Uprooting (6)

The photograph of Park Jeongho that had just come off the printer was still warm. I stared at his face for a long while.

Sharp features, a brow knotted as if it never came undone. Look at that bastard. Venom sat thick across his face.

Study him and he shared more than a few features with the Park Jinho from the footage. Brothers out of the same womb, then.

I called the description of the new curse, Spirit Eye Awakening, up before my eyes.

A different class of power entirely. Even the description left me wondering how far it would go. Yangbap was already enough to drive a sane person out of their mind.

So what would happen if every kind of ghost chased you all day long, sucking you dry? And the one on the receiving end an S-rank hunter, one of the faces of Korea.

Stranger still, there was no limit on how long it lasted. It would torment him until he died. Just imagining it was hideous.

Maybe that was the price of an effect like that. The conditions were a little harsher than before. The caster's blood.

I went to the kitchen without hesitating and picked up a knife. My hand shook at once. Who would ever have thought I'd do a thing like this — stabbing myself, with my own hand? A chill prickled over my skin, but I didn't have time to indulge it.

I drew a deep breath and drove the blade straight into my palm. The sensation of flesh tearing was one I'd never known. I'd expected heat. It was cold instead. Blood pattered down, and red spread across Park Jeongho's photograph.

Then the Status Window flashed.

Goddamn it. It already hurt like I was dying. Then again, of course it did. Putting down an S-rank was never going to be the same as rounding up petty crooks.

What actually mattered wasn't the failure message. It was how the Status Window answered. Not impossible — possible, so long as there was more blood.

I bit down on a towel and shoved the blade in deeper.

Thuk.

More blood welled up. My mind began to drift, little by little. Am I doing something insane right now? The foolish thought had barely flickered past when I remembered what With Crime had said — the bereaved family of the Nonhyeon-dong indiscriminate murder.

An old woman living alone, they said, had lost her entire family overnight. Son, daughter-in-law, grandchild. Every one of them.

I stared blankly at the blood-slick knife.

"What must she be feeling right now?"

A memory I didn't want came rushing through me. The day my family was suddenly gone. After that I couldn't do a thing. I shut myself into a corner of my room and lived there. For a while I didn't even eat. Every day I drowned myself in drink and howled out the grief.

Each day was hell. The guilt of failing to protect them. The regret that I couldn't let them go. The despair of why I should go on living alone. Every rotten feeling churned together, and I wasted a life in the mess of it. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I spent a stretch of time so horrific that still being alive felt like a miracle.

Maybe. I had no right to pretend I understood her. But wasn't she carrying something terribly like it?

If my family had been killed by some nameless piece of shit — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if someone with a power like mine had existed back then — wouldn't they at least have taken revenge for us? Even if every one of those bastards died, it wouldn't bring the dead back home. But maybe it would have lifted a little of the weight off the heart.

I never received that. Now that the power was mine, this was what I could do.

I clenched my teeth harder and squeezed my eyes shut. Darker blood sprayed, and scenes I couldn't comprehend flashed past. Hoping the victims, and the families left behind, might find even a sliver of ease, I drove the blade in deeper.

Then a force I had never felt before erupted. Red light flooded out in every direction, and goosebumps rose over my whole body.

Overnight, the world changed.

Park Jeongho raked a hand through his hair, worn thin.

"Ha. This is really fucked."

Even he, who had once bragged of all those connections, couldn't do a thing about it now. The world was demanding an explanation from D.K — and from Park Jeongho. Public opinion was already cresting in a wave no one could hold back.

From the seat beside him, Lee Jeongwoo spoke with care.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Yeah."

His eyes were hollow, as if he hadn't slept in days.

"The prosecution has been in contact."

"Drop it."

He waved the rest away before he'd even heard it. Search and seizure, or something of the sort. He didn't need the details.

"What should we do now?"

"We do it our way."

Lee Jeongwoo's gaze cut up at him, low and sharp.

"I'm an inevitability of this age anyway. They wouldn't dare throw an S-rank hunter in a cell."

Park Jeongho pulled his jacket on without strength.

"Set up a press conference. We explain everything and punch straight through the front."

"Will you be all right, sir?"

He smiled, and the smile crawled the skin.

"So what are they gonna do? Lock an S-rank up, and who's gonna handle the gates? Those smug cop and prosecutor bastards? They're putting on a show because of public opinion. They can't lay a finger on me. If it really comes to it, I take citizenship somewhere else. Plenty of countries would be glad to have me."

Lee Jeongwoo said nothing. He only stared at the floor.

"Get it ready."

The press hall was hot enough to burst. Dozens of camera flashes went off without pause, and questions flew in from every side.

"Is the connection to Blue Dust true?"

"Is it true the killer in the Nonhyeon-dong indiscriminate murder is family to a D.K executive?"

"Rumors. Speak carelessly and we'll answer in court. Our guild is innocent. It's possible a few subordinates acted on their own. We didn't know. We will expel them from the guild."

The reporters didn't stop.

"Then why have you stayed silent until now?"

"We are not people with time to spare. We've been busy with gate work. I was simply doing my duty as an S-rank hunter."

The tone was easy, but the contempt for the press sat right under it. He denied and denied, all the way to the end. It was an ugly thing to watch.

Then, from the very back of the press seats, a thin hand rose. Not an adult. A child. A boy with bloodless skin, nothing about him sharp except his eyes, asked from his seat.

"Mister. How many people have you killed?"

Park Jeongho's face twisted.

"Who brought a kid in here? Drag him out, now!"

The hall went quiet. Everyone turned their heads, checking one another's faces, and no one seemed able to see the child.

Lee Jeongwoo leaned in and whispered.

"......What child are you talking about, sir?"

Park Jeongho jabbed a finger at the boy and shouted.

"He's right there! You — you don't see that?!"

In that instant—

Thud.

The child stood directly in front of him, bloody tears streaming down his face.

"I asked how many you killed. Answer me, you son of a bitch."

Park Jeongho flinched and stepped back. The reporters murmured, every one of them staring at him with eyes that couldn't make sense of it.

"You don't see this?! Hey! Jeongwoo! You screwing with me?"

Lee Jeongwoo wore the same blank look.

Then a cold hand closed around the nape of his neck. A black arm was crawling out of the wall. Park Jeongho dodged on instinct — and people poured straight through the wall.

Pale skin. Hideous fresh blood running from their eyes. A person whose neck was broken, head lolling back. A woman whose skull was half blown open. A man whose belly had split, guts spilling down. Each of them a different ruin, and all of them staring at him, eyes packed with contempt.

The floor heaved. Dozens rose, twitching, limbs tangled, dragging trails of blood. They came down from the ceiling too — hanging upside down, drooling, crawling down over him. There was no end to it. Bleeding souls kept pouring out.

A chill shot up Park Jeongho's spine.

"Me? Getting the creeps?"

As if denying his own instinct, he shot to his feet, and hundreds of evil spirits opened their mouths toward him. The child who had appeared first screamed through a face soaked in blood.

"Ooh. There's a tasty mister right here."

"You little bastard!"

Flame exploded from Park Jeongho's body. Fire roared out in every direction and leapt all the way to the press seats.

"Get down!!"

The quicker reporters screamed and threw themselves clear, and in an instant the hall was chaos. Lee Jeongwoo came running and threw himself in the way.

"Master! What on earth are you doing?!"

Park Jeongho's eyes had already rolled back. Rage and terror tangled together as he spewed flame without aim.

"Die, all of you! You ghost bastards! You think I'm scared of this?!"

A massive blaze swallowed the ghosts. The fire left not a single wound on them. They laughed and came on, unbothered. Pale hands seized his whole body — yanking his legs, snatching his arms, climbing him even by the fistfuls of his hair. Hundreds of evil spirits piled onto him like a mountain.

Park Jeongho writhed as if he couldn't breathe. At the same time his mind went hazy, as if his very soul were being gnawed away, and the strength drained out of him little by little. When his vision began to fade—

"Aaaaaah—!!"

He gathered every ounce of strength, shook the evil spirits off, and—

BOOM—!!

—punched through the wall and fled in an instant. Hundreds of evil spirits chased after him, as if this were nothing but a delightful hunt.

Those left behind in the press hall couldn't say a word. Lee Jeongwoo, too, dropped his head and sank into his seat.

Park Jeongho burst outside, fleeing the evil spirits. Just as he tried to catch a moment of calm, the laughter — or the weeping — of hundreds of ghosts reached him. It felt as if his ears would tear.

He kept running. He didn't look back. He only drove forward, and the knowledge that his own attacks did nothing closed around his throat.

Then he stopped in front of a great tree. Gasping, he put his back to the trunk and turned to look behind him. The ghosts had already doubled, each of them bleeding and cackling, when a heavy voice shook the world.

Majesty lived in the voice alone. It seemed to descend from the sky itself. When Park Jeongho glanced up, the hollow in the great tree was smiling like a mouth.

"What the — what the fuck! What the hell is all of this!!!"

Park Jeongho ran again before he could even catch his breath. He had no idea where he was going. No destination — only the road in front of him — until a park came into view, and people inside it. His pupils shook without mercy.

A family was crouched over a man lying on the ground, digging into his body and eating him. A horrific scene.

"B-Brother...... S-save me."

It was Park Jinho. Dead.