At Last, the Judge

The air in the intensive care unit was cold. Quiet enough to stop a breath, and though the room looked empty, it hung heavy with the smell of blood and medicine.

"Aaaagh... aaaaaagh...!!"

The scream came again. My daughter. Daeun.

She was only five. The smallest, loveliest thing in the world, a child who smiled more brightly than anyone. Now her eyes were bloodshot and drifting, vacant, and the blood she forced out between her teeth ran down the oxygen tube in a thin, endless line.

"Please... stop... please, just stop...!"

I couldn't hold it in. The cry tore out of me.

Even at a wail like that, the nurse only stared at the chart. I knew no one could help. I knew, and still I clung to them.

Every time Daeun vomited blood, gasped for air, and thrashed again in pain, I prayed through the night that the suffering would pass to me instead. All that came back was silence.

Why? Why had it come to this?

I turned back over a past paved in nothing but regret. All I had wanted was to scrub the limescale away. One small mistake, chosen because I was a little too lazy to bother, had left my child like this.

Why did I do it? Why? I could have just cleaned the thing on a schedule!

The first time I saw that disinfectant's name on the internet, my hands shook. Ingredients? Warning labels? There was nothing of the sort anywhere. I believed only what it told me—that it was natural, an extract of hinoki cypress.

But all of it was a lie. The people who made the product. Jung Hwaja of Ohsung Daily Healthcare.

The woman who kept telling the victims she had never meant for any of it. The shameless face that did not blink once in front of the reporters, insisting it had only been an unfortunate mistake. She never apologized. Not once.

At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first, I had even hoped. For a single sincere sentence.

I'm sorry. Forgive me.

If I had heard even that, I might have found something to hold on to through these days that were hell. But no. They did not apologize. And they never would.

Never.

Because they had never once looked at people. Only numbers. Only share prices. Only profit and loss. Dead children were nothing but risk—nothing but something to be processed and cleared away. So they would do the same thing again. Another humidifier. Another product. More children. And once again, a blank denial.

I was tired now. Body, heart, and soul had all given way.

At first I endured with everything I had, swearing I would save her somehow. I held her hand through nights I never slept, and every day, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at her side, I spoke to her.

"It's all right, Daeun. You'll be all right."

Now even the words would not come. More than once I thought we might as well die together.

In the moment I meant to close my eyes beside her, Jung Hwaja's face rose up. The humiliation of it. To die that way would be too bitter a wrong. That woman was alive, and smiling, while parents like me broke apart to the sound of their children's screams.

So I held on, barely. On hatred. With a single prayer left.

Even then I could feel it at my fingertips—my child's temperature, still burning.

I bowed my head. The tears had dried. I no longer had the strength left to cry.

Now I believe. That somewhere, truly, there is a Judge who can put an end to a monster like her. And until he comes, I will not die. Neither will my child.

Today, too, I take her hand, clutching a desperate faith and a desperate hatred. The hand was withered now. Even that feeling no longer passed through it.

And then.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A siren tore through the silence of the room. At an alarm like a disaster warning, she reached for her phone by reflex.

Something was wrong. She had not turned the screen on, and yet it lit by itself. Something was moving, filling the glass. In that instant, she froze.

"...That woman...!"

She had not forgotten her for a single moment. The beginning of every tragedy. The sterilizing humidifier that had done this to her daughter, and the one responsible for it—the queen of a chaebol house, a name she had not even wanted in her mouth.

Jung Hwaja. But the woman on the screen was no longer the same.

The haughty, flawless image was gone. Her hair was a rough mess. Mascara had run and smeared around her eyes. Both arms were bound behind her back, and her shaking body was twisted with terror.

Above Jung Hwaja's head, formless lines of text were floating, red and blue and black light snarled together. No one explained them. She knew at once what they were.

They were her sins. Each one far too clear, and far too exact.

While she stared, struck dumb by the impossible sight, a low, dry voice came through the phone's speaker.

The words were short and dry. But that single sentence rang out like a declaration of truth capable of bringing the world down.

She nearly dropped the phone. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She did not run. She did not look away.

And in that moment, on the blood-soaked bed, her daughter—who had been opening her eyes with no strength left—drew a small, ragged breath. Still gripping the child's hand, she looked at the screen and spoke, quietly.

"...He's here. At last... he's here, Daeun."

From eyes that had gone dry, a tear fell. Not grief, and not joy. A tear that hatred and desperate longing had made between them. The Judge she had prayed for until her voice was gone. Someone had come, at last, to pull that monster down.

Her hand trembled. She closed it tight around her daughter's, and whispered.

"...Watch, Daeun. The one who did this to you is about to receive the punishment she deserves."

This was not a simple judgment, and it was not an execution. It was proof. The first step in turning me—the man they called a fugitive, a murderer—into the true Judge.

And the first of them was Jung Hwaja.

"...Mmph! Wh-what is this! Let go! Let go of me!"

I drove her thrashing body down in a single motion.

"Kyaaah!"

Strip away the name and the power, and she was nothing but a frail woman with venom hidden in her.

"You knew. You knew the danger of the humidifier disinfectant your company developed."

"Wh-what nonsense! I didn't know. The factory was found to have made a mistake—ghhk!"

I shoved her head down so that filthy tongue would stop. And then—

History of Judgment, its level raised, had converted a fragment of the past so that everyone could hear it, like a recording.

"...Th-this is...?"

"Deny it all you want. I can see every sin you've committed."

My conviction does not move. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. What was given is returned, in the measure of the sin.

From the crossbody bag I had brought with me, I drew out a single thing.

A bottle printed with a claim that could not possibly be true. The little death she had made.

"Wh-what do you think you're going to do with that. You... you wouldn't—?!"

She had caught my intent. Her mouth clamped shut. Useless.

I caught her jaw in my fingers and said it, flat and final.

"You said it was safe, didn't you? You said yourself it was a product even infants could use."

"Mmmph! Mmph!"

She screamed and thrashed. Before me, it was an insect writhing. I twisted off the cap and poured the solution straight down her throat.

"Aaaaaagh! Kkhek! Kek!! Guhh!!"

First the roof of the mouth. Then the esophagus. And then the organs. Her insides boiled.

"Kehek—kehhek!"

The scream was no longer a human voice.

"Mother!"

"Kyaah! Mom!"

"..."

Oh Jaehyung and the rest of the family howled at the sight of her convulsing in agony. It changed nothing.

She hit the floor, twisting, foam spilling from her mouth. Bright red blood ran from every opening she had. What remained was only the dregs of an arrogant human being who had once reigned like a queen.

"You son of a bitch. I'll kill you. I'm going to kill you! Aaaagh—"

Oh Jaehyung roared.

"Ah... Mom... Mom... kyaaah!"

Oh Hyunkyung shook at the death of her parent, right there in front of her, and fainted. I turned my eyes.

Where they landed, Oh Manbok was waiting.

"..."

He did not say a word. Only his eyes were webbed with blood. Rage? Fear? Disgust? Or the understanding that he was next?

I stared straight into those bloodshot eyes. His lips were shut hard, and the fist he had clenched was swollen, the veins ready to burst. His gaze could not leave Jung Hwaja's corpse. They said this chaebol house, unlike the others, was a close one. Sure enough, even this iron-blooded chairman could not hide his fury.

"Don't trouble yourself. You'll be in the same state soon enough."

His sins were plain.

The keywords above his head would be visible, just as before, to everyone watching this Public Judgment. And one thing more.

The words he had spat in the past—the dregs of that sin—were vomited up for all to hear.

"You didn't make money. That wasn't money. It was what you were paid for killing people."

Before he was the target of my revenge, he was a sinner who had to be judged. I did not hesitate. I raised my hand, and the moment it touched his abdomen, Qi slid into him, seeping, quiet.

When the number was low, I couldn't control it. The moment it reached ten, I could shape it as I pleased.

"Huk—!"

His breath went rough. No scream came. It would be that way at first. The Qi that had entered him—that particular force, controllable only once Status hit 10—did not melt bone outright, and it did not shear muscle away. It only made the body destroy itself.

The organs swelled. The nerves tangled into one another and lost their function. Little by little, the way an incurable disease does. The way a rare one does. Jaw, elbows, knees, spine, pelvis. Every joint would fail, and the bone would grow weaker than cartilage.

"...Hh... ugh..."

At last a groan leaked out of him. His hands shook. He slid from the chair and pooled on the floor, unable even to sit upright, stuck there like a clot of blood.

I looked at him and let the words fall, cold.

"...That wheelchair you've spent your life riding might finally be of some use."

He couldn't answer. His body had been wrecked past the point of rolling his own eyes.

"Father! Fatherrr!"

Oh Jaehyung's scream ripped the room open. Madness on his face, he tried to lunge. His bound body—nothing but a frail human frame—couldn't loosen so much as one tightly tied rope.

"Wait."

It wasn't his turn yet. I turned my gaze, and the unconscious Oh Hyunkyung came into view. A kick, into the woman who had lost her senses and hung her head.

Her body jerked. Pain driven into the gut hauled her consciousness back up. Again, and again.

"Ghhhh...! Kyaaah!"

Breath climbed to the top of her throat, and the tongue that had been wetting her lips faltered. Confusion, pain, and a terror too big to hold washed over her mind.

"You thought you were special. You aren't. Only your house was special. Your background. Your money, and your power."

I closed my fist. Her face swelled. The inside of her mouth split. The bridge of her nose burst, and blood spilled over. Her eyes puffed shut. Teeth broke.

"Please... please, spare me... I was wrong, I was truly wrong..."

She sobbed as she wept. It was still early enough that she could form words. As the beating went on, even sound stopped meaning anything.

"Grrk..."

The crying ended. So did the begging. She only coughed blood, clutched at herself, and shook.

Oh Jaehyung was no longer screaming. He watched his sister die with the look of a man whose soul had stepped out of him. I looked once at something that powerless.

Then, one last time, I drove my foot down into her chest.

"...Kh—!"

Ribs caved inward. Oh Hyunkyung's eyes clouded, slowly. She died the way she had spent her whole life killing the personhood of others—without even dignity, like an animal.

"Well?"

"..."

He didn't answer. There were no tears in those eyes. Only threads of red, red as blood.

"...I'll kill you. I'll kill you. You—without fail..."

The voice spread like blood wrung out of a rag. Slowly, and arrogantly, I looked down at him and stepped closer. The way he had, ten years ago, looked down at me.

"You're still telling yourself it was only a single mistake."

The words had barely ended before my fist was moving. Oh Jaehyung's head snapped to the side. Blood welled from the gums.

"An accident. You drove drunk and high, but you never meant for anyone to die."

The second blow took him in the gut.

"I still remember what you said in that courtroom, after you'd killed my family without a shred of responsibility."

That one sentence had nearly broken my mind.

"An accident...?"

With the kitchen knife in my hand, I cut across his eyes. Blood spattered. Before the scream could even burst free, he clutched his face and twisted.

"Gyaaaaaaah!!"

"Ten years. The road I walked in the dark."

I bent to his ear.

"Every time I woke, I cried. Every time I shut my eyes, I wanted to die. Being alive was the pain. And you..."

This time I severed the cord of muscle below the elbow, clean. His fingers warped. The muscle that had been trembling spasmed, and withered dry.

"...You were alive. Laughing. Stuffing your face. Still living happily."

I put him on his knees. The instant the tendons in both legs were cut, his body dropped. A cripple who could neither crawl nor stand.

But this was not the end. I split his mouth wide. I cut out the vocal cords. So he could say nothing. So he could make no sound. So that sickening voice would never reach me again.

Blood ran. What was left of a ruined man seeped out around my feet.

"Live that way."

I don't kill him. I survived, too, and lived through hell for ten years. Of course.

Kindness for kindness. Hostility answered with a hostility worse than what was given. I had lived ten years, so he would live a lifetime—and live it broken.

When the words ended, I felt it. A stomach rising with breath. I could feel it clearly.

It was relief. Even in a moment that was hell, he was relieved to be alive.

"..."

Of course.

"...Trash past saving."

He carries on as if his family is precious to him. In the end he is trash, and the only life that matters is his own. Confirming that, the revenge I had waited ten years to take came to an end.

A drop of blood fell from the point of the knife, as if to prove it. The air in the room ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had gone still, as though it had stopped. At last. Now, finally, my time began to move again—and with it, the time that had stopped on that day.

The judgment was over. But this was not the past. Now the world would know. The real monsters had never been me. They had been them.

And then.

The result did not make me wait. It appeared at once.