“Are you uncomfortable because you’re getting paid to kill someone?”
“I’m uncomfortable because I can’t trust you.”
“Ah, so killing people is okay?”
“I’ll make that judgment after I hear about it.”
I still don’t know who the target to kill is. If I don’t feel like it after hearing about it, I’ll refuse.
“I’ll only accept if I feel like it.”
In any case, I need money for my 96% mental contamination level, which is no different from a time bomb. Big money that comes in regularly enough for me to survive for a long time.
“Then let’s do this.”
The other party held out a USB. I didn’t take it and just stared blankly at it.
“It’s a video of Ha Seongho-ssi filmed in Colonel Kim Hanseong’s room.”
A video was filmed. Are they talking about CCTV? But even if they watch it, they won’t know I killed him.
Because my skill is neither noisy nor flashy.
“It’s a video Colonel Kim Hanseong left behind himself. Ha Seongho-ssi’s voice is in it too. That voice reciting the account number.”
So it was something Kim Hanseong left behind. I thought he was just an Esper who wanted to die, but he was unnecessarily thorough. So that’s why they found me.
“If you accept the commission, I’ll hand this over. There’s no copy. Believe it or not, it’s up to you.”
I still didn’t take the USB. I just squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush and put it in my mouth. The conversation was getting long and my mouth kept feeling uncomfortable.
Brush brush.
“Who should I kill for you?”
***
At 4 AM, a chilly wind blew through the night streets. The city lights that seemed like they’d never go out had dimmed a little.
I was leaning diagonally against a car with an individual taxi light on top, looking at the streetlight glow. After staring at it continuously, even when I closed my eyes, the afterimage of light remained intensely and my eyeballs stung. Just looking at bright things was exhausting.
“Ahjussi, does this go to Jamsil?”
I just nodded without responding to the person who staggered toward me with a tired body and spoke. Taking it as a sign of permission, he opened the back seat door, got in, crossed his arms, and curled up his body.
“Phew, it’s cold. Ahjussi, let’s go quickly!”
I stubbed out the cigarette I was smoking in a portable ashtray and loosely exhaled the smoke that was my last puff.
“Let’s go.”
I climbed into the seat and shut the car door. Then I raised the heater temperature at the cold man’s request. I glanced at the man in the back through the rearview mirror and spoke.
“What were you doing until this hour that you’re only going home now?”
“Overtime work, what else! Damn it, it’s so disgusting.”
The man splattered blue blood inside the car without any hesitation as he composed himself. In the process, blue liquid also splattered on my right cheek and glasses lens.
To spray monster byproducts—contamination material itself to ordinary people. Is he in his right mind?
“You must be an Esper.”
“Yeah, well. A Hunter. Want an autograph?”
When he waved his hand in the air, sparks like static electricity crackled and a faint burnt smell arose. He probably showed a small performance thinking I was amazed.
“Search for Hunter Park Juik. My videos will come up, you know?”
These days, civilian association Espers seemed to film and upload videos of themselves facing monsters, livestream it, and gain citizens’ favor while promoting themselves. I didn’t know because I don’t enjoy looking at the internet, but I heard there are even programs broadcast by major broadcasting stations.
“The video of me evacuating people during the Seogang Bridge collapse came out well, so like it and leave a comment.”
I wondered why people would even pay money to watch someone suffer and roll around.
But I didn’t particularly want to criticize it. Humans have been watching people burn to death in plazas since medieval times, so whatever content it is, if they find it fun and are willing to pay money, isn’t it their own business how they spend their money?
“You’re also famous for other videos.”
“What? Ah, haha! You’re a man! You watched that too? Are you a sponsor?”
But now is the modern era. We must judge and measure by modern ethics, not medieval ethics.
It’s the privilege of a free market economy that you can film and upload whatever and earn money however you want, but this perverted bastard who uses teleportation and electric abilities to kidnap and torture people and upload grotesque snuff films has crossed the line—way crossed it.
“If you’re an Esper, you shouldn’t lack anything economically, so why do you upload them?”
“Who knows? Self-actualization? It’s fun.”
I briefly raised my eyes and looked at that bastard through the rearview mirror. But he wasn’t in the back seat.
“But.”
Before I knew it, he was sitting in the passenger seat next to me.
Crackle—
“How did you know it was me?”
Creating threatening sparks in his hand, he looked at me with glinting eyes.
Crack! Crackle!
“Kuk, keurk…!”
Soon that sparking hand strangled my neck.
Screech—! Screech—!!
Since I was attacked while driving, the car body shook like crazy. The loud friction sound of tires scraping the asphalt echoed like a scream.
“Which bastard leaked information? If you tell me, I’ll let you live.”
I know those with eyes like that. Even if I told him what he wanted to hear, those were the eyes that would slit my throat.
“…Do you have family?”
“What?”
“I’m asking if you have family. Don’t you have a mother?”
Provoked by my question, he bloodshot his eyes. Soon after, he discharged electric energy, burning the passenger seat black.
“Keurk…!”
The electric stimulation from his hand became even more intense. Cold sweat broke out from the pain as if my neck would be severed, and my limbs stiffened.
I can’t endure any longer.
This should be enough.
“How dare you make someone a motherless bastard!!”
He shouted with even his breathing roughened from excitement. I grabbed that opponent’s wrist and spat out the last words he would hear in this world.
“You’re more pathetic than someone who really doesn’t have one.”
And I made the sign of the cross on my chest.
[Skill is activating.]
[<Dream Expulsion>]
[One Esper has been expelled.]
***
“Wow~ You really caught him~”
I turned to look at the client who was amazed while covering the face of the corpse lying in the back seat with tissue.
While cleaning up the scene, contacting the client, and moving to a quiet place, the world was already brightening into morning. The bastard’s transparent white hair, backlit by the morning sunlight of a clear day, rippled.
“1 billion won.”
“It must have been difficult. Since his ability was teleportation, it wasn’t easy to capture him either.”
I stroked the collar of my shirt, charred black from burning, and undid a few of the top buttons. The sensation as if my flesh was still sizzling and my neck was being strangled remained, making me feel unpleasant.
“1 billion.”
“He was A-rank and quite skilled, so it was rather wasteful. If he hadn’t died here, I was planning to keep using him in various ways.”
I roughly wiped my cheek, took off my glasses, and wiped away the blue liquid the bastard who became a corpse had splattered with my clothes.
The glasses lens was also slightly charred, so it seemed I’d have to stop by an optician.
“1 billion. Make me say it again and you’ll die too.”
I put on my glasses and looked straight at him.
The client let out a refreshing laugh—haha—then made a call somewhere, had a short conversation, and told me to check.
“It should be in there.”
I fumblingly entered the banking app as I’d learned from the AI guide at the bank counter. The promised amount was deposited exactly.
“Why do you look at your phone like a grandfather when you’re a modern person?”
“Looking at such small things gives me a headache.”
“Wow, even the reason is like a grandfather~”
Banking apps are convenient yet inconvenient.
Not just banks, but everywhere I go, counselors have been replaced by AI instead of people, and they recommend solving things yourself through apps as much as possible, so I’m forced to use apps—that’s inconvenient.
My old-fashioned preference for the black letters printed in physical bankbooks has become a relic of the past, and even that inconveniences me to death.
“The wound on your neck disappeared cleanly, but why do you have so many scars?”
Looking at the scars revealed on my hands and nape, he seemed to have guessed there were more on my body.
“Because I’m human.”
I’m not an Esper, so when I get hurt, I get ordinary wounds, and if I don’t receive timely treatment, they fester. All these scars were proof of my weakness and traces of survival.
“Do you normally wear glasses?”
“……”
So damn many questions.
I don’t wear them except when driving or watching movies, but I didn’t feel they were worth responding to anymore.
Checking my wristwatch, work time was approaching soon, so I calculated in my head the time to go home, wash up, and travel. Since I couldn’t use the car, I’d have to use public transportation today.
“Want to work under me?”
As I turned my back to leave, the client expressed their intention to become my employer.
“2 billion.”
Without even contemplating that question, I doubled the amount.
After working in a hospice ward that aimed for a cradle-like peaceful atmosphere, jumping back into a death trap didn’t appeal to me at all. I’d just made up my mind to live quietly from now on, carefully spending the compensation from Colonel Kim Hanseong’s case and this time.
“Okay.”
I would have, if only he hadn’t readily offered 2 billion.
