Chapter 2
The constant noise kept grating on my nerves. I was tired and exhausted, I just wanted to sleep like this, but…
‘Huh? Sleep…?’
I, who had died young in a traffic accident and was dragged to hell, was sleeping?
The moment I opened my eyes in bewilderment—
*Whoosh—!*
The painful memories of hell came crashing over me like waves. Continuously, endlessly.
“…Crazy.”
What?
I’d already been fried 348,754 times.
And they were saying it was a mistake, an accident, so please just forget about it?
If you tormented an innocent person that much, you should provide proper compensation for the physical and mental damages. They said sending me back to my original state was itself unprecedented? That just having visited the afterlife was already a great favor, so further compensation was impossible?
I hadn’t received anything tangible, so what exactly had they given me?
If there was something like a Dead Person’s Protection Agency or an Afterlife Civil Petitions Office, I’d run there immediately…
“What’s this now?”
Every time I moved, something kept getting in my way, really annoying me. As I pulled off the wires attached to my body, beeping alarms went off. The sound was quite loud, and someone approached. It was the nurses. Only then did I realize I was in a hospital.
“Mr. Han Su-ho, are you okay? Do you know where you are?”
“…What’s today’s date?”
“March 13th, 201X.”
“201X?”
“Yes.”
March 13th, 201X—I couldn’t believe it. If this was real, only two days had passed in the real world. During the one year I was dragged to the afterlife and put on trial, I groaned under the harsh, grueling labor repeated every single day. Then, I endured all sorts of torture in the Purgatory Prison, waiting for four years, and spent three years in the Oil Cauldron Hell, getting fried to my heart’s content!
“How does your body feel? Any dizziness or nausea?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“I heard you took a strong blow to the head during the accident. Do you remember anything?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure.”
“We ran several tests during the two days you were unconscious, and the results aren’t bad. However, traffic accidents can have aftereffects, so you’ll need to stay hospitalized for a while to be observed and get some rest.”
“So I don’t have any major injuries?”
“No.”
“What about the other people involved?”
“No one else was hurt.”
“That’s… that’s a relief.”
“I heard that even though you were in great shock, you held onto the steering wheel until the very last moment and steered the car onto the shoulder. That’s why there were no secondary accidents.”
“Oh! Yes…”
“I’ll just run a few more tests.”
The nurse checked my pupil response, then my temperature and blood pressure. She said I would be moved to a general ward tomorrow morning.
—
* * *
—
Days of monotonous hospital life continued.
One dusky early evening, feeling stifled by the hospital room crowded with patients, I stepped out to clear my head and get some fresh air. As I sat on a bench looking up at the night sky, anger welled up inside me for no reason.
It was fortunate I escaped hell, but recalling those countless times I was fried gave me severe PTSD. What made me even angrier was their attitude—frying an innocent person like that and then just wiping their mouths clean!
‘I should have just lain down and refused to go back then.’
Suppressing the rising sense of injustice, I took a walk around the hospital grounds for some fresh air. Near the mortuary, I saw some familiar figures.
“Huh…?”
They had pale faces, as if dusted with flour, and wore black robes. They were grim reapers. Even more absurd were the dead souls gathering in front of them. I rubbed my eyes several times, unable to believe it, but they were unmistakably spirits, floating in the air like phantoms.
‘Why can I see these?’
Afraid of making eye contact with the spirits or grim reapers, and terrified of being dragged back to the afterlife, I lowered my eyes and hurried away. As I walked, I found myself in front of the emergency room. A loud siren blared, and I turned my head to see a stretcher carrying a patient heading into the ER.
And hovering above the unconscious patient was a vengeful spirit, its hands tightly clasped around his throat.
‘At that rate, he’ll die within minutes.’
Whether by will or not, souls that escape the guidance of the grim reapers wander the mortal world. Those are ghosts. Not all ghosts harm humans, but wandering the mortal world eventually leads them to corruption. Corrupted ghosts become vengeful spirits like that, harming people and coveting human souls, eventually becoming evil spirits or demons that throw the world into chaos. That’s why the mission of the grim reapers also included capturing stray ghosts and destroying vengeful spirits, evil spirits, and demons.
‘Damn bastard.’
I spat out a curse towards the vengeful spirit that was mercilessly shaking the patient’s lifeline. As if it had heard me, the vengeful spirit glared at me. The thing locked eyes with me and flicked its tongue. It was unmistakably licking its chops.
*Whoosh—!*
Flustered by the unexpected situation, I hesitated for a moment, and the vengeful spirit flew through the air towards me. It seemed intent on changing its prey to devour me instead.
‘No! I just came back from hell, and now you want me to go back again?’
There was no way I could let that happen. The moment I steeled myself to fight back, something boiled up inside my body. Before I knew it, I stretched out my hand. From my palm, a bolt of lightning shot out like a beam of light and struck the vengeful spirit.
*Thwack!*
“Huh…?”
That thing, which pierced through its head and clearly penetrated all the way to its groin, was spiritual energy—the kind emitted by high-ranking grim reapers above the rank of Samjik Chasa (Third Rank Envoy). The vengeful spirit, now with a fist-sized hole torn through it by the spiritual energy, vomited out a foul-smelling black demonic energy like blood, then scattered into smoke. It was annihilation. Immediately after, sparkling powder scattered and enveloped my body, and I felt a pleasant sense of fulfillment in my lower abdomen.
‘It seems like the spiritual energy that surged a moment ago has increased…?’
But this mysterious phenomenon wasn’t the end of it.
[You have purified the world by destroying a greedy vengeful spirit.]
[4 merit points have been accumulated in the Book of Life and Death.]
It was a language I was hearing for the first time. I couldn’t even tell if the voice belonged to a man or a woman, but the meaning was crystal clear. I had heard it through hearsay in Purgatory—if you accumulate merit through good deeds or righteous acts during your lifetime, your lifespan increases. If it exceeds a certain level, you go to heaven. I also heard that merit could offset the demerits accumulated on your soul when you commit sins.
‘Why is this happening…’
I heard strange messages, could see ghosts and grim reapers, and could even use spiritual energy? That was definitely not a human ability. Perhaps it was an aftereffect of having visited hell.
‘It seems like my body has changed too.’
It wasn’t noticeable enough to distinguish with the naked eye, but I had developed lean muscle all over my body. My rough and bumpy skin had calmed down considerably. I guessed that the increase in spiritual energy had something to do with it.
‘How should I take all this?’
While I was confused by the series of unexpected events, I heard an alert from a group chat. Checking it, I saw a new notice posted in the “We” fan chatroom for Lovely.
‘It seems the comeback for Lovely will be delayed because we can’t find a good song…?’
Lovely is a four-member girl group in their 5th year since debut. In their first year, their title track ranked in the top 70 on the charts, showing some promise, but they’ve been on a downward spiral ever since. The reason I joined J-Entertainment and endured two years of grueling roadie work was because of Lovely. Of course, there were no other companies I could move to since the only ones that would hire someone with my lacking resume were sweatshops.
I’ve never told anyone this, but I became a fan after seeing Lovely. For me, Lovely was the only joy in my life. However, unfortunately, even though I joined J-Entertainment, I wasn’t assigned to Lovely. At most, I’d filled in as a roadie for them maybe six or seven times. Still, those experiences were so happy that I considered myself a dedicated fan.
*Thump, thump.*
Just thinking about Lovely made my heart ache. Back when I was being fried countless times in hell, I desperately thought of Lovely to forget even a little of the pain. It’s no exaggeration—it was because of Lovely that I could endure the unending ordeal of death-like suffering.
As I was about to close the chat, I saw a message from my studio apartment’s landlady. She said the rent for this month was overdue. Yesterday was payday, but I’d forgotten since I was in the hospital. I opened the banking app and transferred the money as usual. After transferring the 370,000 won rent, 300,000 won for my parents’ allowance, 100,000 won for my college-student younger sister’s allowance, and 220,000 won into savings, I only had 750,000 won left from my salary. After a few more deductions within days, I’d be left with only 400,000 won. For a regular office worker, 400,000 won would be nowhere near enough, but J-Entertainment covered food and communication expenses due to the nature of the work, so I managed.
—
* * *
—
Humans are creatures of adaptation. The bizarre phenomena that defied common sense continued to happen after that. I stumbled a little at first, but within a few days, I had destroyed five vengeful spirits. Especially yesterday, when I destroyed a vengeful spirit that had an evil spirit right in front of it, I earned a whopping 7 merit points at once.
Perhaps due to the increased spiritual energy, I absentmindedly touched my skin, which had become clear and glowing like a child’s. Then, I got up from my hospital bed for my final hunt.
I wasn’t feeling any discomfort or specific pain, so I decided to check out tomorrow morning. As always, I sipped an iced Americano from the hospital café and loitered around the emergency room. From experience, the ER was the hotspot.
While I was looking around for vengeful spirits, Lee Kyeong-su approached me. He was tall and had a considerable build. With his size and intimidating looks, he resembled a gangster, but he was a fellow roadie in the same Management Team 1, Section 2, and my hiring cohort.
“Hey, Han Su-ho. If you’re getting discharged tomorrow, you should’ve contacted me right away.”
“Why?”
“Wha~at? Thinking about how much I worried because of you… just—*pow!*”
Lee Kyeong-su raised his right hand and threatened me as if he was about to slap me across the face any second.
“Lee Kyeong-su, put your hand down.”
“What?”
“Why did I get hurt? If you’re visiting me now, shouldn’t you apologize to me first? The ‘worrying’ you did was just because you were afraid your faked illness to skip your schedule would be exposed, wasn’t it?”
The traffic accident that day happened while returning from a regional event for the popular idol group Super Heroes. Lee Kyeong-su was the roadie in charge of Super Heroes. Naturally, he should have gone, but because he made up a fake stomach ache, I—who hadn’t slept in three days because I was managing the schedules of other artists—had to take the wheel.
‘And then he went and had a lunchtime drink with the Section 2 manager and senior manager Chae Won-tae.’
They were all from the same university and same department—an alumni connection. Things like this hadn’t happened just once or twice. I, who was good-natured and weak-willed, didn’t want to cause any trouble. I didn’t want gossip at the company, so I just let it slide. But Lee Kyeong-su didn’t show gratitude or remorse—he just kept taking advantage of me. There was no need to help trash like him anymore.
“Whoa! Look at this bastard. I heard you hit your head, did you go crazy?”
“Why, are you scared I’ll reveal the truth?”
“Faked illness my ass. Don’t spout nonsense about things you know nothing about, or I’ll punch your face in.”
“You said you had a stomach ache, but you still went to an indoor pojangmacha for drinks that evening?”
“That was because the manager asked me to…”
“And then you went to a club with your college buddies after?”
“H-h-how did you know that?”
“This isn’t the first or second time this has happened. From the pojangmacha to the club, I saved all the photos you proudly posted on SNS.”
Actually, I was just bluffing. Judging by his reaction, he’d taken the bait perfectly.
“Hey, Han Su-ho.”
“What, scared?”
“Scared my ass. Do you think the company will let this slide if you start running your mouth?”
“What if they don’t? What’s a mere section manager to me? If I report everything you’ve done so far to the team leader, do you think the Section 2 manager will be safe? And in that situation, do you think the Section 2 manager will protect you?”
“Ah… you bastard. This is really too much.”
Thinking words wouldn’t solve it, Lee Kyeong-su raised his hand again. It was always like this—when threats didn’t work, he’d frown and lightly tap my face. Not only was he big, but the pressure emanating from someone who’d been on the judo team was no joke. The old me, weak and fragile, would have apologized about now, but perhaps because I’d been fried endlessly in hell, I wasn’t scared at all. No, it was just laughable. Why had I ever been afraid of a punk like him…
“Lee Kyeong-su, are you going to put your hand down? Or should I force you to cross the Samdocheon River?”
“You wanna die? Just—ah, fuck!”
“Kyeong-su. I’ve been putting up with it until now, but you’re just impossible.”
