The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 83

Choi Janghwan’s hand, which had been filleting ribs, paused at Jo Ilheon’s sharp remark. That’s right, how did that little brat Migyeong know? Choi Janghwan’s eyes seemed to ask.

In a remote rural area like this, you never know what the young ones are up to.

Just look at Choi Janghwan; he seduced Kim Sunbok early on…

‘Come to think of it, I also fell for my wife when I was twenty.’

He had shared affections with Kim Sunbok, who came out to gather greens, while he was carrying a bundle of pine needles on his back in the mountains. But that was a long time ago. In this world where ox carts have disappeared and buses and trucks roam, it’s not something kids who received formal education would do!

Choi Janghwan couldn’t find anything else to say and just blinked.

Thus, the misunderstanding deepened with a single remark from a wounded adolescent girl.

Cough! Jo Ilheon coughed loudly on purpose to rescue Choi Janghwan from his predicament.

“So, that means, that kid might be such a good runner because his balls are light.”

“What’s there to say? He might not even have them. He’s useless!”

Choi Janghwan yelled for no reason, like an angry man.

Having regained his senses, Choi Janghwan began filleting the ribs again, slicing and dicing.

He considered the boy like a son, not wanting to spare him anything, but if there was a serious flaw in his manhood, he vowed not to be swayed by sentiment. He could give him anything else, but not his daughter! With that thought, Choi Janghwan’s knife work became even fiercer.

Whether he knew Choi Janghwan’s inner turmoil or not, Jo Ilheon clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, tsk, our brother’s knife skills are something else. He would have done well as a back alley knife fighter.”

***

Moon Seokil, renowned as a master of the dagger, slashed through the air.

‘Damn it! What the hell am I doing!’

Swish-!

The sound of cutting through the air was quite sharp, but the martial art that couldn’t cut flesh was just a struggle. He was known as someone who had no equal in the world with just a knife. He was the one who had taken down a Workers’ Party cadre with a single dagger and returned safely. Moon Seokil’s flawless dagger skills couldn’t even touch Jinhyuk’s hair.

How long had he been swinging his knife like that?

It was as if he had lost his memory for a moment; he couldn’t remember what had happened.

When Moon Seokil regained his senses, the dagger was rolling on the ground, and the hand that had held the weapon was gripped in Jinhyuk’s fist, his finger bones broken.

Crack-!

He struggled to roll his eyes to find the face of his opponent, and then stars flashed before his eyes.

He heard the word ‘aggravated assault.’ It seemed like they were talking about his old age or something.

His mouth was busted, and he tasted blood strongly.

“Bad hand.”

Thwack-! Once more, the young punk’s fist landed on Moon Seokil’s face.

The words ‘aggravated assault’ echoed again. He also heard the words ‘dangerous object.’

He was confident that he was used to pain, that he was trained enough not to succumb to any pain. It only took two punches to realize that was arrogance.

“Ugh-.”

An unintentional groan escaped his lips, and he had to admit it.

The pain was too much.

His cheekbone and eye socket rapidly swelled, obstructing one side of his vision. His head was spinning, and he felt nauseous on an empty stomach.

‘The world is vast, they say.’

He never thought he would meet such a monster.

At that moment, Jinhyuk warned, growling.

“If you don’t answer my questions truthfully, I’ll have to silence all of you.”

After spitting out the bitter words, Jinhyuk gritted his teeth. It was an unsuitable and unwanted threat, but it was a necessary step.

Moon Seokil recalled the sense of incongruity before the situation unfolded.

Indeed, that wasn’t the tone of a young punk.

‘At this rate, we might all really die.’

Jinhyuk paused for a moment.

As the first effort to subdue them, he had shown an overwhelming difference by rendering them combat-incapable in one blow. He didn’t know how to handle the situation, so he was just instilling fear as Hong Gijun had advised.

That leeway seemed like a stay of execution to Moon Seokil.

“Who sent you?”

“I don’t know who it was. Really.”

Crack-. Jinhyuk’s grip tightened, and the man’s hand screamed.

“Ughhh-.”

Jinhyuk was inwardly impressed.

He was a pro indeed; even with his finger broken and bent backward, he didn’t scream, only groaned. Jinhyuk’s instincts and experience told him that these men were dangerous. He had received training to withstand torture during his military service. However, the idea of having separate techniques or training to endure pain like these men was just talk. There was no means to overcome pain other than willpower.

That’s what the instructor had said back then. The old veterans were superior in both willpower and combat skills. He had already experienced in the previous fight that these men were from a special forces unit that had received high-intensity training, so he was just relieved that he could subdue them.

“I really don’t know. We’re just people who get paid for our work. They implied that we should kill if things didn’t go well, but we really had no intention of harming anyone.”

They could have resisted out of pride, but they were speaking quite frankly, which was also strange. Jinhyuk looked at the fallen men and the man in his grasp.

‘They’re skilled enough to be considered active duty.’

Two of them were wearing what appeared to be wedding rings. The meaning was clear. People who do dangerous work wouldn’t wear wedding rings, so their claim that they were just trying to take him away was somewhat believable.

However, he couldn’t just forgive them unconditionally.

“If you’re the kind of guys who do dirty work without knowing who ordered it, you have no excuse even if you die.”

As Jinhyuk moved, Moon Seokil’s eyes followed his steps. And he looked at his fallen comrades. Jeong Sangtae was still sprawled out with unfocused eyes, Kim Inrang was slumped over, and Kang Heonchang was hunched over, clutching his side with his knees on the ground.

Jinhyuk approached Kang Heonchang. Glaring at Moon Seokil.

Moon Seokil’s eyes widened. He thought he was really going to kill them.

There was no direct impact to his eyes, but perhaps his head was severely ringing from the punch to his cheekbone. Moon Seokil thought his eyes had gone strange.

‘What is that… again?’

Strange things kept happening since he came to this bizarre neighborhood.

A huge black shadow, the size of a house, flickered above the monster man’s head. A form covered in rags was floating in the air. And that wasn’t all. The whole world was dark. In the dark world, an even darker silhouette was glaring at him. The places where eyes should have been were filled with emptiness.

Empty pupils, filled with a mythical sense of oppression, made the entire world feel meaningless.

‘I’ve heard of this before.’

It was from a colleague who had stepped on a landmine in the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone, the border area between North and South Korea].

– “I thought I was going to die right then. The whole world went black, and a grim reaper-like figure was floating in front of me. But then it started talking inside my head.”

My head felt like it was shaking… I must be dying from being hit too hard. Thinking this, Moon Seokil stared at the silhouette in the air.

It was a being that felt utterly devoid of emotion.

Then, the dark silhouette opened its mouth. Along with the young, inhuman monster.

“If you don’t talk, I can’t let you off easy either.”

【If you don’t talk, I can’t let you off easy either.】

The brat’s words struck his eardrums, and the silhouette’s voice echoed in his head with a barely perceptible delay. It was strange, but the voice was surprisingly clear and resonant.

Following the voice of darkness, something rustled like the sound of a stream flowing in the distance, or leaves rubbing against each other.

“If you want to save them, you’d better talk.”

【If you want to save them, you’d better talk.】

Jinhyuk placed his hand on Kang Heonchang’s neck.

He seemed to be checking his pulse because he looked critical, but it didn’t seem that way to Moon Seokil. Moon Seokil’s one good eye widened like a lantern.

He shouted not at Jinhyuk, but at the grim reaper.

“Please, spare them! That friend’s wife is about to give birth!”

It was the first time in Moon Seokil’s life that he had ever submitted.

No matter how skilled one might be, humans were infinitely small in the face of supernatural phenomena.

Without even realizing it, Moon Seokil was meekly responding to the grim reaper.

Jinhyuk grimaced, deliberately gritting his teeth so hard that it made a sound. His acting skills were surprisingly good.

“I, I’m the boss. Punish only me, and please spare the others…”

Moon Seokil recalled the words of the village guardian statue. [A common cultural reference in Korean villages, often believed to offer protection.]

He was told to beg for his life no matter what. That if he begged, he could live.

So he begged. He only thought that he had to save those innocent guys.

“Hah-”

【Hah-.】

Jinhyuk was so dumbfounded that he even sighed. These guys, who weren’t even gangsters, were talking about being the boss and appealing to emotions. He also didn’t like how they suddenly started using honorifics and trailing off their words strangely.

‘Was he injured in the head?’ But that was what he had been hoping for.

Now it was time to start negotiating.

‘But where is he looking?’

Moon Seokil’s gaze was dazedly wandering in the air. Like someone who was half out of their mind, it was above Jinhyuk’s head.

Jinhyuk looked around, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. Wasn’t that how Choi Mikyung’s grandmother and Cheon Gilyong had looked at him when they were examining him?

Moon Seokil’s blank eyes blinked a couple of times.

‘Is that not the grim reaper?’

When Son Jinhyuk looked around, the silhouette moved with him. It was a perfectly synchronized movement.

Even the action of scratching the back of his head was the same.

‘Is my head messed up?’

Could it be a hallucination caused by fear? His eyes welled up with tears, embarrassingly.

It was the silent lament of a man who was once considered the best but had become pathetic after realizing he was just a weak human.

“Hey, mister. If we just let you go, you’ll come back, right?”

【Hey, mister. If we just let you go, you’ll come back, right?】

“Absolutely not! I won’t even come close! And I’ll make sure the others don’t either…”

Moon Seokil, catching a glimpse of a chance to survive, shouted urgently.

Jinhyuk narrowed his eyes.

It was because the man in front of him had said something unbelievable.

Jinhyuk approached the kneeling Moon Seokil, knelt on the ground, and asked.

“Make sure they don’t come?”

【Make sure they don’t come?】

“Some kind of measure to help…”

Jinhyuk put his hand on Moon Seokil’s shoulder and brushed off the dust. It was a sign of satisfaction that he had finally brought the negotiation to his side.

It was a sign that he had no intention of attacking, but Moon Seokil flinched. It was a foregone conclusion, but it was like admitting his complete defeat once again.

If they helped, it would be helpful, but what was important now was to find out who the client was.

“I’d like you to answer my first question first. If it’s hard to explain, think of it as giving a mission report and go through it step by step in chronological order.”

【I’d like you to answer my first question first-.】

Moon Seokil shook his head vigorously to shake off the voice echoing in his head and began to speak as if he had been waiting for it. His gaze was still fixed on the silhouette.

“It was spring. A woman who didn’t reveal her identity called me to the Baekje Hotel and commissioned me. She gave me a large down payment and information about Mr. Son Gwangyeon and told me to bring him to her.”

It was a suspicious request, but it wasn’t unusual for Moon Seokil. Usually, the cases where people look for a fixer are not above board. If they were, they would have used the authorities.

He was tempted by the down payment for his younger siblings who needed money, but he had to investigate the target.

He released his colleagues to gather information about the people around him, and even used his connections in the agency, but there was no suspicious information. Usually, people look for a fixer because the information is not certain, but there were some slight discrepancies, but the information the client gave was usable as it was.

Kim Inrang, who was assigned to tail Hong Gijun, also confirmed that there were no major discrepancies in the address and residence through his vacation-time surveillance.

That’s how he easily found out where Son Gwangyeon lived this summer.

“-I happened to confirm that there were suspicious people lying in wait.”

When he came for a preliminary survey, a radio signal was detected. He thought they were spies, but judging from their tone and the phonetic code they used, they seemed to be from the military. Even if he couldn’t identify them, he knew that they were monitoring the area for some reason. Moon Seokil eavesdropped on their communication and obtained information that they would be away during the Chuseok holiday. [Korean Thanksgiving, a major holiday when many people travel to their hometowns.]

They were thorough with security, so he couldn’t get information about the target, which resulted in him messing up.

‘So that’s what happened.’

Jinhyuk nodded calmly.

Finally, he had grasped the clues to the inexplicable events that had occurred so far.