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Chapter 40
Squeak.
The car that had brought Moo-yeong and me came to a stop at the cargo loading yard on the Incheon Harbor waterfront.
We drove on a bit further, and in the middle of the loading area a cluster of people had gathered.
“…….”
“……….”
Their clothes were clean, but they looked somehow diminished, shrunken into themselves. Fear trembled in their eyes as they stared this way.
These were the hundreds of civilians who had originally been destined to be “delivered” to Cho Seong-hwan’s research lab.
“Ah— they’re here.”
Watching them with a pained expression was Bunetal, one of the Hahoe’s senior cadres.
When I asked about the people’s condition, Bunetal shook his head as he looked toward us.
“We’ve dealt with most of the physical trauma and malnutrition. But these people…”
“The most important thing is their minds.”
I scanned their faces.
Blank, unfocused eyes.
I tried greeting them, but not a single one seemed to register the words.
This was bad, really bad.
As I scratched the back of my neck, thinking that, an elderly man, who appeared to be their representative, muttered in a resigned voice.
“Thank you for coming to help us, but… convincing these folks won’t be easy, young master.”
“Even if we leave this place, what hope would there be for us?”
“……!”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I said, glancing at Moo-yeong, who stood beside me, unsure of what to do.
“These people spent their whole lives scraping by in poverty, then the Geomgye grabbed them and reduced them to merchandise. They probably have no will left for life; leading them any which way won’t be simple.”
It seemed the employees who’d held them captive had loose tongues; the people here knew quite a lot.
They knew they’d been seized because some high personage wished it so.
And they knew that the moment they were kidnapped, their resident registrations had been erased and they were processed as dead.
“Erased from the resident register? Then these people…!”
“Exactly what you think.”
Joseon is a state that assigns serial numbers even to a single slave or a head of livestock.
In such a country, a human without citizenship is treated as less than an animal.
Even if they have money, they can’t use it.
Those not recorded on the resident register are, by law, prohibited from holding currency.
A house? Forget it.
They won’t have a single decent place to lie down, and they won’t even be allowed to use public facilities like a restroom.
Try to return to your hometown — you can’t even take public transport without citizen status.
If you somehow manage to sneak back home after troubles and twists, you’ll have to live your whole life hiding from people.
And if luck runs out and you’re caught? You’ll be butchered on the spot and hung in a meat shop.
The people gathered here were alive, but utterly unable to do anything.
Literally, living corpses.
“Telling them, ‘We’ll save you, set you free, go find your liberty…’— words like that are meaningless.”
“…….”
“Even if they survive and return, they’re destined to die alone on the street. They know that better than anyone.”
At my blunt words, Moo-yeong clenched his teeth.
The despair of having one’s life decided from birth,
The helplessness of being unable to escape, no matter what you do, he must have sympathized with that, at least in part.
“So— have you thought about what we’ll do with them?”
“Of course. It’s simple.”
At Bunetal’s question, I answered lightly as I strode past him.
I wasn’t much for speeches, but what choice did I have?
When the moment demands it, you do it.
After taking a deep breath, I stepped toward the imprisoned crowd.
“Ah, ah.”
I spoke into the loudspeaker I’d prepared beforehand. A few heads turned in my direction.
So their ears still worked.
Without hesitation, I opened my mouth and cut straight to the point.
“Greetings, test subjects. I am Kim Chang-woon, the one who rescued you from that human experimentation facility and brought you here.”
“You crazy—!”
Perhaps they hadn’t expected such bluntness at first meeting. The moment I called them “test subjects,” every eye snapped toward me.
Bunetal flustered, clearly not anticipating this approach.
But I paid him no mind and pressed on.
“As you already know, you are people who have nowhere lower to fall in this land. No citizenship, no property, no future. Hopes for tomorrow are nothing but far-off dreams. Am I wrong?”
By now, even out of sheer spite, they’d have to look at me.
As I expected, their eyes, heavy with unease and resignation, fixed on me.
Dead fish eyes.
That’s what they looked like. I twisted my lips slowly into a crooked smile.
“So then… what should I do with you?”
At those words, silence fell over the crowd.
“…What?”
Bunetal’s voice was incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
Perhaps none of them thought they’d hear such words from the very man who had saved them.
Their faces showed the same disbelief.
But regardless.
I met their gazes and continued speaking.
“I saved you from dying on the spot, didn’t I? So why the long faces? What else do you want? Should I keep you around forever? Hm?”
“Hey, Kim Chang-woon! What nonsense are you—”
“Ah, quiet a moment.”
I waved Bunetal off as he tried to interject.
Yes, even this harshness was for their own sake.
“Wake up. Why would I waste my time with such pointless charity?”
“……!”
“The reason I rescued you was to swap out the cargo of the Pungyang Cho Clan. And the reason I protected you afterward was because, during the operation, I didn’t have the time to dispose of you.”
My mocking tone scratched at them deliberately, and within the deadened “test subjects,” something began to stir. A slow, crawling wave of unrest.
“Then… the reason you’re keeping us alive now is…?”
“Because bullets cost money. What other reason could there be?”
At those words, the test subjects clenched their teeth, and light began to return to their eyes one by one.
‘Good. So feeding them properly wasn’t wasted effort.’
Looking at their now-bristling faces, I felt a measure of relief.
At the very least, it meant they still had the strength to feel anger.
If even after all this provocation they still stared with dead fish eyes…
…then I’d probably have truly lost my temper.
“But before we finish here—!”
Just before the hostility boiling toward me turned into full-blown rage, I swept my gaze over each and every face and dropped the real bombshell.
“Before we finish, I want to tell you how you can live a new life.”
“…What?”
“What did you say?”
A new life.
The chance to live differently.
The first to react were the relatively younger ones. And right then—
Beep!
From my pocket, a small portable transmitter emitted a sharp tone.
It was a communication signal from far to the north. Not from a friend—
From a friend’s father.
—“This is Yu Sang-hyeon. When they said I should repay a debt, I wondered what they meant… Is this all it takes?”
“Yes. For this much, it will be more than enough of a deal.”
—“Ha, I see. Very well. I’ll prepare as you’ve said. But if this is how it goes… I’ll be needing quite a lot of change back.”
“You can bring that up then. I’ll be expecting it.”
—“Fine. Let’s do it that way.”
The short exchange ended.
After that, I signaled the agents waiting at the rear.
Negotiation: successful.
It was the signal to open the doors.
Goooooong—
In the next instant, with a thunderous groan, the hatch of the massive freighter moored behind me began to slowly yaw open.
“Congratulations, everyone! Lord Yu Sang-hyeon, Military Commander of the Northeast District, has agreed to take you into his care!”
“……!”
“W-what…!?”
The moment I said Northeast District, the faces of those gathered here turned to shock.
“Wait, hold on?! Did you say the Northeast District just now?”
“T-that place is the forward line where monsters run rampant! You’re sending us there? Not anywhere else, but there?!”
“Yes!”
With my confident reply, unrest rippled through the crowd.
Disappointment, deflation. Some even slid straight into despair.
But that lasted only a beat.
“There was nowhere else that could issue ordinary citizen status,” I said, and the murmurs fell abruptly quiet.
“The Northeast District— where the Commander of Iron Tiger Corps headquarters is stationed— has monsters overrunning it everywhere, infrastructure is poor, and war grinds on day after day. They’re short of people, so the process for granting citizenship is simple; central oversight is practically nonexistent.”
Of course, that didn’t mean many would willingly go to the Northeast District to get Joseon citizenship.
First reason: you can beg on the city streets, but nobody wants to die fighting monsters.
Second: even if you claw your way to citizenship, the label from the Northeast District sticks to you— a stigma.
Still…
“Isn’t that place perfect for people whose lives are already in the gutter?” I asked, smiling, and a few steps back, the crowd recoiled.
“If you walk out of here now, you’ll be an unregistered nobody without citizenship— likely to die without anyone’s care. Wouldn’t it be better to take up arms and fight monsters to carve out a place of your own, even if it means risking your life?”
“……!”
“W-what are you saying….”
Their reactions were mixed.
Some shouted that this was outrageous.
Others trembled in terror at the thought of the Northeast District.
“The young master said he protected us to silence us,” the elderly man who’d spoken with me earlier said.
He was the oldest among the test subjects— his face stiff, but his voice clearer than before.
“Then why are you sending us to the Northeast District?” he asked.
The answer was obvious. The old man’s face darkened as he realized it.
“To erase evidence. To get us out of Hanseong. Is that it?”
“Correct! Applause, please!” I crowed.
He wasn’t the sharpest at first glance, but he caught on quickly.
I clapped at the air, but there was no reply— felt a little foolish. Maybe I should’ve had a prize ready.
“As I said, what I offered isn’t a suggestion. It’s a notice. Whether you like it or not, you’ll be sent to the Northeast District. You have no veto.”
“T-that’s outrageous…!”
“Why am I saying ‘no veto’? Like, you have a choice? Did any of you volunteer to be test subjects out of love for it?”
My blunt retort tightened their faces further.
The more I spoke, the fiercer the atmosphere grew, at this point, it was almost entertaining.
‘Have I said everything I needed to?’ I wondered, retracing my words slowly.
“Oh— right.”
I’d forgotten one thing. Before I left, I added one last line.
“When you arrive in the Northeast District, you will be under the protection not of the Joseon government but of the Commander of Iron Tiger Corps.”
“Commander of Iron Tiger Corps?”
At that offhand addition, the color drained from some faces.
“At least no powerful clan like the Pungyang Cho Clan will meddle with you— that much is an advantage, yes?”
Pointing toward the ship’s entry that would take them tothe Northeast District, I said, “Departure is in one hour. Timings may shift, so get some rest until then.”
Speech: finished.
My business: finished.
I tossed the loudspeaker aside and climbed down. Bunetal, who’d been holding his tongue until then, lunged forward and grabbed my collar.
Even with my face half-covered, I could see every expression plain as day.
“You madman! These people have already suffered enough— and you’re practically forcing them—!”
“I force them. Or would you prefer to leave them sitting until they starve to death? Or have you plan to toss them scraps like some street beggar?”
I flicked my hand, then pointed at the gathered people, as if to tell him to watch silently.
Would they sit and wait to die? Or would they fight to survive and see another day?
Anguish, fear, suspicion— those emotions swirled and flogged at them from all sides.
But that lasted only a moment.
“Let’s go.”
A single voice breathed it— and the ones who’d been sitting listless began to rise.
“Northeast District… Northeast District…! Northeast District…! Screw it— might as well go all the way!”
“This is a hell of a lot better than starving to death here, right? Isn’t that so, everyone?”
“Let’s go and live! If you live, good days may come!”
“At least our kids… our kids can live with citizenship and dignity!”
One by one, hands clasped other hands; side by side, they soothed and steeled one another.
Those who had lost family and status and only waited for death had, in that container, welded themselves into a tight-knit family.
By the time everyone on the quay had stood up, the eyes of the test subjects gathered at Incheon Harbor flashed with a different light.
“Not bad to watch.”
They climbed aboard the ship bound for the Northeast District, passing me by.
Anger at the gentlemen who’d put them in this state.
A stubborn will to survive by any means.
Or if not that, then a burning resentment toward the day they were sent off to the Northeast District.
Whatever it was, it shone far brighter than those rotten, dead-fish eyes a moment ago.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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