The System's message hung in Jack's mind like a cold blade. 'The Harvest. Physical punishment. Public. Humiliating. Fatal.'
It was the inevitable conclusion, the bloody crescendo the System had been orchestrating from the start. Jack had known this was coming. The part of him that was still the killer from the alley—efficient, detached—saw the logic. Park was broken psychologically. Shattering him physically would be a final, clean punctuation. Justice, in its most primitive form.
But the room still smelled faintly of the salt from his own tears—Min's tears. The image Kang Da-wool had painted was burned into his vision: the sad boy and the protective shadow. And the Analytical Eye, now a permanent lens, showed him the world in layers of torment. Park's aura in school was now a shriveled, pulsing thing of pure dread. He was already a ghost. Did he need to become a corpse?
For the first time, Jack consciously questioned the System.
Why? He thought the word with force, directing it inward. The psychological torment is complete. He's living in hell. Is death not a mercy?
[System: Query acknowledged. Objective: 'Vengeance for the Living.' The host, Min Hyun-seong, was driven to self-inflicted death. True equilibrium requires the inflictor to experience the terminal point they imposed. Psychological torment is the path. Physical termination is the destination. It is the formula.]
Formula, Jack thought with a surge of bitterness that felt like his own. This isn't an equation. It's a life. Several lives.
Another part of him, the cold strategist, chimed in. And what of the risk? A public, fatal attack with Min's body? The investigation? The end of this entire mission for the other targets? It's sloppy. Emotionally satisfying, perhaps, but tactically unsound.
The System was silent for a long moment, as if processing this internal conflict.
[System: Alternative path detected. User is integrating host morality and strategic pragmatism. Recalculating...]
[New Branch Objective Available: 'The Unraveling.' Instead of direct physical termination, engineer a scenario where Target 1's own actions, compounded by his psychological state, lead to his public ruin and potential demise. User acts as the catalyst, not the executioner. Success yields same 'Vengeance' completion percentage. Higher risk of partial failure, but preserves user's operational integrity.]
Jack's mind raced. The Unraveling. It was more his style. The puppeteer, not the brute. Make Park destroy himself. Use the fear, the guilt, the drugs, the pressure from his father's scandal—twist them all into a noose and hand Park the rope.
Accept the branch objective, Jack commanded.
[System: Branch Objective 'The Unraveling' is now primary. Parameters set. First step: Escalate the drug-related pressure. Force a transaction in a compromised setting.]
A plan began to form, cold and intricate. Park was desperate, paranoid, and likely needing a fix or a sale to maintain his crumbling status. Jack had the stash location. He had the photos. He needed to create a scenario where Park would go to that stash, at a specific time, under specific, watchful eyes.
He needed to be two places at once. He needed an ally.
The thought was alien. Jack had never worked with anyone. But he wasn't just Jack anymore. He looked at the small, painted board leaning against his wall—Da-wool's gift. The boy had seen the shadow. He understood, in his own way.
It was a risk. But Da-wool was already an outlier, already saved by Jack's actions. His loyalty, born of gratitude and a shared understanding of being prey, might be the most reliable tool Jack had in this new world.
He found Da-wool the next day in the art room, meticulously shading a charcoal landscape. The boy's aura was a soft, focused blue-green, tinged with a thin, resilient gold—recovering courage.
"Da-wool."
The boy looked up, not startled. "Min." A small, real smile.
"I need your eyes. Not your hands. Just your eyes." Jack kept his voice low, even. "I need you to watch a place for me, at a specific time, and tell me who you see."
Da-wool's aura flickered with silver uncertainty, but the gold strengthened. "Is it... about him? Park?"
"Yes. But it's to end it. Not with more fighting. A different way."
Da-wool put down his charcoal. He wiped his hands on his apron, leaving smudges. He looked at Jack, and the Analytical Eye saw him searching—not for lies, but for the truth of the shadow behind Min's eyes. He must have found it.
"Okay," Da-wool said simply. "Tell me."
The plan was set for Friday night, mimicking the pattern Jack had observed. Using a anonymized messaging app linked to a ghost account posing as a wealthy, discreet buyer from a rival school, Jack contacted Park. The message was clear: need a specific "V" stamp, cash, meet at the old stash location by the river at 11 PM. Efficiency. Or the "photos of your little party" go to a named school administrator.
Park, trapped between financial need, addiction, and terror, took the bait. His panicked, eager agreement was almost pathetic.
At 10:45 PM, Da-wool was positioned in a recessed doorway across from the park entrance, a block away from the river wall. He had a phone with a good camera, instructions to stay hidden, and record anyone approaching the area. He was the witness.
Jack, using Presence Forgery, was a shadow among shadows much closer to the river wall. He was the catalyst.
At 10:58, Park arrived. He was jittery, his head on a swivel. His aura in the dark, to Jack's enhanced sight, was a frantic, splintered neon. He went straight to the loose brick, fumbled it out, and retrieved the small bag. He checked his phone, the screen illuminating his sweaty, terrified face.
Then, the complication.
Not one, but two figures emerged from the opposite direction. Older teens. Not the buyer from the messages. These were the suppliers. And they looked angry. Jack's Analytical Eye flared—their auras were a violent, greedy red. One of them grabbed Park by the collar.
"Where's our money for the last batch, pretty boy?" a voice growled. "Heard your daddy's wallet might be getting light."
Park stammered, trying to show the bag, to explain he was there to sell. It was a mess. A debt collection meeting a botched sale.
This was better than Jack had hoped. Chaos was a better unraveler than any single plan.
From his hiding spot, Jack used his burner phone. Not to call the police. Too slow, too clean. He sent the pre-prepared package—the photo of Park at the club, the photo of the stash—to three destinations: the email of the school board's disciplinary chair, the personal number of a local crime reporter Jack had identified, and anonymously to the internal server of the police department's vice squad, with the location and time stamp.
Then, he used Cognitive Whisper. He didn't target Park this time. He targeted the angrier of the two suppliers, pushing a single, primal impulse into his mind, amplified by the man's own aggressive aura:
"He's setting you up."
The supplier's head snapped up, looking past Park into the darkness. He saw nothing but paranoia confirmed. "You little rat!" he roared, and shoved Park hard.
Park stumbled back, his foot catching on the uneven cobbles near the river's edge. He windmilled his arms, the bag of pills flying from his hand, scattering like tiny, poisonous pearls. With a cry that was pure, undiluted terror—the same terror Min must have felt a thousand times—Park Ji-hoon toppled over the low wall and into the dark, cold, fast-moving river.
The splash was shockingly loud.
The two suppliers froze for a second, their red auras flickering with the orange of sudden fear. Then they turned and ran, vanishing into the night.
Jack remained still. He heard the frantic, choking sounds from the water. Park couldn't swim well; it was a detail from Min's memories—Park had always avoided pool class.
From across the park, Jack saw the faint red recording light on Da-wool's phone wink out. The boy had seen it all.
Jack made a choice.
He moved. Shedding Presence Forgery, he ran to the wall, not as a specter, but as a blur. He kicked off his shoes, tore off his hoodie, and dove into the black water.
The cold was a shock, punching the breath from Min's lungs. The current was strong. He fought it, the killer's discipline overriding the body's panic. He spotted Park, a flailing, sinking shape. Jack reached him, grabbing a handful of jacket. Park fought him blindly, the instinct of a drowning man.
"Stop!" Jack snarled, the command cutting through the water and panic. He hooked an arm around Park's chest, ignoring the clawing hands, and began kicking for the shore, fighting the drag of the current and Park's dead weight.
It took an eternity of burning muscles and freezing water. His feet found slick mud. He hauled Park, coughing and vomiting river water, onto the slimy bank. They lay there, gasping, under the indifferent stars.
Park rolled onto his side, retching. He looked up, water streaming from his hair, and saw Jack—Min—lying beside him, breathing hard, clothes soaked.
"Why?" Park choked out, his voice raw with river water and disbelief. "Why did you...?"
Jack sat up, his own body shivering violently. He looked at Park, the golden son, now a shivering, ruined creature covered in mud and fear. The Analytical Eye showed his aura was shattered, a confused, swirling maelstrom of terror, shock, and a dawning, horrible comprehension.
"Because," Jack said, each word a piece of ice, "killing you was too easy. And drowning was his fear, not mine."
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing rapidly closer—the police, tipped to a drug deal. The reporter was probably on their way too.
Jack pushed himself to his feet. "Your world ends tonight, Park. Not with a whisper, but with sirens and headlines. Live with that."
He turned and melted back into the shadows of the park, retrieving his hoodie and shoes from where he'd dropped them. He met Da-wool at the pre-arranged spot a block away. The boy was pale, shaking, but he held out the phone.
"I got it all," he whispered. "The fight, the push, him falling... you jumping in."
"Delete it," Jack said, his teeth chattering from cold. "All of it. Now."
Da-wool, without hesitation, navigated the phone and permanently erased the video. "Why did you save him?"
Jack looked toward the flashing blue lights now illuminating the riverbank. "I didn't save him. I sentenced him. To a life of scandal, arrest, his father's disgrace, and the knowledge that the ghost he created was the one who pulled him from the water he deserved to drown in." He looked at Da-wool. "That's a heavier chain than any coffin."
[System: Branch Objective 'The Unraveling' - COMPLETE.]
[Target 1: Park Ji-hoon. Status: Publicly ruined (pending arrest, drug charges, attempted manslaughter by associates, scandal). Physical condition: Alive, but psychologically and socially terminated. Vengeance completion: 98%. Acceptable variance.]
[Reward: Skill Upgrade - 'Presence Forgery' to Intermediate Level (longer duration, slight blurring effect on nearby electronic capture).]
[New Data: Host-User integration at critical level (92%). WARNING: Distinct identities are merging. Define primary operational consciousness soon or risk permanent fusion/unstable psyche.]
Jack walked Da-wool home in silence, then made his own freezing way back. The merger warning was serious. He was losing track. When he pulled Park from the water, was it Jack's calculation? Or was it a fragment of Min's impossible, stubborn empathy, revolting against the finality of death?
He didn't know.
He arrived home, soaked and shivering. His mother was waiting up, a rare thing. She took one look at him and her hand flew to her mouth. Not with anger. With a horrified, dawning maternal concern she probably thought she'd forgotten how to feel.
"Min! Your... your clothes! Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," he said, his voice barely a rasp. "I fell. By the river. It's nothing."
He pushed past her, leaving a trail of muddy water on the floor. In his room, he stripped off the wet clothes, his body one massive tremor. He didn't see a killer or a victim in the mirror. He saw a drowned boy, with the eyes of an old, tired soldier.
He had orchestrated a ruin tonight that was more complete than any murder. He had saved a life to condemn it to a worse hell.
The System called it a success.
So why did he feel like he was the one unraveling?