The Stench's Source
Tae-jun wrinkled his nose. The stench he'd faintly sensed even outside the building. Inside, the concentration was far thicker. So this is where it was coming from. An unexpected stroke of luck. No need to go searching for it after all.
Tae-jun slowly pushed the door open. CRASH!
The scene that unfolded before his eyes was sheer pandemonium. Men in suits, powerfully built, every one of them. Anyone could see they were gangsters—or hired thugs at best. And they were wrecking the Magazine F office, smashing its furnishings at random.
"Hey, you pieces of trash!"
A familiar voice rang out amid the chaos. My sister-in-law. The voice belonged to Lee Seo-hyun. She was far gaunter and more haggard than she'd been fifteen years ago. But her eyes still burned with life.
"Get the hell out of here before I call the police!"
Seo-hyun shouted at the thugs. Laughter was all that answered her.
"Ha! Go ahead and call. Huh? Go on, call them, you bitch!"
"Who told you to go poking your nose everywhere, huh?"
"You gangster bastards, how dare you—!"
The atmosphere boiled over. One of the hired thugs finally raised his hand.
"...!"
Seo-hyun squeezed her eyes shut. That was the exact moment it happened.
"Your temper hasn't changed. Sister-in-law."
A low, calm voice echoed by her ear.
"...Huh?"
An impossible sight spread out before her. The thug's hand, flying toward her cheek, had frozen in midair. No—not precisely. Someone had caught it. Someone she knew all too well.
"Brother-in-law...?"
Seo-hyun murmured in a trembling voice. A face she could never forget, even after fifteen years. Ki Tae-jun was standing right in front of her.
Crack!
Paying her stunned gaze no mind, Tae-jun wrenched the wrist he'd seized.
"GAAAAAGH...!"
The thug crumpled with a scream. The others immediately closed in on Tae-jun.
"Wh-what the hell is this guy?"
"Where'd he even come from?"
Tae-jun surveyed the visibly rattled men, and once his assessment was finished, he reached out and touched Seo-hyun—the same way he had when he'd laid her father to rest.
"..."
Tae-jun seated the instantly unconscious woman in a chair, then turned back to the hired thugs.
"No humans here besides my sister-in-law, I see."
Humans—there were none. A subtly loaded choice of words.
"The rest are nothing but trash."
As the words left his lips, Tae-jun moved.
"What did this psycho just say?"
"Just kill him!"
The thugs charged in earnest. Wooden planks, steel pipes, knives—nothing they did posed even the slightest threat to Tae-jun. The thugs simply moved far too slowly to matter.
"Die!"
The first thug to reach him swung his knife. Tae-jun slipped past the blade with ease and drove his foot into the man's abdomen.
"You son of a—!"
At that instant, a second thug aimed a wooden plank at his head. Dodging would have been awkward. Not that it mattered.
CRACK!
The sound of splintering wood rang out—but Tae-jun's arm was unharmed. It was the plank that had shattered.
"..."
Tae-jun found himself bored. So he stopped holding back. They were evildoers reeking of filth, after all.
"Kuhak...!"
"S-save me... spare me..."
For a long while after that, truly horrific screams filled the office. Sounds that called to mind a painting of Hell itself.
"Stay back! I said stay back, you insane bas—!"
One thug remained, the last of them. He stumbled backward, paralyzed with terror.
"Why were you wrecking this office?"
The thug didn't answer. He could only stare at Tae-jun with eyes wide with dread.
"Answer me."
"B-because we had our reasons, alright—!"
CRUNCH!
"AAAAAAAAGH...!"
For one wrong word, the thug's shoulder was crushed. His face was already a sodden mess of tears and snot.
"Next, I break your neck."
"Ggggghhhh...!"
"Talk."
"Th-these bastards keep making trouble for us!"
"..."
"A nothing, third-rate internet news rag of all things...!"
Ah. He understood, roughly. It meant the problem was the work this very newspaper—Magazine F—was doing.
Tae-jun glanced over at the unconscious Seo-hyun. Is this still how you live, sister-in-law? He'd assumed she'd learned to bend and survive in the real world. Instead, she seemed to have grown stronger rather than broken.
Father-in-law was mistaken about you. Pure surprise. And a trace of admiration.
"I've heard enough."
Tae-jun, having gotten everything he wanted to hear, reached out.
Crack!
As he snapped the man's neck, a soft hiss followed—
fssssssssss...
The thug's life ended with a short scream. Once again, only a black pearl remained.
In the dream, Seo-hyun was a twenty-four-year-old rookie reporter. Brimming with a sense of justice and duty. Full to the brim with the energy of youth.
"Brother-in-law, we can't give up."
That was why. When he lost his wife and daughter, she helped him in every way she could. She wanted to do anything and everything within her power.
But then—
"I'm sorry, Seo-hyun."
"I miss Ji-hye and So-hee too much."
"Thank you for everything. I'll be going first."
The wall of reality was simply too high. Their opponents were this nation's ruling class, led by a chaebol dynasty. Against them, there was nothing her brother-in-law or she could do. In the end, her brother-in-law broke first, and Seo-hyun too was forced to give up everything.
'How long are you going to live like that?'
'I started an internet newspaper.'
'Contact me if you're interested.'
Years passed while she lived like a wreck. Then one day, word came from a senior colleague she had always trusted and followed. She said she'd founded an internet newspaper. One that would become a outlet for digging up the corruption and crime of this world. That was why Seo-hyun, her career long since severed, had joined Magazine F. Because deep in her heart, the wound called vengeance was still there.
"Nnngh..."
Seo-hyun's eyes fluttered open with a shallow groan. Her whole body was soaked in sweat, her heart pounding violently. As if waking from a terrible nightmare.
"..."
She looked around in a daze. Faint light filtering in, a broken window, papers scattered everywhere. She saw the shabby, familiar office she knew so well.
It really was a dream.
The office of Magazine F—the place that somehow let her hold on in this bleak reality. Old and shabby as it was, to Seo-hyun it was both her only weapon and her last fortress in her fight against the world.
What kind of dream was that, even...
So vivid. It felt as if she'd been thrown back to that day, fifteen years ago. And no wonder—of all people, her brother-in-law had appeared out of nowhere.
"...Unni."
Without meaning to, Seo-hyun murmured her sister's name.
"So-hee."
And her only niece, Ki So-hee. An angel of a child, her bright smile still clear in her mind's eye.
"Haah..."
Before long, she dragged herself upright. How long had she been asleep? No—had she passed out?
"You're awake."
At that exact moment—
"...!"
At the surreal voice, Seo-hyun turned her head. There stood Tae-jun, watching her with hollow eyes.
"Brother-in-law...?"
So it wasn't a dream? This was real?
"How... how on earth...?"
Seo-hyun murmured in a trembling voice. She simply could not believe it. And of course she couldn't. A dead man standing before her eyes? Fifteen years later, looking exactly as he had back then?
"..."
And yet, even in the face of his sister-in-law's stunned reaction, Tae-jun merely glanced over the bundle of documents in his hand.
"It really is you... isn't it?"
"Who I am doesn't matter."
A tone unmistakably different from fifteen years ago. A cold voice. Not a trace of emotion lived in it at all.
"What I'm going to do—that's what matters."
"What is that supposed to..."
Seo-hyun was still lost in confusion. The line between dream and reality had blurred. Was the man before her truly her brother-in-law? Or a phantom her own mind had conjured? No matter how she turned it over, she couldn't find her footing.
"Father-in-law told me not to trouble his second daughter. Said she'd only just finally found some stability. But it seems—"
The documents in Tae-jun's hand were the files on the main perpetrators of the incident fifteen years ago—research materials documenting their sordid presents.
"—he was mistaken about that, too."
"..."
Seo-hyun could say nothing. She could only stare blankly at Ki Tae-jun.
"I'll be direct."
A low voice slipped from between Tae-jun's lips. It felt like a command that could not be refused.
"Help me, sister-in-law."
"..."
"The thing we failed to finish fifteen years ago."
"..."
"The time has come to see it through."
In that instant, Seo-hyun's heart hammered in her chest. Was this a dream, or was she awake? Or else...
Was it the beginning of yet another nightmare?
Calm down, Lee Seo-hyun. First things first.
She frantically steadied herself. Whether all of this was a dream or reality, what mattered was grasping it properly.
First: my brother-in-law came back alive.
The man she'd believed dead for fifteen years. In a form that's changed beyond recognition.
His face was the same, but everything else about him was utterly different. Any trace of the warm, gentle brother-in-law she remembered was gone. The thing standing before her now was... I don't know. But. It was no ordinary being, that much was certain. She could barely even bring herself to meet its eyes.
"...How? How exactly do you plan to get your revenge?"
Seo-hyun had made up her mind. She asked in a trembling voice. Simply asking about his identity meant nothing now. What mattered was what he intended to do.
"Total annihilation."
Tae-jun's answer was simple. "Anyone with even a speck of connection to my vengeance—every last one of them."
But it was clear, too.
"Spectacularly enough for every soul in this world to watch."
For a moment, Seo-hyun felt a chill crawl across her entire body. And yet, at the same time, another emotion began to seep up from somewhere deep. ...Exhilaration?
She was bewildered. What on earth was this feeling?
"That's still not an answer."
Seo-hyun spoke, suppressing the strange thrill. "I asked how you're going to get revenge. You failed even fifteen years ago."
Their enemies were still powerful. No—they had grown stronger than before. They had amassed enormous power, wealth, and influence.
"..."
Showing her would be faster than telling her. Tae-jun walked over to the thug he'd left barely breathing.
Crack.
Then he callously twisted the man's neck.
"...!"
At his utter lack of hesitation, Seo-hyun froze in horror. The gruesome sight before her locked every muscle in her body. But the most shocking sight had only just begun.
Fsssssssssss...
The dead thug's body crumbled like ash. And all that remained where he'd stood was a single black pearl.
"I'm not human anymore."
"..."
"Is that answer enough for you?"
"..."
Seo-hyun could not speak. She could only stare blankly at Tae-jun.
"...I'll help you."
A short while later, Seo-hyun's lips finally parted.
"Whatever your plan is, brother-in-law."