As he had expected, these men were active members of an organ trafficking organization. The thugs imported from Japan and manufactured domestically in Korea worked for hand in hand and built a lair near the riverbank for one evident reason. The city of two million people served as a great source for the “products” and the shitty water of the river made it easy for them to dispose of the “industrial waste.”


  These people no longer put the dead body in a barrel and tossed it in the sea. If they put it in the feed shredder, the body became soup in five minutes. Then they could just pour it into the river.

  “I was going to get some sleep. Who is this?”


  U Beomseok, glancing back, flinched as if burned by fire. The special unit had strict rules. No lackey would ever enter with a baseball cap pressed down on his hair and wearing sunglasses. He must have come from the outside.

  But if he were, the dogs would have barked. At night, four hounds and six Akitas freely roam the property more for spotting escapees than intruders. Ten dogs closer to beasts were silent. How come?

  “Who are you?”


  U Beomseok asked a useless question. The intruder wouldn’t have come to exchange names with him.

  “Eastern Swordsman!”


  The intruder answered calmly. U Beomseok had no response momentarily. He was not expecting the man to answer. If it were not for the recent emergency, he would have thought the man to be a special tour.

  “I’ve heard you have a difficult delivery. Shall I help?”


  Mussang smirked. U Beomseok’s eyes widened. He felt like he needed to kill the man.

  “You wretch!”


  Murai was quicker in his action. His fingers moved rhythmically as if playing the piano. Finger-sized daggers approached Mussang rapidly. Mussang waved at it leisurely.

  At the next moment, he was holding all five daggers in his hand. His gesture was not focused at all but it was still systematically trained ability.

  “What?”


  Murai’s eyes widened. His brain found it difficult to process the novel sight.

  “It will be your turn soon, Jap.”


  “Die!”


  U Beomseok kicked the floor, leaped, and targeted Mussang’s chest. The dagger blade glinted in the fluorescent light. There was a clear-sounding thud. It was the ordinary soft slap Mussang often inflicted upon bad-natured ordinary people.

  “Argh!”


  It was soft to Mussang’s standards. U Beomseok turned in the air and fell to the ground to land sprawled on it. Only then had Murai the sense to accurately gauge the situation. Before the slapping hand met U Beomseok’s face, the hand retreated a bit.

  Murai was the shaman of the Hamon clan and a master at the same time. He could figure out that if the hand hadn’t retreated, it would have shattered Mr. U’s head or broken his neck. He never entered a pointless fight.

  Murai didn’t hesitate a second. Black smoke rose suddenly. It was a mixture of the Hamon clan’s illusory ability and modern chemical technology. The thick curtain of smoke containing CS expanded explosively. Before anyone had time to react, thick darkness enveloped the office. Murai attached suction cups on his hands and soles and climbed up to the ceiling like a gecko. Then he glided toward the entrance.

  “Where are you going without treating your guest? I would like some water.”


  A hand grasped his ankle. As if caught in an industrial press, his anklebone was crushed. Startled, Murai took out a knife from inside his jacket and wielded it. When he was about to bury the blade in the wrist of the hand that caught him, he was caught in a great centrifugal force. Murai fell to the ground headfirst and the very head was buried through the floor.

  “Argh!”


  He had protected his head with a protective spell but the impact far surpassed the protection. His eyes turned backward and his mouth foamed. Murai desperately held onto his fading consciousness. Mussang waved. A whirlwind was made. Black smoke rolled up like a mat, shrunk to a roll-cake size, then compressed to be fingernail-sized. The ink-black office was abruptly illuminated to be as bright as day.

  “Is he a supernatural agent?”


  Murai’s eyes widened. The mastery of the abilities the intruder cast brought his fading consciousness back to reality. Mussang compressed the darkness further to be rice-grain-sized and tossed it in the fish tank. A goldfish swallowed it and immediately turned upside down and rose to the surface. U Beomseok, coming to, continued to lie down on the floor and spectated the unrealistic performance.

  Mussang never spared his murderous intent. They were not good nor ordinary. They were just the same kind of lot as voodoo priests and desert thieves.

  “Names?”


  The man’s cold eyes turned to U Beomseok. “Huh!”


  U Beomseok, startled, puffed. He felt as if he was facing a tiger naked and submerged in ice water at the same time. His consciousness started to fade again.

  “I am the head of the welfare center, U Beomseok.”


  He answered right away. Mussang shook his head.

  “I won’t ask again. No fake shows. Who are you really?”


  U Beomseok hesitated to answer.

  “Argh!” U Beomseok fumbled at the plastic back that suddenly covered his face. He grappled with both hands but could touch nothing. There was no plastic or cloth. U Beomseok, overcome with fear, frantically scratched his face.

  Mussang gazed at his frantic victim with unchanging cold eyes. When he was about to breathe in, he sent a compressed Resonance Wave to block his windpipe. When one cannot fill one’s lungs with air, one starts to feel excruciating pain. The brain, deprived of oxygen, starts to emit frantic electric signals. The nerves, overwhelmed by the signals, burn with pain. Blocking one’s breathing was one of the most effective methods of torture that roused psychological fear through physical pain. If Mussang hadn’t planned to send him to Novatopia to tend to the windbreak forests, he would have already crushed all the bones in his body. When U Beomseok’s face became blue with suffocation, Mussang lifted Resonance Wave that covered his face.

  “Argh!”


  U Beomseok panted frantically. His face and neck became covered in blood in mere 30 seconds. His face, covered with a mixture of blood, tears, and snot, evoked the imagery of the portraits by Picasso. Murai, watching the scene, felt his face pale.

  “Who are you?”


  “I am the head of the special unit, U Beomseok.”


  That was the answer Mussang was expecting.

  “Mr. U! Are you out of your mind?”


  “Shut your piehole, Jap!”


  An apple flew in and blocked Murai’s agape mouth. It was one of the snacks on the tea table. Mussang glared at Murai with the coldest gaze.

  “Hurgh!”


  Murai coughed up the apple pieces lodged deep in his throat. The blood-covered pieces of apple flew out from his mouth with some broken teeth.

  Mussang’s fists started to “massage” Murai’s entire body. Murai, enduring the blow, could do nothing but squirm, drooling and covered in his own spit and snot.

  “Novatopia needs more people to tend to its forests. That is why I spare you two. I ‘hired’ a Japanese guy called Abe last year. He has a great work ethic like a typical Japanese person.”


  When he heard the name Abe, Murai attempted to say something but couldn’t. He could only hiss. His jaw had been dislocated. U Beomseok trembled in fear. He didn’t know what the man meant with tending to forests but it didn’t sound good.

  “U Beomseok and the special unit! That reminds me of two filthy names. U Beomseok and U Beomseok. Unit 731 and the butlers to the Japs. What a filthy combination of qualities. What are you tasked with?”


  U Beomseok closed his eyes shut. The man already knew everything. He didn’t fear death but feared the pain he would feel until death. “I will investigate and figure out everything eventually. If you answer sincerely, I shall feed you to the feed shredder. If you don’t, I will hire you as forest managers.”


  U Beomseok felt chills down his body. What could even this forest job be for death by the animal feed shredder to be better than it? When U Beomseok hesitated to say anything, someone knocked on the door.

  “What is it?”


  Mussang yelled. U Beomseok’s eyes widened in shock. The man was speaking with his own voice.

  “It’s Razor. Are you all right?”


  “Didn’t you hear the sounds? Of course, something is up. Enter!”


  U Beomseok’s mouth was agape in a mixture of shock and awe. The man even imitated his most minute antics. Razor opened the door and entered the office.

  “What is this?”


  Razor frowned. The sight of his two bosses sprawled on the floor, beaten up, confused him. His hand hesitated for the slightest bit and went inside his jacket.

  “Argh!”


  Razor’s wrist was flung back. The pistol he held flew into Mussang’s hand. Razor, still confused about what was happening, looked at his empty hand and the intruder’s which now held his gun.

  “Hurgh!”


  Razor puffed. He was about to reach the weapon hidden at his side but now his head and two arms fell limp toward the floor.

  “Your hands say that you are quite adept with daggers. Do you want to have a go at me?”


  “No. I am already aware that it is quite pointless. Hahaha!”


  Razor laughed. Even Murai and U Beomseok were already subdued. He stood no chance at all.

  “You are quite smart. Who are you?”


  “My name is Ha Geukdo, a Korean born in Japan. I was sent to Korea as an assistant to the special unit. I am number three in the Hamon clan’s lackeys. I am currently tasked with human resources and managing finances and surveillance.”


  Ha Geukdo divulged top secret after top secret.

  “You seem to understand what I say. Do you belong here too?”


  “Yes. This is an organization formed pre-war so a lackey like me doesn’t know anything about it. I am partial to its philosophy that entire Asia exists for Japan to prosper. It sounds quite mental.”


  Ha Geukdo glanced at Murai. Murai’s gaze was so murderous that it could probably be cancer-inducing. Ha Geukdo smirked and turned his gaze back to Mussang.

  “You don’t seem satisfied with your organization.”


  “Who would be? I joined to survive.”


  Razor interrupted himself and glanced at Murai and U Beomseok.

  “It is not something humans should do to fellow humans. So I have had a lot of internal struggles. My father surely wouldn’t have named me ‘Overcome the Islands’ for me to live like this.”


  “Do you know who I am?”


  “I don’t. I am just guessing you might be the one who decimated Pungguk last night. It seems like today is the last day of Mr. Murai and my boss’s lives. Of course, apparently, I and the sleeping ones are to join them too.”


  “Whoa!”


  Mussang marveled. The man was clever and knew how to read the air. Ha Geukdo’s brain waves and bloodstream were very stable. They were only disturbed when he mentioned his father. He was a rare jewel found in a heap of trash.

  “As you said. What is the special unit tasked with?”


  “Guiding the visitors and supplying the ‘material.”


  “You need to elaborate.”


  Ha Geukdo glanced at the stranger’s face. Each word and gesture was filled with willpower, resolve, and confidence. His eyes behind the sunglasses must exhibit the same clarity. His own life was shit now but he wanted to live like the man. He let out a feeble sigh and opened his mouth again.

  “There are three kinds of visitors. Organ recipients, blood recipients, and clients to child prostitutes. Ninety percent are from Japan and the rest are Koreans and Westerners. For the ones who cannot come to Korea, we deliver the tailored goods to them.”


  “The ‘tailored’ goods?”


  Mussang mused. pondered. Human organs were not like machine components. Even if they find the most compatible donor, transplant rejection was likely to happen. A great deal of information was needed for someone to have their organ replaced. “We hack into the hospitals’ medical records. Most Korean hospitals with more than 50 beds are connected to the Hamon clan. Of course, the means through which it is possible is money and blackmailing.” “What?”


  Mussang was shocked. This news was panic-inducing. They were scanning the entire medical records of entire South Korea in this very office. There could be no better method to find the most suitable donors for their clients. His own medical records may already be in their hands.

  The Korean peninsula, since ancient Japanese invasions and up to the colonial period, had always been harassed by the neighboring islands. Before the Japanese could harass the country, their Korean collaborators disturbed social cohesion and made people’s lives miserable.

  More than four decades had passed since liberation but Korea was still plagued with doubled-faced, evil Japs and their collaborators. Some of these wretches had their blood replaced with that of young victims. Some considered children younger than 10 years of age nothing but their plaything. Some extracted the organs of unassuming victims to line their own pockets. This was all happening in broad daylight.

  “Do you have Korean clients too?”


  “Yes. I am in charge of managing the register.”


  U Beomseok closed his eyes shut. The world was turning upside down. His life was done for too. Last night, he had seen his late mother gesture him toward her in his dream.

  “There must be a reason you are so candid with your answers?”


  Ha Geukdo prostrated down upon the floor tiles with contrite deferment, reverence.

  “I am 26. I don’t think it is too late for me to turn my life around and make karmic compensations for the sins I committed. If you spare my life, I will live as humanely as possible for the rest of my life. My towering heap of sins may not make that possible but I don’t want to tarnish my father’s good name anymore.”