Waste to Points
“You know Chang-su? Yu Chang-su.”
“Who?”
“You might not remember… He used to come over to our old house and play with me when we were kids.”
“It rings a bell, but barely. What about him?”
“I ran into him by chance while wandering around after I got back. Turns out he’d awakened too. We were both glad to see each other and kept in touch.”
Kang Han-sung paused mid-story and glanced around again, checking their surroundings.
“A little while ago he told me he’d found something huge. Asked if I had money to invest in a business.”
“……”
“I know. Classic line. But he looked so serious that I figured I’d at least hear him out. What he said was… strange.”
Yu Chang-su already had a wife. He’d met and married her after returning. Even as an awakened hunter, he apparently couldn’t escape being nagged. She’d scolded him about a trash bag still sitting by the door in the evening.
“Grumbling, he grabbed the bag and left the house. Said he didn’t feel like walking all the way to the dump. That’s when the crazy idea hit him.”
It was the system’s exchange function—the one that let hunters convert monster byproducts into points. Wondering why the thought had occurred to him, he glanced down at the trash bag and willed it to be exchanged.
“Of course the notification window popped up. That’s where the problem started.”
Quality is too low to convert to points.
Please secure a larger quantity and try again.
“……”
“He could turn trash into points.”
Having reached that point in the story, Kang Han-sung looked toward the vending machine in the hallway beyond the glass and walked over to buy two cans of soda. He handed one to his brother.
“You try it too.”
“Try what?”
“Just drink first.”
After downing the carbonated drink in one go and letting out a sharp burp, Kang Han-sung pointed at the empty can in his hand. Kang Tae-sung finished his own drink, studied the can, and willed it to exchange for points.
Insufficient quantity to convert to points.
“Says the quantity’s insufficient.”
“It’s metal, so it’s better than regular trash.”
“……”
“From that day on I went everywhere, touching anything I could find. Scrap yards, landfills… I even went to the sewage treatment plant.”
“Why there?”
“To see if wastewater could be exchanged.”
“No way.”
“That ‘no way’ nearly got someone killed.”
Instead of a flat refusal, the messages that appeared were either “quality too low, secure more quantity” or “insufficient quantity.” After testing what worked and what didn’t, a pattern emerged.
“First off, anything in its natural state won’t work. Dirt, soil, sand piles—no. Flowing water or stored water—also no.”
Artificially processed items seemed exchangeable, Kang Han-sung explained. Especially contaminated materials or chemicals stored in drums.
“Changing the world…”
“By turning pollutants into points. Factory wastewater, household sewage, trash, all kinds of waste… the stuff that causes serious air pollution when you burn it.”
“Can’t even guess the principle behind it.”
“Once I realized that, I started thinking. Maybe this system… was sent down by God so humans could live better.”
Eliminate pollutants and earn points at the same time. On top of that, ordinary awakenings enhanced physical abilities so people could fight monsters. It felt as if they’d been given weapons to combat the world’s changes and pollution.
“So why today?”
“I’d already pretty much finalized things with Yu Chang-su. We were going to partner up and start a company. Something like a purification specialist firm.”
But the man had betrayed him, Kang Han-sung said bitterly.
“Probably found a bigger fish. Looks like he’d been sounding out multiple places from the start. Then someone bigger than me bit.”
The meeting spot had been remote, which felt off, but he’d dismissed it. That dismissal had come back to bite him.
“He didn’t show. Instead a bunch of other guys came. A crew mixed with awakened hunters. You saw them earlier.”
“Looked like a professional hit squad.”
Their uniforms were identical, and helmets hid their expressions, but the way they moved made it clear they had no hesitation about killing. The ones who had blocked his younger brother and closed in had clearly intended to finish the job.
“Yeah.”
At that moment Kang Han-sung’s expression hardened as his gaze fixed on something.
On the wall-mounted TV that silently played news, a local news ticker was scrolling by.
“Three-vehicle pileup…”
“……”
Kang Tae-sung followed his brother’s stare. The ticker reported a three-car collision on a provincial highway that left two dead and seven injured.
Traffic accidents happened all the time, some fatal. Yet both brothers’ eyes stayed glued to the screen because the names and ages of the deceased matched someone they had just been discussing.
Yu Chang-su—the man who had agreed to go into business with Kang Han-sung only to betray him—had his name and age listed. While people could share the same name and age, the odds of the wife’s name and age also matching were far lower. The two fatalities were Yu Chang-su and his wife.
“Looks like ‘no way’ was right again.”
After the ticker repeated several times and finally moved on, the main news switched to a breaking report: a major corporation had developed groundbreaking technology to dispose of nuclear waste. The technology could sequentially eliminate the country’s troublesome nuclear waste, and negotiations with the government over costs were underway.
“Groundbreaking technology, my ass…”
The moment he saw it, he knew those people were behind it.
“So nuclear waste works too.”
“At that level there’s probably a lot of energy inside. They recycle the stuff normally anyway. Bet it gives a ton of points… Even if the points aren’t huge, they’ll still rake in government money.”
They could profit from both sides.
Kang Han-sung glared at the corporate logo on screen, certain those were the culprits.
“We’re screwed. But I’m not going down alone.”
“What are you planning?”
“Spread it to the government.”
He had already thought keeping the secret would be difficult. It had been discovered by chance, but with awakened hunters worldwide, someone else might have found it already. Some countries might even be using it routinely.
Even if they tried to make money from it, they would never rise above scrap-dealer level—that was the flimsy consolation he had told himself. Of course, scrap dealing was surprisingly lucrative.
“Let’s get going. How’s your stomach?”
“Pretty much healed. They barely grazed me to begin with. Just scraped enough to bleed a lot.”
Leaving the agricultural cooperative, the brothers removed the SIM and SD card from their old phones, smashed the devices, and tossed them into a nearby trash bin. At a nearby phone store they canceled the old lines and bought new phones. The penalty fee was small enough not to matter.
Back at the traditional market they bought several sets of ordinary clothes and layered them so the extra bulk wouldn’t stand out. At a glance their body shapes looked different.
“Don’t trust the government too much just because it’s the government.”
At his brother’s warning, Kang Han-sung nodded slightly.
“I know that much.”
They took a taxi home. Parked in the alley—right in front of the gate—was a police car, and people were standing at the gate facing off. The youngest stood calmly opposite two officers while Kang Yu-ri cowered behind him, face pale with fear. When the taxi arrived, everyone’s eyes turned toward them.
“Kang Han-sung. You’re under arrest for assault and murder.”
“……”
The two officers approached the second son as if they had known exactly who to expect, reciting the Miranda warning.
“Oppa!”
“Little brother. What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry and stay inside. It’s nothing.”
“I’ll go with them. You stay with Yu-ri. I’ll call later.”
Kang Tae-sung watched the officers handcuff only his brother while ignoring him, then added, “Protective custody. I’m coming too.”
“……”
The officers exchanged a quick glance and nodded expressionlessly.
“Very well.”
To prepare for any unexpected developments, Kang Tae-sung took the passenger seat while Kang Han-sung and the remaining officer sat in the back.
“Which station are you from?”
Kang Han-sung asked casually, but the officers gave no answer. From the passenger seat, Kang Tae-sung pulled the seatbelt across and studied the driver.
“……”
Glancing at the side mirror, Kang Tae-sung met his brother’s eyes in the reflection. Both gave the faintest shake of their heads.
The car kept moving.
There had been a nearby police station, yet they were taking a completely different route. Even if they were from another station, the road was wrong. They turned onto an outer road, then onto a quiet side road, and soon no other cars appeared.
The brothers met eyes in the mirror again. Unlike the expressionless Kang Tae-sung, Kang Han-sung’s mouth curved into a small smile as he shook his head.
‘Let’s see.’
Through the rearview mirror Kang Han-sung examined the driver’s upper body more closely. The man wore only a police jacket; beneath the slightly rumpled open zipper was a leather garment no real officer would wear.
Suddenly the police car stopped in the middle of the road. The driver and the officer in the back seat flung their doors open and scrambled out as if the vehicle were about to explode. While they retreated, several black vans appeared from nowhere, blocking the road ahead and behind. People poured out of the side doors like monsters hatching from eggs.
Roughly twenty men surrounded the car. The door on the opposite side creaked open and the two brothers stepped out slowly, looking around. The handcuffs that had been on Kang Han-sung’s wrists were nowhere to be seen.
The men encircling them showed no fear. Some scowled, others smirked faintly. From the open door of a van farther back, a man sitting sideways spoke.
“Finish this with as few wounds as possible. We still have to pin it on the two dead cops, so avoid anything too obvious.”
At his words the men holding knives slid them away and picked up wooden clubs or steel pipes instead. Watching quietly, Kang Han-sung spoke as if sighing.
“Yu Chang-su was your work too?”
“Thank you for noticing.”
The man answered without hesitation, confident they would wrap things up here.
“Why leave our family alone? Was an awakened hunter waiting at the house outside your expectations?”
The men in police uniforms weren’t awakened. Even so, Kang Tae-sung had sensed they weren’t real officers yet had come along anyway—to trace the roots of the plot.
Whether the man understood that or not, he spoke again.
“Once we’re done here, the rest will be handled without prompting. Don’t worry.”
The man clapped his hands twice.
The surrounding men raised their weapons and began closing in from all sides.
“……”
By the numbers, there were about fifteen awakened hunters and ten ordinary men.
Most of the awakened had been hired as mercenaries at premium rates for this job. Judging by their confident approach, none of them felt the slightest fear.
“Well, Level 1s never see what’s right in front of them.”
Kang Han-sung chuckled under his breath.
Level 1 awakened couldn’t sense hunters of higher levels. They could only vaguely tell whether someone was awakened or not. That was why they sometimes charged into situations they should have avoided and paid the price.
Thud. Thud.
Thinking this was exactly such a moment, Kang Han-sung clenched his fists—only to see Kang Tae-sung casually walk toward one side.
With an utterly ordinary expression and gait that carried no hostility, Kang Tae-sung approached a man who had a thick steel pipe slung over his shoulder.
The man, who hadn’t been tense at all, stared down at Kang Tae-sung now standing before him.
“……”
He had heard the target was awakened. That was all.
He himself was awakened, and he knew there were more than ten awakened hunters here. Was that sense of superiority, or simply the fact that he was taller? While looking down, Kang Tae-sung met his eyes and spoke.
“Because you’re holding a decent steel pipe.”
“……?”
“That’s why you’ll be the first to die.”
Crack.
The sound of bone shattering was unmistakable. The man died with a broken neck before he could even scream. His steel pipe passed smoothly into Kang Tae-sung’s hands, who immediately swung it at the next man still trying to grasp the situation.
The pipe, lightly infused with mana from the start, made almost no sound as it crushed bone and flesh alike.
Three men died without resistance, and a fourth was struck before the rest finally came to their senses and rushed in with their weapons properly raised.
But their opponent was not alone.
Thud!
When someone collapsed clutching his stomach, Kang Han-sung snatched a small knife from the man’s hand and examined it briefly before gripping it correctly.
“Not a big fan of karambits…”
Still, better than bare hands, he muttered, and began moving in earnest. Thanks to his high agility, no one could keep up; one after another they were cut down and fell.
“What the…”
“What’s happening?”
The once-confident atmosphere collapsed in mere moments. The two brothers were on a completely different level. Strength, agility—neither could be properly measured.
Crunch!
Crack!
“Aaaagh!”
“S-spare… Aaaagh!”
“……”
The man waiting in the back for the job to finish witnessed something he had never imagined. He had been told to be careful, of course. But with more than ten awakened hunters hired at great expense, he had believed he had done enough. Each one had cost a fortune.
It's 2015.
You worked hard last year.
I hope the new year brings rewards equal to your efforts.
Thank you.
See you next time.