Chapter 3
“A trophy? What do you mean?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“It’s a little something I’ll keep to myself. Is your tank full?”
“Oh... yes. Thank you very much.”
“Don’t mention it. We should all help each other.”
Seong-Hwi wanted to pry into the man’s vague answers, but couldn’t due to the splitting headache he had suddenly developed earlier.
I have to get out of here first. I’ll think more about this later.
He couldn’t do anything while his judgment was impaired. He raised his now-full oxygen tank.
⌜Killing two birds with one stone!⌟
The cheerful line from the female voice actor sounded from the man’s smartphone again.
“I’m getting lucky today,” the man said as he snickered. He tapped his smartphone and mumbled as if reminiscing, “Come to think of it, I killed two birds with one stone last time too...”
“Do you play Go-Stop often?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“No, I haven’t played it for that long. I told you about the person who asked to fill their tank at my home last time, right? I played a game with them. It sure was fantastic...”
Seong-Hwi dropped the oxygen tank.
“Are you okay?” the man asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry. My hands get clammy...”
Seong-Hwi’s heart pounded crazily, blood rushing throughout his body.
He pretended to be calm and asked, “I’m not too familiar with Go-Stop... is killing two birds with one stone a good thing?”
“Of course, it is! You think you have one good set, but it turns out you have two! Kekek, you feel like you’re on cloud nine.”
It’d better not be, you motherfucker. You’d better not be referring to what I’m thinking about. Mother and child... you’d better not be talking that way about the bond I lost when I was only five.
Seong-Hwi’s expression slowly crumpled as his heart pounded even harder. Just then, something shiny on the kitchen table caught his eye.
“Oh, I guess it technically wasn’t killing two birds with one stone,” the man continued to mumble. He turned to Seong-Hwi and asked out of the blue, “Can I ask you something? What are your thoughts about abortion?”
“Oh, I don’t really...”
“I’ve heard a fetus’s internal organs become capable of functioning from the twenty-second week of pregnancy. Only after that can the fetus be viable outside the womb. Hence, only after that can a fetus be considered human. Legally, at least...”
“What are you... talking about...?”
“But a two-week-old fetus? Kek! What do you even call that? A lump of cells? Hahaha! Isn’t it funny? The dead skin on my big toe is a lump of cells. What’s the difference? Sheesh, people can be so sentimental...”
Seong-Hwi clenched his fists. However, his hand was not empty this time. There was a sharp fruit knife in one of his hands. He had seen it next to a plate of sliced apples, but it was in his hand before he had realized it.
Who put this in my hand? No, I grabbed it myself.
Seong-Hwi did not know why these words were appearing in his mind. Mother Maria had surely not meant it in this way.
“Destiny is weak to the brave and strong to the cowardly. Become someone who grabs hold of his destiny.”
He wondered if what he had grabbed hold of was his destiny. His splitting headache vanished the moment he grabbed the fruit knife. Hence, what he needed to do was clear. He walked to the man lying down on the couch, concealing the knife behind his back.
Seong-Hwi asked, “Is Go-Stop... fun?”
“Yes. I don’t think I’ll ever find anything more fun.”
“And you’ll continue to play it?”
“Of course. Haha, for the rest of my life, I’m sure. I’d bet I could play better next time. Everyone is bad at everything the first time.”
The sound of the man tapping his smartphone, the slapping of the Go-Stop cards, and Seong-Hwi’s heartbeat mixed to create an irregular noise.
“My style of Go-Stop only has Go and no Stop. It’s cool, isn’t it?”
“Sounds... fun. Can I play with you?”
“Haha, my game can’t be played by just any—huh?”
Seong-Hwi was standing in front of the couch before the man realized it. His expression was so unsettling that the man dropped his smartphone in surprise and tried to stand up.
Just then, Seong-Hwi charged at the man and stabbed his stomach with the knife. The man fell back down on the couch.
“Kurgh!”
Click!
The moment was forever saved in Seong-Hwi’s mind as a snapshot.
⌜One Go!⌟ The cheerful voice of the female voice actor echoed.
Seong-Hwi got on top of the man and stabbed the man again. He had aimed for his heart, but the knife did not go through because of his ribs. His hands slipped on the knife handle because it was a regular fruit knife with no guard, cutting his fingers by accident.
Click!
⌜Two Go!⌟
“Urghh!”
The camera shutter snapped again. The cheerful voice actor shouted again. The man grunted in agony again. Seong-Hwi stabbed with the knife horizontally instead of vertically this time. The blade easily passed between the ribs.
Click!
⌜Three Go!⌟
“Hurgh, hurgh, hurgh!” The bloodstained man stared wide-eyed at Seong-Hwi in disbelief.
“Huff, huff,” Seong-Hwi also panted heavily.
The man lifelessly muttered, “Who... are... you...?”
“Huff, huff. Are you asking for my name? It’s Seo Dong-Hyun, you motherfucker.”
“I... don’t... know... why... are you...”
“Why? Why, you ask? Hah!” Seong-Hwi grabbed the prescription packets on the table and said, “You have schizophrenia, don’t you? I suppose I do, too. Someone told me to kill you. That is your destiny.”
“You... mother... fucker...”
“Wanna know something? You fucking suck at Go-Stop!”
Seong-Hwi stabbed the man over and over again.
⌜Stop! Stop! Stop!⌟
***
Taking a new step... is what people fear most.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
***
The memory of this day fundamentally changed Seong-Hwi as a human. He looked down at his bloodstained hands in front of the bloodstained couch. His hands were not shaking, and his breathing was calm.
Is this how it feels... to grasp destiny?
This was the first time Seong-Hwi had willingly chosen his destiny in a life where he had only been swept along by countless destinies he couldn’t decide. However, it was ironically in the form of murder. He could never grab hold of his destiny with all the books in his library, but this tiny fruit knife allowed him to do so. He wondered what the probability of a man, meekly living his life while dreaming of being a librarian, becoming a murderer overnight was.
Seong-Hwi looked down and saw So-Eun’s hairband on the floor, absorbing the blood dripping on the floor and becoming red as if quenching the thirst for revenge. So-Eun, who died without the knowledge of having become a mother; Dong-Hyun, who became a father but lost his wife and child; and Seong-Hwi, who was abandoned by his mother and became a murderer—Seong-Hwi wondered whose shabby, tragic story would sell the least.
I can’t return it to Dong-Hyun in this state.
Seong-Hwi stuffed the hairband in his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. He checked that the entire situation was recorded and dialled the number 112.[1]
“I don’t regret it. I won’t run either.”
The decision was not forced upon him by another, the law, or custom. He had chosen this destiny of his own accord.
***
“Fuuu, haaa. Look, pal. Just give me something,” said a tough-looking detective, sitting across from Seong-Hwi in an interrogation room while smoking a cigarette.
Chief Inspector Ma Sang-Sik was written on the man’s public official identification card around his neck.
“I have told you many times. I did it.”
“No, I get that, but... I want to know why, don’t you get it, pal? Were you coerced into doing it by anyone? For example... by Seo Dong-Hyun?”
“No. I chose to do it of my own free will,” Seong-Hwi answered firmly.
Chief Inspector Ma put out his cigarette on the ashtray and continued, “Seo Dong-Hyun and Shin So-Eun. You were from the same home as them, but you weren’t close. And from your social network, you don’t seem the sentimental type—”
“If it is so hard to understand, think of it this way,” Seong-Hwi interrupted.
“Hm?”
“The bastard insulted something precious that I can no longer have. That is why I killed him.”
Chief Inspector Ma asked, “And what is that?”
“The bond between a mother and child.”
Chief Inspector Ma remained silent. He looked into Seong-Hwi’s unfaltering eyes.
Huuu. These aren’t the eyes of a criminal...
Chief Inspector Ma pulled out a new cigarette and remarked, “Look, pal. I’m no idiot. I can more or less read between the lines of the conversation you recorded. That motherfucker, Kang Hyun-Tae, doesn’t have schizophrenia. The prescription on his table was the first set he got months ago.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah... and he must’ve gotten hooked on murder. Borrowing his words, Go-Stop with only Go and no Stop.”
Seong-Hwi listened in silence.
“In cases like this... would you be just a murderer, or an upstanding citizen who prevented a second murder case?”
Seong-Hwi smiled and answered, “They sound the same to me.”
“Haaa, don’t talk like you’ve given up on your life, pal. They might demand that you get the death penalty, though. The crime scene was... rather horrifying.”
“What about that privileges of former post thing? I might give that a shot.”
“Pal... even that has its limits.”
“And what are those limits, exactly? Rape-murder is within the limits, but simple murder isn’t? Should I have raped that man, then?” Seong-Hwi retorted.
Chief Inspector Ma didn’t answer him. He lit his cigarette with a Zippo lighter and said, “You could’ve handled it differently. If you knew he was going to murder again, you could’ve reported it, and we would’ve staked him out and caught him in the act.”
“And the judicial system would have judged his crime based on custom.”
Chief Inspector Ma slammed his fist down on the table. He looked like he wanted to say something, but kept his mouth shut, lips quivering. Silence momentarily filled the interrogation room.
The chief inspector asked, “What about visitors? Seo Dong-Hyun is here to see you.”
“Please send him away.”
***
The snapshots of Seong-Hwi’s past opened a new album. He was held in Cheongsong Prison, awaiting his sentence. The various news networks rushed to report the sensational murder case, the first in a long time. They described Seong-Hwi as a coldhearted psychopath with a miserable childhood as an orphan with no mother, smart enough to enter Korea University.
An anonymous person who claimed to be Seong-Hwi’s friend also described him as a quiet person who no one knew what he was thinking, and that they all knew he would one day cause something like this. None of the news channels said Seong-Hwi had grabbed hold of destiny of his own accord. After all, destiny couldn’t be described by the words of man.
The sound of footsteps could be heard as the guards chatted while patrolling the hallway.
“How does rice and sundae soup sound once we get off work?”
“Sounds good.”
“I know a place around Gwangdeok Street. Why don’t we go there?”
“Hey, hey. Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what? Was there another Buddhist statue thief there?”
“No, not that. A tombstone appeared near the water reservoir at Gwangdeok.”
The tombstones were the metal pillars that began to appear worldwide in 2021.
“Come on, are you scared you’ll go missing? It’s not like you’ll vanish just because you’re near a tombstone. Anyone in Seoul could vanish when the tombstone at Gwangdeok disappears.”
“You never know, man. I don’t wanna be anywhere near that thing. I’ve got a family to feed.”
“Haha, aren’t you always saying you’re still a young man?”
“I meant young in spirit!”
The guards’ conversation couldn’t be heard after they passed Seong-Hwi’s cell. Seong-Hwi looked up at the sky through the window of his cell. It always looked like it was raining because of the vertical bars on the window, but not today. It was snowing—the first snow of 2031.
“I don’t particularly like the winter.”
Seong-Hwi especially disliked the first snow because it reminded him of his wait.
“Though I’m no longer waiting,” he mumbled.
Just then, he vanished without a trace from the prison. He had become Lost.
***
“KYAAAHH!”
“M-MOMMY!”
“W-WHAT THE HELL?! WHERE AM I?!”
They were in a dark forest. The trees were as tall as redwoods, the tallest trees in the world. The crescent moon in the sky looked as if it were looking down at the confused people with a narrowed eye.
[Commencing the mandatory quest for entering the Mirror World.]
𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
[The Path to the Mirror World (Mandatory Quest)
Rank: —
Description: You are in District 8 of the Dark Forest outskirts. Acquire a Teleport Rock located in the forest’s center within thirty days. You can teleport to the Mirror World upon success.]
“W-what the hell does that mean?! Who are you?!”
“This is hell! It must be! We’re already dead!”
“Was I... Lost? AHHH! NOOO!”
The people panicked after receiving the message, not by words, but somehow understood in their minds. The messages were known as Akasha Messages because they could be heard from nothing. The Akasha Messages continued to be sent irrespective of the people’s reactions.
[Selection of language based on the universal knowledge of the race Human, complete.]
[Generating Status Window.]
[Generating Quest System.]
[Generating Cube System.]
[Under the Karma System, Karma can be acquired through clearing quests, hunting, and more.]
[Stat cubes, skill cubes, item cubes, and other items can be purchased with Karma.]
[The caliber of the race Human is below average.]
[Applying corrections accordingly.]
[Generating Destiny Weapon, the unique ability of the race Human.]
“What is... this?”
Seong-Hwi looked around. Some were wearing hazmat suits with oxygen tanks on their backs, others were wearing casual home wear, a prison uniform like his, and many others. It was the beginning of the Mirror World.
1. 112 is the Korean number for the police. ☜