Chapter 2
The Guys I Wouldn’t Mind Dying to Take Down Gaining a Superpower
Young-soo looked peaceful as he lay in the coffin wearing his burial clothes.
Not long ago, Young-soo had been talking hopefully about how the landlord who had run away had finally been caught and how he might be able to get his deposit back.
I had heard that from Young-soo’s older brother, Hyuk-soo.
“Let’s go. It’s hard to keep looking at him.”
As Kang Hyun-young said, it was painful to look at Young-soo’s dead face.
“You and Noona go ahead. I’ll stay for another five minutes.”
“Okay.”
Kang Hyun-young and I left the room where the body had been placed in the coffin.
“Maru, what the hell happened?”
It was the typical rental-deposit scam story. After searching for the landlord who had disappeared for a year, they discovered that he had merely been a figurehead.
I told her what had happened.
“How much was it?”
“Out of the 240 million won deposit, 180 million was a bank loan.”
“What a fucking terrible world. Damn.”
Kang Hyun-young let out a deep sigh before continuing.
“Why do bad things never leave us alone? You said you got scammed too, right? What happened to the money?”
“I can’t get it back.”
I had lost the 200 million won I had saved over ten years as a career soldier.
I’d invested it because I was planning to start a business with the only fellow soldier I had ever truly trusted. Then the bastard disappeared.
That happened two years ago, and in January of last year, I heard that he’d killed himself.
“Why did he kill himself?”
“He died in Macau.”
“Was he gambling?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t know he was that kind of person?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He had been my support through the hardships of military life, the only friend I had ever truly connected with.
I’d learned that the person closest to you could also be the one capable of destroying you the most.
The aftermath of that betrayal lasted for months. In the end, if I wanted to keep living, I had to start seeing a psychiatrist.
The door slid openā
Hyuk-soo came out of the room with eyes swollen from crying.
“Hyung, thanks for coming.”
“What words could possibly comfort you? Still, you have to keep living strongly enough for Young-soo, too. That’s what Young-soo would have wanted.”
Kang Hyun-young.
The only older sister at Sanseong Orphanage who had ever treated Hyuk-soo and me warmly.
When she entered the second year of middle school, she was taken somewhere at night. Only after leaving the orphanage did she learn that she had been used as the director’s plaything.
That experience completely destroyed her life.
“Yeah. I’ll listen to you, Noona. Hyung, you must be busy, so you can go too. There’s nowhere for you to stay anyway since it’s a no-funeral-home funeral.”
“I have to go to work this afternoon, so I’m sorry. Maru, take good care of your brother.”
“Don’t worry.”
After Kang Hyun-young left, Hyuk-soo and I sat down on the chairs.
“Hyuk-soo, I know it’s hard, but let’s get through this.”
“I have to.”
Hyuk-soo had entered the orphanage with his younger brother, Young-soo, when he was five years old.
I would never forget that day.
Hyuk-soo had screamed and cried at the top of his lungs from the moment he arrived. The orphanage director beat him until he broke his leg.
Because he wasn’t treated in time, he still limped.
A den of demons.
That was what Sanseong Orphanage, where I grew up, had been.
“Hyung.”
“Yeah?”
“Since Young-soo died, I want to find Mom even more.”
Finding Hyuk-soo’s mother was impossible.
Ten years ago, a fire had broken out at Sanseong Orphanage, burning all the records.
At the time, the orphanage director, who had been waiting on the third floor for an opportunity to engage in some secret activity, died in the fire.
He was the only person who died.
That’s why the former residents of the orphanage believed that heaven had punished him.
“If you become famous, Mom will come looking for you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“She will.”
“Hyung, don’t you want to see Mom too?”
“You have at least a vague memory of her. I don’t even have a memory of her.”
“Still, you might have family out there. You could have a brother or sister, or something.”
“How am I supposed to find them?”
Hyuk-soo looked troubled.
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. To me, you and Noona are the most precious family I have.”
“Thanks, Hyung.”
I’m not the kind of person who gets attached easily.
Maybe we became close simply because we were beaten together so often.
Or perhaps the instinctive longing for familyāand the emptiness it left behindāwas filled by Hyuk-soo and Kang Hyun-young.
“Hyung.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s something I heard during my last phone call with Young-soo. He said Pil-hyo hyung was the one who introduced him to that house.”
“Pil-hyo? Gong Pil-hyo?”
“That’s right.”
Gong Pil-hyo.
He had been the one who enforced discipline at the orphanage, a year older than me.
There was an old storage room at the orphanage. Once a week, we’d be gathered there to do forced drills and get beaten.
“Haah.”
“Hyung, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up a memory you wanted to forget.”
“It’s fine. Why? What does Gong Pil-hyo do these days?”
“Apparently he’s a manager at a real estate consulting company. I only brought it up because I thought there might be other victims among the people from the orphanage. Do you keep in touch with anyone?”
“You’re the only one, along with Noona.”
Gong Pil-hyo.
The moment his face came to mind, the horrible memories of my days at the orphanage and school became vivid.
I’d thought I’d forgotten most of it, but I hadn’t.
Like a drop of ink spreading across white rice paper, just hearing Gong Pil-hyo’s name brought every detail of my old wounds back to the surface.
I had wondered if isolating myself from the outside world and rigorously training my body would help me forget my painful past.
That’s why I even retook the college entrance exam and became a Special Forces NCO.
I’d thought I’d forgotten.
I hadn’t.
“Where is Gong Pil-hyo?”
“Apparently, his phone number changed, so they can’t reach him.”
“Looks like he’s traveling around the country scamming people.”
I instinctively clenched my lower lip.
How could someone who had been abandoned just like us stab another person in the back?
Gong Pil-hyo.
Of course someone like him could do it.
“Hyuk-soo, let’s go get something to eat. You need to eat to have the strength to go on.”
“Okay.”
He was considerate to the very end.
He probably had no appetite at all, but he agreed because he wanted me to eat.
The frozen earth was finally thawing, and fresh green shoots were beginning to sprout.
Yet another pitiful life had withered away.
“Hey, weren’t you abandoned on the floor of a riverside house? That’s why your name is Kang Maru!”
“What kind of fucking mother leaves her kid on a floor? That’s fucking ridiculous.”
“That bastard’s fair game. I’ve been hanging out with Seong-tae since elementary school. You can beat him as much as you want. Nobody ever comes looking for him.”
“Yeah. That bastard’s got it worse than an abandoned dog.”
Fists and kicks rained down on my body.
“Fuck! He’s got a good chin. Makes beating him even more fun.”
“Look at this bastard! He’s covering his head because he doesn’t want to get hit there. Fucking bastard! Lower your arms!”
“Let’s see how tough that stomach is!”
A kick slammed into my abdomen.
The pain felt like my intestines were being torn apart, but I had to protect my head.
I had an older brother who had become mentally disabled after being beaten on the head by the director.
I couldn’t let that happen to me.
It was an instinctive defense mechanism.
“Fuck! Even beating him is exhausting.”
The beating ended when the bastards finally got tired.
“He’s one tough bastard! Should we just kill him?”
Hwang Seong-tae didn’t sound like he was joking, which made it even more terrifying.
“That’s what makes it fun. Let’s call it a day.”
“Jeong-suk’s here. You’re dead now.”
Two female students approached, their uniform skirts pulled up almost to their underwear, cigarettes dangling from their fingers.
Oh Jeong-suk and Yeon Gyeong-won.
“Is this the bastard who’s so good at taking a beating?”
“Yeah. We beat him for over an hour, and he still takes it. Fuck! I’m exhausted.”
“We need to give him a Big Dipper. Jung-seong, that’s okay, right?”
“Do whatever you want.”
Jung Jung-seong.
The leader of this group.
Oh Jeong-suk pulled off my pants.
Dignity was a luxury in the face of violence.
All I could do was pray that this moment would end as quickly as possible.
“I’m sorry. Please, stop.”
“You need to prove just how tough you are.”
The burning tip of a cigarette was pressed into my thigh.
“AAARGH!”
My scream was muffled by a palm.
It felt as though my flesh were burning.
The nauseating smell of something like rotten fish being burned filled my nose.
“I’ll do the other three.”
Yeon Gyeong-won smiled brightly and blew cigarette smoke into my face.
“I was so happy when I heard that a new toy had been delivered to our school. And it’s got such good performance.”
The searing pain boring through my flesh felt as though my head were about to explode.
“Ugh… ngh.”
“Bravo! The Big Dipper looks great.”
“Move aside. I need to connect the seven stars.”
Gong Pil-hyo approached with a switchblade in his hand and a vile smile on his face.
“Oppa, don’t go too far.”
“This bastard never makes a sound even when he’s being beaten at the orphanage. I’ll carve him a medal by cutting his skin and filling the wounds with ink.”
“No!!!!!!”
I shot upright.
Sweat dotted my forehead.
Thankfully, it had only been a dream.
After Young-soo’s death, Gong Pil-hyo had appeared again.
That bastard was dragging out pieces of the horrifying memories I’d shoved deep into a locked corner of my mind.
The wound on my left thigh still hadn’t completely healed.
I wanted revenge.
Against every bastard who had tormented me.
Every single one of them.
After the death of my former military colleague who had taken all my money, I started working as a cleaner.
I’d been seeing a psychiatrist for depression, and the doctor had suggested that cleaning could help with my recovery.
Just as the doctor had said, cleaning made me feel as though the resentment, anger, wounds, and pain piled up inside me were being wiped away.
Song Suk-ja, an employee of the cleaning company, had arrived at the site before me.
“Uncle, do you like the place you moved into?”
“It’s on the top floor, so it’s good exercise.”
“That’s a relief. They said he wasn’t discovered until fifteen days after he died. Deaths of people living alone are becoming a serious problem these days. Now that the weather’s warming up, they’re finding a lot of dead people.”
People who had died alone during the winter without anyone knowing.
As the weather warmed, the smell began to spread, leading to the discovery of those who had died alone.
“Uncle, let’s finish quickly and get out of here. It gives me the creeps thinking the dead man’s spirit might still be here.”
“Yes.”
The villa’s basement.
The body had already been removed, but the two-room apartment was crawling with cockroaches and maggots.
I was used to this kind of work.
First, I sprayed pesticide to kill the insects completely, then swept them into a pile.
Put the trash into garbage bags, separate the recyclables, and that was it.
After cleaning the floor and even tearing off the wallpaper, Song Suk-ja spoke.
“Uncle, the boss says he urgently needs help at another site, so he wants me to go. You can finish up alone, right?”
“Yes. There isn’t much furniture here anyway. Take care.”
She left, and I started taking the clothes off the rack.
Just then, an elderly woman entered the house.
“Tsk, tsk. I thought he had gone to work somewhere in the countryside, but he died here.”
The old woman approached me and asked,
“Are there any valuables?”
“No. I haven’t found anything yet.”
“Figures. What would a manual laborer have anyway? He probably just went around picking up strange things. Throw everything away.”
“Understood.”
The woman looked around the room and left.
She must have been the landlord.
Just as she’d said, there were things piled up in the corner: hinges, buckles, pieces of stone, spent cartridge casings, and other miscellaneous objects.
But what caught my eye was a black silicone mask.
What was this?
Without thinking, I picked up the mask and put it on my face.
“Huh?”
The mask tightened around my face, then my skin seemed to relax before being pulled taut.
At the same time, a status window appeared before my eyes.
[Persona System Activation Complete]
ā¶ Time Remaining: 11:59:59
[Rules]
- The mask can be maintained for 12 hours.
- After one use, a 24-hour cooldown is required.
- All abilities are enhanced by 10% compared to the original body.
- The mask provides a recovery function.
[Reward Conditions]
- Upon achieving revenge once, an alternate Persona will be unlocked.
- Each successful act of revenge grants one use of the alternate Persona.
- The alternate Personas added will be a young woman and an elderly person, with a duration of 6 hours.
- After achieving revenge 10 times, you can use one immediate-unlock ticket.
[Warning]
- You may remove the mask starting one minute before the timer expires. If you fail to remove it, you will no longer be able to return to your original face.
What was this?
I checked the mirrorāand froze.
A completely unfamiliar middle-aged man was trapped inside the mirror.
