Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: The Memorial
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Vroooooom!
Inside the car tearing through the darkness, Leila glanced over at Kanghyeok.
Her eyes were a tangle of many emotions and thoughts.
Kanghyeok had dealt with a significant number of gang members in the dark.
Even the most seasoned veteran was bound to take a bullet, yet Kanghyeok’s expression showed no sign of a gunshot wound’s pain.
How could this be?
Did he somehow dodge all those bullets?
No, that was impossible.
That was even more unbelievable.
Then did a miracle happen?
‘Ha.’
As if things were ever that simple.
She regretted that Kanghyeok had cut the power.
Even though Leila had used night vision, she had been outside the building, and with the clear limitations of the goggles, she hadn't been able to see everything.
She felt a fresh wave of regret for not having been there on the scene with him.
“Find out who that guy is.”
“You mean Nobody?”
Kanghyeok answered with a nod.
“Something’s not right. I don’t care how trivial, find out everything you can.”
At Kanghyeok's words, Leila's tense expression relaxed slightly.
“Understood.”
She could agree so readily because Kanghyeok's request seemed simple enough.
Leila acknowledged that Nobody was a trained professional and had an aura that set him apart from the other gangs.
But at the end of the day, he was still a gangster.
The fact that he’d even used a sniper rifle was certainly surprising.
But she had seen the gangs here use grenades at the club.
They were definitely rougher than gangs in other regions.
But their essence was still that of a gang.
A fighting dog might be fiercer than other dogs, but it was still a dog.
A dog can't bite a tiger.
“Anything else?”
“Whether the other gang leaders are alive.”
Leila’s eyes narrowed at Kanghyeok.
“Why?”
Kanghyeok said nothing, his gaze shifting to the rearview mirror.
The building was already swallowed by darkness and far enough away to be invisible, but his eyes were clearly fixed in the direction where he had dispatched the gang.
“Matias wasn’t there.”
“I understand.”
Reading Kanghyeok’s intent, Leila asked no more questions.
What Kanghyeok was thinking now was whether the other gang leaders had been murdered.
If so, the question of who did it naturally followed.
But Leila and Kanghyeok already suspected the answer.
Nobody.
Kanghyeok replayed his voice in his mind.
A low, gravelly voice.
An accent laced with French.
A cruel man with no resistance to killing.
Matias had likely been killed by this man.
It wasn't an unfounded assumption.
The gangs' level of armament and high alert when he entered the building.
If they were afraid that the man who killed their boss would come for them next, it would explain everything.
“If.”
Just then, Leila broke the silence.
“If what you’re thinking is true, it’s not exactly bad news.”
When Kanghyeok nodded, a faint smile touched Leila's lips.
Kanghyeok’s mission was to clean up the gangs in this area.
What if Nobody had already eliminated the gang leaders?
He would have helped Kanghyeok with his work.
In that case, all that was left was to eliminate Nobody.
“I’ll do my best to find what you’ve asked for.”
“Estimated time?”
“It won’t take long. I’ll be using the company’s database.”
Leila picked up her phone to request access to the headquarters’ database.
She typed a message to have the necessary files and information emailed to her, then lifted her eyes to the rapidly approaching city lights.
They had now left the outskirts and entered what could be called the city proper.
Vroom.
Yet the car continued to move as if scouting the streets.
“Where are we headed?”
Kanghyeok answered, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“The supermarket.”
The place where the owner had been murdered.
As Leila shot him a questioning look, Kanghyeok’s lips twisted.
“If I were him, I’d have something to do there.”
It was a place where people dying was not unusual.
But sometimes, someone’s passing was mourned.
Someone who had lived in this area for a long time.
An innocent person, uninvolved with the gangs.
A person with many people to remember them.
The owner was that kind of person.
A memorial would be held, and the people she had come to know while running the supermarket here for so long would come to lay a single flower.
Would Nobody just let this pass?
The man who had murdered the owner to draw Kanghyeok’s attention and anger—would he let such a golden opportunity slip by?
Not a chance.
The people who would come to the memorial were, in some small way, connected to Kanghyeok.
There was no way Nobody would leave such people alone.
Whether Nobody himself showed up, or his men did, he would reveal himself in some way.
Clenching his jaw, Kanghyeok pressed down harder on the accelerator.
Graaaaaaah!
The engine began to roar, as if to say it would hurry with all its might.
***
Thump, thump, thump!
“Mom! Mom!”
Yohan shook the lumpy form under the blanket.
It was early morning, and an unusually dim sunlight filtered through the cracked window patched with tape.
“Ughhh.”
A nauseating smell of alcohol wafted from the annoyed groan.
It was nothing new.
Yohan’s mother was always like this.
“Wake up. I said, wake up! There’s somewhere we have to go.”
“Get lost, you fucking brat.”
A curse flew from his mother’s mouth, but Yohan, looking as if he were used to such words, continued to shake the blanket.
“Get up. Please?”
Thwack!
The blanket was kicked out from within in a spasm.
Yohan, who had nearly been hit, flinched and spoke in a pleading tone.
“We have to go to the memorial.”
As Yohan shook the blanket more roughly, his mother finally threw it off.
“Agh! Fuck! What’s the point of going?”
The sour stench of unwashed sweat and cheap makeup hit him.
And her attire was so vulgar it was embarrassing to look at.
With dark circles under her eyes from drug addiction and pale arms where her veins stood out, Yohan’s mother shrieked, spittle flying from her lips.
“Is someone gonna give us money if we go? Or is that dead bitch gonna come back to life?! Who the hell are you to bother me like this!”
Yohan flinched.
Still, his mother continued to spew venomous words with a malicious face.
“You useless piece of shit! You evil brat, you should just die! I should’ve never had you!”
Yohan had never once felt loved by his mother. It was a miracle he had survived and grown up at all.
It was a common story in this city.
Children like Yohan, fatherless and unloved.
“Go and die! Please!”
The venom and sincerity in her voice felt like it was gouging out his heart.
Dejected, Yohan stared at the floor for a moment before furrowing his brow and grabbing his mother’s wrist.
“Let’s go anyway, Mom. Please? Everyone else is going.”
“Ah, let go!”
His mother shook off his arm as if he were something filthy, and Yohan forced a smile as he spoke.
“I’ll give you money.”
“…Money?”
Seeing the malice in his mother’s eyes lessen, though they were still spiteful, Yohan continued.
“I sold some scrap I collected. I have a lot of money. I’ll give it all to you. Let’s go together.”
“Give it to me first.”
“I’ll give it to you when we get back.”
Yohan said this, thinking that if she got the money first, his mother wouldn’t follow him.
“Fucking hell, seriously.”
As if she were experiencing the most annoying thing in the world, Yohan’s mother cursed and got out of bed.
“I’ll wait outside!”
Yohan said brightly and waited for his mother outside the front door.
Worried she might have fallen back asleep, he pressed his ear to the door and heard a rustling sound. He let out a small sigh and clutched his chest in relief.
‘Mom.’
Yohan knew how other people treated his mother.
An easy woman.
A woman who would sleep with anyone for five dollars or two bottles of beer, who would do anything for a single hit of cheap drugs.
It would be hard to find a woman with a worse reputation in this city.
So why was he trying to take her to the memorial?
He wanted other people to see his mother as a human being.
He wanted to show them that his mother was an ordinary person, just like them, who could attend a memorial for someone else.
So please, let my mother live like a human being.
Don’t lure her with drugs or alcohol.
With this thought in his heart, Yohan had resolved to go to the memorial with his mother.
Thud!
The door, thrown open irritably, slammed into Yohan’s face.
“Move! Don’t block the way.”
Ignoring Yohan, who was clutching his nose, his mother strode forward.
She kept spewing curses, and Yohan followed behind her with a bitter smile.
He suddenly remembered a movie he’d seen as a child.
He couldn’t remember the title.
But the scene of a mother and son walking hand in hand was still vivid in his memory.
They had looked so close-knit and happy.
‘Mom, can we live like that someday?’
Lurch!
Perhaps because she was still drunk, his mother stumbled badly, and Yohan rushed to support her.
“Let go!”
“You can barely walk.”
Yohan wrapped an arm around his mother’s bony shoulder and carefully reached out his other hand.
It was heading for his mother’s hand.
The backs of their hands brushed lightly, and when he saw that his mother didn’t pull away, he interlocked their fingers with an incredibly slow movement.
Squeeze.
Yohan gave a faint smile and tightened his grip on their clasped hands.
As if it were a scene from the movie he’d seen as a child.
As if he would never let this hand go.
Holding hands like that, they walked to the supermarket where the memorial was being held.
***
“Final check.”
A man in a hood spoke from inside the van, his voice grating.
It was a van that could hold several people, an illegally modified vehicle with all the seats removed except for the driver’s and passenger’s.
In this city, something like this wasn’t a major issue.
But the weapons in their hands were problematic enough to make even corrupt cops flinch.
Shotguns and machine guns.
The weapons, reminiscent of a military arsenal, shone with a black luster, as if boasting of their newness.
Click, clack.
The men, all with their heads covered by hoods, checked the guns in their hands with practiced movements.
Seven men in total.
All of them were Nobody’s subordinates.
Armed with the money sent by the deceased gang leaders, they shook their heads one by one inside the cramped van.
The weapons were fine.
Clank!
The lid of a steel box full of ammunition was opened, and Nobody’s men took turns receiving bullets and loading them into their guns.
Click, clack, click.
Seeing the men around him loading their weapons, the man turned his gaze to the driver's seat.
He met the eyes of the man in the driver's seat, who was looking back, and slowly nodded.
They were ready.
All that was left was to get the call.
Chkk!
The radio hanging by the air vent let out a sharp, mechanical screech.
(Personnel converging on the strike zone. Operation begins in three minutes.)
“Copy that. Evacuate.”
The man in the driver's seat responded in a voice devoid of any tension.
(Understood.)
Grrrrumble!
When he started the ignition, the silent engine roared violently to life, and the gang members braced themselves by grabbing onto windows or protruding metal plates.
They were being deployed on a job that would involve using guns.
Yet not a single one of them was tense.
Part of it was their fear of their leader, Nobody, and the training they had received from him, but there was a bigger reason.
They weren't going to fight other gangs or Kanghyeok.
Their targets were civilians.
To kill everyone gathered for the supermarket owner’s memorial.
No one would resist, and no one would be able to stop them.
That was why their eyes could gleam in anticipation of the slaughter that was about to unfold.
Vroooooom.
It was time.
The van began to move.
It was heading for the place where the memorial was being held.