Oh Se-jun's End
“Ugh……”
“Uncle! Are you awake?”
“Where… am I?”
Uncle’s eyes fluttered open. He rolled them around, scanning the room, then winced.
“Agh, my head… feels like it’s splitting.”
“Does it hurt a lot? Should I call the nurse?”
At my worried question, he shook his head slightly and cut straight to the point.
“No. More importantly, what happened? Why am I here? I remember being grabbed by those bastards, but after that……”
“Right after that, fortunately, one of your employees—someone named Jong-man—contacted me. He said he saw you getting kidnapped from the building next door.”
“That guy’s got good instincts. How the hell did he notice and hide in the next building? Anyway, you’re saying Jong-man called you? Why didn’t he report it to the police or the Management Bureau?”
When Uncle asked, puzzled, I shrugged.
“He said Oh Se-jun’s people probably got to the police first. By the time they showed up, he figured they’d only be recovering your body.”
“So you went straight to the Management Bureau yourself?”
“I didn’t report it to the Management Bureau.”
“Then?”
“I went to rescue you myself. In a situation that urgent, who has time to file a report and wait? Besides, if the Bureau had moved in force, those guys would’ve noticed immediately. They seemed pretty well-organized.”
“Well-organized? Where exactly was this?”
“The Devils Clan.”
“What?! Aaaagh!”
“Uncle, calm down. Stay calm.”
I pushed him back down as he tried to bolt upright in shock. He stared at me with wide eyes.
“Are you insane? Do you have any idea how dangerous those bastards are? You went in alone to save me?”
“They weren’t that dangerous.”
“What?”
“Once I actually fought them, they weren’t much. I wiped them all out. The Devils Clan, I mean. Thanks to that, I found out who hired them to kidnap you and got all the evidence.”
“……Huh?”
Uncle gaped at me. I pulled up the related news article on my phone and showed it to him.
“So this anonymous informant was……”
“Couldn’t just leave it alone.”
“Hah……”
Go Yeong-gwang was speechless. Experts had calculated that destroying the Devils Clan would require at least three S-rank hunters plus over a hundred A-rank or lower personnel. Yet Humin had done it alone? It was unbelievable, but he knew the boy wasn’t the type to lie about something like this. All he could do was stare in disbelief.
“By the way, why did you hold out? What was so important that you almost died for it? You know that, right?”
“What do you mean, what? It was the crucial evidence that could prove your grandfather—our uncle—was innocent. He never lived in luxury, but he lived his whole life without shame. And someone tried to brand him an insurance fraudster? I’d rather eat dirt than let that happen.”
“……Thank you, Uncle.”
“If you’re grateful, buy me a meal later. Hanwoo. The good stuff.”
“Yes, Uncle. I’ll treat you until you burst.”
“So what now? With the evidence I gathered plus everything you got from those bastards, sending Oh Se-jun straight to hell shouldn’t be hard.”
My stance on that was firm.
“At first, I planned to give him one chance if you brought back proof. If he still didn’t come to his senses, I’d let the law handle him. But not anymore. Oh Se-jun crossed a line he never should have. What do you think?”
“I agree. Covering up one mistake by committing an even bigger one? That kind of idiot has no place in society. Hey, Humin.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Have you heard from Ju-tae?”
Ju-tae was Woo Ju-tae, the president of the Woo Ju Detective Agency that Uncle had introduced me to.
“He actually came to visit you this morning and left this with me. He seems really capable, just like you said.”
Uncle pulled the documents from the envelope and smiled.
The contents were a list of additional witnesses and evidence that had been missed at the time.
“Humin. Will you leave all of this to me?”
“To you, Uncle? Do you have a plan?”
“Yeah. If you let me handle it, I’ll make sure Oh Se-jun falls straight into the abyss.”
I nodded at the confident smile on Uncle Yeong-gwang’s face.
That afternoon.
Public curiosity about the anonymous informant who had destroyed the Devils Clan had reached its peak.
Online platforms—SNS, YouTube, forums—were ablaze with talk of Oh Se-jun. Even in real life, any gathering of two or more people quickly turned to heated discussions about him.
The one whose feet were suddenly on fire wasn’t Oh Se-jun himself, but his father, Oh Byung-seok, president of Chamyung Construction.
Crash!
“Which insane media outlet dropped this garbage?! Are they trying to get themselves killed?! Demand a correction immediately! If they refuse, pull all our advertising!”
“Well… it turns out it’s a minor outlet founded just last year. We never placed ads with them, and this article is actually boosting their numbers. Forcing a correction might be difficult……”
“You call that an answer?! More importantly, where the hell is that bastard Oh Se-jun?! Tell him to pack his bags and get to America right now!”
“There’s a high chance an exit ban will be issued soon. He’ll probably be stopped at the airport, sir.”
“Then smuggle him out or hide him in some underground bunker—get him out of sight! And summon the emergency response team and all staff immediately!”
“Yes, sir!”
Can the world change overnight?
Oh Se-jun had laughed at the idea.
At least, until yesterday.
“If you stay here, no one will find you. Just sit tight like the president said……”
Thud!
“……Those were the president’s orders.”
Kim Dong-cheol, struck in the head by the soju bottle Oh Se-jun threw, wiped the blood from his forehead with his hand, picked up the fallen bottle, bowed, and left, closing the door behind him.
“Damn it……”
Even lighting a cigarette from the pack in his pocket did nothing to ease the suffocating feeling crushing his chest.
How had things come to this? Just yesterday he had been on the fast track to success.
He had been days away from toppling his legitimate siblings and claiming the throne.
And now? Forget the throne—he was one step from being buried in a coffin by his own father. Hell, it wouldn’t even be surprising if the old man quietly dumped him in the ocean.
“Damn that senile bastard.”
The whole mess had started with that old man collecting scrap paper.
Oh Se-jun simply hadn’t liked the sight of the ragged figure dragging a cart piled high with cardboard right in front of him. They were different species, after all.
Even after the cart moved aside, he’d honked the horn for fun. The way the old man had toppled over was hilarious.
Unfortunately, the man had hit his head on the curb and was now in a coma, but Oh Se-jun hadn’t cared. Money could fix anything. The only problem was that the man’s granddaughter had dared to demand an apology.
“Who the hell is that bastard?! Aaaaargh!!”
Oh Se-jun slammed his fist into the wall and screamed until his throat was raw.
The anonymous informant who had reduced everything to this state—whoever they were, he couldn’t even begin to imagine their identity.
He had already investigated the old man’s family. The son and daughter-in-law were divorced. The granddaughter was ordinary. Her husband worked at the Management Bureau but held no high position. The grandson had just graduated from the White Dragon Guild training camp—an E-rank trainee, worthless trash.
So where had this monster come from, and what connections had he used to annihilate the Devils Clan in a single night?
‘What the hell did I miss?’
No matter how hard he thought, he found no answer.
Then—
Creak.
The door opened and a man stepped inside. Deep-brimmed hat, hood pulled low, mask covering his face……
Oh Se-jun knew instantly. This was the mastermind behind everything.
“You…!”
“Good. I was worried you might hang yourself, but I guess you don’t have the guts for that.”
“You?! You’re the one who did this to me! Why?! What the hell do you want that you had to ruin me like this, you son of a bitch!”
Oh Se-jun lunged and grabbed Ahn Humin by the collar.
Ahn Humin looked down at him with cold eyes, seized his wrist, and slowly applied pressure.
“I could understand everything else, but this one thing I just can’t.”
“Agh…!”
“It was a simple problem that would’ve ended with a sincere apology and compensation. Why drag it out until it came to this? I really can’t understand it no matter how much I think about it.”
Crack!
“Aaaagh!!”
Oh Se-jun’s wrist snapped. Ahn Humin released him, and the stumbling man crashed into the bed frame, landing hard on his backside.
“Or maybe that’s just how it is.”
Ahn Humin approached slowly, placed his foot on Oh Se-jun’s ankle, and pressed down again.
“You thought we weren’t the same kind of person, so you could treat me however you wanted? That no matter what you did, I wouldn’t be able to say a word or fight back, so you could just……”
“Aaaagh! Stop! It hurts!! Aaaagh!!”
Crack!
“Stepping on you is fine. You’re just a bug.”
Oh Se-jun curled on the floor, clutching his broken ankle with his remaining hand, cold sweat pouring down his face.
Ahn Humin didn’t stop. He methodically crushed Oh Se-jun’s remaining arm and leg like insects, ensuring they would never be usable again.
Looking down coldly at the man now sprawled on the floor, tears streaming, Ahn Humin delivered his final warning.
“On the bed are all the wrongs you committed. Take them to court, confess everything, and beg the judge to make you pay the full price.”
“B-but then my father……”
“Whatever your father does to you is none of my concern. But remember this one thing: if you try to avoid paying the price or run away, you’ll meet me again. And at that point, this moment will seem like the best memory you ever had of me.”
“I-I understand……”
Smack! Thud……
Ahn Humin smashed Oh Se-jun’s face and left the room. Outside, he came face to face with a man waiting by the door.
It was none other than Oh Se-jun’s secretary, Kim Dong-cheol.
Yet—
“I’ll be counting on you from now on as well. Contact me immediately if anything happens.”
“Thank you. Have a safe trip.”
When Ahn Humin handed over a bag of money he had prepared in advance from his inventory, Kim Dong-cheol accepted it with a bow and saw him off.
‘I thought the personal secretary would be the hardest to approach, but… what the hell did that bastard do to the person closest to him?’
That night.
From a hotel room, I watched the live TV broadcast of Oh Se-jun being wheeled into the prosecutor’s office by Kim Dong-cheol for voluntary surrender.