One of the first things Jaesun learned in their training was lying convincingly. “It’s best to build your lie around a grain of truth. People are more likely to believe you, and it’s easier for you to develop a story since you have something to off of. Whatever you make up, it had better sound plausible. Keep it simple; minimize the details. If you get too detailed, you’re likely to forget and end up contradicting yourself. Once you’ve established your lie, don’t add too much extraneous information to it or that will raise suspicion.”

For about an hour she had to talk to her instructor and completely construct a fake identity for herself. He judged whether she seemed convincing or not and gave her pointers. According to the man, the inflections of her voice were different when she was speaking normally compared to when she was lying, so she had to focus on maintaining her usual speech patterns. It was odd how she didn’t notice this change until someone else pointed it out. Anyone who was good at lying or detecting lies would have found her out quite easily.

Aside from that, there were also exercises in memorizing large amounts of information in short periods of time. More often than not, any documents she came across would be impossible or difficult to lift while going unnoticed, so the easier option was to memorize whatever she read. This wasn’t so hard for Jaesun since she’d developed the habit of memorizing things for future reference growing up a merchant’s daughter.

If any of the documents were in code, they would have to memorize it in code form. Cracking codes wasn’t something everyone involved in the conspiracy had to learn, but Jaesun went ahead with the lessons. She picked it up with relative ease. Her mind liked working logical puzzles, so she was suited to that sort of work.

Picking locks was another of the things in the training. The trickiest ones were the spelled ones. To get around those, she needed a spelled object that would measure the frequencies of the magical spell and glow a certain color based on the spell type and composition. Then, she would have to use the correct combination of spelled lock picks that would exactly negate the spell on the lock. If anything went wrong, she could end up caught in some sort of trap or obliterated on the spot, depending on the strength and nature of the spell. Sungyeol made absolutely sure everyone knew what colors corresponded to what things by heart to avoid such an incident.

“Plus, those lock picks are expensive. If we lose a set, it would cost a fortune to buy a replacement. Do realize these things aren’t exactly sold just anywhere you go.”

“You got these on the black market?” Jaesun asked, staring at him. She examined the ring of lock picks she held more carefully, as if she were expecting them to hide some sort of secret brand that marked them as illegal goods.

Sungyeol smiled thinly. “Well, I didn’t directly purchase them myself, but yes, something of that sort.”

That was one of the indications that having connections to the nobles would be advantageous. As common folk, they only had so much money and resources between them to execute their plans. With the nobles backing them, they could get whatever they wanted and needed, within reason.

Perhaps the most exciting part of training for her was the physical part. She was trained to sneak around, dodge behind things, minimize her exposure, run fast, move silently. In addition, she was taught how to use various small blades that could be carried and hidden on her person. That way, if the situation ever took a turn for the worse, she had a fighting chance at getting out of the mess alive, if not unscathed.

Jaesun wasn’t so bad at handling the knives and daggers, but Dongwoo in particular seemed to excel at this, possibly due to his natural agility and dexterity. She was quite glad that their practices fighting against one another were done using wooden knives and that these sessions weren’t real fights. Otherwise, she’d probably be dead.

Although the training was helpful and interesting, Jaesun itched to actually do something, to go out and hunt the corrupted bastards. According to Dongwoo, she needed to be patient and go through with all of the preparation, otherwise she’d end up jailed or dead after her first mission, and she would be of no use to anyone that way.

***

In the meantime, people were gathering what information they could. With few contacts in the capital, Jaesun was less helpful in this respect. She could never be too careful about what she asked other people. Her questions could just as informative as giving away personal details. If she nosed around too much, somebody could easily turn her in. She had to be as casual as possible and make herself hard to remember. For this, she employed some of the disguise techniques she’d learned from Sungyeol.

About three weeks after the first meeting, they held another meeting at the same tavern. Jaesun and Dongwoo were among the last to show up. Watching Sungyeol closesly, she noticed that once everyone was inside the room and the door was closed, his lips moved slightly, and a spark jumped from the tips of his fingers to the wall he was leaning against. She inferred that this was the spell to prevent eavesdropping.

“I hope your training has been progressing well,” the tavern keeper said to start things off. “Sungyeol has received word from his superiors about assignments for the lot of you. Soon enough you will be doing something that will produce tangible results and progress. If you’re becoming impatient, I suggest you wait a little longer. That said, we have received some information regarding one of the council members.”

A man at the other end of the table stood up. His arm was bandaged, which got him a few concerned and curious looks. “I talked to a man yesterday who was a witness to a council member’s misdeed.”

“Who was the council member?”

“I don’t know. I could barely get the man to agree to tell me anything, and when he finally did, he did it as indirectly as possible. He made it clear that if he let the wrong words slip, he’d probably die.”

“What happened to your arm?” Jaesun asked. “Did you get attacked?”

“I was asking the man for more details when he accidentally began to say the name of the council member. Then, he began to choke up, his eyes rolled into his head, and he stabbed at me with a knife pulled from practically nowhere. I managed to fight him off, and then he died on the ground in front of me, twitching and shaking.” The man fell silent, and everyone stared at him, horrified.

“That’s dark magic right there,” Sungyeol remarked. “Spelling people to die if they reveal something that you don’t want them to. Basically you induce the person to try and kill anyone the person tries to tell the secret to. If the killing succeeds, the spelled person will be seen as either insane or bloodthirsty and probably get locked up or executed, and both witnesses will be eliminated. If the killing doesn’t succeed, the first witness will die anyway and also be taken as being not right in the head. The other person who heard the secret will most likely be too scared of dying to tell anyone else anyway.”

“But apparently not me,” the injured man remarked wryly.

“Well, what is the story?”

“Let me first say that this may have some inaccuracies because I’m piecing it together based off of very vague descriptions and roundabout talking.”

“Fine. Proceed.”

“It was the night of a banquet almost two months ago, and the man I talked to was taking out trash at the palace when he ran into the councilman in question. He thought nothing of it first, but then the noble offered him a considerable sum of money do something for him and not peep a word to anyone. He was tempted by the money and accepted, but it was too late. I think the money was what was rigged with the death spell.” The man paused to glance at Sungyeol, who nodded and said, “That sounds reasonable.”

“It turns out the councilman wanted him to do his dirty work. That is, he wanted him to dispose of a body.”

Jaesun froze up. It couldn’t be…Next to her, Dongwoo squeezed her hand as if to calm her down.

“The councilman warned him that if he named names or told tales, he would suffer a horrible fate, and left him with the body wrapped in a sheet, which had been spelled to be invisible. When the nobleman was gone, the man lifted the sheet and discovered the body of a young woman. I’m guessing she worked at the palace. She had been hit over the head—”

At this point Jaesun couldn’t hold it any longer. She jumped out of her seat and announced, trembling, “That girl was my sister.”

Everyone gasped. “I’m sorry,” the man said.

“Who is the nobleman?” Jaesun asked, her voice dangerously low. “I will kill him.” She declare this while still shaking and on the verge of tears.

“We don’t know. We’ll have to find out. This could take a while since—”

“Give me the goddamn name and I will kill him!” she yelled, losing all composure. Then the world around her began to fade to black.