The Price of Humanity
The man and his companion who had helped us until the very end outside now returned. They introduced themselves as the father and the uncle.
“It’s humble, but please make yourselves comfortable even if you’re exhausted.”
“We’re sorry we can’t offer you a proper meal.”
“Haha, no, not at all. Just giving us a place to rest is more than enough.”
Gurgle—
The sound definitely hadn’t come from our group. If I had to guess, it was probably—
The boy who had first spoken to us. The noise had come from him.
“You little son of a bitch!!! If I give you food, you eat it!!! Look at you, nothing but skin and bones!!”
Thud—
A fist flew out.
“Guests! In front of guests! What kind of disgrace is this?!”
The rest of the so-called family simply watched with emotionless eyes. As if they saw no problem at all.
My brow furrowed.
“Stop….”
“Are you trying to put on a show in front of me right now? Calling me a useless head of the household?”
“Stop it….”
A small murmur came from beside me.
“You bastard. Go on, glare at me again. Glare! Look at me like I’m pathetic!”
“Stop…!”
As I watched the boy curl up precariously, his body jerking from the kicks, I rose at the same time as the figure beside me.
This month’s maintenance fee must be paid by midnight tonight.
“Broadcast?”
The hand of the man who called himself the father, which had been swinging wildly, froze in midair.
“What exactly are you doing?”
“Ahem. It’s nothing. We’re short on food, and the child is being picky, so I lost my temper for a moment…. As a father who starves himself to share what little we have, it hurts when he refuses to eat.”
“Even so, that was too much.”
I casually took a step to the side, hiding Jisu behind me. Then I reached back, took the knife from her raised hand, and pulled it away.
I could feel uncontrollable trembling in her resisting grip.
No… Jisu, weren’t you a civilian until just a few days ago? Were you really about to stab someone? Were you going to kill him?
“We have some food—”
Minhee opened her backpack. The chocolate, hot bars, cup ramen, and other items we’d brought spilled out in a jumble.
“We brought a little extra, so please help yourselves.”
“H-how can we accept something so precious….”
“We have more than enough for ourselves, so don’t hesitate. Mr. Baek Sangheon.”
“Y-yes?”
“You’re Baek Sangheon from Jungnyang-gu, Hallim Villa, right?”
“Y-yes, that’s correct. How did you….”
“We’ve greeted each other a few times at church. Don’t you remember?”
“M-Minhee?”
“Yes. We’re not strangers, so please don’t feel burdened.”
“Ah, y-yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Hmm. Minhee, I don’t think that’s something you should be deciding on your own.
My eyes met Yena’s. She was busy taking care of Hyunah, who was still trembling and unable to control her shaking.
She shook her head.
Hmm. You think it’s wrong too, huh?
Contrary to what I was thinking, I quietly watched as the family received the food. The way they fidgeted and snatched at it was almost comical.
“It’s getting late. We’ll prepare a place for you. Please rest.”
Perhaps their friendliness had increased with the gift of food, because the man who called himself the uncle approached us with a bright smile.
“As you can see, we don’t have much space, so you’ll have to sleep in one room….”
Oh, is that all?
“That’s fine with us.”
When I said it with a grin, Jisu turned to me with the eyes of a startled rabbit. But relax, relax. I don’t have such vulgar tastes that I’d be interested in a child.
*
“Jisu.”
“Y-yes? Yes!”
Why was this young lady suddenly so rigidly formal?
“Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“Well, that is… I mean….”
Jisu squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.
“How can I sleep comfortably with a strange man in the room!”
“….”
Good grief. I was at a loss for words.
“Don’t worry and just sleep, Jisu. With so many women here, and even Hyunah, do you really think I’d do anything inappropriate?”
“R-right?”
I could hear her sigh of relief as she burrowed under the blanket.
“I’m sorry for acting on my own earlier.”
She must have meant what happened back then.
“I was a little surprised.”
“W-when I saw you treating a person like a dog on a hot summer day… I… I couldn’t feel any value in respecting them as a person… ugh….”
If Catholic believers who wanted to confess their sins had a confessional, then for her, that blanket was probably her confessional.
“I got so angry without realizing it, and all I could think about was killing him… What should I do? We’re going to be living together for now, and if he saw me like that it would be so awkward… And honestly, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back next time….”
I could easily imagine the hesitant expression on her face.
“You worry about the strangest things.”
“Huh?”
I yanked the blanket off her.
“Eek!”
“Do you remember what I told you before?”
“W-what.”
“That if things get dangerous, I’ll at least get you out, so trust me and wait.”
“Ah….”
“Do whatever you want. I’ll protect you no matter what.”
“Y-yes….”
She slowly pulled the blanket back over herself. Then, just like that, she fell asleep.
Hmm. Not a bad feeling.
Maybe I’m actually a pretty decent person?
That exciting mood might have lasted a while longer if Yena hadn’t been staring at me from the side with a look that said I was pathetic.
“Hmph. What? What is it!”
“Master… doing that to a young girl… your dignity….”
“Don’t slander me!”
She really was just a malicious hater! If even she was like this, who could I trust?
“Is the kid asleep now?”
“Yes.”
Hyunah was making soft breathing sounds, asleep in Yena’s arms. Her clumsily closed eyes still had tears clinging to them, as if they would fall at any moment.
“Yena.”
“Speak.”
“If it were just the two of us, we could escape somehow right now.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m not stubbornly insisting on saving everyone even though there’s no way….”
“Take the hand that is held out to you. Grasp that frail hand and pull with all your strength. It will be a difficult task. The wise may laugh and call it foolish. The foolish may not know gratitude and may even bare their teeth at times. However.”
Yena paused, closing her eyes gently as if recalling a distant past.
“Wiping away the tears of good people even one more time. That alone affirms our existence, born from evil, seeking to destroy sinners.”
“Uh….”
“I remember.”
…. To think she remembered that cringeworthy line!!!
Past me, I’m so jealous!!! These days if I said something like that, I’d be lucky if I didn’t get mocked instead of remembered.
“You don’t remember?”
“O-of course I do!”
“This is serious. It seems the erosion has worsened.”
As I desperately tried to come up with an excuse, a knock sounded at the door.
“I thought you might be short on bedding….”
It was the boy, with a split lip and bruises on his arms and legs.
“It’s fine. I can hold the child, so we won’t need more.”
Only at times like this did Yena speak kindly. The boy’s face flushed red. He set down what he’d brought and silently left the room.
“As expected.”
When I picked up the blanket the boy had left and unfolded it, I couldn’t miss the words written in blood across the white fabric.
The handwriting was messy, as if written in a hurry.
“We can’t just leave him, can we?”
“No, we can’t.”
*
They were literally nothing but trash. Subduing the rats who crept in silently, opening the door with stealth, was no difficult task.
The man who called himself the uncle must have been quite the fighter outside. I lightly dodged his kitchen knife and drove my knee into his solar plexus. He collapsed, unable to breathe.
I simply swatted away the blindly thrown blades so they wouldn’t fly toward the soundly sleeping Jisu.
“U-uncle!”
“That’s right. What a brave boy!”
“W-we don’t have time for this. Hurry… you have to kill these people quickly.”
“?”
Jisu, who had been enjoying a pleasant dream in her dull, blunt state amid all this chaos, finally woke up.
“Mmm… why is it so noisy… kyaaaaaah!”
“Ah, she’s awake.”
“What the hell is all this!! You told me not to worry and now this is what happens!!”
“Hmm… I don’t think this is my fault.”
“Uwaaaaaah. Why does everything have to be so hard….”
Bang—
“Shut up and listen for a second!”
Oh, what a cool young man. The boy stomped his foot hard in front of me as I spouted nonsense, drawing everyone’s attention.
“If you don’t kill them within an hour and offer them up, we’re all going to die.”
“You look like you have a lot to say. An hour should be plenty to make up for the difference in our speeds. Tell us what you know.”
The boy hesitated for a moment, then walked straight to the refrigerator and opened the door. Inside were bundles of portioned meat. He tossed one of them toward us.
“What do you think this is?”
“Hmm….”
“It’s human flesh. And—”
He opened the closet door. Blood-soaked rags of clothing hung inside, and beneath them, white bones gaped with lonely mouths. This was the source of the metallic smell that had stung our noses the moment we entered.
“They hunted people and ate them.”
“Then… those people kept us here because….”
Jisu’s face turned deathly pale as she looked back and forth between the bundle of human flesh, the bones, and the unconscious family.
The way she gulped, imagining what it all meant, told me exactly what she was thinking.
“No, that’s not it.”
“R-really? We’re all human, after all. I-I’ve heard stories. When people are stranded and things get desperate….”
“You were going to be offered as sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices?”
“Every month, the broadcast collects maintenance fees. But would this world really need maintenance fees?”
“No.”
“There’s only one thing they collect as the fee. Living humans.”
“Not the dead, but living humans. What terrible taste.”
Yena frowned slightly and asked again.
“What happens if you don’t pay the maintenance fee?”
“Right after the settlement ends, a festival begins outside the door.”
Carnivalize.
The word written below the button for the sixth floor in the elevator.
“They need one sacrifice per life. The collectors go from room to room, selecting the victims.”
She shuddered as if recalling something unpleasant.
“That… guy draws circles on people and takes those who haven’t paid the fee to refine them….”
“That’s enough.”
The boy, who was in the middle of puberty, was shorter than Yena. She bent down slightly and placed a finger over his stammering lips.
“Life is already too short even if you only look at bright and beautiful things. If necessary, I’ll check it myself, so stop there.”
“Ah… y-yes.”
“Um… but is this okay? Aren’t they your parents?”
At Yena’s gesture, the boy’s face, which had been filled with embarrassment and shame, suddenly burned with rage.
“Those bastards aren’t my parents!”
“Huh?”
“My parents… our parents…! They sacrificed themselves to let me and my little sister live even one more day…! Ugh….”
“T-then these people….”
The boy wiped his tears roughly with his dirty sleeve and spat out the words as if chewing on them.
“They’re the fucking bastards who killed my little sister and were going to kill me too.”
“….”
I approached quietly and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“And yet you don’t want revenge? You’re just going to offer them as sacrifices?”
“You saved us. I can’t cause you any more trouble.”
“How unfortunate.”
One was unconscious like a dead rat. One was writhing on the ground. One was quietly watching the situation. I grabbed the unconscious one by the neck and strangled him with one hand. Strongly. But not too strongly. Enough for him to feel sufficient pain.
“Kek, what are you— s-save me.”
His eyes widened for a moment, then rolled back with a final, lonely gasp. He would never roll those hideous eyes again.
“But I have no intention of quietly offering them up as sacrifices.”
“T-then the collector will…!”
“That’s none of your business, is it? I’m going to kill them all anyway. Still no thoughts of revenge?”
At those words, the boy picked up the knife that had fallen to the floor as if possessed. It was a kitchen knife crusted with dried blood. He approached the writhing man who called himself the uncle.
“Yes. Carry out your revenge.”
“Mmph! Mmmph!”
“You said it yourself. Thanks to my stupid parents, you got food for free. When my sister begged for her life, you carved a circle on her and laughed as you tied her to the front door!”
Blood seeped from where the blade pressed against his neck.
“You bastard who’d grovel like a dog in front of real power!”
“Grrk. Grrrrk!”
The eyes of a human on the verge of death are wretched. Wicked and fierce. They shed tears as if begging, but in the end they remember none of their own sins. Only resentment and rage settle in them like malevolent spirits.
“D-die!!”
The boy shouted, his red eyes—splattered with blood—meeting the yellow, glistening ones.
I was not disappointed by the expected outcome. I quietly took the knife from him.
“You can’t do it.”
“Yes….”
“Then that’s fine.”
“He’s my enemy… the one I have to kill…!”
“Yes. This isn’t something you should have to bear.”
The boy collapsed to the floor and looked up at me with a puzzled expression.
“Didn’t you tell me to take revenge?”
“I did.”
“Then why now—”
I pressed the blood point of the man who was still screaming and interrupting our conversation. Then I twisted his neck. His pitiful vocal cords would never function again. He would slowly savor the rising death and meet his end in agony.
I took a step back and answered the boy’s question.
“Because you’ve already succeeded in your revenge.”
“What?”
“You’ve already stabbed this man thousands of times in your heart. And you drove the blade halfway into his throat.”
I roughly tousled his hair.
“Do you know how empty revenge feels when you have no choice but to give up? It only leaves a scar on your chest. But you made a choice. Even though you failed, that too is you. It may be disappointing, but there will be no lingering attachment. That’s as far as it goes for you.”
Yena set down Hyunah, whom she had yet to release, and quietly snapped the necks of the others.
“The rest, the adults will handle.”
But what was that woman doing?
“Jisu, you don’t need to get involved. My standards for adulthood are a bit different.”
“!!!!!!”
Jisu, who had been gripping the knife with both hands and taking deep breaths, collapsed to the floor in shock.
“….”
“What’s your name?”
“Iryuk… I use the character for six.”
“Alright. Since it’s already done, tell us everything we need to prepare for in the remaining time. I’ll get you out of here.”
Iryuk, with his dark, round hair, stared at us blankly. Then he nodded. Tears flowed down his face—tears of a different meaning from the ones before.