“Wh-who’s there!”
Yang Deok-gwang whipped his head around in alarm.
The answer was a fist to the face.
Whack!
“Aagh!”
His head hadn’t even finished turning when a second blow cracked into the back of his skull, and Yang Deok-gwang went down.
There wasn’t a shred of mercy in it.
“What the hell!!!”
His brother, Yang Deok-su, leaped out of his seat.
Nobody had seen this coming.
Thwack! Crash-bang-bang!
He never made it to his feet. A blow landed square on his back, and Yang Deok-su went sprawling next to his brother.
“Kukh!”
The breath went out of him.
It felt like his back had split in two.
“For human garbage like you two, a normal life—eating your meals, making a living—is way too merciful a blessing. Am I right?”
The brothers lay sprawled on the floor, and the attacker’s voice reached them crystal clear.
They still couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
It had come out of nowhere, a thunderbolt out of a clear night sky. (TL Note: The Korean expression is “a thunderbolt in the middle of the night”—a disaster that strikes out of nowhere, like a bolt from the blue.)
“Spend the rest of your lives crawling… flat on your backs. When you’ve paid for your sins in full, heaven will come and take you.”
The voice was so cold it might have risen out of a hell of ice.
The two of them tried desperately to turn their heads and see who it was.
But the grip crushing their necks was too strong. They couldn’t budge.
They could barely breathe.
“Wh… who… are… you…”
Yang Deok-su couldn’t lift his head. Shaking, he squeezed the words out in a voice that barely made it past his throat.
Drool ran down his chin.
The hand had no pity in it.
Every breath was a small miracle.
Yang Deok-su was a strong man, but he had no more strength left in him than a snake held by the neck in a snake catcher’s fist.
Who is it? Who the hell is this?
Yang Deok-gwang was frantic to know who it was.
He’d specially hired mobsters for security tonight, and still the man had gotten all the way in here.
He could feel a horrible killing intent.
He felt like a beast that hadn’t eaten in a month had him by the throat.
“The reaper.”
With those cold words, a hot energy seeped into the brothers through the backs of their necks.
“Uuuuuuuugh.”
“Aaaaaaagh…”
The attacker’s hands tightened on the bare skin at the napes of their necks.
Something flowed out through his palms and bored into every inch of them, like an electric current.
Their tongues went thick, and their eyes lost focus bit by bit.
Their guts churned, and their sphincters opened on their own.
It was a pain unlike anything they’d ever felt.
“Slowly… every day is going to feel like hell.”
The demon whispered.
Their bodies wouldn’t obey them.
And then sleep came crashing down on them, and they both blacked out.
— Heh heh heh heh… Seo-ryeon. Come here~. Oppa’s gonna make you die happy.
On the screen was the pervert, stripped naked.
He was reaching for the sobbing Seo-ryeon.
“Oh Dong-seong… you son of a bitch! You’re dead tonight.”
KRASH!
One punch smashed the recording machine to pieces.
Rage surged through his whole body, ready to burst.
— Dark karma points acquired. From this moment on, the evil gods will be keeping a friendly eye on you.
A low voice rang inside Tae-san’s head.
“Tae-san oppa. Waaaaaah!”
Seo-ryeon cried out for the one she loved.
Tears streamed down her face.
Her mind was in a fog, but her instincts knew she was in danger.
“Cry! Cry harder! You think that bastard Jang Tae-san’s going to save you? You’re mine. Heh heh heh heh.”
The savage, naked beast closed in on her.
He yelled at her, bullying someone who couldn’t fight back.
Drunk on the thrill of sadistic violence, Oh Dong-seong was burning up all over.
Blazing lust consumed him.
He wanted to destroy something.
Ever since he was a boy, Oh Dong-seong had been raised under his father Oh Seung-hyeok’s iron hand.
In his last year of high school, he’d been beaten more times than he could count so his grades would be good enough for Hanguk University’s law department.
An elite team of Korea’s number-one star tutors had been glued to him.
He didn’t have a single moment to breathe.
The stress made him feel like his brain would explode, but he was too afraid of his father to do anything but grit his teeth and take it.
He’d sailed through the admissions interview by way of a bribe to a professor about to retire as emeritus.
After all that, college was heaven for Oh Dong-seong.
Now that he was an adult, his father said, he could have all the fun he wanted.
He’d grown up his whole life watching his father’s domineering, violent temper.
Above all, the man had been endlessly forgiving when it came to women.
He’d let his son off the leash so far that he even assigned him a secretary to set up his good times.
Oh Dong-seong swung his dick around like a madman.
His twisted way of blowing off stress came out as violence toward women.
And a pretty girl like the one tonight was icing on the cake.
The CEO had even set the whole thing up so he could play with her as much as he liked.
“You’re mine! Obey me! Obey!”
Oh Dong-seong used the word without even thinking—obey, the word he’d heard from his father until his ears were worn out.
He was like a clone of Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok, who ruled like a king at home and at the company alike.
Oh Dong-seong hauled Seo-ryeon up from where she’d fallen on the bed.
He clamped his hand over her mouth.
“G… get lost… I hate you…”
Seo-ryeon wanted nothing to do with him.
She could say what she liked; he had her in a tight grip, and she couldn’t move.
“Heh heh heh heh heh…”
Oh Dong-seong laughed, satisfied.
A girl who fought back was more fun than one who just lay there.
Rrrrrrrip.
His hand tore her top without a moment’s hesitation.
Seo-ryeon fell back onto the bed.
“Waaaaaaaaah!”
Shocked and terrified, Seo-ryeon bawled her eyes out.
She covered her chest with her hands and curled up.
Oh Dong-seong’s claws reached for her again—slowly, and with more force.
The night was long, and now the game would begin for real.
“Heh heh heh.”
His hand slid slowly down her neck and around to her back.
The only barrier left was a single piece of blue fabric.
Oh Dong-seong’s breathing turned ragged.
He’d hit the point where he couldn’t hold back anymore.
He threw himself on top of her.
“Oh… Dong… seong!”
Just then a demon’s voice growled through the room.
“!!!”
Oh Dong-seong jumped.
“What the hell!”
Scowling, he spun around.
It was pure reflex.
His father had made him train since he was little so he’d never come home beaten.
He whipped around and dropped into a boxing stance.
His body was set to throw a punch the instant he spotted the other guy.
But.
Crack.
Out of nowhere, a hand seized the back of his neck.
It was like steel.
“Kekh!”
His breath caught, and in an instant Oh Dong-seong’s face went white.
Crrrk-crk-crack.
The pressure on his neck kept building.
“Ke… keeeeekh…”
Oh Dong-seong felt like his eyeballs were going to pop out.
He’d caught the express train straight from heaven to hell.
He couldn’t understand what was happening.
President Yang Deok-gwang had told him he could relax and have a good time.
Security had been tight.
The thought never got any further.
He couldn’t breathe, and the terror of dying set his arms and legs shaking.
This guy had professional training.
No matter how Oh Dong-seong thrashed, the one gripping his neck didn’t budge an inch.
Thud!
Oh Dong-seong was dragged off the bed and onto the floor.
“There are too many things in this world that aren’t human.”
The cold-blooded killer was talking to himself.
“They don’t work for anything. They take what belongs to other people, help themselves… and then they make excuses. That’s just how the world is, they say… Am I the only one, they want to know. The world’s unfair anyway, so one more of me won’t make any difference—that’s what they think.”
“Keeeeeekh…”
The words weren’t getting through to Oh Dong-seong.
He couldn’t breathe; his lungs were shriveling, and his eyes were rolling back.
For the first time in his life he was facing death, and the fear came crashing over him.
“They steal, and then they wrap it up nicely and call it winning. Hypnotizing themselves into believing good and evil are only a sheet of paper apart. Isn’t that right, Oh Dong-seong?” (TL Note: “Only a sheet of paper apart” is a Korean way of saying two things are barely different at all.)
He sounded like a crazed psycho killer.
“P… please… money…”
Oh Dong-seong begged desperately for his life.
This guy was going to kill him, no question.
The first thing that came to mind was money.
His father had always said so.
There was nothing in the world money couldn’t fix.
Even in his own short life, Oh Dong-seong had learned that money could do anything.
“Money? How much are you offering?”
The killer eased his grip a little.
“A-a hundred million won…”
“What, just a hundred million? Your life’s worth about as much as a dog’s? That’s the best the Ana Group’s third son can do?”
He was a real killer, no doubt about it.
Able to breathe for a second, Oh Dong-seong thought frantically.
All he had to do was get out of this, somehow.
“A billion won!”
Oh Dong-seong screamed it out like a man having a fit.
Crrrk-crk-crack.
“Kekh!”
The brutal killer bore down on his neck again, as if he didn’t like the answer.
Oh Dong-seong’s arms and legs thrashed wildly in the air.
“Forget the money. Let’s try something else. Heh heh heh.”
The killer demon’s laughter pooled thickly across the floor.
“You like drugs, don’t you? Take some of those and have yourself a nice little dance.”
“???”
Oh Dong-seong didn’t get it.
The killer dragged him over to where the pill bottle was.
Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk.
The bottle was being emptied onto the table.
“Eat. All of it. Then I’ll let you live.”
A whole fistful of pills in the killer’s hand filled Oh Dong-seong’s vision.
He hesitated.
That many pills had to be close to a lethal dose.
Crack.
The hesitation didn’t last long.
The pain in his neck was too much.
Oh Dong-seong opened his mouth and desperately swallowed the pills.
“Chew them up nice. Good medicine always tastes bitter. Heh heh heh.” (TL Note: A saying Korea shares with China: “good medicine is bitter to the mouth”—what’s good for you is hard to swallow.)
The killer’s cruel laughter rang in his ears as he got them down.
The moment the powerful drugs hit and his head started to spin—
“Oppa… Tae-san oppa~ waaaaaaah!”
Seo-ryeon scrambled off the bed and ran toward them, calling for her Tae-san oppa.
J-Jang Tae-san?
In that same instant, just before he blacked out, one last face flashed through Oh Dong-seong’s mind.
(End of Chapter 102)