Chapter 11. Are You Even Human?
Chapter 11. Are You Even Human?
No matter how much he swung the knife, he couldn’t reach me, and he started panting.
I’d left him because Cheolmin hyung said he wanted to deal with him himself.
But thinking about it, wouldn’t it be enough as long as his neck was intact?
I immediately brought the broom down on the pierced, tattooed man’s wrist.
I’ll say it again—the broom was a trick. My real attack was telekinesis.
I applied pressure and turned his wrist bones into powder.
“You son of a bitch…”
Wow… the boss really was different.
The pain had to be insane, but he still glared at me and gritted his teeth.
“Hmm… what should we do? In movies, they threaten and torture people and stuff… Want me to make it hurt more?”
I asked Cheolmin, who was standing there staring blankly. Cheolmin blinked a few times, shook his head once, then said with grim resolve.
“We have to find my brothers’ bodies, no matter what.”
“Then I’ll make it hurt a bit more!”
I powdered the boss’s ankle bones too, as he clutched his shattered wrist and sat on the floor glaring at me with vicious eyes.
With telekinesis, I could see bone fragments lodged throughout his muscles.
So it would hurt more, I moved the fragments and jabbed his nerves.
“Gyaaagh…!”
And the other ankle too….
Now the pierced man was in real pain—he rolled on the floor screaming.
He begged me to stop.
“You heard me. Tell us where Cheolmin hyung’s brothers’ bodies are, and I’ll stop.”
“Basement… they’re being dealt with in the restaurant basement by an officer from the main society.”
“Main society? Officer?”
I repeated, because the answer made no sense to me.
“Kgh… ngh—our Incheon faction is a subordinate organization of the Triad. The main society constantly needs corpses, and we handle supplying bodies from Korea. An officer sent from the society processes the bodies directly. We only transport them—we’re not allowed inside.”
He spoke while sobbing snot and tears.
The Triad…
This was getting bigger.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter.
Just then, as if Cheolmin had contacted them, members of the Isu faction came in and tied up the guys on the floor.
But we still had the mission I’d promised Cheolmin: finding his brothers’ bodies.
We had to go down to the basement.
Just as the boss said, there was a stairway down inside a storage area past the restaurant kitchen.
It wasn’t a normal stairwell like in ordinary buildings.
It was a narrow, long stairway that felt like it led into an underground labyrinth.
If you slipped, you’d get badly hurt.
After two turns, a massive steel door blocked the way.
With telekinesis, I checked—it was bolted from the inside.
A structure you could only open from within.
But for me, it wasn’t a problem.
I shoved the bolt up and opened the door.
Beyond the steel door was a wide, plaza-like space, with dozens of corpses hanging from the ceiling.
You see scenes like that all the time in horror movies.
But seeing it in person was mildly disgusting.
It was cold like a refrigerator, like there was some device keeping the temperature low to slow decay. But it couldn’t stop it completely—the stench of rotting bodies filled the air.
“Wh-what the hell is this?!”
Cheolmin and two Isu faction members behind him panicked.
Then they started gagging.
Looking closer, there were containers placed under the bodies—probably to drain blood.
“Hyungcheol! Jinho!”
Seeing the especially large bodies, Cheolmin hyung screamed.
But they’d been dead for a long time.
I scanned the entire basement with telekinesis.
Out of forty-three corpses, there wasn’t a single living person.
“Huh?”
Something strange caught in my field.
In the corner, there was a bathtub filled to the brim with blood.
And someone inside it was alive.
I walked over and poked the blood in the tub with the broom in my hand.
“GRAAAH!”
The blood surged—and a giant over two meters tall rose up from inside.
How did someone that huge hide in a tub this narrow?
Did he learn circus tricks or something?
The giant swung an arm at me.
I tried to step back twice to dodge, but his arm suddenly stretched out, chasing me—so I stepped back three times and avoided it.
The claws that sliced past my eyes were sharp like blades.
Blood splattered toward my face, but I redirected it with telekinesis and avoided it.
“Are you even human?”
I asked the monster after he missed.
“Krrk! What are you! Who the hell are you?!”
He had a bald head and bloodshot eyes, and his fangs jutted out of his mouth.
His whole body was muscular, and his hands and feet looked monstrous.
Still, he had a human shape, and he could talk.
So… was he human?
“We came to retrieve the bodies of our people.”
Rather than punish him for the rude first strike, I asked what I was curious about.
“Are you human?”
“You insolent bastard!”
He didn’t answer—he just got furious and attacked again.
With Cheolmin and the Isu members watching behind me, I didn’t use telekinesis openly. I struck his side with the stick in my hand while squeezing his heart with telekinesis.
If he were a normal person, that level of cardiac impact would drop him.
But he only frowned and leapt out of the tub.
Tough body.
I checked the blood vessels in his head, and something was off.
It wasn’t a normal human structure.
Tens of times more vascular strands than a normal person—his brain was densely covered.
I lightly dodged his rushing attack and brought the broom down on his head.
This time, I applied a bit more pressure.
His skull shattered like a watermelon, and chunks of flesh sprayed everywhere.
“Oops!”
I killed him.
He looked sturdy, so I used a little more pressure—and he exploded.
Ah… I wasn’t trying to murder him!
The headless monster twitched for a moment, then collapsed with a thud.
I poked him with the broom a few times, but he was clearly dead.
Even his heart—which had held up under strong pressure—was stopping.
“This guy looks like he’s from the Triad… He doesn’t look human!”
Cheolmin and the Isu subordinates were hugging each other and trembling from far away.
It wasn’t exactly a normal sight, but for gangsters, they were way too scared.
“But… this is a problem. We should probably report this body and everything.”
My head started hurting as I thought about how to deal with what I’d done.
“Uh… uh, that—!”
One of the Isu guys pointed at the dead monster in shock.
When I turned, the corpse was slowly turning into dust and disappearing.
“It’s turning into dust. Vampire? Like a bloodsucker? That makes sense. That’s why they collected all this blood!”
I inferred the full picture.
They were vampires.
But Cheolmin hyung and the Isu faction’s faces were dark.
He looked like a monster, but I’d still been worried because I’d killed him.
Then the body disappeared.
Wouldn’t that mean it wasn’t a crime?
I realized my problem had vanished cleanly.
“Let’s go back for now. We’ll handle this and report it to the police. You won’t get involved in anything.”
Cheolmin hyung said, sounding like he’d finally collected himself.
“Then about the payment you promised…”
“Ah. I’ll give it to you right away.”
No matter how close you are, money should be handled cleanly.
We’d done everything we promised, so it was time to settle up.
Cheolmin hyung was a good person, and we’d grown closer, but this kind of thing should be resolved immediately so it doesn’t become a problem later.
But as Cheolmin was about to pay, he looked at me and said,
“But if I give it to you right away, you’ll have tax issues later… Are you sure?”
“Huh? Taxes?”
I asked back, baffled.
“Yes. With an amount like this, the National Tax Service will trace the funds. You’ll have to pay gift tax too. Later there’ll be income tax and things like that. Or I can bring it to you in cash.”
“Cash, please!”
Taxes…
As an orphan who lost my parents young and scraped by, this was an area I’d never stepped into.
Cheolmin hyung was probably right about tax issues.
I’d take it in cash first and think slowly.
Wait. Then what about the 1.4 billion in cash?
That would probably cause problems later too.
Ah… worrying about taxes.
I really had grown.
A concern only rich people have—now I had it too….
There was no immediate answer, but the sense that my status had risen made me feel proud.
For now, I’d bundle this money too and hide it between the motel signs, then find a method.
I went back up to the first floor and expanded my telekinesis field.
CCTVs within five hundred meters: thirty-eight in total.
Cameras installed in shops, buildings, or parked vehicles.
It would be nice to only erase what mattered, but I couldn’t distinguish them, so I had to erase them all.
I crushed every storage device connected to those CCTVs. I turned them into powder so even forensic recovery wouldn’t work.
Then I checked my movement path and crushed every hair or fingerprint I might have left behind.
The training from cleaning rooms—never allowing even a speck of dust—paid off in moments like this.
Cheolmin called a taxi and sent Kang Chan off, then swallowed blood-tears as he looked at his dead brothers’ bodies.
They’d lived and suffered together for years. Seeing them turned into cold corpses made tears well up on their own.
He wanted to kill every one of those Incheon bastards lying on the floor, but with the bodies discovered in the basement, he couldn’t escalate things any further.
This level of incident had to be reported to the police.
The Isu faction was only the victim, so there wasn’t much to fear in reporting it.
They’d been a bit heavy-handed, but against opponents who rushed in with blades, this much was self-defense.
They could say they’d only come to find their kidnapped brothers.
It was a miracle they hadn’t killed the boss.
If they’d taken a head like the original plan, calling the police would’ve been impossible.
While waiting for the police, Cheolmin looked around the restaurant interior and found a large box under a desk deep in the kitchen.
Inside were bundles of drugs weighing dozens of kilos—and cash.
Roughly counting, the cash was three billion won.
Cheolmin brought a bag, left the drugs, and swept all the cash into it.
It was enough to rebuild an organization on the verge of collapse.
“I’m back.”
Dragging my slippers, I entered the motel and spoke to Chanhyeok hyung.
As expected for a weekday, it was quiet.
The manager was gone, and only Chanhyeok hyung remained, worn out and sprawled in the counter chair.
“Hey! What the hell happened?!”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t understand him yelling at me, so I asked back.
“What the hell are those long-term guests?!”
“Huh? What do you mean what are they? They’re long-term guests.”
“No—why is that guy coming to me, telling me to work or not work?!”
If an employee doesn’t show up, calling them to get them to come in is normal, isn’t it?
That was the manager’s job, but Cheolmin hyung did it for him.
I didn’t understand why Chanhyeok hyung was so angry.
So I smiled and said,
“Right? I don’t know either.”
“Ah, fuck, I’m screwed now. I can’t even quit this miserable place anymore!”
Just then, the door to Room 102 opened and Bella came out.
“Annyeong, Chan! Me, this!”
In awkward Korean, she showed me a photo of mango bingsu.
But I wasn’t on shift today.
So I pointed at myself, made an X sign, and pointed at Chanhyeok hyung.
Bella seemed to understand and showed the mango bingsu photo to Chanhyeok hyung.
Chanhyeok hyung, who’d been raging a second ago, turned bright red and fumbled as he ordered mango bingsu on his phone.
Bella handed him a 50,000 won bill, but he insisted it was fine and said he’d pay.
Bella tilted her head for a moment, then smiled once at him and went back into her room.
“Hey! Did you see her?!”
“Bella?”
“Bella? That woman? She’s insane—she’s a doll, a doll! Doesn’t she look like she likes me?”
The face of the man who’d been lamenting like the world was ending just moments ago suddenly looked alive again.
Normal people were really hard to understand.
They had a completely different system of perception from me.
As I was heading up to the rooftop lodging, I saw a breaking news alert on the TV that was on inside the office.
“This is breaking news. Dozens of corpses have been discovered at a restaurant in Incheon, shocking the nation.”
On screen was the restaurant I’d just left.
“Dozens? Holy shit—isn’t that insane?”
Chanhyeok hyung was startled too and stared at the news.
“According to police, this is believed to be the work of organized crime in Incheon. The group is suspected of kidnapping innocent victims and trafficking their organs. A significant quantity of methamphetamine was also found at the scene. This case was revealed through a report from an affected citizen, and police are closely investigating the circumstances. We will continue to bring you updates as they come in.”
Then Cheolmin hyung appeared on screen.
He was smoking while speaking with police.
“Uh… th-that’s Room 105? Is that guy a serial killer who murdered dozens?!”
Chanhyeok hyung gaped at the sight.
Cheolmin hyung was on the victim side, not the perpetrator….
It looked like a misunderstanding, but it had nothing to do with me, so I went back to my room.