“It’s just that I feel refreshed, really.”

Seoryeong forced herself to stand upright, even though her legs were trembling, and put on a nonchalant expression.

“Refreshed? What is this, a bathhouse? Did you scrub yourself clean?”

“It’s more like... something mental got stripped away.”

They looked at her as if she were some kind of alien creature.

“Wait, don’t tell me... did you awaken to torture or something...?”

“My eyes might’ve opened, but it’s not about the torture.”

She discreetly twitched her lips upward, then let them fall again.

As her body forcefully opened up, she unexpectedly discovered a completely new path.

Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Was she unknowingly trapped by the label of being a married woman, clinging to notions of chastity?

If there was just one clear characteristic that could identify her husband, it was his uniquely shaped genitalia...!

What she was absolutely sure of were Kim Hyeon’s voice, height, skin texture, and the rough outline of his facial features she had touched with her fingertips.

If she could add that rare genital shape to the list, then maybe... just maybe, someone fitting Kim Hyeon’s profile might appear.

For the first time in a long while, her heart started pounding.

She had been prepared to get caught just because she couldn’t find any other way to search for him. But at the same time, compiling a list of potential husbands seemed like a good idea.

If going all the way was too difficult, maybe just finding a way to touch would be enough...

Her head was entirely filled with thoughts of Kim Hyeon’s genitals when they finally arrived at the cafeteria.

The place, which usually bustled like an animal pen during meal times, now felt oddly empty with the vacant spots left by trainees who had dropped out before and after training.

The trainees who took their trays and sat down eagerly raised their spoons, but most didn’t seem to have much appetite. They took a few bites and then stopped, instead starting to vent their frustrations.

“I was hung upside down with my face shoved into the water... Damn... My nose still stings...”

“All I could think about was how to screw that instructor over. Seriously, that’s all.”

“They’re not gonna make us do this shit again, right?”

One of the guys, who had been blankly rubbing the corner of the table, suddenly spoke up.

“I... I suddenly got a different instructor.”

His gloomy tone immediately drew everyone’s attention.

“I was just being interrogated normally, you know? Then suddenly, they started bringing up my family, saying if I didn’t talk, someone else would get hurt. Out of nowhere, they pulled out a picture of my little sister... Where the hell did they even get that...?”

He was so unsettled that he kept gnawing on his nails as he continued.

“A-and then... the door just burst open like it was gonna break...”

He swallowed nervously, his bruised eyes trembling.

“Instructor Lee Wooshin walked in.”

“...”

“...”

The table fell silent. Even Seoryeong, who had been quietly eating, shifted her gaze to him.

The other trainees, swallowing hard, hurriedly asked questions.

“So, did you get hit?”

“Y-yeah, I did... but actually, it wasn’t really me—”

“But if it was Instructor Lee Wooshin, shouldn’t your bruises be way worse?”

“T-that bruise? That’s just from me falling backward and hitting the ground! I don’t really know what happened...!”

Suddenly, he started fidgeting, tugging at his clothes as if suffocating.

“What’s with him? Dude, what the hell—!”

Impatient guys started yelling, and at that moment, as if the dam burst, his words poured out.

“Instructor Lee Wooshin just... came in smiling kindly, saying, ‘Why are you two having a matchmaking session instead of doing proper interrogation?’ And then—he just started beating the shit out of the other instructor! He said he wouldn’t stop until I gave up the info, but also that if I talked too fast, it’d be the other instructor’s fault for not training me properly... And he just kept stomping him, even after I heard bones snapping...!”

“...”

“I... I couldn’t help it. I started crying and shouting that I’d talk, but then my original instructor yelled at me to hold out longer! I didn’t know what to do. Should I talk or not? I just couldn’t figure it out...!”

Someone muttered under their breath, That guy’s mind is seriously broken...

“Were they both trying to mess with me? Was it all just to make me feel guilty? What do you guys think? Did I really get tortured? Or did they plan it together from the start...?”

“It’s likely they planned it.”

“But Instructor... he must’ve gotten really hurt... It’s my fault... because I didn’t say anything...”

He shivered, looking haunted, and one of the trainees snapped at him.

“Dude, snap out of it! That’s what they wanted! Torture isn’t just physical—you get it? They were trying to mess with your head! You’re falling right into their trap. Get your shit together!”

“R-really? But my heart’s still pounding... I feel like it’s my fault... Like I didn’t catch on fast enough, and that’s why he got hurt...”

With a pale face, he grabbed his head, looking like he was losing it.

“Should I just have talked? Especially since he got hit in the vital spots and even tried to run away but got beaten even more...!”

As his words looped back around to the same point, the trainees glanced ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ at each other, quietly rising from their seats. Seoryeong also scooted her chair back and picked up her tray.

Just then, one of the last guys to stand up, more out of politeness than anything, asked in a muffled voice through his swollen lips,

“By the way... which instructor got beat up?”

The guy’s gloomy voice answered right away.

“Instructor Jin Hoje.”

***

Bang, bang, bang—!

A series of deafening gunshots echoed through the underground shooting range.

Lee Wooshin, wearing earmuffs, relentlessly pulled the trigger with a terrifying expression.

Spent bullet casings clattered to the floor, and the paper target at the far end of the track was shredded to pieces in the blink of an eye.

It had been several days since the torture training ended.

As an NIS agent who never hesitated to weigh human lives on a scale, he now found himself trapped in a bizarre, petty dilemma that he couldn’t escape.

Moreover, the unresolved heat roared inside his head like stifling smoke.

He had thought he would feel relieved the moment he got that damn owl out of his sight, but the conviction Seoryeong had declared was nothing short of shocking.

A crooked dick... No, he didn’t want to repeat that word, didn’t even want to think about it anymore.

He’d already had more than enough of her tenacity to make his blood pressure spike. Even if he were to break her ankle, she wouldn’t give up on Kim Hyeon.

Despite the violence he had inflicted, her eyes hadn’t wavered for a single moment.

Breaking her ankle wouldn’t stop her.

But if he pushed the owl away—

Somewhere he couldn’t see her. Somewhere he couldn’t reach her.

“――.”

No, but really. Was she seriously going to go around looking for crooked dicks? If she actually left the training center and started asking around for other guys’ dicks...

Lee Wooshin clenched his jaw and, after emptying the magazine, reloaded and began firing at the paper target again.

Since the day he had reunited with that damn owl, it felt like something inside him had started to crack. There was something... something he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Lee Wooshin had always been the type to cut away parts of himself whenever he finished a mission, ripping off the mask he’d worn along with everything else. That was the basic rule, the standard, the law.

So why couldn’t he do the same when it came to Seoryeong?

Was it because she was his wife? Because they had shared a bed and a home?

If that was all it took to make him feel unsettled, then he had no right to call himself an agent.

Over the past ten years, how many people had he deceived, approaching them with deliberate intentions?

Too many to count.

It wasn’t as if his long-dead conscience had suddenly been resurrected.

No, feeling guilty about her didn’t make sense.

Trying to shake off that unpleasant feeling, Lee Wooshin gripped the gun even tighter.

In the end, they were two parallel lines that could never meet.

When a target and an NIS agent were intertwined, one had to surrender or give up.

Otherwise, both would end up in mutual destruction.

That was why Lee Wooshin’s logical conclusion was that he had to make a clear decision now.

The idea of hoping for things to return to the way they were during their courtship and marriage was a useless, naive delusion.

Keeping Han Seoryeong under his thumb was no longer possible.

That was the only conclusion he could reach.

No one other than “Kim Hyeon” could control her.

If that was the case—

Would it be better to just bring back Kim Hyeon’s corpse?

A chilling thought flashed through his mind, and his expression turned cold.

Just then, the door to the underground shooting range opened, and someone knocked on the soundproof partition.

Lee Wooshin removed his earmuffs and turned to see Ki Taemin, a member of the Special Security Team.

“Captain, Jin Hoje’s face is quite a sight right now,” Taemin said.

Ki Taemin, a sharp-featured, young operative, was a former sniper who had fled the 707 Special Forces after being unable to withstand internal bullying.

After completing his basic special forces training, he had caused a huge uproar and was essentially kicked out.

Blast Corp had picked him up, providing specialized sniper training and extensive camouflage tactics, and now he was a full-fledged operative.

Recalling the background information Na Wonchang had provided, Lee Wooshin smiled casually.

“What? Are you mad because I roughed up your friend?”

Ki Taemin grimaced, his lips twitching in distaste.

“Nah. If you were gonna beat him up, you should’ve run your mouth a little more while you were at it. He’s just lying there, whining like a little bitch. It’s annoying to look at.”

“Operative Ki Taemin.”

Lee Wooshin lowered his gun and fixed his cold eyes on Taemin.

“You said you’ve been friends with Jin Hoje since you were kids, right?”

“Yeah, well...”

They fought every time they were put together, so despite being childhood friends, Taemin’s expression was reluctant.

“So, you must’ve taken a lot of baths together growing up.”

At that moment, the metal rail slid forward, bringing the paper target close enough to see.

The outline of the human figure was riddled with holes, but only one specific area—the genital region—had been shot through with alarming precision.