Chapter 34: Baekryong Academy Intake

Jinhae

Lee Seorin stood a polite half-step behind her guard. She smiled the way well-raised girls smiled. Pleasant. Harmless.

I had seen that smile in a loading screen.

The Third Princess of Jungwon. A Hidden-route heroine. Seal Saint candidate. The only royal who entered Baekryong under a false surname.

Lee. Her mother’s name. A concubine’s name. The kind of cover that worked because it was almost true.

“Baekryong Academy,” I said. “That’s convenient. We’re headed there too.”

Seorin’s smile warmed.

“Are you? How fortunate. The valley road is long, and good company is rare.”

Yerin’s eyes moved over me once.

“You three,” Yerin said. “Invitation or open trial?”

“Invitation.” I tipped two fingers toward the inner fold of my robe where the plaque sat. “House Kang. Support track. The swordsman is Haeun. Martial. The girl with him is my attendant. She’ll do the healer evaluation.”

Seorin’s head tilted. Her mask was excellent.

“Support,” she repeated. “That explains the openings you called. You read the beast quite well.”

From behind the rock came the faint hiss of covered flame.

“I’ll sit the seal examinations,” Seorin said. “Talismans. Binding. The boring paper kind, I’m afraid. Nothing as exciting as spears or swords.”

Yerin made a noise that might have been a laugh.

“Boring,” she said. “She dropped a charging boar last month with a slip of yellow paper.”

Seorin’s cheeks colored. “Unnie. That is not a story for the road.”

I watched Seorin’s hands. Ink stained the edge of one thumbnail.

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LEE SEORIN

Traveling Scholar (Cover)

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Affection ............... 6 / 100

Lust .................... 8 / 100

Trust ................... 11 / 100

Submission .............. 3 / 100

Fear .................... 14 / 100

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Relationship Status: Stranger / Curious

*— Hidden Identity: Intact

*— Cover surname: Lee (maternal / concubine line)

*— Raised: Outside the capital / full life

*— Virgin: Confirmed

*— Sexual knowledge: Theoretical

*— Practical experience: None

*— Good Girl Mask: Extreme

*— Curiosity: Extreme

*— Hidden Flag: “Writes erotic novels”

*— “Do young masters and maids on the road share a tent? Should I add that to my stories? That's so hot.”

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There it was. Bound manuscripts tucked inside the travel cloak.

“Seals will pair well with a healer and a sword,” I said. “If the entrance trial is still a four-person evaluation, we’ll be short a fourth until the gates.”

Seorin smiled.

“You’re suggesting we travel the rest of the way together?”

“I’m asking. Five people, one road, two days. Your captain already killed our ogre. The least we can do is share the next campfire.”

Yerin’s jaw set.

“We don’t collect strays.”

“Unnie.” Seorin’s voice stayed soft. “They’re going to the same examination we are. It would be unkind.”

“Unkind,” Yerin repeated.

“Yes.”

Yerin looked at me again.

“If any of you slow her down,” Yerin said, “I leave you behind. If any of you touch her, I take the hand. Clear?”

“Clear,” I said.

Seorin clasped her hands together in front of the cloak and bowed.

“Then it’s settled. How wonderful. I have so many questions.”

Ahyun came around the rock first.

Seolhwa followed. The blood on the sash was gone. The hitch in her breathing was gone.

She had also adjusted the bindings. A tight pull at the collarbone.

Her eyes found the two strangers, then me.

“They’re coming with us,” I said. “They’re also going to the exam.”

Seolhwa’s mouth flattened.

“Are they.”

“Lee Seorin. Seal candidate. Captain Na Yerin.” I turned my hand palm-up toward my own people. “Kang Jinhae. Support. Young Master Seol of Haeun, sword division. Ahyun, House Kang. Healer track.”

Ahyun bowed.

“It’s an honor.”

Seorin bowed back.

“The honor is mine. Your hands are very steady.”

Ahyun’s ears went pink.

“I thank you. I only did what Young Master asked.”

Seolhwa didn't bow. She inclined her head.

“Haeun Seol.”

Seorin looked between the five of us and actually bounced once on her heels before she caught herself and stopped.

“Two days,” she said. “We should walk while we still have light. Unnie, if you walk in front, I can talk without you sighing at me.”

We left the ogre where it lay.

Patrols would find it, or wolves would, or the next demonic scout would eat what was left and get slightly larger.

None of that was my problem.

Two days later, Baekryong Academy did not look like a school.

It looked like someone had dropped a fortress city into a valley.

Walls high enough that the morning sun had not yet climbed them. Towers at regular intervals with Alliance banners and Royal banners hanging side by side. Behind the walls, roofs stacked on roofs — martial courts, lecture halls, tiled ridges, a central pagoda that threw a long shadow down the approach road. Smoke from a hundred kitchens.

The line outside the main gate went back along the valley road until it bent out of sight.

Thousands. Dusty outer-disciple robes. Merchant sons in new silk. A cluster of Unorthodox blacks standing too close together. Orthodox whites pretending not to stare at them. No one happy. Everyone armed or trying to look like they were.

Ahyun’s fingers tightened on her pack straps.

“Young Master… that’s…”

“Open trial. They’ll be here until sunset.”

Seorin stood on her toes to see over a cart.

“Side gate,” Yerin said. “Invitation holders don’t wait with the cattle. If your plaques are real.”

“They’re real.”

We cut left along the wall. The service approach was narrower and meaner, watched by two Alliance clerks and four bored spearmen who became less bored when they saw Yerin.

The first clerk held out a hand.

“Invitations. Names. Tracks.”

I took the lacquered plaque from my robe and set it on his table. Murim Alliance seal. House Kang.

Seolhwa produced a travel pass with the Haeun Sword House mark. Forged beautifully. Namgung work pretending to be lesser work. The clerk barely glanced. Haeun was real enough, small enough, and a young male swordsman at a martial intake was the most ordinary thing.

Seorin set down a slim jade token I had never seen in the game’s inventory screens.

“Lee Seorin. Seal track. Escort?”

“Captain Na Yerin,” Yerin said. “I am remaining on grounds as contracted protection.”

“And the fourth?”

Ahyun stepped forward. No plaque.

The second clerk shook his head already.

“Open trial line is the main gate. Attendants of candidates wait in the outer yard after their principal is processed. She is not—”

“She's sitting the healer evaluation,” I said.

“Without an invitation she sits it with everyone else.”

Seolhwa’s hand settled on a hilt.

Seorin smiled her kind smile and placed two fingers on the table beside her token.

“She’s with us,” she said. “Our party is incomplete without a healer. If you send her to the back of that line, you send three invitation holders to the back of that line, because we will not walk in without her. You can explain that to whoever counts the plaques tonight.”

The first clerk looked at the second clerk.

I added, “House Kang covers one attendant’s evaluation fees. I’ll sign whatever ledger you put in front of me. She goes through this gate or I go back to the main road and ask the next official who would like to be helpful.”

Silence.

The first clerk stamped a blank form harder than the form deserved.

“Name?”

“Ahyun,” I said. “House Kang. Healer track. Attendant of Kang Jinhae.”

“Follow the painted line to Intake Hall Three. Next.”

We went through.

Ahyun’s shoulder brushed my arm as we cleared the inner arch.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “All of you.”

Intake Hall Three was a long hall full of tables, ink, and tired officials.

A steward in Alliance gray flagged us the moment he saw the cluster of plaques.

“Party status,” he said. “The examination is a four-person field evaluation. You may register a fixed group now or be assigned at random on the morning of the trial.”

Seolhwa nodded once. Ahyun did too. Seorin was trying not to look delighted. Trying not to nod so eagerly.

“We’ll register together,” I said. “The four of us.”

The steward dipped his brush.

“Names and intended divisions.”

“Kang Jinhae. Support.”

“Haeun Seol. Sword.”

“Ahyun of House Kang. Healing.”

“Lee Seorin,” Seorin said, and her voice was bright as a bell. “Seals.”

The brush moved. A red chop hit the corner of the form. Another chop hit four wooden tags he pulled from a box. He strung them and slid them across the table.

“Wear these on the left wrist until the preliminary is scored. Lose the tag, you retake intake. Housing is by division for the first week. Martial Pavilion East for the sword. Support Court West for strategy and logistics. Medical Court South for healers. Seal Gallery is the northern annex, above the library. Escorts use the outer barracks. Meals are at the drum. Curfew is the second night drum. If you miss the preliminary assembly, you fail. Questions?”

“None,” I said.

“Then you are enrolled. Preliminary is in three days. Don’t die before then. Next.”

We stepped away from the table.

Seorin held her tag up to the light.

“We’re a group,” she said. “A real group. I’ve never had one of those.”

Yerin took the tag out of her fingers, tied it onto Seorin’s wrist herself, and tugged the knot until it sat neat.

“You also have a preliminary in three days and a barracks I have not inspected. Say goodbye. We walk.”

Seorin turned to the three of us and bowed again.

“Thank you for letting me walk with you. I will see you at assembly.”

Yerin took her elbow and they were gone.

Seolhwa watched them leave.

“I’ll go East,” she said. “I should go claim a room before the sword idiots take the best ones.”

She left on the eastern line. The white-and-blue travel robes cut through the crowd and vanished.

Ahyun stood beside me with her healer tag on her wrist.

“I should go, Young Mas—”

I took her elbow.

“You come with me.”