The Name That Spread Through the Night
The man thrashed like a cornered beast, veins standing out on his neck, even with several adult medical staff pinning down his limbs.
The overwhelming terror sent by the hallucinations of Hell had swallowed his mind whole.
“Don’t come near me! Get away! Aaaagh! I’ll pay you! I said I’d pay you!! No, I already paid you! After you ate that much, you should’ve—!! Aaaagh!!”
He howled at the empty air, losing his mind to something that wasn’t there.
The medical staff, frozen by confusion and fear, stared at one another’s sweat-soaked faces in silence.
And then, a moment later.
“Huh…?”
The man’s convulsing body suddenly went still.
Hissssss—
Only pitch-black flecks of light drifted quietly into the hospital room, where the air still reeked of disinfectant.
Nothing remained.
The B-class Awaker who had been screaming and struggling only seconds ago had vanished so completely it was as if he had never existed on that bed at all.
“……!!”
The room fell into a heavy silence so complete not even breathing could be heard.
The test results clutched in the chief physician’s hand slipped uselessly to the floor.
A nurse covered her mouth.
Suhyuk cast a bland glance at the empty bedsheets, then turned without a sound and left the room.
A crimson System message drifted calmly across his retina.
You have judged an Awaker criminal.
You gained 1,000 Hell Points as a judgment reward.
After leaving the hospital, Suhyuk climbed onto his scooter and quietly twisted the throttle toward home.
The cold wind brushed his cheek.
As the lights of downtown receded into the distance, the streets grew quieter, until at last the familiar maze of alleyways in his apartment complex spread out before him.
Once he got home, Suhyuk tossed off his outerwear and stepped under the shower.
He didn’t feel especially tired.
He only registered, in a distant, matter-of-fact way, that it had been a pretty packed day.
After washing up, he lay down on the bed.
The moment he closed his eyes, his consciousness sank away like a stone.
* * *
Late in the afternoon, Suhyuk woke to a slant of sunlight slipping through the gap in the curtains.
He rummaged through the refrigerator and cobbled together a late first meal, then sat at the table and turned on the television.
As he idly flipped through the channels with the remote in hand, his gaze suddenly fixed on one breaking news screen.
Suhyuk stared at the screen, spoon paused in his hand.
The hospital corridor footage played beside the anchor.
Medical staff with dazed expressions hurried inside the hospital, avoiding the camera.
“According to the medical staff who were there at the time, the patient suddenly had a seizure during treatment and soon after scattered into the air as black flecks of light,” the reporter continued. “Police believe this was an Awaker-related crime and have handed the case over to the Abyss Investigation Team.”
Without the slightest change in expression, Suhyuk scooped up another spoonful of rice.
The report went on.
“What drew the attention of our reporters, however, is the possibility that this may not have been an isolated incident. A remarkably similar phenomenon was also witnessed during the raid on an A-class Gate in downtown Seoul.”
The anchor’s voice grew heavier.
“Of the ten Awakers deployed as the vanguard, three died inside the Gate from an unknown cause. The Awaker Association has not yet issued an official statement, but details of the situation have leaked through an inside source, causing the issue to spread rapidly.”
“According to the leaked testimony, the three who died were attacked by an unseen entity inside the Gate and vanished into black flecks of light without even leaving bodies behind.”
The anchor paused for a moment before continuing slowly.
“After comparing and analyzing the two incidents, reporters found one crucial commonality. In both cases, the victims disappeared in the form of black flecks of light without leaving corpses behind. As a result, some are raising the possibility that the mastermind behind both incidents is the same being, and the Abyss Investigation Team is also reportedly looking closely at the connection between the two cases. However, further reporting will be needed regarding the specific direction and progress of the investigation.”
“It has also been reported that the Awaker Association and investigative authorities have provisionally named the unknown being behind these incidents Dust. At present, Dust’s identity and motives remain unknown, and attention is now focused on which direction the investigation will take.”
Suhyuk’s hand stopped for a moment.
Dust.
He rolled the word silently over his tongue.
It didn’t particularly please him, nor did it offend him.
He simply accepted it.
Suhyuk turned off the TV with the remote and leaned deeply back into the sofa.
Now his existence had been made known to the world.
As Dust.
And to seed fear into that name, there were still things left to do.
It’s going according to plan.
Soon enough, the world would understand.
That the reaper from Hell who had come to judge sin—no, Dust—would be paying them a visit.
The ones who felt fear would shrink back.
But the ones who didn’t would gather instead.
They would call in Awakers to protect them, and the key figures would end up gathering in one place.
From Suhyuk’s perspective, there would gradually be no need to go searching for them himself.
A structure would form in which the sinners came together on their own.
After finishing his daytime training on the rooftop to better handle The Judge’s Side, Suhyuk came down, showered, and sat on the sofa.
Breaking the silence that had filled the living room, the TV screen kept spitting out nonstop news about Dust.
“I didn’t think they’d pay this much attention.”
People in the world had begun reacting to a new bit of gossip in their boring daily lives.
And as the stories spread through the news and online communities, the Yacha Group underground parking lot incident, the Gate incident, and the hospital case all began to spread by word of mouth in a big way.
In the center of the screen, experts from various fields were gathered around the anchor, engaged in a heated debate over Dust’s identity and purpose.
Leaning back on the sofa, Suhyuk stared at the screen with a dry, emotionless look.
“A new Awaker class? That’s nonsense.”
One of the panelists, adjusting his glasses, spoke in a firm tone.
“Across the entire world, it’s been more than five years since a new Awaker class appeared. And now, suddenly, we’re supposed to believe a new Awaker class and power have emerged, one that can turn corpses to dust? That’s practically impossible. I think this Dust person is just a plain old Abyss Awaker. He isn’t killing for some grand purpose; he just enjoys murder. He simply doesn’t leave traces behind.”
The panelist opposite him furrowed his brow and shot back, “Then how exactly do you explain the lack of traces?”
“A trick, obviously. He was probably a former magician, or maybe someone with high-level command over illusion-type skills. The phenomenon of the body seeming to disappear is most likely just an illusion.”
“If that were the case, the Abyss Investigation Team wouldn’t have failed to detect residual mana while investigating the scene.”
At that, the glasses-wearing panelist snorted and scoffed.
“Since when has public authority in this country ever done its job properly? Now that the matter’s starting to blow up, they’re probably just scrambling to look busy.”
The sharply clashing voices of the panelists echoed through the living room.
Suhyuk listened in silence to their armchair speculation, then lifted the remote in his hand.
Click.
The moment he pressed the power button, the noisy debate cut off at once, and the living room sank back into heavy stillness.
There wasn’t a trace of emotion on Suhyuk’s face.
Whether the public and experts mistook him for an illusionist or a pleasure-killing lunatic didn’t matter to him in the slightest.
He naturally slipped a hand into his pants pocket and took out the Judge’s Compass, placing it on his palm.
The compass needle began trembling violently.
The sharply honed tip pointed rigidly in one direction, stained a deep blackish-red as though soaked in blood.
Proof that someone bearing a heavy sin lay within its detection range.
The compass seemed to be urging him to sever the bastard’s throat right away.
Suhyuk slowly rose from the sofa.
“The world’s getting confused.”
His low, flat voice scattered through the empty living room.
There was a need to correct the arrogance of those spouting nonsense about illusions and serial killers.
As he casually slipped on the coat hanging by the doorway, Suhyuk added coldly, “I’ll just have to show them.”
The more people who fell into Hell, the more those who trembled in fear and those who took comfort would continue to divide and multiply.
Following the red trace pointed out by the compass, Suhyuk opened the front door, where thick darkness had already settled, and stepped out of the house.
* * *
In a quiet residential alley set a little apart from the dazzling neon signs of the busy district.
The sliding door of a convenience store opened into the late-night stillness.
It was the moment when a woman in her early twenties, dressed in a light jacket and carrying a small plastic bag, stepped out of the convenience store.
“Hey, hold on. Is that beer? You gonna drink it alone?”
Three men sprawled in folding chairs beneath an umbrella in front of the convenience store lurched to their feet.
The stench of alcohol hung heavily in the air.
Each with a can of beer in hand, they cut off the woman’s path in an instant and narrowed their encirclement into a half-ring.
One of them, unable to hold back a grin that kept leaking through his lips, roughly grabbed her wrist.
“Why don’t you have a drink with us? Huh? We’ll let you drink as much as you want with your big brothers.”
“Let go of me!”
The woman cried out and jerked her arm violently free.
Her eyes shook with panic and fear.
She hurriedly twisted around to escape, but another one standing behind her blocked the way with a greasy smile.
“Come on, why so cold? We’re just trying to have a nice drink.”
“Yeah. We’re really not bad guys, you know? Just have one drink with us.”
The corners of the men’s mouths stretched wide as they sealed off every side.
It was the vulgar grin of predators driving their prey into a corner.
The woman’s voice began to tremble.
“G-get out of my way! Move before I call the police!”
“The police? Go ahead and call them. Did we even hit you? We’re just talking to you. You’re way too sensitive.”
Even after her shout, the street remained chillingly quiet.