Contracts Last Longer Than Emotions

As noon arrived, the Association briefing began. In the outdated communications room of Shelter B-07, the temporary briefing room of the Association’s Seoul Southern Branch floated into view above the dusty monitor. White walls. The Association logo. A long row of microphones. And the woman standing before them—black tactical coat, short tied-back hair, eyes coldly sunken. Seo Mun-ha. Team Leader of the Association’s Special Disaster Response Department.

She had three screens open. One for the official Association briefing, one for the black market financial network, and one for the transaction tracking window he had thrown together on the spot. He focused harder on the numbers than on the briefing itself.

“All right, let’s see this.” The Rat Merchant flicked his fingers. “Just how elegantly the Association twists their words to move money.”

On the screen, Seo Mun-ha opened her mouth.

The Rat Merchant let out a short laugh. “They package it so prettily. If they said black sunspot stone outright, the whole city would flip. So they call it unstable supernormal material. Civilians let it slide, and the ones moving money catch just enough to understand.”

I leaned against the wall and watched the screen. The burned skin on my back pulled tight. Thanks to the cooling patches Seon Woo-rak had stuck on, I could move, but every deep breath sent pain crawling up my spine. Still, it wasn’t bad. Pain kept me grounded. It reminded me I was still a person of blood and flesh, not just a puppet on stage.

The wrist monitor was more stable than before.

Still high. But not high enough for the mask to drop yet. The black sunspot stone sat inside a makeshift shielding case in the center of the shelter—an ugly thing Seon Woo-rak had cobbled together from shielding cloth, scrap metal, and broken Association equipment. It looked terrible, but it worked. The stone’s resonance had weakened, and the black noise scraping at my mind had quieted a little.

Yoon Taeha stood at the communications room entrance. Fresh bandages wrapped his shoulder, and a faint white-blue glow lingered on the back of his hand like an afterimage. He had grown quieter since the briefing started. The look in his eyes as he watched Seo Mun-ha on screen was complicated. To him, the Association was a place he had to return to—and now, a place he had to doubt.

The moment that last sentence left her mouth, the Rat Merchant’s second device beeped.

His pupils darted across the numbers. “It’s here.”

“How much moved?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. He checked the figures once more, then looked back at the briefing screen. Seo Mun-ha continued in the same calm tone.

The Rat Merchant’s lips slowly curved upward. “The suppression equipment side just took off.”

“Shielding cloth?”

“Black market asking prices already reacted. The ones you marked moved first. Now the latecomers who caught the scent are piling on.”

“Disaster insurance?”

“Short-term drop. Assets tied to Guro redevelopment are falling too. Whoa, this is…”

The Rat Merchant stopped mid-sentence and turned the device toward me. Green numbers and red numbers tangled together, but the result was clear. We were making money. A lot more than expected.

“Copycat.” The Rat Merchant looked at me slowly. There was no smile on his face. When an information broker stopped smiling at money, it was one of two things: he had lost too much, or he had earned something impossibly large. This was the latter.

“What the hell are you?”

“A bounty-bearing creditor?”

“Don’t brush it off with a joke like that. The Guro control announcement, equipment budget, black market shielding cloth volume, redevelopment decline—every direction matched perfectly. Even an Association insider couldn’t pull that off. Insiders only know their own department. But you read the entire flow of the incident and placed your bets.”

I looked at Seo Mun-ha on the screen. In volume one of the original work, this briefing had passed in a few lines. After the Guro incident, the Association drastically increased its supernormal disaster response budget. Related industries stirred, and the Guro redevelopment zone went into long-term lockdown. Back then I had simply skimmed those sentences as setting explanation. Now they were money.

The sequence of events. The direction of announcements. People’s fear. The market fear flowed into. This world seemed to run on supernormal abilities, but in the end money moved with it. And I knew where that money flowed.

“I told you I’ve read it before,” I said.

The Rat Merchant shut his mouth for a moment. His expression was neither believing nor disbelieving. It was the face of an information broker encountering data that refused to add up.

“I don’t usually believe talk like that.”

“I never asked you to.”

“But the numbers are telling me to.” He turned the device back toward himself. “I’m realizing some profit. Holding too long leaves a scent. We’ll pull out moderately from the legitimate market and rotate part into black market deposits. Sell half the shielding cloth position. The rest can run higher.”

His fingers sped up. The frightened information broker from earlier vanished, replaced by a rat that had caught the scent of money.

“I’ll recover the principal first.”

“Including my share?”

“Obviously. For an information broker, recovery comes before trust.”

“How refreshingly honest.”

“Only when it comes to money. If you’re honest about people too, you don’t last long.”

He paused while manipulating the screen. “You’re not planning to stop at equipment costs with this, are you?”

“If I were, I wouldn’t have started.”

The Rat Merchant leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I figured. If you were the type to buy a bed and rest the moment you earned money, or go to a hospital, or run overseas, you wouldn’t have come this far.”

“I need money.”

“That’s a sentence I like, but it sounds ominous coming from you.”

I looked outside the communications room. In one corner of the sleeping quarters, Seon Woo-rak was staring into the black sunspot stone shielding case. In his hands were an old measuring instrument and a notepad. Ghost Van leaned against the generator room door, sorting through several vehicle keys. Yoon Taeha quietly watched the Association briefing.

A strange combination. An information broker. A transporter. A mad researcher. A fugitive villain. And a rookie hero. It was still too early to call it a party. None of us trusted one another. The Rat Merchant stayed for money. Ghost Van moved because of a contract. Seon Woo-rak stuck around for the black sunspot stone and my ability. Yoon Taeha had come this far because he couldn’t let people go.

There was no trust. But there were conditions. What I needed right now was not trust but conditions.

“Let’s make it an official contract.”

The Rat Merchant’s hands stopped.

“With me?”

“Starting with you.”

“I don’t like the sound of ‘starting with you.’ Sounds like you plan to tie us up one by one.”

“If that’s how it sounded, you heard correctly.”

The Rat Merchant stared at me quietly. “Are you trying to build an organization?”

“Not an organization.”

“People who want to build organizations always say that. We’re family, we’re a team, we’re not an organization. Then later an organization name appears, membership fees appear, and rules for dealing with traitors appear.”

“I won’t make anything that annoying.”

“Then what is it?”

“A contractual relationship.”

The Rat Merchant stayed silent for a moment, then laughed. “Very villain-like.”

“Take it as a compliment.”

“This time it’s half a compliment.” He turned his chair to face me. “State your conditions first.”

“Information, money laundering, black market deals, fake identities, rumor spreading. You handle them.”

“You picked only dangerous work.”

“It’s your specialty.”

“Don’t think I’ll do it cheap just because it’s my specialty. It’s expensive because it’s my specialty.”

I entered a number on the device. “One month. Paid in advance. Performance bonuses separate. If Black Dog, the Association, and the Black Sun get entangled at the same time, add hazard pay.”

The Rat Merchant checked the number. The corners of his eyes softened slightly. “You know how to spend money better than I expected.”

“If you don’t spend it when you need to, it comes back more expensive.”

“Don’t say it like it’s personal experience. It’s weirdly convincing.”

“It is personal experience.”

“Previous life?”

“Corporate life.”

The Rat Merchant fell silent for a second. “Just what kind of company was it?”

“A place that ground people into money.”

“Similar to Black Dog.”

“That’s why I adapt quickly, I suppose.”

The Rat Merchant started to laugh but stopped. The truth mixed into the joke was too unpleasant to brush off. He held out his hand.

“One month. However, if I judge that I’m going to die, we renegotiate.”

“Who makes that judgment?”

“Me, obviously.”

“You’ll say you’re about to die every time.”

“That’s why I’m an information broker. You always have to keep an escape hole ready.”

I took his hand. It was cold and thin. The Rat Merchant was smiling, but tension lay beneath the smile. He still didn’t trust me. I didn’t completely trust him either. But the contract money had moved and the conditions were mutually understood. That was enough.

“Rat Merchant.”

“What.”

“If you run with the money, I’ll come find it.”

“Me?”

“The money you hid.”

He paused briefly, then let out a small snort. “That’s scarier.”

One contract was established. At that moment, the sensation of classifying people by function rose in my mind. Information handler. Funds handler. Black market handler.

I swallowed it down. No. They weren’t roles. He was the Rat Merchant. A money-hungry, cowardly, talkative information broker. But right now, a person standing on my side.

I looked at the wrist monitor.

It had risen a little. A disgustingly honest body.

The Rat Merchant followed my gaze to the monitor and frowned. “It goes up even while making a contract?”

“It seems to rise when I view people as tools.”

The Rat Merchant’s face hardened. “Say that kind of thing more indirectly.”

“If I say it indirectly, I have trouble remembering it.”

Seon Woo-rak had approached at some point. He must have been listening to the conversation.

“A fine observation. It appears the influence of Persona’s Black Stage ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still remains in language and cognitive categorization.”

“Skip the appreciation. Give me a solution.”

“We must create rules.” Seon Woo-rak dragged over an old whiteboard. He seemed to have found it in the shelter’s storage room. The surface was yellowed and the corners were cracked, but it could still be written on. He opened the marker and wrote large across the top.

The Rat Merchant muttered when he saw the words. “Now we even have an instruction manual for the crazy bastard.”

“Without that manual I might start seeing people as manuals.”

At my words the Rat Merchant closed his mouth. Seon Woo-rak wrote the items below.

“Until now you have used your abilities improvisationally in crisis situations,” Seon Woo-rak said. “Thanks to that you survived, but the residue pushed into you just as much. From now on, before using an ability you must drive in its purpose. For what. To what extent. At what signal you will stop.”

“It feels like a company meeting.”

“It seems that company of yours knew quite well how to keep people alive for a long time.”

“It was better at making people work for a long time than keeping them alive.”

The Rat Merchant nodded. “Truly a horrible place.”

Ghost Van walked out from the generator room. He looked at the board silently, then shifted his gaze to me.

“My contract.”

“We’ll do it now.” Ghost Van leaned against the wall. It looked less like negotiation stance and more like someone waiting for an incident report.

“Exclusive transport contract. Period is one month,” I said. “Guro, Incheon, southern Seoul, and if necessary the outskirts of the capital region. Vehicle replacement, pursuit evasion, safehouse connection, emergency escape, transport of rescue targets. Those are your duties.”

Ghost Van’s eyes moved slowly. “Multiple rescue targets possible.”

“It will probably increase.”

“Hound may attach.”

“He already has.”

“Possibility Madok will move.”

“Not low.”

“If the Association and Black Sun get entangled too?”

“We should consider that the basic specification of our work now.”

The Rat Merchant clutched his forehead. “This isn’t a contract, it’s a funeral schedule. And a very grand one.”

Ghost Van remained unshaken. “Amount.”

The figure he named was expensive. Very. The Rat Merchant’s eyes widened. “Mr. Transporter, you hit with numbers instead of the steering wheel.”

Ghost ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Van was calm. “If we arrive alive, it’s cheap.”

The Rat Merchant couldn’t answer. I checked the portion of realized profit on the device. It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt. But transport was a lifeline. Without Ghost Van we would likely have ended in the abandoned port or been caught in the drainage canal before that. If I wanted to pull out the people ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who were supposed to die in the original work, I needed a car to carry them. Not a vehicle. A transporter who delivered living people to their destination.

“Half in advance,” I said. “The rest after the operation.”

Ghost Van thought for a moment. “Separate vehicle damage fees. Non-designated personnel require prior specification. Emergency rescues incur additional charges. No liability in case of death.”

The Rat Merchant cut in immediately. “Let’s remove that last clause. It makes me feel like I really will die.”

Ghost Van spoke without even looking at him. “It’s reality.”

I nodded. “Add it.”

The Rat Merchant looked at me like I was a traitor. “Why are you like this too?”

“A contract must be written harshly to last long.”

Ghost Van gave the faintest nod for the first time. “Correct.”

The contract was established. Ghost Van did not shake hands for long. A short grip, then immediate release. It was his style.

Seon Woo-rak raised his hand as if he had been waiting. “Is it my turn now?”

“You’re closer to equipment sponsorship than employment.”

“Even better.”

“Black sunspot stone stabilization, recording of my supernormal reactions, analysis of Villain Manifestation side effects, measurement of resonance distance with Yoon Taeha. And securing data related to the void omen. Those are your tasks.”

“You’ve gathered only interesting work.”

“Condition instead. Do not insert anything into a person’s body without permission.”

“I know.”

“Knowing isn’t enough. Keep it.”

Seon Woo-rak looked genuinely regretful. “You tend to view research too narrowly.”

“And you tend to try to open people too widely.”

The Rat Merchant muttered softly. “Both of you sound terrifying.”

I showed Seon Woo-rak the budget. His eyes quietly gleamed. “With this much I can make the temporary shielding case far more stable. I can produce several stabilization patches and a portable supernormal reaction recorder. Measuring resonance distance with young Yoon Taeha will require more equipment, but at least we can set a safety line.”

“Priority order.”

“Black sunspot stone shielding. Stabilization of your reaction rate. Then resonance recording. Villain Manifestation protocol last.”

“Not last. It must be done continuously.”

“I like that statement.”

Seon Woo-rak wrote the currently available manifestations beside the board.

The moment I saw the last entry, a chill ran across my eyes. A black curtain flickered at the edge of my vision for the briefest instant. A stage without an audience. A stage without lights. But the stage was still inside.

I spoke immediately. “Persona is last priority.”

Seon Woo-rak wrote it down.

The Rat Merchant raised his hand. “Who’s doing the forced termination? Let me say in advance, it won’t be me. Once you start wearing the mask I’ll run away like a proper human being.”

“Ghost Van.”

Ghost Van spoke briefly. “Execute if physical suppression is possible.”

Seon Woo-rak added, “Chemical suppression is also possible.”

“Since you look the most excited about it, we’ll leave that as the absolute last resort.”

Seon Woo-rak nodded with clear regret. I stood in front of the board.

“Ego anchoring statement.” Seon Woo-rak lifted the marker. I spoke slowly.

“I am Kang Doyun.” The first line was written.

“I am Copycat.” The second line.

“But I am not Persona.” The third line.

“I use the power of villains.” The fourth line.

“I do not hand over judgment.” The letters remained on the board. Seeing them as sentences looked ridiculous. Just like the Rat Merchant said, it really did resemble an instruction manual. But it was necessary. Sentences to protect me. At the same time, sentences for me to see other people as people.

From the communications room entrance, Yoon Taeha spoke. “I will remember that statement too.”

I looked at him. “You’ll be leaving soon.”

“It may still be necessary.”

“When you return to the Association, the occasions for you to call my name will decrease.”

Yoon Taeha did not answer. Instead he read the board’s sentences with his eyes once.

“Mr. Kang Doyun.” His voice was low. “When I return, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what should I confirm?”

“Four things.” I folded my fingers. “How the abandoned factory incident records are organized. Under what name the black sunspot stone was classified. Who issued the order placing you under observation. And whether records related to the Black Sun are being deleted inside the Association.”

Yoon Taeha’s eyes shook faintly. “Records related to the Black Sun.”

“That organization erases records. They erased the black market posts, and they’ll be able to touch internal Association records too. Confirm within the range you can see.”

“Understood.”

The Rat Merchant took out a small metal chip. “One-way emergency channel. Once activated, it can send only one sentence for twenty seconds. If you write long it will be caught. Repeated transmission in the same area will also be caught, and a precise scan with Association equipment might detect it.”

Yoon Taeha accepted the chip. “Where should I hide it?”

The Rat Merchant pointed at his hero registration card case. “Stick it inside like a reinforcement plate. Association bastards surprisingly don’t inspect the items they issue themselves that thoroughly.”

Yoon Taeha hesitated for a moment. Hiding a means of contact with villains inside an object that symbolized the Association. For him it would not be simple concealment. Nevertheless, he held out the registration card case.

The Rat Merchant opened the inner gap with familiar movements and pushed the chip inside. “Done. If it’s discovered, I know nothing.”

“Thank you.”

“Skip the thanks. Repay me with internal information later. A hero’s gratitude has low liquidity.”

At those words Yoon Taeha let out a very faint breath. It was too short to call laughter. He put the registration card away and said to me, “Please don’t overdo it.”

“Isn’t that what I should be saying?”

“It applies to both of us.”

“Be careful with your words when you go to the Association. Don’t say everything.”

“I also remember the part about not lying.”

“Not saying everything and lying are different.”

“I have not yet been convinced.”

“You still have to do it.”

Yoon Taeha looked at me, then shifted his gaze to the whiteboard on the wall.

He read the sentences once more with his eyes. “If necessary, I will call you.”

“Don’t create occasions to call my name inside the Association.”

“I will judge that according to the situation.”

He left his own judgment until the end. Very hero-like. And a little annoying.

Ghost Van spoke briefly. “Departure.”

He was already standing in front of the iron door leading to the bypass passage. Yoon Taeha looked at each of us one last time. The Rat Merchant. Seon Woo-rak. Ghost Van. And me. It must have been an unbelievable combination. Even so, he asked no more questions.

The iron door to the bypass passage opened. Ghost Van and Yoon Taeha disappeared into the darkness inside. The iron door closed. Thud. The sound echoed low inside the shelter.

When Yoon Taeha disappeared, the air felt a little lighter. More precisely, the guilt thinned.

The Rat Merchant immediately loosened his shoulders. “Now that the hero guy is gone, I can breathe easier. When I’m next to that person, somehow doing bad things feels even more like bad things.”

“It is bad things.”

“Say that more vaguely. I make a living by packaging my profession as ‘necessary transactions.’”

Seon Woo-rak looked at the passage Yoon Taeha had left through with a regretful face. “I wanted to collect a bit more resonance data.”

“Remember the condition about not inserting anything into a person’s body without permission?”

“I haven’t inserted anything yet.”

“Remove the ‘yet’ too.”

“You have many demands.”

The Rat Merchant picked up the device again. “Good. The hero guy left, we earned money, and we made contracts.” He flipped through the screen several times and reorganized the realized profit and remaining positions. This time his expression was even stranger.

“Copycat.”

“What.”

“It gathered way more than expected.”

“How much.”

The Rat Merchant showed me the number. I stared at the screen for a moment. It was certainly large. It wasn’t money that would end after buying a few pieces of equipment. Even after maintaining the safehouse, running the transport contract, creating fake identities, and scattering hazard pay, it wouldn’t hit the bottom immediately.

The Rat Merchant spoke slowly. “At this level it’s not just calling in a few subcontractors.” He tapped the screen. “We could move one small subcontracting organization.”

The words fell inside the communications room. Small subcontracting organization. I quietly examined the sentence. Black Dog. Subcontractors. Guro closed zone. Warehouse 12. The smell of blood rose from the memory of the original work. The closed back alleys of Guro. The day Black Dog had gathered the subcontractors. Nominally it was for Copycat tracking and remnant cleanup. But the result had been a massacre. By the time Yoon Taeha arrived, almost no living subcontractors remained in the alley. And the name of that incident passed by briefly.

Hound Dog Test.

I slowly folded my fingers. Black Dog discards its subcontractors. It always had. They put subcontractors on dangerous work, cut them when things went wrong, and threw them as bait if necessary. Kang Doyun had been one of those subcontractors. So had Copycat.

I looked at the Rat Merchant. “Can you access Black Dog’s subcontractor network?”

The Rat Merchant’s eyebrows rose. “It’s possible. But that statement just now isn’t headed in a good direction, is it?”

“Black Dog is going to call the subcontractors to the Guro closed zone.”

“When.”

“Soon.”

“Basis?”

I did not answer. The Rat Merchant saw my silence and crumpled his face. “Is this that ‘I’ve read it before’ thing again?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me for a moment, then manipulated the device. A few seconds later, one black market subcontractor bulletin board appeared on screen. Black background. Anonymous call. Black Dog mark.

The Rat Merchant’s expression hardened. “It just went up.” He looked at me. “Did you know about this?”

I looked down at the screen. The scene from the original grew a little clearer. The subcontractors gather. To receive money. Aiming for the bounty. Believing they can survive. And they die. To Black Dog’s secret weapon.

I spoke slowly. “It wasn’t something to avoid.”

“What wasn’t.”

“The subcontractors.”

The Rat Merchant didn’t immediately understand the meaning. “What?”

“We can buy them before Black Dog does.”

His face slowly changed. “You’re saying you’ll pull Black Dog’s subcontractors out with money right now?”

“They move for money anyway.”

“Don’t say that so casually. It feels worse because it’s true.”

“It’s better to receive money and survive than to receive money and go die.”

The Rat Merchant closed his mouth for a moment. That statement seemed difficult to refute. “You think that will be as easy as it sounds?”

“If it were easy it wouldn’t be a scam.”

I turned my gaze toward the board.

Not Persona. Not a thief. Not a viper. What this board needed was not strength. Belief. Desire. Lies. The ability to create the situation the opponent wants to believe.

I looked at Seon Woo-rak. “Make one shielding room.”

Seon Woo-rak’s eyes shone. “For what purpose?”

“To draw the swindler deeper.”

The Rat Merchant spoke one beat late. “That sounds extremely dangerous.”

“It will be dangerous.”

“Then don’t do it.”

“I have to.”

I looked at Black Dog’s subcontractor call.

People who gathered to receive money. Without knowing they were gathering to die.

Without turning off the screen, I looked at the second item on the board.

Black Dog was gathering the subcontractors. Using money as bait. Using the bounty as bait. Using the illusion that they could survive as bait. If they stepped onto that board, the subcontractors would die. That was how it had been in the original. But this time would be different.

I tapped the letters on the board with my finger. “Since Black Dog put down the stakes…”

The Rat Merchant looked at me with an ominous face. “What the hell are you thinking now?”

I looked down at the subcontractor call and smiled slowly. “This time, I’m the dealer.”