A translucent bird suddenly appearing.
“...What the hell is that now.”
“That one... it’s the bird from back then.”
The bird’s shape
was pretty familiar.
Because the very bird that invited us to Seoul looked exactly like that.
But we’d already arrived.
We didn’t know why it had come looking for us, so we were thrown off—
HOP, HOP....
The translucent bird that had passed through the wall.
The place it headed for was none other than—
“You here for me?”
-COO.
It arrived right in front of me.
Maybe it wasn’t using the voice-recording method this time.
The bird set a single letter down in front of me.
FLAPFLAPFLAP!!!
As if its mission was complete,
it beat its wings and went right back out of the building.
“......”
I carefully took the letter and read it.
“Sergeant Shin?”
“What does it say?”
When the soldiers asked with curiosity,
I answered with a frown.
“...It says they’ve got something to discuss privately, so they want only me to come out.”
“...What?”
“Keep it secret from First Lieutenant Kim. Right now.”
It wasn’t a love letter or anything—
that was all it said.
“Secret from me...?”
A man said it with a face like he couldn’t believe it.
“Aren’t they saying that a little too openly to my face...?”
“Well, they probably think First Lieutenant Kim is our commander, so they asked you to keep it secret from him.”
First Lieutenant Kim was sitting in the room too.
Earlier, when Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan said he wanted to speak without him, First Lieutenant Kim had simply slipped away on his own.
We’d been talking together to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting.
Folding the letter, I thought—
‘What is this?’
The sender had to be someone from the Seoul side.
Since it wasn’t the first time we’d seen a power like this, the bird’s appearance itself wasn’t shocking.
The problem was—
‘Not First Lieutenant Kim... but they want to talk to me personally?’
It wasn’t completely incomprehensible.
The only soldiers who’d gone into that meeting room were me, Corporal Gwangil, and Corporal Seo Suhyeok.
From their perspective, they probably thought I held a fairly high position in the Legion.
In reality, I was just hiding that I was the Legion Commander—I wasn’t hiding that I was a sergeant.
And in the Legion now, “sergeant” had basically become a word that meant a very high rank.
‘Not the head of the Legion, First Lieutenant Kim... but someone right below him.’
That was exactly the position I appeared to be in.
So they had something to say to someone in that position.
No idea what it was, though.
“Calling me out all of a sudden. Rude.”
“What will you do?”
I thought for a moment.
Then I stood up.
“I’ll be right back.”
At that,
the soldiers’ eyes widened.
“No—are you really going out over this?”
“They say they’ve got something to say. I should at least hear it.”
No—honestly, I didn’t have to hear them out.
But as I left the building, I thought—
‘Discomfort.’
Like First Lieutenant Kim said,
there were quite a few parts of Seoul right now that didn’t make sense.
If so, there was only one thing I had to do.
‘Find out.’
To find the cause of that discomfort,
it didn’t seem like a bad idea to meet whoever sent this message.
And sure enough—
“Why did you call for me?”
When I went to the location written in the letter,
what was waiting there was—
“Jang Youngwoong.”
Seoul’s real leader.
Jang Youngwoong.
*****
“Thank you for coming. I thought there was a high chance you’d ignore me...”
“Why did you call me? If you have something to say, you should be talking to First Lieutenant Kim.”
Seoul’s true leader.
If what that lieutenant general said was true, the reason Seoul’s situation had stayed this intact was because of this man.
“Um... could you follow me for a moment?”
I hesitated briefly, then followed behind him.
This could be a trap.
But—
‘I can handle a typical ambush.’
I glanced down at the ground.
With the recently reinforced manpower, my personal guard was stronger than ever.
I was confident I could push through most traps.
“You said your name was... Youngjun?”
“Yes. I’m Sergeant Shin Youngjun.”
“Sergeant... you look quite a bit younger than me. Is it alright if I speak a little more casually?”
“Do as you like.”
“Thanks.”
He looked to be in his early to mid-thirties.
It was hard to believe a man that young was Seoul’s leader, but... I wasn’t exactly a normal case either.
“I’m really sorry about earlier.”
“Sorry?”
“Hiding that I’m the representative.”
The place he led me to was
an apartment building in Yeouido.
“I already accepted that apology from Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan, so it’s fine. If anything, I feel like you should be saying it to First Lieutenant Kim.”
“That’s true. I’m planning to speak to First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok separately later. And as for why I called you here...”
Maybe they were running a generator somewhere, because the apartment elevator was working.
The man stepped into the elevator and headed up to the roof.
“It’s not exactly an apology for that mistake, but... I thought I’d tell you one of my secrets.”
“...?”
When we reached the roof and stepped outside,
there—
-COO-ROO...!
“...Birdcages?”
Countless birdcages covered the rooftop.
And inside those cages—
“This is...”
“Not your first time seeing them, right?”
translucent birds were flying around.
Just like he said, it wasn’t my first time.
And—
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]
[Awakener: Jang Youngwoong]
[Job: Intelligence Agent Lv.34]
[Skills]
[White Bird of the Herald]
[Blue Bird of Rumors]
I already knew
that this man was their owner.
‘That’s why we were invited in the first place.’
Because I knew the sender of that message was Seoul’s leader,
I came here without even finishing my conversation with First Lieutenant Kim.
“Well... like you can see, that’s my ability as an Awakener.”
“I see.”
“You already saw the white bird, so you know what it does, right? It can deliver messages to someone. And as for that blue bird...”
“Hold on.”
Jang Youngwoong explained his abilities so naturally
that I flinched and cut him off.
“...Is it really okay to tell me something like that so easily?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“No—Awakeners usually don’t like revealing their abilities... it’s better to hide what your skills do...”
That was what every other Awakener did.
Maybe if we were close, sure.
But telling someone you hadn’t even allied with yet—this felt odd.
Honestly, it threw me off.
But at my words—
“Uh... is hiding it better?”
“...?”
“What’s the reason? What do you gain by hiding your ability?”
Only then did I realize—
Seoul... was different.
In Gyeonggi Province and Gangwon—
no, in every other region we’d met—prying into information felt like a threat.
In a world with no social protection, the only thing you could rely on was your own power.
‘So many people survived...’
But here—
‘The social system survived too.’
If society from before the end endured through the end,
then revealing your Awakener information wouldn’t feel that dangerous.
Even if your information got out, the system would protect you.
“I see... so other regions have that kind of culture... no wonder.”
“...Pardon?”
“No, you’ve taught me something new. I almost could’ve been rude when talking to others... thank you.”
As if he’d finally realized why people hid their information, he murmured softly.
Then he shrugged.
“Well, thanks for worrying, but I’m telling you because I don’t think it matters if I reveal it. So don’t feel too burdened.”
“...Yes.”
“To continue—this blue bird is specialized in gathering information.”
“Gathering information...?”
“The white bird delivers my messages... and the blue bird delivers rumors around it to me.”
He walked up to a blue bird.
Then he took the paper the bird was holding in its foot and read it.
“Oh. So this rumor is going around Mokdong right now. Survivors from all over are coming to Seoul, and among them, there are people asking about where the Mokdong people went.”
“...!”
“That’s how it works. There’s plenty of nonsense mixed in too, so picking out what’s real is the job, but... it’s a pretty good ability, right?”
A power that could grasp rumors.
It wasn’t the same kind as Park Taejun’s, but in information warfare it was absurdly powerful.
‘Is this how he survived?’
As I was thinking that—
“Actually... I picked up a few rumors about Gangwon too with this ability.”
“...Pardon?”
“That place called the Legion. Sounds like a pretty frightening organization.”
Just like we try to figure out other groups’ information,
it wasn’t strange that someone would try to figure out ours.
But—
“...Why are you telling me that?”
The fact that you’re gathering someone else’s information—
regardless of how intact Seoul is, it can still be taken as unpleasant.
And he was telling me anyway.
“Because there’s something I’m curious about among those rumors.”
“...Curious about what?”
“Among the rumors about the Legion, there were rumors about the Legion’s officers.”
He raised his fingers one by one as he spoke.
“The head of the Legion is First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok. The greatest commander—like he’s possessed, like he knows every enemy weakness.”
“......”
“And besides him—there’s a warrior, a marksman, and a mage as former-soldier officers, and one civilian officer responsible for equipment production.”
Four fingers were up.
“By the guild system... there should be five officers in total.”
“......”
“But the officers people talk about were only four. I kept wondering who that one was—the one whose rumor didn’t spread properly at all.”
At that, I frowned.
I’d never imagined someone would try to map our guild’s officers like this.
I’d attended that important meeting with First Lieutenant Kim.
And beside me, two other officers—Corporal Seo Suhyeok and Corporal Gwangil—had stood shoulder to shoulder with me.
Which meant—
“So the remaining one is you, right?”
No matter how you looked at it,
they’d be reading that last officer as me.
“Do I have to answer?”
“Haha. You don’t have to.”
It didn’t seem like my being the Legion Commander had been exposed.
But it still made me think that from here on, I had to be more careful about showing myself.
“An officer whose identity can’t be pinned down... but I’m in a position where I have responsibilities too.”
“...?”
“Even if I don’t know exactly who that officer is, I tried to look into it.”
As if asking whether I was an officer wasn’t the end of his business,
Jang Youngwoong continued naturally.
“And while I kept digging up more rumors, someone appeared—someone who might be that officer.”
“...?”
“It seems like the Legion rarely runs joint operations with civilians. Everything about the other officers came from witnesses who saw Legion operations. But... it looks like there were a few times, very rarely, where you ran a joint operation with civilians.”
At first I thought, did we ever?
But I was able to nod.
“A massive monster force invaded... and to stop it, independent Awakeners cooperated. Those Awakeners who weren’t part of the Legion witnessed the Legion’s fighting.”
The Green Mane tribe’s attack.
Back then, we fought alongside Chuncheon’s Awakeners.
“And... there was an overwhelmingly powerful monster there. Among the Legion’s officers, the one famous for overwhelming violence... Corporal Gwangil. Even he was forced to retreat by that monster. Because of it, the Legion nearly lost.”
“......”
“But here’s where a figure appears—one you can’t just brush off, even if it’s ‘just a rumor.’”
He slid a hand into his chest area,
then pulled something out as he ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) spoke.
“When Corporal Gwangil was defeated by that monster, a man appeared... and instantly killed the monster that had overwhelmed Corporal Gwangil.”
“......”
“They say that man hadn’t shown even a shadow of himself until then, then suddenly appeared while cutting the monster’s back. There weren’t any similar sightings before or after... but that moment was so overwhelming that the rumor spread.”
CLINK.
I heard the sound of something being handled inside his clothes.
“They say the Legion has an assassin like a reaper.”
Holding that something, he spoke.
“You said your name was Youngjun, right? Answer me.”
“......”
“The Legion that accepted our invitation came to Seoul with an [Assassin]... how am I supposed to interpret that?”
