The First Curse (2)

Whoa.

My mouth wouldn't close.

Through the Curse Kaleidoscope I watched it happen in real time—Lee Byungju, that piece of human garbage, coming apart.

I'd taken it for some middle-school edgelord party trick. The performance was the real thing.

No. Put it straight: this ability was more than I'd imagined. One click of a Status Window, and I could drive a person clean out of their mind. Just like that.

And the thought that maybe this was too cruel? Not a chance. For trash like him, even this fell short.

You commit a sin ten necks wouldn't pay for, then go on living like nothing happened? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd rather die than watch that.

I stared at the Status Window and said nothing. I still had no idea how I'd awakened. Why it had been me was a bigger mystery still.

But I knew exactly what this power let me do.

I couldn't remake the world overnight. I could, at least, give a proper education to bastards worse than animals. For someone who'd never liked the institution they called the death penalty, the ability sat especially well.

Do every filthy thing a beast wouldn't stoop to, then eat warm meals on schedule in a cell until you die, and that's the end of it? I don't think so. Quit whining. You take what you dealt. Death doesn't wipe a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠single sin clean.

As much as you sinned. As much pain as you handed the victim. You pay back more than that—and even then, you don't get to call it absolution. No more than someone who died wronged ever comes back to life.

Inside the kaleidoscope, Lee Byungju was already halfway past human. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen like a rabbit's, and his whole body was soaked through, slick as a frog with the skin peeled off. Even then he was spitting curses at empty air.

Look at that filthy mouth.

I lifted one corner of my own and closed the screen.

The doubts had been huge at first. Would it really work on a person? Was the intensity harsh enough to deserve the name of a lesson? Now I was sure. I knew what I had to do.

A little over fifty hours remained. In that time the bastard would lose his mind dozens of times. Hundreds.

And me? All I had to do was watch. The victims' grief. The punishment the law never gave. See it with my own eyes, and wreck them with my own hands.

I wasn't trying to become some grand hero. I wasn't shouting that I'd save the world. I was only doing the work I could do. The way it should have been done for my family. So that no one would ever again be forgotten after dying wronged.

That was when it happened. A red message window rose in front of my eyes.

The next day, good news came through the broadcast.

A man was dead, and I was smiling. Someone who deserved to die had died. No point dragging guilt into it.

Soon enough the cops, and those impressive people who ran the country, would be tearing the place apart looking for me. Let them look till their eyes bled. They wouldn't turn up a scrap of evidence the size of a mosquito's tear.

The preparations were finished. I'd confirmed what the ability could do, and there was no reason left to wait. I called the Status Window up in front of me.

Those Terror Points were probably something like experience. Time to fill the bar in a hurry.

I used the Yangbap curse without hesitating.

The father was dead, so it was the mother's turn. Trash, living as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if she'd done nothing wrong. Serve a measly two years of being fed and put to bed, open a fresh social media account, and she thought nobody would know.

I called up that sickening face I'd seen in the photos and wrote the name.

"Yes."

I swallowed, hard. A thought cut through my head. What if it worked a little differently from person to person? What if someone out there had an immunity to curses, some special existence like that?

But—

Done. People like that almost certainly didn't exist. The ability was real. No one, it seemed, was an exception.

"Miyeon. Let's see you take a real punishment."

The Curse Kaleidoscope opened. The image shuddered, then locked onto a face in perfect clarity: a woman plastered in the kind of selfie filter a middle-school niece would pile on, smiling for a photo at a trendy restaurant.

Kim Miyeon.

She'd shoved her own child into a toilet and killed them, and now she was laughing like she was living a brand-new life. Restaurants, cafés, trips, selfies. To anyone else it would look like ordinary social media. To me, every bit of it was a sickening boast.

My fist closed on its own. Thinking that smile would soon turn into a scream, I felt my chest settle cold instead.

A short while later Kim Miyeon came home, and the air in the room changed. Beyond the kaleidoscope, the space around her began, slowly, to warp.

Don't be shocked yet. This isn't even the beginning.

Fifteen days later.

In front of an apartment ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in Mapo-gu, Seoul, police tape had gone up, and a handful of onlookers were murmuring behind it. The scene belonged to Inspector Kang Doyoon, an A-rank awakened detective with the Awakened Division—late thirties, hair cropped short, a worn suit, and eyes that were very much alive. At his side was Lieutenant Jeong Harin, an A-rank awakened still junior in rank, but already known for senses sharp enough to make a name.

"Haa……"

The moment Kang Doyoon opened the door and stepped inside, a sigh left him before he could stop it.

The room was a wreck. A smashed table, belongings scattered everywhere, and the wallpaper scored with dense marks, as if someone had raked it with their nails. This wasn't a simple suicide scene. It looked like a seizure had torn through the place.

The body had already been removed. Even so, the air still packed the room—blood-stink braided with the smell of sweat.

Jeong Harin bit her lip and studied the surroundings. She was a mana-type, able to sense even the faintest flow of mana. When an awakened person was involved in a case, some residue almost always remained, however small. Like perfume. Time passed, and the trace stayed anyway.

"……Nothing."

Jeong Harin shook her head. Kang Doyoon's brow tightened.

"Again? Not a thing?"

"No, sir. I can't feel anything at all. There should be at least something left, and…… there's nothing."

Doyoon swept the room one more time. Too similar. The cases over the last few weeks had all been like this. Cause of death: an extreme choice. And the statements from everyone around them were always the same—bright, outgoing, ordinary people with no reason in the world to do it.

All of them shared one sickening thing in common. Headlines from the last several days cut through his mind.

Violent crimes against children. Or, as ever, people who had never received a punishment worthy of the name.

Kang Doyoon's face hardened by degrees. More than ten years on the force. A long time, too, since his awakening had dropped him into the Awakened Division. He had never seen a pattern like this.

"Inspector."

Jeong Harin asked it quietly.

"No matter how I turn it over, it's strange, isn't it?"

Doyoon gave a short nod.

"Yeah."

He muttered it inwardly. If all of this was someone's ability—if this was the work of an awakened being past the ordinary, not a civilian—then he could accept it. The problem was that no report, no record, anywhere, had ever described an awakened person of this type.

Murder, arson, mental domination. Awakened crime was endless. But there had never been anyone who left behind less evidence than a grain of dust. Awakened perpetrators could erase proof with power beyond human reach, and even then, leaving not even their own distinctive mana trace across this many cases was impossible.

Jeong Harin dropped her head and let out a sigh. In all the time since she'd been assigned here, she had never seen a case of this kind. No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't call it an ordinary suicide—and she couldn't learn a single thing. Forget evidence. All they had was a cold body, and a scene that felt wrong in a way she couldn't name.

Inspector Kang felt the same pressure clamped against one side of his chest. If it had been someone's ability, at least he could have understood it. A blank with no trace was worse. It itched at him.

That was when it happened.

"Inspector Kang, would you take a look at this? I think the victim wrote it."

A scene officer held out a wad of paper. Scrawls, by the look of them, left before the dead woman died. The moment Kang Doyoon and Jeong Harin unfolded the sheets, their faces locked rigid.

Jeong Harin's face came apart. She whipped her head toward Inspector Kang.

"Wh-what is this?"

Inspector Kang had no answer either. Suicide notes were ordinary enough. This couldn't be called a note. Grim, nauseating writing—he had never seen anything like it.

"What the hell is happening?"

It wasn't depression. It wasn't some severe mental illness, either. How did a person who had been living perfectly fine only days ago break down this far?

He couldn't explain it, but it felt as if they were standing face to face with something enormous. And not one of them imagined that everything about these cases would turn out to have come from the hands of an ordinary man in his twenties.

I was listening to the news deliver the endings of the trash.

Most of them had played tough as iron in front of their victims, then failed to last even twenty-four of the curse's seventy-two hours. Honestly, I ought to round up every judge and every lawyer involved and break them first. I couldn't get their personal details yet. This ability needed at least a name and a face. Shove them back for now. Once I had the information, killing them would only be a matter of time.

"Dumb bastards."

I savored the Terror Points as they stacked up, already looking for the next piece of garbage. Not small fry like these. Wasn't there someone big enough to shake the whole country? Big enough to scare even the psychos who shared the appetite.

Right then—

There you are. A bastard who's going to get properly wrecked.