The Son of Asura
Choi Seongcheol gazed at his son in silence.
There was no emotion in his eyes at all.
"What?"
Choi Jinwoo, unable to endure the silence any longer, spoke first. He'd been out with his girlfriend when his father's executive secretary had appeared out of nowhere and hauled him home. He'd asked what was going on, but the man never answered.
"Say something."
"Have you ever hit anyone with Force?"
Jinwoo's expression twisted for an instant before he shook his head.
"No. I've never used it."
"Really? Then have you ever bullied a friend?"
"No."
Jinwoo slammed a steel plate over his face. He knew the drill — no evidence meant a flat denial was all it took.
"Don't make me angry."
Seongcheol's voice dropped low and cold. Jinwoo flinched.
'Does he know something? No way. Mom wouldn't have told him.'
One of the kids he'd been tormenting had died recently. His mother had buried the whole affair behind his father's back, fast — there was nothing to get caught on.
"If you hit someone with Force, they die. Why would I ever do that? I've got no reason to bully anyone at school, either. Go ahead and call the school."
He decided to hold out until his father laid his cards on the table first.
"I'm giving you one last chance. You're sure there's nothing?"
"...No."
Seongcheol slowly clenched his fist and closed his eyes. He could see the lie as plainly as day, and rage climbed all the way to the crown of his head. His wife had coddled this boy rotten.
"Hoo... Dooho told me he saw you tormenting your friends with Force. More than once."
Jinwoo's eyebrows twitched. The old man had warned him a few times — and he'd actually ratted. That's why you stayed a chauffeur for other people's sons.
"Whose word are you taking right now? Aren't you supposed to trust your own family?"
"Cut the crap and tell me the truth."
He'd wielded family as a weapon, and it hadn't moved his father an inch.
'Ha. He's going to shake it out of me regardless.'
Once it had gone this far, his father would pry it loose no matter what. If he kept resisting and the buried case surfaced on top of it, things would get ugly.
"It was practice. So I could learn to use Force with fine control. You're the one who said controlling your power matters, weren't you?"
The moment the fabricated confession left his mouth, Seongcheol glared at him with eyes that could kill. The look was so ferocious that Jinwoo didn't dare meet it and dropped his head.
"I'm sorry."
Sensing disaster coming, Jinwoo begged forgiveness.
"You don't leave this house for anything."
House arrest had been handed down.
"Not even school?"
"I'm putting two A-rank hunters on you. You do nothing until I say so."
Surveillance, too. Inside his own home.
"Isn't this a bit much? I won't ever do it again. If I don't show up at school, I'll get expelled for truancy."
Jinwoo was nineteen. A high school senior with graduation only months away.
"You do as you're told."
"At least let me see my girlfriend. I have to see her, don't I?"
Finally, Seongcheol lost what was left of his patience and slapped him across the face. The impact knocked Jinwoo clean off his chair.
"Get a grip."
Seongcheol rose and moved to leave.
"Don't tell me this is because of that Judgment Seat thing?"
Jinwoo hadn't known his father would go this far. But the moment his mind landed on the Judgment Seat, everything fell into place.
"..."
Seongcheol didn't answer.
Jinwoo began screaming at the top of his lungs.
"That bastard can't kill me! With you here, how could he? And there's no evidence of any school bullying anyway — he can't touch me! And since when does Asura lock up his own son because he's scared of one criminal? Is this really all you've got, Dad? Just find that bastard and kill him. Drag him into a gate and tear him apart — nobody would ever know!"
Choked with rage, Seongcheol shut both eyes and walked out of the house. Soon two A-rank hunters entered and took up positions beside Jinwoo.
"Fuck! Just go kill that bastard already!"
He thrashed against it one last time.
Lee Hocheon sat in a high-rise café with a clear view of the entrance to Seoju High School.
He had come here for one reason: to watch Choi Jinwoo's behavior with his own eyes.
Before coming, he'd had the manager confirm the grounds for the no-charges ruling with the victim's mother.
That was what the school had said about him, and the students' statements were all consistent. No signs of assault, plus uniform testimony — that was how the police had ruled out charges.
'Either he was bullied in secret, or the school gave false statements.'
One of the two. The former seemed far more likely.
So he had come in person — to see what Jinwoo did after school.
He turned on his phone and opened the boy's social media. Several photos were posted, and he committed the face to memory.
'Easy enough to spot.'
In the photos, the boy was heavily built and tall.
Dismissal time arrived, and students began trickling out one or two at a time. Hocheon watched for roughly an hour. No boy resembling Choi Jinwoo appeared.
Then a single photo went up on his feed. A selfie, taken indoors.
He rose from his seat at once. There was no reason to stay any longer.
'If he can't go out, someone is keeping him in.'
Predicting who that someone was took no effort at all. So why hadn't the father sent his son to school in the first place? The answer was simple.
'Because of me.'
This was practically a self-inflicted confession. My son committed school bullying, so I will shield him from the Judgment Seat.
Of course, it was only conjecture — it might not be true. He needed more precise circumstances.
But he had no need to gather them himself.
He changed locations and contacted the victim through the manager.
Hocheon went on checking the victim's diary. Unless the girl was deranged, no one claims to have been beaten when they weren't. Struck, yet leaving no marks behind.
If the boy were an awakener, healing could explain it — but the diary made no mention of anything like that.
'Most likely some other ability.'
That was the most rational read. He'd looked up the statistics: when the parents were hunters, the odds of a child awakening ran high.
The Hunter Management Bureau would uncover the truth anyway. All he had to do was confirm the result — and kill.
Hunter Crime Investigation Division.
Seo Gichan pressed his thumbs hard into both temples.
"The Judgment Day manager has refused to cooperate."
"What?"
Kim Woocheol's face twisted with irritation. The investigation had to move forward from here, and now the manager refused to cooperate. Then again, it was a board built by people rooting for the Judgment Seat — perhaps it was to be expected.
"Get a warrant, fast. Have you gathered all the offenders?"
Kim Woocheol asked Park Gwangdo. They had contacted the people marked to die tomorrow and told them to come to the safehouse. The Bureau would protect them, they'd said.
"About half have come in."
"Why only half?"
"They say they can't trust us."
"Hnngh."
In fairness, the Crime Investigation Division had stopped one of the Judgment Seat's executions exactly once. And that man had died the very next day regardless. The collapsed trust was only natural.
The office phone rang, and Seo Gichan, standing closest, picked it up.
"Director. You'll want to take this one."
He passed the receiver to Kim Woocheol.
"Why?"
"It's from Sura Guild."
Kim Woocheol tilted his head. There was no reason for Sura to call the Crime Investigation Division — not Gate Management — at a time like this.
"This is Kim Woocheol, head of the Hunter Crime Investigation Division."
"I'm calling regarding the Judgment Seat."
None of the victims were Sura Guild personnel. Which meant this could be a tip-off. Kim Woocheol allowed himself a flicker of hope.
"Go ahead."
"We'd like to receive shared intelligence on the Judgment Seat."
"And why is Sura looking for the Judgment Seat?"
"To make certain preparations of our own."
Only then did Kim Woocheol grasp why they had called.
"So you have a hunter who committed school bullying."
"...That's correct. He's since reflected on his actions and is contributing to the nation."
"You only need to know how to respond to him?"
"We would prefer that the information be made public, if possible. We are preparing our own investigation as well. Searching together would be of help to you."
For Kim Woocheol, the offer was more than welcome. Intelligence on the Judgment Seat was thin to begin with, and the investigation had been floundering. If Korea's top-tier guild — one with an S-rank hunter at that — joined the hunt, the benefits to the investigation were self-evident.
"I'll organize what we have and contact you."
He hung up. Seo Gichan and Park Gwangdo were looking at him with undisguised curiosity.
"Apparently there's a hunter who did school bullying. They want to work together."
The two men understood in a heartbeat. Seo Gichan pushed up his glasses and spoke.
"If that human bulldozer Asura steps in, this might actually get easier."
This was the man who, when hunter-related policy stalled in the past, had stormed the National Assembly in person. If he moved on this, he would raze everything in his path to find the Judgment Seat.
The office door swung open and Kang Yeji walked in. She handed a report across Kim Woocheol's desk.
"What is it?"
"A case just came in."
"The Judgment Seat?"
"No — a request to investigate school bullying."
"Then why is it here? They should be going to the police."
"The victim's mother claims the perpetrator is an awakener."
"Hmm..."
Kim Woocheol skimmed the report. It wasn't a case he needed to take personally — plenty of other hunters in the Division could handle something at this level.
"Just hand this off to whoever's free, track down the perpetrator, and bring him to the safehouse."
It would be enough to protect the perpetrators from the Judgment Seat — that was all.
"It's not that simple, sir. Look closely at the perpetrator's profile."
At her words, Kim Woocheol checked it. Name, photograph, family relations — all listed there.
"Choi Jinwoo? Who's that?"
The name meant nothing to him. A common name.
"His father is Choi Seongcheol. The S-rank hunter — Asura!"
The hunters within earshot went wide-eyed. Sura Guild had called only minutes ago...
"Well. We are thoroughly screwed."
Kim Woocheol felt a throb building behind his eyes and sank into his chair.
Park Sooyeon was tormented by the illusion that she could die at any moment. Viewed from a distance, the Judgment Seat had been someone else's problem — but the instant she imagined herself the target, a tidal wave of madness-laced terror came crashing in.
It curdled into full-blown anxiety, and she lashed the unconscious Kim Minho tightly to a chair. Then she found an awl and set it within reach, positioned so she could drive it into his throat at a moment's notice.
With everything arranged, she turned on her stream.
Her hardcore fans filtered in first, piecing together the situation.
Before long, viewers were flooding in at a furious pace.
Her mind far gone past reason, Park Sooyeon had chosen to take a hostage. She'd searched the internet first: the Judgment Seat does not kill the innocent. And so she had devised a plan to hold Kim Minho up as a shield and wait him out.
"Listen carefully. If this stream gets force-closed, he dies. Kill me — he dies. Come find this place — he dies."
She said it to stop the platform from forcibly terminating the broadcast. Viewers reported her to the police within moments, and the platform scrambled to respond.
"If you don't do exactly what I say, I'll stab him right now."
"Ugh—mmph!"
Kim Minho came to and thrashed against his bonds, but he was tied far too tightly to do anything at all. He swallowed hard at the sharp, icy sensation pressed against his throat.
"Stay still. Unless you want to die."
Sooyeon pricked him lightly with the awl. A bead of blood welled up instantly.
Leaving the now-docile Kim Minho where he sat, she turned to look into the camera.
"Promise you'll let me live. If you don't, I swear I'll kill this bastard. I'm not dying alone."
Her chilling broadcast tore through every online community in an instant, and the viewer count began climbing like something deranged.