— Is this for real? Is that seriously the Ana Group’s son?

— Legit for real! The guy’s name is Oh Dong-seong! Look it up online, his face comes right up!

— Whoa… unbelievable. He ran through the middle of Gangnam high on drugs?

— Isn’t he a Hanguk University law student? It was all over the headlines that he’s the Ana Group’s son.

— Lol. Hanguk Law is f***ed!

Across Korea, people opened their eyes in the morning, saw the breaking news and shook their heads in disbelief.

Every online community was going crazy with naked photos and videos.

Last night, the son of one of Korea’s ten biggest conglomerates had run naked through Gangnam, high on drugs.

Oh Dong-seong was a star.

He ran around stark naked, junk flapping, screaming for someone to save him one second and giggling the next. It was a genuinely shocking sight.

He was foaming at the mouth, and only the whites of his eyes showed.

It had been late in the evening, but plenty of people were out and about.

Cell-phone videos and photos were everywhere.

Oh Dong-seong’s weapon down below had been standing at rigid, furious attention.

Women screamed; men just stared, at a loss for words.

For a man on drugs, Oh Dong-seong was quick, dodging this way and that to escape the police who’d come for him.

Searches for “Gangnam naked,” “Oh Dong-seong” and “Ana Group” took the top spots in the real-time rankings.

“Hey! You sons of bitches!!!”

Whoosh, whoosh!

A golf driver sliced the air along with the curses.

Crash-crash-crash-crash.

Everything in the office was smashed to pieces.

Ana Group chairman Oh Seung-hyeok was blazing with fury, rampaging like a crazed horse.

His secretaries, white as sheets, could only watch their raving chairman.

There was no stopping him.

When Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok—a vicious piece of work—lost it, the smart move was to stay as quiet as a dead mouse.

“Huff, huff…”

The computer monitor, the bookshelves, the desk, the potted plants, the picture frames—everything was wrecked.

Even Oh Seung-hyeok, who’d been swinging the driver like a madman, was breathing hard now.

One night’s sleep, and he’d woken up to all hell breaking loose.

Last night he’d spent a cozy evening with an actress he’d met not long ago.

He’d holed up in a hideaway not even his inner circle knew about, ignored his phone and rested up.

And in the meantime his son had caused a disaster.

The Ana Group’s secretarial team never had time to muzzle the papers or the networks.

His son Oh Dong-seong’s naked romp had started around nine in the evening; the only mercy was that it hadn’t gone out live on TV.

Too many people had seen it.

Communications had come too far; there was no blocking everyone’s cell phones.

And Oh Dong-seong going wild on drugs had turned public opinion sour.

The first tip came in, the secretarial team scrambled, and within an hour it was all over.

They’d even threatened the newspapers and broadcasters, but they couldn’t get a grain of traction.

Tips were pouring in from every direction; any outlet that sat on a scoop like this would’ve been a fool.

Reporters could sniff these things out like bloodhounds.

They knew the Ana Group would flood them with ad money to bury the story.

So before that happened, they ran as many articles as they liked.

The Ana Group was one of the big conglomerates, but it wasn’t one of the giants at the heart of the Korean economy.

On top of that, the public loved nothing more than tearing someone apart, and they weren’t about to let this go.

President Choe Byeong-bak’s inauguration was just days away, and it had soured the mood among young people even more.

Anger at big business, the upper class and the establishment was building like magma in a chamber.

And then, right on cue, this: a chaebol son’s total trainwreck. (TL Note: A chaebol is one of the giant family-run conglomerates that dominate the Korean economy; the word is often said with resentment.)

The whole country cursed the Ana Group from top to bottom.

Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok’s abuse-of-power scandal was still fresh, too, which made the fire burn all the hotter.

He’d had mobsters threaten the company’s union chairman, then called the man in and beaten him with a bat.

He’d paid a million won a swing.

The union chairman had swallowed his tears and taken the beating; lawsuits and pressure from the company had drained his family dry.

Word got around about the blows—tens of millions of won’s worth—and the check tossed at the end.

He’d smothered it by spreading money around the press.

He’d thrown bribes by the handful at the prosecution, the courts and the politicians, too.

On appeal, he got a suspended sentence and stayed out of jail.

The stock price took a beating instead.

He’d been sold as a real man’s man who paid for company dinners on his own card. In truth, he just did whatever the hell he felt like.

He’d taken the helm of the group before he was even thirty and done every last thing he wanted.

He’d earned a reputation for brilliant investment instincts by swallowing Hanguk Life, a company bigger than his own.

Now he was working on swallowing Daeung Shipbuilding.

No—the provisional contract was already signed. A few more months and it would be a done deal.

Once he had Daeung Shipbuilding, the group would jump another rung up the business rankings.

And now his son had gone and thrown cold water on the whole thing.

“Where is that little shit right now!”

“…He’s in the hospital.”

“How much of that crap did he stuff down his throat?”

“They say he took quite a lot.”

“Who’s in charge of Dong-seong!”

The exorcism was over, but Oh Seung-hyeok was still shouting.

The public expected more from the chaebol families these days.

Shutting down the press wasn’t going to make this go away the way it used to.

“That would be Section Chief Cha Yeong-tae, from the secretariat.”

“Where’s that son of a bitch!”

“H-here, Chairman…”

Section Chief Cha Yeong-tae stepped out from behind the executives, white as death.

Up until yesterday evening, everything had been going swimmingly.

Oh Dong-seong was sure to inherit a few affiliates someday, and the section chief had made sure every appetite of his was satisfied.

Insiders who knew about this kind of dirt routinely rose to key posts in the company later on.

Section Chief Cha had gotten in touch with the agency Seo-ryeon belonged to and set a time right away.

Then Oh Dong-seong had gone in to enjoy himself.

All that should have been left was a good work this morning, and that would have been that.

He’d confirmed that Oh Dong-seong had gone into the office, then, for once, left work early.

He’d been out with friends, knocking back soju and blowing off steam, when the internet exploded.

The company’s emergency response team went into full gear.

Even so, there was nothing to be done.

The police arrested the drugged-up Oh Dong-seong and took him to the hospital.

The news ran it as breaking news, over and over.

Section Chief Cha had stayed up all night in a total meltdown.

He’d just sat there, dazed, at the hospital where Oh Dong-seong was admitted.

Early this morning, the summons had come for him there at the hospital.

“Did you give that little shit Dong-seong the drugs?”

“N-no.”

“Then what the hell happened!”

“It seems he took the drugs… while he was at that place.”

“That place? Spit it out, you little shit!”

“He went to an entertainment agency called KNB Entertainment to be entertained.”

“Entertained? Haa…”

Only now was he getting the whole story.

Oh Seung-hyeok let out a sigh.

He could picture exactly how it had played out.

Oh Seung-hyeok had been entertained plenty himself—back when he was young, and now and then even today.

To land a single commercial, an entertainment agency would hand over anything and everything.

“Bring me those agency bastards!!!”

“Th-that’s impossible.”

“Why! Why is it impossible!”

“The police took them in.”

“For the drugs?”

“For occupational embezzlement and breach of trust, and for the suicides of singers who used to be with the agency.”

“…Damn it!”

Oh Seung-hyeok grabbed his head and scowled.

It had to be some two-bit agency.

He’d have liked nothing better than to beat this Section Chief Cha half to death, but there was no point.

He needed to get this cleaned up fast.

“Manager Yu.”

He called in the head of the secretariat, his closest aide.

“Go ahead.”

“Get us a lawyer with pull—an ex-judge or ex-prosecutor—and shut the press up as fast as you can. Give them whatever they ask for.”

“Understood.”

“And the agency boss who got dragged into the police station… make sure he keeps his mouth shut. Dong-seong never set foot in that place. Got it?”

Doing drugs was one thing. Taking sex as a bribe too was something else entirely.

Chaebol kids behaving badly made for good gossip, but get stuck with sex bribes and drugs on top of it, and your name was mud forever.

The Ana Group chairman’s family already had a bad enough image as it was.

“I’ll take care of it right away.”

“When Dong-seong wakes up, ask him. This whole thing smells off, so find out everything you can.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“And… call Ju-hyeok and have him set up a time for me to go pay my respects to that gentleman.”

This was the kind of thing that only went away if you greased the politicians too.

He couldn’t have been more grateful that the government was changing.

He’d had the foresight to start greasing the palms of the key people around Choe Byeong-bak’s administration long ago.

“Fuck…”

Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok spat out a vicious curse.

A deep furrow dug in between his brows.

— I’m losing my mind. Oh Dong-seong just took a dump all over our school.

— So what if he’s the Ana Group’s son… To all our seniors who are judges and prosecutors: please, nail him good this time!

— I just joined the Ana Group this year… the mood at the company right now is a total shitshow.

The anonymous message board called Hanguk University Pine Grove was in an uproar.

“So long, Oh Dong-seong.”

I sat back and enjoyed the Gangnam naked incident online.

Once I’d fed him the pills and they’d started to kick in, I’d carried Oh Dong-seong out and quietly set him down by the side of a main road.

He wasn’t waking up, so I gave him a little massage with my internal power.

He woke up screaming and took off running through the night like a champ.

After that, it was live-streamed across the internet in vivid detail.

Oh Dong-seong would probably live on in this country’s memory forever.

At the same time, I brought Seo-ryeon home with me.

I couldn’t leave her at the dorm, not after the scare she’d had.

I pressed her sleep point and put her to sleep.

I’d gone in and out through the window instead of the entrance, so I left no evidence.

I’d wiped all the CCTV recordings, too.

The president and his little brother wouldn’t wake up until morning.

I’d blocked their vital channels with my internal power.

With every day that passed, their muscles would waste away.

They’d have just enough strength left to lift a spoon.

For the rest of their lives, running or even walking fast would be impossible.

Without diapers, they wouldn’t even be able to leave the house.

I’d left them alive, but you could hardly call it living.

“Just how many dark karma points did I rack up?”

After Oh Dong-seong disappeared, a few messages had popped up.

They said a heap of dark karma points had been stored up.

I didn’t know what they were for yet, but I didn’t mind.

Karma points were a bonus that opened up new worlds.

“It’s not over yet… I’ll rip out every last root!”

Oh Dong-seong was one problem. Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok and his family, standing behind him, were enemies I’d have to clear away too.

I’d seen plenty of the Ana Group in my last life.

It might be great at business, but there was nothing human about it.

What’s more, he might find out I was the one who’d done that to his son.

With Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok’s animal instincts and the group’s information network, it was more than plausible.

I meant to grab the roots and shake them before that could happen.

The best defense is always a good offense.

“Aaaaagh!”

Just then a scream burst from the bedroom.

I sprang up and hurried into the room.

“Agh! Aaaaagh!”

Seo-ryeon’s face was shining pale and damp as she screamed.

Yesterday’s memories seemed to have turned into a nightmare.

“Seo-ryeon.”

I said her name gently.

I brushed the wet hair back from her sweat-soaked forehead.

“Oppa?”

Seo-ryeon opened her eyes drowsily.

“Yeah. It’s oppa.”

“Ah…”

Only then did she relax, letting out a long breath.

Her tears quickly dried.

But her face was still flushed, as if her feelings had run high.

“Did something happen?”

I asked gently, playing as dumb as I could.

“Um… in my dream a weird monster was chasing me. It was trying to eat me up…”

Seo-ryeon shuddered, as though remembering the nightmare.

“Just a nonsense dream.”

“R-right? It’s just a nonsense dream, right?”

She asked, like she needed to be sure.

“Yeah. It’s just a nonsense dream.”

I smiled and nodded.

“But oppa, where am I? Why am I…”

I’d dressed her in Mom’s clothes in place of the ones torn up yesterday.

Seo-ryeon looked around the room, then down at her clothes, then at me.

Her eyes were asking for an explanation.

She seemed to have no idea why she was here when she’d gone to see the president.

“Seo-ryeon, you trust oppa, right?”

“Yeah! Of course.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

It was a moment that called for a long explanation.

But I kept it short.

I just held her quietly, now that she was awake.

She’d believe it was a nightmare, but yesterday Seo-ryeon had come to a major turning point in her life.

In my last life, this would never have happened.

It happened because I’d brought her to orientation.

The butterfly effect, slowly shifting and spreading.

“Heh… Oppa, you smell nice…”

Still just a kid, Seo-ryeon sniffed at me, nestled in my arms.

I gently stroked her hair.

A nightmare like yesterday’s.

I’ll keep you safe.

I swore to myself that I’d never give her a nightmare like that again.

(End of Chapter 103)