Rain tapped softly against the arched windows of the Joseon National Archives, a modern monolith of glass and steel nestled in the heart of the capital. Inside its dim-lit interior, beyond the polished reading rooms and echoing marble halls, down a forgotten corridor labeled "Restricted Historical Manuscripts", a single man sat hunched over parchment, ink, and history.
Han Seojin (한서진) looked older than his forty-two years. Unshaven, glasses always slipping, with eyes that had long since stopped seeing the present. His world lived between ink strokes and broken truths buried in sealed scrolls. The flicker of his desk lamp cast shadows across old records, many of which had been censored, redacted—or worse, deliberately falsified.
His obsession had a name:
> Emperor Jin Muyeon. The Crimson Tyrant.
History books portrayed Muyeon as a monster draped in red robes, a despot who razed cities, slaughtered innocents, and declared war on six kingdoms at once. Teachers told their students, "Do not walk the path of Jin Muyeon, or the sky shall curse your blood." Museums kept only portraits of his burning throne room and the corpses he left behind.
But Seojin didn't believe in state-sanctioned truths.
He had spent twenty years tracking forbidden records. Smuggled accounts from border priests. Memoirs of defected concubines. Even the faded diary of a man named Yook Dowon, a forgotten scholar who had served the boy emperor before vanishing from all records.
And what he found turned everything upside down.
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The truth, buried like rot beneath history's gold paint, was crueler—and sadder.
Jin Muyeon was born to a concubine.
A woman named Nam Haein, a noble of fallen lineage. She had served as a musician in the Shi Dynasty's southern court and was taken—some whispered forced—by a minor lord in the border provinces. She raised her son in secrecy, trying to protect him from the war-crazed Shi nobility. But the court discovered her bloodline. Her son, illegitimate and unwanted, was declared a "stain."
King Shi Liansheng, the tyrant of the Shi Dynasty, had Haein executed.
Publicly.
Cruelly.
Muyeon, no older than eight, was forced to watch.
Seojin's hands trembled as he read that record the first time.
From there, the boy was discarded. Beaten. Starved. Raised in the gutters of the Shi capital. Until two figures found him: So Geomryu, an exiled swordmaster turned drunkard, and Yook Dowon, a disgraced scholar imprisoned for "heresy." The two men took him in, hid him in the slums, and taught him everything—swordsmanship, strategy, history, and revenge.
> "He didn't become a tyrant," Seojin whispered to the silent archive. "They made him one."
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He turned the page of a yellowed scroll. His fingertips were ink-stained and cut with paper edges.
One record showed that Jin Muyeon spared children during his infamous siege of Yonhye Fortress. Another, a letter never sent, was addressed to the Princess of the Shi Dynasty, whom he had taken prisoner. The letter spoke not of domination—but of apology.
There were whispers of a connection between them.
All of it was buried. Censored. Burned. Forgotten.
Seojin stood slowly, stretching his back. The archivist had long since gone home. His world remained silent. Behind him stood tall bookshelves like gravestones of forgotten men.
He looked down at the title page of his manuscript, his life's work—stacked over 300,000 painstaking words deep.
Its title was stamped in blood-red ink:
> "The Crimson Emperor: The True Chronicle."
> "He wasn't evil… He was just alone. Misunderstood. Just like me."
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Outside, the rain had turned into a storm.
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That night, Seojin returned to his apartment, a one-room loft buried under towers of books, half-spilled ink bottles, and rolled scrolls. The walls were covered in ancient maps. A cracked television sat unused in the corner.
He uploaded the manuscript. Email addressed to the Historical Truth Committee. His finger hovered over the "Submit" button.
But something in him hesitated.
Not fear—instinct.
He glanced toward the window.
Lightning flashed.
A strange scent, burnt iron, drifted into the room.
And then— BOOM.
The apartment shuddered. Something ignited near the kitchen. The fire bloomed unnaturally fast, racing up the walls like a hungry beast. The old building's alarms failed to ring.
Seojin staggered back, coughing, grabbing his manuscript in panic. But the flames already reached the desk. His years of research turned to ash before his eyes.
"NO—!" he screamed, stumbling toward the screen.
He never got to click Submit.
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As smoke wrapped around him like a funeral shroud, Seojin fell to his knees. His lungs burned. His vision blurred.
And then…
he laughed.
A broken, bitter laugh.
> "Maybe this world doesn't deserve to know the truth."
> "Maybe… he was right to burn it all."
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As the ceiling collapsed, burying him beneath fire and memory, Han Seojin smiled.
He died with his eyes open.
Staring at the last line of his manuscript.
> "The tyrant was never the villain. History was."
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But the story does not end here.
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Deep in the smoke, a strange light flickered—one that did not belong to this world.
And a voice—soft, genderless, mechanical—whispered in a language older than kingdoms:
> [You who seek the tyrant's truth… shall become it.]
[Initializing transfer of Host Memory.]
[Welcome, Jin Muyeon.]
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