“Have you arrived?”

“Excuse me.”

After being guided in, I went to find the Plum Blossom Commander. He greeted me with a face that looked tired somehow.

“You look like you’re having a rough time.”

“......Heh. How could it be anything but rough?”

Mount Hua’s Sect Master had collapsed. That was probably why he wore an expression like that.

Tsk.

But someone like me, who knew his true face and his hunger, wasn’t going to fall for it.

“I apologize for calling you in during a time like this. There wasn’t much to go on.”

“Of course I understand. It can’t be helped. Ah—Is the Sect Master all right?”

“......About that.......”

The Plum Blossom Commander couldn’t continue. Only after a brief silence brushed past did he speak to me again.

“It seems the HEAVEN-BREAKING PALACE people have pulled something....... I’m told he was poisoned.”

“......Poison.......”

I touched my chin with my hand, pretending to think.

“......You mean this is the work of an internal spy?”

“That’s right.”

GRAB—!

He clenched the letter on the desk in a tight fist.

“......Those vile bastards....... They definitely fed poison to the Sect Master.”

“.......”

CREEEEAK—

A sound. My eyes tipped downward. I could see the table and the furniture shaking like they’d gone insane.

The Plum Blossom Commander was using his presence to scatter qi in every direction.

The intention was simple.

To show that his emotions had flared.

To prove to me that his feelings were raging out of control.

Hmmm.

My gaze left him and drifted upward—toward Seongheon, wearing a complicated expression as a living spirit above him.

Even now.

Is this what you call atonement?

I couldn’t understand it.

Then—

“So.......”

Forcing his boiling °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° voice down, the Plum Blossom Commander spoke to me.

“Please...... I ask that you help us.”

“......Help you? I’m already helping, aren’t I?”

“It isn’t enough. The Sect Master has suffered calamity, too. Before anything else happens, we must tear out those bastards’ roots.”

“......What do you mean?”

“If Moon Knight shares our purpose, then please—share with us the information you know.”

“.......”

I narrowed my eyes. Sharing information—did he mean—

“You’re asking me to tell you about the double agent?”

He was asking me to share information about the one who fed me information.

“......The situation is what it is. There’s no time to hesitate.”

“No matter how you put it, that’s difficult.”

“Why? Do you suspect I’m a spy as well?”

“How could I dare. If I truly believed that, I wouldn’t be sitting here facing you.”

“Then why—”

“It’s for his safety. I need that secured first, so he can keep moving in the future.”

“......Even now, when Mount Hua has been thrown into crisis?”

Ha.

I swallowed a laugh down.

So this was his angle—getting emotional?

Mount Hua was in this much chaos, and I still wouldn’t talk?

“Yes. No matter how big Mount Hua’s crisis is, what needs doing still needs doing.”

Honestly, whatever happened to Mount Hua wasn’t my responsibility. I wasn’t a person of Mount Hua, so why would I weigh their circumstances over mine?

“I can’t tell you about the spy. I’m sorry.”

To begin with, it was impossible to tell him about a spy that didn’t even exist.

I can’t tell you something I don’t have to tell.

Should I say I used a ghost? As if.

“.......”

The Plum Blossom Commander’s gaze sharpened. At a glance it looked like he was glaring at me. No—maybe it wasn’t “at a glance.” Maybe it was real.

“......All right.”

Even if he glared, there was nothing he could do. In the end, the Plum Blossom Commander nodded.

“We’ll set the spy aside....... Now we’ll get to the point.”

The point. At that, I listened closely.

There was a reason he’d summoned me.

“You said you had something to say about the investigation.”

“That’s right.”

“What is it?”

“Do you remember the one who ambushed Moon Knight this time?”

“Ah. Yes. I remember.”

That martial hall master—the one who originally carried HEAVEN-BREAKING PALACE aura, but didn’t anymore. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

“We got information from him.”

“......What?”

I narrowed my eyes. Information?

From that guy?

He was the one whose aura had disappeared, who’d insisted he was being wronged.

I knew interrogation was underway, so I’d planned to meet him myself once this was over—

“You got information from him?”

From him?

“That’s right.”

“What information are you talking about?”

“Information about another base where the HEAVEN-BREAKING PALACE people are gathered.”

“.......”

After hearing that, my fingertips stung faintly.

......Information about a base?

That guy gave base information? How?

He said he didn’t know anything. A base?

I couldn’t make sense of it.

Of course.......

There was a pretext. If he’d come to ambush me, that martial hall master could have been a HEAVEN-BREAKING PALACE spy.

But—

......This.

My gut feeling turned ugly. The image of him screaming that it wasn’t him, the tone, the atmosphere—everything flickered in front of my eyes.

A chill crawled up my spine, and I asked.

“......Plum Blossom Commander.”

“What is it?”

“That man—after he spoke, what happened to him?”

With that cold feeling pressing on me, I asked. And then—

“......That.......”

The Plum Blossom Commander spoke with a pained expression.

“The same as the others. I was told that the moment he revealed the information, he died.”

“.......”

“Truly, they’re nothing but filth.”

Tap. Tap.

I lightly drummed my thigh with my fingers.

He died?

The innkeeper died. They said he revealed information and died from the aftermath.

......Really?

Like at the inn—did it happen to him, too?

But his aura was gone.

Not only had the HEAVEN-BREAKING PALACE aura faded, what I’d sensed from him wasn’t that at all.

Desperation. The grievance of someone who truly insisted it wasn’t him.

And he died?

......I don’t know......?

A bad feeling crawled over me.

This doesn’t feel like suicide.

Not suicide. Not death from the golden seal, either.

This was—

He was killed.

It felt like someone killed the man being interrogated. And the culprit was obviously the person sitting in front of me.

The reason.

It would be about the “information” he’d just mentioned.

“.......”

Something inside me hardened, cold.

Confessed? No chance.

“......If he revealed a base, does that mean you found out where it is?”

I spoke while forcing down the nauseating knot twisting in me.

The Plum Blossom Commander nodded.

“That’s right. A forest to the north, not within the county. He said they’ve set up a formation there and seem to be plotting something.”

“......The northern forest.......”

“So, I thought this investigation might head to the northern forest....... However, if the information network has something else to say, I’ll respect it.”

“.......”

The Plum Blossom Commander’s vile tongue brushed past my ear. Respect it? Don’t make me laugh.

So this is it.

I understood what he wanted. No—I’d known it before I came. It was just that now, I could feel it in my bones.

The moment he wants to remove me is now.

The Plum Blossom Commander’s target was me. With Seongheon collapsed, the next thing that got in his way was me. It looked like he meant to wipe me out entirely.

Fine. I’d been expecting that old man to move soon anyway, so this wasn’t a surprise.

But—

“Commander, I have one question.”

“What is it?”

“The child who came in with the martial hall master who killed himself—wasn’t there one?”

“That’s right. A pitiful kid.”

“......What did you do with that child?”

“What do you mean, what did I do?”

The Plum Blossom Commander looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“The father died, so I was wondering what happened to the child.”

“......Ahahaha.”

The Plum Blossom Commander let out a laugh.

“Moon Knight really is a chivalrous hero, just like the rumors say. I never thought you’d even worry about the child of someone who tried to harm you.”

“The child didn’t do anything wrong.”

That was true for most children.

“Don’t worry about the child. The father’s sin is deep, but that doesn’t mean Mount Hua ignores a child like that. Depending on circumstances, we’re even considering taking the child in as a disciple.”

“......A criminal’s child.”

“The child has no sin.”

He smiled as he said it, and I nodded with a blank face.

“I see.”

After letting that single word fall, I continued while looking at the Plum Blossom Commander.

“All right. The investigation into that northern base—when do we leave?”

“We plan to proceed with the investigation tonight.”

“......I’ll remember. I’ll see you then.”

I turned away. We didn’t need to talk any longer.

Questions about his method and intention could wait. There was something I had to look at first.

*****

The place I went after leaving the Plum Blossom Commander’s quarters was the interrogation room.

Calling it an interrogation room was generous—it looked like they’d just remodeled a training room and were using it.

“Please, come in.”

I was guided by a disciple who’d been on guard. Since I’d been given full authority, getting into places like this was easy.

CREEEEAK—

I opened the door and stepped inside.

There wasn’t anything special inside. Even though this was “interrogation,” there was only one table, nothing else worth mentioning.

Looking at that, I asked the disciple.

“What did you do with the body?”

“The body?”

The expression said, Why are you asking that? But answering wasn’t a problem.

“We’re preserving it after basic handling. If no further issues are discovered...... we plan to preserve it as much as possible and hand it over to the family.”

“......I see.”

“Yes. Is there anything else you’d like to confirm?”

“I don’t see anything in particular, but I’ll check a little more before I go.”

“Ah, yes. Then.”

The disciple bowed and left. After sending the disciple out, I examined the interrogation room alone.

No—“alone,” but the Small Moon Unit Leader was at my side.

“What did you come to see?”

“Just looking around.”

With a blank face, I checked the surroundings. An interrogation room with no traces of anything.

Yeah.

There’s nothing.

And that was what made it stranger—because it was so clean it was almost shocking.

As if someone had cleared everything out.

The Small Moon Unit Leader was looking at me like I was weird for coming all the way here to see this.

But unlike him, who couldn’t see anything—

I could see something with unbearable clarity.

[......Look at it cry like that.]

Yoo Cheongil clicked his tongue as he stared somewhere.

Seongheon did the same. He stared at one spot with a darkened expression.

And—

I was looking at that place, too.

—Khhuhh....... Huuuuuuh.

In the corner, a half-transparent human shape was slumped down.

—Why....... Why would Mount Hua.......

The man curled up, shedding tears of blood, was the one who had ambushed me.

—I...... I really didn’t do anything....... Why.......

A soul packed with resentment, right on the edge of turning into a malicious ghost.

Looking at him, I became certain.

......So.

It seems my guess was right.

The Plum Blossom Commander—

crossed the line.

The moment that thought rose, the trembling that had been building inside me turned quiet in an instant.

In that quiet—empty of everything—

I have to kill him.

Killing intent bloomed.

“......!”

So clear it startled even me.