The Witness Is Under My Protection

Kim Jeongsang paused with the cup ramen broth still at his lips. Taesung Group. He could see the next prey beginning to move on its own.

Three days had passed since Ju Yeonghan’s trial ended. While the entire nation remained drunk on the aftertaste of its first guilty verdict, the country’s most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠powerful name was already racing to erase every trace.

Documents were shredded, accounts were closed, mouths were silenced. It moved with the practiced speed of something that had buried lies for fifty years.

“That won’t do.”

He finished the broth, dropped the empty container into the recycling bin, and that night he lit up the sky.

The whole country held its breath. The instant that name appeared, people instinctively understood. This round was on an entirely different scale. The Park Sang-woo case had been one man’s crime. Taesung was the nation itself.

Fifty years of sins began to unfold across the sky. Slush funds. Succession manipulation. Subcontractor exploitation. And beneath them all, the names of the people buried in silence. Even the truth behind the family officially listed as a “financial despair suicide” twelve years earlier.

But the revelation stopped halfway.

The final line lingered in a strange way. I will watch your backs. Within twenty-four hours, the country would learn exactly what that meant.

The next morning, inside the grand auditorium of Taesung Group Headquarters, the chairman stood before the cameras himself. The old man, nearing eighty, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠refused to bow even an inch toward the sky.

“Everything floating up there is malicious distortion. Taesung is the heart of this nation’s economy. If we stop, your jobs stop. Your pensions stop. South Korea itself stops.”

He stared straight into the lens.

“If you think you can shake us, go ahead and try. The whole country will shake with us.”

It was the same threat that had worked for fifty years.

After the press conference, in a place with no cameras, the chairman gave his chief secretary a short order.

“That woman in the finance team who’s been running her mouth. Clean her up tonight.”

The public reaction this time was different. For fifty years the threat had worked. This time the comment sections stayed ice-cold.

There they go again.

The country-stopping line. Didn’t Ju Yeonghan’s father say the exact same thing?

People had learned. They had watched the Park Sang-woo case and seen exactly where threats ended and truth began.

Still, some wavered—those holding Taesung stock, families tied to partner companies. Real fear always sprouted from real weakness. The chairman was counting on that crack. If he bought enough time, fear would outlast fury. That had been his rule of thumb for fifty years.

So while he played for time, he hurried the work that belonged to the dark.

Han Jiyoung never noticed she was being followed on her way home. She was an assistant manager in Taesung Group’s finance department. The moment the sky had exposed Taesung yesterday, her decision had hardened.

One of the dead subcontractor presidents on that list had been her relative. She could no longer look away.

Tomorrow morning she would walk into the prosecution office and tell them everything. The entire structure of the slush-fund errands. The exact location of the original ledgers.

Taesung knew. They had been listening to her calls.

Eleven at night. A deserted alley. A black van pulled up beside her. The door slid open and four burly men stepped out. Their movements were practiced, professional. One to cover the mouth, two to pin the arms—fifteen seconds and it would be over.

They were men who had done this many times. Men who had never failed.

Before Han Jiyoung could even scream, she was dragged into the van. The door slammed. The vehicle sped off.

That was as far as their plan went.

The instant the van reached the main road, it lifted into the air.

The driver thought at first that he had hit a speed bump. Then he realized the wheels were no longer touching the ground. The entire vehicle rose slowly, almost gently. Five meters. Ten. Twenty.

Screams exploded inside the van—this time from the men.

The vehicle stopped fifty meters above the city center, suspended in the middle of a forest of buildings. Commuters froze on the sidewalks and looked up. A black van hovered in empty air, headlights still on, wheels spinning uselessly.

The men inside finally understood whose territory they had invaded.

“Let me down! Open the door! No—don’t open it!”

The van tilted smoothly sideways. The door opened by itself. The four men dangled as if about to tumble out.

But they did not fall. An invisible force seized their ankles and flipped them upside down, displaying them like exhibits above the heart of the city.

One of them thrashed wildly and a taser slipped from his pocket. It fell fifty meters and shattered on the asphalt. The watching citizens saw the broken pieces and understood exactly what it had been meant for.

Wallets, phones, cigarette packs spilled from the men’s pockets one after another, as though an invisible hand were emptying an upside-down sack.

One phone stopped in mid-air, screen glowing, then drifted down and settled neatly into a police officer’s palm. The call log was already open. Last dialed: Taesung Secretary’s Office.

Only Han Jiyoung was lowered gently to the ground, cradled by something unseen. Not a single strand of her hair was out of place.

And then the sky lit up again. In front of the entire nation.

The scene spread across the country in real time. Kidnappers hanging upside down in the city sky. Citizens poured into the streets and stared upward. Some clapped. Others simply stood with their mouths open.

Those who had still been wavering made up their minds the moment they saw it. The age of keeping silent out of fear was over. They had not been told; they had witnessed it with their own eyes.

A delivery driver stopped his truck, filmed the sight, and muttered, “Damn. The world really has changed. Now gangsters hang in the sky like laundry.”

On the internet the scene quickly earned a nickname: Human Mobile. Satirical drawings flooded every corner of the net. It took less than an hour for a night of terror to flip into a night of ridicule.

Those who had peddled fear becoming objects of mockery—that was the punishment they feared most.

When the police arrived, the four men were lowered slowly and placed neatly at the officers’ feet in the perfect position for handcuffs.

Cha Pilgu, filming from the scene, muttered, “They even wrapped it up nicely. Like a damn delivery.”

Under interrogation the kidnappers confessed everything. Inside the Domain of Truth, they could not hide who had given the order. The chain led straight to the Taesung Secretary’s Office.

The press conference from the day before—where the chairman had dared the country to “try and shake us”—was now frozen forever beside the evidence of kidnapping solicitation. The chairman’s first move had shattered on the very first night.

At that same moment, the chairman’s office at Taesung Headquarters was frozen in ice.

The chairman stood at the window, personally watching the distant spectacle of his men hanging like grotesque Christmas ornaments above the city.

“Chairman… what should we do?”

The chief secretary’s voice shook.

The chairman remained silent for a long time before speaking.

“…Send the lawyers. And from today, cease all operations that involve people.”

It was the first order of its kind in fifty years.

He had ruled the world with two tools his entire life: money and men. When money failed, he sent men. Once the men returned, silence always followed.

Tonight one of those tools had been put ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on public display in the sky for the whole nation to see.

“All that remains are the documents. The original ledgers are still out there. That woman knows where they are.”

The chairman ground his teeth.

“Then burn the documents. Don’t use people—use fire. Even that bastard can’t stop fire.”

The chief secretary bowed. Neither man yet understood that in this war every tool they possessed would be put on display, one by one.

That night Han Jiyoung trembled under police protection. Then a single text arrived on her phone. No sender number.

She stared at the message for a long time. For the first time that night, her trembling stopped.

The next morning she walked into the prosecutor’s office with her shoulders squared. Seo Hajin was waiting for her—the same prosecutor who had defeated Ju Yeonghan. The main office had assigned her the Taesung investigation. She was also the only one who had asked for it.

“Ms. Han Jiyoung… last night must have been terrifying.”

“It was. But, Prosecutor.”

Han Jiyoung lifted her head. The fear from the night before was gone.

“During those fifteen seconds I was being dragged away, my whole life passed before my eyes. Seven years of keeping my mouth shut. That’s when I realized what they were truly afraid of. It was my mouth. My mouth was the weapon they feared most.”

She took a notebook from her bag. It was filled cover to cover with tight handwriting—seven years of records.

“I’ll start with the location of the original ledgers. And these notes… I wrote them down while following their orders, just in case.”

Seo Hajin accepted the notebook. Her fingertips trembled. The helpless nights from a year ago, when evidence had vanished, flashed through her mind.

But now the evidence had walked in on its own feet. In a world where the sky watched their backs.

“Ms. Han Jiyoung, I give you my word. This notebook will not disappear. And neither will you.”

That single day, reports connected to Taesung exceeded four hundred.

At the same time, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the same phenomenon began spreading across the country. People who knew Taesung’s corruption—accountants who had stayed silent, drivers, retired executives—started walking into prosecutors’ offices and newsrooms one by one. The promise to watch their backs had been proven in the sky the night before.

Tip-off calls flooded Cha Pilgu’s newspaper as well. Yuna juggled three phone receivers at once and shouted, “Chief! We don’t have enough hands to write all this down!”

Cha Pilgu laughed and rolled up his sleeves. The old reporter’s desk, which had seen no tips for three years, had become a war room overnight.

The sky had revealed only half. The other half was now pouring out through the mouths of the people.

The fortress built on fifty years of silence was beginning to collapse as those mouths finally opened.

Inside the convenience store, Kim Jeongsang opened a can of coffee. Hanging the kidnappers had cost him less effort than a single breath.

The important part had never been the power. It had been the declaration. The new rule of this war: the moment anyone touched a witness, he would step forward.

Taesung would have realized by now that the old method of erasing people in the dark no longer worked.

The next move was obvious. If people failed, they would use objects. If mouths failed, they would destroy evidence.

Kim Jeongsang gazed out the window toward an incinerator on the city outskirts. He could already see what Taesung planned to burn there at dawn tomorrow.

“Go ahead and burn it,” he muttered indifferently. The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction.

“The fire is mine, too.”