The Price of Truth (3)
After the raid on Serena's Ice Palace, Sirius went quiet. It was hardly a successful conquest, given the massive damage they'd sustained. Without any announcement about their loot, the guild simply hunkered down in silence.
They promised to release information about the Ice Palace later through official channels, but there were no grand celebrations like usual after a raid. Sirius just bided their time quietly.
No matter how much the reporters pressed, they gave nothing away.
But even Sirius couldn't avoid the one event that demanded their presence.
The Awakener Association's charity gala. This New Year's gathering drew every top hunter in South Korea.
Sirius sent a few hunters, and given how they'd been lying low since the Ice Palace raid, all eyes immediately turned to them.
Especially Yuseonje. But no one dared approach him easily. He was more infamous for his temper than his abilities.
"Hey."
Jeong Hosan approached Yuseonje, who was leaning against the wall.
They hadn't been close at the academy, but Hosan wasn't heartless enough to ignore someone who'd nearly died.
"Heard you went through hell. Glad you made it out alive."
He had no intention of prying like the others. Just a quick greeting and he'd be on his way.
"Take care."
"You were friends with Kang Ishin, right?"
Hosan's head snapped back at Yuseonje's words.
"What?"
"Yeah, now I remember. You were the one always defending that guy. Said you'd been friends since you were kids."
What the hell is this about all of a sudden? Was he trying to pick a fight because Ishin was now a wanted murderer? Hosan's face darkened in an instant.
"I don't know what you're getting at, but..."
"I met your friend."
Hosan froze. He strode up to Yuseonje, eyes sharp.
"What do you mean? You met Ishin? When? Where?"
Yuseonje let out a scoffing laugh.
"Want to find somewhere quiet to talk?"
Hosan followed Yuseonje to a secluded spot.
"Spit it out. When and where did you meet Ishin?"
"Hmm, where was it again?"
Hosan's fists clenched at the evasive answer.
"If you're messing with me, cut it out."
Kang Ishin was Hosan's reverse scale. Even someone as good-natured as him had limits.
Yuseonje stared at Hosan with an unreadable expression.
"You really met him?"
"Yeah. Not long ago."
"Then tell me. Where is he?"
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? I need to find him and bring him in. Do you have any idea what kind of situation Ishin's in? He's publicly wanted for murder."
Yuseonje tilted his head slightly.
"That guy's not as fragile as you think. He doesn't need anyone's help. He didn't go into hiding out of fear in the first place."
The Kang Ishin that Yuseonje had seen had some goal in mind. He was hiding for that purpose, not cowering like a loser from being wanted.
"If he hasn't come to you, it's probably because he doesn't need you in his plans."
"Ha. And what about you? He met you because he needed you in his plans?"
Yuseonje's lips twisted into a smirk.
"Yeah."
Enough to throw himself into danger to save me.
* * *
"Achoo!"
My nose suddenly itched like crazy. Nam Juhyeon jumped and let out a shriek at my sneeze.
"S-sorry, sorry. Keep going."
All I knew was that Nam Juhyeon had dug into the Bomnal Orphanage case and ended up here. I hadn't heard the details yet, so now I planned to listen from the beginning.
"F-first, I started with the Kang Ishin case."
My name hit out of nowhere, and I winced.
"Why that one? It didn't seem like a big deal."
"Well! Something's off about it, right? Sure, he killed someone in an illegal gate, but he also freed the people trapped there, didn't he? The real villains are the ones running those illegal gates."
I blinked.
Well... yeah, that's true.
"And there can't be just one illegal gate like that. But no one's investigating them. The media just spun it as awakener-on-awakener crime and started the usual awakener bashing. But that's weird. In that line of work, non-awakeners are way more involved than awakeners."
Just as Nam Juhyeon said, illegal gate mining was often run by non-awakeners. Especially in Korea, where those with that kind of capital and power were usually non-awakeners.
If someone was a high-rank awakener themselves, they'd go for raiding high-rank gates or processing monster byproducts instead of scraping by with that.
"I was going to dig deeper into that, but the problem was the illegal gate had already vanished. Poof! Along with all the evidence inside. And get this—that recruiter guy, Im Hyun-su? He died in prison like a ghost."
Nam Juhyeon's voice dropped. She'd been chasing this all alone.
"That's when it hit me. Kang Ishin was just bait. And maybe he wasn't even behind Han Jo-hee's murder either. It didn't add up—why would he save someone just to kill them later? Everyone got suckered by the sensational headlines."
At least someone knows I'm innocent.
Forgetting her fear of me, Nam Juhyeon pressed on passionately.
"I couldn't dig deeper into that case, but I found another one buried by the media. The Bomnal Orphanage."
"Ha."
Good luck or bad? She'd connected the two cases perfectly.
"The illegal gate was probably a one-off, so no evidence left. But the orphanage had been running in the same spot for a good long time. At least 15 years? So I could find info."
That's how she learned about Kim Seongdeok.
Now it made sense.
Nam Juhyeon had caught attention much earlier than in the past because of me.
My actions had exposed the illegal gate and Bomnal Orphanage cases, and with her keen instincts, she'd dug into them and stirred up trouble.
"Bomnal Orphanage ran on donations. And those came from one of Kim Seongdeok's associates. He claimed he donated to other places too, but unlike the one-off PR stunts elsewhere, he funneled money into Bomnal for a full 15 years."
"So you went after Kim Seongdeok?"
She nodded at my question.
"No wonder they wanted you dead."
Her face paled at my words.
In the past, Nam Juhyeon had gotten closest to Seol Rokjin's secrets. And she was just a regular person, not even awakened.
She was green now, but later, with those beastly instincts, she'd uncover even the secrets Seol Rokjin had buried deep.
The problem? She had no power to protect herself.
In the past, she'd caught Seol Rokjin's eye and died for it.
"Wh-what about you? Why'd you get involved? Why save me?"
I widened my eyes at her question.
"Where'd those kids they took from the orphanage go?!"
"That's none of your business."
Her courage to keep pushing for an interview even now was admirable, but I drew the line.
"You said you'd tell me the truth."
"Yeah, about Kim Seongdeok. Drop the digging into me."
I told Nam Juhyeon firmly.
"I'm cooperating because I hate Kim Seongdeok too. So don't cross the line."
I let a hint of killing intent slip, and her face went white again.
So timid, yet she'd dive headfirst into mortal danger. What a weird woman.
I decided to share a few 'truths' I'd kept bottled up.
"You know healing awakeners are rare, right?"
"Y-yes."
"So potions are a big deal too."
Potions that instantly healed wounds weren't just for hunters. Sure, they used mana, so civilians couldn't handle much, but who'd turn down a miracle cure for injuries that'd take months to heal?
"Just like you thought, Kim Seongdeok ran that orphanage. Its purpose was making awakeners. Artificially. Human weapons. They ran all sorts of experiments. And those needed medical knowledge and equipment."
I shrugged and added,
"You probably know Kim Seongdeok came from a certain company."
"H-Hyeonmu Pharma?"
I nodded.
Hyeonmu Pharma was Korea's top pharmaceutical company. Kim Seongdeok's son was the chairman, but the real power was the old man's.
"They're the origin of human experimentation. Bomnal was just their harder version. Hyeonmu's been experimenting on people from the start."
"What?"
"Never thought their potions were too perfect when they first came out?"
Foreign healing agents had side effects popping up left and right, but Hyeonmu's were clean.
"No way..."
"All thanks to human trials."
Hyeonmu's sins weren't just that.
Potion production was toxic.
Sometimes they needed awakeners for otherworldly materials, but most workers were civilians.
Prime mana poisoning fodder. Like the old semiconductor factories where workers died of cancer, here it was a new disease: mana poisoning.
"The reason it never leaked? Those workers never left."
Human trafficking and experiments were already rampant at Hyeonmu, on a scale dwarfing Bomnal.
"Bomnal's a joke compared to Hyeonmu. It was basically Kim Seongdeok's hobby—to become an awakener himself."
"Y-you knew all this?"
"Yeah."
Since I opened my eyes in this world again.
"Why didn't you do anything if you knew?"
"Then what? Terrorist attack?"
Terror changes nothing. Hyeonmu execs would just play victim.
"Nothing I did would've mattered. They'd just tighten security."
Nam Juhyeon listened with a stiff face, unable to believe this happened in 21st-century Korea.
People make a common mistake.
They think civilized society means civilized humans. But humans remain barbarians, no matter the tech.
This world still had these horrors.
"But if we tell the world..."
"You'd end up like this."
Most media are in someone's pocket—high-ups, at least.
They wouldn't run it. Even if she wrote it, it'd get spiked. Self-publishing? Deleted instantly. Or she'd vanish first.
If it somehow broke and stuck, they'd scrub evidence before any real probe.
Just another internet conspiracy.
"Th-then what do we do?"
"Beats me."
Media manipulation isn't my expertise.
"You figure it out. How to break this story right."
Easier said than done, probably. As I opened my mouth to say more,
Nam Juhyeon's eyes flashed.
"Al-right! Just give me a laptop first?"