As it turns out, the lair of the Yangjae bandits is hidden deep under the grounds of the forest.

When Sungmin and Kyuhyun dig out all layers of the grass, a small entrance appears before their eyes, which both of them could guess is not just a random hole in the ground.

Before Sungmin could enter, Kyuhyun steps in front of him as if he could predict what Sungmin is gonna do. 

Standing between Sungmin and the entrance, Kyuhyun turns to Sungmin, his voice slow as if emphasizing every word: "Stay behind me, okay?"

Sungmin does not protest Kyuhyun's order. For some reason, he has grown accustomed to Kyuhyun protecting him and speaking to him like this. So he only smiles and nods at the other.

When Kyuhyun receives reassurance from Sungmin, he turns to the entrance and closely listens to the sounds inside: "There is no sound within 300 feet of this entrance."

Sungmin nods in agreement with this statement.

"The last time we were here, we knocked out around 50 of them, the rest retrieved before we could get to them. Even though it has been two months, having 50 people down must still have an impact on the whole gang. They must still be recovering from our attack. Otherwise, they would not just leave this entrance unguarded."

"Do you think we can outnumber them?", Sungmin asks carefully.

"We don't need to outnumber them. Most of them are not that well-trained. They mostly rely on poisoned darts and fog, but once you get close to them, they cannot put up that much of a fight."

Sungmin nods while taking in all the information: "Last time, there was a heavily built man. Judging from his attitude and actions, I guess he could be the gang leader. His strength was no joke. If we encounter him again today, we should be careful."

Kyuhyun nods at him, then turns to two guards behind him: "Go to the local authorities and inform them that we have discovered the lair of the bandits in Yangjae forest." Then he turns to the rest of the guards: "The rest of you, follow us inside."

And the troop of 50 people heads inside the underground cave.

As expected, inside the lair, there are only faint sounds of footsteps and people talking. As Kyuhyun approaches the end of the entrance, there is a man walking towards them in the opposite direction. Kyuhyun immediately throws out a sharp object which swiftly incapacitates him and prevents the body from hitting the ground.

They continue to walk through the narrow entrance, and once they get out of the walkway and into the main cave, a horrific scene appears before their eyes. The cave which they just walked into is an enclosed space, which somewhat looks like a large hall. Looking around the hall, Sungmin estimates that it can probably fit more than 100 people. The hall is filled with all kinds of jewellery, clothing, weapons, even animal remains, and in a corner, Sungmin can vaguely see the shape of a human skull. Without a second guess, they all know that this is the place that they use to store or display trophies from their victims. 

Sungmin frowns in contempt. In all of the books that he has read and all the stories that he has heard from his father, he has never learned of anything like this. Keeping human remains as trophies? In Sungmin's eyes, this is merely sick and erted. 

As the troop is still overwhelmed by the hall of trophies and immersed in their own thoughts about the bandits' lair, a group of men enters the hall without their notice. The next thing they are aware of is the series of shouts from the men and the sound of weapons being drawn. But the guards are quick to react, and they rush in the direction of the men to attack. As Kyuhyun expected, the guards immediately got the upper hand and quickly incapacitated the group of men.

But the shouts from the men and the sound of them fighting had quickly spread to other surrounding caves, and they can hear footsteps rushing towards their direction. A man who seems to be head of the guards turns to Kyuhyun and quickly says: "We got this."

Kyuhyun only nods at him, then takes Sungmin out of the hall. Their main task today is to find the gang leader. He is in no doubt the most dangerous one among them.

As Kyuhyun and Sungmin walk out of the hall, an even more narrow walkway opens before their eyes. The path is incredibly dark as no light can reach this deep underground. Suddenly, Kyuhyun turns to him and reaches for Sungmin's hand. To his surprise, Kyuhyun takes his hand into his own hand and leads the way. Sungmin is stunned for a moment, then follows Kyuhyun into the dark walkway.

The walkway seems as if it has no end, as neither of them can see any light from any direction of the way. Just when they are about to think that this must be a dead-end, a faint yelling appears about five feet in front of them. Kyuhyun and Sungmin immediately rush in that direction. There seems to be another room at the other end of the walkway, and they hide behind a wall of rock that separates the room and the walkway. Inside the room, a low commanding voice seems to be yelling at another person.

"You useless piece of ! You good-for-nothing son of a ! Don't you know how to do anything!?", the voice lets out a series of profanity.

Immediately, another voice weakly apologizes: "Master, please forgive me, please, please. It was my fault. I was not careful enough..."

The voice apologizing sounds so weak and inferior that Sungmin can half guess the rank of the person compared to the other voice. He imagines that person kneeling on the floor, his head bowing to the other's feet.

From behind the wall of rock, Kyuhyun takes a peek at the scene inside. After a moment, he turns to Sungmin and gives him a slight nod. For some reason, without saying any word, Sungmin immediately understands that the man inside is indeed the gang leader that they had seen in the forest two months ago.

"Damn right it is your fault! Whose fault could it be!?", the commanding voice once again echoes in the narrow cave, "I should have never taken you in three years ago! What a big mistake!"

"Master, please, please, don't throw me out! I have nowhere else to go. Please, I promise I will be better, please, please." The man's voice sounds like he is only one sentence away from bursting into tears.

Suddenly, as if realizing something, Kyuhyun turns to look inside again. Sungmin could not see clearly Kyuhyun's face and his expressions, but from this gesture alone, he guesses that Kyuhyun must have recognized this person.

Then, without hesitation, Kyuhyun suddenly barges into the room and heads for the only two people inside. They must have been expecting someone else, because the sudden movements do not startle them. After realizing that the person barging in is not someone that they know, the heavily built man immediately stands up from his throne in the middle of the room, his face as stiff as a rock. 

"What the hell! Who the hell are you?", his voice is dry and thick.

But Kyuhyun does not answer the man's inquiry. He simply stops at a distance close enough to take a good look at the two of them and stares at the other man still kneeling on the ground.

Sungmin quickly follows him inside the room and slight taps Kyuhyun's hand to get his attention: "What's the matter? Kyuhyun?"

But Kyuhyun remains unresponsive. He merely stares at the man on the ground as if he has just seen a ghost in daylight.

"Hey!", the heavily built man's voice still echoes around the room, "who the hell are you? And how did you get in here?"

Sungmin knows that this is not the time to talk, so he turns to the man and speaks in his most serious voice: "Don't you recognize me? I am the man you tried to kill two months ago?",

The man's eyes immediately widen at Sungmin's answer. This time, he is the one seeing a ghost before his eyes.

He immediately reaches for his blade next to him, but Sungmin swiftly draws out his sword and blocks his way. He throws out a few darts, and Sungmin quickly avoids all of them in one movement.

As Sungmin has fought this man one time before, he knows what to expect this time. This man's advantage is his physical strength, despite his poor skills and dependence on weapons. This time, Sungmin is not outnumbered by the whole gang. He is also not intoxicated by the poison in the fog, so Sungmin can easily defeat the gang leader in less than twenty moves. The man's strength is not to be taken lightly. After a long while, he has incurred a number of injuries, but still tries to make a run for himself. Sungmin immediately presses the points on his body to incapacitate him and looks around for ropes to tie his wrists and feet.

"Don't try to do anything else", Sungmin says firmly, "your guards are all surrounded by our troop."

The man can do nothing else other than throwing a bunch of curse words at Sungmin.

But Sungmin is merely unaffected by his insults. He sits deliberately next to the large man.

"Before we hand you over to the local authorities, I need to ask you something", Sungmin says

"Why would I tell you anything, you sneaky bastard!?"

"Sneaky? How am I sneaky?", Sungmin retorts, "you were the one who ambushed me last time with your whole gang. This time, we fought one-on-one, and you lost. I would argue that this is the opposite of sneaky."

For one moment, the man fails to find any rebuttal to Sungmin's argument, so he continues with another series of profanity. 

But Sungmin does not give up. He continues with his inquiry: "Who hired you to attack me last time? I know you yourself would not dare to attack a member of the Royal Family. It must be someone more powerful than you and me."

But the man does not respond to Sungmin's question and quickly changes the subject: "You look completely different from last time I saw you. Maybe I did kill you and you just came back from hell. Haha. Look at yourself, you look like Yaksha!"

Sungmin rolls his eyes at the insult. He knows that with the man's attitude, he would not get anywhere with the questioning today. Although he does not get an answer from the man, Sungmin is glad that this is not a denial either.

Suddenly, Sungmin hears rushed footsteps out of the room. When he looks in the direction of the other men in the room, he sees the servant who was kneeling on the ground before has just run out of the room, his hands covering his ears and eyes, as if he no longer want to see or hear the things that are happening in front of his eyes. Then, Kyuhyun immediately follows in his steps.

Seeing the situation develop into something much more strange and complex than they had expected, Sungmin quickly knocks out the gang leader, and follows Kyuhyun.

The servant has run into another room in the cave. This room seems much smaller than the room before, and there is no other escape from there. Seeing that he is at a dead-end, the man immediately enters a panic. He kneels down and bows his head to the ground, his mouth repeatedly whispering something inaudible. When Sungmin gets closer, he can faintly hear something like a prayer to save his life.

"Jungho?", finally, Sungmin hears Kyuhyun speak up ever since they stepped inside the cave, even though Kyuhyun's voice is dry and his eyes widen in disbelief, "how are you alive?"

But the man completely ignores Kyuhyun's questions. As Kyuhyun approaches, he gets even more hysterical and panicked. He keeps bowing to Kyuhyun, his voice has become more audible and Sungmin can clearly hear him beg: "Please, Jun Daegam, I did not mean it. I did not want to do it! Please don't kill me. Please, Jun Daegam."

Sungmin's eyes widen in surprise at the name that the man just uttered. Jun Daegam cannot mean anyone else other than Kyuhyun's father, Jun Kihong. But he had died more than twenty years ago. Why would this man suddenly mention his name here right at this moment?

Sungmin looks at Kyuhyun. His face is more solemn than Sungmin has ever seen him, his eyes sharply glaring in suspicion at the man kneeling on the ground.

"You called the wrong person", finally, Sungmin hears Kyuhyun speak in his firm voice.

The servant looks up at Kyuhyun, then, as if realizing something, tears start streaming down his wrinkled face. His voice is trembling like a branch in a storm which can break at any time: "Doryeonnim?"

Kyuhyun's silence signals a yes to the man's question. As he approaches the man to help him stand up, once again he starts panicking and bowing to Kyuhyun again: "Doryeonnim, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It is all my fault."

This apology somehow seems funny to Sungmin, as just moments ago, the man had just uttered those same words to the gang leader. Sungmin wonders how much of the apology is sincere at this point.

But this apology immediately sends Kyuhyun into a shock. He takes two steps back from the man. Then, after a short silence, the man's voice starts up again.

"It is my fault that your whole family died."