The Dark Plot Looms
I opened the hospital room door and stepped inside.
The inside was so loud it made my ears ring.
Patients were chatting away, and the TV blared over them.
“With too few Awakeners to cope with monster appearances, the National Assembly has passed the Special Exemption Bill for Hunters’ Military Service. Unusually, the law will take effect this year—”
The ward was laid out with private beds lined up in a row, separated only by curtains.
It was a twenty-four-bed room.
At a glance, it was obvious this wasn’t a proper setup for ordinary patients.
Ever since the world changed, people had been getting hurt every day by monsters spilling out of Gates.
With medical facilities already stretched thin, hospitals were bursting at the seams.
Insurance companies had seen their chance and gone on the offensive, pushing products on people like they were desperate to unload them.
Hospitals, in turn, took patients in by the factory load, just to make money.
And this was the result.
A ramshackle marketplace where real patients and fake ones were all mixed together.
I walked down the cramped central aisle toward the corner.
After checking the bed number, I pulled back the curtain.
“...Hello.”
A woman who had been sitting in a chair stood up.
She had red hair and piercings in her ears.
She looked barely twenty.
Her baby fat hadn’t quite gone yet, leaving her face youthful and soft.
Her eyes were swollen, as if she’d been crying all day.
“Are you the one who called me?”
“Yes. I’m Lee Mi-na, Seon-ung oppa’s girlfriend. Thank you for coming.”
“I’m Choi Yongki.”
After the formal introductions were over, my gaze naturally drifted to the bed.
Ma Seon-ung looked absolutely wrecked.
His head was wrapped in bandages, and one eye was covered with an eyepatch.
His neck, arms, and legs were all in casts.
His whole face, especially, was blotched with a vivid purple bruise.
The room fell into a heavy silence.
“What happened?”
“He said he was attacked by some thug while making a delivery.”
Lee Mi-na gave a brief explanation.
Someone had dragged Ma Seon-ung into an alley and beaten him mercilessly there.
“Oppa doesn’t usually get mixed up with people like that... I was terrified too. Oh, right. I’m sorry I called so suddenly and startled you.”
She bowed her head low, as if she’d done something wrong.
“Seon-ung oppa doesn’t have any family—he’s an orphan. These days he was trying to straighten himself out and work hard, so he’d deleted all the numbers of his old friends. Then I happened to find your message and called you...”
It looked like there wasn’t anyone else she could turn to.
She must have been desperate to call a stranger she’d never even met.
“What did the doctor say?”
Just by looking at him, it felt like Ma Seon-ung might never get back on his feet again.
“W-well...”
She pulled out a tiny pink phone and began reading the notes saved there.
“Dislocation of the left eye lens, retinal detachment and hemorrhage, cervical spine damage, orbital fracture, rib fractures, colon perforation...”
I didn’t need to hear the rest to know how bad it was.
I already knew how serious his injuries were.
“I didn’t really understand the terms, so I just wrote everything down. I dropped out of high school and have only worked in restaurants since, so there’s a lot I don’t know.”
We’d only talked briefly, but I could already tell what kind of person she was.
For all her flashy looks, she seemed kind-hearted.
“Ugh...”
At the sound of our voices, Ma Seon-ung woke and opened his eyes.
Still half asleep, he met my gaze.
“Oh? Well, look who it is.”
He was a complete wreck, but there was a faint smile on his lips.
“Hero and all that—what brings you here?”
“Oppa. I called him.”
“Tsk. I told you not to call anyone.”
Lee Mi-na looked back and forth between us.
“But oppa, who is this?”
“Ah. He’s my friend.”
Then, with one eye still uncovered by the eyepatch, he winked at me.
What was a friend, anyway?
Someone you laughed and joked with? Someone you spent your school days with?
If that was the standard, then I had no friends around me at all.
I’d long since quit anything that cost money—cigarettes, gambling, billiards, bowling.
That included meeting friends, too.
Maintaining friendships while working in a factory your whole life wasn’t easy.
And yet Ma Seon-ung, after seeing me only once, was willing to call me a friend.
“Honey, I’m thirsty. Could you go buy me some coffee?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Lee Mi-na stood up, glanced at me, and gave a bright little smile.
“What would you like, Yongki?”
She’d already memorized my name.
“I’m fine.”
“Tsk tsk. But you’re a guest.”
Lee Mi-na mimicked Ma Seon-ung’s tone in a cute way.
“Mi-na, just buy whatever’s cold. Friend, that’s okay with you, right?”
I gave a slight nod.
It wasn’t coffee he wanted.
“Okay. I’ll be right back!”
Lee Mi-na walked toward the door.
She kept glancing back at us, worried all the while.
Only after confirming she was gone did Ma Seon-ung let out a relieved breath.
I sat in the chair beside the bed.
There was no cushion, so the seat felt cold and hard against my ass.
How many days had Lee Mi-na stayed by his side in a place like this?
“Hey.”
Ma Seon-ung spoke to me again as if we were old buddies.
“How do I look? I can’t check a mirror, you know.”
“You look great.”
At my dry answer, Ma Seon-ung shot back with a shameless grin.
“Told you I’m pretty good-looking.”
The smile faded from his face as he got to the point.
“Anything happen while I was out? You weren’t hurt or anything, right?”
He was the one lying in a critical care ward, and he was worried about me.
What an idiot.
“You said you were attacked by thugs. Who was it? Some villain?”
“I don’t know. I’d never seen him before.”
Ma Seon-ung searched his memory.
“He was wearing a mask, so I couldn’t even see his face properly.”
A mask?
I’d never seen someone walking around wearing one of those in my previous life.
“Anything else you noticed?”
Ma Seon-ung pressed his lips together, then looked at me steadily.
“He was looking for you.”
The thug had attacked Ma Seon-ung with a very clear purpose.
The circle was narrowing fast.
It was probably because of me that he’d been beaten.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology came not from me, but from Ma Seon-ung.
“I told them where you got dropped off. There was a photo of Mi-na in my wallet, and that bastard saw it and used it to threaten me...”
I could guess the rest.
Ma Seon-ung must have tried to keep his mouth shut to the end.
And that was how he ended up like this.
My anger flared at the bastard who’d tried to take his girlfriend hostage.
“...This is all because of me.”
“Forget it. I actually feel a little relieved now.”
Ma Seon-ung stared up at the hospital ceiling as he went on.
“I’ve always felt guilty toward my friend. That guy got so obsessed with taking down monsters that he ended up ruining his life in style, you know? I kept thinking I’d spend my whole life riding a motorcycle and then die some half-assed death myself.”
He gave a snort of laughter.
“At least I was useful to you, huh?”
He said it as if that settled it.
“That bald bastard who beat me to a pulp? He’s one hell of a bad guy.”
The moment I heard “bald,” my hand tightened.
Suspicion had turned into certainty.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but don’t you dare lose to those bastards. Got it?”
Ma Seon-ung groaned as he tried to lift his casted arm.
“Hurry and go. He’ll be looking for you.”
My location had been exposed.
The Dio Guild had realized that the Purple Devil was at the Ilsan Hunter Industrial Complex.
I needed to be ready.
Ma Seon-ung held out a fist from between the plaster.
“Hey. Justice Hunter. Thanks for coming.”
He still thought I was a hunter.
I bumped fists with him lightly.
“Seon-ung. Talk normally with your friends.”
His eyelids fluttered sleepily.
“Yeah. I’m gonna catch some sleep. Go on before Mi-na gets back.”
I tucked the blanket up over his chest and turned away.
The noisy shared room rumbled with voices.
Trash patients had tossed aside rolled around on the floor in a filthy scatter.
“Friend!”
Ma Seon-ung’s shout rang out behind me.
When I looked back, he was shaking his shoulders and snorting hard.
Sleeping had been an excuse, too.
As if the humiliation had finally spilled over, tears poured from his one good eye.
“...That fucking bastard! Please, just give him a proper beating for me! I’m begging you!”
How humiliating and infuriating must it have been, to come back beaten by someone else in front of the girlfriend he loved?
I looked at Ma Seon-ung and nodded.
Only after hearing my answer did he finally close his eyes.
I left the ward and headed straight for the reception desk.
A memory from my previous life came back to me.
In the sweltering summer heat, my younger sibling ate something bad and came down with enteritis.
They threw up everything Grandma made, over and over, and their fever climbed to 39 degrees Celsius.
In the end, we rushed them to the emergency room.
It was after 3 a.m.
Taxi fare, hospital fees, all of it had burned through hundreds of thousands of won.
That’s right.
Even when my little brother was sick, all I could think about was money.
We wouldn’t be blood relatives otherwise.
My brother had seen right through me just from my expression.
“Sorry, hyung. I won’t get sick again.”
That was what poverty was.
You couldn’t even be sick without guilt.
You couldn’t just dump your worries on someone else, either.
But not anymore.
I had vowed that in this life, I wouldn’t tremble before money again.
“Here’s your receipt.”
I took the slip the nurse handed me.
After thanking her, I turned around and found myself face to face with Lee Mi-na, who was carrying coffee in both hands.
“Oh? You’re leaving already?”
“I came out during work, so I need to get back.”
“I see. Please take some coffee!”
“I’m fine.”
“Then at least take these!”
Lee Mi-na had brought not only drinks, but a whole pile of bread and other snacks.
It felt rude to keep refusing, so I took the plastic bag.
“Thank you for coming all the way here when you’re busy. Oppa hadn’t had any energy for days, but when he saw you, he actually smiled a little. Is that because you really are his friend?”
As Lee Mi-na smiled, her red hair swayed lightly.
“I’ll stop by again. And also...”
I pointed toward the ward and continued.
“That room doesn’t seem fit for Seon-ung to recover in. It’d be better to move him to a private room.”
“Right...”
It was something everyone already knew.
A private room was better than a twenty-four-bed ward.
Still, Lee Mi-na’s financial situation was obvious enough—she worked in a restaurant, after all.
“My payday’s tomorrow. I was going to see if I could at least get him a twelve-bed room or something.”
“No need. I’ve already paid, so move him right away.”
“Pardon?”
I held out the receipt.
Lee Mi-na took it automatically.
When she checked the amount printed there, her eyes widened.
Just then, a nurse joined the conversation.
“You’re Ma Seon-ung’s guardian, right? This gentleman has already handled the payment. We’ll move the room today. A VIP room just happened to open up.”
Lee Mi-na went blank for a moment, then began to cry.
Tear drops the size of chicken droppings fell onto the receipt and blurred the print.
“I didn’t call because I wanted something like this... Thank you. Thank you so much.”
She bowed to me several times.
Ma Seon-ung had been hurt because of me.
I’d only done what needed to be done.
“Then I’ll be going.”
For the entire walk down the hallway, I could feel her eyes on my back.
When I turned around, Lee Mi-na was staring after me with a wistful look in her eyes.
She seemed ready to stand there like a stone monument until I disappeared from sight.
Only after stepping outside the hospital could I finally breathe freely.
The air in the ward had definitely been mixed with something stale and suffocating.
I climbed onto my motorcycle and made a Bluetooth call at once.
A voice came through the receiver.
“Boss! When are you coming? Cream puffs?”
I checked the plastic bag and found a box of pure white cream puffs inside.
“Got them.”
“Wooooah! The best! Hurry up and come, Boss!”
“Did anyone come looking for me?”
“Someone looking for you? Hmm... Nope, no one came!”
The Dio Guild still hadn’t arrived.
But it would soon.
It could be any second now.
Or it could be some other time, when my guard was down.
“Are you expecting someone to come?”
“Yeah.”
I adjusted my helmet and started the engine.
“Let’s get ready for guests.”