No Loose Ends
"You never said anything about high levels!"
One of the awakened they had paid a premium to recruit screamed as if he were coughing up blood. In truth, he did exactly that before dying on the spot.
The man beside him, who had only come for some easy pocket money, spun around and tried to flee. He didn't make it far. Kang Tae-sung picked up a priest's knife someone had dropped, hurled it with casual precision, and the blade punched through the runner's back, the tip emerging from his chest. The man stared down at the steel protruding from his body, then collapsed and never rose again.
"Like I thought—this knife is useless," came his younger brother's quiet mutter.
Kang Tae-sung confirmed the voice and tossed the iron pipe he had been wielding effectively to his brother. He snatched up a fresh weapon and swung it without missing a beat.
By now the awakened were slinking away, none daring to engage properly. Only the ordinary civilians who failed to read the room continued to charge in, each one dropping after a single blow.
As their numbers dwindled, the pace of the slaughter only accelerated. The brothers showed no mercy even to regular people. In the blink of an eye they had cleared the area. No one would be leaving this place alive. The world might no longer be a lawless wasteland, but they handled these foes the same way they had dealt with outlaws before returning from the otherworld—without hesitation or remorse.
They already knew where these men lived. Kang Han-sung's conclusion was simple: the only solution was to kill every last one of them. A quick glance at his older brother showed Tae-sung ending lives with the same detached efficiency. Confirming that his judgment had been correct, Han-sung moved with even greater ferocity.
When the few remaining enemies seemed to reach an unspoken agreement and began scattering in every direction, Kang Tae-sung was ready. As if he had anticipated it, he leaped straight up, then drove both feet into the ground with earth-shaking force. The solid asphalt of the national highway cratered beneath the impact with a deafening boom.
The center sank like it had been struck by a giant hammer, spiderweb cracks racing outward. Kang Tae-sung scooped up a suitably heavy chunk of broken asphalt and concrete, then hurled the fragments at the fleeing men's backs and the backs of their heads. The farthest runner had been nearly twenty meters away.
When silence finally settled over the scene, the only survivor—the boss—was frantically twisting the key in the ignition of a car that refused to start.
"Why won't it turn over?!"
A hand suddenly reached through the open window. The boss's left hand, still gripping the steering wheel, was seized. A sickening crunch followed, and he screamed as his arm was crushed beyond recognition.
"Aaaargh!"
He could no longer think about starting the car. The arm wasn't merely broken—it was pulverized. The limp limb dangled uselessly, sending fresh waves of agony through him with every tiny movement.
As the man gasped and wheezed in pain, a low voice spoke directly into his ear.
"That was two. Remember it well."
Having delivered the warning, Kang Tae-sung opened the door and dragged the man out.
The boss collapsed onto the pavement, his mangled arm causing so much pain that his face had gone deathly pale. He leaned his back against the front tire, breathing in shallow, ragged bursts.
Tap. Tap.
Kang Tae-sung lightly slapped the man's cheeks, then muttered, "Not carrying any poison, I see." Poison? Who in this day and age walked around with a suicide capsule?
The man clutched his ruined arm just below the elbow, trembling from pain, belated regret, and raw terror. Kang Tae-sung stood over him and asked again.
"How many?"
The boss saw the gaze fixed on his destroyed hand and answered before he could stop himself.
"...Two."
"I'm going to ask questions. I assume you can guess how this works."
The man nodded frantically. He understood perfectly. Questions in a situation like this only meant torture would follow.
"Base level is one. Every time you give a bad answer, hesitate, or provide an incomplete or unsatisfactory response, it goes up by one. Right now you're at two, so keep that in mind."
Kang Tae-sung stepped back. Kang Han-sung naturally moved forward to take his place.
When his brother gave a slight nod, Han-sung looked at him, then let out a small "Ah" of understanding.
"Me? Right. Questions."
He pulled out a brand-new phone, opened a memo app, and began the interrogation. He asked for the man's name, then his gender.
"Gender...?"
The boss stared back in confusion at the obvious question. Before he could process it, Kang Tae-sung stepped forward and kicked his leg. The ankle snapped cleanly.
"Haaagh!"
"That's one," Kang Tae-sung stated, looking down at him.
"You're probably thinking that death would at least end the pain."
-Go ahead and try it.
The words reached the man through a haze of excruciating pain and tears. He had been seriously considering taking his own life, but the statement pierced straight through his thoughts. The strength drained from his eyes.
The tone made it clear the brothers had absolute confidence they could prevent him from dying.
And people who spoke with that kind of certainty rarely lied.
After that, the answers poured out. The name of the person who had hired them, their background, the commission fee, personal details of everyone who knew about the job—everything.
"So only two more people need to be dealt with. Excluding you."
"Y-yes, that's correct."
The boss nodded vigorously with his still-intact head, his face even paler as he looked up at the brothers.
"If you have any last words, say them now."
What came from Kang Tae-sung's mouth was a request for a final statement.
The man's face twisted. He squeezed the words out.
"If... if I beg for my life, will you spare me?"
"I can keep you alive. If you want to live even like that, go ahead and beg."
The tone was completely flat.
Only now did the man realize how similar this was to what he had done to others countless times. Regret and remorse always arrived too late—far too late to change anything.
Thud.
His complexion had grown steadily worse. Suddenly he slumped sideways, strengthless. Kang Han-sung walked over, checked him, and tilted his head.
"Heart attack?"
Kang Tae-sung extended his foot and finished the job cleanly.
"Two people, then."
According to the dead man, only two more needed to be handled. The one who had commissioned the hit on Han-sung wasn't a corporation after all—it was Yu Chang-su. The relative who had betrayed Yu Chang-su was an executive at a subcontractor that supplied goods to a large corporation.
The relationships were tangled, but the dead man's statement confirmed that only two people currently knew about the situation involving Kang Han-sung. Unfortunately, both were difficult targets to touch.
One was a retired local dignitary who had served several terms as an assemblyman. The other was a high-ranking police officer.
"Getting involved with the political side always gets messy," Tae-sung said, his face expressionless.
Han-sung recognized the killing intent in his brother's eyes and quickly intervened.
"Dead men tell no tales."
"Are you planning to kill everyone you see? The whole world is covered in CCTV. We can smooth this incident over somehow, but we can't handle the other matter the same way."
"We can just cover our faces."
"What era do you think this is? Anyway, leave it to me from now on. I'll finish it cleanly with no complications."
"Nothing must splash back onto the family."
"That's what I'm most concerned about, so don't worry."
Han-sung said he would handle that side himself and pulled out his phone to make a call. Meanwhile, Kang Tae-sung wiped the blood of others from his hands and forearms, though such casual brushing couldn't truly clean it away.
"Let's rest for a bit. Leaving the scene like this will cause problems."
"There aren't any cars around."
"They must have blocked the road from farther away. Thanks to that, we were able to finish this quietly."
The brothers sat on a dirt mound at the side of the road and waited. They called home to check that nothing had happened there, and the youngest's assurance that everything was quiet allowed them to relax at least a little.
It was roughly two hours later when a large silver vehicle approached. It was a refrigerated truck. The rear doors of the cold compartment opened, and several people began to climb out.
Their clothing varied, but each wore an armband on their left forearm that read Scientific Investigation. They glanced over the scene, then turned their attention toward the Kang brothers sitting at the edge of the road.
The brothers looked back at them and immediately recognized that every newcomer was an awakened. All of them were lower level than the brothers, so they couldn't tell exactly how strong they were, but the nervous glances from a few suggested at least one or two Level 2s were present.
"For how messy it is, there's surprisingly little blood," someone remarked.
The person beside him nodded in agreement.
"This much would wash away with a good rain. Should we spray some cola?"
One man removed the waterproof gloves he had been wearing and switched to ordinary leather ones. They began removing the bodies and cleaning the ground. The corpses were loaded into the refrigerated truck they had arrived in.
At that moment, a middle-aged man who had been chewing on the end of a pipe walked toward the brothers, grumbling.
"Aish. The road's wrecked. How did this happen?"
"It was already like this," Kang Han-sung replied with a slightly pleased expression.
"Bullshit!"
The man shouted with a laugh, then puffed on his pipe and exhaled smoke along with his words.
"I was happy to get a call after so long, but it's just to come clean up bodies. What the hell are you doing these days?"
"It's the same work you usually do. It's no different from responding to a report."
"Who's that next to you? Looks similar."
A young woman who had been approaching from behind the pipe-smoking man exchanged a quick greeting with Han-sung, then asked the question.
"Interested? He's our family's eldest son."
"No thanks. Eldest sons aren't my type."
She gave a playful smile at Han-sung's response. She even shot a quick wink at Kang Tae-sung when their eyes met, then turned to resume her work—only to stop when the pipe-smoking man's voice reached her.
"Both brothers are Level 3?"
The others nearby turned to look at them with similar expressions. But they soon nodded in understanding and returned to their tasks.
"Well, that explains how they created this kind of scene. Looks like there were a ton of Level 1s here even if they were just civilians. So how did it turn out like this?"
"I guess you could say a corporation got involved. It's a bit complicated."
The man puffed on his pipe again at Han-sung's answer and shook his head.
"It's a money issue, huh? Must have been a big score."
"They didn't even get a chance to bite. We made sure they couldn't."
"Must have been quite the big score if they gathered this many awakened."
The man added that at least they had obtained plenty of biological samples, which was a silver lining. Then he noticed Han-sung opening his mouth again, this time directed at him.
"So about that..."
"What? You're trying to drag me into this too?"
He raised both hands as if to say he wanted no part of it, but stopped when he heard the next words.
"It's looking like the nation's money is about to be wasted."
"Hmm."
The man's face grew serious. He puffed on his pipe a few more times, then looked at Han-sung again.
"That won't do. I may not be much, but I am a national public servant. I can't tolerate something like that."
"Says the guy who took bribes and got demoted to the countryside. National public servant my ass."
Someone called out from behind them, and the others chuckled, but the man's expression remained deadly serious.
"Hey! Even dirty money can be put to good use. That's better for the money too."
"Sure, sure."
It was a conversation they had shared countless times before, so no one blushed or grew awkward. However, after listening to Han-sung's summarized explanation, the pipe-smoking man adopted a rather grave expression.
Author's Note
Thank you.
See you next time...