While Kim Muhyuk was busy running back and forth between the unorthodox faction and the orthodox faction.

Shin Kangheon arrived at the Martial Alliance early in the morning and headed straight for the White Tiger Unit.

“.......”

“.......”

From the moment he stepped into the building, an awkward current began to flow. It felt like what Shin Junhyun had come and said yesterday had spread everywhere in a single day.

Shin Kangheon didn’t care, and greeted the people coming and going first.

“Good morning.”

But the people who had exchanged friendly greetings with him yesterday were now busy forcing awkward smiles or avoiding his eyes.

‘He looks even more like him with that serious face.’

‘After the accident, I thought his uncle took him right away... so that wasn’t it?’

‘How many people actually know what happened back then? Still... poor kid. A child, not knowing anything...’

‘Everyone, shut up. Until he finishes talking with the Commander and comes out, don’t run your mouths.’

Now and then, he could hear murmured conversations from far away, but Shin Kangheon didn’t pay attention.

To those people, it was something he could ask about after he met the White Tiger Unit commander first.

A little later.

When Shin Kangheon arrived in front of the commander’s office, he took a deep breath and knocked.

KNOCK KNOCK—

He’d told Kim Muhyuk he was about to flip the Martial Alliance upside down right away, but right now, Shin Kangheon’s mind was calm enough to surprise even himself.

“This is probationary new alliance member Shin Kangheon. I came because I have something I’d like to ask you, Commander—”

“Come in.”

A short, concise answer—yet the voice sounded tired somehow.

Shin Kangheon glared at the door silently for a moment, then opened it and stepped inside.

The White Tiger Unit commander he saw again after just one day looked extremely worn out. With a dark shadow sunk beneath their eyes, they received Shin Kangheon.

“......You came back sooner than I expected.”

“Yesterday, things were hectic, so I wasn’t able to greet you properly before I left. I’m Shin Kangheon, a new recruit of the White Tiger Unit.”

The White Tiger Unit commander stared at Shin Kangheon’s face as he performed a fist-palm salute with a blank expression, then nodded.

“Sit. Want a cup of coffee?”

“No. My head’s very clear right now.”

“......Young, huh.”

An awkward silence flowed between the two of them as they sat facing each other.

Before bringing up the main topic, Shin Kangheon studied the White Tiger Unit commander closely.

A middle-aged martial artist with rugged features, looking like someone who’d been through every kind of battlefield hell.

As if proving it, countless scars were carved into the body visible outside their clothes—and the most striking was a long scar across the back of their hand, like a worm had writhed its way past.

“This what you’re looking at?”

Sensing Shin Kangheon’s gaze, the White Tiger Unit commander rolled up their sleeve, revealing a scar that ran long from the back of the hand up to the shoulder. It was far more horrific than what had been visible above the cuff.

“......If your luck had been worse, you might not be able to use that arm.”

“Yeah. If it hadn’t been for Jaehyun, I’d have ended up a one-armed man for life.”

“My father?”

When Shin Kangheon asked with wide eyes, the White Tiger Unit commander nodded silently.

“One rainy day, we got ambushed by enemies. We barely managed to beat them back, but...... a blade raked deep across here. When I realized I couldn’t feel anything in my arm, I was ready to give up.”

As if recalling that day, a faint smile filled with longing formed at the corner of the White Tiger Unit commander’s mouth.

“Jaehyun threw me on his back and ran to the hospital like a madman. Even though he was bleeding way more than I was.”

Hearing a story about his father for the first time, Shin Kangheon felt his chest go prickly and warm. But at the same time, his questions only grew.

“Then why......?”

“Before I tell you what you want to know, there’s something I want to show you first.”

The White Tiger Unit commander took something out of a drawer and carefully set it down in front of Shin Kangheon.

“I went home last night and brought it. If you didn’t come after a few days, I was going to go find you myself and give it to you, but.......”

They were a few faded photographs.

A commemorative photo in front of the Martial Alliance main gate, with White Tiger Unit martial artists linking arms.

People in swimsuits, fooling around and running on a beach.

Shin Jaehyun, at a team dinner, getting pleasantly drunk and belting out a song with a spoon stuck in a soju bottle.

And finally, a man and a woman at a wedding, beaming brightly while surrounded by guests.

Shin Kangheon’s parents were there.

“.......”

As Shin Kangheon stared into the photos like someone whose soul had been knocked loose, the White Tiger Unit commander asked carefully.

“Is this your first time seeing photos of your parents?”

“......I’ve seen them before. But they were all pictures of my father when he was much younger than this.”

The photos his uncle had shown him were all pictures taken when the brothers were kids.

He’d asked, regretting it, whether there were any photos from after he’d grown up, but the only answer he’d gotten back was that his uncle had gone overseas to work as soon as he became an adult, so there were no photos of them together.

And even then, it had only been photos of his father—so this was the first time he was seeing his mother’s face.

“Ah.......”

Without realizing it, Shin Kangheon reached out to touch the photos with his parents in them, then flinched. He lifted his head and looked at the White Tiger Unit commander.

The White Tiger Unit commander smiled faintly and nodded.

“Take them. I brought them from the start to give to you.”

“......Thank you.”

The White Tiger Unit commander watched Shin Kangheon carefully tuck the small stack of photos against his chest, then let out a quiet sigh.

“It wasn’t just me. A lot of people were helped by him. Deputy Commander Shin Jaehyun of the White Tiger Unit...... was someone we couldn’t do without.”

After a brief pause, the White Tiger Unit commander continued in a cautious voice.

“Kangheon. Will you give me a chance to make excuses?”

Words that came out of a martial artist who looked solid enough that it felt like they’d never made an excuse in their life.

Shin Kangheon had prepared many sharp questions to dig out the truth, but he set all of them down for the moment and nodded.

“As much as you want. I’ve got plenty of time today.”

At the relaxed answer that didn’t fit his age, a calm smile spread across the White Tiger Unit commander’s mouth.

“That shameless look you just made— you’re exactly like Jaehyun.”

“Don’t I look like my mom?”

“If you did, you’d have been even more handsome. That part’s a bit of a shame.”

At the White Tiger Unit commander’s silly joke, the two of them snickered.

But it only lasted a moment. The White Tiger Unit commander soon hardened their expression and began a story from long ago.

“The time when Jaehyun died on a mission, and you went missing.......”

Because he was the son of a precious benefactor, it was all the harder to speak of.

Still, the White Tiger Unit commander opened with as plain a tone as possible.

“To put it simply, it was the Martial Alliance’s dark age. Back then, I was in my second year— a green kid who’d only barely stopped smelling like a rookie— and it got so bad that even someone like me had to go out to the field every day.”

After Sword Demon Choi Geon took responsibility for the failure of a large-scale Cult suppression operation and went into seclusion—no, it was essentially an expulsion—the Martial Alliance’s power weakened rapidly.

Inside, even people who had supported the Martial Alliance Leader turned their backs one by one or retired in disgrace, and outside, crimes caused by unorthodox forces never stopped.

“......Every time you joined an operation, the next day you had to attend a funeral. Seniors, comrades, people you used to greet in passing— little by little, there were fewer and fewer of them.”

Later on, it became common enough that even Martial Alliance Leader Yeo Pilgeuk went out to the field and personally led battles from the front.

“To make things worse, the corporate and government funding that used to come into the Martial Alliance shrank, too. Trust in the Martial Alliance had hit rock bottom.”

It was the turning point where the young rising stars of the orthodox martial world began drifting away from the Martial Alliance and toward the Eight Great Sects instead.

“It kept piling up—bad news after bad news—like someone was deliberately trying to bring the Martial Alliance down. Even then, the people who remained tried to do something about it, but.......”

They had guarded justice with that much struggle, but for the Martial Alliance to survive, they ultimately had no choice but to give something up and compromise.

The White Tiger Unit commander continued with a bitter face.

“That’s when the Eight Great Sects—who’d been watching from the other side of the river like it was none of their business—finally reached out.”

The Eight Great Sects, who had done nothing but criticize the Martial Alliance while citing the damage they’d taken in the Cult suppression operation, extended a hand of help.

But they attached a condition: they would interfere in how the Martial Alliance was run.

The Martial Alliance knew that would become a leash around their neck, but they had to grab it anyway, like it was the only rope left to cling to.

“After that, you already know. Until recent events, the Eight Great Sects were tossing the Martial Alliance around however they pleased.”

Shin Kangheon listened quietly, then asked.

“......My father died during that time, too, right?”

“When Jaehyun died, it got to the point where people were saying we should disband the White Tiger Unit entirely. The deputy commander and most of our core strength were dead, and only rookies like me were left.”

The White Tiger Unit commander, looking exhausted, rubbed their bloodshot eyes and continued.

“After we held yet another funeral and came back, I was resting at home when...... I got word that your mother had been attacked.”

“Mom.......”

“Yeah. That day.”

As if the memory was still vivid, the White Tiger Unit commander’s expression twisted painfully. Their clenched fist trembled.

“By the time I heard and ran there, only your mother was down. You weren’t there, but back then, I was blinded by rage and didn’t even realize what that meant.”

At that moment, the head of the Martial Alliance’s representative combat unit bowed deeply to a twenty-year-old probationary new alliance member.

“I lost my mind with nothing but the thought of chasing the culprit. Only later did I realize you were gone. I’m truly sorry. I should have searched for you first.......”

“Commander.”

Shin Kangheon could feel more than enough sincerity in the White Tiger Unit commander’s apology.

This was someone who had no reason at all to bow their head to him like this.

“......Thank you for telling me honestly.”

Now that he knew what he’d been curious about, the tightness in his chest loosened a little.

But there was one part of the story that had left Shin Kangheon with a sense of wrongness.

“Then.”

If he thought about it, it was a question he should have asked much earlier.

It was a doubt he would never have even reached if he’d just kept believing his uncle’s words and never come here alone to meet the White Tiger Unit commander.

“......Then who in the world put me in an orphanage?”

The White Tiger Unit commander lifted their head again and met Shin Kangheon with a deeply confused expression.

“That’s what I’ve been most puzzled by, too.”

The reason the White Tiger Unit commander’s eyes were red and bloodshot after just one day.

Because they’d stayed up all night requesting information and checking everything—missing children over the past nineteen years, and orphanages in Seoul.

“After we realized you were gone, we searched for you for months. But among the reported missing children, you weren’t there. Like you’d vanished without leaving even a trace.......”

Hearing that, Shin Kangheon felt his heart turn cold. Like a Pandora’s box that should never have been opened was being pried open right in front of him.

“But after we completely gave up looking for you, I learned yesterday that there was a child registered at an orphanage as an unclaimed orphan. Under the name Shin Kangheon.”

“.......”

“Kangheon. How on earth did you end up there?”

At that moment, Shin Kangheon recalled his uncle’s face from the day he’d come to find him.