Chapter 17
An interesting fact is that my body, which never cared for its health when I was alive, is more useful than I thought.
Ah, during my infancy, when I had to eat, play, and sleep a lot to grow, I often skipped dinner. And during my adolescence, I grew up without proper meals.
After becoming an a*ult, I ruined my body even further, eating instant food for meals and living a life that disregarded my biorhythm.
Normally, my body, reaching my late 20s, should be frail as if it had already reached its 40s.
A trashy body where wounds don’t heal easily, aches all over when it rains, and gets short of breath after just a short walk.
“No matter what, I shouldn’t tear pages from the Bible to roll cigarettes.”
I thought about stopping by a hand-rolled cigarette shop after a long time and putting a cool, self-rolled cigarette in my mouth, but I soon gave up.
Not only did I not want to burden my surprisingly useful body any further, but cigarettes, once you get a taste for them, become a fixed expense like transportation.
That’s why I often relieved stress with food and alcohol, but I quit cigarettes without any regrets when I was a newbie in society.
Fixed expenses.
Just the words are scary and make my hands and feet tremble.
I stopped by a nearby 24-hour sauna to wash off the dirt on my body and went through the burner phones collected from the homeless people who had been given new lives.
‘Sharing information or delivering instructions varies completely depending on the time, place, and person. With this, it’s understandable why it would be difficult for the police to catch criminals even if they committed crimes openly in the heart of Seoul.’
It’s understandable that the investigation would face difficulties given that the criminals are homeless people who have lost their social status and meticulously use burner phones.
Furthermore, if it’s a cell-based organization where it’s difficult to grasp the scale of the backers, tracking is almost impossible.
Unless the homeless people go crazy as a group, provide all the burner phones, and blabber about the information they know.
‘The first delivery points and distribution may be scattered everywhere, but the final destination is ultimately one. There’s no need to go around in circles.’
I transferred all the data extracted from the burner phones to my personal smartphone and threw them into the Han River. It’s better to throw them away since the incompetent police would probably not handle them properly even if I gave them the phones.
Fortunately, the nearest first delivery point was near Wonhyo B*idge, so it wasn’t difficult to visit directly.
It seemed they had their base in the middle of the street to avoid the risk of being tracked through CCTV, tailing, wiretapping, electricity or water usage if they were based in a specific building.
At late hours when there are fewer people, a car with a specific license plate, as if taking a break, waits for a certain period of time at a particular location and time on the Han River bank.
Then, the homeless （deliverymen） who have been contacted in advance prepare the ‘goods’ and load them onto the vehicle and receive payment. This is the identity of the first delivery point they created. Ta-da.
As I chuckled at the delusion I came up with in the chilly autumn night breeze, fluttering the hem of my coat, I felt like I had become a famous detective in a novel.
As expected, today’s first delivery point was those guys pretending to be ordinary people in a suitably secluded and dark place.
The car was parked in a secluded spot, and the guys loitering around streetlights or vending machines to keep watch were probably in charge of distribution.
I checked the license plate of the matte black Starex and it was indeed the vehicle receiving deliveries today.
I approached the guy dripping with sin like oil and sat down on the empty space on the bench.
“Hey, there are plenty of seats, go sit somewhere else.”
Sure enough, the man who was sitting on the bench looking at his smartphone acted prickly as if it was his time of the month.
If an SSS-class beauty had pretended to be a cold, aloof city woman, I might have been smitten, but it was incredibly annoying to see this cigarette-reeking guy throwing a tantrum.
Actually, there was something else that was truly annoying.
He was reeking of a stench that should never be felt from an ordinary person.
“You seem to have a very unique taste. Did you have Korean for dinner instead of top-grade Hanwoo beef?”
“What! You son of a……!”
I didn’t have any professionally learned fighting techniques or experience in special forces combat to subdue people conveniently, so I just charged at him, trusting my useful body.
Before the opponent, who was sitting in a relaxed posture, could get up, I pulled out the blade I had hidden in my pocket and stabbed him in the thigh. Then, I punched his jaw as he was about to scream.
Did the sight of his teeth and blood splattering stimulate his comrades? The guys who sensed something was wrong stopped pretending to be ordinary people and rushed towards me.
“I just washed up, d*mn it.”
I pulled out the blade from the thigh of the guy who was still groaning and threw it at the Joseonjok （presumably） who was drawing an axe from afar.
Call it luck, or maybe it was just my body being more robust than I imagined, but the blade, cutting through the air, landed precisely on the guy’s nape.
“Gah, kuh? Uggghhh!”
The guy, collapsing in the same posture he was running in, carelessly pulled out the blade deeply embedded in his nape, spraying blood like a fountain.
“Still fresh! Still fresh! Still fresh!”
Ignoring his fallen comrade, I delivered a full-body dropkick to the abdomen of the guy who was throwing a punch.
Since I had no professional techniques other than the street fighting experience from my childhood, it was easier to just throw my body around recklessly.
“Ugh!”
“Get out of the way, you b*stard! Still fresh! Still fresh!”
I passed the guy clutching his abdomen and retching and approached the illegal immigrant, Dajahao, lying pathetically on the ground.
“Dajahao! You committed the heinous act of drawing an axe as soon as you saw someone, but it’s not too late!”
“Gurgle! Ugh! Grrrr……”
“I will be your witness to repentance! Repent here! You’ll be able to go to Jesus faster than it takes to cook ramen!”
Holding onto the still-fresh body of Dajahao, I placed my finger on his forehead and made the sign of the cross. Doing this seemed to make me look cool.
“Let’s do a quick repentance. Shout in your heart that Jesus’s skin is milky white. Pray that you, who lived as an illegal immigrant in this land in this world, may also live as an illegal immigrant in Heaven!”
“Grk? Kuh……!”
“Yes! Heaven! A paradise of equality, peace, and tranquility where you don’t have to draw an axe out of nowhere! You can go there! You don’t have to be censored by the Communist Party anymore!”
You will be censored by Jesus, though.
“You are just an individual before Jesus. A mere sinner, an illegal immigrant. But that doesn’t mean you should go to H*ll! The gates of Heaven are open to everyone!”
Dajahao grabbed the hem of my coat and mumbled something.
“I…Taiwanese…gurgle……”
“Taiwan Number One!”
“Taiwan…Number One!”
Dajahao, having successfully escaped China, this world, and his sins, breathed his last with a peaceful face.
I had no doubt that he had ascended to Heaven.
“Our brother Dajahao has safely ascended to Heaven. Hallelujah.”
“Crazy…b*stard!”
The guy with a large hole in his thigh was crawling on the ground and muttering something, so I stomped on his bleeding thigh.
“Aaaargh! You son of a b*tch!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Where are you distributing the goods?”
“You son of a b*tch…what organization are you with……?”
“I’m Han Dae-ri, the repentance helper of the Nazareth Monkey Wrench group.”
“D*e, you son of a b*tch!”
The guy I thought I had knocked out with a dropkick suddenly attacked me from behind and choked me with all his might. But I continued speaking, keeping my neck muscles tense.
“Tell me, cough! where, cough! the goods, cough! you took, cough! went, cough!”
“You son of a b*tch! Why won’t you d*e!”
“Argh! Stop stepping on me, you b*stard! Hey, get this guy off me!”
I took out a thick old book, thinking they wouldn’t listen to me if I talked.
This old book, sealed with a thin iron chain and a padlock, looked very atmospheric, but it was so heavy that I had to wear a separate support belt to carry it around.
It had blocked the stab attempts from the homeless people aimed at my stomach, so I figured it could crack a skull too.
“You blasphemous fool!”
Crash!
I smashed the thick old book down on the head of the guy lying face down on the ground, and he foamed at the mouth and passed out.
“Don’t you know that hiding your sins before the Lord Jesus Father is the greatest sin of all! Cain killed his brother Abel and boldly hid his brother’s whereabouts before the Lord Jesus Father, and that was a greater sin than the first fratricide!”
Fratricide is simply the act of betraying one’s family, but lying before the Lord Jesus Father is the act of betraying Him directly. Naturally, the latter is the more serious sin.
“But even you can be forgiven if you repent and pray, so He is truly a generous being!”
Actually, could it be that Hyeja Christ （Korean） was the second coming of Jesus?
“This sinner seems to be out of his mind, so you tell me instead. Just as there is guilt by association in sin, there is also guilt by association in forgiveness, so think of it as a buy-one-get-one-free deal.”
Having no other choice, I grabbed the arm of the guy who was hanging on my back and choking me and threw him forward.
The guy, suddenly sprawled out, was hit in the chest with the thick, hard old book and suffered unexpected breathing difficulties.
“Ugh, sob! D*mn it…why…won’t you d*e!”
“Maybe it’s because I’ve been cursed so much since I was young that I’ve accumulated a ton of longevity stacks?”
“…Crazy b*stard!”
“Come on, Jesus is merciful but short on time. Even at this moment, there are countless people clinging to His pants and diligently working the repentance prayer tech tree. I’m offering you an easy way out, and you’re refusing? Dajahao, who went to Heaven first, would laugh at you.”
I looked down at the guy’s pain-contorted face, alternately raising my knuckles and the old book.
“Pain lasts a long time, but the journey to Heaven is instantaneous. Will you believe in Jesus nicely or will you do Catholic-style silent meditation?”
It’s practically silent meditation since you can’t talk even if all your teeth are pulled out.
