Justice Is Dead (4)
The news never stopped. Every last one of them was a judge who had, at some point, been swallowed by controversy over a slap on the wrist.
The press couldn't say it outright. Even so, there was no avoiding the implication that someone was orchestrating all of it.
The reactions ran every which way. Most of them came down to the same thing: frightening, and satisfying. A lot of people talked as if something that had been bound to burst had finally burst.
Which meant the public itself had been one step from splitting open.
A judge who had stuffed himself on bribes. Next, a judge who had cut a sex offender's sentence. After that, a judge who had looked the other way on child abuse. I was tearing through them without end, and still the list showed no sign of shrinking.
Just how deep had the rot gone? The inside of this system might be filthier than I had thought.
I turned on the computer and opened the site With Crime had built. One unread message was waiting.
The Four Great Guilds. I had expected as much. Without a backer of real weight, bastards like Yongmun could never have slipped off the suspect list every single time.
So which of them was it? Baekdu. D.K. Jeongbeol. Nemesis. One of those four. Which guild stank the worst?
They all looked busy clearing gates, but there were surely people behind them up to no good. I even doubted whether an honest guild existed at all.
A recent case came back to me.
"Kang Moojin's guild."
My eyes began to settle on a single name. I sent the reply at once.
At that same hour, judges were watching the same news. One by one, their faces went pale. That something like this could happen to the very people who sat in judgment of the law—most of them could not accept it.
A senior judge, white-haired with age, brought his hand down hard on the table. The water in the glasses shivered.
"This is absurd. How can something like this be happening to us?"
His voice shook, and the veins on the back of his hand stood out as if they might burst. Far from arguing, the rest of them only watched one another's faces and looked away.
The press had been howling every day. Public feeling had boiled over, and cold eyes were turning on the judges.
"It seems someone is targeting us on purpose……."
Someone said it low.
"It has to be the work of the Unnamed Awakened."
A few of them snorted.
"Please. You believe that nonsense? Are you even a judge?"
The air in the conference room grew uglier by the moment. Some shook their heads as if they couldn't believe it. Others were already rigid with fear, their hands trembling.
"It isn't a claim without any basis."
A grave voice brought the meeting to a halt.
"Judges don't kill themselves in a chain over the course of a few days. Even if we grant that Lim Cheolwoo was facing dismissal and trouble at home, are we supposed to believe the rest of them all made that choice at once?"
A sigh moved through the quiet room. No one could agree out loud, and no one could refute it either.
"So…… what do we do now?"
It was barely more than a mutter. Then another voice, just as small, offered an answer.
"Public opinion is terrible right now. For the time being, let's raise the sentencing range."
A stir spread at once.
"Will that be enough?"
"Exactly. We cannot give the impression that we're conscious of him, or afraid! We are judges. Judges who enforce the law!"
The outburst rang and died. The middle-aged man in glasses went on, unruffled.
"For the time being. We use the public's eyes. In any case, it's all but confirmed that this is the work of some nameless someone. Right now people are holding him up like a hero, but public opinion can turn at any moment."
He lifted his coffee and took a sip. His eyes, alone, were viciously sharp.
"Drag in every outlet you can and condemn him. Madman, trash, fanatic—inject an image like that. The public is simple. Toss them something suitably sweet, and if opinion drives him into the role of villain, half of them will come back to our side."
The room went still.
"What allowed his crusade to be justified as the work of a righteous hero was, in the end, the public's support at his back. If half of them turn and condemn him, he won't be able to run wild the way he does now."
None of the judges found an easy answer. In one corner, someone held a water glass and did nothing but let it rattle.
One judge, his face gone white, asked the question.
"But how do we guarantee our safety? Even now, that bastard might be aiming at us……."
The middle-aged judge pushed his glasses up and smiled.
"We'll ask the guilds for that. They know the favor we've done them—looking the other way all this time, swallowing public scorn while we cut their sentences. How many people in this room have never once taken so much as pocket money from D.K.?"
The conference room froze. Every gaze dropped. No one denied it.
"They won't be able to turn their backs on us. They can protect what's theirs only if we remain standing."
A long silence circled the room. The only sounds were coffee being sipped, and someone tapping a watch—awkward, too loud.
Then the eyes of the youngest-looking judge at the end of the table, Choi Seongwoo, caught fire. He clenched his teeth and muttered inwardly.
Crazy bastards.
Words that stank like rancid oil filled the room. He gripped both hands on his knees and thought. Were these people really judges?
No. This seat was already packed with rotten meat.
The moment Choi Seongwoo got home, he threw himself onto the sofa. There wasn't a scrap of strength left in his body. It wasn't that the work was too heavy. It wasn't even that his fellow judges had been dying off in a line.
"Those trash bastards."
The curse came out rough. The faces of his colleagues in that conference room would not leave his head.
Is this why I became a judge?
Something seethed in his chest. He had known for a long time that those men got up to strange things behind closed doors. Bribes. Entertainment. Drinking parties. He had looked past a certain amount of it. Honestly, he had told himself that was simply how most of this world worked.
But he hadn't known it was this bad.
What he had seen today was on another level. They sneered at the people and called them dogs and pigs. Judges were dying, and all they could do was be afraid—and think about how to quiet public opinion.
"They're going to incite people with garbage like that, and hide behind it themselves?"
His voice cracked. He clenched the leather of the sofa.
When something like this happens, shouldn't you start by thinking about how to change from the inside?
Cut out the rotten flesh. Retrace your own steps, wake up, and build trust anew. That was ordinary common sense. Those men were laughing at the people and treating them like dogs and pigs. When words you would only expect to hear in a movie actually left someone's mouth, goosebumps rose over his whole body.
"So people who think like that really exist."
Choi Seongwoo shuddered. Monsters hiding behind power. The mere fact that he wore the same title as them disgusted him. He closed his eyes for a moment.
The news that had been circling his head for days flickered past. Judges dying in a line. The press chanting that an urban legend had become reality. The Unnamed Awakened. Rumors that someone no one could name was executing the wicked.
Could what that person was doing really be called right? For a judge, it was a dangerous thought.
It isn't wrong.
That was the conclusion Choi Seongwoo reached.
The reality of this country was that the law itself was twisted to a bizarre degree. The presumption of innocence. Sentencing guidelines. Grounds for a reduced sentence. All of it was packaged to sound correct. In truth, it was nothing but a tool for shortening criminals' sentences.
He was quietly grateful to that nameless presence, who was sweeping away even the parts he himself could not touch. Relieved, if he was being honest.
He had hated criminals since he was young. Watching thugs torment a child out on the street, he had ground his teeth. Whenever crime stories came on the news, he would burn with anger all night and end up clutching a law book, studying. In the end, through an effort that felt like coughing blood, he had managed to become a judge.
"I clawed through that hell for this?"
A hollow laugh escaped him. The judiciary as it stood was nothing but a slab of rotten meat. He had no power to change the institution right now. What could one young judge do?
Someday. He too would climb to senior presiding judge. He would become an elder before whom everyone bowed their heads. When that day came, he would cut out the rotten flesh without fail.
With that, Choi Seongwoo hardened his resolve. For now he was filled with nothing but rage. Still, he swore that one day he would become the blade that set the law upright.
I came out into the living room rubbing my eyes, the way I did every morning. I put on a decent stew, then turned on the TV as usual, waiting on good news—which piece of trash had died today, and how they would report it.
Then my brow twisted all at once.
"Ha. Would you look at these bastards?"