Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk let out a loud scream from the pain of his hand being pierced.
“Aaaaargh!”
“I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss as if you’re wronged. It’s all what you’ve done.”
I opened my mouth while slowly walking towards Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk, who was screaming.
“You say they ignored process and procedure? You enjoyed ignoring process and procedure too. If you were someone who followed process and procedure well, you couldn’t have done things like human experiments in the first place.”
I started pointing out one by one what Kim Seong-deuk had been yelling about on the phone.
Should I say it’s so typical that he’s cursing Do Chae-hee without even thinking about what he’s done?
“The pot calling the kettle black.”
I clicked my tongue.
“Ugh, uuh, my, my hand.”
Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk trembled like a bug from just having his hand pierced.
It was ridiculous to me, knowing what he had done. Did this person tear those young children to pieces while trembling like this from just this much?
At that moment, the door burst open. Seeing black sand and shadows enter the room, Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk collapsed on the spot. Looking at that face trembling with fear, I sighed.
Yes, Kim Seong-deuk was just this kind of person.
“Why, why are you doing this to me? Hmm? What do you need to do this? Do, do you need money?”
Kim Seong-deuk asked me with a desperate face.
“Well, I do need it.”
At my words, hope sprouted on Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk’s face.
“But I don’t need your money.”
I cruelly crushed Kim Seong-deuk’s hope with one word.
“I’ll return exactly what you did.”
I said while standing crookedly.
I pulled back Kim Jae-ho, who had his fist clenched. This guy is really too wicked to die instantly with his head bursting.
“I’ll take care of this. You two go out.”
The two had to leave here.
What’s going to happen in here is going to be rated R.
I told them not to come in from the start, why did they come this far?
Han Seo-hyeon pouted at my words and said:
“What if I don’t want to leave?”
“If you want to join in, become an adult first and come back.”
“Why was it okay when we killed other guys, but not this one?”
At that question, I shrugged my shoulders and said:
“Because I’m not going to kill this guy cleanly like those people.”
At my words saying I’d let him join when he becomes an adult later, Han Seo-hyeon grumbled but obediently headed outside.
Even though Han Seo-hyeon left the room, Kim Jae-ho remained in place.
“What are you doing, not leaving?”
“I am an adult.”
Yeah, no you’re not.
I chased Kim Jae-ho out too.
The smile disappeared from my face. I slowly turned around.
“It’s time to pay for your crimes, esteemed Assemblyman.”
At my words, Kim Seong-deuk trembled and spewed out words.
“P-please think about it one more time. I’ll give you anything you want! If you don’t need money, how about something else? You’re an a-awakener, right! I have lots of things especially good for awakeners.”
“How many people have you lured with words like that? Did they all fall for such words?”
“Please…”
“I heard what you were saying earlier. ‘There’s no one in this Korea who can put me, Kim Seong-deuk, in the courtroom’, right?”
I approached the guy while lowering my head.
Certainly, the current courts of Korea can never catch this monster. As he said, Kim Seong-deuk wouldn’t even be indicted in the first place.
“Unfortunately for you, my trial doesn’t need anything. No witnesses, no evidence.”
At my words, Kim Seong-deuk trembled. Now he’s getting it. That nothing he has can stop me.
“There’s only one thing needed in this trial.”
I walked up to Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk and stomped on his hand.
“Aaaaargh!”
I whispered to him as he writhed in pain.
“Conviction. Just the conviction that you committed all those acts.”
I have no reason to fight on a playing field tilted in his favor. I have no reason to follow the rules of the world made by corrupt people. Nothing Kim Seong-deuk has built up can stop me.
The only thing needed for my trial is one thing.
Just the fact that he is a criminal who committed unforgivable sins.
“With that one thing, I can put you on trial.”
I ground my foot.
Thump thump.
Like a judge holding a gavel.
“And in this trial, I gladly sentence you to death.”
Despair began to spread in Kim Seong-deuk’s eyes as he looked at my smiling mask.
* * *
I didn’t show Kim Seong-deuk’s corpse to Kim Jae-ho and Han Seo-hyeon.
The appearance was a bit off even to me, to the point where I would say it looked a bit bad.
It must have been a very long and arduous time for Kim Seong-deuk, but considering the victims who lost their lives because of him, it was pain as brief as a flash.
But I had to let him go.
The sun will rise soon, and then everything we’ve done will be revealed.
I decided to hang Kim Seong-deuk’s corpse on a noticeable building.
We could have hacked the surrounding CCTV, but we left it as is.
Instead, I left the task of moving the corpse to the skeleton.
The scene of the skeleton clattering and hanging up the corpse would look like an old horror movie.
Unlike the body with no intact parts, I didn’t touch Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk’s face at all.
Shouldn’t they know who it is as soon as they see it?
Just in case they might wander around looking for the culprit, I kindly hung a sign on Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk’s body.
I don’t know how the world will react to Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk’s death.
At least Do Chae-hee will probably be up in arms. Won’t she jump up and down saying why we took away her chance, asking if we think she’d be happy with ‘resolving’ things this way?
But still, you couldn’t deal with this guy with your methods yet.
It’s a very small help.
There are many ways to deal with villains in this world. But unfortunately, righteous methods, methods that good people would insist on, cannot punish true villains.
Even if that’s more right, even if that’s the way to create a better world. Punishing villains with that method is ‘still’ impossible.
But the villain’s method is different.
Because.
We don’t have to give a damn about the world’s rules.
—You look like you feel much better.
“Yes. I used to think I wanted to hit that person once back then.”
—It’s not just hitting once though, is it?
“Compared to what that person did, this is just like getting hit hard once, well.”
For someone who tore apart and killed young children’s bodies, shouldn’t he feel at least this much before dying?
I narrowed my eyes looking at the rising sun.
It’s time to return to our place again.
If there’s one drawback to the villain’s method, it’s that you have to become a villain.
I couldn’t meet my best friend, and had to live in the shadows all my life avoiding righteous people.
The evaluation of what I do will always be the worst, and no one will be grateful for what I do.
It would be a lie to say I have no regrets at all.
‘Actually, I’ve thought about it once or twice. Just giving up everything and leaving as I please.’
—You mean abandoning everything?
‘Yes.’
But if someone’s hands had to be stained with black blood, there was no place more fitting than my hands.
Considering what I did in my previous life, I should do my share of atonement.
As I was immersed in sentiment, Han Seo-hyeon spoke to me from the side.
“Is it all over now?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go eat breakfast.”
At those nonchalant words, the thoughts filling my head instantly scattered.
“Should we go home to eat?”
“Let’s have a bowl of soup at that soup restaurant over there?”
“You’re only eighteen, but your taste buds are already like that?”
“It’s because I’ve been eating egg fried rice for a whole month because of someone, so I just crave some hot soup? I’m seriously sick of egg fried rice, can’t you make other dishes too?”
I dismissed Han Seo-hyeon’s complaints about side dishes. When I was young, I ate well whatever was served, why is he so dissatisfied?
“What about Jae-ho?”
“Anything is fine for me.”
“I hate it most when people say anything.”
At my muttering, Han Seo-hyeon nudged Kim Jae-ho’s side and whispered to him.
“Say soup, soup.”
“Soup.”
Like a printer, Kim Jae-ho outputted the answer given from beside him exactly.
“But what is soup?”
Oh my, I laughed emptily.
Still, as long as those kids are around, this life isn’t all that bad.
That’s what I thought.
* * *
The news of Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk’s death soon made the whole country buzz. The janitor who first discovered the body was so terrified he couldn’t even make a proper report call. That’s how horrific the discovered body looked.
Revenge killing.
Do Chae-hee held her breath when she heard the news.
When she thought she had hit a wall, the matter was resolved in a completely different way.
“Weltschmerz.”
A sign was hanging on Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk’s body.
[Weltschmerz Maker]
Weltschmerz Maker, it said.
As if Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk had made this pessimistic and depressing world they speak of.
Anyone could see it was punishment related to the incident involving Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk and Hyeonmu Pharmaceuticals.
All the media started talking about this murder by Weltschmerz. Meanwhile, the things Assemblyman Kim Seong-deuk had desperately tried to bury during his lifetime started surfacing one after another. And on the internet, the truths they had hidden were continuously exposed.
The timid media finally started writing articles as if watching for reactions, and witnesses who had kept their mouths tightly shut began to open up one by one.
At last, Hyeonmu Pharmaceuticals could be properly put on trial. They could request summons not only for the team leader but also the chairman above.
Was it this simple?
What made all this possible was Weltschmerz, whom Do Chae-hee had so wanted to catch.
“Come to think of it, it was also Weltschmerz who attacked Bomnal Orphanage that no one knew about and was buried.”
They were clearly villains.
Villains who had killed dozens of people so far.
But those villains accomplished what she couldn’t do.
‘What on earth have I been doing?’
When Do Chae-hee was feeling empty, Park Cheol-wan appeared before her. Park Cheol-wan’s face was a mess, as if he had been through mental anguish in the past few days.
“Let’s talk.”
Do Chae-hee, whose face was as haggard as Park Cheol-wan’s, nodded and moved her steps with him.
When they reached a quiet place, Park Cheol-wan, who was rolling his eyes anxiously, slowly opened his mouth.
“You know too. My aunt’s health isn’t good. She hasn’t been married long…”
Park Cheol-wan’s story continued quite long. After hearing all that, Do Chae-hee clenched her fist and said:
“So you compromised with those guys because of that?”
Park Cheol-wan sighed. Knowing what kind of person Do Chae-hee was, he knew that whatever he said wouldn’t get through to her.
“They say evil doesn’t run away, but it turns out it didn’t need to run away.”
At Do Chae-hee’s words, Park Cheol-wan exploded:
“I want to catch bad guys too. Of course, that’s why I became a police officer and joined the Awakener Crimes team. You know that.”
Certainly, Park Cheol-wan always showed a strong stance against criminals. He must have caught dozens, hundreds of criminals.
But he compromised with the people he should never have compromised with.
“Wasn’t Kim Seong-deuk a bad person? What about the people who operated illegal Gates?”
“We can’t catch all the evil that exists in this world.”
“Those people made fools of us. They made it so we couldn’t do anything. They pulled our teeth and cut our nails. Compromise? You called it compromise?”
Do Chae-hee shouted.
“This isn’t compromise! It’s submission! How is it different from prostrating ourselves and begging for our lives? What did you do it for? For a slightly more comfortable life?”
“A comfortable life? No, I did it to survive!”
Park Cheol-wan shouted at her.
“If you just turn a blind eye, that’s it. They’re people we can’t deal with anyway. What if I had fought them? If I had dug into that case? Chae-hee, you don’t know. You don’t know what kind of hell I’ve walked through.”
There were many people who shouted for justice. But in the end, only Park Cheol-wan remained. Park Cheol-wan told Do Chae-hee.
That this was the only way to survive.
“I didn’t do anything bad. I never committed any crimes. I just, I just turned a blind eye for a moment. I had no choice but to do so to protect the person I love.”
“You’re a coward. Really cowardly.”
Do Chae-hee closed her eyes and opened them again looking at Park Cheol-wan.
She hated Weltschmerz.
But in this situation, does she have the right to curse them? When such things were happening right beside her?
“We shouldn’t compromise, if no one else.”
“Why? We’re ordinary people too!”
“Because if we compromise, if we turn a blind eye, people who really need help will die lonely without knowing anything! Because someone might die because of our compromise, our turning away! If you wanted to compromise, if you wanted to turn a blind eye, you shouldn’t have become a police officer at least.”
At those words, Park Cheol-wan clenched his fist. Park Cheol-wan opened his mouth as if advising Do Chae-hee.
“Reality isn’t so beautiful. Even if I don’t stop you, others will stand in your way.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Do Chae-hee opened her mouth as if growling.
“Because I’d rather choose a righteous death than survive cowardly.”