The Believer's Condition (7)
After leaving the cathedral, I headed for the library inside the Great Temple.
There, books lined the shelves as far as the eye could see — Secrets and Interpretations of the Afterlife, The Chairman's Life Story, The Believers and Their Miraculous Stories, and so on. Just from the titles, every last one of them was worshipful garbage about Cheonyang-ji.
What a waste of paper.
In my previous life, I had been a hopeless book addict. After my family left, I never formed a deep bond with anyone, and most evenings after work were spent with a book in my hands. I forced my way through boring classics and all kinds of science books alike. If I wasn't buried in something, it felt like my mind might just stop working. So I read, and read, and read again, emptying my head while I did it. Looking back, maybe that was the time that comforted me most — the time I spent trying to escape reality.
It's been a while.
It wasn't the kind of reading material I wanted, but standing before so many books still made my heart beat a little faster. I picked out something worth reading and took a seat, then opened the one sitting on top of the mountain of books in front of me.
Let's begin.
I turned the pages and skimmed the text. How much time had passed before, all at once, my hand stopped moving?
What caught my eye was a passage from the Cheonyang Old Testament.
- As the Cult Leader has said, traitors must be executed on the spot. Anyone who disobeys this shall be deemed a rebel. (Gospel of Taega 12:38)
This will do.
I had infiltrated Cheonyang-ji and become one of the Twelve Apostles, but that didn't change the fact that the situation was still against me. I still couldn't easily get close to the cult leader, and the Apostles kept security locked down tight. And that wasn't all — countless fanatics were always ready to become the cult leader's knife and turn it on me at a moment's notice.
An English engineer once discovered a theory during the World Wars. If both sides had equal performance, the larger force could easily beat the smaller one. It was called Lanchester's Law. According to that theory, the smaller side was always at a disadvantage when facing the larger. Didn't Napoleon also say that military strategy was useless against a great army?
In other words, you can't beat sheer numbers.
So the strategy I had to choose was simple.
Only a clever move.
There was no need to panic just because the numbers were against me. If I applied Lanchester's Law properly, I could overcome those limits any time I wanted. If I didn't break through head-on, but instead collapsed their flanks, then even the few could beat the many.
I took out a pen and scribbled in my notebook. I reduced the tactic I would use to two words:
Divide and conquer.
Fisherman's gain.
I had gotten the hint from watching Cheonyang-ji's worship service. In my head, I ran through one hypothetical scenario after another, picturing Cheonyang-ji sinking beneath the waves.
All right. Starting tomorrow—
“The war starts now.”
I slammed the trash scripture shut with a bang.
The next day, I headed to the Dio Guild after a long while.
I rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor. When the doors opened, I saw someone standing by the glass door near the entrance.
It was a female employee, chewing gum with loud, sticky snaps.
“Ah!”
The moment she saw me, she hurriedly grabbed whatever paper was closest and spat the gum into it.
“Welcome, Hunter Choi!”
My call sign was still under review. They were supposed to give me an alias that matched my achievements so far and the image I’d built.
“I’m Kim Mi-young, assistant manager. Just call me Kim. This is your first time in the Information Team, right?”
The woman smiled at me.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“I’m fine.”
Officially, I was still only a D-class hunter. My standing in the guild wasn’t exactly high.
“This is the first time I’ve seen you up close. Wow. You’re tall, and you’re handsome too.”
So why was Assistant Manager Kim being so sweet?
“I got a call from Director Lee. This way, please.”
Director Lee referred to Lee Yu-seol, who had been promoted recently.
A guild was a lot like a corporation. In order to survive office politics without getting trampled by all the factions, Kim had chosen Lee Yu-seol's side.
Lee Yu-seol's order to the Information Team had been simple: “Support Choi Yongki by any means necessary.”
She and I had already made a sort of agreement, and with her help, the entire Information Team had fallen into my hands.
Kim pressed herself closer to me.
“Anyway, I hope we can keep getting along, Hunter Choi.”
I followed her into the Information Team office.
Kim locked the door and drew the blinds so no one outside could see in. Then she handed me a file.
“First, take a look at this.”
I checked the first page.
Someone's personal profile was printed there.
NAME:Hwang Cheol-ho
AGE:45
RESIDENCE:Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province...
PHOTO:Attached
The face in the picture was unfamiliar, but somehow the eyes looked familiar.
This man was Peter.
That made eleven in total.
Yes — using the Dio Guild's Information Team, I had finally managed to dig up the trail of the Twelve Apostles.
“Whew. You have no idea how much trouble this was to track down.”
Kim let out an exaggerated sigh, like she was performing for an audience.
“Good work.”
“Oh, it was nothing. Just make sure to put in a good word for our team during the next performance review.”
“Will do.”
“Yes!”
“Anything else?”
“Ah, right. Almost forgot.”
Riffling through the envelope, Kim laid one photo after another out on the desk.
They had knife scars on their faces, tattoos around their necks, piercings everywhere — every last one of them looked rough as hell.
“Those are the wanted fugitives you asked for.”
It was a list of criminals hiding all over the country.
“There were two conditions, right? First, they had to be Awakened.” Kim used a red pen to jab at each face one by one. “Second, they had to have a Trans talent.”
She picked up one photo and held it out to me.
“This one fits perfectly.”
It was a man with a small frame and the face of a terrified mouse.
“The address is written on the back. He’s been hiding there like a bug.”
The fact that the information team at a guild had tracked down a fugitive the police hadn't managed to catch — or maybe the police simply couldn't be bothered to go after petty criminals in the first place.
Either way, impressive.
Come to think of it, Seo Gwang-pal had also dug into my background and followed me all the way to the Ilsan industrial complex.
Joining a guild had been the best decision I'd made.
It opened up a valuable channel for hero work and for digging up confidential information.
Kim puckered her lips.
“Hunter Choi, though... this guy's bounty isn't much.”
The mouse man's price was only five million won. For a hunter, that was pocket change with no real profit in it. It paid better to head into a Gate and smash monsters than to spend time chasing wanted criminals.
If money were the goal, anyway.
I had another use for this guy.
“Thanks. See you again.”
I took the file and headed back out.
Mud clung sticky to my sneakers. A foul smell hung in the air.
This was Yeongjong Island, out in Incheon.
Instead of apartment blocks and office towers, tents had been pitched all around, and people in filthy clothes leaned against the walls with hollow eyes.
Stray dogs with no owner shoved their noses into the ground, sniffing around for food.
After the Gates opened, the world had been torn apart by monsters. The capital region had somehow managed to keep its basic shape, but once you got farther out, slumlike poor districts were everywhere.
A little kid was rummaging through a trash can. When he found a rotten sandwich, he carefully pulled the sausage out from between the bread slices and only ate that. The moment his eyes met mine, he hurriedly hid the sausage behind his back.
I held out the photo to him — the fugitive I’d gotten from the Information Team.
The kid looked up at me in silence, then I pulled a ten-thousand-won bill from my wallet and offered it to him.
He snatched the note at once.
After a successful transaction, the child grinned and waved for me to follow before scampering off ahead.
I followed him to the target location.
The boy pointed at a blue tent beyond a puddle, then ran off somewhere else.
As I approached, I heard a voice from inside.
“Honey, I’m sorry. Just wait a little longer, okay? You know that the second I step out of here, I get arrested, right? What? You want to break up? No, no, that won’t do! Please...!”
I tore the tent flap open.
The mouse man, in the middle of a video call, jumped in shock.
“W-Who are you!”
A young woman appeared floating as a hologram over the monitor.
“Honey, I’ll call you back!”
The mouse man hurriedly ended the call. Clearly scared of me, he backed away.
“You’re Jojonghwan, right?”
“Nope. Not me.”
He shook his head furiously and tried to play dumb.
“That’s him.”
I strode inside.
“What are you? A cop?”
Jojonghwan glanced around, then fixed his eyes on the kitchen knife.
I’d expected this. In a slum like this, anything could happen, and the whole place was one big nest of crime.
“……”
Jojonghwan frowned, but he still couldn't bring himself to reach for the knife. Instead, he grabbed a frying pan hanging from a hook.
“Aaah!”
He swung the frying pan at me.
I didn't even need a skill. Thanks to steady training, I could now imitate Judgment of the Superhuman to a certain degree.
I caught the frying pan on one side and squeezed.
The steel crumpled.
“H-Huh?”
Clang!
As though his will to fight had vanished, Jojonghwan loosened his grip and let the frying pan drop.
The fight ended in an instant. He had never been a combat specialist to begin with.
With his head lowered in front of me, Jojonghwan let out a long sigh.
“So this day finally came, huh... I couldn't keep living with the guilt, either.”
Then he dropped to his knees and burst into big, fat tears.
“Detective, my elderly mother is in the hospital. I committed a crime because I needed money for her treatment... I'm really sorry. Could you forgive me just once? I'll go to the police station soon and turn myself in, I swear.”
“Get up.”
“Huh?”
I picked up the fallen frying pan and gave his crown a light knock.
“Agh!”
Jojonghwan flinched and clutched the top of his head.
“I said get up. Stop putting on a show.”
“Y-Yes!”
He sprang to his feet as if he had never shed a tear in his life.
He gripped the frying pan with both hands and bent it around and around. The cast-iron warped like dough until it turned into a club.
“From here on out, you answer the questions I ask. Okay?”
“……”
Jojonghwan pouted.
“You’re not a cop, are you?”
I brought the club down on his head one more time, like I was playing whack-a-mole.
“Kghaa!!”
“Talking doesn't work on you, huh.”
“W-Wait, hold on. Okay! Okay!! Ask me anything you want.”
Only after the stick became medicine did he finally turn lively.
Jojonghwan had been charged with theft. He used to be an actor performing in a play theater in Daehangno, but he didn't even have enough money to buy rice, so he stole for the first time. Then, at a team dinner, he boasted that since he was the troupe leader he would pay for everything, only to run away the moment the rest of the cast left. The theater owner, who had been watching Jojonghwan's state of panic all alone, chased after him — and, unlucky for him, got hit by a car and died. A major franchise company retaliated hard over the incident, and Jojonghwan ended up on the wanted list. After that, he had hidden here the whole time.
“Jojonghwan. What’s your talent?”
“Ah. My talent?”
His expression loosened up. Once we got to his specialty, confidence came pouring out of him.
“Like this, for example. O my love! Juliet!!”
Jojonghwan threw his whole voice into it and exaggerated his movements.
At once, his face twisted, and his hair lengthened.
Oh?
I watched the strange phenomenon in silence.
“My darling! I’m right here! Romeo!”
I had expected it, but seeing it in person was still astonishing. His face changed as if he had been molded by a sculptor, his body shape shifted, and even his voice turned feminine.
And that wasn't all.
“Hey! The two of you can never be together! Not over my dead body!”
Jojonghwan transformed into another man.
He was an Awakened who could handle mana. His talent was Trans.
Not only could he alter his appearance, he could change his very gender at will.
“O my love, Julie—”
“Enough. Stop there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jojonghwan returned to normal.
“You can become anything?”
“More or less. My build has limits, so I can't do something crazy like becoming absurdly tall, but yeah.”
I pulled out the photo and shoved it right in front of his nose.
“Could you do this too?”
Jojonghwan studied the picture carefully.
“Hmm. It'd be more certain if I actually saw him in person, but... maybe something like this?”
A grotesque sound filled the tent.
In an instant, his face changed.
“How's this?”
Thin, sparse hair. Uneven teeth. A dwarf-like height and a sneering, slimy look in his eyes.
He was the spitting image of the Cheonyang-ji cult leader.
Perfect.
I slipped the photo away.
“You. Let's do a little job together.”
“Me?”
“If you don't like it, we can go to the police station. For the record, I'm a hunter.”
Hunters didn't have investigative powers, but when it came to wanted criminals, they did have the authority to arrest them. If I wanted, I could drag him to the police right now.
Jojonghwan muttered under his breath with the face of a man who knew he'd been caught by the wrong person.
“......What kind of job?”
I thought of the Cheonyang-ji cult leader and the Twelve Apostles. Those bastards were probably committing some shameless atrocity even at this very moment.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
And for a cult...