There Is No Salvation

At first, I thought it was simple. Negative Karma: judge the wicked, absorb their Karma, and raise the levels of my stats and traits. I believed that was the only road by which I could grow strong.

But I was wrong. This thing called Awakening—this thing called the System—was offering me another path.

Positive Karma. Rescue someone who could be called good, and receive a different kind of reward.

And to my surprise, that reward—

—was not Karma at all. I had gained a special ability: Fire Attribute Resistance.

A glittering icon. To my astonishment, an entirely new category—Special Abilities—had been created, and Fire Attribute Resistance sat inside it.

I stared at that line until another window opened.

A human body, frail as it is, cannot endure fire. But this resistance did exactly what its name promised. It let me stand against flame and searing heat—forces of nature no one is meant to resist. A truly special ability.

The fact of it filled me with a joy I could not quite hold down.

I can grow stronger. Stronger still!

Revenge demanded power, power far greater than what I possessed now, and an ability like this was another road showing me that such power was possible. Better still, the act itself was nothing more than rescuing the good, or lending them aid. Had it required killing them, I might have hesitated. Helping them, I could do without a second thought.

"Hey—hey...!"

A shout cut through my thoughts. I turned and found people already closing in, subway staff among them.

Crackle. Crackle.

Their eyes flicked between me and the arsonist's burning corpse. I slipped out from under that gaze.

And I ran.

It was not a choice. It was necessary. Criminal or not, I had plainly committed murder, and the law of South Korea does not forgive murder under any circumstances. A nationwide wanted notice was already out for me. The moment I tangled with the authorities, things would turn ugly.

So I did what I had to.

I poured the Karma I had meant to save into Agility. Only two points. But the speed that came with them—

Shhhk!

—was beyond any comparison with before. I had already been fast. Now I was fast enough to run alongside a subway train.

The moment the studio lights came up, I smiled. The cameras rolled. Out in the audience, the tears and the applause were ready and waiting. The script was perfect.

"Now then, our beloved Hyunsu—shall we come out and meet Teacher Eunju?"

I let the words flow, sweet as syrup. My tone was soft as a church gathering, my eyes clear, my posture humble.

This is my character. This is the product I built. And here comes another product I made.

Lank hair. Shoulders crushed inward. A ruined soul sitting in the eyes. Perfect.

Beautifully broken. Yes—they have to look at least this pitiful, or the ratings won't explode.

Behind the camera, the PD shot me a thumbs-up. I threw both arms wide as if emotion had overwhelmed me and gathered the child in. I wet the corners of my eyes for the shot. My voice trembled.

"Our Hyunsu... it hurt so much, didn't it? Teacher's sorry she was late..."

And in that instant—

"Hhk—!"

"Hhh—"

Good heavens. The audience had started to cry.

The PD looked thoroughly satisfied. The sponsor's representative sat in his chair and nodded.

Good. This was the highlight.

"Hyunsu... you said there was something you wanted to tell Teacher, didn't you?"

I waited for the child's mouth to open. But Hyunsu only trembled at the lips and could not get a word out.

What? The emotional cue failed?

I reached out and gently closed my hands around his. The picture of courtesy. A face brimming with pity. And inside it, I ground him under my heel.

Talk, you piece of trash. I poured months into you, and you're going to clam up here?

The footage of you getting hit landed me the sponsor deal. Your hospital bills are what gave me a taste of the funding.

Even so, the child only shook. He would not speak. Anxiety crept in. The camera lights grew hotter and hotter.

The audience held its breath. Someone out there wanted this child's confession, the catharsis, the tears. So I leaned in and whispered at his ear, my voice so low that not even a breath escaped.

"Hyunsu. You took the medicine earlier, didn't you? If you don't cry, it makes you dizzy. Teacher gave it to you so she could help. If you don't talk... something bad might happen."

The child bit his lip. Then the sobs broke, and at last he began the performance we had prepared.

"...Th-thank you... Teacher Eunju... If you hadn't been there... I would have died..."

Perfect.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Applause.

"Hhk—!"

Tears.

"Teacher Eunju!"

Catharsis.

In that moment, the product named Hyunsu was used up in my hands. All that remained was to hand the child off to a sponsor for next season. I kept my smile in place and made a note in my head.

Yes. This is who I am. I am not Teacher Eunju, not the second mother the others like to call me. I am a professional.

And I am the god of this show.

The broadcast ended.

"Nice, nice. Today was a genuine smash."

The PD laughed, the skin at the corners of his eyes creased nearly to splitting.

"The tears, the catharsis, the donations—all of it perfect. Great work, Teacher."

"Oh, please. Anyway, we can start wrapping Hyunsu up now, right?"

There was no need to hide what she really meant. Everyone in this room was a player. She only smiled brightly and touched up her makeup in a hand mirror. The eyelids she had used for the crying act had smeared, just a little.

Ah. If they pull the thumbnail from this look, the views are going to explode.

The manager seated beside her asked, as if it were routine.

"So. The next kid?"

The PD flipped through a tablet, expression blank.

"Here. One of the hot shelters lately. Fractures, malnutrition, the works. Still not dead, though. Think we can squeeze decent ratings out of this one?"

The tablet screen. She looked at the pitiful state of the child and lifted the corner of her mouth.

"I like it. Before we bring that one in, let's put a nice thick scar on the face. Nothing sells a survivor story like a wound, right?"

"True enough."

"That's why they call you a veteran!"

Everyone laughed. Everyone was enjoying the game. And she stood at the center of the show.

She left the station and climbed into a black SUV. The manager took the wheel. She settled into the back seat and checked her phone.

Ding. Ding.

Donation alerts, live ratings, sponsorship inquiries. The account was burning hot.

"Classic Eunju. Nobody smells money like you do."

She snorted a laugh at the manager's words and answered.

"Who else is going to do this job, if not me?"

But the good mood lasted only a moment. She shot him a sidelong glare.

"And I told you not to wear short sleeves. Your tattoos are showing! You know how many eyes are on people these days. I don't care how hot it is—cover up when you go out!"

The arm the manager had draped over the seat was inked from wrist to shoulder with every kind of tattoo. It could hardly have been otherwise. He was no ordinary manager. He was a gangster belonging to an organization.

The same was true of the woman they called Teacher Eunju.

They had been looking for a face to push into the entertainment world when they read her—the neat features, the respectable profession, and beneath them the ambition and the black interior—and scouted her straight onto the air. Had she been alone, success like this would have been impossible. The organization's connections and power were the engine that drove it. And that engine was not only for success. Silencing victimized children and other victims had been possible only because the organization stood behind her.

"Ha. Touchy. Is it because I haven't been giving it to you lately? What—want a round tonight?"

"Oh, shut up! I want to rest today, so just take me home."

"Heh heh. Then... at home?"

"That... do whatever you want."

He had offered because he knew her. After she faced abused children, lust always came boiling up in her.

"Okay!"

He tore down the road at a speed to match that boiling hunger. But then—

WHAM!

A sudden impact. In that split instant, she saw it clearly.

Something had slammed in from the side. A beast? Unless it was a bear, or some enormous predator, she could not imagine the monstrous strength that shoved the SUV aside. And then—

BANG!

The airbags burst. The windows shattered to pieces. Her vision warped, and pain flooded the nape of her neck. Little by little, her consciousness cut out.

The engine's death rattle. The irregular breath of a hunk of metal. And the smell of gasoline—no. What rose was the thick smell of despair.

A lonely corner of the national highway, where darkness and fog had settled heavy. I stood there, still.

On a road black as pitch, without a single streetlight, the only thing lighting my view was the spark flickering out through the cracked windshield of the SUV.

The vehicle was half destroyed. The driver's side had been crushed past any hope of recognizing its shape; only the passenger side barely held its outline. Inside that passenger seat, a woman drenched in blood lifted her head.

"...Ghk... Wh-what...?"

A face sheeted in blood. A groan slipping through split lips. And those eyes turned toward me.

"Th-there's someone there. Help me!"

She had no choice but to beg.

The manager in the driver's seat was dead on impact. The doors were crumpled shut and would not open. Her phone was smashed, and every link to the outside had been cut. Perfect isolation. Of course it was. Just as she had once arranged her own stages, I had arranged this one.

Step.

I walked slowly toward the woman calling for help. And then—

"You want help?"

I tilted my head, just a little. What mixed into the wind licking across the back of my hand was not only the smell of gasoline. It was, unmistakably, the smell of blood and sweat, and of terror coming apart.

"Are you asking me... to save you?"

She did not recognize me. She reached out. Her blood-soaked fingertips trembled, and her eyes were shot red. Frantic breath. A voice cracking around the phlegm in her throat.

"Please... d-don't do this... the car, the car's going to explode... help me... help me, please..."

"Why should I?"

I set a hand on my hip and looked down at her. The corner of my mouth rose, slowly. A laugh slipped out before I knew it.

"Wh-what are you saying. When a person's in danger, you help..."

"You don't remember?"

She flinched at that.

"Han Seungwoo. The boy who cried while his uncle abused him."

"That pitiful child, slowly breaking under brutal abuse."

I lifted a hand and brushed her hair aside. A forehead smeared with blood and sweat came into view.

"I—I..."

Looking into those eyes, I could tell. She remembered me. She would have taken a hefty bribe back then. She could not have forgotten the boy tied to that money.

"..."

Her eyes rolled. The classic tell of someone hunting for an excuse, a pretext. And sure enough—

"Right. You... you're Seungwoo. I'm sorry. Teacher couldn't help you, could she?"

Eunju dragged the corners of her mouth up by force and said it. Her eyes were shaking. Her gaze could not hold the front. But I knew. It was not sincerity. It was calculation.

"Back then... things were moving too fast, and Teacher couldn't do anything. There were so many kids at the shelter..."

"I tried to report it, but your uncle was so threatening... and even when the police came, they barely did anything..."

"Seungwoo, Teacher... I really wanted to help you... I was just so scared..."

Lies. Every one of those words was a performance made of a single sentence. I looked into her eyes and said nothing. That alone was enough.

The silence. That single look. To her, it would be crueler than a shout.

"Why are you staring at me like that? What do you want me to do?! Everyone was like that back then! I couldn't do anything on my own!"

The excuses began to collapse.

"Ha... haah... fine. You were weird even then. Quiet. Never talked. Just crouched there by yourself, crying... so who was supposed to know?! Who was supposed to save you?!"

That snakelike tongue of hers did not stop.

"That uncle of yours knew the cops, that's why! I couldn't do anything alone! If you wanted help, you should have said it properly! You just stared off into space, so I... I...!"

Only then did she notice. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had not said a single word.

It was a kind of verdict. That I would not save her. And at that, she finally flipped from excuses into snarling abuse.

"What? So now you're playing games with a person's life?"

"Disgusting. Truly disgusting. It's a miracle a psycho brat like you even survived, you know that?!"

"Yeah, trash like you! You played pitiful back then too, and now you've come crawling back! Standing in front of someone who's dying—what? Judgment? Revenge? You think you've become some kind of god?"

Her breathing roughened. Through bloodless lips, curses slid out like a snake offering its tongue.

"A guy like you was always going to live like a beggar and die like one anyway. Even if I'd saved you, you never would have gotten out of there! I've seen kids like that by the dozen! Dirty hands out, barking, crying—you're just another failure!"

I was still silent. Her curses whipped themselves hotter, as if they were being sucked into a fire, until at last she was howling.

"Save me! If you're human, you have to help! When someone's in danger, reaching out is the decent thing, isn't it?! Please! Please just let me live. Hhhk—"

I watched that, quietly. And then—

Her eyes flew wide. Her mouth trembled, and cold sweat ran down the back of her neck.

I tapped the ground lightly. The toe of my shoe nudged a shard of metal, and the shard rolled away beneath her vehicle.

Hiss!

A spark jumped.

"AAAAAH! N-no, no! Help meeeee!! Please!!!"

She screamed. Dragging legs bent at wrong angles, she tried to crawl into the back seat. But the inside of the SUV had been built like a trap. The doors were warped. The windows were shattered. There was no gap anywhere to slip through.

"Help me, please... I was wrong... I'm sorry... just let me live..."

"And what about you?"

I asked it back.

"What did you do to the child who begged you to save him? To rescue him?"

"That child must have screamed for you too."

I said nothing more. I only watched her, mute and still. The desperate groan of a breath giving out. The flames growing beneath the vehicle. Sparks running toward the fuel tank, and the superheated undercarriage already screaming in metal.

"Is—is anyone there?! Somebody! Please... please...!"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She thrust an arm out the window and cried up at the sky. But there was no one to hear it. No one was coming.

The only person here who could help her was me. And I had no intention of helping her—just as she had turned her face from countless children.

"Back then, you chose. You abandoned them, and you chose that hideous desire of yours."

I said it as I walked. Away from where she was, yet only as far as I could still confirm whether she lived or died.

"Help me, please...!"

Breath grown short. Smothered gasps. Elbows and knees dragging over broken glass. A single instinct—the will to survive—forced her body to move. But the crumpled door never opened in the end, and the shattered window did not face the outside.

The door gave only onto the tank spilling fuel, and the open sky showed her only the side the flames had not yet claimed. There was no hope. On this stage, neither her pity nor a miracle existed.

"Is anyone there?! Someone's dying here! A crazy—a crazy bastard is trying to kill me!"

She howled until her throat tore. Phlegm-choked screams spread across the dark highway. But no one came.

The world was quiet. As if in repayment for every plea for rescue she had stopped her ears against.

"...Somebody... save me... please..."

Her lips had already split. Tears and blood ran together, and her whole body was being torn apart by fuel and shards of metal.

Her face was no longer that of a second mother. It was the naked face of a vile sinner, exactly as it was.

And she wept. As if she had become the only life left in the world. As if she were a being endlessly entitled to be saved. I watched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that, quietly.

In the still darkness, only her scream rang out.

It was no simple scream. It was a heavenly aria—a shredding high note in which pain and terror, despair and regret, braided into a single melody. The final symphony of the wicked. A cold and beautiful sound of ruin, as if the screams of every child she had turned away from to the very end had gathered into one.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

And in that moment—

Crackle!

A single spark rose from the ground. The instant it met the fuel pooled beneath the steel—

BOOOOM!

An explosion that shook the earth. The entire SUV was swallowed in a ball of fire. Her wail was sucked into the flames in a single breath.

Red fire bloomed up into the fog, and black smoke climbed slowly toward the sky. I looked past that smoke, at the place going dark like an abyss. Then I slowly turned my back.

I turned away from her, as she had turned away from them. And the price of that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠turning away was sweet.

Just as she had gained money and fame by turning away from children, I was able, through her, to collect Karma.