KEG 86

I didn’t know how to persuade her. If I got aggressive, she would just get defiant, that was a given.

So, my only option was to bribe her with a place or something.

“…Red bean porridge.”

After thinking it over for a while, Lee Seul finally answered.

“There’s a place in the market that sells red bean porridge. I want to go there.”

She gave the address very naturally. It was a place that didn’t show up on the GPS.

A sweet red bean porridge street stall that appeared after turning twice at the corner deep inside the market alley.

Lee Seul wanted to go there.

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“When I got home after being discharged, my whole family was dead.”

Lee Seul, who had polished off a bowl of red bean porridge [visit our site]in an instant, began speaking incoherently.

“So I wandered around for a while, but the church gave me breakfast every morning. I was scrounging off that when I got caught by the director.”

“What do you mean, ‘caught’?”

“I got set up~ They told me I was pretty, asked if I wanted to be a celebrity, and stuff like that, and made me go on live.”

Lee Seul, who had been scratching her head, asked for money to go to the sauna because she wanted to wash up. I opened my wallet, took out a few bills, and placed them on the plastic table at the street stall.

Lee Seul reached for them, but I tightened my grip and didn’t let go. I’d listened to all her pointless chatter, so now it was time to get to the point.

“Have you seen Lee Sangwoo recently?”

Lee Seul’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. She let go of the bills and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She put one in her mouth, lit it, and answered my question through clenched teeth.

“You saw him too. The director’s son.”

I recalled the face of the man who had walked past me, the one who had provoked me by acting he knew everything about life.

“That bastard is Lee Sangwoo.”

I removed my hand from the bills and stood up.

He couldn’t have gone far. I could catch him now.

“Hey, what am I supposed to do if you leave?”

Just as I was about to move, Lee Seul asked.

“If you leave me like this, I’ll end up at an illegal guiding business. You’re just going to leave me alone?”

A self-destructive threat that wouldn’t harm me in the slightest. Does she think I look like some kind of volunteer or saint?

It doesn’t affect me.

“You’re responsible for your own life.”

“Ha~ So you’ve finished playing the good guy~”

Playing the good guy? I only brought her here because I needed her, and now that she’s served her purpose, I’m letting her go.

I couldn’t understand why she was acting like this.

“Usually, if you need money, you work, you don’t go to a guiding agency.”

Lee Seul’s eyebrow twitched.

“As a D-class Guide, depending on how hard you work, you could even become a civil servant.”

At the mention of civil servants, Lee Seul clutched her cigarette and laughed.

“You think I’m living like this because I don’t know that?”

“Stop complaining.”

“Fuck, I don’t have anything. Can’t I complain a little?”

Her sarcastic tone made my irritation rise.

Lee Seul didn’t need help right now. She just needed someone to pick a fight with.

She didn’t want someone to offer the right answer to her hopeless situation; she wanted an easy target to relieve her stress and loneliness.

“What? Are you pissed off because I don’t act like a victim either?”

I was pissed off.

But it wasn’t because I wanted her to act like a victim.

“It pisses me off seeing you smoking right next to a food stall.”

It was the arrogant, emotional attitude that pissed me off.

It was also annoying when someone grabbed a person swamped with work, acted like they had a story to tell, and behaved as if they were entitled to this kind of treatment.

“Oh~ If you’re pissed off, just get lost~ You’re just like those Yamete Agency bastards~”

Lee Seul spat a long stream of phlegm onto the ground.

“If you’re going to help, help me all the way. You bastards, helping me halfway and then abandoning me…”

I was getting a little sick of her muttering.

What was I expecting from her? She was struggling just to keep her own life together.

“Damn… it’s cold…”

Barefoot, wearing only a thin T-shirt and short sleeves. All she had were a few bills I’d given her and her messy, short hair.

First anxious, then sarcastic, then cursing, and now shivering because she was cold, what an emotional roller coaster. Just watching her drained me.

I let out a sigh, walked over to Lee Seul, and pressed my finger against the cigarette in her hand to put it out.

“Do you know where Lee Sangwoo is?”

“Well, he’s probably somewhere…”

“He was tagged in your social media again today. Weren’t you nearby?”

“…Oh.”

Lee Seul let out a short gasp, as if something had just occurred to her.

“He said something about ushering in a new era… He was yapping some cult-like nonsense.”

“How did you hear about that?”

“That bastard tells me everything. You know, like those owners who can walk around completely naked in front of their dogs or cats without feeling a shred of shame.”

Once one thought came to mind, others seemed to follow in quick succession, and Lee Seul continued.

“Lee Sangwoo’s ability is mind control. But if you get caught in it, you turn into an idiot. That’s why their church has such a nice building.”

The more I heard, the more Lee Sangwoo felt like a walking time bomb.

School violence at school, running illegal gambling sites in society, and a cultist’s son at home.

“There really are some total assholes out there.”

Even bad guys usually have at least one decent side to them, but Lee Sangwoo was ​stolen content​a consistently rotten piece of work. From start to finish, he was pure trash.

“…Hah!”

Lee Seul laughed at my honest assessment. It wasn’t just a chuckle; she started pounding the plastic table and laughed so hard she was doubled over, “Hahaha!”

After laughing for a while, she wiped away her tears, finally caught her breath, and said to me.

“Ah~ I’ve decided.”

Lee Seul put her cigarette in her pocket, used the cash I’d given her to buy a baseball cap from the stand right next to us, and put it on.

“You’re here to mess with Lee Sangwoo, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No way.”

When I flatly refused, Lee Seul frowned. Then she reached deep into her top and pulled out a smartphone.

“Lee Sangwoo is so obsessed with that stuff, he secretly got me a phone and made me install a couple app.”

When Lee Seul clicked on an app, a red heart started blinking somewhere on the map.

“This heart is…”

“Oh, right, that’s Lee Sangwoo’s current location.”

When she tapped the red heart with her finger, the exact coordinates and the number of days they’d been dating appeared. Lee Seul smiled triumphantly as she showed it off.

“What do you think? You have to take me with you now, right?”

***

“Lee Sangwoo’s church apparently used to be perfectly fine.”

Lee Seul, or rather, Kim Yiseung, looked out the car window as she talked about Lee Sangwoo.

We had gotten in the car and were heading toward Lee Sangwoo’s location, which had shown up on the couple app.

“Haven’t you ever thought that cults have been on the rise lately?”

Kim Yiseung’s words made me recall the excessive number of missionary flyers that had been stuffed into my mailbox recently.

“With the world in this state…”

Kim Yiseung scoffed at my comment. Then she lowered her voice and said,

“Lee Sangwoo told me that ‘A Wakener’ has changed its tactics.”

‘A Wakener’.

The name of a cult I’d been running into far too often lately.

It was already a headache just because of its size, and now they’d changed their tactics too.

“They’re infiltrating legitimate churches to poach congregants or take control of the leadership there.”

“But these are people who already have a religion, can they really be persuaded?”

“Actually, because they’re devout, it’s even easier.”

Thinking of it as if they were drug addicts made it easier to understand.

The kind of addiction where you start with marijuana and end up hooked on fentanyl.

Once you’ve fallen into it, it’s easy to slip into something even deeper.

“I heard that recently, they’ve moved away from the ‘Anti-Esper’ group label and are luring people in with apocalyptic ideology.”

What exactly is apocalyptic ideology? Can people really be lured stolen content in by just an abstract idea they can’t even touch?

“Apparently, it’s the belief that this difficult, chaotic world will end and a new era will begin. They say if you donate diligently, you’ll live well in that new world.”

“If a new era is coming, why are they taking money and pocketing it?”

“Hah! Exactly what I’m saying! Did they create it themselves?! Hahaha!”

Kim Yiseung laughed hysterically while pounding on the headrest of the driver’s seat.

It was distracting while I was driving. I glanced at Baek Yejun, signaling him to tell her to stop.

“Huh? A kiss?”

Kiss-crazy bastard. Is your head so heavy you left your brain at home?

It felt like it would make a hollow sound if I smacked him.

“Anyway~ this is why cults are running rampant these days~ new splinter groups keep appearing~”

After laughing her fill, Kim Yiseung looked at Baek Yejun sitting next to me. Baek Yejun was still wearing a hat and a mask.

“But who is this guy? Is he trustworthy?”

“I’m Seongho’s boyfriend.”

Screeech!

I slammed on the brakes at Baek Yejun’s idiotic remark. I glared at him so hard my eyes nearly popped out, but the jerk just kept wearing that innocent, clueless expression.

“Yejun-hyung, shut your mouth and hold the steering wheel. Why am I the one driving?”

“Huh? Didn’t Seongho sit there because he wanted to?”

“You were the one who hopped into the passenger seat first.”

“It’s just a habit, what can I do?”

As we exchanged this nonsensical banter, Kim Yiseung muttered blankly.

“Well… I guess you’re on the same side…?”

From the back seat, Kim Yiseung pounded the headrest of the driver’s seat once more and shouted.

“Hey, hey, hey! Lee Sangwoo’s on the move! He’s left the church!”

I turned my head around toward the back seat.

Inside the car, we huddled together, staring at the small smartphone screen. stolen content Lee Sangwoo was speeding off somewhere after leaving the church.