The sect gate didn't creak.
It was made of old wood, but someone had carefully oiled it. Everything here felt like that: old, yet strangely well-maintained. As if time had passed… but only on the surface.
I crossed without ceremony. No one greeted me. No guards. No bells. No entry ritual.
Only the mist — thick, quiet — and the muffled sound of my own footsteps.
The first figure I saw was a young woman sitting beneath the eaves of a pavilion, writing in a notebook.
They later called her Sister Yeon. The Silent One.
She looked up at me and said nothing. Just watched me for a few seconds.
Then, with almost mechanical precision, she scribbled something, tore out the page, and handed it to me.
> "You're holding in anger. You're breathing with your chest, not your stomach.
Your shoulders stay tense even when you smile."
I looked at the paper, then at her.
"I wasn't even smiling," I muttered.
She tilted her head, as if to say: exactly.
I walked on — half uncomfortable, half curious.
I passed a man leaning against a tree, napping in the middle of the morning. His clothes were messy. His expression serene.
Brother Baek. The One Who Forgets Everything.
"Ah, new guy, huh?" he said, stretching without opening his eyes. "What was your name again?"
"Jaegal…" I began.
"Hmm, don't remember. But I remember your father wears ginseng perfume and is afraid of being poisoned by tea."
He smiled.
"But your name? Nah, that never sticks."
I kept walking, not sure whether to laugh or be unsettled.
Further ahead, I saw an old man kneeling in a garden that didn't look like a garden.
Moss. Rocks. One or two faded flowers.
The Gardener of the Mist.
He didn't look at me. He just said:
"You see an ugly garden. But everything here is where it's supposed to be."
He placed a hand on a stone and, for the first time, looked at me.
"You… are not."
I didn't answer. I just kept walking. The farther I went, the denser the air became — not with heat, but with silence.
The mist seemed to part for me. Or to close in, as if judging the one who dared walk there.
The path climbed between stones and trees, and then, after a bend, there it was: the so-called "main hall."
It looked like a palace… if the gods had forgotten to finish it.
Three pillars. A curved roof of dark wood. Paper lanterns floating like ancient thoughts.
No symbol. No name. No sound.
I crossed the threshold. The mist didn't follow me.
Inside, time felt slower.
He was there, seated before a low table, with a steaming iron kettle between his hands.
White hair tied in a simple knot. Light robes. Eyes half-closed, as if at the edge of a dream.
"So the crow fell into the mist, after all," he said, without looking at me. "They were in a hurry to be rid of you."
"They sent me here like someone tossing out a cracked bowl," I replied, dry.
The old man smiled, eyes still closed.
"Cracked bowls can't hold water… but sometimes they let light through."
That made no sense. Or maybe it did. I couldn't tell.
"Who are you?"
He poured the tea, slowly. First for himself. Then, a second cup, which he pushed toward me.
"Yoon Seoru. They call me the leader of this forgotten sect. But I prefer 'observer.'"
"Observer?"
"I observe things others forget to see. Silences. Choices."
He paused for a moment, then added in a lower tone:
"And mistakes… before they happen."
We stayed in silence for a few moments. I didn't know if it was a test, a lesson… or just old-man talk.
Eventually, I sat down. Refused the tea.
And thought, as I watched him drink:
No one trained. No one gave orders. No one even seemed to care about anything.
If this is a sect… then it's the most insane one that ever existed.