The moon loomed full above the capital, its light filtered through clouds like gauze wrapping a wounded sky.
Jungho dressed without a sound.
No bells rang tonight. No performers summoned. But he could feel it—something was moving in the castle's bones.
The system remained silent. No notifications. No restrictions. Just a strange calm, as though it too were holding its breath.
He stepped into the corridor just as the palace's great lanterns dimmed—intentionally. A signal only someone attuned to court rhythms would notice.
Assassins.
Someone wanted him dead.
Not punished. Not exiled. Erased.
Jungho didn't run. He walked. Toward the old north wing—unoccupied, mostly. A place where echoes died fast.
Behind him, the shadows moved.
Three figures, cloaked, graceful. Too coordinated for palace guards.
He turned the corner and smiled.
"Finally."
They didn't speak. One drew a thin blade coated in black. Another leapt from a column, silent and deadly. The third stayed back, watching. Evaluating.
Jungho moved.
In the flicker between heartbeats, the glitch returned.
[Temporary Unlock: Hunter-Class Abilities][Time Limit: 10 Seconds]
He vanished.
The first attacker blinked—and died with his throat carved open.
The second was faster, meeting Jungho mid-air.
Steel rang. Jungho twisted low, too fast, too smooth. The old skills still lived in his muscles.
A palm strike shattered ribs.
He caught the second before he hit the ground and gently lowered the body. Then he turned to the last assassin.
The third one backed away—then pulled a knife and drove it into his own neck.
Too late.
Jungho reached him just as the poison took hold. The man spasmed, mouth foaming.
"Who sent you?"
The assassin's eyes rolled back.
He was dead.
[System Notice: Curtain Call Active – Lethality Disguised as Performance. Witness Count: 0]
Jungho cursed under his breath.
Later, high above the same corridor, a figure knelt silently on a spire beam.
The Watcher from the Fool's Guild.
She tapped a finger to her mask.
"Interesting. So the Ghostblade lives after all."
She faded into the mist, her paper coin still glowing red.
--
The candlelight in the Queen's study was shaded blue—a ward against eavesdropping. Not just for mortals.
Three mage-seers stood before her. Their hoods were ceremonial, but their eyes shimmered faintly with the mark of Sight.
She motioned for them to speak.
The eldest bowed. "We traced the magical interference you suspected, Your Majesty."
"And?"
The mage paused. "It is not of this world."
The Queen raised an eyebrow.
"It's not chaos magic, nor eldritch. It mimics structured divine law—similar to a System. But crude. Fragmented. Like someone tried to forge a god's order… and failed."
She leaned back slowly. "Failed? Or… succeeded only halfway?"
The mages exchanged uneasy glances.
"Continue," she said.
Another seer stepped forward. "We saw echoes around the Fool. A dense lattice of restriction spells. Dozens layered over him."
She interjected, "He's cursed?"
"No. Bound. Like… a punishment. Or perhaps a leash."
The Queen sipped her wine. "So, he's dangerous."
The seer hesitated. "We believe he was more dangerous. Whatever sealed him has been… fraying. Rapidly."
She set the glass down with a sharp clink.
"How rapidly?"
"Since the Moon Feast, exponentially."
The Queen stood and moved to the window.
"I watched him tonight," she murmured. "He made me laugh. But I saw the thing behind his eyes. He wasn't born in this world."
The eldest nodded. "We reached a similar conclusion."
She glanced over her shoulder. "And you all survived seeing him with Sight?"
One of the mages trembled.
The Queen smiled. "Then we have time."
Moments later, she dismissed them.
Alone again, she retrieved a sealed letter from a drawer.
Not addressed. Not signed.
Just one line across the front:
"The Fool dances, but the Reaper remembers."
She burned it.
Far beneath the palace, a different conversation unfolded.
A man in ragged noble robes paced behind a barred cell.
A cloaked figure entered.
"He knows," the prisoner muttered. "That damned jester. He looked at me like—like he saw the ledger of my sins."
The visitor said nothing.
"But I'm useful! You told me so!"
Still silence.
Then, a gloved hand slipped something between the bars.
A single paper coin.
The prisoner screamed as the cell erupted in red flame.
Jungho didn't sleep.
The system stayed quiet, still unstable—but it hadn't reasserted full control.
Which meant one thing.
Freedom. Fragile, temporary, but real.
He stood before the cracked mirror, the one gift left untouched in his chamber. His jester's mask lay beside him, dull and worn.
He touched the seam of his sleeve, where the poisoned assassin's blood still clung to the hidden threads.
"You came to silence me," he murmured. "But now I know you exist."
He stared into the mirror.
"And I remember how to hunt."
Before dawn, Jungho slipped through the servant paths beneath the court. Dressed not in bells and silks, but in black. He moved like a shadow retracing forgotten roads.
He was not a man following orders anymore.
He was Ghostblade, back from death.
The capital's underbelly wasn't carved in maps. It pulsed behind walls, between merchants' guilds, and under moonlight.
The red coin burned in his pocket again. The one left by the strange girl from the Fool's Guild.
He hadn't flipped it. Not yet. Not until he understood the cost.
Instead, he went hunting.
He found the first whisper of his attackers not among soldiers or mercenaries, but in the backroom of a puppet shop. A man too silent. Too clean for someone selling dolls.
Jungho sat across from him, uninvited.
"I want names."
The man blinked. "Sir, I don't—"
Jungho placed something on the table.
The dead assassin's blade.
The man swallowed hard. "I—I don't deal in nobles—"
"You deal in secrets," Jungho said. "And you'll trade them. Because I'm not asking."
By sunrise, Jungho had a location.
A warehouse. Empty on paper. Supposedly decommissioned. But tonight, it would host a gathering.
A quiet auction.
For names. For favors. For silencing loose ends.
That night, Ghostblade didn't wear a mask.
He entered through the rafters, silent, watching.
Nobles mingled with cloaks and smugglers. A few priests. Even a disguised scribe of the King.
And on one pedestal, in a locked glass case—
A sheet of parchment glowing with blue runes.
A name list.
Jungho smiled.
"Perfect."