The Wrist
Won-goo dug through his pockets and emptied them out completely, gathering up every last scrap of the book that tumbled free.
"This is a straight-up amazing item, I'm telling you."
"This thing?"
"Yeah. Old-timer. No, pardon me—Master Mage. This one's yours."
"This is?"
"It is. I gave it to you before because I had no idea how to actually use it. Trust me, later on you won't be able to buy one of these for a hundred of them."
"A hundred?"
"That's what I said. Depending on the type, it could fetch even more."
Everyone wore stunned expressions. Won-goo rarely made this much of a fuss over anything, and they all knew it.
"Hyeong-nim. What exactly is this thing that has you so worked up?"
"It's a vessel holding a Magical Lifeform."
"A Magical Lifeform?"
"Right. You know how some mages keep familiars, and some don't? This is a little different from a familiar. It's a living thing *created* by magic, sealed in here."
"So it would serve much the same function as a familiar, is that the gist of it?"
"Pretty much. Except familiars are versatile, while this is more limited in scope. On the flip side, it responds to mana, so it's nothing but good news for you, Master Mage. Now do you see why I bought that thing?"
"Ah... I believe I do."
"With this, Master Mage can finally pull his own weight for once. Well, we'll have to see what actually comes out of it."
"So how does one make use of this thing, exactly? Does one eat it?"
"*Eat* it? Weren't you just going on about meat a minute ago? You're being weird again. You hungry or something?"
"Then what would you have me do?"
"Fair warning—this involves a bit of pain. You good with that?"
"......?"
"We're going to have to cut off your wrist."
"What? *My* wrist?"
"That's what I said. We cut the wrist, lay it on the pile, and burn it—and then the thing becomes bound to you, Master Mage."
"Not content to hack off my perfectly good hand, you now intend to set it on fire as well? Absolutely not!"
"Oh, come *on*. You don't need to burn the whole wrist—just leave it there until the book's done burning, that's all. Then we just reattach it. How is that hard? What kind of man can't manage this? Other people stake their lives on gambles just to get their hands on one of these."
"Still, this is not an acceptable course of action."
"What do you mean, not acceptable? Honestly... I'm telling you it reattaches right away. Haven't you seen Abal? Oh Gu-sik lopped something off her and she's walking around just fine with it sewn back on."
"Even so..."
"And besides, we've got Mu-sa right here. What's there to worry about? His skills are top-notch. The guy used to be a combat medic, you know. Isn't that right, Mu-sa?"
"I was a healer, not a medic, Director."
"Medic, healer—same thing. Point is, you did it in the service, right?"
"Not the service—engineering school..."
"Engineering school? They teach that kind of thing in engineering programs these days? Ah—medical devices, maybe?"
"......"
Jo Mu-sa was certain a deep misunderstanding had taken root, but he chose not to elaborate. Something told him that adding anything more in the current situation would not work in his favor.
"Is this truly a sound plan, Director Gong? You are not joking with me at this moment, are you?"
Even the fearless Mu Beob-sa was visibly on edge at the prospect of losing his hand.
"Oh, come *off* it! Have you ever once seen me mess around with something like this? There's a line, even with jokes."
"That may well be so... but I have neither heard nor seen the likes of this before."
"Of course you haven't. If you had, do you think that smartass Pacific would have just handed it over?"
"Pacific's skills are impressive, aren't they?"
It was Jeon Hye-ji, watching from the sidelines, who asked.
"Impressive as hell. The man travels alone, doesn't he? Even while hauling cargo like this. If you deliberately set out to rob what Pacific carries, you'd be set for life."
"And yet he travels alone anyway."
"He's proven it plenty of times. What happens to people who mark him. Nobody's touched him since."
"So Pacific was a name related to his ability after all."
"Nope. They just call him that because he used to be a door-to-door salesman."
With that, Won-goo offered nothing more about Pacific. The preparations for severing Mu Beob-sa's wrist were complete.
"Success and failure hinge on the small things. If you're going to draw the diagram, at least draw it *well*. What is this crooked mess?"
"I apologize, Hyeong-nim. I will draw it again."
"Draw it again with what? It's permanent marker. You planning to scrub it off?"
"I will be more careful in the future, Hyeong-nim."
"Just hold it steady. Actually—Master Mage, wouldn't it be better to have Hyun-sung swing it down in one clean strike?"
"That would seem the more prudent approach."
"I'll hold him, so you do the striking, Hyun-sung."
"Understood, Hyeong-nim!"
"Strike true. If the cut goes wrong, we do it all over again. Unless you'd rather pickle me like radish kimchi, Mage, then by all means botch it."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim!"
The crew piled on and pinned Mu Beob-sa's body down.
Lee Hyun-sung raised the Chinese cleaver high, ready to bring it crashing down.
And at the very moment of maximum tension, Won-goo relaxed his grip.
"Hold on."
"What *now*!"
"That was close. Hey, Ttugi. Did you sharpen that cleaver? You didn't, did you? For this kind of work, the cut face has to be clean. That's what makes it easy to reattach. If it doesn't slice through cleanly and leaves the bone jagged, we've got ourselves a headache. Go sharpen it. Now."
"I sharpen it every day, Hyeong-nim."
"You do? Then this time we really go. Everyone, hold him down!"
"Um—well, actually..."
"What is it, Su-won?"
"U-usually there's a-anes—"
"You want anesthesia? For this?"
"Y-yes?"
"Forget anesthesia. You think numbness makes it hurt less? A clean cut hurts *less*. Here we go, Master Mage. Hyun-sung, get ready."
"It might be prudent to count down first, would it not?"
"Fine. One, two, three then. Hyun-sung, time it to my call."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim!"
"Here we go. One—"
Lee Hyun-sung lifted the cleaver high. Everyone held their breath. And then Won-goo let go and wiped his hands.
"Hold on, wait. My palms are sweating like crazy. Gotta wipe these!"
"You—!"
Mu Beob-sa exploded. The outburst was so sudden and so loud that his voice cracked clean in half.
"That was to loosen you up. Now we go for real. One, two, three!"
Knock knock knock!
Three raps against the door, right on "three."
Won-goo instantly smacked Hyun-sung's arm, wrenching the blade off course.
CRACK!
The Chinese cleaver missed by a hair's breadth and buried itself in the table, biting halfway to the spine of the blade. It had been a monstrous strike.
"......"
Mu Beob-sa's eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets.
"A visi—"
"Quiet. It's a real guest. And for all we know, it could be Pacific again."
Won-goo headed for the entrance. Even as he walked, he expected it was highly unlikely to be Pacific—Pacific would have simply pushed the door open and walked in.
So he carefully scanned the space outside.
"Who is it?"
"Isn't this the labor services office?"
A woman he'd never seen before stood there. Won-goo scanned her clothes and bearing in an instant and gave his answer immediately.
"We're not taking requests for the time being."
"It's urgent."
"We're a labor service, not a fixer's shop. Personal disputes—take those somewhere else. We don't handle them."
"Can you not at least hear me out?"
A woman in her early thirties, wearing a form-fitting dress rarely seen inside the shelter.
Her skin was flawless. Even her fingernails and toenails had been meticulously groomed.
That said everything: she wasn't someone who lived outside the shelter. It meant she had the kind of wealth that let her stay resident within it, indefinitely.
"Plenty of good outfits out there besides us. If you really want to hire us, come back tomorrow at this hour. We can't take requests today—everyone's on vacation."
"So tomorrow you *will* take my request?"
"Don't get the wrong idea. I said we'd hear your content, not that we'd accept the job. You think I'd commit before knowing what it even is?"
"......"
"In any case, tomorrow. And if you're not gone in ten seconds, consider yourself never welcome here again."
The woman promptly vacated the spot.
"No hard feelings. Genuinely just a visitor this time. Okay, for real now. Focus. Hold him down."
Everyone grabbed Mu Beob-sa again, and Lee Hyun-sung hoisted the cleaver high.
"One, two, thre—"
Rumble.
Won-goo's count died mid-word. The door had opened again.
Everyone's heads whipped toward it—and only *then* did Lee Hyun-sung bring the blade down.
SHEEEK!
A sickening sound rang out. The crew stared in horror, taking in the scene.
The cleaver had certainly cut something. Just not Mu Beob-sa's wrist. Instead it had sheared diagonally through the ring finger and pinky side of his hand.
Mu Beob-sa gaped, mouth hanging open, and stared at his severed fingers.
Disbelief. Shock. Pain. Irritation. Fury. Fuck.
Every one of those emotions was written across his face at once.
Having seen that face, nobody dared say a word. Won-goo included.
"Dan-shin! You little *shit*, why are you coming in right now!"
"......"
Dan-shin was every bit as mortified as the rest of them.
"Ugh......"
Pain bled out of Mu Beob-sa's lips.
"Now, now, old-timer. Think of it as nothing at all."
"Nothing at all? You call fingers nothing... at all?"
"Look! The fingers are perfectly intact and can be reattached. If anything, this is a *good* thing. We've just confirmed how cleanly that cleaver cuts!"
THWACK!
Mu Beob-sa unleashed a lightning-fast kick.
It was genuinely fast, and genuinely clean. Won-goo didn't even try to dodge—it caught him square.
"Ow! *Fuck!* What the hell. Did you just hit me? Seriously... I show an old man some respect and he crosses the line? You son of a bitch. Fine. You want to do this properly?"
"What did you call me? *Fuck*?"
Won-goo seized Mu Beob-sa by the hair, and Mu Beob-sa grabbed Won-goo's head with his uninjured hand.
A profanity-laced hair-pulling brawl erupted between the two men.
The moment the fight turned serious, Jo Mu-sa and Su-won backed away. So did Lee Hyun-sung.
"Hyun-sung hyung-nim. Should we not be stopping them?"
Geum Chul-soo asked.
"Nope. Leave it. The Director and Master Mage go at it like this now and then. You never seen it before, Chul-soo?"
"No, sir."
"It used to happen pretty often, before."
"It's been a while since I've seen them properly go at it."
Jo Mu-sa chimed in.
"His fingers just flew off, though... will he really be all right?"
Jeon Hye-ji asked with worried eyes.
"He'll be fine. Neither of them holds a grudge. Dan-shin! Get over here!"
With that, Lee Hyun-sung called Dan-shin over from where he'd been hovering sheepishly at the entrance.
"It wasn't your fault. You're okay."
"What is wrong with you, doing that in front of the kids? Utterly vulgar. Honestly... and besides, *I* was the one who called Dan-shin over."
"Indeed. Why would you pull a stunt at such a critical juncture?"
"How many times do I have to say it? I was trying to loosen you up. Agh, this is infuriating. Anyway—we're doing this seriously now, so get into position. We started this, we see it through. Everybody gather round!"
The crew regrouped.
"We go again. First, hand me the fingers. Mu-sa, is that doable?"
"Master Mage has excellent recovery, so yes."
"Attach them first... no wait, shit. Do we attach them and *then* cut, or cut and then attach?"
"Hyeong-niim. Should we not attach them first and see how things stand?"
"Yeah, that's probably right. Mu-sa, you've got those miracle drugs Dinosaur gave you, right? Just slap those on for now as a temporary fix. He'll get proper treatment later."
"Understood, Director."
Jo Mu-sa deftly reattached Mu Beob-sa's severed fingers. The cut faces were so clean that the job didn't take long at all.
"Ttugi. Hand me the cleaver."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim."
In the apocalypse, a weapon was quite literally a man's livelihood. Handing one over without a second thought carried real weight.
Yet Lee Hyun-sung surrendered the Chinese cleaver at a single word from Won-goo, without a flicker of hesitation.
"Come here a moment, old-timer. Hyun-sung, watch closely."
"My fingers have not finished reattaching, you understand."
"I'm not trying to watch the situation. You think *I'm* going to cut? I'm just making sure this time we do it right. Dan-shin!"
"Yes, Director."
"Sorry about yelling at you earlier. Lock the door—no. Actually, get out there and make sure nobody comes near this place for a while. Especially that bastard Il-chul. If you see him, just beat him down."
"*Beat* him?"
"Yeah. Beat him. If anyone asks, tell them I ordered it. Nobody gets within ten meters of this door. Understood?"
"Yes, Director."
Dan-shin headed outside. Won-goo took Mu Beob-sa's uninjured hand and pulled it toward the table.
"Hyun-sung. Why do you wind up so big like that? Sure, your limits broke through, but bone isn't *that* tough. The wrist is actually one of the easier spots, I'm telling you."
"Is that so, Hyeong-nim?"
"So don't overswing. Here—hand flat, aim right there, and when it lines up, snap the wrist and whip it down. Just like cracking a whip. *Tuk.* And done. See?"
Thwick!
Won-goo really did bring the cleaver down with a snap of his wrist. And not as practice—as the real thing.
The blade parted Mu Beob-sa's wrist with perfect precision.
Not the left hand, where the fingers had been severed. The perfectly healthy right one.
When the crew belatedly realized which hand it was, every one of them froze mid-motion.
Mu Beob-sa was no different. He stared at Won-goo with eyes about to pop from their sockets.
"Director... Gong?"
"Come on, no time, no time! If we miss the window on this, we'll have to start chopping off your hair next. Let's move, people."
"Wha—"
Caught off guard by Won-goo's shameless act, Mu Beob-sa stood there awkwardly, holding his own severed wrist.
Oblivious or indifferent, Won-goo took the wrist from him and laid it atop the shattered pieces of the spellbook.
"Hey! Gong Won—"
"Save the complaints and start reciting the incantation. Dormammu, Dormammu."
He placed Mu Beob-sa's severed wrist on the torn spellbook and set it alight.
As the book began to burn, it gave off flames of many colors—a blaze that roared unnaturally hot and bright.
And here was the strange part: Mu Beob-sa's wrist didn't burn one bit.
Only the spellbook blazed.
"This is—!"
"Complain later—recite, and quickly. You planning to waste this opportunity? Memorize it fast. Dormammu, Dormammu. Odyssey Grasei."
Mu Beob-sa looked like a man bewitched, but he had no choice except to follow along and chant.
After all, he didn't have the faintest idea what was actually happening to him.