A Rotten Drop (2)

The Awakened Detention Center.

Not a soul in the place was calm. Someone was sprinting down the hall; someone else couldn't get a hand off a phone. A crowd had raised their weapons and thrown up a perimeter, and inside it, Kang Moojin was screaming.

"Who is it—!! Which bastard is it—!!"

Jeong Harin, dragged in on her day off, came at a run. One look at Kang Moojin's face and hers locked rigid.

This was not the man who usually wore his arrogance so lightly. If anything, he had always carried a face that seemed a long way from crime. Now his eyes were bloodshot to the point of bursting, sunk in bruises black as ink, and the veins across his whole body had swollen as if they might split. One glance was enough. He was not sane. He looked insane — worse than insane — and the state of him was foul, like a man possessed by something.

He was fine yesterday. What the hell is this?

He was hurling punches at empty air, threatening anyone who came near. She wanted nothing more than to walk over and put a boot in him, but he was a precious A-Rank Hunter, darling of his guild. A mere detective couldn't even dream of it.

"Hunter Kang Moojin! Calm down! What on earth is wrong with you?"

His raving showed no sign of stopping. He screamed as if he were coughing up blood.

"Who is it!!! Who the hell is doing this to me!!! How dare you—!!!"

He drove his fists into the detention center's reinforced walls until the backs of his hands had split and run red. There was no telling how many thousands of times he'd hit them. Not a stretch of wall in the cell was whole. Flesh had torn away, and he didn't seem to feel it. Not one person watching could believe he was in his right mind.

Then the heavy door opened, and Inspector Kang Doyoon stepped in. The air sank even lower.

"......Why isn't he in sealing cuffs?"

The inspector's eyes cut sharp. Jeong Harin bit down hard before she answered.

"The guild and the Association...... ordered us not to put them on. Under any circumstances."

"Fuck. Those bastards again."

The curse scraped out of Kang Doyoon like something he'd tried to swallow.

Awakened restraints — the so-called Sealing Cuffs. The moment they locked, an ability was dead. Not a grain of it left to use. But here, in this country, an A-Rank Hunter was a sanctuary even that couldn't touch. No matter how unimaginably filthy the crime.

Inspector Kang let out a sigh, and a furious light flared in Jeong Harin's eyes.

Look at that. No matter how the victims scream, the one who ends up protected is that piece of shit.

That was when men in black suits came flooding in from the far end of the corridor. A junior executive, visibly out of breath, shouted in a panic.

"Hunter Kang Moojin! Please calm down! We'll take care of everything! You'll be out of here soon!"

Kang Moojin ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠threw a howl at the ceiling.

"You can see them too!! They're right there! Their guts are about to spill out, aren't they? And that one's head is gonna burst?! You think I'm letting it happen to me again?"

The executives edged closer, watching his mood. Then he whipped his head around like lightning, and not one of them dared come near. Those unhinged eyes alone froze every last one of them.

"It's all fake!!! You're all fake too! Don't you dare try to trick me!!"

He swung at something that wasn't there, then scraped his back along the wall with a face soaked through with terror. The guild men reached out, thought better of it, and fell back.

"H-Hunter Kang Moojin?"

"Why is he like this?"

"He seems to be seeing things. I don't know why either!" a detective ground out through clenched teeth.

Kang Moojin laughed. Then he cried. Then he was screaming again.

"It's over. With a garbage awakening like this, I can't do a damn thing!"

His eyes rolled white. His whole body shuddered as if in a fit, and the hands chasing phantoms raked the air — then stopped dead. His face was a wreck, on the verge of breaking into sobs.

"Save me...... Please, save me......"

"What?"

Detective and guild alike, every one of them went round-eyed. Words like that, from the mouth of Kang Moojin, the most arrogant man alive.

"I'm scared. I was wrong...... Please, stop......"

No one breathed. No one could bring themselves to step closer.

Then, all at once, his face twisted.

"It's over...... There's no getting out anymore......"

He seized his own head and began to wrench it. Neck bone, forced past its limit, cracked like gunfire. Bang. Bang.

One full turn.

Two.

"H-Hunter—! You can't—!!"

One of the guild members lunged in. Too late.

On ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the third turn, a viciously satisfying crack burst from his neck. Bloodshot eyes rolled through empty air. A severed breath leaked from his mouth.

And then the silence arrived.

Yesterday he had been shameless as a god. An A-Rank Hunter the guild had bowed and scraped to serve. A man this country had treated as precious among the precious. All of it snapped in a single instant, empty and absurd. Nothing remained but a corpse whose neck had been wrenched three full turns, dumped on the floor as if it were sneering at them.

The detectives stood stunned, unable to find a word. The guild executives had gone pale, milling in helpless confusion. Not one of them dared lay a hand on him. All they could do was watch him destroy himself.

Jeong Harin's fist clenched, and trembled.

Time passed, and the detention center was still in an uproar. Detectives, detention staff, guild liaisons — all of them got on the phone to their superiors at once and reported what had happened. Even through the receivers, you could feel the shouting matches going back and forth.

And no wonder. A man who had been perfectly fine had, overnight, ended up like that and twisted his own neck until he died. How were the guild executives supposed to swallow it? To people like them, a person's rank was wealth and honor given flesh.

Inspector Kang watched the scene in silence.

If the suicides that still wouldn't crack had been like this, then at least the suddenness of those deaths made sense. He had no idea what method had driven them mad. He could at least guess it wasn't a mental illness. And the theory that it was someone's ability had just gained a great deal of weight.

"Even an A-Rank Hunter, brought to that."

Honestly, he thought it was impressive. He was an A-Rank awakened himself, and from this rank on, you stood on a different plane from ordinary hunters. Laying mental manipulation or status-ailment magic on someone like that, casually, was no small feat. On top of that, there was exactly one status-ailment specialist of that caliber in the entire country. And that person wasn't even in the country right now.

He looked down at Kang Moojin, lying cold and dead. He had seen more corpses than he could count, but this one carried a dread he couldn't name.

Just my imagination.

He caught Jeong Harin's eye. She nodded, and carefully approached ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the body. Detectives and guild executives alike only frowned from a good distance away. She was the only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one who went in close.

Her heart lurched. The nearer she drew, the more the air changed, as if it were choking her. This was wrong for ordinary mana. Mana usually came warm, or sharp, or at the very least as the sensation of energy. This was cold, like something scraping her skin, and heavy, like a hand wringing her heart. Even drawing a breath and letting it out raised the hair on her arms. A feeling she had no words for.

It crossed her mind like a blade.

This isn't mana.

The grain of it was different. It didn't feel like something a human had shed. It felt like something that had seeped in from another layer entirely.

No. Is this even a human presence at all?

Set beside the feeling of standing in front of an S-Rank hunter, this was incomparably worse. Not power. Just fear.

The tips of her fingers trembled. A chill bored down into the marrow. With her ability, she should not have been able to sense it at all. And yet — perhaps because he had not been dead for long — an unspeakable presence still clung there, like an ember that refused to go out.

She closed her eyes, opened them, and swallowed a breath. Behind her, Inspector Kang asked.

"Well? You feel anything?"

Jeong Harin shook her head.

"Nothing. Not a thing."

Her heart was hammering, but she kept her voice as level as she could.

"Figures."

She stepped away looking perfectly unbothered. Her face was the same as ever. Her eyes were alight. As if this cold current had finally scratched an itch she hadn't been able to reach.

"Ah, here we go. Association this, guild that, and they'll be roasting us alive again. I'm stepping out for a bit."

He grabbed his coat and went. Jeong Harin looked at the corpse one last time, biting down hard on her lip.

The curse hit like a truck.

Civilian or awakened, man or woman, young or old — it didn't care. It caught every one of them the same. Honestly, I'd had my doubts this time. The result was so good it made me embarrassed for doubting.

And you. Gotta hand it to you. Ugly, right down to the end. Don't like it? Awaken as a curse caster yourself.

Anyway. One oversized sack of trash, taken out. An A-Rank awakened, so he paid out a fat eighteen Terror Points. Civilians only ever coughed up five, or three.

God, that's sweet. Now, how do I spend it so word gets around that I spent it well?

What would be better? Another curse sitting in the list would be nice, sure. But no matter how I looked at it, that word random itched. Terror Points already came in slow. If some weird F-Rank curse popped out, what good would it be?

Right now, the priority was putting down as many pieces of trash as I could. This wasn't a summer-break gig I was going to grind for a month and quit. I meant to wreck every rotten bastard within reach. Better to look a little further down the road.

So I took the safer path. I decided to strengthen a curse that had already proved itself, hoping it would let me sweep up more garbage, faster.

Now that's clean. Three people, just like that. Good thing I upgraded.

No more picking them off one miserable turtle at a time. Three at once. Fast. A proper lesson.

I opened YouTube, pulled up the With Crime channel, and started digging for the names of bastards who didn't even deserve to be called animals.

Kang Moojin's death — a grotesque suicide inside a detention center — shook the whole country.

Sure enough, the comments were on fire.

Across the monitor, breaking reports on Kang Moojin's suicide kept pouring in. Hundreds of comments raced up live and swallowed the screen.

Beside it, a video-editing program sat open. Subtitle timelines and trimmed clips lay in neat rows.

Along the top of the monitor, captured headlines spilled down one after another.

The man in the chair, watching the screen, let out a short, thin laugh. Like someone who had been waiting for this exact scene for a very long time.