Echoes of the Martyrs
“……!!!”
Kang Tae-san’s eyes flashed as he snapped out of his daze while pulling weeds.
“Tae-san, are you okay?”
Baek Hye-rin, who had returned from the other side with an armful of weeds, noticed his intense expression and asked with concern.
“Weeding is harder than it looks, right? We hired a caretaker, but the grounds are pretty big, and the weeds grow back fast if you turn your back for even a moment.”
“…Elder Baek Geun-su.”
“Yes?”
“Your great-grandfather. What happened to him after he was imprisoned? Did he live to see Korea’s independence? Did he get married? I mean, that’s how you came to be, right…?”
Kang Tae-san poured out questions in a rush.
Baek Hye-rin tried to calm him down. Just moments ago he had seemed indifferent, yet now he was asking with such passion. She wondered what could have happened in the short time he spent pulling weeds, but she decided to tell him her great-grandfather’s story calmly.
Baek Geun-su, saved from execution by independence activists.
The man who rescued him was Kim Sang-ok, a member of the independence group Han Party. Kim Sang-ok was a fighter who had carried out armed resistance, throwing bombs into Jongno Police Station and killing Japanese officers. His group had received funding from Baek Geun-su’s father.
Kim Sang-ok and his comrades stormed the courtroom during Baek Geun-su’s trial and freed him along with several other activists. Naturally, Baek Geun-su became a member of the Han Party.
While working with the group, Baek Geun-su later went to Shanghai and helped establish the Provisional Government. At the time of liberation, he returned to Korean soil, waving the Taegeukgi flag and putting down new roots.
Baek Geun-su married young and had two sons. The younger one, Baek Sang-gyu, was Baek Hye-rin’s grandfather.
Baek Sang-gyu had always been proud of his father, the independence activist. He worked hard to save money and rebuild the munitions company that had been taken over by the Japanese. After the war, instead of supplying military goods, the factory was converted into an automobile parts plant.
He was also the first person to use the capital he earned to support descendants of independence activists, honoring his father’s wishes.
That was why, when Baek Hye-rin debuted on screen, the titles “descendant of an independence activist” and “granddaughter of Baek Sang-gyu, supporter of independence fighters” naturally followed her. It wasn’t simply because she was an actress with good physical skills who excelled at action scenes.
“I see…”
As Kang Tae-san quietly listened to Baek Hye-rin’s story, something stirred deep in his chest. His eyes, when he looked at her, were moist in a way they hadn’t been before. It was the face of a separated family member finally reunited with lost loved ones.
Watching him like that made Baek Hye-rin feel strangely unsettled as well.
“But why are you suddenly asking about my great-grandfather?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just… relieved. I’m glad he lived that way. Senior Hye-rin, please get married and have children too, so the genes of those who fought for independence can spread far and wide.”
Kang Tae-san couldn’t bring himself to say he had just experienced her grandfather’s life, so he glossed over it. He barely managed to swallow the words that almost followed: “The Japanese, and the pro-Japanese collaborators too—none of them should be allowed to set foot on this land or even breathe its air…!”
Baek Hye-rin found the sudden change in Kang Tae-san’s atmosphere unsettling.
He seemed like a completely different person for a moment.
Still immersed in Baek Geun-su’s life, Kang Tae-san radiated a solemn and resilient aura.
“What are those graves over there?”
“Ah. Those belong to the people who fought for independence alongside my great-grandfather. Many of them had no family left, and a lot of records from that time were lost, so some couldn’t be identified. I heard the ones whose families couldn’t be found were buried here together.”
The grounds were larger than they had seemed on the way up. Kang Tae-san looked at the sparsely placed graves behind the hill. Most of the headstones simply read “Tomb of an Unknown Patriot.”
Though the site was being maintained, Kang Tae-san’s eyes caught many spots that still needed work.
“Senior, the view here is nice. Would it be all right if I stayed a little longer and rested?”
Baek Hye-rin readily agreed. She didn’t think he would do anything strange, and besides, she had the odd feeling that he somehow understood her great-grandfather better than she did.
“I have another schedule after this. Will you be okay on your own?”
“Yes.”
“The path down is a bit rough. If you’re going to stay long, I’ll come pick you up later.”
“It’s fine. I’ll make my own way back.”
Baek Hye-rin’s original goal had been to spark patriotism and interest in the project by bringing him here. Yet Kang Tae-san seemed to have become immersed in something slightly different. Still, she decided not to press or ask further questions. Knowing when to step back was important.
“Then I’ll head out first.”
Baek Hye-rin skillfully descended the mountain path. Only after hearing the faint sound of her car starting did Kang Tae-san pull out his phone.
Without hesitation, he opened the Smile App and recalled the cleaning supplies list he had seen earlier: a weed remover and special brushes.
He also purchased a Goblin Bag. When he used to do cleaning part-time jobs, he carried his own supplies, so something like the Scrub-Scrub 8-Brush Set had been unnecessary. But after seeing the headstones earlier, he realized it would be difficult to clean so many graves alone without the special brushes. The moss was one thing, but with Smile products, even weathered spots would be restored perfectly.
Spending over 9,000 points was a huge flex for Kang Tae-san. He had nearly used up all the Smileage he had saved from cleaning, but he didn’t care about the cost right now.
He had wondered how delivery would work to a place that wasn’t a house, but after placing the order and turning around, he found a Smile-branded delivery box sitting there. Whether it had dropped from the sky or risen from the ground, he didn’t know. He immediately opened the box and checked the items.
The Deep Puller was folded in the shape of an air pump. He had briefly worried it might not be charged, but fortunately the battery was fully charged and it powered on right away.
When he aimed the hose, which looked like a vacuum cleaner nozzle, a soft whirring sound began. Weeds and small stones were sucked through the hose in an instant.
Ordinary weed removers cut grass with rotating blades and then required the tedious task of collecting the clippings. But the Smile product was different. It handled both removal and collection in one go, so it wasn’t tiring at all. The pump itself was small, yet it could hold an endless amount.
When the circular pump, about 30 cm in diameter, was full, a red light came on and the power automatically shut off. Kang Tae-san simply had to empty the contents into the Goblin Bag.
About an hour and a half later, the weeds covering the sixty-pyeong space were completely gone.
Next, he used the Scrub-Scrub 8-Brush Set on the unknown patriots’ headstones. Even without water or detergent, dirty streaks ran down the stones. After a few scrubs, they looked brand new. A few more passes and they shone as if they had been waxed.
“Whoa. This is a god-tier item.”
It felt like the miracle showerhead, but in a disposable version. Kang Tae-san scrubbed diligently and cleaned all fourteen headstones in about an hour.
The sun was beginning to set.
“Aaaah!”
Even though the Smile products made the work easier, physical labor was still required, so he was quite exhausted. He stretched widely and faced the sunset spreading over the vast sea.
His heart felt clearer and more at peace than after any cleaning he had done before.
Just then—
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Yun Sang-ho.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Sim Woo-jin.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Jang Se-young.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Jeon Woo-seop.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Kim Tak-gi.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Oh Hyun-sik.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Park Chan-gyu.”
You have completed cleaning the grave of independence activist “Kwak Jae-myung.”
Another experience?
Kang Tae-san slowly closed his eyes. He had expected this the moment he decided to clean.
…
……
What…?
When he opened his eyes slightly, the red sunset was rippling across the sea. He was still at the graveyard. He wondered if the system was treating this space as one because he had already experienced Baek Geun-su’s life. Just as he was about to check his phone again—
From now on, you will experience all of their lives.
Whoosh!
With the sensation of his consciousness being sucked somewhere, Kang Tae-san lost consciousness.
***
“Tae-san. Kang Tae-san. Come on, wake up.”
The entire drive from Busan back to Seoul, Kang Tae-san had been groaning in the back seat like a sick chicken. Watching the guy moan for over five hours, his manager Min Jin-cheol felt his stomach twist with worry.
Kang Tae-san had disappeared with Baek Hye-rin and only returned late at night. When Min Jin-cheol went to his hotel room in the morning, he had been in this state ever since.
“This won’t do. Let’s go to the hospital and get you an IV.”
“No, hyung. If I rest at home… I think I’ll be fine. We’re almost there, right?”
“Aigoo, look at you sweating. What on earth did you do with Actress Baek Hye-rin?”
“…Hyung, I’ll head up first.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll pull the car over for a second. I’ll buy some porridge from that place up ahead and leave it at your door, so make sure you eat it. Do you have medicine at home?”
“I have emergency medicine. Don’t worry too much. Thanks, hyung.”
Kang Tae-san dragged his heavy body out of the car.
The first thing he did when he got home was stand in front of the Memorial Box.
Click— Thud.
Inside the Memorial Box, a black mass was spinning with a low hum. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was right to store the memories of the independence martyrs here. But the miserable lives they had led while fighting for independence—the poverty, contempt, violence, and scars of torture—were not something he could bear alone. And it wasn’t just one or two people. It was over a dozen.
Kang Tae-san focused his consciousness. Soon he felt something being sucked out of his body.
“Sim Woo-jin. Jang Se-young. Jeon Woo-seop. Kim Tak-gi…”
Kang Tae-san quietly recited the names of the martyrs who hadn’t even been able to take their own names with them when they died. They had been ordinary people from all walks of life: a commoner’s daughter, a street vendor, a taffy seller, the owner of a gukbap restaurant, a palanquin bearer, a rickshaw puller.
A white and blue energy hummed as it settled inside the Memorial Box.
“…Baek Geun-su.”
Finally, he felt something like a lump being pulled out of his body with a soft whoosh. The blue energy didn’t go straight into the storage compartment. Instead, it circled around Kang Tae-san for a moment, as if saying thank you, as if grateful that he remembered.
“Thank you for protecting this country.”
It was thanks to their noble sacrifice that he could live on this land as a Korean. And now he knew what the survivors had to do.
“Yes, Senior. This is Kang Tae-san.”
Kang Tae-san called the number Min Jin-cheol had given him.
“I’ll do the audition.”