御书房文学网

Chapter 27

Oh Byung-Hoon was glad at first. He thought someone was here to save him, but that wasn’t the case.

Do Sun-Woo had stopped Bae Sung-Hyun. He was no different from the perpetrators who bullied him when he was in middle school, and he was no different from Sung-Hyun, who was currently hitting him in the face.

From Oh Byung-Hoon’s perspective as the prey, there was only one more predator.

"Well, well, if it isn’t Do Sun-Woo."

Sung-Hyun acted as if he was glad that Sun-Woo was here. As expected, Sun-Woo and Sung-Hyun were close.

Byung-Hoon fell into even deeper despair. With Sun-Woo’s arrival, the last sliver of a chance to run away had disappeared. Then again, he hadn’t intended to, nor did he have the strength to run away in the first place.

"What are you doing?"

"Isn’t it obvious? I\'m just playing. Just being childish and pathetic." Sung-Hyun shrugged. He sounded sarcastic. Nevertheless, there was no change in Do Sun-Woo\'s expression. He maintained a grim and expressionless face.

"This is not at just a childish level. This is at a level that is worse than trash."

"Trash, you say. But I saw the post about you, and it seems like you’re not any better. I think it said that you used violence in middle school or something. At the very least, I\'ve never used violence in school before."

"I’ve never done such a thing. As for you, it’s not that you’ve never used violence, it’s that you\'ve never been caught."

"It’s not a crime if you don’t get caught after all. Am I right?"

At Sung-Hyun\'s question, the gang members all nodded.

Byung-Hoon quietly listened to their conversation. The atmosphere was strange for some reason. It was at least apparent that Sun-Woo and Sung-Hyun did not get along well.

"Anyway, it’s too late to pretend to be a good guy. That’s not going to wash away the past now. Let’s just hang out together. Join in on the fun, and we can all be happy.”

"I saw you last time, and you had a lot of strength and guts. Let\'s get along."

"Yeah, and you seem to have a lot of money too."

The gang members gathered around and pretended to be close friends with Sun-Woo by placing their hands on his shoulders. Sun-Woo shook off their hands with disgust. His expressionless face seemed to deepen—it was more rigid and ominous than before.

"Do you want a cigarette? Going to school sucks these days, right? Because of that post."

Sung-Hyun took out a cigarette and put it in Sun-Woo\'s mouth.

Smack.

Sun-Woo hit Sung-Hyun\'s hand. The cigarette rolled on the floor after it dropped. Sung-Hyun\'s face contorted briefly, but a hypocritical smile soon resurfaced. His ability to control his facial muscles was so unbelievably phenomenal that it approached the realm of miraculousness.

That said, it was still not at a level that was comparable to Sun-Woo, who was still expressionless. There was not even a single twitch in his facial muscles.

"If you don\'t like it, you don’t have to smoke it. Why’d you have to drop it? What a waste of a cig."

"Oh, Sung-Hyun. Can I keep this one?"

One of the gang members picked up the dropped cigarette with excitement. He then blew the dust off.

"Sure."

Sung-Hyun looked at him like he was pathetic.

"Well, whatever. So you don\'t like cigarettes, huh? Do whatever you want. If you hang out with us long enough, you’ll naturally end up smoking anyway."

"Why would I hang out with you guys?”

"Why? It’s nice to have more friends, don\'t you think? Let\'s just hang out. Then I\'ll sort out the rumors for you."

"Sort out the rumors? How?"

“If there is a will, there is a way. I have quite a lot of money, you see. Also, since Ko Jun-Min is dead, there are many ways to cover up the rumors," Sung-Hyun confidently said.

A smile suddenly appeared on Sun-Woo\'s face. It was a twisted and distorted smile. He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were moist as if he could shed tears at any moment. It was eerie and bizarre in a different sense than the expressionless face he had shown so far.

Byung-Hoon gulped without realizing it.

"What does Jun-Min\'s death have to do with the rumors?"

"Obviously... Ah," Sung-Hyun seemed to have belatedly realized his mistake and swallowed his words.

Sun-Woo laughed. "Was it you?"

Sun-Woo continued to laugh for a long time. It sounded like he was laughing, but it also sounded like he was crying.

It was impossible to tell whether he was happy or sad.

***

Memories flashed through my head like a panorama.

There was the hatred and contempt in the eyes of the children looking at me. There was the exhausted Jin-Seo, who was shaking while breathing hard. I also saw myself slowly dying covered with black flesh. Tears poured out of my eyes after having my trauma reignited from seeing the fire.

It had all been part of Sung-Hyun’s scheme. Or perhaps it was due to the ripples that resulted from his scheme— the so-called butterfly effect.

The moment I realized this, my heart felt strangely calm.

[Always be calm. Never lose your head.]

The advice from Legba was unnecessary because I was already calm. I was calmer than I had ever been in my life.

"Why?"

The first thing I had to do was ask for an explanation from Sung-Hyun, the mastermind behind these events. Just why in the world did he do all this? Why did he have to make my life so miserable?

"Why? What do you mean why? I don’t understand what you\'re saying.”

Sung-Hyun slowly took a step back. His tone and face showed signs of his agitation.

"Did you ask Jun-Min to write the post?"

"Hey, hey. What do you mean by that? I\'m not such a bad person."

Sung-Hyun belatedly denied any wrongdoing, but it was too late. The name ‘Ko Jun-Min’ came out of his mouth, which likely meant that he was the main culprit of this incident.

Even if he wasn’t the root cause, at the very least, he was deeply involved in this incident. Either he asked Jun-Min to write the post or encouraged Jun-Min to write the post. It was one of the two, or it could be both. Otherwise, it didn’t make sense for Jun-Min’s name to come out of his mouth.

Except for Jin-Seo and me, no one knew that Jun-Min wrote the post.

Tap.

Sung-Hyun backed up and eventually his back hit the wall. There was no more room for further retreat—cold sweat ran down his forehead. It was a rare sight to see him so flustered.

But he wasn’t flustered for long.

"Ah, fuck. Now that I think about it, I\'m getting angry.”

Sung-Hyun soon showed his true character after he was backed into a corner. His flustered expression was nowhere to be found. Sung-Hyun looked down at me with a shameless face,

Spit.

He spat. The yellowish spit landed on my shoes.

"I told Jun-Min to write a post targeting you. So what should I do now? Should I kneel down and repent for my sins?"

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? Stop repeating why. You sound like a broken record."

"Why did you do that?"

Sung-Hyun tilted his head in response to the repeated questioning. He was pretending to contemplate, but that was just a facade.

"That’s a good question." Sung-Hyun smiled coldly.

He had the grades, money, appearance, and talent. He grew up without a shortage of anything, so why on earth did he do such a thing? Did his parents abuse him? Or maybe he had a big accident as a child. For example, perhaps someone died when a car overturned during a family trip.

[But that doesn’t justify what he did.]

I had no intention of justifying his actions. I just wanted to understand his motive. Perhaps there was an understandable reason why he bullied me so harshly.

"I didn’t like you and Jin-Seo, and I thought it would be fun. I think that’s about it.”

However, his motive was incomprehensible. He only did all this because he thought it would be fun.

It was rather a relief.

Sung-Hyun smiled and added, "I didn\'t know Jun-Min was a demon. This is the truth. It made it more interesting, though."

I looked around. There was no CCTV. No black box either.

"Jin-Seo almost died because of that."

I almost died as well.

"Really? She didn\'t die though, she even got an award."

"Aren\'t you sorry?"

"Sorry? Sorry for what? She should thank me since she got an award."

Sung-Hyun seemed to be unaware that he had done anything wrong. It was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

"Our way of thinking seems to be completely different. Perhaps it’s because of the way your parents educated you?"

"Hey," one of the gang members interrupted me in a harsh tone.

"Hold your horses, buddy. The sky is not the limit here. Just where the hell is all that confidence coming from?" the gang member said.

“Shut up. Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conversation?” I replied.

“What? Ha, this guy’s insane.”

The gang let out a laugh and surrounded me. They cracked their knuckles and loosened their bodies. Maybe they were trying to act like mafia gang members from an action movie, but they weren’t very threatening. They were just bluffing without any real substance.

"You little fucker. I can\'t believe—"

Then the gang member cursed while swinging his fist. However, his fist did not reach me.

Flop.

In an instant, the gang members fell unconscious and collapsed onto the ground.

"That’s a little better." I looked around while reciting my impressions in a low voice.

Not only the gang members, but also the child crouching on the floor and Byung-Hoon were unconscious. Unlike the gang members, they were not foaming at the mouth. Only Sung-Hyun and I remained conscious. There was no one else.

"Huh? What the?" Sung-Hyun exclaimed as if he could not believe the scene unfolding in front of him.

Of course. This is probably the first time he\'s ever seen a voodoo spell with his own eyes.

Intermediate spell of enthrallment, curse of fainting.

Advanced spell of enthrallment, curse of nightmares.

It was the fusion of two voodoo spells. The victims would immediately faint and experience an unimaginable nightmare. It would be hard to return to a sound state of mind for a while even after waking up. Nightmares would plague their minds, making them unable to come to their senses.

Of course, I didn’t use the curse of nightmares on the child or Byung-Hoon. I only used the curse of fainting on them to get rid of witnesses.

The reason why I had to put them to sleep was because I needed to eliminate witnesses of ‘that spell,’ which would be used as the final nail in the coffin to finish off Sung-Hyun.

Sung-Hyun stared into the air for a long time as if his soul had left his body. Eventually, he said with a trembling voice, "You, what have you done? This is not divine power, this is–!"

"Indeed, it’s voodoo sorcery. Well, it’s not like you’ll even remember it anyway."

"Voodoo sorcery? Yo-you bastard, don’t tell me!”

Sung-Hyun quickly drew a blessing array in the air— the intermediate blessing of strength. In addition, there were various blessings related to physical strengthening. He even used the blessing of superhuman strength.

Currently, Sung-Hyun had enormous power that could kill an ordinary person with a single punch. However, that wasn’t going to change anything.

"You were a Voodooist? No wonder I didn\'t like everything you did. It was because you were a cultist. Ha ha. If I kill you, will I get an award like Jin-Seo? Right?” Sung-Hyun said while smiling slightly. It was a fake smile he used to hide his fear.

“You wouldn’t just get an award from the academy, you would also get a medal of honor from the government. You see, I’m not just some small fry but the cult leader.”

However, the smile on my face was utterly genuine, without a hint of falsehood.

"What? What are you–"

Clank!

A sharp and crude sound of clashing metal rang in the alley.

"Huh...?”

With a scream, Sung-Hyun collapsed.

It was a voodoo spell.

Intermediate spell of enthrallment, curse of pain.

Advanced spell of enthrallment, curse of contagion.

And finally, superior spell of enthrallment, memory annihilation.

"Ah, argh. You, this, what–!"

Sung-Hyun rolled on the floor while trying to tear off his own hair.

The pain started from the head. It was a tremendous headache that would make one\'s skull feel like it would shatter at any moment. That immense pain would soon spread throughout the body through the power of the curse of contagion. First, there would be a stomachache, followed by arm and leg pain. Eventually, the pain would spread to even the fingertips and toes.

His memory of the pain would be shattered. The pain would be forgotten as soon as he felt it. When he forgets the pain, the pain would quickly return. He would never get a chance to get accustomed to the pain—in each moment in time, a fresh wave of unexpected pain would bombard his entire body.

Memories of the suffering would be shattered, crushed, and eventually annihilated without leaving a single fragment.

[Sung-Hyun will forget all the memories of this moment, but the shattered memories will seep into his blood and be engraved as fear. Every time he sees you, that fear will return.] Legba whispered in a dreary voice.

Even after the spell ended, it would be difficult for him to live a normal life. Every night, he would be reunited with this moment as a nightmare. But the nightmare would be forgotten in the morning, leaving only dim pain and fear. Sung-Hyun would suffer pain for the rest of his life, and would never be able to understand the reason why he was suffering.

"Ah, argh. Agghhhhhhaaaa...!"

His throat, which had screamed so loudly, could now only let out a raspy sound like metal scraping against metal.

He repeatedly screamed in agony. He would repeat the cycle of shaking in pain, then he would forget the pain for a moment before getting assaulted by the pain once again. Tears of blood streamed out from his listless eyes while foam spewed from his mouth. I quietly placed something on top of Bae Sung-Hyun\'s head and left the alley.

[You’re very thorough at times like this.] Legba said in a low voice. As I left the alley, Sung-Hyun\'s scream continued to haunt my ears.

However, I had no intention of ending it like this. The real nightmare was going to start tomorrow.

No, he’ll end up wishing it was just a nightmare.