The Power to Clean Up Trash

Suhyuk had never been a clean freak.

Still, Han Suhyuk was the kind of person who thought trash should be picked up when you saw it lying around, the same way ordinary people did.

Didn’t news programs and YouTube always seem to be full of shameless, worthless human garbage?

Whenever he saw creatures like that, he wasn’t the only one who would probably mutter the same thing.

What’s the Underworld Reaper doing? Why doesn’t he take those bastards first?

People used that kind of line all the time, didn’t they?

And now, the Underworld Reaper was him.

He had gained the power to personally drag out a garbage bag and clean the streets himself.

Suppressing the excitement surging through him, Suhyuk carefully examined the rest of his skills.

[Reaper’s Eye]

You can see through the sins of others.

[Judgment and Punishment]

Send sinners to hell and inflict eternal punishment.

[Hell Shop]

Trade for goods from hell using points earned by guiding sinners.

[Reaper’s Body]

Power infused with the authority of the reaper increases physical ability and recovery.

However, if the brain is destroyed, you die.

Suhyuk’s eyes trembled with a shiver.

He realized that the reason he had been able to return from death was precisely because of Reaper’s Body.

“So the things I only imagined… I can actually do them now.”

He clenched his fist tightly.

The first thing that came to mind was the man from Cheolsu-pa who had laughed at him while driving a knife into his stomach.

The word revenge lingered on the tip of his tongue, sour and metallic.

But Suhyuk didn’t rush.

A reaper shouldn’t be a murderer acting on impulse.

He needed information, and first he had to think about how to wield this power efficiently.

“For now, let’s go outside.”

Suhyuk pulled on jeans and a black hoodie, then lowered his cap deep over his face and stepped out the door.

The apartment-villa district streets in broad daylight were quiet.

The autumn wind blew in with a sharp chill, but for some reason, he could barely feel the cold.

Turning a corner at the mouth of an alley, Suhyuk spotted a man ahead of him.

A tattooed thug, dragging his slippers along the ground.

Even though the weather was cold, he wore a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, his arms and legs covered in tacky, crude tattoos.

The sight of him blowing cigarette smoke into the middle of the street felt to Suhyuk’s nose like the stink rising off a heap of trash.

Reaper’s Eye.

As Suhyuk focused on the man’s back, something bizarre happened.

Black mist gathered above the thug’s head, and words, as if written in blood, surfaced clearly in the air.

- Sexual assault

- Gambling

- Domestic violence

- Child abuse

- Threats

- Extortion

- Rape

Seven sins in all.

The identity of a beast wandering around the neighborhood in human skin.

Suhyuk’s gaze went cold in an instant.

His heart thudded hard.

It wasn’t some lofty tremor of justice.

It was only a fierce urge to scrub away the filth in front of him right this second.

How do I clean up that trash?

Instinctively, Suhyuk called to mind the Judgment and Punishment skill.

He didn’t have any weapon on him, so he couldn’t just rush the guy.

This is just an experiment anyway. Let’s see what happens.

Fortunately, the alley he was walking through had no security cameras and no parked cars, so there was no chance of a dashcam recording anything either.

Keeping a little distance, Suhyuk trailed the man and muttered, “Judgment and Punishment.”

Black energy seeped out from under the thug’s feet like a shadow, slowly wrapping around his ankles.

“Huh?”

Picking up on something strange, the tattooed thug paused and looked down at his feet.

But when he saw nothing there, he tilted his head and started walking again.

Every few steps, though, he stopped and glanced down, as if his legs were snagged on something, as if they were growing heavier and heavier.

He even shook his legs around, but there was no way to dislodge the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠invisible black energy.

“Ah, shit. What the hell is wrong with me all of a sudden?”

Swearing at the odd sensation in his legs, the man went into an old villa building.

Suhyuk followed at a reasonable distance and headed into the first floor of the building.

The tattooed thug was clutching the worn old railing and laboriously climbing the stairs one step at a time.

For someone built that big, the way he moved so awkwardly made him look as if he’d lost the use of his legs.

Stagger.

It seemed his strength was draining away more and more, because even climbing a single stair looked difficult.

In the end, the thug collapsed onto his ass, gasping and staring down at his legs.

The sturdy legs covered in tattoos somehow looked thin today.

No, that wasn’t just a feeling.

“What the hell?”

He rubbed his eyes, but his legs were so gaunt they no longer looked like they held any muscle at all.

The tattoos themselves seemed distorted, and the pain was growing worse by the second.

That wasn’t the end of it.

The pain crawled upward, slithering past his groin and into a stabbing ache in his abdomen.

And once the chest pain began, he couldn’t even breathe properly; he had to pound at his chest while choking and gasping.

So this is the effect of Judgment and Punishment.

Leaning against the wall on the first floor below, Suhyuk watched the scene closely and checked his surroundings.

It was a quiet residential area in the middle of the day, so there was no one passing by.

The students were at school, and the adults were at work.

Besides, because of redevelopment, there were a lot of empty houses nearby, which meant even fewer people around.

“Hurk—hurk!”

Writhing in agony because he couldn’t breathe, the tattooed thug barely managed to pull his phone from his pocket.

But before he could call 911, he dropped it, and it fell down the stairs.

On the phone screen lying below, only the dial pad was visible.

Thump.

At the same moment, the thug’s neck and arms dropped limply.

Dead?

To Suhyuk’s eyes, the black energy roiling over the man’s body looked greedy, almost hungry.

Not only was it devouring the thug’s life force to kill him, it seemed intent on swallowing the body itself.

As if to prove it, the man’s body began to crumble and scatter like dust.

It doesn’t leave a corpse?

Not only did it kill by an invisible force, it didn’t even leave a body behind.

Would it really leave no trace at all?

The answer came quickly.

The tattooed thug’s body broke apart into black dust like the energy around him, and there was nothing left to prove a man had ever been there.

It was almost as if Suhyuk had been alone there from the beginning.

Only the smartphone the thug had dropped remained on the stairs, abandoned and lonely.

The expensive-looking watch he’d been wearing, his clothes, the cigarettes and lighter he must have bought at a convenience store—all of it vanished without a trace.

The things that had been in direct contact with him disappeared, but the phone didn’t, so it’s still here.

A thin, bitter smile touched Suhyuk’s lips.

The method for guiding sinners to hell was absurdly simple and clean.

It didn’t even leave evidence, which made it almost impossible for anyone to suspect Suhyuk.

Goosebumps rose along his arms.

He was so thrilled it was almost chilling.

When he returned home, only then did he truly begin to realize what kind of power he had obtained.

You have unread messages.

When he opened them, messages he hadn’t seen before were waiting there.

A sinner has been judged.

The sinner has fallen into hell and is being punished.

As a reward for judgment, you have obtained 10 Hell Points.

Your level has increased.

As a level-up reward, you have obtained 10 Hell Points.

Hell Shop has been unlocked.

He had only taken down one man, yet his level had risen to 2.

It was hard not to wonder if leveling up was really this easy.

He’d heard that for other Awakers, raising their level in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the early stages was brutally difficult, so much so that they couldn’t get by without help from the Association or a guild.

Suhyuk had only been trying to test his skill when he happened to discover a sinner and cast Judgment and Punishment on him, yet his level had gone up so effortlessly.

“I’m an irregular.”

Suhyuk’s awakened ability was fundamentally different from everyone else’s.

He didn’t hunt monsters; he hunted sinners, and that was how he gained levels.

And he didn’t even need to risk himself by going into Gates.

On top of that, there was the message saying Hell Shop had been unlocked.

Did Awaker abilities even include a shop?

There were so many different kinds of awakened powers that someone somewhere might have had an ability like that, but at least in the information ordinary people had seen or the level of common knowledge, there wasn’t any Awaker known for having a shop.

“Hell Shop.”

He muttered softly, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and a holographic window unlike the status screen appeared before him.

The color scheme and design, all reds and blacks that seemed to embody hell itself, looked as if they were dripping blood.

“A shop, huh… and there are only four things?”

Just four items.

The ones marked Locked, with little lock icons, seemed to have separate unlock conditions.

“Probably either my level or Hell Points have to go up, or I need to send more sinners to hell.”

He thought of the conditions he was used to seeing in games.

Usually, things like this unlocked one by one the longer you kept playing.

If they didn’t unlock, he’d find a clue then. There was no reason to sit here and worry about it right now.

First, Suhyuk tapped on the item names to check their information.

They were items with jaw-dropping abilities.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Above all, Reaper’s Robe was something he had to buy no matter what.

And it only costs 10 Hell Points?

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was more generous than a gacha game’s best event.

Suhyuk didn’t buy the robe right away.

There was still one skill he hadn’t checked yet.