The Heretic They Call Sapa
There were plenty of beastmen in the Shelter, but only a rare few among them had been granted administrator authority.
Won-goo was now face to face with one of those few — an elephant beastman named Kane. The man in overall charge of the Shelter. The one they called the Shelter Master.
Judged purely on combat strength, elephant beastmen ranked among the very top of their kind. Most beastmen were big, but elephant beastmen were in a league of their own when it came to sheer size.
Kane was no exception. His trunk — long enough that it seemed it might brush the floor — lay draped across the table as he studied Won-goo.
"Weren't we supposed to stop meeting like this, Director Gong?"
"That was the arrangement."
"Then what brings you here?"
"You're asking because you genuinely don't know?"
"It already happened, didn't it? And you want us to clean it up? We don't do that sort of thing to our own people."
"I wouldn't dream of expecting it."
"Then what do you want?"
Kane's trunk twitched for a moment.
"We'll handle the cleanup ourselves. So how about you look the other way this once."
"You're asking for the same treatment?"
"That's right."
"If you want to be treated the same, shouldn't the give-and-take be equal as well?"
"Sounds like you took in quite a haul this time."
"Did I ever say that? Our job is to manage the Shelter. We make sure survivors can use it without a hitch."
"And yet this time it wasn't managed properly, was it?"
"If such a thing had occurred, then I suppose that would be…… true?"
That sly, weaseling evasiveness sent Won-goo's patience straight through the floor.
Normally, Won-goo was the type to hold a truly useful piece of leverage clenched in his fist and never spend it. Today was not that day.
After all, it was no easy thing for a private individual to hold financial power on the scale of a outfit like Youngjae Pharmacy.
Which meant that negotiating the old way — dangling coins in front of Kane's face — wasn't going to work here.
So he reached for a method he hadn't used in a long time.
"Hey. Trunk-face."
"……?"
"You finding this whole incident funny?"
"Director Gong…… I think you're crossing a line here?"
"Wasn't it you administrators who'd been crossing lines this whole time? Us survivors get information too, you know. We're not going to sit there like sucker idiots and take it forever. You're entrusted with running this place, aren't you? You're supposed to manage it properly and fairly. And here? You expect me to believe this place runs fair? Corruption's dripping off every wall in the joint."
At that, Kane's trunk began thrashing violently. The trunk that had been lounging on the table shot down and vanished beneath it.
"This won't do, Director Gong. You're banned from entering the Shelter from now on. Understand?"
"Oh, quit posturing. What, you're going to restrict my access? Think you can actually pull that off?"
"……?"
"You long-nosed bastard. I found out how to file a formal complaint up top. The Jonggwanwi, was it called?"
"……!"
At the word Jonggwanwi, Kane's eyes bulged so wide they looked ready to pop clean out of his skull.
His pupils trembled like an earthquake had hit them, for good measure.
He'd never dreamed the word would come out of a survivor's mouth.
The Apocalypse Management Committee.
The apocalypse.
The organization that governed planets where the end of the world had already begun.
The Shelter was just one of the countless institutions under their administration.
"Look at those eyeballs spinning. Keep it up and I'll rip that trunk off and stuff it in a vat of soybean paste."
"Um…… Director Gong? Let's all just calm down a little……"
"Restrict my access? Go ahead! Try it! But you remember this — there are more Shelters out there besides this one. Carve that into your skull. I'll march myself over to one of them and file a Jonggwan—"
"Wh-what would you have me do, Director Gong? We were planning to move on this ourselves. It was just a joke. A joke."
Kane answered with sweat streaming down his face. It was a full surrender.
"I told you to keep quiet, didn't I? You pocketed plenty this time too, I'd wager."
"I'll send the staff on leave."
"Do whatever you like…… Oh, and your tolls have gotten pretty cheeky lately too, haven't they?"
"Whatever do you mean? You can't seriously imply we've been toying with the tolls?"
"Someone hauls in a monster…… and you demand a passage tax for it."
"……"
"Even by your own standards, that's excessive, isn't it? But I can't just sit here pointing fingers. When the head of the snake is a lump of pure corruption, you think the tail down below is clean?"
"……"
"So I have your blessing to look into things a bit, then?"
"Yes. We won't interfere for the time being. However — the Shelter's management facilities are absolutely off-limits. You understand that, don't you?"
"We won't even go near the neighborhood."
"Now that's a damn fine pot of ramyeon. Sanghae-hyung's chef is the genuine Respect, I swear."
Buzzed hair, square sunglasses, a leather rider jacket — the man was Respect.
Head of the Respect Clan, the crew that ran a stretch of turf around these parts.
He was slurping the ramyeon down like a man drinking soup straight from the pot.
"Good, is it?"
Sapiens asked. Respect demolished the entire bowl in record time.
"Damn right it's good. It tastes different depending on who does the cooking, you know. Eat it at Sanghae-hyung's place and somehow it just hits different."
"I figure the message got through while you were eating. It's going to be noisy for a while……"
"You're saying Director Gong's all fired up and going to go poking around everywhere, right?"
"That's right."
"Appreciate the intel. The ramyeon was great too. Got any rice?"
At that, Sanghae brought over a bowl of rice. Cold rice.
"Come on, Respect, I can't just let this slide. I ask for rice and you hand me day-old cold rice? It's the details, man, the details. That's true Respect, Sanghae-hyung."
And with that, Respect crumbled the cold rice into his broth.
"You are actually listening, right?"
"Course I am. Listening real good. But hey — let's not be summoning each other over stuff like this anymore, alright?"
"……?"
"……?"
Sapiens and Sanghae traded glances. Respect was wiping his mouth with a napkin.
His wiping hand still had dried blood caked onto it. He jerked two fingers backward, and a subordinate immediately stepped up, offered a cigarette, and lit it for him.
When he took that first drag, Sapiens and Sanghae both took a small step back. They knew perfectly well that the cigarettes he smoked were not ordinary ones.
Respect drew the smoke in deep enough that his chest swelled, and a blissful expression spread across his face.
"Man, when I say it's Respect, I mean it, for real……"
Respect shook his head, chuckling.
"Sanghae-hyung, Sapiens — I'm grateful you worry about me, and it's real Respectful of you, but you don't need to be making contact over pointless crap like this."
"It's hardly pointless……"
"I don't know Director Gong. Don't want to, either. Sure, I've heard he handled a few big incidents back in the day…… so what? Look at him now. You add up every last one of the Director Gong crew and you barely crack seventy coins, don't you? And the Poke business — wasn't that something that happened in the middle of a bloody fight that was already running over 'items'? Word is he basically stumbled into it like a fisherman netting someone else's catch. Look — I don't underestimate him, but I don't see any reason to dodge him either. The Respect Clan runs on our own schedule. No detours. Straight down the line, exactly as planned. That's what real Respect is."
"A life with no detours. Genuinely Respectable, I'll grant you…… but we're telling you there's no reason to get tangled up in this one."
"I've got no particular desire to stick my neck out and interfere. But they say once Director Gong flips a lid, he goes after everything and everyone in his path? That's not right. Even flipped, a man should know what to touch and what to leave alone. If that's the case, you shouldn't just be warning me — you should be telling each other to watch out. No — correction. You should be telling that side. Tell them to leave us the hell alone."
"……"
"……"
Faced with Respect's flat, immovable response, Sapiens and Sanghae traded looks yet again.
"I understand where you're coming from. But let me say just one thing. This didn't use to happen, did it?"
"……?"
Respect tilted his head.
"There've been bastards who thought exactly like you before. You idiot."
Sapiens spat the words out, looking at him with pure pity.
Respect's face twisted into a scowl, but Sapiens paid it no mind and pressed on.
"The way that man handles things is tailor-made to stoke a rebellion. Usually, guys who operate like that don't last long in this business. They vanish fast. So look at him now — what do you see? Still alive and kicking, isn't he? You still can't work out what that means? That man…… he worked the same way back then, he works the same way now, and he'll keep working the same way from here on out. You need to understand that that's the real horror."
"A merchant raising hell in the Shelter — hasn't been that long since the last time, has it?"
"It hasn't."
Il-chul was out at an outdoor table, drinking with his buddies.
Enormous bulk, bald head, and that mountain-peak skull jutting up like a unicorn horn — very memorable, our Il-chul.
An axe that looked a good deal longer than a meter lay across the table as he drank loudly and obnoxiously.
Needless to say, nobody sat anywhere near them. Even the other drinkers had planted themselves at tables a considerable distance away.
"They say the Trainer got carved into thirty pieces, huh? That many cuts means he must've racked up a mountain of grudges even in the normal course of things. Brutal. Just brutal. Thirty pieces. What was the guy planning, a batch of pickled radish? He went and cube-diced a human being."
"I heard the Trainer was the type to burn bridges wherever he went. So he got his, properly. But hey, everybody listen up. Up to this point, the case is clean. A grudge. Sure, that tracks. Guys drinking…… y'know? Clashing personalities, someone pulls a blade — could happen."
"Pff…… still, thirty pieces is too much even so. I've seen a guy get stabbed thirty times, but thirty pieces? Too far. Way too far."
"People can turn absolutely vicious once they snap. I mean, hell, suppose there was even some romance between the Trainer and the killer."
"The killer's a woman?"
"No, romance — crime of passion. Ah, goddamn, you're impossible to talk to."
Il-chul scowled and took a long swig of his beer.
"Fine, fine. Keep talking. The beer's on refill, all you want."
"It's for that promise that I'm loosening up. Did I say the case is clean up to this point?"
"You did."
"Right. Clean up to there — but then someone nobody expected shows up. Sapa. Turns out Sapa had handed the Trainer one very good job."
"Sapa. You mean Won-goo's Services? Director Gong? The, uh, the physical therapist?"
"That's him. Sapa was the old man's nickname back in the day. He hates it when you use it."
"Why 'Sapa,' though? Like, orthodox sect versus heretic sect?"
"What is this, a martial arts novel? Why are you dragging demonic cults into it? Gonna summon the Heavenly Demon next?! Son of a b—"
"Okay, okay. Sorry. Sorry."
His friend hastily topped up Il-chul's glass with beer. The other friend was busy tearing strips off a piece of dried pollack.
"Think. Use your brain. Think about it and the meaning shows itself. What's pa? What does pa mean?"
Il-chul jabbed a finger at his own temple as he spoke.
"Pa is pa. Scallions? Green onions?"
"……"
Il-chul's face contorted. The friend beside him, mid-pollack-strip, wore much the same expression.
"I'm sorry."
"Pa. The pa that means 'to break.' You don't know your characters either? You illiterate bastard, you! Bet you can't even write your own name."
"I can so!"
"Write it then. Go on. Write it, you bastard."
"Uhh…… the 'metal' one, gim, and then……"
"Unbelievable. Ignorant son of a bitch. However upside-down the world's gotten, you should at least know that much."
Il-chul raised a finger and tried to trace a Chinese character in the air, at which point his friend handed him a strip of the dried pollack.
"Eat that and get on with the story. So what's it actually mean?"
"Pa as in the pa that breaks things. You know the guy totes a hammer around, right? Word is, if things go sideways, he cracks skulls open with it. All of them."
"Ahh…… so that's why he's Sapa. But what's the sa in front? Is it snake-sa this time?"
"Ahh, for chrissake…… zero imagination, this guy. You ever seen how nicknames get made in this business?"
"Then what's the sa?"
"Word is, the moment that man lays eyes on anything with a 'sa' in it, his eyes flip over."
"Con man? Sajja?"
"Cultist. Saibi."
The moment the word cultist landed, both friends nodded with fierce agreement.
"Right. That's why Cheonmok can't set foot in this Shelter. Yeah — I did hear about that. It checks out."
"Exactly. And then, fraudster?"
"Ooh……"
"And there was another one. Cultist, fraudster, and……"
"Boss?"
"Son of a—! Quit spouting non—"
CRACK!
Il-chul's head snapped back violently, and the whole table went over.
CRASH!
Il-chul snatched up his axe and whirled around — and there stood Gong Won-goo, eyes blazing murder.
"Nice shot on the 'boss' joke, huh? You're Il-chul, aren't you?"
"N-no, I'm not."
"'Not,' my ass. You are. Bald with a head that spikes up like a mountain peak. That's you, one hundred percent. Man, that skull really is pointy. What the hell did you do, get jaw surgery on your head? How is it that sharp?"