a ghost, and appear in your dreams every night to torment you.”
She tried threatening him like this and appealing to his goodness too. Appealing to the goodness of a demon.
“If you’re not the type to help others, then help someone just once in your life. Who knows? When you fall into hell, King Yama might forgive you because of that good deed.”
But Geom Muyang did not budge. She realized that this impregnable fortress would not collapse from her pleading or persuasion.
‘Right, I must be insane. A demon is just a demon. Some instinct that was.’
She silently looked down at the back of her hand for a moment.
“Do you know what really makes me angry? It’s that all of this happened because of my efforts. The effort of coming out alone at night and hammering away without even sleeping—those efforts ended up becoming efforts to kill my sibling. I’m so angry and wronged.”
She had endured even when the heated branding iron was about to sear her face, but at last, for the first time, a single tear dropped from her eye. The fallen tear ran hotly over the burn scar on the back of her hand.
‘I’m sorry. This older sister is sorry. Still, even if you’re born again, please be born as my sibling again. Then I will never become an artisan or anything like it. I’m sorry, truly.’
It was truly a misfortune that had come upon her life like a natural disaster.
But as if to say that the world did not hold only misfortune like natural disasters, a quiet sentence reached her ears.
“I will save your sibling.”
Gwak Yeong jerked her head up. Geom Muyang had spoken only that one sentence and added nothing more. That was why Gwak Yeong could understand. This man truly kept his promises.
Geom Muyang gave Ho Myeong an order.
“Take the rest of her statement concerning those people in detail. Do not leave out a single thing.”
“Yes, understood.”
Then Geom Muyang turned and walked toward the iron door.
Just before he opened the door and left, Gwak Yeong shouted after him.
“Why?”
It might not have been wise to ask the reason when he had agreed to save them, but she was too curious.
Without looking back, Geom Muyang left behind words she had never expected.
“Let’s just say it’s because good iron came in today.”