Sometimes the Living World Is Scarier Than the Afterlife
It was a complete mess. It was horrific. The whole situation was at a level that made it hard to believe it had happened right before high school graduation.
Kang Sian felt a deep sense of disillusionment even as he worked to clean things up.
"Who the hell are you to hit our kid? What do your parents even do for a living?!"
"I don't have any."
"Oh, so you're an orphan! No wonder you seemed like bad stock, the way you glare at adults like that!"
"If I lower my eyes you'll sue me for sexual harassment."
"You... you... worthless piece of trash! How could you drive ice into our son's stomach and chest?!"
"That wasn't me. It was your son's friends who did it."
"No! Why isn't he being detained and investigated? That boy! He's the one who beat our child and even crushed his glasses! To think there's a rotten bastard like this in the world—!"
"Yes, yes, yes."
"How! How could you do something like this?! What did my son ever do wrong? You piece of garbage!"
"Sigh."
"Sigh? You sighed?! You son of a bitch! After what you did to my son, you dare make a sound like that?!"
In truth, the cleanup wasn't going anywhere. Lim Hana and her friends had been rushed straight to the hospital. Kang Sian and Cheon Mari had been taken straight to the police station.
As expected, the families of the Drug-Friends had flooded into the station first. True to form as parents of drug users, they displayed little self-control.
Of course, that was Kang Sian's perspective. As parents, their reaction was only natural. When your child gets into a fight and comes back beaten to a pulp—having practically met their ancestors—few parents in the world would stay quiet.
It wasn't a one-sided situation. They had started the quarrel. They had thrown the first punch. They had caused the initial harm. They had refused to resolve it peacefully. They had used magic first. No matter how severe their injuries, they had been the aggressors from the start.
Even with the disparity in injury severity under self-defense laws, the other party's viciousness meant far more room for consideration. Kang Sian predicted there would be none for himself.
Soon Cheon Mari approached, her facial skin still sliced open.
"Sian, the chief said he's handled the CCTV footage himself."
"That's a relief. A real relief."
"And the Nartika legal team should be arriving here soon. They'll probably get here before the other side's team."
"As expected of a megacorp..."
"Of course. How could a mere guild move faster than a conglomerate?"
The reward for making a not-bad friend—if not exactly a good one—was unlimited legal support. Without it, the childhood friends would have enjoyed a wise prison life together, so it was inevitable for Cheon Mari as well. Even if the Seoul Detention Center had decent accommodations, prison was still a place he hated.
"Right. Sian, about our academy."
"Palaistra? What about it?"
"Having a red mark here won't get our admission canceled, right?"
"It shouldn't. After all, it's the kind of place that accepts the son of a Mexican drug lord if he's skilled enough."
That was only speculation, of course. For safety, they needed a verdict of innocence or no charges. Kang Sian was willing to settle to make that happen. Naturally, he wouldn't be the one offering the settlement—they would have to come crawling with it.
Absurd as it seemed, Cheon Mari's insidious intellect made it possible. It was realistic, and the results would be satisfying.
A few minutes passed. The sound of the legal team arriving outside reached them, and Kang Sian borrowed Cheon Mari's ear once more.
"The hospital for those guys—it's confirmed?"
"Yes, I sent them to a nearby Nartika-owned hospital, so don't worry."
"And what I asked for?"
"The staff said they've set everything up properly. It won't be discovered."
The conversation carried the weight of something important yet illegal. Since Kang Sian wasn't particularly ruthless, it wasn't anything that would cause major issues.
"Installing wiretaps and hidden cameras in their hospital rooms. I never expected to hear those words come out of your mouth."
"Speak quieter. They'll hear you."
She had simply placed some surveillance on Lim Hana and her friends' hospital rooms. It might seem insane, but using internal information to attack others wasn't particularly antisocial. It happened between individuals and ran rampant between corporations. There was no need to feel excessive guilt.
"Still, what are you planning to do with this? Material like this has no evidentiary value on its own."
"You said you wanted to swallow their drug guild. If we gather anything, we can at least obtain information we'll need for the plan after the settlement, right?"
"...Settlement? You're not planning to send them to prison right now by tying them to the drugs?"
"There's no benefit to doing it now. You don't want to drag this out and create problems after admission, do you?"
"...It would definitely cause annoying complications. If it drags on longer than expected, it might end in probation instead of prison."
"And we've held back since middle school. We can't throw that away over something like this."
It was a world where even drug use and murder from a prestigious hunter family could be glossed over with enough force. In an unprepared situation like this, there was far too much room for things to be not only overlooked but completely wasted. He was utterly opposed to receiving probation and a treatment center disposition. He was also utterly opposed to any outcome that brought him no benefit.
"Personally, I hate wasting a hand that could deliver a short, decisive blow."
Why use the drug case now when it could deliver a fatal blow to the guild's stock price later? After all, swallowing the guild would require acquiring shares—wouldn't it be better to save the money that way? Or use it to shake up the guild leadership and wreck the organization from within. That was the general idea.
It was a choice between adventure and safety. Unlike safety, even Cheon Mari couldn't be certain about the adventure. The odds were low, but they might run out of cards at the end and see everything fall apart.
"Hmm... I was originally thinking of putting them away. Then I understand."
After the fight, her consideration of the adventurous route had been purely out of worry for Kang Sian's mental state. This was already the second time he had nearly been done in by crazy drug addicts. His patience and mental fortitude were reaching their limits.
In that situation, to settle according to her own interests without regard for the wishes of her victimized friend? What greater betrayal could there be? That was why Cheon Mari hugged him lightly, as if truly grateful.
When her badly injured friend was willing to endure for her benefit, there was no reason not to express thanks. She let go quickly, however, because the blood flowing from her sliced face had stained his clothes.
"Of course, it's not free."
"Ah."
"The contract we wrote back in middle school. You still remember the contents, right?"
"Uh... that? The profits from disposing of the acquired guild assets?"
"You promised to give me a set amount. Don't forget it."
It sounded half-threatening, yet her expression held a subtle smile. Reminding him of the contract was one of her spells for building patience.
"Don't worry. I'll make sure to secure about five hundred billion for you."
Only then did the subtle expression vanish. The best reward for cultivating patience was, without question, money.
* * *
Of course, he had said he wouldn't send them to prison or bring up the drug issue. However, that didn't change the fact that the Drug-Friends had been thoroughly dismantled by Kang Sian.
They had lost their minds and attacked an unarmed civilian as a group, only to lose. For hunters, this was more than humiliating—it was the kind of disgrace that made them need to look for another career.
No, cutting their own stomachs open would have been the more correct course. At least then the family honor would suffer less.
But right now Lim Hana and her friends were in no condition to cut their stomachs. The performance of drugs and pain, the song of injury and surgery, had prepared an escape route called dreams. They had fallen into anesthetics, and even after surgery the aftereffects of the drugs kept them unconscious for some time.
It was an unfortunate thing in many ways, yet on the other hand a happy one. Wasting every day like toilet paper was unfortunate. Not knowing their own situation was happy.
The CCTV footage, which miraculously contained only content unfavorable to the drug addicts, was like magic. Since they didn't even know their parents were in trouble because of it, how could one call it unfortunate? Since they didn't know what their own images had become, how could one call it unfortunate?
It was an event that no one would have known about unless someone had explicitly tipped off the press. It wasn't even an incident that warranted articles being posted so persistently. It was something that should have simply passed by. An issue of very low importance. However, it was useless in the face of personal will. In the face of the power of money, ambiguous facts were simply erased.
"If we push a few more articles like this and leak some personal information..."
"Sian, should we also spread the CCTV footage as low-quality gifs on the internet?"
One could ask what the hell they were doing. One could ask if they hadn't promised not to do something like this. To some it might be unfortunate, but that was a slight misunderstanding. They had said they wouldn't send them to prison, but they had never said they wouldn't ruin them immediately.
Sometimes the world of the living was scarier than the afterlife.