A Gentleman’s Exit.

The rain fell heavily.

It hissed across Seoul's steel-clad skyline like a whispered threat, thin and cold as it sliced through the night. On the rooftop helipad of the Hyunmi Corporation, thirty stories above the glittering veins of the city, Lee Min-jae stood alone. His tailored charcoal coat clung to him, soaked through, but he didn't flinch. Not from the cold. Not from the fall.

He adjusted his tie, an old habit, not vanity. Even now, with the storm above and the empire crumbling below, his mind moved like clockwork, drafting contingencies and running simulations. He had once built dynasties in silence, bought senators like stocks, and reduced rival conglomerates to ash with a smile and a signature.

And now, he was the one being dismantled.

Twenty Minutes Earlier

"You're finished, Min-jae."

The words were smooth, polished like glass, spoken by the very man Min-jae had once plucked from obscurity. His protégé—no, his echo—now sat at the head of the boardroom table, wearing the title of CEO like a crown.

He even smiled the way Min-jae used to.

Outside the glass walls, media drones hovered like vultures scenting blood. Inside, security guards braced beside the doors, unnecessary but symbolic.

"Embezzlement. Market manipulation. Bribery," the new CEO listed off casually. "Quite the portfolio."

Min-jae tilted his head, unbothered. "That's rich, coming from the man whose internship I erased to get him into Harvard."

A visible wince rippled through the board. But it didn't matter. The weight of power had already shifted. He saw it in their eyes, those once-adoring gazes now flicking down to legal statements on glowing screens.

He turned slightly, seeking out Sohee, his assistant of six years.

She didn't look at him.

Silence. That was always the first betrayal.

Ten Minutes Earlier

They thought he would go quietly.

Instead, he walked, unhurried, through the building's private elevator, past the guards, through the lobby where junior staff dared not meet his gaze. The rain greeted him as he stepped out, heavy and unrelenting. Phones buzzed, headlines blazed:

HYUNMI SCANDAL. CEO ON THE RUN. ASSETS FROZEN.

He still had the flash drive. Still had offshore backups in Zurich. Still had time.

Until the message came.

We found the villa in Cyprus. It's gone. Sohee gave it up. They've frozen Zurich too.

A slow exhale escaped his lips.

So that was it.

Everything undone, not by his enemies, but by those he had trained to think like him. Loyalty had never been a requirement, only utility. But now he understood. When you teach them too well, they don't just outgrow you.

They erase you.

Now

He stood at the edge of the Yeongdong Bridge, the Han River swirling below in quiet menace. Behind him, Seoul gleamed, bright, indifferent, hollow. A kingdom of illusions.

"Lee Min-jae!"

A voice shouted from the rain. Police, perhaps. Or the press.

He turned, just enough. A drone hovered nearby, lens blinking red.

"Don't run," the voice urged. "Come in peacefully. We can talk terms."

Min-jae smiled.

Not out of sadness.

Not out of fear.

Just tired.

The rain blurred the city into watercolor smears. Wind tugged gently at his coat, as if to coax him forward. He looked down at the river, not with dread, but with clarity.

No courtrooms. No disgrace parade. No slow public crucifixion by people who owed him everything.

He had built himself from nothing.

He would not let them carve him apart.

He whispered to no one:

"Next time… no partners."

And then he jumped.

The cold hit first. Then the silence.

The world above vanished the moment his body broke the surface of the Han River. Water rushed over him, swallowing him whole. The sounds of sirens and voices disappeared, replaced by the heavy, muted pressure of the deep.

Min-jae sank.

His coat, soaked through, dragged him downward like an anchor. He didn't fight it. He didn't move. His eyes stayed open, watching the blue-green blur around him fade into darker shades. A few bubbles escaped his lips. His lungs began to ache.

For the first time in years, there was nothing to fix. No move to make. No one to impress.

Just silence. And sinking.

So this is it, he thought. This is my ending.

Darkness. Then a sharp snap of thunder.

But it wasn't rain anymore. It was mud. And cannon fire.

Smoke. Screams. The iron stench of blood. And the pain of something else, a body too heavy, too raw, too alien.

He was choking on dirt, not water.

A horse screamed nearby. Boots thudded past. Muskets cracked.

Someone groaned, a wet, gurgling sound, just ahead in the muck.

Min-jae blinked through the blur. A soldier. Young. Face bloodied, leg twisted beneath him. Eyes wide with terror.

"Help..." the boy rasped.

Min-jae didn't think. He moved.

His limbs felt wrong, longer and heavier but he crawled through the mud, fingers digging into freezing earth. Another volley of musket fire tore through the air behind him.

The boy tried to crawl backward. "Captain...Captain Finchley..."

Min-jae grabbed him under the arms and dragged him toward the shattered remains of a supply cart, heart hammering.

"Hold on. Don't look back."

A cannon blast exploded behind them. Dirt rained down like ash.

They tumbled behind the wreckage. Min-jae shielded the boy with his own body until the ground stopped shaking.

The boy sobbed in relief. "I thought... I thought you'd left us... like last time..."

Min-jae looked down at the trembling soldier.

Who had abandoned them before?

Was he talking to him?

But he had never seen this boy in his life.

He opened his mouth, then stopped. What could he even say?

Then the boy gripped his sleeve with a shaking hand. "Captain… are you staying this time?"

Min-jae hesitated,just long enough to feel the weight of that question.

"I'll come back," he said quietly, even though he didn't know why. "But if you hear a retreat order, don't argue. Run."

The boy nodded, eyes wide with something like hope.

Min-jae stood, hand gripping the saber embedded beside a corpse. His breath fogged in the air.

He turned back once, just to be sure the boy was hidden behind the cart.

The wind stilled.

And then, from nowhere—and everywhere—came a voice.

Refined. Amused. British to a fault.

"You are performing far better than anticipated, my good sir."

Min-jae stiffened.

The voice wasn't near. It wasn't shouted. It slipped past the gunfire and smoke like a whisper behind the ear.

"A most unexpected display of competence. Let it not go to your head."

He spun around, "who..?"

But saw nothing.

Just the screaming battlefield, and blood-soaked mud.

And then…

A sharp pain bloomed in his temple, like someone driving a spike through his memories.

The air shifted.

The wind stilled.

And just above him... A leather-bound book hovered in the air like it was waiting.

Its cover was black, scorched at the corners. The sigil of an ouroboros—a serpent devouring its tail—glimmered faintly in red ink that looked too much like blood.

"At your service, good sir—the Gentleman's Ledger, ever dutiful."

His eyes widened as he stared at the book, 'Gentleman ledger?'

The book creaked open, pages riffling like they were caught in wind only it could feel.

Letters bloomed in glowing script across the page.

To the one abandoned and left to drown—

Thy war is not yet ended.

Lee Min-jae will be known to the world as Captain Alistair Peregrine Finchley, bears the ignoble distinction of disgrace. He has been removed from familiar soil, presumed dead, and most inconveniently, remains among the living. Once an officer of the 5th Dragoon Guards—some might even whisper competent—he now walks a delicate line, his morals in question, his backbone bruised but not entirely broken.

Around him gather perils: the thunder of Russian guns, the wreckage of a sullied name, and the slow-turning gears of military justice yet to pass final judgment.

But if one must retreat, let it not be labeled cowardice. Let it be remembered as foresight. Let it be called strategy—and devastating in its precision. For even shame, in skilled hands, may yet serve a nobler end.

Min-jae blinked. 'What is with this book?' Then ducked just in time to avoid losing his head.

"...What the hell…?"

He staggered to his feet, grabbed the saber beside him, and ran.

Mud exploded behind him.