Daemak Group

“What? A disturbance at the hotel?”

“That’s correct, sir. We even called the police, but… it seems they caught on and got away.”

Two men had come into Room 4104, on the top floor of the Daemak Hotel. One was the head of the security detail, the man responsible for safety at the Daemak Hotel. The other was Woo Sangpyo, third son of the Daemak Group.

“So? How did it turn out?”

“The police said that if we wished, they’d check the CCTV and look into it. I was going to report to you first, sir, and then get back to them.”

“Head of security.”
“Yes, sir.”

— Tap.

Woo Sangpyo patted the man’s thick neck with his palm.

“Think about it. Think. About what kind of time this is.”
“I… I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir.”
“The Hero Association’s been getting torn to pieces lately, hasn’t it. Hm? And those Association bastards have their mouths clamped shut, waiting for the typhoon to blow over.”

— Tap. Tap. Tap!

The light taps on the neck grew harder and harder until they were shoving the man’s whole body sideways.

“So what happens if we go calling the police and kicking up a whole shitshow, hm? Sparks land on us for nothing, and what am I supposed to do if I get dragged into it too.”
“…I apologize, sir. I didn’t think it through.”
“We keep our heads down for a while. Don’t we.”

— Smack!

Last of all, he slapped the head of the security detail across the face. A crack ran through the man’s expression, but Woo Sangpyo could not have cared less. If anything, watching the man swallow his anger made Woo Sangpyo laugh with open enjoyment, eyeing him the way you’d eye a monkey shut in a zoo cage.

“If you’ve got it, get lost. The pretty ones will be here soon.”
“Understood, sir. And around the same time, the door of Room 4104, where you’re staying, was opened—”
“If the door lock’s the problem, have it swapped out, use your head. Do I have to give the order for every last thing? I said get lost.”
“…I apologize, sir.”

The head of the security detail walked out of Room 4104 with his face set hard.

“Hah. Little bastard. Look at the face on him.”

Woo Sangpyo couldn’t resist tossing that one line at the back of the man’s head as he went. Then he flopped spread-eagle onto the bed and hummed to himself, his head full of nothing but the lovely Heroes who would come bursting into the room before long.

Without the faintest idea that a camera was filming every last thing he did.

“Looks like there’s no police chasing us, thankfully.”

I sat in the back seat, throwing glance after glance behind us. No sirens, and no police cars in sight. Proof that Wi Seona’s break-in had gone undetected.

“…You kicked up all that, and really nothing’s coming after us?”
“‘Kicked up,’ he says. It was a small commotion to buy time.”
“You laid out the entire security detail. How is that a small commotion?”
“Quiet, and keep your eyes on the road.”

Shooting a sidelong look at Hong Jangwoo and his nagging, I checked the footage on the laptop. When I switched the view, there was Woo Sangpyo in full, sprawled spread-eagle on the bed. He lay there without a care in the world, which made it a hundred percent certain we hadn’t been found out.

“Wi Seona, you did well. It must have given you a fright, all of a sudden like that.”
“N-No, not at all! You even bought all that time down in the hotel lobby, um… to get me out safely. If anything I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

In the passenger seat, Wi Seona gave a small hehe of a laugh.

If she hadn’t been there, things might have gotten considerably awkward. No matter how far I cranked up the WD-401, hanging off a hotel wall like that… ugh. Just picturing it drained the strength from my legs.

“You hung off the outer wall, didn’t you?”
“Ughh… yes.”
“That’s a relief. Honestly, I worried a lot about what I’d do if you fell.”

Having Beyond Villain’s plan exposed would have been bad enough, but a fall from the forty-first floor would have killed even someone as sturdy as Panthera on the spot. If the talent I’d recruited had died in a freak accident, on a plan I’d drawn up myself… Just thinking about how I’d go on living with that guilt made my head swim.

Wi Seona fidgeted with her fingers as she spoke.

“Honestly, I was scared too. But… when I heard what you said, Staff Member Im, I f-found my strength.”

She’d found her strength in that one line, believe in me, who believes in you? It was a little hard to understand, but if it had helped her, that was enough for me. For now the situation had wrapped up well, and the evidence would soon be collected exactly the way I’d seen it in the Future Observation.

“Ugh. My side’s gone cold.¹”
“…Put the heater on or something, then.”
“No, it’s not that kind of problem. It keeps going cold on me, this.”
“…”

I shot Hong Jangwoo and his act a single glare. Was the guy riding high because the job had gone well? Why was he acting up so much lately? Maybe I’d just curse him to live out the rest of his life with an octopus tentacle where his leg should be.

I cleared my throat and forced the mood, which had gone strange, back on track.

“Ahem. Anyway, the hotel job’s finished with this, so we’re going back to the company.”
“Hm? I thought you said we were going to some factory as well.”
“Today we collect the evidence footage and get it processed first. And… I’m going to blow this one open as fast as I possibly can.”

Public opinion had already started drifting elsewhere. By this evening at the earliest, tomorrow at the latest, the footage had to be wrapped up prettily and scattered across the online communities and the like; only then would it pull the attention back, even a little. And once those embers were alive again, we’d fan them into a full blaze with the labor exploitation at the merchandise factory and the discriminatory placement of Heroes.

“Oh, and Jangwoo. Change your plates today or tomorrow if you can.”
“Sorry…?”
“You never know. If they run the CCTV back, your plate number will be all over it. You said you commute in from outside Villain Special City, right?”

At my words, Hong Jangwoo’s face visibly stiffened. When he’d offered up his car, I’d assumed he had thought this far ahead. Apparently not. I gave him a pat on the shoulder while he sat there looking shocked.

“Wi Seona, do you live inside Villain Special City?”
“Ah, yes…”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. Jangwoo, you… figure something out. If it comes to it, try finding someone inside Villain Special City.”
“…”

Hong Jangwoo drove on blankly without answering. From what I’d heard, he hadn’t owned that car long; he’d bought it with the money he earned after joining Beyond Villain. Having to change the plates out of nowhere seemed to be giving him a headache.

Plates can always be changed, surely. What was there to fuss about?

That evening.

“Hahahaha! This is an absolute masterpiece.”

Narci had put the TV on in the Opinion Manipulation Team’s area, and now he broke into a beaming grin. Portal sites, news outlets, online communities: wherever you looked, the Daemak Group and the Hero Association were the talk of the day. The cause, naturally, was the evidence footage Wi Seona and I had staked our lives to bring back.

For this kind of thing, the Villain side really is better.

Had we gone through legal procedure, footage like this could never have been shot. On top of that, on Director Narci’s orders, the footage had gone up on the internet as the raw original, easy enough for ordinary people to find with a little effort. So of course the reactions ran hot.

└ how is that not Woo Sangpyo, they think the public are complete morons
└ bullshit lolol i went and looked, he’s a dead ringer for Woo Sangpyo, daemak group’s third son
└ vulgar bastard, the stuff he makes them do;
└ sigh you really want to pay money to do that to a Hero
└ i used to like daemak group, ffs im just selling off everything of theirs i own

Daemak Group was a company doing well in the IT industry, a field where the competition was fierce and brand image mattered on top of it. The moment the outrages of Woo Sangpyo, one of the group’s heirs, came to light, its brand image began deteriorating at speed. Scrambling to contain the blaze, Daemak Group put out an official statement, but it did nothing except feed the flames.

“Still no reaction from the Hero Association?”
“Ah, Staff Member Im. Perfect timing, good that you’re here. They’ve just announced an emergency press conference.”
“…A press conference? Who’s giving it?”
“Who else? The Press Bureau Director. Very well done. It’s been years since anyone at bureau-director level showed his face in public. Very well done.”

Director Narci took hold of my shoulder and watched the TV screen with me. The Press Bureau Director was a middle-aged man with a fairly frightening face, and the moment he took his place before the reporters with that stiff expression, the camera shutters never let up. He waited for them to die down, then began to speak.

“First of all, let me offer an apology to the people of this country for the offense caused. As to the unsavory incident that took place today… we have officially confirmed that the individual appearing in the video is indeed a Hero of the Hero Association.”

— Click! Click! Click!

“Would you look at these bastards?”

A declaration completely opposite to Daemak Group’s official statement. The corner of Director Narci’s mouth hitched up crooked; he wore the face of a man who could already guess what stance they were going to take. And in that, I was no different.

These bastards, surely not…

“We have been pressured on numerous occasions by Daemak Group under the pretext of donations. Woo Sangpyo, the president currently running Daemak Hotel under the Daemak Group. He demanded the entertaining of Heroes in the name of donations, and threatened that if we refused he would cut off the donations and see that we suffered for it. The relevant materials remain in our possession, and should it be desired, we intend to submit them in court as evidence.”

— Click! Click! Click!

“Heh, heh-heh-heh.”

Director Narci let out a laugh like air escaping from a punctured lung.

“These bastards, are they seriously throwing Daemak Group out as bait?”

Daemak Group sat at a glittering fifth in the corporate rankings, and the Association was shedding it like a lizard drops its tail? They had to be mad. Properly, thoroughly mad. What kind of nerve did it take to pull something like this?

On top of that, the Press Bureau Director said only what he’d come to say and met the flood of questions from the reporters with silence, start to finish. If he really meant to say his piece and walk straight back inside, why open a press conference in the first place? His intent made no sense to me at all.

Still, there was one fortunate thing.

“They must have been raking it in off those donations. I never imagined they’d come out like this.”
“Director, it makes no difference.”
“Hm?”
“They’ve cut off a fat tail and run… but isn’t there still plenty left on them to cut?”

We still held two cards, after all: the labor exploitation behind the merchandise and the discriminatory placement of Heroes.

Deep beneath the Hero Association.

There was an underground prison there, the smell of mold and the clammy damp of it stinging the nose. And in one of its cells, Cha Huigyeong.

“Ngh… ngh…”

Cha Huigyeong was huddled in the corner, cradling the stump of her severed arm. Every time the wound convulsed, her thin shoulders shook in spasms. Without proper treatment from the Association it had sealed over completely on its own, but the phantom pain from the place where the arm was gone was driving her out of her mind.

— Creeeak—!

Then the heavy iron door screamed open, and someone stepped into her cell, footsteps ringing cold. The instant she made out the face, she dropped straight down and crawled along the floor.

“D-Director!!”
“Don’t touch me. You’re filthy.”

She had been about to grab his trouser leg and beg, and she faltered. The lit cigarette clamped in the Operations Bureau Director’s mouth was proof that his temper had hit the roof. Half-crouched, half-prostrate, Cha Huigyeong searched his face for a sign.

“…Wh-What was the verdict on me?”

Instead of answering, the Operations Bureau Director looked down at her with a face like he’d been chewing shit.

— Smack!

With that sharp-edged noise, Cha Huigyeong’s body rolled across the floor. He had backhanded her across the face without warning. She swallowed her scream and curled into a ball on instinct, a response meant to absorb even a little of the violence… a response far too well practiced.

— Whump! Whump!

The merciless kicking went on, blows pouring down onto her ribs and her back. Around the time Cha Huigyeong’s ragged breathing died down, the sound of the blows stopped. The Operations Bureau Director yanked his tie loose and wiped away the sweat.

“Hoo… that’s taken the edge off.”
“Cough! Cough…”
“Ordinarily you’d have been used for research, or fed to something, but the higher-ups have changed their minds.”
“R-Really?!”

Cha Huigyeong paid her swollen, puffed-up cheek no mind. She twisted the corners of her mouth up grotesquely into a smile for him, and a laugh flecked with red spittle spilled out between her split lips.

“Is it true? Are you going to use me again?”
“That’s right. Have you seen the news, this time around?”
“…I haven’t seen the news. I’ve been shut in here…”
“Tch.”

The Operations Bureau Director spat a thick gob onto the floor.

“A scandal has blown up at Daemak Group.”
“Daemak… the ones we take the donations from?”
“That’s right. The entertaining we were doing in the name of donations got caught, so on our end we’ve cut off the tail.”
“Uh, uhh…”

Cha Huigyeong looked blankly up into his face. Daemak Group, of all groups. A major corporation inside the top ten of Korea’s corporate rankings. However big the Association was, shedding a group like that the way a lizard sheds its tail?

“If they really want it we can help, but this isn’t a thing that can be buried. The video’s already been scattered across every corner of the internet with his face fully in it.”
“Ah…”
“It isn’t our fault to begin with, and there’ll be no more donations coming either… putting up a shield for them just gets stones thrown at us too.”

The Operations Bureau Director’s judgment was cold. Saving them would get him nothing, and the fault had never been the Hero Association’s in the first place. When you got down to it, the Daemak Hotel had brought this on itself by running the place so sloppily.

“The Daemak lot threw an almighty fit. Said there won’t be one won of donations from here on, told us to brace ourselves.”

He looked coldly down at Cha Huigyeong, who was crawling on the floor.

“Well. Daemak isn’t the only sponsor we’ve got.”
“I… see. If that’s what you’ve decided, Director, then anything is fine by me!”
“Good. Admirable loyalty. And an order has come down for you.”
“I’ll do anything!”

— Plop.

He dropped a few sheets of paper out of his breast pocket. The spit he’d hawked onto the floor earlier smeared across them, but he didn’t care. Cha Huigyeong scrabbled the papers together and picked them up.

“The place you’re going is Eumseong County.”
“…Eumseong County, sir?”
“That’s right. Eumseong, North Chungcheong.”

“There’s a factory there that makes the Hero Association’s exclusive merchandise.”

Cha Huigyeong’s eyes wavered. Was he telling her to go and do labor at the merchandise factory? Naturally, that was not what he meant.

“There’s a lot of noise coming out of that labor factory. Merchandise sales are down as it is because of all this… Hoo. So go and make them be quiet.”
“Quiet…”
“That’s right. Quiet. Don’t go blowing it up any bigger than it is, just explain it to them so they understand. That there’s no intention of raising anybody’s wages.”

— Rattle.

The iron bars slid open, and the Operations Bureau Director stepped outside and beckoned. Staggering, Cha Huigyeong still made it out into the prison corridor. He knocked a fist lightly against her shoulder, and she hunched in on herself as far as she could, sure another beating was coming.

“Go and rough up the ones causing trouble, put a bit of fear into them. From what I hear, it’s work you’ve done before.”
“Y-yes! That’s right.”
“So do it well. If you screw this one up again…”

Wearing a smile touched with madness, Cha Huigyeong bent deeply at the waist.

“This time I will absolutely not disappoint you.”
“…Right.”
“Not just this time, but the next, and the one after that! Trust me with it, please. Then… I’ll be going.”
“Get lost, quickly.”
“Yes, sir!”

Still awkward with only one arm, Cha Huigyeong shambled out of the prison. The Operations Bureau Director watched her back recede as he smoked, then dropped the butt on the floor and ground it out under his shoe.

“Sorry, but there is no next time.”

Muttering words nobody would ever hear, he walked out of the prison.