Chapter 28
Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 28
“Quiveeerrring~ my heaaart~ would you~ ever knoow~”
“Six-nine-eight-eight! Stop!”
“How do I~ express this motherfucking~ displeasureeee~”
Thud!
The guard rushed to open the door, but it was already too late. Moving to the rhythm of his humming, shoulders swaying and stepping lightly, Kyung-wan slipped behind the half-bald inmate and launched a full-force kick right into the guy’s crotch. The sensation blooming across the top of his foot told him it was a two-strike for sure. Surely his own foul mood had been communicated clearly.
“Graaaargh!”
The man let out a death-rattle-like scream as his eyes rolled back. His ruptured eyeballs and the bloody tears spilling down his cheeks were grotesque enough to make the rushed guard freeze mid-step.
Even more disturbing was the fact that Kyung-wan, after creating that scene, kept happily singing and dancing, whether it was a shoulder dance or a spasmodic dance, no one could tell.
“A bald~ motherfucking uncle is winking at meee~ heave-ho!”
He looked exactly like what he was: a lunatic, an avatar of madness.
= = = = =
Dragged quickly toward solitary confinement, Kyung-wan’s expression was euphoric, clear, bright, refreshed. Being transferred to this shitty prison had built up invisible stress, and now it was all blown away.
The more he thought about it, the better that method seemed. From now on, he decided to use this delightful method whenever stress built up. Life had to be lived anyway; accumulating stress only birthed illness.
But while Kyung-wan felt reborn, the prison warden Hong Chang-yeong felt the opposite.
This was a prison that housed felons and violent offenders, so incidents weren’t rare, but it was unusual for an inmate to be injured this severely.
Injured wasn’t even the word, the guy was utterly ruined. Both eyes were completely burst, and his scrotum was ripped open, leaving him a eunuch for life.
The real problem was that the media had caught the scent. A criminal who had violently assaulted a young girl, earning the nation’s fury, had now suffered life-altering injuries. Of course the buzz-chasing reporters would swarm like flies.
If it had been a suicide, people might have brushed it off, but given the nature of the crime, visitation requests were already skyrocketing.
There had been no visit requests for the culprit, Lee Kyung-wan, yet. But that was only because journalists were still piecing the situation together. Once the full picture emerged, public interest in him would explode.
After a moment of contemplation, Warden Hong decided to summon Kyung-wan. He needed to see for himself what kind of bastard this was. Some things could never be understood from paperwork. The man in the photo looked polite, neat, and ordinary, nothing like someone with the violent criminal history recorded in his file.
“Hello, Warden.”
Their first face-to-face left Hong visibly unsettled. In all his years as guard and warden, he had never met an inmate who greeted him so politely.
He hid his fluster with a cough and motioned to the chair before his desk. Shackled hand and foot, Kyung-wan followed the guards’ guidance and sat down with careful, respectful posture.
At that point, Hong couldn’t stop himself from asking:
“You seem like a decent young man. Why would you commit something like that?”
Kyung-wan smiled shyly.
“Hehe. Warden, you joke well… If I were decent, I wouldn’t be here.”
“...”
Hong was struck speechless. The kid wasn’t wrong. A decent person wouldn’t land himself in a prison for violent felons.
Seeing him stunned, Kyung-wan continued:
“It’s just… I think the law and I don’t get along. What can I do? I just live with it.”
“What do you mean you don’t get along with the law?”
“Decent citizens grit their teeth through shitty situations because of lawfulness or for their family’s sake. But my hands move first. Self-remedy is kind of hard-wired into me.”
Considering he was an eternal outsider, an endlessly reincarnating being, self-remedy was unavoidable. At least until he could fully utilize society’s systems.
Of course, his own feral, fuck-the-world nature also played a part. Hong, unaware of that, found it difficult to accept.
“Ever try fixing that mindset?”
“Well, when your own father tries to force a double-suicide on you and you survive alone, you stop feeling the need.”
To become a functioning member of society, what did one need? According to Maslow, physiological needs must be met before safety needs, safety before love and belonging.
In other words, a person whose most basic needs aren’t met will never desire to be a healthy, law-abiding member of society.
Not perfect, but close enough to truth. Could someone who must steal, rob, and exploit others just to survive ever become a functioning citizen? Impossible.
Hong pressed his lips together. A father trying to kill his child, such a story was unimaginable to someone like him.
Still, as a man in corrections, he had to say it:
“Regardless, this incident will extend your sentence. You’ll waste your best years in here.”
He thought reminding the kid of the consequences might change his behavior. But to Kyung-wan, those consequences meant nothing.
“I doubt I’d enjoy my youth outside anyway. In this capitalist society, someone like me, no backing, no education, no parents, is bound to be exploited. Better to be isolated here than blow up out there. Helps society, helps me.”
“...Don’t you have any dreams?”
“Well, not seeing filthy things? Beyond that, nothing much.”
To Hong, it was obvious the past with his father had twisted the boy’s personality into something strange.
The cause was wrong, but the conclusion was correct: something was deeply wrong with him.
“A month in solitary.”
“It’ll be boring. Can I at least bring a book?”
“No. For any reason, you permanently injured someone. You must face punishment.”
Kyung-wan tilted his head.
“Someone? When did I do that?”
“You already forgot what you did?”
Only then did he act like he remembered.
“Oh, you mean that maggot. You called him a person, so I got confused.”
Sincere, not sarcastic. Hong momentarily lost words.
“...He was vile, yes. But what you did cannot be justified.”
“I wasn’t trying to justify it. If I wanted to, I’d claim to be unfairly accused. I just…”
“Just?”
“Just… it’s unpleasant to see a maggot who ruined the lives of eleven powerless girls walking around on two feet.”
“You did it because it was unpleasant?”
“Don’t most people do the same? If trash stinks next to you, you move it or remove it. If there’s broken glass on a beach, you pick it up so the next person won’t get hurt. Even if your hands get dirty or you get a tiny cut in the process. That kind of mindset.”
Hong understood one thing for certain: this young man felt zero guilt.
Seeing Hong’s stiffening expression, Kyung-wan smiled faintly.
“Honestly, isn’t it satisfying? Imagine that guy walking free, how terrified would his victims be? But now he can never hurt anyone again. Doesn’t that feel right, Warden?”
“...You’re destroying the rule of law with that thinking.”
“Laws change anyway. I don’t think they’re absolute.”
“Law is the minimal agreement needed to maintain a democratic society.”
“That’s why I’m locked up here quietly. I’m a law-abiding citizen too, you know.”
Yeah, law-abiding my ass.
Hong sighed. Now he understood: the boy was anti-social in nature.
The law never permits vigilante justice.
“That’s enough.”
He sent Kyung-wan back and turned his thoughts to the media. His headache worsened. What would happen if that lunatic gained public fame?
Good thing he had thrown him into solitary quickly. Maybe in a month, public interest would die down.
Hong allowed himself a sliver of hope.
= = = = =
[Serial Child Rapist ○○○ Declared Level 1 Blind!]
The news broke. A criminal who stirred national outrage was now a wreck. A social-affairs reporter sniffed out the story and confirmed it, and others quickly followed.
The prison claimed it was just an inmate-on-inmate fight. People called it karma.
Until the second incident happened.
“Hey!”
“Yes, Warden.”
“Why did you do it THIS time?!”
At Hong’s furious shouting, Kyung-wan scratched his cheek shyly.
“I didn’t know at first, but turns out… he was a really nasty bastard.”
He was. A serial rapist of adult women this time.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“He bragged about it. Said if he hadn’t been caught, he would’ve banged two more sexy college girls.”
“...”
Hong’s mood soured unbearably. Was it because Kyung-wan had turned that guy into a blind eunuch too? Or because such a monster received only three years?
As Hong’s emotions tangled, Kyung-wan rubbed his hands together slyly.
“Um… Warden? Solitary again?”
“Yes.”
“A month?”
“Yes.”
“Shame.”
“What is?”
“I can’t use the PX. Eating prison meals every day gets boring.”
“This isn’t the damn military!”
“Oh right. The food here is better than the military, isn’t it?”
Muttering, “Then it’s not slop,” he annoyed the warden enough that Hong waved the guards over. Kyung-wan obediently let them escort him out.
Watching him leave only deepened Hong’s despair. How should he manage that bastard? Lock him in solitary until release?
But even that was hard now. Why? Because the media was watching.
Another inmate, this time a serial rapist, came out blind and castrated. People weren’t calling it karma anymore. They were asking: “Who did this?”
And the fact both incidents happened in the same prison meant it was surely the same person.
Reporters had already identified Kyung-wan as the culprit from the first incident. They just hadn’t gotten a visitation yet because the prison had been blocking it to let interest fade.
After the first case, public attention waned. Reporters gave up requesting visits. Everything seemed to calm down.
And then the bastard struck again.
This completes the translation with all break lines preserved, paragraph structure maintained, punctuation intact (including '), and sound effects translated.