What the World Most Desired

An observation post, far from the industrial complex.

Sloan sat at the central console, taking the satellite feed in real time, and he did not look away. He did not speak.

"...Countdown complete. Longinus is ready to drop."

For a moment, there was silence.

Then the whole of space seemed to break it with a single roar.

KRAAAAAAAANG!

Thirty-six thousand kilometers above the Earth, in orbit, the core of the satellite weapon Xenon-X-7 opened, and the densest condensed energy mass humanity had ever built — codename Longinus — fired at a velocity near the speed of light.

It was the wrath of a god, fashioned out of human arrogance. A focused-strike satellite weapon, built to correct the failures of power and spread that had once condemned its predecessor, God's Staff, as a failed design.

From above, it was a spear of light tearing down through the heavens.

Those who watched it from below had another name for it.

KRRRRR-BOOM!

The atmosphere collapsed. Anomalous vibrations. Magnetic fields thrown into chaos. And an absolute radiance, pale and raging, visible from dozens of kilometers away.

Sloan murmured, almost to himself.

"It's over. No human being can survive that."

His premise was perfect. A derelict industrial complex, sealed off completely. Every escape route cut. Oh Jaehyung's lure signal. And above all else, the satellite weapon Longinus. The battle was already finished. He reached at once for the radio.

"Russian and Chinese forces, hold your positions. The recovery operation will be led by the United States."

And then, in the next instant—

SHRAAAAAAK!

The sky... split again.

But this time it was different.

"...What?!"

The cry tore out of him before he knew it. In his field of view, the beam shattered. The wrath of a god — that spear — split apart in empty air.

At first he thought it was a malfunction. An afterimage. An energy misfire. But the spear that had unmistakably been there kinked at an angle, as if someone had cut it, and then it scattered into nothing.

"Th-that's impossible...!"

Someone watching the same sight beside him shouted it like a scream, and Sloan seized the radio as if he meant to crush it in his fist.

"All units! Deploy to the site! Now! Confirm the target!"

In that same moment, the Russian and Chinese forces moved as well.

Crossed transmissions, blaring all at once. But no one stopped.

Something down there had endured the spear of a god. If he was still alive, that fact alone would reorder the military balance of nations.

DUDUDUDU—

Helicopter rotors ripped the air, and unmanned reconnaissance craft knifed over the ruins at blinding speed. Mechanical units swept the site faster than their own pounding stride, hunting the target.

But—

A single report from the reconnaissance team that reached the site.

Sloan's eyes opened.

"...Gone?"

He glared at the screen and ground his teeth. A being that had destroyed Longinus and lived. And the fact that this being had vanished without a trace before the eyes of three nations.

How? He had sealed every approach. He was certain of it.

"..."

Silence settled over them. For the first time, they understood. It was not only Longinus that had fallen out of the sky. The arrogance of great powers, and the justice human beings had believed they themselves had made — all of it had collapsed before a single sword.

I didn't kill him.

Not a drop of blood. Not so much as a fingertip.

The room where I had shut him away was safe. So safe, so peaceful, that it seemed nothing at all could ever happen there. A sealed space where light did not reach. A silence thick enough to choke on. Inside it, Oh Jaehyung sat tightly bound, and after a long silence he finally opened his mouth.

"Kill me."

His voice was calm.

That surprised me. The man who had looked up at me with those terrified eyes was accepting his own death now with a face that gave nothing away.

"Whatever I say, you're going to kill me. So... do what you want."

"The way I did to you, ten years ago..."

A composure polished enough to pass for dignity.

The ones who survive change. And that change sat wrong in me, sour and unpleasant. So I broke the silence.

"Do what I want?"

I said it quietly. Oh Jaehyung's brow twitched, faintly. I took a step toward him, slow, perfectly calm.

"You think you get to die easily. Arrogant. You don't get an easy death."

"..."

The corner of his mouth stiffened. I wasn't finished.

"Do you know what kind of life I lived for ten years? Faces that rise the moment I close my eyes. The screams of the family I loved most — and the pain!"

The beat of my heart rang inside my ears. The heat of a revenge that had never cooled. Even that, I pressed down. Rage is weaker the hotter it burns. Real revenge is stronger the colder it is.

"I relived that pain every single day. I carried that despair without missing a single one. So shouldn't you feel the same? The fear. The loss. The emptiness. And more than anything, the helplessness of watching someone you love die."

In that moment—

"..."

The calm broke. His pupils shook.

"...You. Don't tell me—"

I didn't answer him. Instead—

"From this moment, watch. Watch the people you hold most dear die, one by one."

"And your helplessness, knowing it and still able to do nothing. That despair."

With those words I set my weight into the ball of my foot.

Flash.

Restraints he could not shift by a fingertip. A closed room.

The scream Oh Jaehyung had been left with burst out of him.

"No! Come back! You son of a bitch...!"

But the cry struck the steel wall and broke, scattering into a vacuum where no one could hear it.

Yes. Just like my scream ten years ago, which no one had heard.

First class, Korea Air. Early morning, on a flight bound for Jeju, a commotion was already underway.

"Peanuts... and you serve them without even shelling them?"

Oh Hyeongyeong. President of Korea Air. She set her wineglass down with a hard clack, and without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow she shot a look at the flight attendant.

"You call this service?"

Her voice was a whetted blade, and the blade tore through one person's pride. Unsatisfied even with that, she called for the captain a moment later.

"Turn the plane around. An attitude like this needs a lesson."

An order to turn the aircraft back. The inconvenience to the passengers meant nothing to her. What mattered was her mood — the stamp of power, proof of who she was. And aboard that aircraft, there was no one who dared stand against her power. The plane, already preparing for takeoff, swung back toward the airport.

But—

KRAANG!

The cabin rang. Emergency lights began to flash, and fragments rained from the overhead bins. The cabin door... blew apart, and outside air and sunlight knifed in through the ruin.

"Kyaaah!"

"Wh-what is—?!"

People screamed, and through the gap a black silhouette showed itself.

"..."

A gaze sharper than the wind ran her through.

"Oh Hyeongyeong. Oh Jaehyung's little sister."

A cold voice, slipping through the silence.

"You... what are you?!"

But her shrill voice was swallowed by the air. Before the fear could bore into her bones, she was already gone from where she stood.

"The humidifier disinfectant test results are in."

The secretary offered the report with care. Inside the thick sheaf were the toxicity findings, the projected harm, and warnings from the outside experts brought in to consult.

Jung Hwaja skimmed it without much interest.

"The tests found damage to lung cells, and continued exposure was determined to carry a risk of pulmonary fibrosis. It may be fatal in particular to infants and to anyone with a vulnerable respiratory—"

The hand turning the page stopped.

"Fatal to kids?"

She snorted, as if the idea amused her.

"Who's going to know? Pop the cap and it'll say hinoki cypress scent, naturally derived ingredients."

"Chairwoman... children use this product too. Mothers with kids are part of the actual customer base."

"Which is why it'll sell even better. Stick one line on it — safe for babies — and the mothers buy it first and recommend it to their friends."

The secretary hesitated, then spoke.

"But... pulmonary fibrosis is fatal..."

Thud. The documents came down hard enough to make the desk ring.

"So what do you want me to do? Recall every unit we've already put out there?"

At Jung Hwaja's words, the conference room went so quiet it was hard to breathe.

"Consumers? They're numbers. If they die, you count how many. What matters more is that this one product can take us a market worth three hundred billion won. We launched first. That puts us two years ahead of the competition!"

Someone murmured, small.

"...Children could die."

"Then don't use it on your kid. But tens of thousands of mothers won't know. Naturally derived. Ninety-nine percent antibacterial. Phytoncide. Put words like that on it and they just believe."

Jung Hwaja shoved the papers away again.

"If a problem comes up? Legal draws a settlement line with us. We handle the press. The hospitals will call it medical malpractice and slip out on their own."

A brief stillness. Jung Hwaja added the last of it the way one tidies the end of a sentence.

"Until you hear they're dead, they're not dead."

With that, she moved to stalk out of the conference room, nerves bared. But before she could—

A step.

A stranger stood in front of her, blocking the way.

"You... what are you?!"

Sensing that the air had turned, she narrowed her eyes. And then—

"Jung Hwaja. Oh Jaehyung's mother."

"What did you—"

A voice scraped raw with irritation. But that voice was not heard for long.

Shhhk.

As if a ghost had come and gone, she was gone — and so was the man who had stood in her way.

In front of the district courthouse, dozens of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cameras lined the road. The same press that had not written a single line when the victims' mothers came in tears to beg for the truth, nor when hundreds of bereaved families stood in silent protest with black signs, all pressed their shutters together today.

Vmmm—

A domestic van rolled in toward the court. Black curtains drawn. The door opened.

"Excuse me, please step aside. The chairman is getting out."

Men in suits cleared the surroundings at speed. And at last... a man in a wheelchair appeared. Hair gone white, a bloodless face, and hands that trembled as they clutched the blanket laid over his knees.

"Is that... Oh Manbok?"

Oh Manbok. Chairman of Ohsung Group. For twenty years he had concealed hazardous substances inside semiconductor plants, and he had fired two hundred and fourteen subcontracted workers — leukemia, brain tumors, rare diseases — without so much as an industrial-accident claim.

Oh Manbok had never once apologized to a victim. He had called it regrettable, and that was all — a statement a single line long. Even this appearance was a formality the government had staged only after public fury peaked and the petitions piled up.

"...My health will not allow me to appear in person."

He said it in front of the reporters, body shaking.

"I... I've been hemorrhaging, and mentally as well... I'm in a great deal of pain. The trial... by video, if you would... I ask you..."

At the sight, some of the reporters lowered their cameras as if in pity. All of it was a stage, planned from the start. The press, the court — every piece of it a biased machine standing on Oh Manbok's side.

And so everything seemed to be flowing exactly as Oh Manbok had planned.

But—

"..."

At the courthouse entrance, someone slowly showed himself, as if he had been waiting there all along.

"Oh Manbok."

A chill went through the air, as if a reaper had spoken his name.

"..."

Oh Manbok looked at the man who had dared to call him by name. And in that moment—

A tremor.

His body shook. They had called him a tiger even among the business elite, and he was still perfectly hale, only playing at illness — yet he felt it by instinct. A beast. No. A monster that had surpassed any beast, standing before his eyes.

"You... you're..."

"Oh Jaehyung's father."

That was the end of it. The instant his fingertips braced against the ground—

KRAANG!

The courthouse floor split and warped around him. Something surged up fast from beneath the ground, and the scene that had surrounded them collapsed in an instant.

Inside the hall—

"..."

The reporters, the gawkers who had crowded in, the victims' bereaved families — all of them were sealed inside a dream none of them would remember.

The man who had appeared so suddenly vanished, and Oh Manbok, wheelchair and all, vanished with him.

Pitch dark. A world where eyes, ears, and every sense had gone. There, Oh Jaehyung had been alone for a long time. Or so he had believed.

Click.

A cold mechanical sound cut the dark, and at last the covering over his eyes came loose.

Flash.

Light poured in. And yet, somehow, the world was still as alien as pitch. His wrists and ankles were still bound. Hard restraints. Shackles that would not come undone. And then—

"...Kh— wh... where...?"

"Aaaaaah!"

What crashed over his voice was a woman's scream from right beside him. He turned in shock, and the scream died in his own throat.

"Hyeon... Hyeongyeong?"

His little sister, Oh Hyeongyeong. And across from him, his mother, Jung Hwaja. Beside her, Oh Manbok, just opening his eyes.

Family. Every one of them, bound inside this space.

"O-oppa?! What is this, what is this!"

"What is— aaaah! Somebody help!!"

Seized by panic, the family shouted at one another and wailed. They did not want this to be real. And Oh Jaehyung was despairing more violently than any of them.

"...No... not this..."

That was when it happened.

Ssshhh—

A single quiet thread of wind. And someone who had not existed in the space appeared without warning.

"..."

A black shirt. Expressionless eyes. And a strange presence that could not be sorted into man or monster.

He said nothing. He only looked, in silence, at Oh Jaehyung and his family. The gaze was so cold that Oh Hyeongyeong clapped a hand over her mouth and began to sob. Jung Hwaja killed the sound of her breathing. Oh Jaehyung bit his lip and forced his mouth open with everything he had.

"Please... just my family...! It's my fault, all of it is on me! What would they even know? They only — only because of me..."

But someone else spoke before his desperate plea could finish.

"...Stop. Jaehyung."

A low, heavy voice. Oh Manbok. The helpless old man who had leaned on a wheelchair in court was gone.

His eyes were cold, and his mouth, if anything, wore a thin smile.

"I know the old sin. If you want to kill us, then do it."

"F-Father!?"

"But remember this."

He lifted his head and looked at Han Seungwoo. Eyes full of the hardened will of a man who had raised a giant corporation with his bare hands.

"You will be the murderer of the age — the man who killed one of the Republic of Korea's foremost chaebol chairmen. The press will call you a monster. The police and the politicians will brand you a foreign terrorist. Yes. In the end, you will finish your life as a fugitive."

Venom laced the voice. It was the last of his arrogance. An ugly will that refused to let go of the illusion of power, even at the edge of death.

And then—

"...Hahaha."

Han Seungwoo laughed, for the first time. A laugh far too cold, far too chill.

"A death throe."

He took a quiet step forward and looked at Oh Jaehyung, and at each face of that family, the way a man turns over how long he has waited for this day.

"Playing at dignity. Playing at detachment. I can feel all of it anyway..."

He hadn't meant to. But as the end of the sentence trailed off, the tension climbed.

"...Every one of you is terrified of death."

Breath caught, hard. Oh Manbok and all the rest could not open their mouths. A single sentence. But that one sentence was driving a chaebol house that had lived only as rulers into a terror where they could not even breathe.

"And don't delude yourselves."

He raised a hand.

"Your deaths won't be a criminal's act of terror. They will be the deaths the world wants most."

In that moment—

A mechanical tone that rang through space and time. And at the same instant, countless smartphones, televisions, and electronic billboards across the Republic of Korea linked into one.

Public Judgment — a trait newly unlocked. Because of it, the eyes of the nation, tens of millions strong, would be able to witness the end of the chaebol house called Ohsung Group.

"Now... let the judgment begin."

My revenge, and the judgment of the chaebol house that had committed its vile crimes, was about to begin.