Uprooting (4)
The Joint Investigation Headquarters.
Noise hammered at the ears from every side. Phones rang without a pause, and police officers and guild members rushed back and forth in a constant scramble.
To anyone watching, it looked as if something enormous were underway. The reality was nothing of the sort. All day they spouted the same lines, and meaningless leads and tips were the whole of what they had. For all the grand name of a joint investigation headquarters, they hadn't brought in a single grain worth keeping.
Park Jeongho sat in a corner of the room, arms folded, body sunk into a chair that looked entirely too comfortable. His expression was grave, as if he were turning something over at great depth. People talked beside him and he didn't hear a word of it. His attention stayed locked on his own thoughts.
Most of them probably assumed he had sunk into a profound worry over the investigation.
How the hell do I get that bastard Park Jinho out of this?
His little brother. That was the only thing in his head.
He had promised a transparent investigation, so dozens of cameras stood planted in front of him, and a live broadcast ran at the same time. Investigation, his ass. It wasn't even on his mind anymore.
He sorted slowly through his thoughts, calling up the people he would need to lobby next. Judges. A chief prosecutor. The police. His mind was already moving the way a man sketches a blueprint. Make them an offer they couldn't refuse, and they would take it. Honestly — who in the world did business that money couldn't buy? It was a method he had used countless times.
Money and connections.
The case was big, so Park Jeongho figured a bigger stack of cash would loosen it just as easily.
I've stuffed your mouths with so much already. You don't get to turn your backs on me.
What he actually had to fear was public opinion.
If word got out that Blue Dust was tied to D.K, it was over in practice. It had started with the mass deaths at Yongmun not long ago. One after another the users had turned themselves in, and Blue Dust had only grown into a fiercer social firestorm. The people who had been cursing the users had now turned their knives on the government. What they wanted to know was simple: how had Blue Dust been made, and why couldn't the government stop it?
If it came out that the whole thing had begun with D.K — and that the owner behind it was his own brother — then money wouldn't matter. He would have the entire world for an enemy. A drug that sickened a nation was a problem on a completely different scale from bargaining a sentence down. He himself would not walk away clean, and neither would D.K.
I just have to get Jinho out.
Park Jeongho tipped his head back toward the ceiling. Grease every palm he had to, pull his brother free, and shut the Blue Dust operation down at once. Do that, he thought, and the whole thing could be buried quietly.
His tangled thoughts were just beginning to settle when Lee Jeongwoo came running in, face flushed red, lips trembling.
"M-Master."
Park Jeongho shot him a glare. One look was enough to know something had gone wrong.
"What? What's the matter?"
Lee Jeongwoo hesitated far longer than he ever did. Park Jeongho's brow creased.
"What is it? Quit stalling and say it. Can't you see I'm busy?"
With some difficulty Lee Jeongwoo brought his mouth to the man's ear. A shaking hand covered the shape of his lips as he whispered.
"M-Mr. Park Jinho... h-he killed himself..."
Park Jeongho doubted his own ears.
"What? Say that again."
"Mr. Park Jinho took his own life an hour ago... I'm sorry..."
For an instant Park Jeongho's face froze solid. The noise around him cut out, and the whole world seemed to stop. His pupils shook wildly, and his mind went white.
"......"
His gaze dropped to the floor, then swept the entire headquarters.
"M-Master. Please, calm down first..."
The lost look in his eyes snapped into focus, and killing intent poured off him — enough to make even Lee Jeongwoo, a hunter with a reputation for real strength, feel his knees go weak.
In the next moment his veins stood out. His whole body blazed like a mass of flame, and the grind of his teeth carried clear to everyone nearby.
"Master...?"
Seeing the look on his face, Lee Jeongwoo froze where he stood. He had never once seen Park Jeongho this furious. Unable to hold the feeling in, a thick groan rolled out of the man, more animal cry than human sound.
BANG—!!
In the end Park Jeongho brought his fist down on the desk. A great tongue of fire shot up, and the people around him jumped.
"What the hell?"
"Master Park Jeongho, what's wrong with you?!"
His eyes had already rolled back. The pressure coming off him said he might burn every person in the room to death on the spot.
Sensing how bad this was about to get, Lee Jeongwoo forced his head clear and stepped in front of him.
"Master, y-you have to calm down! So many people are watching this headquarters right now! Please — get a hold of yourself!"
The investigation headquarters turned to chaos in an instant. Everyone had backed well away from him and could only watch.
"Master, please...!!"
He gasped for breath, fighting to drag his reason back.
"All this does is make public opinion worse. Let's step outside and work out a plan. Killing these people gets you nothing."
Instinct screamed that he wouldn't feel right until he had taken it out on someone. But he had no answer for what Lee Jeongwoo had said.
Breathing hard, Park Jeongho left his seat. Hot flame clung to every footstep he took. Dozens of cameras caught all of it.
And on the Nutube livestream still rolling, the chat blew up.
I was watching the Nutube livestream.
"Yeah. That bastard's family."
There was no way to call Park Jeongho's reaction a coincidence. You don't rage that extremely unless it's your own blood.
And that guy was a real psycho too. All those people in the room, and he didn't spare a glance for who might be watching. Then again, what did an S-rank awakened have to be careful about in a hunter society like this one? He only laughed it off outside for the sake of his image. Watching him move, he and Park Jinho were brothers, all right. Two peas from the same pod.
Park Jeongho wouldn't be able to dodge suspicion now.
The people on the livestream, the people inside the headquarters — a burst of rage like that wasn't something you could easily explain away. An S-rank hunter throwing a public fit of this size was something nobody had ever done. Family dead or not, Park Jeongho had made a serious mistake today. Of course the question of why he'd snapped would only grow.
I looked back through the old articles. Corrupt prosecutors. Corrupt high-ranking police. Most of them had been suspended and then quietly reinstated.
People died day after day, and monsters poured out of gates. In a world like that, articles of this sort were buried within a day or two, and it was only a matter of time before they slipped out of memory altogether.
How many of them, I wondered, had never taken dirty money from Park Jeongho?
They were people I had to wreck anyway. They had done plenty to help this society rot. I would crush them one by one and slowly tighten the noose around Park Jeongho's neck — until a ghost story spread that boarding his ship meant you died.
That alone wouldn't be enough. I had to smash his image and turn him into everyone's punching bag. Once public opinion fell into the pit, people would get off that ship on their own.
The problem was that they already had public opinion in a chokehold. Hadn't the article on Park Jinho been deleted the moment it went up? One wrong move and their own heads would roll. The reality was that nobody could recklessly run a piece on that incident, or on D.K.
But there was something they hadn't thought of.
These days, public opinion wasn't only news and articles. Personal media. Social networks. Every kind of community. In a world where tens of millions of posts went up in a single day, controlling all of them was impossible — unless you were censoring everything. This wasn't some communist state.
My eyes lowered.
I would use that, and use it hard.
I would put Park Jinho's crime scenes on the internet the way an eyewitness lays out a story. Toss it out along the lines of there's this incident, and it's strange it never becomes news, and let the thing grow.
Even if it never made the papers, people would share it, screenshot it, and tear through one site after another. Nutubers with dollar signs for eyes would trip over each other to turn it into videos. In the end the big ones would tie Blue Dust, Park Jinho, and D.K together and drive them onto the back foot.
I sat down at the computer at once.
A reply came back a moment later.
Park Jeongho's extreme rage left the other guilds unable to hide a strange suspicion of their own.
Nemesis Guild.
The building glittered under lavish lights and every kind of ornament, aesthetic sense on full display. Guild Master Lee Nayeon watched the broadcast and let out a snort.
"Park Jeongho's really lost it."
A smile touched her lips. To think the Park Jeongho who had seemed so untouchable would do something like that. Remembering the way D.K had thrown its weight around, she found it nothing short of satisfying.
"The Unnamed Awakened..."
She rather liked the one they called the Unnamed Awakened. He killed criminals cleanly, without hesitation. Gain power, and all anyone ever did was scramble to make money. Until now, not a single person had used an ability like this.
Just then—
Knock, knock.
"Yes?"
A guild member's voice came from beyond the door.
"Master, someone from D.K is here to see you."
She wiped the smile from her mouth in a single breath.
"Yes. Come in."
Lee Jeongwoo walked in slowly, dressed in a black suit.
"Jeongwoo. It's been a while."
He bowed his head with careful respect.
"It has been a while, Master Lee Nayeon."
She put on a forced smile and welcomed him.
"Yes. Have a seat."
"Then, if you'll excuse me."
His dress shoes clicked as he sat down across from her.
"And what brings our oh-so-illustrious D.K all the way here?"
"I'll be direct. Please cooperate with us."
Lee Nayeon let out a whisper that was almost a sneer.
"Must be urgent, then. What's the great and mighty D.K doing here?"
Lee Jeongwoo went on as if he hadn't heard her.
"We are requesting the cooperation of the other guilds as well. We hope Nemesis Guild will work with us. This is a direct order from our Master."
"An order?"
Lee Nayeon's face hardened in an instant.
"Of course it will not go uncompensated. Money, mana stones, items — we will give you whatever you want."
"The word order puts me in a rather bad mood. Still, let's hear what it is you want."
Lee Jeongwoo's eyes gleamed hard.
"We know Nemesis Guild has a mage who specializes in status ailments. Would you entrust him to D.K for a little while?"
She lowered her head and said nothing.
"As I said, the compensation will be solid. This comes directly from Master Park Jeongho himself, so you may trust—"
Lee Nayeon cut him off with that characteristic smile of hers, the one that lived in her eyes.
"No."
"...Pardon?"
"Shall I say it again? I don't want to, Jeongwoo."
Lee Jeongwoo stopped short, plainly thrown.
"If you take this stance, relations with D.K may deteriorate from here on. Can you afford that? This proposal is for the Master's sake, and for Nemesis."
"Not a proposal. An order, isn't it? And you want me to entrust you with a guild member? Are my people objects? If that's what you came to say, go back."
It wasn't cooperation, and it wasn't a proposal. It was an order — and he was acting as if Nemesis sat somewhere beneath them. Lee Nayeon had no more patience left for it.
"May I relay it to him that way?"
"Yes. Relay it a hundred times."
"Then we'll take that as your answer and proceed our own way."
"I'm warning you clearly. Don't cross the line, Jeongwoo."
After he left, Lee Nayeon stared blankly at the door.
D.K against the Unnamed Awakened?
She only looked out the window.