The Law Does Not Protect You

A silent dawn. In the pitch-black studio, a single candle lifted a clear, trembling flame, and even the insects beyond the door had gone still. Alone, I held a red pen and turned it in slow circles.

Seriously—what the fuck was this going to do? Even I thought it was unhinged. Here I was at this hour, by myself, gripping a pen and attempting some cut-rate séance. And not as a kid, either. A man well past twenty, all on his own.

I did my best to fold the rising doubt away. Fine. Try it first. It might actually work. I wanted to know whether ghosts were real—whether any of that occult garbage, exorcism and the rest, truly existed. More than anything, there was something I absolutely had to ask.

I finished the chant, one so famous even the yellow mutt next door would have known it. For an instant, silence spread as if time itself had stopped. Using that emptiness for background music, I forced my mouth open.

"Are you there?"

"Are you there?"

"Hello?"

"Mr. Ghost?"

"Hey. You little shit."

Yeah. Figures. No way a séance this cheap—stationery-shop junk-food cheap—was ever going to work. God, I had to be insane. Staying up at this hour without a wink of sleep, and for what?

That was when it happened. The red pen I'd tossed aside began, slowly, to move. For real? Actually? Was this real? The pen danced across the blank white paper, and at a sight I'd never heard of, let alone seen, my heart clenched tight all on its own. Fuck. What was I supposed to do? I clawed my focus back together and was just about to ask the next question.

Red letters wrote themselves across the page in front of me. God. I doubted my own eyes all over again.

Sorry? I did what?

I didn't know much, but an awakening was supposed to come when you lost an arm or a leg, or when you were a breath away from death and it hit you all at once, dramatically. Awakening because you sat home alone spamming Bunshinsaba—I'd never heard of that, not if I died and came back.

And weren't most awakened types warriors swinging a greatsword around, or mages blasting meteors? Something like that. Even the lowest-rank awakened were supposed to be so much stronger than ordinary people that they could make a living hauling gear as porters.

What the hell was this? A curse, out of nowhere? I wasn't some eighth-grade edgelord. I'd never imagined the Status Window I'd only ever heard about could look this useless. What was I supposed to do with an ability like this?

Step into a Gate and the vicious monsters would come running, drool stringing from their mouths, delighted at the chance to chew my skull open. I could hardly stand there poking a straw doll and shouting, "Be cursed!" The curse wouldn't so much as land. My limbs would come apart first and go scattering to the four winds.

I hadn't wanted to become some filthy hunter anyway, but awakening into an ability this pathetic was still absurd. A drained laugh leaked out of me, like air slipping from a balloon. I shut the useless Status Window, boiled a pack of ramen, and sat down.

Since losing my family five years ago, I had been completely wrecked. I was only just getting my head together, and in that time the world had changed far too fast. Six years ago the Gates appeared and the world flipped as if it had lost its mind, and society began to turn on hunters.

Korea, where finding a job was already like trying to thread an elephant through the eye of a needle, had only grown more hellish. Which meant people like me had an even harder time just eating and staying alive.

The inheritance I'd come into early wasn't small, so I wasn't scraping through poverty. Even so, I couldn't live like this forever.

"How is there not a single callback?"

After I lost my family I'd dropped out of university and lived like a shut-in, and getting hired with a résumé gutted like that was no easy thing. I let the sigh come, then picked up the remote out of habit and turned on the TV. The screen flared to life, and the anchor's flat voice filled the room.

Fuck. How did it get this bad? It was always the same. Settlement. Reduced sentence. First offense. Remorse. Spur of the moment. At some point the news had filled itself with nothing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but those words. Every verdict read like a copy-paste—the same vocabulary, the same reasoning, the same conclusion.

The victims would be gone soon enough. Dead, or hiding, or with even their names blacked out. They passed through the news as a single line and slipped out of people's heads just as fast. The perpetrators, on the other hand, went on living. Breathing, smiling, seeping back into society.

Always. Every single time.

A jeonse-fraud victim had taken her own life. A lifetime of savings had evaporated like scrap paper, and the state told her to follow procedure. They insisted the system was fine. The person was the one who collapsed.

A citizen who saved a woman and called it self-defense was the one who got punished. Help, and you were a criminal. Don't, and you were a bystander. So what the hell were people supposed to do—just close their eyes and walk on by? It was no different from the country itself threatening everyone to stay down and keep still.

A woman had died because a broadcast inflated her private life. The verdict was nothing but a fine. The weight of a life came down to a few sheets of paper. The ad money kept flowing. All that remained was her family's rage.

I set my chopsticks down and stared blankly ahead. Right. This was reality. This was the Korea we were rooted in and living through—not the country foreigners lost their minds over, all K-culture and beautiful nation. This was Korea's bare face.

The weak victims were mostly in graves, or left to weep, while the perpetrators cried fake tears and smiled at the end. The world looked past ordinary victims and had eyes only for remarkable criminals. The problem was that this had become ordinary.

Good is rewarded, and evil is punished. Wasn't that a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠phrase we all knew? Written on the first page of the textbook, tacked onto the end of every fairy tale. We'd heard it from childhood until our ears were callused with it.

But reality was the exact opposite. If you had money, guilt washed clean. If you had power, the punishment vanished. Decent people's actions were ignored, and a kind choice got you treated like a fool. The one who helped became the criminal, and the victim who waited to be saved didn't survive either. A human life was priced in cash, and the weight of a crime shrank to the page count of a letter of remorse. A courtroom wasn't a seat of justice. It was a marketplace. A verdict wasn't justice. It was a bargain.

The world—no, this country—was sick. Everyone knew. No one said it. Saying it wouldn't change anything. The news would be the same tomorrow, and people would rage for a moment and then go numb. In the end even anger turned into exhaustion, and anger itself became a luxury.

The anchor's voice still rang cold from the television, but nothing reached my ears anymore. Only my heart hammered. My breath came short. My fingertips trembled. Something seemed to hang over my head—no, over the whole world.

Every time I watched a rotten verdict, the family I'd lost rose up in me.

Thud—!

The hand I'd slammed against the floor stung at the fingertips. Strangely, the anger ran thicker than usual. The same words kept repeating in my head.

Settlement. Reduced sentence. First offense. Remorse. Spur of the moment.

Those words laid themselves over that day, five years ago. The day my family died. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The case had been unnaturally quiet. The investigation never really happened. The press didn't run a single line. As if it had never existed. All that remained was our house, stained with blood, and the emptiness of a morning I opened my eyes to alone.

I still didn't know. Why only we had died. Who had done it. Why the world pretended not to see. Only one thing was certain: I, the one who survived, was still breathing, enduring a world that was hell.

Five years had passed. In all that time—and it wasn't a short time—not one thing had changed. No. It had gotten worse. Crime grew cleverer by the day, and verdicts grew lighter. Weighing human lives against money and power was simply the reality of this country.

"I'm sick of living with my mouth shut like a goddamn idiot."

How hard could it be to properly punish trash like that? If I only had the ability, I'd smash them myself.

That was when it happened. My vision flashed, and red text rose before my eyes.

It was as if the Status Window were speaking to me. No way. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looked into the description of the skill called Yangbap.

More interesting than I'd expected. What if this works on a person, too? If I could truly do that, couldn't I pass judgment on crimes that ten lives wouldn't be enough to repay? Not a few years rotting in prison. Not paying damages with money. Even if the perpetrator died, nothing would change, would it?

A true judgment, where no excuse worked. Pain you couldn't run from. A punishment more vicious than death.

My body grew hot. Was it because I'd awakened? Or was it the anger I'd been crushing down all this time, finally boiling up? My mind, strangely, felt clearer than ever. The ability in my hand was absurdly sudden. Even so—better to use it on those bastards, the real monsters, than on the blameless creatures inside a Gate.

The condition was only one. A name, and a face. That alone was enough. Slowly, I bit my lip.