The Judge’s Compass
The convenience store clerk’s hand hovered over the receiver beyond the glass window, frozen in place.
The finger poised to dial 112 trembled violently.
If I call the police... what if those bastards come back later looking for revenge and hurt me? It could just be some drunk idiots harassing her.
In the end, the clerk bit down on tightly pressed lips and took his hand off the receiver.
Across the street, a couple sitting at an outdoor table in a late-night café was also watching the scene unfold in perfect clarity.
When the man started to lift himself out of his seat, the woman hurriedly grabbed his sleeve.
“Honey, don’t get involved. You don’t mess with drunk lunatics. Don’t even look at them.”
“Still, that woman looks like she’s in real trouble.”
“Getting involved will only make it a pain for us. What if we get hurt because you decided to deal with some crazy bastard? Finish your drink and let’s go.”
The two of them quickly lowered their heads and looked away.
Just then, a middle-aged man passing in front of the convenience store slowed his steps at the commotion.
The woman’s eyes, pleading for rescue, turned toward him—but one of the men in the group jerked his chin up and glared at him fiercely.
“What the hell are you looking at, you piece of shit? Move along.”
The middle-aged man flinched, his shoulders jerking, then hurriedly looked away as if he’d seen nothing and quickened his pace until he vanished into the dark.
No one stepped forward.
Utter indifference.
And in that silent complicity, the men’s laughter only grew more grotesque, more arrogant.
“See? I told you no one cares. We’re really good guys, see? Come on. Just one drink, that’s all. Yeah?”
* * *
At that same moment, in the deep darkness of an alley not far from the convenience store.
The rattling engine of an old scooter quietly died.
Su-hyeok parked the scooter and took Judge’s Compass from his pants pocket.
The needle, heated to a dark, blood-red glow, trembled violently as though it might leap out at any second, pointing straight at the men in front of the convenience store.
“The smell of trash is thick enough to choke on at this hour.”
Su-hyeok’s low, dry voice scattered into the air.
Without hesitation, he took out Judge’s Robe and draped it over himself.
Seeping into the darkness, Su-hyeok used the Demon’s Eye to inspect the men’s heads.
- Sexual assault
- Rape
- Illegal filming
- Assault
...Why are there so many sex offenders?
This wasn’t just some local thug harassing a drunk woman on the street.
This was a breeding ground for vile crimes, enough to turn the stomach.
Su-hyeok’s gaze naturally shifted to the heads of the remaining two men.
- Sexual assault
- Rape
- Assault
- Distribution of illegal footage
As expected, they were maggots writhing in the same sewer.
Meanwhile, the woman, deathly pale with terror, showed no trace of sin above her head at all.
“I said come on. Follow us while we’re being nice. We’re getting close to our limit here.”
The bestial lust of the men trying to seize the woman by the arm and drag her into the alley stabbed at Su-hyeok’s ears.
“Help me! Someone help me!!”
The woman struggled desperately and screamed.
But the men only seemed to find it entertaining as they twisted her arm more roughly and dragged her toward the alley’s depths.
“Damn, shut up already. Can’t you keep it down? We’re trying to be nice to you, so why are you making such a fuss?”
“Hurry up and bring her in. Before she gets any louder.”
The other two men grinned and shoved at her back, cutting off any path of retreat.
That was the very instant tears of despair and fear welled in the woman’s eyes.
Su-hyeok’s cold gaze, fully blended into the darkness, turned on them.
And from between his bloodless lips came a low, dry sentence of judgment.
Sin Punishment.
Ssssshhhh—
At the leader’s feet.
From the asphalt itself, a pitch-black surge of hellish energy began to rise like a snake.
“Huh? What the—why are my legs suddenly...?”
The man stopped short, the strength draining from the hand that had been dragging her.
An unbearable weight crashed down on him, as if invisible shackles had been clamped around his ankles.
The startled bastard lowered his head to look at his feet, and in that instant the black energy lunged up his legs and spread through his whole body like a beast.
“G-Gaaahhh!”
A grotesque scream ripped through the silence.
“H-Hyung! What’s wrong?”
“What the hell—why are you seizing up all of a sudden? Huh? I-I’m getting it too! My legs!”
“Kraaaah! Help me! Something’s wrong with my body!!”
The other two, who had been cackling beside him, also collapsed to the ground at the same time, convulsing in agony.
The black energy coiling around their bodies mercilessly drained away their vitality, withering and twisting their bones and flesh.
The beer cans in their hands clattered to the ground.
At the bizarre sight, the bystanders who had steadfastly remained indifferent were finally thrown into disarray.
The clerk inside the convenience store, who had only been pretending not to notice, shoved his face against the glass in alarm.
“Wh-what... why are they suddenly doing that? Did they all take something or what?”
The couple at the café, who had been about to hurriedly leave their table, froze in place.
“Honey, look at that. Why are those people suddenly acting like that?”
“Holy... are they having seizures? Hurry, record it. Quick.”
The man hastily pulled out his smartphone and hit the video record button.
The middle-aged man, who had been trying to avert his eyes and walk faster, ultimately stopped at those skin-crawling screams and stared wide-eyed.
“W-what in the world is...”
The woman had frozen like a statue on the spot.
The grip of the man clutching her wrist as if to crush it finally loosened and fell away with a dull twitch.
“Keh... keuhk... sav... save me...”
The three men, clawing at the ground until it bled beneath them, shrank like fallen leaves.
Their skin dried out, and the joints of their bones jutted into view in unbearable agony.
Then, just as it seemed their bodies were burning black from within—
Whooshhhhhh—
One by one, their forms crumbled into piles of pitch-black dust and scattered into the night air.
Complete silence.
The street that only moments ago had been noisy with drunken harassment and screams now sank into a heavy, unbelievable stillness.
Not a single drop of blood remained. Not a single corpse.
From the clerk behind the convenience store glass to the couple at the café and the middle-aged man standing frozen in the street,
every witness stared at the empty asphalt in disbelief.
“......”
Crash.
The clerk’s phone slipped from his hand, hit the ground, and shattered, the sound breaking the silence.
The only one left was the woman, who had nearly been dragged into something horrific by those three men. She sank beneath the streetlamp in front of the empty convenience store, staring blankly into space before finally bursting into tears.
* * *
One second, two seconds, three... ten long seconds passed in silence so complete that not even breathing could be heard.
A sight that was impossible to believe had happened in reality.
The man from the couple standing across the way lifted his smartphone with trembling hands.
“Did... did you get that?”
The woman’s voice shook badly.
Her eyes were fixed on the screen of her boyfriend’s phone.
“Yeah... I got all of it. Every bit.”
On the screen, the three men could be seen thrashing grotesquely at empty air before dissolving into black dust and fading away.
“Send it to me. I’m posting it on Instagram.”
“Y-yeah. Okay.”
The couple didn’t know.
They didn’t know that Su-hyeok had been staring at the scene, then moved on to his next target.
He was already driving the scooter through the night streets, following the direction pointed to by Judge’s Compass.
A sharp siren, tearing through the quiet night air, rang in his ears, and the compass needle shivered as it pointed toward the source of the sound.
“Stop! Pull the vehicle over right now!”
Through the loudspeaker came the police’s urgent warning, but ahead of him was a black sedan weaving dangerously in escape, just barely avoiding the pursuing officers.
The swaying body of the car and its reckless speed.
It was the textbook image of a drunk driver trying to flee a checkpoint.
The compass needle was fixed squarely on that madly racing sedan.
Su-hyeok used the Demon’s Eye to inspect the driver in the oncoming car.
- Drunk driving
- Hit-and-run
- Flight
A faint, sardonic curve touched Su-hyeok’s lips.
He didn’t even feel the need to complicate things by putting on the robe and hiding himself.
The car was coming straight at him anyway, so all he had to do was keep riding the scooter and murmur the words of Karmic Return.
He passed by and parked the scooter on the shoulder.
As his gaze shifted to the police closing in on the sedan from behind, a shriek of tearing terror burst out from inside the car as it plunged into an alley to shake them off.
“Ugh—AAAH! What is this?! Get away, get away!”
The driver, seized by an atrocious hallucination, flailed wildly at the air and lost control of the wheel.
Screeeech— BOOM!!
The sedan, now fully out of control, slammed head-on into the streetlamp at the mouth of the alley.
With a deafening crash, white steam shot up from the hood.
Two patrol cars that had followed it into the alley slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt.
“Get out of the vehicle!”
Three police officers approached cautiously, batons and tasers drawn.
The body cams clipped to their chests blinked red as they recorded the scene in full.
It was the very moment the officers edged up to the crushed car.
Bwaaaang—!
From inside the driver’s seat came an unnaturally long, miserable blast of the horn.
“Get me out! Get me out of here, now!!!”
The driver was yanking at the handle over and over, trying to force the door open, but the crumpled body of the car had jammed it shut.
The sedan, pinned helplessly against the streetlamp, now lurched as the driver screamed at something hallucinated and began stomping the accelerator like a madman.
Kiirrrr—!
The car couldn’t move forward, so the tires spun uselessly in place, scorching the asphalt and filling the alley with thick, acrid smoke.
“Take your foot off it! Take your foot off the pedal!”
The police could only shout; they couldn’t get close.
But they could still see everything that was happening inside.
The driver’s face was covered in blood from the force of the crash as he wildly swung both arms at empty air.
“Die!! Go die, all of you! Just die, damn it!”
The scream was almost a howl of desperation.
The officers were so overwhelmed by the creeping madness of it that they stood frozen, unable to move in.