“Mwurgh!”


  U Beomseok, figuring out the situation, struggled. He needed his mouth ungagged to try to negotiate or beg. He desperately pleaded with his eyes.

  Murai clenched his eyes firmly shut. When the manager betrayed him, it ultimately ended all ties. This is why Koreans were second-class citizens. His hometown, Daisen, came to his mind with its cows grazing on pasture and its thick scent of tea. He thought about his brother, who must be engrossed in his final training at Daisenji. His brother was also set on a schedule to be sent to Korea next month.

  ‘Yuki, you shouldn’t come to Korea. There is a Tengu or an ogami.”


  Murai, resigned in defeat, wished desperately for a way out.

  Mussang tapped U Beomseok’s throat and stomach to prompt his voice to return.

  “Spare my life! I can pay you any amount.”


  U Beomseok desperately yelled out with his hoarse vocal cords.

  “Why are you doing this to us?”


  Murai, who gave up his life, was calm, unlike U Beomseok, whose face was covered with tears and snot.

  “Why? Were you committing atrocities like this for a reason? This is the 20th century Korea Enlightenment Act in which Japan arrested independence activists and conscripted workers in the guise of taking in starving children and adolescents under 18 in 1923. Did your government order you to enact martial law in Korea?”


  ‘How does he know?’


  Murai flinched. He thought of the situation as a cinch. Even if he ended up brutally murdered, he had to inform the organization.

  “You two wrecked souls and ruined lives. You are headed for the no-blood hell. Your soul will be almost non-existent, not belonging to any category among heavenly beings, humans, animals, asuras, ghouls, and demons. Your body will continue the cycle of destruction and rebirth to no end. Twelve times a day, you will die, shrunken as small as a mustard seed. You will die twelve times a day, bloated as big as a mountain. Before entering that place, I will allow you to stretch your bodies and leave last words. I am bein quite merciful, am I not?”


  Mussang smiled with malicious glee.

  “He is indeed my master!”


  Gim Geukdo marveled at Mussang’s verbosity. His on-point words sent chills down his body and made his fingers and toes squirm in cringe.

  “Spare us!”


  “A samurai doesn’t die. They only fall like a

  petal.”


  U Beomseok desperately yelled out, and Murai murmured with his eyes closed. Mussang scoffed at the Japanese man, who pretended to be calm. He wanted to discipline him, but there was not much time.

  “So those were your last words. You will have to say the rest in the no-blood hell. Begin!”


  “Aye!”


  God’s words didn’t need to be challenged. So Gim Geukdo didn’t hesitate a second and lifted U Beomseok and pushed him into the feed grinder. Then, quite viciously, he made him go in feet first.

  “Filthy betrayer, I will haunt you as a wandering spirit!”


  U Beomseok glared a bloodthirsty look at Gim Geukdo.

  “You may.”


  Gim Geukdo answered tersely and turned on the switch. The conveyor belt got the material in a hook and dragged it into the helical grinder.

  “No!”


  A terrible scream screeched through the night sky. The large helical gear began to eat his legs first. U Beomseok’s mouth was agape in shock. Then, the machine vibrated, chewing an unusual, hard object. U Beomseok’s scream dragged on until his whole lower body had vanished. The grinder, having been fed, spat out gel-like bloody waste. It only took three minutes to turn U Beomseok into a basinful of blood.

  “Agh!”


  Murai shuddered like a tree branch in the icy cold winter. Mr. U, who had always been headstrong, was ground alive and turned into a basinful of blood before his very eyes. If such primal fear didn’t affect someone, they were already a dead person. Gim Geukdo lifted Murai and put him on the machine’s mouth.

  “Sir, help me! Forgive me!”


  Murai struggled. Because of the raw visual shock, the petal-brave was no longer visible. How desperate had he had to be to call his subordinate ‘sir’?”


  “You said you shall fall like a petal. Fucker, stop lingering and just go!”


  Gim Geukdo’s eyes glimmered with sadistic pleasure. The pent-up resentment and rage he had bottled up as he served the Japanese he hated were let out at once. He endured day after day, and finally, this day has come. The switch had been turned on. The conveyor belt dragged Murai into the machine’s stomach with tremendous force.

  “Argh!”


  The din of the grinder drowned out Murai’s scream. Finally, the outlet threw up a ground-carrot-like mixture. Having eaten U Beomseok and Murai, the hero asked for more.

  “It’s a Mitsui product. It is indeed quite

  good.”


  Mitsui, along with Mitsubishi, used Korean forced laborers the most during the colonial era.

  ‘The children must have had some closure.’


  Gim Geukdo smiled a wan grin as he looked at the bus. He didn’t draw the curtains on purpose. The children had to live through hell. The sad ending of the directors of the facility, Murai and U Beomseok, was a gift from him to the children.

  “No!”


  Mussang made clucking sounds with his tongue. The children were flocking to the bus windows. Since no curtains had been drawn, they must have witnessed the gruesome scenes. Mussang’s evil eyes turned to focus upon Gim Geukdo.

  “Sir, it’s my fault. I apologize.”


  Gim Geukdo knelt on the floor with a thud.

  “We cannot rewind time. I am worried if it will be yet another trauma for the children.”


  Mussang made clucking sounds with his tongue.

  “It is my fault. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you.”


  Gim Geukdo abruptly pulled out a dagger from his clothes and stabbed his chest with no hesitation. (If I go to the sea, I will die in the water. If I go to the mountain, I will die buried in the grass. But, if I die next to the Emperor, I will have no regrets.] His misjudgment could only be repaid with death. “Agh!”


  The blade stabbed only his skin then halted. His arm disobeyed his intent.

  “Fool, take that dagger back in!”


  As Mussang’s voice rang his eardrums, his arm became free. Gim Geukdo, surprised, let go of the dagger’s handle.

  “I apologize! I apologize!”


  Mussang glared at Gim Geukdo, who bowed and bowed like a grasshopper on a twig. The Japanese consolidated the mindset that an individual is the collective’s expendable tool as they went through long Middle Ages and contemporary militarism. The ones from the Hamon clan were more extreme. However, Gim Geukdo was still confined to Japanese behavior due to being born and raised in Japan.

  “Gim Geukdo, we are in Korea. Koreans don’t kneel for every little reason. Koreans don’t say sorry all the time. So don’t overreact and get the people in the living quarters on the bus.”


  Mussang told him off in a quiet voice.

  “Aye, sir.”


  Gim Geukdo hurriedly drove away.

  “He did that on purpose.”


  Mussang grinned impishly. Gim Geukdo could have fooled a ghost but not him. The Japanese were an incomprehensible bunch. Japan, which was winning, had its fortune turn at Midway. Japan had exercised marine power far mightier than the United States’s but still lost miserably. There were many reasons why Japan lost and why the United States won, but the most prominent was the Japanese soldiers’ blind loyalty. That blind loyalty led to significant damage and casualties.

  The parents who sent their sons on a sea battle acted the same. Even though their sons were buried in cold seawater thousands of kilometers away, they apologized to the war headquarters. ‘Because of my child’s lack of loyalty, he ended up causing trouble for the Emperor. It is our fault as parents for not educating him properly.’ Such apologies followed one another. One father had even recited a letter that told his captured son to commit seppuku, and then he did so with a dagger.

  Mussang was not sure if it were their true feelings or cries contaminated with the insanity of militarism. Still, it was extreme collectivism and insanity that neglected the human condition in any case. Some gourmet had said they could tell who you are by what you eat. That was some absurdity. One could figure out a human or an animal at a glance. When the half-moon started to decline toward the western horizon, the front gate of Eungsimje opened. The sound of an engine moved through the gate. It meant the vehicle was not visible. The sound of the engine halted at the back garden.

  “He is here!”


  Neopchi, dozing off sitting on a stepping stone, stood abruptly. The engine’s sound trailed away, and the space vibrated like ripples. The front part of the bus was exposed out in the open. As if an ear of corn was being peeled, as if a banana was being peeled, the bus’s body was exposed in the open.

  “Can that be?”


  Neopchi’s eyes bulged like the actual fish’s. He had thought he would not be surprised by anything at this point, but his master’s abilities knew no limits.

  A pitch-black cat jumped and landed on Mussang’s shoulder. It was Kkamdung who had concealed the bus by stretching his whole body around it. His body had absorbed all visible light. There was no way the bus was going to be visible.

  “Friend, some students fail their semester, being too caught up with their hobbies.”


  Kkamdung whispered in Mussang’s ear. Mussang was dumbstruck. Now, a leopard had concerns regarding his grades.

  “Take them to the basement. We have a sufficient number. We shall call in the aircraft.”


  Mussang pointed at the members of the particular unit loaded at the backside of the bus like cargo.

  “You said you had no money. So why do you need to get that lump of steel in the air? Then, when Heca returns, it’s going to be simple.”


  “Could the purple chicken be a cargo aircraft?”


  “When it finishes its third awakening, it develops inner cavity.”


  “It is much more useful than you!”


  “We have but different uses.”


  “You don’t even pay for what you eat.”


  “What I eat is quite expensive. So I shall work by back off.”


  The space shimmered with tidal waves. Kkamdung and one of the particular unit members disappeared. Kkamdung reappeared after five seconds. Another disappeared again.

  “What is this, sir?”


  “Teleportation.”


  “Whoa!”


  Gim Geukdo couldn’t help but exclaim. The abilities of a yin-yang artist were but deceptive trickery made by mixing sense-deceiving spells and tools. Those were advanced skills but nothing compared to the teleportation he had just witnessed firsthand. Gim Geukdo now couldn’t consider Mussang a human after witnessing up close that he commanded such an incredible being.

  “My back!”


  Kkamdung tapped his back. He teleported 21 times between the bus and the basement. He had the right to complain.

  “Don’t be a pussy and help unload the bus!”


  Mussang got off with Yeongsuk in his arms. The ten orphans followed him. He doubted the police and prosecutors would adequately investigate the welfare center when they were connected to the particular unit. Still, he didn’t feel like leaving evidence there either.

  “You have returned!”


  Neopchi, who was waiting, bowed deeply.

  “Yeah, fall back for a minute.”


  Mussang fell back with the children away from the bus. Kkamdung reassumed his original form.

  “Whoa!”


  The children shouted in awe. The moonlit giant black leopard, by simply standing, constituted art.

  Kkamdung shot wide-range ELF. With his energy fully restored, Kkamdung’s ELF was of a different grade than before. The atmosphere was sizzling hot. A strong magnetic field enveloped the minibus.

  As if a dune was swept away by a desert wind, the shape of the bus began to disintegrate. Then, each sand-grain-sized fragment was further dissolved to the molecular level. Not more than a minute had passed when the 25-people bus disappeared without a trace. Only some scorched lawn revealed hard evidence that the bus had been there.

  “I paid for my food!”


  Kkamdung disappeared and left the stunned humans on the site. “Who are you?”


  Neopchi nudged Gim Geukdo, who was standing in a daze.

  “Gim Geukdo. Nice to meet you.”


  Gim Geukdo, startled, greeted Neopchi formally. No matter which organization he belonged to, he had to treat his superiors properly for things to go smoothly.

  “Nice to meet you. I am Neopchi, no, Mun Indo.”


  When Gim Geukdo treated him well, Neopchi’s mouth was open wide in awe. Now he had subordinates not long after he joined Mussang’s forces. Finally, things were starting to look up. “Mussang!”


  Jinsun appeared like a shadow.

  “I apologize. We have more family again.”


  Mussang smiled shyly.

  “You are quite adept. You spread your seeds so wide, and now you have more than children. If this were television, I should be wailing now as your wife.”


  Jinsun imitated a scene from a television series and giggled.

  “Quite so. This one is Yeongsuk. I still don’t know the rest’s names. All orphans.”


  “It’s good. The great monk said that the more women around you, the better.”


  Jinsun grinned and looked at the children. Thick make-up, luxury clothes, teary and dusty faces, and eyes shaking with anxiety. The children had gone through much.

  “Yeongsuk, come here!”


  Jinsun opened her arms wide.

  “Is that woman a good person?”


  Yeongsuk asked Mussang. Mussang smiled and nodded. Yeongsuk let herself in Jinsun’s embrace.

  “You must all be hungry, right?”


  The children stared at Jinsun.

  “She will be your mother.”


  At Mussang’s words, the children’s stony expressions melted away. Jinsun, who became a mother instantly, threw Mussang the mock-evil eye.

  “This one is called Gim Geukdo.”


  “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I can work as an electrician, gardener, plumber, and tiler. I am at your service.”


  Gim Geukdo bowed gregariously and politely.

  “Nice to meet you. The children seem exhausted. We will greet each other formally tomorrow.”


  Jinsun greeted him simply and looked back at the children.

  “You must be famished and exhausted.”


  “Yes, Mother!”


  “I will just be your big sister!”


  Jinsun grinned and shook her fist in a simulated demonstration of mock defiance.