Day of Judgment
After work, Kang Doyun, administrator of the Day of Judgment, ordered fried chicken and watched the Park Sooyeon crisis unfold.
The hostage footage had a visceral realism that no movie could touch.
The world had gotten better — now he could enjoy it in high definition.
If you're going to die anyway, might as well go out like that.
Once marked for Judgment, the school bullies were as good as condemned to death.
The juvenile detention centers were probably in chaos by now.
Everyone bites when cornered.
I wonder what they'll actually do.
He was curious what the Judgment Seat would do.
The real protagonist of this case wasn't the cheap girl on the screen.
She was nothing but an extra.
The audience was still waiting for a protagonist who hadn't yet appeared.
Let me guess.
When he'd killed the Gwanghwamun protesters, the method had been cardiac arrest. Both had died outright, but there had been a slight delay.
A few dozen seconds, at most? But that was more than enough time for the woman to kill her hostage.
It takes less than a second to drive an awl into a throat.
What if she kills the hostage first?
That would resolve everything cleanly.
A tattooed male BJ. Dig into his past and the odds were very high you'd find a record or two — drunk driving, assault, something.
The public wouldn't feel much qualm about an asshole dying, either.
Kill the man first, then the woman. That's what I'd do.
He tore into a drumstick and swigged his beer.
Public opinion voiced every possible view while waiting for the Judgment Seat.
The Gwanghwamun incident had been etched so deeply into their minds that everyone assumed it would appear this time too.
The press threw themselves into covering the unprecedented event, and the police dispatched their tactical unit.
Before deploying, the police came under government pressure — a demand to wrap up the situation as fast as possible.
They positioned a sniper first.
Studying the room's layout via the broadcast, they planned to target the arm holding the awl.
But failure meant the hostage died instantly, so they had to be careful.
Just in case, they also requested help from the Hunter Management Bureau.
Because the Judgment Seat had to be considered, too.
Choi Seongcheol and his son Choi Jinwoo were watching the case as well.
Choi Seongcheol in particular should have been clearing a gate — he put it off instead.
When he learned of his son's school violence, every nerve in his body locked onto the Judgment Seat.
He absolutely must not die.
Jinwoo was his only child, but there was another reason as well.
The power his son held — Force.
Its potential exceeded imagination.
He had to trigger the blooming, no matter what.
Lee Hocheon came home and turned on the broadcast on his phone.
He'd caught the gist of the situation through the car radio.
He watched the footage for a while, then headed to the bathroom to wash up.
Twenty minutes or so later, Hocheon emerged clean and refreshed.
He immediately prepared his dinner and checked his kill list for tomorrow.
— Lee Joocheol
— Sim Jungmin
· · ·
— Jung Hajoon
Park Sooyeon's name was not among them.
If I kill her now, the hostage could be at risk.
There was no need to provoke her and manufacture a dangerous situation.
She could never kill her hostage anyway.
She knew better than anyone that if she did, she'd die too.
For now, staying still was the safest thing for the hostage.
The urgent problem is the government. They'll handle it themselves.
Just as he thought, the government needed this over with as soon as possible.
A hostage crisis broadcast live was fatal not just to public opinion but to national prestige.
And if the Judgment Seat killed her before the government solved it, that was also a problem — it would amount to an admission of incompetence.
They'll catch her soon enough.
The odds of Park Sooyeon surviving this long night were low.
No human can hold a position forever.
Move even a fraction away from the hostage, and the police and hunters would end it.
Killing her then wouldn't be too late.
Two in the morning.
Park Sooyeon, streaming since seven in the evening, was wearing down.
She had to keep the awl pressed against his throat, unable to move, and it was unbearable. Her arm felt like it would fall off, and even her bodily needs were impossible to address. Thankfully sleepiness hadn't come, but the extreme stress left her head throbbing.
How long am I supposed to keep this up?
The Judgment Seat killed criminals at night.
It was two in the morning now.
She would have to hold out at least five more hours until dawn.
Hocheon's ability actually wasn't bound by time, but that's what she believed — a delusion that he wouldn't kill once daylight came.
That was why, when the police proposed negotiations midway, she refused and held out.
A synthesized voice flowed from the speakers.
Someone had donated.
In fact, the donations hadn't stopped since the broadcast began.
Her gaze froze on the donation total.
Over a hundred million won.
And more than a million people were watching.
Fucking bastards.
Wouldn't it have been great if they'd thrown that money at her from the start? She could have fled overseas already.
Somehow it all felt like the fault of the viewers who hadn't sent a dime.
"Mmmph! Mmph!"
Kim Minho, who had been sitting frozen like a dead rat, cried out urgently.
At the same moment, water began trickling down from his chair.
He was pissing himself.
"Ah, you've got to be kidding me!"
On pure instinct, Park Sooyeon jerked her body upright.
For an instant, her arm drifted away from Kim Minho.
Bang!
Glass shattered, and Park Sooyeon's arm was knocked aside.
The awl slipped from her grip, and a scream tore out of her.
"Aaaaaaagh!"
The sniper, waiting for his chance for hours, had fired.
A smoke grenade crashed through the window, and the waiting tactical unit stormed in.
"It hurts so much. Don't... don't shoot. I don't want to die. Please. Please let me live."
She scrambled for her life even through the agony.
An officer pinned her down and subdued her, while the hostage, Kim Minho, was rushed straight out.
The backlog of donations scrolled past.
"Turn off the stream. Secure the computer."
The broadcast soon went dark.
"Once Park Sooyeon's bleeding is under control, bring her out. Then we pull everyone back."
The team leader issued orders, wrapping up the scene.
Just then, Park Sooyeon suddenly reached for her head.
He couldn't let her move, so the officer cuffed her hands.
"Ugh... blegh... ugh..."
She started vomiting.
The moment the team leader saw it, he shouted.
"Get me a healer and a doctor. Now!"
Hunters from the Crime Investigation Division were stationed nearby in case the Judgment Seat showed up.
The healer and doctor on standby rushed over.
A green glow bloomed from the healer's hands and wrapped around Park Sooyeon.
Her vomiting stopped.
Meanwhile the doctor examined her.
"A cerebral blood vessel has ruptured. He was targeting the brain. She needs surgery immediately."
At the urgent words, a hunter hoisted her onto his back and began to run.
But the nearest hospital capable of performing the surgery was too far away.
He came back shortly and laid her limp body down.
"She's dead."
More than half of South Korea slept badly because of the Park Sooyeon crisis.
They dragged themselves to work complaining of exhaustion, eyes glued to the news.
Police report that after her arrest she began suffering violent vomiting and symptoms of cerebral hemorrhage. Regarding the death as the work of the Judgment Seat, police have transferred the case to the Hunter Management Bureau.
All surviving victims are confirmed to have come from the Bureau's protective facility, which is being operated at enormous cost.
Park Sooyeon was dead after all.
The press ran analytical pieces on why the Judgment Seat had killed her only after her arrest.
It was likely to protect the hostage. The Judgment Seat would have known that Park Sooyeon could never kill her captive — and that the government would have to arrest her. A hostage crisis never lasts long without meticulous preparation. Park Sooyeon, moreover, was broadcasting live from a fixed, exposed location. She was structurally guaranteed to be caught; it was only a matter of time. From the Judgment Seat's perspective, there was no need to gamble with the hostage's life. He could simply kill her afterward. And in fact, Park Sooyeon died after being taken into police custody.
The article, written by KMS, spread with astonishing speed.
Public opinion, which had been disappointed in the Judgment Seat for doing nothing through seven hours of hostage crisis, reversed itself in an instant.
The Hunter Management Bureau came up too.
Positive sentiment toward the Bureau was taking shape.
Of course, most people still found it absurd that taxpayer money was being spent to shield school bullies.
In truth, the Hunter Management Bureau was pouring a staggering budget into the Crime Investigation Division.
Every time the Judgment Seat appeared, the state staggered.
The politicians he'd killed now numbered over twenty, and governance itself was starting to break down.
This problem had to be solved, and fast.
"We saved eight, and five of them are unconscious?"
Kim Woocheol was receiving the report from Kang Yeji.
The Crime Investigation Division had gone through pure hell yesterday.
With no way of knowing whom sd1234 would kill next, the hunters in the holding facility hadn't relaxed their watch over the perpetrators for a single second.
The result: not one death inside the facility.
"Yes... it seems he's been hitting the brain."
The problem was, they'd only been kept alive.
Twenty healers were stationed at the holding facility, along with thirty specialists in cardiac and brain surgery on standby. All the surgical equipment had been hauled in from the Bureau's hospital. Building the facility alone had cost hundreds of millions of won, and the upkeep was astronomical.
"You're telling me they're vegetables?"
"Practically at that level."
"Christ. What about the other three?"
"Conscious, but disabled. Their cognitive function has deteriorated. They can't feel sensation either. The nerve damage is so bad they can't regulate their body temperature."
Kim Woocheol's head was spinning.
What was the point of saving them?
They'd been left in a state worse than death.
"Why— why is this happening? Walk me through it."
"The core issue is the vessels rupturing while they sleep. They can't perceive it. By the time we notice something's wrong, it's already well progressed. Even if we move to surgery immediately, the rupture spreads so fast the doctors say they can't keep up."
"And the healers?"
"You know as well as I do — healing takes time. Unless it's an A-rank healer..."
A-rank healers were rare beyond measure.
The Bureau had exactly three, and all of them belonged to the Gate Management Division.
The catch: they couldn't be pulled out.
Raising the odds of a gate outbreak to save criminals was sheer madness.
"AAAAAARGH!"
Kim Woocheol screamed.
Pressure kept raining down from above, and case after impossible case kept breaking open. The Choi Jinwoo school violence scandal was never going to end simply, either.
If the victim had truly died from his beating, the Crime Investigation Division could not possibly side with Choi Seongcheol — and the justification for stopping sd1234 would evaporate with it.
Just then, someone came through the door.
"Director!"
Kim Woocheol assumed the man had come in to check on him after that scream.
He grabbed hold of his composure and answered calmly.
"What is it?"
"Asura, Choi Seongcheol, is here. With his son. He says he wants to see the victims we saved today."