Death Sentence

"I clock out, and somehow I'm on overtime."

"You want to eat, you hustle."

A second job. Nights, Clock-out Man was out working some other commission.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking whether a pack of monsters is moving up from southern Gyeonggi toward Seoul."

Monsters give off a distinctive musty stink, a lot like the smell of cockroaches. Their hides gleam as if they've been oiled, the same way a roach's shell does, and that sheen is where the smell comes from. The chemistry is actually similar.

"So I just circle the area and see if the scent turns up."

Even in his active-hunter days Clock-out Man had tracked that smell, playing the tracker, so the work ought to have been familiar. He wasn't a hunter anymore, though.

"Who commissions a job like that?"

"Who else? The Republic of Korea."

"You've got to be kidding me. They're outsourcing something that important to civilians?"

"You know monster sightings have been climbing lately, right?"

I'd heard it from Myeong. Casualties were piling up, he'd said. Jo Yong-han had told me the air raids were the worst on record.

"Must be short on hands. About a week ago they asked around until they found me. Wanted to know if I could help."

"Whoever that was has nerve. Dragging a brick wall like you into government work."

"The client was Yeo-jin."

"Min Yeo-jin? She's an instructor."

"They called it a business trip, and once she was out here the trip turned out to be finding me. Look at that. Dumping grunt work on an instructor. Total shit. Those bastards haven't changed one bit."

"No reason they would."

"Huh? You and I quit being hunters."

He hadn't changed either.

"Anyway. Tough luck for Min Yeo-jin, but command did send the right person."

"I only took it for Yeo-jin's sake. Thinking about it now, I'm pissed. Maybe I shouldn't have taken it."

That kid Min Yeo-jin. Why hadn't she told me she'd run into Clock-out Man? Maybe because she also had to pass along that he was alive and working as a mercenary. If she'd hidden it on purpose, thinking I'd be disappointed he'd compromised with the world, then she still didn't know me.

Come to think of it, this was the first time I'd seen Clock-out Man since I became a postman. I'd never told him, either. Even so, he was acting perfectly natural, as if of course he'd known. He'd probably heard it through Yeo-jin.

"Still, the pay's good, so it's not all bad. I'm not getting used, right? You know what I'm saying?"

"Korean, you idiot."

"You know what I'm saying is basically Korean. Anyway, once I actually tried it, the second job wasn't bad either. You want to make a living, what else is there."

"Well. I'll give you this. It's something that you're still alive out here."

"I told you I could handle it."

Anyone can talk.

"That's all you ever said. That a guy like me wouldn't last long if he went outside."

"I figured if you died, you died. I never thought you'd live by compromising."

"We're circling back to that again?"

I'd already torn into him enough. This time I'd ease off. The stick, then the carrot. A strategy with history and tradition behind it.

"I'm saying you did well."

"And when was it you were raising hell about me being a hypocrite?"

"I told you, it wasn't an insult. The whole world's nothing but hypocrites to begin with. Saying one thing and doing another, looking one way and being another. That's ordinary."

"What's it being ordinary got to do with anything? Just because everyone's trash doesn't make it right to be the same trash."

"Not trash. Everyone's just trying to make up for something."

"Make up for what. Don't start rubbing salve on it after the fact."

I wasn't wringing out empty words just to comfort him. If anything, it was close to the truth.

"Every day's one mistake and failure after another. You can't scoop back up what's already spilled, so you try to make a little of it up somewhere else. That's how people live."

Before I knew it we'd come back around the settlement where the black smoke had been rising. Night had already fallen, so the smoke itself was hard to see, but the acrid reek of burning hung so thick there was no missing it.

"I gave them the information so they could hit the settlement, but I secured an escape route so as few people as possible would die. That's what trying to make up for it looks like."

"You don't need to spin sophistry for me. I still helped raiders. Making up for it, my ass. It's a death sentence, plain and simple."

The guilt didn't change. Even if he'd done it to survive, that fact didn't change. Hardly anyone out here kept the laws of the outside world, but a crime was still a crime.

"I said you were trying. I never said you'd actually made up for it."

"You pick it up and put it down whenever it suits you."

"Which is why you'll have to try even harder from here on, if you want to make up for it."

"What are you getting at now?"

I'm giving you another chance to make up for it.

"That raider you contracted with. I've got some business with him."

"...I thought I was the one who found you. Turns out we found each other."

"I'm a move ahead. I found you without any tracking ability."

"Hmph."

After that, Clock-out Man said nothing. I'd never expected him to hand over information on the raider easily. A contract was a contract. There was no way the great Clock-out Man would casually give up a client's information. Even so, there was a way.

"You said earlier you had a line you wouldn't cross, right? That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you don't kill civil servants."

"Yeah. That's why I tracked you on the condition I only break your legs."

"What if your client killed a civil servant?"

"Huh?"

The raiders who had murdered Postman Kim-ssi.

"Do you still take a commission from a client like that?"

"Hmm... That's complicated. My way is not to hold a prejudice against someone who's already paid for what they did, but—"

"If they'd paid for killing a civil servant, they'd already be dead."

"True enough."

Clock-out Man stopped and squeezed his eyes shut.

"So what you're saying is, my client killed a civil servant and never took the punishment."

"Well?"

"You sure?"

They say that in the old era, proving a crime meant the inconvenient work of a scientific investigation, hunting down every kind of evidence. Inconvenient, but it would have been accurate. These days you can't prove a crime with that kind of precision. In exchange, it isn't inconvenient.

"There are witnesses."

"How many?"

"Two. Both postmen."

The more witnesses there are, and the more certain their standing, the more a report is trusted.

"Are the circumstances solid?"

Once a report is filed, the next thing they look at is the circumstances. They survey the scene and interrogate the witnesses down to the bone. Most attempts to pin a false charge, or bogus reports chasing a reward, get screened out at that stage. More precisely, people believe they get screened out. When the military investigators conclude that every circumstance lines up, the crime is treated as proven.

"You don't even need the circumstances on this one. I'm a witness."

"...You?"

Clock-out Man started walking again, slowly. I matched his stride.

"You've got business with a raider... You're a postman, so it isn't official duty."

"Obviously it's personal."

"Going after someone for a personal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reason. That'd be more desperate than carrying out your duty."

"Usually, yeah."

"And for something that desperate, a man might even lie."

"Lie? Me?"

"Wouldn't know. Did you report it to headquarters?"

The Physiognomist had probably done it.

"The other witness did. Not me."

"Then has the military confirmed the circumstances? Any wanted notices?"

That, I didn't know. The notices might already have been printed, but checking would mean going back to headquarters. I could have talked my way around it.

"That far, I don't know."

Better to be straight now. That was the best way to handle Clock-out Man.

"So it's nothing but your word."

"That's right."

"...Even if it's you saying it, don't think I'll just believe you outright. This isn't back when we lived and died together. You know perfectly well how many years it's been."

He was right. The only evidence was my word, and nothing else. There wasn't a single solid thing to trust.

But.

"It's me telling you."

"...?"

"I'm not asking you to believe me because we were close once. I'm asking whether you know who I am."

"Hmm..."

Clock-out Man nodded, slowly.

"You're not the type to string together a lie that doesn't even hold together."

Correct.

"You know me well. If I'd set out to fool you, I'd have boxed you into a situation where you had no choice but to believe me. That isn't hard for me."

"...I suppose not."

"So why would I be asking you for information armed with a story this thin?"

"Because it's the truth. Is that it?"

There was no guarantee a method like this would persuade Clock-out Man. But I don't want to lie just to trick him, either. If he trusted me the way I trusted him, this would be enough. I had no choice but to see.

"Hyung."

"Yeah."

"Something I've been wondering."

"What."

"Remember? The day Yeo-jin botched it and the three of us nearly died together like old friends."

"Hard to forget."

The first and last time I was ever stranded in all my years as a hunter. Clock-out Man and I were instructors then, and Min Yeo-jin was a hunter trainee who had only just come in. We'd gone out on a field exercise, and things went wrong. She broke from the column and vanished. We searched a long time before we found her, but by then the route back had already collapsed. We wandered the mountain until we barely found a cave, and inside it we held out for three nights and four days. Packs led by boss-class specimens were spread all around us, and a blizzard came down on top of that. There was no going outside.

Headquarters hadn't simply left us. Twice they sent the Lemming Unit, the special unit that existed for no purpose but rescuing hunters. They were wiped out before they ever found us, and to this day I don't even know how many of them died then.

"Back then there was something Yeo-jin asked you—"

From the moment he brought up the stranding, I knew it would be this.

"You said you'd answer her later, once she made instructor."

"I did."

I never should have made a promise like that. For three nights and four days, talk was the only thing you could do in that cave. One thing led to another, and I ended up saying things I wouldn't have said otherwise. I'd made the promise because I was certain Min Yeo-jin would never become an instructor. If she'd stayed a field hunter, she was someone who could have piled up enough points to enter the Geofront.

At first I thought she'd lost her mind. Applying to be an instructor over a thing like that. Later, though, I figured it had been an excuse. I think Min Yeo-jin had wanted to be an instructor from the start.

"So did you actually answer her?"

"I did. A promise is a promise."

"I'd like to hear that answer too."

The question Min Yeo-jin had asked.

How I'd come to use an Ability Core. A question about how the second life hunters always talk about had gotten its start.

"If you tell me too, I think I'll be able to feel that you and I are still people who can trust each other."

"Promise."

"Huh?"

"I'll answer you once this is over."

I didn't want to answer right now. A story that starts with the Old Man and ends with the Subway. Once I called it up, I'd have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to dream the nightmare again. If we were on the road back to headquarters, maybe. Right now I didn't have the room.

"What the hell is that? You want my information first?"

"Yeah."

"...Still sure of yourself even when you've got no business being sure of yourself."

"People don't change easily."

"Hmm."

"And in this situation, that 'hasn't changed' is what matters."

The past me that Clock-out Man had known. I hadn't changed from that, not by a hair. From the day I first gained my ability straight through until now, I'd been the same man. Yes. From the day I parted with the Old Man, all the way to now.

Clock-out Man swept his hair back.

"You really don't seem to have changed."

"You've got an eye. Or did your nose tell you?"

"You keep that promise."

"Don't worry."

"Contract sealed."

Done.

The death sentence had come down on the raider.

Before long, Clock-out Man's overtime was over too.

"Here."

He said he knew a decent place to sleep rough and led me there. It was the place I usually slept rough myself. A shabby abandoned house with the roof blown clean off.

"It's humble. Bear with it."

"It is humble."

"I said bear with it."

I made a point of pretending not to notice and lay down in an awkward sprawl. Clock-out Man settled in as naturally as if he were used to the place, and the spot he took was the one I usually lay in. He set his head toward the window, the opposite way from me.

Just as I'd expected. I'd figured Clock-out Man would put his head toward the window, the way I usually did. So I'd put my feet that way and lain down in reverse ahead of time. I didn't want to give him the feeling that we were in sync.

"By the way, you can just break a contract like that? Even if they killed a postman, a contract's a contract."

"I asked him once whether he'd ever killed a civil servant. Asked before the contract, and asked again recently."

"Back then he clearly denied it. He lied to me. A lie, of all things."

"So the lie is a bigger problem than killing a civil servant?"

"Obviously. If there's a falsehood, the contract is void."

Lying flat, I could see the night sky straight through, the abandoned house having no roof. The moon was unusually bright. Nights like this, you have to be careful. The dark won't hide you.

But I felt at ease. Beside me, the toes of Clock-out Man—lying the other way—were fidgeting.

If a fight broke out, he was someone I could trust with my back. Someone who, even if I didn't watch him, wouldn't die over anything ordinary. If every hunter had been like Min Yeo-jin or this guy, I'd still be out in the field as one.

But that's only what I think.

It wasn't that the other hunters lacked skill. They were simply people I couldn't turn my back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on, not with my temperament. And with my temperament, they were people I couldn't stop minding no matter how I tried. I mustn't get that wrong. Not fitting me doesn't make a man lacking, and fitting me doesn't make him exceptional. It's only the difference between fitting and not.

But the world was never a place where I could keep only the people who fit me.

Yes. Every tragedy began there. The only way to avoid it was to be alone.

"Hyung. You just going to sleep like this?"

"Hm?"

"You said you wanted the information."

"Figured you'd be tired after the overtime. I was going to ask when the sun's up."

"Can't sleep."

Come to think of it.

It did seem Clock-out Man had some private reason that left him in no position to pick and choose his commissions. Then again, who doesn't have their reasons.

"The information is one thing. There's something you have to do."

The execution comes first.