Uprooting (5)

This time it was a prosecutor, and a high-ranking cop.

They had stood in front of the public and sworn to uphold justice. Behind that oath they gorged themselves on bribes and packed their own greed full. Shameless, the lot of them. Wherever they went, they must have introduced themselves without so much as a flicker—protectors of justice in the Republic of Korea.

The people aren't fools. They knew. They simply had no way to do anything about it, so they swallowed it and let it pass.

Now shock was giving way to a grim pleasure. This was no longer coincidence. It felt inevitable, like something that had to exist, and there were even those who thought the country was only now, at last, running the way it should.

The mood had tipped for good. Public opinion no longer stood with the government or the agencies meant to investigate it, and most of the dead had ties to D.K as well.

Meanwhile, a post online was starting to catch fire. It spread in an instant.

The internet went up in flames. YouTubers who caught the scent of money rushed to turn it into videos—The Nonhyeon-dong Random Killing, The Truth About the Case the News Won't Touch, Why the Police Are Hiding It. Provocative titles, one after another, and they dragged in an even bigger crowd.

Corrupt prosecutors and police had already been dying off for days. This incident hit that oil and roared into an enormous story. Trust in the government and the legal world was scraped bare as it was, and people turned their suspicion on them without a second thought.

That was when a major YouTube channel moved. With Crime uploaded a video.

He picked the circumstances apart one by one, then made public a tip he said had come from a reporter.

He brought up the theory of a Blue Dust overdose along with it, and suspicion among the viewers began to harden into certainty.

On the screen, With Crime asked a question with weight behind it.

He let the pause hang. Then he cut to footage of the joint investigation headquarters.

On the screen, Park Jeongho takes in a whispered word, and then he breathes fire.

The camera pushes in. Park Jeongho's rolled-back eyes and blood-flushed face fill the frame, grotesque.

The video ends.

Park Jeongho sat in his private office, face twisted into a scowl.

"Master, the reporters are dug in outside."

"I know."

Lee Jeongwoo couldn't take it any further.

"The police commissioner?"

His head sank, and the answer crawled out of him.

"We've lost contact."

"Those sons of bitches. I swear."

He had crushed the press by force, if that was what it took, to bury the Park Jinho case, and he hadn't worried much about talk drifting around online. Rumors, he figured, would fade on their own, the way ghost stories do.

That was the problem.

Turn on the television and it was nothing but reports of prosecutors and cops dropping dead, one after another. Right behind them came nothing but voices suspecting Park Jeongho himself, and D.K. They had even tied him to Blue Dust—the one thing he wanted kept as far from his name as possible.

He felt as if his head might split open on the spot.

"And that other matter?"

"We're preparing it as you instructed, but the resistance is fierce. He's a Nemesis guild member. There's a stubborn streak."

Park Jeongho snorted.

"Stubbornness. From a member of that pathetic guild. That's rich."

Lee Jeongwoo lowered his voice.

"What do you intend to do now?"

Park Jeongho let the silence stretch.

Then Lee Jeongwoo's phone rang. A short call passed back and forth, and he looked at Park Jeongho.

"Master. They say it's ready. Shall we go down?"

Park Jeongho rose and followed Lee Jeongwoo down into the basement.

The dark there was damp and clinging, a single light burning at the far end. Beneath it, guild members stood with weapons in hand, faces cold as ice. At the center a man lay bound from head to toe, blood streaked across his whole body, every breath looking like more than he could manage. He was already shaking with fear.

"Wouldn't this have been easier if you'd just cooperated from the start?"

Lee Jeongwoo drawled it. Mockery slid under the easy tone.

"What was the point of all this? We wasted our strength, and you got hurt. Why make us the villains?"

The man, beaten to a pulp, gave no answer. He only dragged in one breath after another.

Park Jeongho lowered himself slowly in front of him and stroked the wet hair back, almost gently.

"All you have to do is cast one spell on me."

The voice was soft. The order was not.

"I won't."

The guild members bristled at once, but Park Jeongho only wore that particular sneer of his and toyed with the man.

"Pride won't save you. Oh, that's right. I looked into you. Elderly mother, little daughter, both at home. If you want to keep seeing them, doing as I say would be the smart move, don't you think?"

At that single sentence, the man's eyes shook.

"Lay a hand on my family and I'll kill every last one of you."

Lee Jeongwoo drove a kick into his stomach.

"A Nemesis nobody, and you talk to D.K like that? Watch your mouth."

One of them hauled the man upright. His eyes drifted, sweeping the room without catching on anything.

"Cast the sleepless spell. We're tired of this too. You should get home."

Through slack, unfocused pupils, he forced the words out.

"I'll say it one more time. This isn't a debuff. It's a status ailment. Sleep is a basic human need. Forsake that, and your mind will not stay intact."

Park Jeongho's lips twitched.

"How dare you. An S-rank like me, mind broken? Don't make me laugh. Just cast the damn thing."

He stepped in close and gave the man's head a few light pushes.

"Your choice. Cast the spell like a good boy and go home. Or watch while I smash your family first, then your guild, one piece at a time."

The air froze all at once.

No one spoke. Every eye in the basement locked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠onto the bound man.

He hung there, limp, and nodded.

"All right……"

Only then did Park Jeongho smile, and he meant it.

I was watching the news. The deaths, and everything now tied to D.K.

It was playing out more or less the way I'd expected. However good my image was, personally wrecking an S-rank hunter of this country to suit my own taste wasn't exactly a method anyone would call clean. Not that I cared what the public made of me. I'd started this to actually change the country, and I couldn't go planting fear in ordinary people. Piece of garbage or not, the power an S-rank hunter carried was no joke.

First I had to strip every one of his shames into the open. Drag out every rotten thing he'd done while hiding behind the name of S-rank hunter, and make the whole world spit on him. Point every blade in Korea his way.

It was starting to come together. The people taking his dirty money would cut him loose soon enough, and fresh D.K atrocities would hit the light—all the things no one had dared to say, out of fear, finally reaching the world. He'd lived like that. Did he really think only one or two people had a reason to hate him?

The problem was how the hell you put down a man who was S-rank.

S-rank really was different. Yangbap had worked all the way up through A-rank. From this grade on, it was another dimension entirely.

"So Yangbap only works on someone up to one rank above me."

I couldn't stall. He'd be cut off from every side and shoved further into the role of society's trash, and there was no telling what kind of madness Park Jeongho might pull. His little brother was dead. D.K's image was in ruins.

The scariest bastard is the one with nothing left to lose. He could snap without warning, start slaughtering innocent people, and sow terror just to prove he still could. Judging by everything he'd done, he was more than bastard enough for it. And even if he did run wild, there was no one in this country who would readily step in to stop him. Three other S-rank hunters existed. I couldn't trust a single one of them.

I had to finish Park Jeongho before he lost his grip entirely.

Tearing through prosecutors and cops had piled the Fear Value up sweet as anything. I'd thought about upgrading Yangbap. What I needed was an entirely new method.

Last time, the Misfortune curse had sucked their luck dry and fed it straight to me. Maybe this draw would cough up a good spell. The confidence was practically spilling out of me.

I drew a small breath.

I caught the thrill rising in my chest.

"Okay."

Red light flashed. Words rose.

Oh. S-rank!

The smile came on its own. Chilling, even just to read. Sucking all that luck dry ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hadn't been a waste after all.

I didn't like that my own blood had to go into it. I wasn't in any position to care about that now.

I started by printing his photograph.