The Azure Sun Sect had entered a strange phase where nothing felt stable, yet nothing had collapsed enough for anyone to admit the truth. The elders called it a period of "recalibration." The disciples whispered a different word when no one important was listening.
Unpersoning.
Mu-Hyuk learned that word from Yoo Seol-Ah.
She had heard it from a servant who had been ordered to burn a bundle of old rosters without asking why. The servant had said it in a shaking voice, as though naming the process gave it weight.
"They're not removing people anymore," she said as they walked along a narrow ridge above the inner courts. "They're unpersoning them. Turning them into mistakes."
Mu-Hyuk absorbed the term quietly. It fit too well.
The event that pushed him beyond observation happened that same night.
A list was posted on the outer barracks gate, hammered into the wood with iron nails so no one could tear it down easily. Thirty-seven names were written in a rigid, unfamiliar hand beneath a heading that read:
Status Pending – Verification Required
Disciples gathered in tight circles around the board, reading and rereading the list as if repetition might alter the ink. Some sighed in relief when they didn't see their names. Others stared at their own in numb disbelief.
One girl fell to her knees.
"My brother's name is here," she said hoarsely. "But he transferred to the inner court last year. He's not here anymore."
No one had an answer for her.
Mu-Hyuk stood at the edge of the crowd, his gaze drifting across the names with clinical detachment — until one of them made him stop.
Jin Ryo.
The boy had shared a bunk with him during his first year in the outer halls. He had snored loudly, complained endlessly about the cold, and once stolen Mu-Hyuk's steamed buns before replacing them out of guilt.
He had died in the purge.
Mu-Hyuk had seen his body in the pit.
Yet here his name was, hammered into wood as if he were still somewhere in the sect, waiting to be found.
Something twisted in Mu-Hyuk's chest.
It was not grief.
It was refusal.
That night, he did not return to the watchtower.
He followed the chain of orders backward through the sect's lower administrative spine, slipping past sealed doors and inattentive guards until he reached a cramped office beneath the eastern dormitory wing. A single clerk sat hunched over a desk, eyes red from exhaustion, copying names from one scroll to another.
Mu-Hyuk stepped inside without speaking.
The man startled, knocking over an inkpot. "S-senior? I didn't hear you—"
Mu-Hyuk placed the list of "pending" names on the desk and pointed at Jin Ryo's entry.
"Where did this come from?"
The clerk swallowed. "From the consolidation directive. We were told to recover missing identities by cross-referencing older rosters."
"And when you found a name without a current location?"
"We… we were told to mark them pending. Someone higher up would resolve it later."
Mu-Hyuk leaned closer. "Even if they're dead?"
The clerk hesitated, eyes darting to the door. "We weren't given permission to declare anyone dead without elder confirmation."
Mu-Hyuk straightened slowly.
[Host Emotional Deviation Detected]
The system's cold notice pulsed through his vision, but he ignored it.
He picked up the brush from the desk, dipped it into fresh ink, and drew a single horizontal stroke through Jin Ryo's name.
Not violent.
Definitive.
"He's not pending," Mu-Hyuk said quietly. "He's gone."
The clerk stared at the altered scroll, horror spreading across his face. "Y-you can't just— that list goes back to the Records Hall. They'll notice."
Mu-Hyuk set the brush down.
"They should," he replied.
By dawn, the altered roster had already reached three separate offices.
Somewhere between its journey from the clerk's desk to the elder archive, someone had added a note in the margin.
Deceased – Cause Unverified
It was the first time the word had appeared in any official record since the purge began.
Yoo Seol-Ah found Mu-Hyuk standing on the ridge overlooking the outer courts, eyes fixed on the barracks gate where the list still hung.
"You changed something," she said.
"I corrected something," he answered.
She followed his gaze. "That name meant something to you."
"Yes."
After a moment, he added, "If they're going to erase people, they won't start with the dead."
The Murim Dominator System adjusted its projections silently.
But this time, Mu-Hyuk wasn't looking at the numbers.