"Park Gwangrim (28, detective and broker)
What do I think of Kim Sinhwa?
A cash cow?
Ha ha, that’s not a very nice way to put it.
Honestly, that’s how I thought at first.
In this country you can buy anything with money, can’t you?
People, safety, the future, family. Money covers it all.
But my thinking changed over time. Of course, I did get paid a huge amount... but it isn’t just about money.
He’s extraordinary.
A guy barely young enough to be my kid brother—how can he have abilities that far beyond? He really impressed me.
When Mr. Kim moves, anything can change.
Everything he touches shifts into something completely different from before. He can accomplish anything, and he himself can become anything.
While working with him, I realized what I wanted.
Money? The reason you need money is because it contains the possibility of doing something with it, right? Mr. Kim is that kind of person.
Mr. Kim will change this world into something else.
I no longer need to keep looking for someplace new or safer. The safest place will be wherever he is."
Park Gwangrim lays out his thoughts with a tone of genuine delight, holding nothing back.
That’ll be the effect of the [Aroma Pipe] steeped in abyssal power.
But as the interview with Park Gwangrim went on, I confirmed the scent had limits.
He kept talking far too much, yet he never spoke any information that would function as fatal to me—or to himself.
The [Aroma Pipe] merely turns Gapureum into a friendly, trustworthy conversation partner.
In short, it’s similar in lineage to the [Banner of the Open Mind; anyone within the banner’s radius will agree to converse with you] that "Professor" used to carry.
Before Park Gwangrim could say anything more embarrassing, I pulled on another memory in Gapureum’s head.
What matters is what information Gapureum took from the Hungry Mansion.
[shrrr—]
Memories race past in fragmented keywords.
Details of the other people Gapureum met flow quickly by.
Mun Seunghee is taking Gapureum’s interview.
Long hair swept left. Taller than Gapureum. A suit a bit more casual than usual.
"Kim Sinhwa... Yeonam Construction has no connection whatsoever to that person."
"Hmm—"
A short sigh from Gapureum.
Her gaze drops to the notebook in her hand, then returns to Mun Seunghee’s sculpted face.
Her expression has loosened a little, hasn’t it? Harmony stirred up by the scent mixed into that sigh, no doubt.
"Then may I ask another question? There was an accident at Seoraksan recently, right? I’d like to hear about the [contract mage] you hired short-term then."
"That mage..."
"Mun Seunghee (34, Yeonam Construction executive)
The accident...
It was truly a major disaster.
Everything was chaos, and no one could find a way to respond.
Without him, things would not have been resolved as well as they were. I might not even be here as I am now.
So truly... I’m grateful to him.
What I cherish. What I must protect. What can’t be changed. What I have to do. The direction to go...
And the future.
He gave me all of that. I hope we can meet again soon.
Outside the business side...?
If my older brother were alive, he would have felt similar to him...
Pardon? Ah... he’s probably older than I am... No, wait. I misspoke. Please omit that part."
"Curtain Call (age unknown, security)
That recorder looks tasty.
Kim Sinhwa? Who’s that? Hm? Oh? Ah, that guy?
Worked with him a few times. Good at the job. Knows a lot of weird stuff.
(To her crew) Hey, he’s ten million times better than you lot.
What? Where is he now?
What are you on about. How would I know that?
Huh? Oh, looks?
Keh— seriously, he looks weird.
Something odd instead of a head, four eyes... mind’s not right. (To her crew) Huh? Bau, you wanna die?
Ugh, annoying. I’m done."
Low partitions slicing up a broad interior.
An enormous number of desks crammed side by side.
Papers piled like mountains on every desk.
Phone bells. Voices. Shouting. An occasional thump that shakes the floor.
"Ah, that’s Team Leader Yang Seoho’s seat. He’ll be here shortly, so please wait a moment."
About as tall as Jang Hyundeok, with shoulders that bring Gwak Daeyong to mind. A woman with a round, kind expression.
Im Huiyeong. She’s an official with the Foreigners Management Agency, but not a major NPC.
She calls it a desk, but what sits there looks more like a single block of iron roughly shaved into shape.
Handprints stamped here and there in the metal.
Looks like it really is Yang Seoho’s desk.
"What are those name badges?"
Gapureum’s innocent question.
A wide board is packed edge to edge with government ID passes.
All different names.
Looks like they all belong to different people, and there are hundreds of them.
Im Huiyeong pauses with a little "mm—" and then speaks.
"Passes from retirees. The team leader... keeps them so he won’t forget."
"Ahh—I see."
Gapureum studies the passes as she says it.
Silently, through Gapureum’s eyes, I look upon a memorial stele shaped like ID badges.
At the very end. The most recently attached pass on the board—that’s where her gaze stops.
Gapureum slowly reaches toward the pass bearing the name Shin Ujin.
In that instant—
"Hey, what are you doing? Back off."
"T—Team Leader!?"
Im Huiyeong’s voice is almost a scream. The room falls quiet in a heartbeat.
Yang Seoho has arrived.
Seen through Gapureum’s eyes—eyes that, aside from some limited traits, are no different from a normal person—Yang Seoho is overwhelming.
Visually, he’s a hand shorter than Im Huiyeong standing before Gapureum, and his shoulders are barely half as wide—a normal build.
But.
A beast, a predator.
A surreal monster.
Or a man-eater.
A bizarre pressure such as an alien thing would exude, something outside common sense.
A sheer cliff.
A horrific explosion.
A mountain with no visible peak.
Presence so immense it warps the visual field.
A hallucination of your throat being cut in an instant.
A death image too vivid.
An instinct screaming to flee on the spot.
Terror so absurd it feels like your windpipe is being crushed just by being in his presence.
From not just the eyes, but the two holes bored into his face, blue light seems to flash out like lightning.
No, there isn’t literal light.
It’s how Gapureum perceives him.
Most "ordinary people" who face Yang Seoho realize they are prey before a predator.
In truth, Gapureum feels fear beyond that of facing a giant tiger while naked in the mountains.
"Are you the reporter?"
Yang Seoho’s question.
"Ah... uuu..."
At the Foreigners Management Agency they commonly call this "the baptism," or "Yang Seoho shock."
You lose your words, your breath runs short, cold sweat trickles, your legs shake, your gut tightens.
In severe cases...
Vision blacks out.
Right. Some people faint.
Frightening.
But this isn’t the sort of intel I’m digging through Gapureum’s memories for.
Not this... this.
Among her drifting memories I spot Jang Hyundeok.
'Ah, there you were.'
Head wrapped round and round with bandages—squatting by a used-car lot on the outskirts of Paju, wearing a bleak expression.
A faint bloodstain seeping through one side of the bandage. Scratched it again? I told him so many times not to.
It’s bad enough that a guy with a hole in his head slipped out of the house to skulk around a high-crime area...
[inhale— exhale]
He’s holding two cigarettes in one hand.
One between index and middle fingers.
Another between middle and ring fingers.
Puffing two cigarettes at once, Jang Hyundeok looks up at Gapureum with a downright delinquent face.
"How did you even know to find me?"
Slowly rising with visible wariness.
A hunched posture. A furrowed brow. The rancid reek of smoke.
The baleful aura curling around him.
Through another’s eyes, Jang Hyundeok is a very dangerous, unstable outlaw and, at the same time, a sorcerer with ominous power.
'Well, a thug haunted by ghosts is about right.'
But the tuberose scent Gapureum gives off melts even the wariness of an outlaw who has worked six years in a rough district, and after a long interview the topic turns to me.
"Jang Hyundeok (22, transportation)
What kind of person is that mage?
He’s an awesome hyung. Seriously the best.
Oh, not my real brother. We met on a job somehow, and I never thought I’d run into someone like him in this crappy neighborhood where only lunatics walk around.
I wish he were my real brother...
Huh? How old is he?
Hm? Twenty-three? He’s a year or two older than me. But he’s really smart.
But he nags like crazy—ugh—sometimes he drives me nuts, you know?
You see this head here? It’s really fine, okay? And he won’t even let me smoke.
If I don’t smoke—I keep hearing weird sounds lately...
What do I want from him?
Ah, this is that thing. That thing. Ha ha! A video letter! Oh, no video? Eh, whatever.
Sir Mage. You’re watching, right? Ah, right, no video.
Every time, always, um—like, you keep—uh, thanks for helping me out.
I’m kind of a mess right now. Once my head heals a bit...
Mm. Eh, I’ll stop mooching off you now. Sir Mage. Fighting! Yahoo!
How was that?
Oh, I’ve been crashing at his place for a while lately.
He really is a good hyung, but probably, um. I must have really gotten on his nerves. I should wrap things up and go home.
Anyway, that’s my goal these days.
Gotta get a car fast if I’m gonna do anything.
Oh, right. I came to look for a car today.
See the used-car lot here? I’m going back to security cab work.
You know what that is, right? For that you can’t just drive any car, you need something with decent specs, but cars are insanely expensive now.
I was talking with the dealer guy about financing the whole thing—the car price and, like, insurance? Anyway, all of it on installments. Thirty-eight percent interest...
It’s fine, once I’ve got the wheel in my hands I’ll earn quick."
What the hell is this brainless idiot babbling about?
Anyway, as I suspected, Jang Hyundeok wasn’t the one who drew Gapureum into the Hungry Mansion.
Gapureum really did reach it by the power of chance and luck.
No—that alone wouldn’t cut it.
An abyssal being influencing Gapureum must have manipulated her steps. That’s why she also spoke with people like Mun Seunghee who lacked immediate ties.
The objective?
Meet those connected to me, hear their information and thoughts, and what would they gain...
'They’re securing my weak points, and looking for ways to torment them.'
Damn it.
I feel like they already have enough, but before I exit I want to check what happened inside the Hungry Mansion.
I rummage through Gapureum’s other memories again.
We’re almost at the destination.
"I’m sorry, but could you please step back?"
Chae Taewon takes out a handkerchief and wipes his hands.
Sprawled around him are the mid-level men of the Jeokdu faction.
'Wrong memory.'
I accepted Jeokdu’s proposal and stepped away from their struggle, but once the scale tilted it kept tipping against Jeokdu.
Chae Taewon or the Cheongho faction contacted me a few times, but I ignored most of it.
"Kim Sinhwa, you said?"
Chae Taewon looks at Gapureum for a moment with an unreadable face.
Eyes holding a cold, quiet intent to kill. Polite, careful hand movements.
Suddenly, without a word, Chae Taewon advances toward Gapureum.
Long, steady strides. A dreadful gait.
[crack]
The metal-reinforced toe of Chae Taewon’s shoe crushes the hand of the man on the floor.
"Argh!"
A wrist pulverized—gun and all still in the grip.
Excessive, but not without reason.
If he’d been a single step slower, either Gapureum or Chae Taewon would have gotten a new hole in their body.
"Chae Taewon (fifties, office work)
Question: Do you know Kim Sinhwa?
Answer: I do. To me he’s like a benefactor.
Young, bold, and capable.
I wish we could have worked together longer...
What does he look like?
Hm...
Oddly, I can’t recall well.
His age? Late thirties, I think.
What do I want from him?
There was a minor misunderstanding recently, and I’d like that resolved... Miss!"
Out of the darkness surges a terrible shadow. Hair whipping in all directions. The hem of a pitch-black coat blotting the view. An iron crowbar hurtling in at incredible speed.
[thump]—impact.
A scream.
Gapureum’s vision reels wildly.
And hurtling toward her at tremendous speed—Jung Hyuna, with a horrid expression?
"Hey! You saw it too, right? Cheongho! That’s my dad!"
Jung Hyuna’s voice booms like thunder through Gapureum’s skull.
"Those psychos on the dark web said it was funny and uploaded it. My dad being torn apart by a giant hand! What was that? Reporter, what do you want from Kim Sinhwa? I’ll answer for you."
"Miss! Please!"
"Hey, reporter! Chin up! I’m talking!"
Gapureum’s view lifts, slowly.
Jung Hyuna pulls a fistful of pure white tablets from her coat pocket.
Nirvanada.
The same drug that sent Park Gwangrim for gastric lavage after five pills.
Jung Hyuna tosses the whole lot into her mouth.
[grind! crunch.]
"Hee— hee-hee— huh-huh-huh— I want to know. Why did Kim Sinhwa take my dad from me?"
