Incarnation
Gi Yeong-cheol of the Factory 7 gang.
Back when he was young and still a villain, the most glorious thing he had ever done was ambush a drunk A-class hunter with a whole crew and beat the man senseless.
Then he came face-to-face with an S-class hunter and stood on the brink of death. He was arrested, locked up, and sent to prison.
For all five years he spent behind bars, Gi Yeong-cheol thought the same thing over and over: Don’t act up. A caterpillar ought to keep its head down and quietly chew pine needles.
After his release, he drifted naturally into the Ilsan Hunter Industrial Complex.
Every factory owner there bowed his head to him without being asked.
Good. In a place like this, I can at least be the cock of the walk.
He had intended to spend the rest of his retirement quietly, pocketing a tidy sum along the way.
That plan held up until Kim Sa-jang from Factory 4 came looking for him.
"Executive Gi! You’ve got to help me! One of my workers broke the press and went on a rampage. It’s a total mess!"
The gang wasn’t just there to shake people down for protection money.
They had their own justification, too.
From Factory 1 through Factory 9, they were paid to step in and mediate whenever petty fights broke out.
If someone cheated another man or caused serious trouble, they went in and answered immediately with violence.
Here, the gang was the code and the law.
"Lead the way."
Gi Yeong-cheol led his underlings to Factory 4.
When he finally faced the guy, there was something about him that felt off.
What’s he so damn cocky about?
Breaking his right hand had been unexpected, but after that Gi Yeong-cheol never once let his guard down. He was a veteran who had seen plenty, after all.
Just as he was about to land the finishing blow, a low roar rolled out.
A radiance burst from the man’s body.
...No way.
The aura rising over that body gathered into a dazzling shape too beautiful to describe.
And the ability itself wasn’t even that shocking. Any awakened person could do it—wrap mana around the body and turn it into a shield.
But—
The quality of that mana is insane!
The man’s barrier could repel not only his fist, but bullets as well. How much training would it take to reach that kind of level?
How can a brat like this be A-class? No, maybe he’s even beyond S-class...
For an instant, his concentration slipped.
The body that had been wavering like heat haze suddenly snapped into focus.
"Caught you."
"......"
There was a hint of pleasure buried in that cold voice, and even the corners of his mouth were curling upward.
Gi Yeong-cheol felt the killing intent and hurled himself into a desperate assault, but it was useless.
"You talk too much."
The other man didn’t even flinch. He kept that same smile and slowly raised his fist.
What the hell is this guy?
A being utterly out of place in reality.
Somewhere in Gi Yeong-cheol’s mind, a word from a Bible verse he had once seen in prison surfaced.
Incarnation.
God reborn as a human being.
This man, blazing with a light so brilliant it was almost terrifying, was the very image of incarnation.
Of course, that was only Gi Yeong-cheol’s mistake.
It was just a hero skill from a comic book, interpreted a little too extravagantly.
Damn it. I should’ve gone to the countryside and become a farmer.
With a dull crack, Gi Yeong-cheol’s vision went black.
When the beanpole collapsed, the area fell silent as a grave.
I turned to his underlings and said, "If you’re going to fight, do it all at once. Your break time’s already over."
The underlings exchanged glances, then silently lifted the beanpole and supported him between them.
I thought they were going to leave quietly like that, but one of them shouted back at me.
"You think you’ll get away with this? Our boss won’t let this slide!"
He sounded brave enough, but he kept his distance because he was clearly scared of me.
When he said their boss, he meant the gang’s leader.
The man in charge usually left the organization in that beanpole’s hands and handled outside work himself.
I had once seen him fight another gang in a turf war.
He had been raging like a madman, stabbing people in the abdomen with a sashimi knife over and over. That image had burned itself into my head.
Could I win?
I had used the beanpole to test my own skill, and now I had a rough read on the situation.
Thanks to that, I no longer doubted myself.
Once the fog of mistrust cleared away, firm conviction took its place.
The hero ability was real.
It had more than enough power to overwhelm the kinds of guys who ran things in the real world.
That didn’t mean I could relax, though.
"That’s convenient. Go back and tell them clearly."
I looked at the gang and said, "Never come near Factory 4 again."
One of the underlings supporting the beanpole glared at me like he wanted to kill me, then turned on his heel and left.
"Let’s go."
A moment later, the factory workers standing behind me burst into cheers.
Especially Karki, who shouted at the top of his lungs.
"You heard our boss loud and clear, right? You come back and you’re dead! Get lost, you little punk bastards!"
The havoc the gang caused here was no small matter.
Every month, they extorted protection money, forced cheap liquor on the workers, and even lured people into underground gambling dens.
And a few years later, they would grow into a gang with nationwide reach.
From there, they would take control of drug distribution and gnaw away at South Korea from the inside.
If you wanted to call them the rising star of the trash heap, that wouldn’t even be wrong.
Those bastards should’ve been uprooted long ago.
As cheers and jeers crossed the yard, there was one man who belonged to neither side.
It was the boss who had shown up leading the gang.
He stood there in the middle, unable to move one way or the other, gauging the mood.
The workers only gave him cold looks, and no one spoke to him.
In that awkward atmosphere, I walked over to him alone.
"Boss."
When I lifted a hand, he flinched and stumbled backward.
"W-what...? Yongki, listen, it’s not that—"
I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him toward me.
"Ghk!"
The boss shut his eyes tight and came along like a scarecrow being dragged by the arm.
With everyone watching, he opened his mouth again.
"S-so, look, the thing is... I didn’t bring those guys here on purpose."
I wanted to beat him senseless right then and there.
But fists aren’t the answer to everything.
No matter how much the police took bribes from the gang and handed out slap-on-the-wrist punishments, that only applied to the gang itself.
If I, just a factory worker, resorted to violence too openly, this would turn into a headache.
The best move was simple.
"You’ve had a hard time all this while."
"W-what?"
The boss didn’t seem to understand what I was getting at.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t just the boss.
Everyone gathered here tilted their heads as if they’d all agreed on it in advance.
"You’ve had a hard time all this while...? Wait, are you quitting Factory 4 and becoming a hunter, Yongki?"
"Yeah, that makes sense. If you’ve awakened, there’s no reason to stay in a tiny place like this."
At that, everyone nodded along.
Everyone except Karki.
"Boss! You really quitting the factory?"
Karki looked like tears were about to spill, his feelings all tangled up.
I shook my head.
"No."
My eyes stayed fixed on the boss.
"Hand this factory over to me. I’ll buy it."
Silence settled over the air.
The boss wore a stunned expression, then let out a dry laugh.
"Huh? Yongki, how in the world are you supposed to buy a factory? With your salary? This is still only a third-tier vendor, but it pulls in over ten billion won in annual sales!"
He wasn’t wrong.
I didn’t have that kind of money on hand.
Everything I had saved over a lifetime amounted to only one billion won.
No matter how many times I died and came back, I still couldn’t buy the place with that.
But there were plenty of ways for me to raise a lump sum in the future.
The boss gave me a servile smile.
"Yongki. We’ll fix the press, so let’s just call it here, all right? I’m sorry. I really am."
I let go of the boss’s shoulder.
Fine. Let’s end it here.
You’d be unemployed before long anyway.
I checked my watch, then yelled at the foreman, "Let’s get back to work!"
The long day finally came to an end.
"Good work, everyone!"
"Mr. Lim! You heading to karaoke tonight?"
"Oh, karaoke sounds great! It’s been a while since I sang a song!"
Everyone heading home broke apart into little clusters and scattered in different directions.
The foreman came up to me and asked, "Yongki. How’re ya feelin’?"
I had beaten the beanpole, but I wasn’t unharmed. Every part of me ached from getting tossed around.
My face was a wreck too.
"I’m fine. I’m young, after all."
I tried putting on a bit of swagger, and the foreman clicked his tongue with a bitter smile.
"...Young, sure. Still, don’t overdo it. If you’re tired, take tomorrow off. Karki’s here."
The foreman patted my shoulder and went on his way.
Right beside me, I heard the sound of something being crunched between teeth.
"Aish, why d’you never even ask my opinion, eh?"
Jesus, he’d appeared beside me like a ghost.
Karki was standing there without a sound, crunching on shrimp crackers.
When had he even gotten next to me?
"What, you don’t want to work in my place?"
Karki grinned.
"Heh, of course I do."
Inside the bleak, empty Factory 4, only the two of us remained.
"I’m hungry. Frozen pork belly and soju, yes?"
"Oh! Total yes!"
A little while later, Karki came back with supplies.
Inside the plastic bag were frozen pork belly and soju.
That combination had become our signature healing food.
I said with unusual solemnity, "Let’s begin."
"As you command, Boss!"
Karki and I moved with military precision, as if we had rehearsed it.
We spread newspaper on the factory floor, sat down, and fired up the burner.
The frozen pork belly sizzled on the grill, slowly browning into something delicious.
We clinked our soju cups together.
After knocking one back, Karki winced and shouted, "Aaah! Damn, that’s the stuff!"
As the mood warmed up, Karki wrapped a lettuce ssam and handed it to me.
I took it and stuffed it into my mouth.
"Boss. What you said earlier—was that really true?"
The cheap Spanish pork was nothing special on its own, but once I chewed it with the spicy ssamjang, a rich, savory flavor spread through my mouth.
"That the boss killed Big Lava and that Dio Guild hunter...?"
He was the only person I had ever told my true identity to.
Why had I told him?
Probably because I’d decided that there was no way I could handle everything that was coming on my own.
Just as I’d told the boss, I intended to take over this factory.
And I also planned to set something else in motion.
Maybe it would be a rough road, full of thorns.
Even so, I still wanted to do it.
For that, I needed a companion I could trust.
"Yeah. I’m the Purple Devil."
While I was at it, I laid out my plans for the future too.
"From now on, I’m thinking of running the factory during the day and playing hero for real at night."
In my past life, I had tried to get revenge for my brother by using other people’s hands.
As you can see, the result hadn’t been good.
My grandmother had once told me, "Money’s nice, and being poor is fine too. Just do what you believe is right, you hear me?"
The hero ability I had gained had nothing to do with the line between good and evil.
I could use Judgment of the Superhuman to beat down gangsters, sure.
And if I wanted to, I could kill innocent civilians without the slightest problem, too.
To carry out the justice I believed in.
That was what I truly wanted in this life.
"Playing hero, huh..."
Karki slapped his hands together.
"That’s awesome! Boss, this stays our secret, right?"
He didn’t look shocked. He didn’t object, either.
Instead, he threw himself into it with enthusiasm.
"Is there anything I can help with? Boss is my mentor, so just tell me what to do!"
There was actually something I desperately wanted him to do.
I stood up and threw off the old factory jacket I’d been wearing.
Then I walked to another spot, where dust rose under my shoes.
The alcohol was starting to buzz through me, making my face feel hot.
I slowly looked around.
Since this place manufactured hunter gear, all kinds of materials were scattered about.
"Karki. There’s something only you can do."
"Oooh! What is it, Boss!"
"For me..."
Under the orange pin light, I climbed up onto the press I had broken into a sorry wreck.
"Make me a hero suit."