The university campus was loud in a different way than Daejin High ever was.
No drills. No armbands. No whispered rumors before fights. Just the chaos of students trying to figure out who they were supposed to be without someone telling them how to exist. Everyone was in motion, stumbling through independence, parties, credits, mistakes.
For a while, Dae-hyun thought that freedom would feel strange. After everything he'd seen—after knowing what systems looked like when they were made to hurt you—he assumed he'd keep seeing ghosts.
But what he found instead was silence.
And he didn't know whether to be grateful or scared.
---
His roommate was a second-year law student who talked fast and barely slept. The guy didn't ask questions about Dae-hyun's past—just showed him where to hide instant noodles and which professors never took attendance. It was a relief, being around someone who didn't treat him like a story.
Still, the past wasn't something you could mute completely.
Especially when it had a name.
One week into the semester, Dae-hyun spotted it—scrawled across the whiteboard of a campus bulletin:
"G-List incoming?"
It wasn't loud. Just a scribble. A whisper. But he recognized the shorthand instantly. G-List—that was how some people had started referring to them toward the end. Too afraid to say the full name. Too reverent to ignore it.
He erased the marker without saying a word.
He didn't think much of it—until it happened again.
Then a third time.
He started noticing the patterns.
In one of his lectures, someone left a red chess piece on his desk. Another day, he spotted a notebook in the library titled "Zero Systems: The Division Model"—the name changed slightly, the structure eerily familiar.
The worst was when he saw a photo pinned behind glass in the humanities hallway.
A class photo.
Daejin High.
Last year's.
His class.
His face—circled in red.
---
He called Min-ji the same night.
"You sure it's not just a coincidence?" she asked.
He didn't answer right away.
"You don't believe that," she said before he could respond.
"No," he admitted. "But it's not the school. It's not the system. It's the people. The idea."
"They're trying to rebuild."
"Someone is."
She paused. "You want backup?"
"No," he said. "Not yet."
But the word yet hung between them like smoke.
---
He started visiting the quieter corners of campus more often. The dark library floors after midnight. The rooftop above the cafeteria no one used anymore. The old media lab where students edited their short films and political rants in silence.
He wasn't hunting ghosts.
He was tracking patterns.
That's when he noticed her.
The girl from the library.
Third-year. Glasses. Always wore earphones. But her hands moved with purpose—flipping through notes, files, case reports.
And one day, he saw it.
A printout with the Crimson Division's original insignia—drawn in faded pencil at the corner.
He sat across from her without a word.
She didn't flinch.
"You're not from Daejin," she said.
"You are."
"Was," she corrected. "Transferred out before the Collapse."
"Why the research?"
"I'm writing a thesis on social engineering in youth correctional models."
"That's a convenient excuse."
She smirked. "Isn't it?"
He leaned forward. "What do you know about the Manual?"
Her eyes darkened. "Enough to know it's not fiction."
"Why are you looking into it now?"
She closed the folder slowly. "Because it's happening again."
Dae-hyun didn't speak.
She handed him a flash drive.
"Seoul North Campus," she said. "Their new 'Character Division' just launched. Different name. Same structure."
"How do you know?"
"Because they already have Bishops."
---
That night, he didn't sleep.
He watched every file on the drive. Footage. Schedules. Internal memos. Fight breakdowns. Even psychological assessments using scoring criteria eerily similar to Daejin's. The only difference was packaging. This time, they wrapped control in language about discipline and "peer-based conflict resolution."
It was cleaner.
Smarter.
Worse.
---
He emailed Chan-mi the files.
She replied within an hour:
"Already heard whispers. You just confirmed it. They're cloning the system."
He asked:
"How many campuses?"
She didn't respond right away.
When she did, it was a single number:
"Five."
---
By the end of the month, the Grey List was back in contact.
Min-ji scheduled a call. Sun-woo joined from the army dorms. Tae-yul patched in from overseas, already in the middle of a research internship in Tokyo.
They didn't talk about restarting the group.
They didn't even say the name.
They just asked one question:
"What's the move?"
---
Dae-hyun didn't want to go back. He'd spent too long fighting in the dark, too long living in shadows where justice had to wear a mask. But when something you killed starts to breathe again, you don't turn away.
You sharpen the blade.
And you finish it.
---
He requested transfer authorization to Seoul North Campus under a foreign policy minor, citing academic interest in correctional educational models. The university board approved it within two weeks.
Just like that, he was inside.
Again.
A new uniform. A new hallway. A new set of eyes watching from behind glass.
But this time, he knew what to look for.
They hadn't rebuilt the same system.
They'd just changed the wallpaper.
But the poison was still inside.
And now, so was he.
---
He walked the halls quietly, watching students shuffle between classes. No one looked scared—yet. But fear doesn't show up early. It arrives slow, through rules and silence and things that don't make sense until they do.
He sat in the back of the class.
Took notes.
Let the cameras see him yawn, nod, sleep.
But underneath the desk, he was writing.
A second Manual.
Version 2.0.
Because this war wasn't over.
It had just changed its name.
---
End of Chapter 18