Stabbed by Daughter's Boyfriend (1)

At the same hour.

Over at the Micheon Police Station's Regional Investigation Unit, Team 3 Leader Kang Pal-gu was drumming his fingers against the desk, his foul mood on open display.

"Team Leader, is something bothering you?"

"Huh?"

Kang Pal-gu shifted his gaze sideways. Choi Jung-rae — shaggy-haired, with a plain, unassuming face — was staring at him with genuine concern.

"You've been glued to your phone for a while now, like you're waiting on a call. Could it be the results from that group health checkup we all took?"

"Ah."

Kang Pal-gu gave an awkward laugh. He was in a mood, but seeing a teammate worry over his health took the edge off his temper.

"Nobody in RIU Team 3 takes better care of themselves than you, Team Leader. It's thanks to you I even know which vitamins I'm supposed to be taking."

"You punk, vitamins taken past your prime are a waste. You take them while you're young."

Kang Pal-gu leaned toward Choi Jung-rae, tapping his shoulder lightly as he launched into a lecture. It was the everyday nagging of a senior officer, but Choi Jung-rae — catching the smile tugging at the corner of Kang Pal-gu's mouth — gave a playful salute and grinned.

"Yep! Understood!"

"Listen, go get yourself some dinner. I can handle the phone."

"But—"

"Punk, what did I just say? You take care of yourself while you're young, remember? A stomach can only endure starving a few times while it's still young. One bout of gastritis and an ulcer's right around the corner. And from there, stomach cancer."

"Aw, come on, Team Leader..."

"Punk. Go. Now."

Choi Jung-rae rose from his seat, his plain face blooming with a smile.

"Yessir!"

He saluted playfully one more time and left the Team 3 office, and only then did Kang Pal-gu pick up his smartphone.

"Damn it, why the hell won't Seo Dong-ho pick up..."

The call Kang Pal-gu was waiting for was from Seo Dong-ho. But Seo Dong-ho had already fallen off a cliff as a pile of embers.

His traces could be recovered, if anyone bothered to look — but it would take a long, long time. The proof was Kang Pal-gu himself, still sitting there waiting for his call; a very great deal of time would pass before any search for the man was even set in motion.

"Didn't he say the shipment was coming in today? Ha. This is exactly why you don't work with uncivilized punks."

Kang Pal-gu bit down hard on his lower lip and thrust the phone forward.

Zzzt—

Then it happened. His smartphone vibrated. He whipped his head toward it like a man in the grip of a seizure.

"Yes?"

An unfamiliar number.

The call ended. Kang Pal-gu tapped at the desk, trying to sort through the wreckage of his thoughts.

"Ha, damn it... if only I'd never touched leverage."

"So what you're asking, ma'am, is for me to grab the guy sitting in prison and kill him?"

The woman stabbed by her daughter's boyfriend was named Eun Sun-hee. The daughter's boyfriend had been a regular visitor to the house, so she'd never thought much of him — right up until she blacked out and opened her eyes to find herself bound and gagged, forced to watch him sexually assault her own daughter.

That alone would have torn her heart to ribbons. But then, having finished with her daughter, he'd come to her and stabbed her in the belly again and again, without mercy.

It was impossible to guess how vast her grudge must be. She had tossed out a full twenty thousand Resentment just to catch my eye.

"If you can accept that identical revenge has its limits, then the conversation changes."

"Well — let me eat first and explain while I do. I'm starving."

I got in the car and drove toward the heart of Micheon City — to a diner I'd been frequenting for the past few days. It was a small place tucked into an alley, doing a modest neighborhood trade. Around the time the dinner rush passed, it pivoted to a drinking menu, though even then the food just leaned saltier and heavier on meat sides.

"Hello."

A frosted glass door bore the word SET MENU in a red sticker. When I pushed inside, four of the six tables in the place were already occupied.

"Eating alone again today?"

The middle-aged owner poked her head out through the little serving hatch connecting the dining floor to the kitchen.

"Yes. Could I get the dinner set? If it's closed, I'll just order rice with whatever drinking sides you have."

"Oh, come off it — you walk in starving and ask that? Sit here close to the kitchen, so it's easier for me to pop in and out."

"Sure."

Once I was seated, I scanned the room. I wanted to know whether anyone might take notice of a man talking to himself.

Along the way, my eyes met an old-timer settled into his drinks. I gave a small nod of acknowledgment and looked away. I had no interest in pointless friction.

Parallel world or not, the air here was murky compared to the world I'd come from. I don't mean the air was somehow dirtier or cleaner.

There was no energy in it. Back home, the air alone had been enough to sustain you — you could get by on the barest minimum of food just by breathing.

Here, though, everything was dull and drained, without so much as a fingernail's worth of energy.

So whenever hunger crept in, I had to sit down and eat. At first the constant need to feed myself had been an inconvenience, but after several days here, I'd adjusted. Perhaps the owner's cooking was simply that good.

Anyway — I fished out my wireless earbuds and fitted them into my ears. I was just about to pretend to answer a call and pick the conversation back up with the wraiths when—

"Let's lay out the side dishes."

"Sorry?"

I turned at the movement behind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me. The spread was noticeably different from what I'd eaten yesterday.

"I didn't order any of this?"

"I have to eat too, don't I?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You manage eating alone every single day, so eat with me and I'll knock half off your bill."

"Ah... well. Sure."

She was offering a discount — there was no reason to refuse. And it made me think of my parents, back in my original world.

The time ratio between this place and where I came from was 1:10. One day here equaled ten days back home — that was what the System had told me when it delivered notice of the Main Quest.

It felt reckless to idle around like this, but then again, once I had the Wish Ticket, I could simply rewind everything to before I'd been brought here.

Until then, the suffering my family was enduring would be beyond words — but what could I do? Carry that dread around in my chest and I'd be paralyzed. The sheer enormity of the defeat would crush me; I'd come apart long before I managed anything.

"Here you go — this is the last of it."

While I'd been thinking, she had spread the dishes from the kitchen across my table.

"Whew, I put in some real effort since I wasn't eating alone either — ended up with a bit too much, huh."

"I haven't touched mine yet, so scoop the extras back into the containers."

"Should I?"

I nodded. The owner began transferring food into disposable containers — and not just any food, either. A full third of both the spicy pork stir-fry and the tonkatsu, the two mains.

I could have finished the pork and the tonkatsu myself, though.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, she packed it all into a black plastic bag and held it out to me.

"Finish your meal, and take this with you when you go."

"Sorry?"

"What do you mean, 'sorry'? Whatever's left over goes straight into the food waste bin anyway. Might as well be you taking it home to eat."

"Uh..."

I accepted the black plastic bag with both hands.

"From the look of you, you came up to the city from the provinces to work. Make sure you eat properly, you hear? We do a fine bean sprout rice here too, and a wild herb rice — not just the pork and the tonkatsu."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"There you go. Dig in."

My eyes stung for no good reason. It wasn't so much that I missed my parents — it was that I genuinely couldn't remember the last time anyone had shown me this kind of kindness.

I was about halfway through the meal when Ms. Eun Sun-hee's question — Stabbed by Daughter's Boyfriend, that is — drifted back to me.

Should I tell her once I've finished eating?

I mulled it over for a moment, then decided on a whim to put the question to the lady across from me first. She looked to be around Eun Sun-hee's age, I figured.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Call me auntie. How old are you, son?"

"I, uh... I was born in the Year of the White Horse."

"The White Horse year? Ninety-something?"

"Yes."

"Then auntie it is. My nephew's right around your age."

"Ah."

"So why didn't you?"

"I'm a writer. I write."

"Oh my, a writer, is it?"

"Not exactly a distinguished one. I just contribute pieces to the internet."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"And what about it?"

"The field I write about is crime. And since you're a parent yourself, auntie, I found myself wondering how that kind of emotion would feel."

"What emotion?"

She picked a stray grain of rice off her spoon, ate it, and set her spoon down on the table. She leaned her upper body forward, as if to give my question her full attention.

"A parent killed by their daughter's boyfriend — if, before dying themselves, they had to watch their daughter die first, and only then be killed... what would that do to a person?"

"Son, you have to ask me that to know?"

"I know it's inhuman, and vile. But a parent's point of view is territory I've never set foot in. I can imagine it — but it would only ever be imagination."

"Is that right?"

The diner auntie nodded, then let out a short sigh.

"It would break you clean in two. You'd have watched your little girl die, after all. And then, as her parent — unable to protect your own child, watching her writhe in agony, and then dying at that demon's hands yourself — I'd wander the afterlife even after death, I swear I would. The fury would be too much."

It came through like heat rising off a bonfire — quiet, but hot enough to scorch.

"Then suppose you could send a curse down on that murderer, and watch him die with your own eyes. Would you choose it?"

"A curse?"

"A guaranteed death. His limbs twisting out of shape all at once, say. Or hallucinations devouring his mind until he dies a different death every single day."

"Hmm... I honestly don't know. If I sat and wondered how much peace watching that would actually buy me... killing him with my own two hands might be more satisfying."

"You think so?"

And then—

Eun Sun-hee's donation floated into view.

"By the way — you write about things like curses on the internet too?"

"Well, not every piece, but I do write them now and then. When the victim can't punish the guilty party directly — for physical reasons, or because of how society's systems are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠built — I've come to think a curse might be exactly what's needed."

"Hm."

The diner auntie gave a shrug, picked her spoon back up, and finished with a few short words.

"Aigoo, working my brain that hard all of a sudden — my head aches now. But live long enough and you meet writer gentlemen too, I suppose."

"Aha ha..."

I wanted to point out, once more, that I was no "gentleman" of anything — but her gaze had already drifted off me. I finished my meal and stepped out of the diner.

I'd walked in empty-handed; walking out, one hand had grown heavy.

"I'll heat you up for breakfast tomorrow, don't you worry. Now then — Ms. Eun Sun-hee."

"You have two options. One: a clean, immediate death. Two: a long, drawn-out, agonizing one. But with the second, you can't pass on until that human being finally dies. What'll it be?"

Opinions were split down the middle.

"Option one goes like this: Changgwi films exactly how he dies, and we upload it to the internet."

"Thanks for the thousand-Resentment superchat. But here's the thing — Resentment sent as superchat gets hit with a withdrawal fee, and when I connect to the Cosmic System to purchase things, there's a second handling fee stacked on top. So from now on, send buffs wherever possible. That's how you all pass on faster — and how I get my Wish Ticket."

While the viewers traded their war stories and lit up the chat window, I turned my head toward a presence I could feel drawing near.

Changgwi's voice reached my ear.

【Big Bro, men carrying Seo Dong-ho's scent are heading this way.】