The Taste of Home
Out on the street, half-naked prostitutes strutted about, flaunting their merchandise. The ones with truly outstanding product value would lean in to talk with cars idling at the curb, then climb aboard and vanish. It was blatantly illegal—and yet, practiced so openly and for so long, it had settled into ordinary scenery. It could hardly have been otherwise, when the police who ought to have been correcting such crimes were looking the other way.
Kang In-ah was no exception.
An elite headhunted into the Superhuman Crime Division, she had taken the badge in her early twenties with a spine full of upright ideals. Now she was nothing but another employee worn thin by fatigue. Like most office workers, she shut off any interest in business that wasn't hers. A prostitute selling her body? What did she care. It wasn't worth a thought. Kang In-ah brushed the petty crime aside and called up the case she had just been given.
"Who's even capable of touching the Yong-sik Gang?"
Since the world had gone strange, criminal organizations had been fattening themselves. Among them, the Yong-sik Gang were thugs who could be said, without exaggeration, to own the night streets of Seoul.
"Nobody, really. The Yong-sik Gang has this whole area locked down, and you know how thorough those bastards are. Anyone with a grudge against them wouldn't still be breathing."
Kang In-ah nodded at her subordinate's answer from the driver's seat.
"And yet a case happened. They even say a superhuman died?"
Superhumans—the tactical weapons of the new age. Monsters who could overwhelm an army on their own. The one who had died this time was not on that level. Still, however low the grade, a superhuman was a superhuman in name and in fact. A hundred ordinary people could rush one and still struggle to kill them. Which meant, obviously, that if the dead man was a superhuman, the killer had to be one too. A crime with a superhuman plainly involved. It was only natural that the Superhuman Crime Division take the investigation.
All this because some criminal bastard got himself killed? They ought to pin a medal on whoever did it.
She didn't want to. But once a case was assigned, she had to investigate.
"You think somebody's out playing hero?"
"Those types know where not to stick their necks out. You know how many hero-complex idiots the Yong-sik Gang has already put down."
"Could be a rookie."
"The scene doesn't really fit that..."
While they talked, they arrived. Police held the line around a building burned black, and reporters who had sniffed out the story had come swarming. The acrid smell of ash mixed with the stink of charred flesh. Kang In-ah got out of the car, wrinkled her nose, and stepped onto the scene.
"Inspector Kang In-ah, Superhuman Division? This way, please."
She followed the forensics officer after he checked the ID hanging at her neck. A blackened corpse lay there. She knew at a glance that it was a superhuman's body. Unlike ordinary people, superhumans held mana, and a considerable amount of it lingered even after death.
"We'll know more after the autopsy, but it looks like he died from a stab to the neck."
"And the weapon?"
"Again, the autopsy will confirm it, but judging by the wound, it was probably a narrow-bladed dagger."
"Has the deceased been identified?"
"We checked the mana print. No match."
A mana print was a kind of fingerprint. Every user of mana had a unique pattern, so identity could be established through it. No match meant the print had never been registered. An unregistered superhuman. Under the Superhuman Act, the deceased was a criminal guilty of a serious offense.
"I think I know who it is. Look at this bracelet. The boss of the Yong-sik Gang hands these out to the men he favors. Names written on them and everything."
Her subordinate pointed at the bracelet on the corpse. It bore the name Lee Seok-won. Lee Seok-won—a name Kang In-ah had heard before.
"Lee Seok-won. That's Yong-sik's cousin, isn't it?"
"Yes. Only a one-star, but he's a cousin on the mother's side, and as I understand it the boss trusted him."
Kang In-ah glanced around. There was what looked like a reception counter, and a sofa meant for people to sit and wait. Among the burned signs, the letters Kim■■■won were still partly legible.
"If this is the clinic Lee Seok-won was guarding... this is the Log Factory, isn't it?"
"...Seems that way."
"Heh. Yong-sik's going to be furious. His favorite cousin dead, and the Log Factory that was printing him money reduced to ash."
A fine piece of work. Whoever had done it, she hoped they wouldn't be caught. But Kang In-ah was a cop, which meant she was stuck having to arrest the precious soul who had screwed the Yong-sik Gang. Personal feelings had to be set aside. Her eyes went to Lee Seok-won's corpse. There weren't many marks on it—a stab wound in the neck, a stab wound in the thigh. That was all.
"Look at this. This isn't someone who's only ever cut down one or two people. A pro, right?"
The picture drew itself in her head. First a stab to the thigh to kill mobility, then a gap, then the neck. Two strikes at most. Killed after thorough calculation. It was no exaggeration to say this person had attained mastery in murder. She went on to the wounds on the other dead. Much the same marks.
One Strike, One Kill.
Unlike the superhuman Lee Seok-won, every ordinary person had died in a single blow. A hand so clean it was astonishing. Not a trace of hesitation or delay. A prodigy of murder, the likes of which she had never seen, had appeared.
"They wiped the scene clean. Not a hero-complex case, for a start. Those people don't spare a thought for covering their tracks."
She called up the wounds she had seen over the years.
"The marks are all of a piece, so this was a solo job. A hitman? No. A hitman of this caliber doesn't get shown until you're actually going to war."
A capable hitman was a card you kept hidden until you needed it. Anyone stupid enough to spend one when they weren't even at war with the Yong-sik Gang couldn't have built an organization in Seoul in the first place.
"This smells like a Fixer to me. Yong-sik's been greasing the right palms well enough—did he go and get on the wrong side of someone important?"
Nothing more to see. Kang In-ah peeled off the gloves she had used to rummage over the corpse and left the scene. When she got into the car, her subordinate climbed in after her and took the wheel.
"Where to now? Should we start digging into the Fixers?"
"Dig into what? The investigation ends here. The moment the old men upstairs hear a Fixer's involved, they'll tell us to shut it down."
In the new era, Korea was a place where non-interference between the government and the martial world was the baseline. The Superhuman Crime Division claimed to investigate superhuman crime, but that was nothing but a signboard. So long as no one threatened the government, or caused an incident big enough that the government had to step in, the principle was to look away—all the more so for things that happened in the dark.
Even so, someone's complaint occasionally forced an investigation into a shadow incident, just like this one. But if the prime suspect was not some rootless wanderer with no backing, the story changed. Fixers were people who took commissions. Touch a Fixer, and you risked provoking whoever had hired them. If, by some miserable chance, the client turned out to be a high official in the government, the ones left holding the bag would be the police. So the moment word got out that a Fixer was involved, the brass would certainly order the investigation closed.
"So you tell Yong-sik exactly that. Don't go poking people who have nothing to do with it. If he wants a fight, he can have it out with the Fixers."
A smile rose at the corner of Kang In-ah's mouth. She had already disliked having to help Yong-sik, and now that she didn't have to, her mood lifted on its own.
Wherever you are, you wonderful person who screwed Yong-sik over—I'd love to send you a gift.
Dokseon moved with the habits the Cultivation Realm had beaten into her, slipping clear of any pursuit that might follow. For a cultivator, flight was among the most basic of competencies. She had even run from Shangdi, and putting that hard-won skill to use, she put a long distance between herself and the scene without meeting a single soul. Then she found a restroom and stepped inside.
The mirror showed a prostitute who had covered herself with nothing but an oversized jacket, her makeup still a smeared ruin. She had left it that way on purpose. If anyone saw her face, all they would remember was the mess of cosmetics. But she had no need of it anymore. She scrubbed the smeared makeup off with soap until her face was clean, stripped out of the clothes she was wearing, stuffed them into a bag, and changed into what she had looted. Last of all she checked her skin for blood and washed herself with care. Only then did she look in the mirror.
A decadent beauty with dark circles sunk deep beneath her eyes stared back, swallowed in a sloppy tracksuit. An unfamiliar face. Of course it was. She had been in this body for only a few hours—and it wasn't even a man's.
Among True Immortals there were those who lived by changing their sex as the mood took them, but Dokseon had never once done so. She simply hadn't wanted to. Nor did she find it especially horrific that she was a woman now. All that had changed was the genitals. Nothing else was different. Change the sex, and Dokseon was still Dokseon. Pitching a fit because it felt empty between her legs would have been unlike her.
She examined the body she would be using from here on with the same eye one used to appraise merchandise.
Skin's ruined.
Dry, with not a hint of luster. No deep creases yet, but fine wrinkles stood out everywhere. The drugs, most likely. When she had possessed this body she had perfectly restored the vital organs, but she hadn't bothered with the skin. Skin of this degree would recover soon enough once she cultivated, so it hardly mattered.
The face, though. That I like.
Even under the heavy dark circles and the poor skin, the beauty refused to hide. It gave off a thick air of decadence. She had never particularly wanted to become a woman—but if she was going to be one anyway, better a pretty one, wasn't it?
The figure's not bad, either.
She had changed into a loose tracksuit, and still the feminine curves would not stay hidden. Breasts and backside swelled full enough to snare a man's eyes. An excellent figure, for a woman. And uncomfortable. A feast for the eyes, and miserable to operate. Every time she moved, breast and hip jiggled, and the sensation was hopelessly alien.
How the hell do women walk around hauling these things?
Dokseon lifted the breasts that had appeared on her and shook her head. This was the body she would have to use. Even if she disliked it enough to want a replacement, she could not swap it out on the spot. Complaining would change nothing. Better to spend the time on something productive.
A meal.
She walked out of the restroom and went looking for a barbecue house. It was past midnight, but fortunately one place was still open. The moment she sat, she ordered three servings of pork belly and a bowl of spicy mixed cold noodles. The grill came up, and before long the meat and the side dishes followed. She waited until the iron was properly hot, then laid the pork belly on it. A pleasant hiss rose off the grill. While the meat cooked she picked at the sides—seasoned radish strips, and bean sprouts. Clean, mild, lightly salted. Nothing she would have called especially delicious, but it was the taste of home, and that alone made it good.
Meanwhile the pork belly rendered, fat running out in a steady crackle as it browned to a deep gold. She cut it into proper pieces and laid them over the spicy cold noodles, which arrived just in time. She swallowed hard and ate pork belly and noodles together. Savory meat-juice and sweet-hot noodles became one thing in her mouth—an overwhelming flavor. The more she chewed, the happier her mouth became. It was a world apart from the crude imitations she had cobbled together in the Cultivation Realm.
Right. This is what I came back for.
Dokseon's chopsticks found the kimchi. Kimchi—something she had wanted to taste in the Cultivation Realm and, of course, never had. She bit down, and the taste she had missed flooded her mouth. The taste of home, in the truest sense. She was moved. At the root of her, Dokseon was an incorrigible kimchi fiend after all.
Having savored the kimchi to the full, she swallowed what was in her mouth and picked up a leaf of lettuce. She spread it across her palm, laid a perilla leaf on top, set two slices of pork belly over that, and crowned it with a smear of ssamjang and a slice of raw garlic. A lettuce wrap. She cleared the last of the food down her throat and put the wrap in, mouth opened wide.
"This. This is the real thing."
She hadn't chewed more than a few times before the praise came out of her on its own. The crisp bite of lettuce and the perilla leaf's distinctive fragrance lifted the pork belly, while the sharp garlic and the ssamjang cut the grease.
Exquisite.
Her mouth was, quite simply, happy. To think she had gone ten thousand years without eating anything this good. She had, in effect, spent ten thousand years living at a loss.