The Price of a Miracle
"So what you're saying is, this is the first thing we need to spread out there?"
It was during club activity hours.
Lee Dae-kyung asked the question, a bag of fertilizer slung over his shoulder as he stood atop the potato field we'd just finished harvesting.
"Yep. Spread that, and they grow faster and bigger."
And tastier, too.
At my words, Park Chi-woo, who had been slumped over and drenched in sweat, suddenly lit up.
"Then the money comes in faster too?"
"Nope, that stays the same."
The Chongmyeonghoe was still reporting their desired purchase quantities once a week, same as always.
At this point, I figured it was only right to start cutting them in on a referral fee.
After a brief silence, Park Chi-woo let out a long sigh.
"Ah, there really is no such thing as easy money in this world."
"Words of absolute wisdom."
I wholeheartedly, passionately agreed with that statement.
Life is fun because it's never easy. That's just how it works.
Which is exactly why the bastards who live by leeching off everyone else deserve to get what's coming to them.
I smiled contentedly and patted Park Chi-woo on the back.
"Anyway, great work today, guys. Before you head out, take one of these each."
It was kimchi made from sweet potato vines, pickled in Grandma Seo Bok-ja's special sauce—something I'd had to beg out of her yesterday. But just as I was handing each of them a jar, Park Chi-woo said something that burst my bubble.
"Whoa, why kimchi all of a sudden? Seo Ji-on, you're literally like our grandma."
...I take back everything nice I ever thought about him.
The kid had no idea how remarkable this was.
A flicker of heat rose in my chest, then quickly settled back down.
"Sigh."
What could I do? Kids will be kids.
I'd just seen the last of them off home when it happened.
Riiiing— A text message arrived.
"Oho."
Looked like the thing I'd been waiting on had finally borne fruit.
I set off at an easy pace toward the Nonghyup office.
"The first round of measures is complete."
"That resolved faster than I expected."
We'd gone ahead with the refund notice exactly as planned, and it had flushed out the branches that were hoarding stock.
Of the roughly 2,000 stores spread across the country, it was happening at a staggering 800 of them—nearly half.
I'd supposed it was possible, since the volume of sweet potatoes sold per branch was lower when spread nationwide rather than concentrated in one location. But this was far bigger than I'd imagined.
"Ha. Those incompetent fools let it balloon into all this."
I stroked my chin thoughtfully.
Hoarding at that many branches—for over two weeks, no less—and nobody had noticed? And if they had noticed, that was worse. That would mean they'd known about the hoarding and let it fester without lifting a finger until it grew to this scale.
"...Even if I wanted to let it slide, I can't."
Living in this world is always complicated and difficult. Even roads that could be walked in a straight line end up winding and bending—that's just life. And every now and then along the way, you find yourself face to face with garbage in the unlikeliest of places.
"I suppose I'll have to personally do the recycling."
Of course, that was assuming the garbage was even recyclable.
First of all, cutting off the sweet potato supply to all 800 of those stores wasn't the problem. To land a big fish, your bait has to be big too. The considerable price of reduced revenue would follow, but I was prepared to swallow it.
The real problem was that they'd be using sweet potatoes they'd already stockpiled. Until I dealt with that inventory, I couldn't land a truly clean hit.
"Branch Head Park. Did the investigation agency you hired come up with an address for that sports organization?"
"Not yet, unfortunately."
"Then we'll have to go after the medical foundation first."
The Etna Medical Foundation.
Headquartered in Gangwon Province, a closer look into the foundation revealed that some kind of cult was entangled with it.
"The Nonghyup can't take direct action against them, President."
There was no justification. On paper, they were just another buyer—completely invisible to us.
You can't slap handcuffs on a ghost.
Though I, of course, could.
"I don't expect you to. I'll handle it myself."
What on earth did he mean by that?
Park Byung-gyu stared at the boy before him with a flustered expression. Looking at that confident face, he almost felt like it really might be possible. But that was wishful thinking. There was no clever solution to be had.
Unlike Branch Head Park Byung-gyu's expectations, however, Seo Ji-on was more than capable of pulling it off.
I already know exactly where the sweet potato vines have been gathering.
It was thanks to the tracking magic I'd cast on them before delivery.
A sanatorium nestled somewhere between Inje County and Mount Seorak in Gangwon Province.
A substantial quantity of sweet potato vines had converged there. I could sense one other place where mana was pooling, but it seemed too distant to pin down its exact location.
I really can't figure out where that one is.
My guess was that it was a warehouse used by the sports organization.
"We'll begin the sales suspension tomorrow. How long should it last?"
Branch Head Park Byung-gyu, who had been watching me with a worried expression, asked the question.
"One week should be enough, but just in case, please arrange it so the suspension can extend to two weeks."
With that, I rose from my seat.
Looks like I have no choice but to visit in person first.
My after-school life was about to get a little busier for a while.
Deep in the mountains between Mount Seorak and Mount Jumbong, in Gangwon Province's Inje County, stood the Etna Sanatorium.
From the prayer hall on the hospital's first floor, the sound of wailing prayers echoed through the building.
"Forgive my father's foolishness, and we beg you to grant him his return to daily life...!"
"Look kindly upon my daughter's suffering, and I beg you, grant her the chance to recover!!"
People prostrated themselves flat on the floor, heads bowed low, offering up tear-soaked prayers.
Before them, on the raised dais, sat a man in the arrogant posture of his office—clad in priestly robes of white trimmed with a sash of deep gold. As he gazed down at the worshippers with an expression of smug satisfaction, he suddenly raised his arm.
At once, the main doors of the prayer hall burst open with a heavy clatter, and someone was carried in on a stretcher.
The commotion of their entrance made the praying worshippers lift their heads.
"Oh—ooooh!!"
"A miracle made manifest!"
Hope lighting their faces, they peered at the face of the figure on the stretcher.
It was a very young girl, gaunt and pale, with hardly any color in her cheeks.
A hereditary illness had been destroying her muscles since childhood. She couldn't walk; she couldn't exercise—and unable to build any new muscle, what little she had kept slipping away, relentlessly and beyond her control. After years trapped in that vicious cycle, she'd become the skeletal figure she was now.
"Ju-ah! Oh, Ju-ah!"
The woman who had been praying with such fervor that her forehead nearly battered the floor suddenly burst into tears.
This era's prophet was her own daughter. She was overwhelmed with gratitude.
Granted, they'd had to pay a colossal donation for her daughter to become the prophet—but even so, it was worth it. If it saved her daughter, what did the money matter!
"Praise be to Etna! Praise be to Etna!!"
As the girl's stretcher reached the dais, the crowd bowed their heads in unison and prostrated themselves. Before long, the man in the priestly robes rose from his seat.
He picked up the ornate glass bottle resting on a golden cushion at the front of the dais and walked toward the girl.
"Ahem."
At the sound of his cough, the prayer hall fell instantly silent.
"Today, our one and only god, Lord Etna, performs a miracle. Amen!"
"Amen!!!"
"Lord Etna, watch over this poor lamb of ours and work your miracle!!"
As he spoke, the man pried the girl's mouth open with one hand. With the other, he poured in the thin liquid from the glass bottle.
"Khh! Hack!"
The girl swallowed it down in visible pain. And moments later, the miracle occurred.
The lips of the girl who could barely manage to speak began to tremble, and her arms and legs moved.
"I—I can move my body!"
The girl sat up from the stretcher and cried out. The crowd, overcome with emotion, chanted amens over and over.
Shuddering with the thrill of it all, Joo-ah's mother leapt to her feet.
"Thank you, Reverend! Thank you!!"
Behind her, as she trembled with gratitude, two hulking men approached and whispered something. And in an instant, Joo-ah's mother's face went dark.
"Mother, come with us, please."
"..."
Watching her mother follow the men out, Joo-ah's expression also darkened. No one said anything, but she knew.
The family of a prophet—people who could, and would, do anything for the prophet. To meet the donations the church demanded, they would sell off everything they possibly could.
The place they took Joo-ah's mother was none other than a solitary prayer cell in the basement—so cramped and dark it could honestly have been called a solitary confinement cell. There, she sat face to face with the Reverend, mere inches apart.
"Sister."
"...Yes."
"You witnessed the miracle that befell our prophet Joo-ah, did you not?"
"Yes, I did. Thank you, thank you!"
As she bowed her head again and again, the Reverend spoke.
"However—as you well know, Sister, maintaining a prophet's status requires a considerable price, doesn't it?"
"..."
He was right. In fact, before today's miracle session, she had made a secret pact with the Reverend: she had promised to pay that price. A full fifty million won every month, donated to the church. That was the condition for keeping her daughter's status as prophet.
Prophet.
It was a pleasant-sounding title, but without that thin liquid the Reverend called holy water, her daughter would fall ill again within a month. If they wanted to stay healthy, they had to pay. He ordered them to sell the car, the house—every last asset they owned. After that, whether they took out loan-shark debt or sold their organs, any method was fine—so long as they found the money, the church would even make introductions for them. All that mattered was scraping together the cash, somehow, some way.
There was even one who couldn't endure the agony of falling ill again and took her own life.
Every prophet said the holy water tasted of sweet sweet potato, but no one knew where it came from. As prisoners effectively locked away in this Etna church masquerading as a sanatorium, they had no way of finding out.
If only they could get outside even once, maybe they wouldn't have to suffer through any of this. No—who was she kidding? This was her own fault from the start. She was the one who'd heard rumors of patients walking out healthy and whole thanks to miracles, and rushed straight here without a second thought. Everything that had gone wrong traced back to her.
Even if I somehow scrape the money together for this first month, what am I supposed to do from next month on...?
She had tasted hope once. Losing it again would mean suffering far worse than hell.
"Sob..."
Unable to bear her misery any longer, Joo-ah's mother began to weep. The Reverend furrowed his brow.
"Now, now. If anyone heard you, they'd think I was robbing you. We agreed to this beforehand... and if you truly dislike it, we can pretend it never happened."
"No! No, it's not that!"
Absolutely not. It could never be undone. The one thing she would not allow was for her daughter to sink back into that wretched state...!
"T-to make the transfer, I need my phone."
"We brought it, knowing you'd ask."
The man waiting outside the room handed over Joo-ah's phone. Five percent battery left on it—practically one transfer away from dying.
"Go ahead and transfer it, then show me."
Said the Reverend, smiling in a round, smooth way.
Joo-ah's mother opened her banking app, entered the amount, and hesitated for a moment.
"We don't have much time, Sister."
Came the Reverend's urging. At last, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the button.
Transfer of ₩50,000,000 (Fifty Million Won) has been completed.
Satisfied, the Reverend snatched the phone back and left the room. And Joo-ah's mother sat there for a long, long time, weeping—until an unfamiliar voice sounded just inches away from her.
"Well, well. Now this is quite the sight."
"HWAH! Hiccup! Hiccup!"
She was so startled she even started hiccupping.
A boy about her daughter's age had appeared out of nowhere and was standing right in front of her.
Seo Ji-on studied her haggard face for a moment, then asked.
"Curious what your daughter's been drinking?"
"Wh-what are you even—"
"I asked whether you're curious about the raw ingredient of that so-called miracle holy water."
Joo-ah's mother answered carefully.
"I heard it tastes like sweet potato, but... more importantly, how did you get in here? This is a dangerous place. Get out, quickly!"
"Is that really necessary?"
Seo Ji-on held out his own phone to her.
A fully charged smartphone. The latest model, with signal coverage anywhere in South Korea!
Almost on autopilot, Joo-ah's mother took it. Watching her flounder, Seo Ji-on flashed a slow, easy smile and said:
"You can report a crime, can't you?"