Round and Round
“Could it be a trail made with Gara?”
Fresh came closer as he said it, Kim Seok-bong standing beside him. Won-goo didn't offer an opinion right away. Instead, he turned his gaze to Montage, who had crouched down to study the traces more closely.
“Seok-bong's right. It definitely split in two.”
“Why would it split? Was there a reason for it? Did they have a falling out?”
“If they'd fallen out, wouldn't there be some sign of a struggle? These aren't your average violent criminals we're dealing with.”
That was Kim Seok-bong's take. Won-goo gave him his answer.
“It's precisely because of that that they may have split up cleanly.”
“Because if they stuck together, there'd be no telling who'd come out on top?”
“Exactly. Though there are plenty of other possibilities. Look at the roster—every one of them has some real weight to their name. They could genuinely have disagreed on the plan...”
“Or they're dodging the pursuit. This trick would work, wouldn't it? Agree to regroup at some point, then each take a different road.”
At Fresh's suggestion, everyone nodded along. Meanwhile, Montage had pulled out a cigarette and was holding it between his lips.
“That's a possibility too, but...”
“Could they not have just torn clean apart, mmm? Different philosophies'll do that to folk, won't they now?”
“Anything's possible. That's why we should work with the facts only. First: Seok-bong's opinion and your opinion line up. This group definitely split in two right here. No objections to that?”
“That's right.”
Montage answered with a nod.
“Then let's assume they split and look at the case again.”
“Should we split up too?”
“Not a chance. If we do that, both halves of us end up in danger.”
“So we're giving one up, then?”
“Is that it?”
“No way around it. With a case like this, getting greedy is how you lose everything. Better to take one half for certain than risk it all chasing both.”
“And which half is it we've got to take for certain?”
“Poke.”
“Not Hoppang?”
“Poke or Gu In-seon—but Poke comes first. His head's worth the most. You know that too, Fresh. You know exactly how that bastard grew his operation.”
“Fair enough... that Gift of his is just about perfect for building a size.”
“A punk who never had anything to lean on but his Gift is going to be carrying a Demonic Sword and stomping around making noise now. Meeting him head-on as an enemy on a one-lane bridge—it's only a matter of time.”
“Gong So-jang, I don't rightly know this Poke or Pocket-ball fella, but you're sayin' he's the most valuable one, aye?”
“That's right. Think you can find him?”
Montage shook his head firmly.
“Impossible. If I'd laid eyes on the bastard myself, maybe, but not like this. If they'd split off with only a few men, I might manage. But how in the hell would I pick out Poke's trail now?”
Won-goo's expression hardened.
“Hyun-seong. Bring me the map.”
“Yes, hyung-nim.”
Out in the Field, where the terrain shifted by the hour, a map didn't mean much in the strictest sense. But changes big enough to redraw the broad strokes were rare. Which meant the general direction someone had traveled could still be confirmed on paper.
“Back when Poke tried to screw me over and bolt, he said something. Said he'd scouted out another Shelter.”
“Then this side's closer, isn't it?”
The fugitives heading right were indeed nearer to the Shelter. Even so, it was a considerable distance away.
Shelter Relax.
Practically speaking, this area didn't even count as its neighborhood—it was a different region altogether. By distance alone, it was far farther than Ark, which at least had a dungeon in between.
“That's where he tried to run off after screwing with the contract. At minimum, he'd have bolted this far.”
“Then this side's the right call. Let's go this way.”
“One problem, though.”
“What?”
“That guy's no ordinary head on his shoulders. He could have doubled back and tangled the trail one more time.”
“If we factor that in too, we'll never leave this spot. Wouldn't it suit us better to just go simple?”
“I suppose so, yeah.”
“That's how I see it.”
“Then let's go this way.”
They settled on the right, hoping Poke would be waiting at the end of that road.
“Hey. Old man. This is the right way, yeah?”
Purple called out to halt Hoppang, who was walking ahead—a man of earthy skin, a long face, and thick lips. His nickname came from the unusually purple tint of his lips.
“You deaf? Do I have to call you Hoppang for words to get through?”
The fast-walking Hoppang stopped in his tracks. He stared straight ahead for about a second, then turned around.
True to the nickname, his face carried a heavy amount of flesh. He fixed Purple with a long, hard stare, then raised the knife he was holding upright and scraped it along its edge like a razor. Scrape. Scrape.
It was his routine—the thing he did right before he killed someone. The underlings who knew him had learned that when the scraping started, the smart move was to back away.
And yet, astonishingly, Hoppang went through the motion and nothing more. He didn't move.
“This way's right. And once we arrive, we settle the pecking order for good. Keep going like we are now and it all turns to shit.”
“A pecking order? And how'd we settle it?”
“By throwing down, obviously. You even have to ask?”
Even as he spoke, Hoppang felt the urge surge through him—to lunge right now and tear out Purple's throat. But he didn't.
One truth had been beaten into him after his own men betrayed him and handed him over: you had to keep your crew in decent shape. That was how you avoided the knife in your back.
Something any ordinary person would know without thinking twice—and he'd only understood it after tasting death.
“It feels like we keep circling the same spot over and over... is this really the right road? Mom said if something feels off, don't follow it.”
This time it was a man with the nickname Filial Son who spoke—youngest among the group gathered here. The nickname came from his habit of tacking “Mom” onto the end of every sentence. Spend even a little time talking to him and something about him immediately felt off, somehow lacking.
Even so, the names Filial Son and Mama's Boy had once carried quite a fearsome reputation around these parts—so skill was never the thing he was short on.
Scrape! Scrape!
Holding the knife upright, Hoppang scraped it across his shaved head a couple more times.
“Before we go setting any pecking order, let's settle this first. We all crawled out of that goddamn Sugar factory together, didn't we? That alone counts as being half-family, no? And even if you say we're not, I need your strength to survive. You think I'd do something stupid on top of that? The trackers will come again. You all saw how vicious those Sugar Company bastards are.”
Hoppang was not, by nature, a man who spoke this calmly. This was survival politics learned through dying a little every day in the Sugar factory—and he was putting it to very good use.
At his level-headed explanation, the five men following him wore expressions of grudging agreement.
“Still, you should explain. Mom says you should always listen to an explanation.”
“There's a hidden shelter around here.”
“Around here? Doesn't look like there's anything at all.”
Purple said it as he tried to snatch away and swig the liquor they'd stolen from the pursuit team. It was a vicious vodka, the kind with something sweet mixed into it.
Tang!
He raised it to his mouth—and nothing came out. Purple hurled the bottle away in a fit of irritation, and Hoppang watched him do it with a twisted, knowing smile.
“There'll be booze at the shelter too, so follow me. Once we're there, we'll sort the hierarchy properly, and...”
“And?”
“We make a kill list. None of us is letting this slide, are we?”
“...”
“...”
“Then we should at least do introductions, no? Name's Gombang. I'll tolerate most anything, but a bastard who lays hands on kids—I can't stand for that. If any of you are dead set on doing that kind of thing, I'll be on my own way.”
Gombang looked around at the others. He was an extremely skinny man, but the combat-compressed muscle glimpsed beneath that frame was no joke.
“Nobody's raising a hand. So let's agree, all of us gathered here—we don't touch the kids. That's what you wanted said, right?”
“That's right.”
“Then me next. Women come first for me.”
“Aren't you famous as a pervert?”
“A pervert, sure. But more than that—I'm starved for love. Just say it like that. Wow, talking to you bastards is such a fuXking paXn in the aXs.”
And with that, Hoppang went back to scrape, scrape at his head.
The introductions wrapped up quickly. Know roughly who everyone was, know the one thing each couldn't stomach—that was all it took. The rest could be sorted out during the pecking-order fights.
Once introductions were done, not a single one of them raised an objection to Hoppang leading them in circles.
Even Purple, who by any glance should have been brimming with complaints, didn't open his mouth again.
“Not them, is it?”
Montage asked quietly from beside him. Won-goo, peering through his binoculars, nodded without a word.
“No. It's that bastard Hoppang.”
“Can't be helped, then. We'll just have to bag what we can.”
“Haah... Poke, you son of a bitch...”
“Gong So-jang, we movin'? That lot looks easy enough to snatch up quick.”
“Hold on.”
“Why? Grab 'em fast, then try for Poke too. You never know. We might catch up.”
“Poke and Gu In-seon are together. Those two think for themselves—they'll have bolted already. We have to assume we're too late. More importantly, wait a bit. Those bastards are still going in circles, aren't they?”
“What's that about?”
“They're not circling the asphalt for nothing. That... there's a good chance there's a hidden shelter.”
“You're saying there's a ward up?”
“Probably.”
“So one of them's got that kind of Gift?”
“Hardly. If they did, you think the Sugar Company bastards would have left them alone? That Gift's A-rank. That shelter is one those bastards found themselves. Places like that do turn up now and then.”
“And the monsters inside have to be cleared out first?”
“Right. Then they can use the place as a base. So we watch. When it comes to shelters, the more the merrier.”
“But once those bastards go in, isn't that game over? Don't you need an informant to get into a place like that? There'd be an order to the circling and all?”
Won-goo grinned and turned to look at Montage beside him.
“No informant needed. They've left their tracks strewn all over, haven't they? I'll follow them just as they walked.”
“Ah, right. Hyung-nim was here. Every single time, I'm reminded—your Gift is incredible, hyung-nim.”
At Fresh's flattery, Montage allowed himself a small smile.
“They're in.”
Hoppang's group, which had been circling the same patch of ground, vanished in an instant. There was only one explanation: they'd stepped inside a concealed space.
“Let's go. Going in like that actually makes them easier to catch. Shelters like that have the same entrance and exit.”
The moment they stepped through, they'd be a rat in a poison bottle.
Once they'd closed to a certain distance, Montage began examining the ground. He'd watched them move with his own eyes, so the search didn't take long.
“Now then. Just follow me from here, hear?”
“Director. We'll stand by outside.”
Won-goo nodded in response to Kim Seok-bong's words, and the survivors moved out after Montage.
They moved faster than Hoppang's group had during their circling. Hoppang had traveled slowly, retracing memory; Montage simply followed the trail laid out before his eyes, and so he wasn't slow at all.
When Montage's footsteps stopped, a door appeared before them.
“What in tarnation is this here? A hanok?”
It was an enormous gate, shaped like the front door of a traditional Korean house.
“Looks like a hanok. Could be a temple, too. Let's enter quietly for now.”
Creeeeak.
The survivors eased the door open and slipped inside. Beyond it lay a place overgrown with thick grass. And it became clear this was no hanok—it was a temple.
A temple kept in remarkably good condition. Hoppang's group was nowhere in sight. Instead, a dharma hall stood off in the distance.
Won-goo raised a hand and signaled everyone to quietly advance on the hall. Naturally, he took the lead himself. And not one of them raised a complaint about Won-goo spearheading the approach.
Peering covertly into the dharma hall, they found Hoppang's group all sprawled across the floor, fast asleep.
The pressure weighing on pursuers and fugitives could never be the same. After a punishing forced march with the tension finally drained out of them, sleep was only natural.
Everyone crept closer, thinking they could all be subdued with a simple takedown.
Then, in an instant, Won-goo—who had been surveying the hall—thrust his hand up and ordered a retreat.
“...?”
“...?”
“...?”
When they all just stood there frowning in confusion, Won-goo barked the order again, urgent and forceful. Only then did they fall back from the dharma hall.
“What's got you sayin' that?”
“There's a Wabul in there.”
“A Wabul?”
“This place hasn't been cleared. Fall back, now. That Wabulgwi—that bastard is a genuine...”
KWAAAAAANG!
The wide-open front doors slammed shut with a deafening boom. And from inside the dharma hall came the sound of horrific screaming.
“ShXt! It woke up! Everyone hold formation properly—that bastard is a grade-fuXking-S pain in the aXs!”