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[You’ve finally woken up.]
A man in a black police uniform spoke.
Startled by the unexpected visitor, Haejun slowly raised himself and grabbed a Monami ballpoint pen from the desk.
Just like he used to during his mercenary days.
“...Who are you?”
Haejun growled lowly, having assumed a defensive stance.
His eyes scanned the man up and down rapidly.
But there was no need to struggle to figure out who this man was.
Because the next moment, the man spoke words that revealed his identity.
[Seeing how you slept so comfortably in someone else’s bed, I can tell you have quite a bold personality. And noticing how you instinctively grabbed a pen and took a defensive stance the moment you saw me, you seem to be a well-trained soldier. But... did you really find my bed that comfortable?]
“My bed...?”
[I am the original owner of that body.]
With those words, Haejun realized that the man before him had an excessively pale face.
Moreover, he looked exactly like the body Haejun had inhabited.
“The original owner...? So, you’re the guy who died after being swept away by the current while chasing a petty thief?”
[...It wasn’t a petty thief.]
The man replied, looking slightly embarrassed.
Seeing this, Haejun realized that this man was the original owner of the new body he occupied and also a ghost.
And he felt a bit bewildered.
It was the first time in his life talking to a ghost.
‘Ha... Am I still dreaming? Talking to a ghost...’
[This is not a dream, but reality. I’m just as bewildered. Right before crossing the river of the underworld, a group of ghosts called out to me... when I opened my eyes, I found myself back in this room.]
“A group of ghosts...?”
At that moment, Haejun suddenly recalled the souls who had revived him.
It seemed that the long-sought reason for his revival was finally coming to light.
[But what did you mean by what you said earlier? A detective agency?]
“That’s not important. First, tell me what those ghosts said.”
[It is important to me. Are you really planning to quit the police force and start a detective agency?]
“I’m too expensive to work for small change.”
[......!]
“Anyway, quickly tell me what the ghosts said.”
Haejun urged him.
At that moment, the man’s previously calm face twisted with anger.
[Are you out of your mind? Quitting the police force to start a detective agency! Do you know how hard I worked to become a police officer!? I spent every day from 7 AM to 11 PM in the library without taking a single day off! If you quit the police force, all my efforts will be in vain...!]
“You damn ghost, did you swallow a train whistle or something? Stop babbling and answer my question...”
[Do you know how hard I worked? Why did you let a madman like this possess my body!!]
At the moment when the ghost man shouted with anger in his eyes,
Zzzt-!
Haejun’s body flinched for a moment.
As if he had received an electric shock.
“...What did you just do?”
[Are you ready to listen to me now?]
“What kind of nonsense did you... Ugh!”
[According to the contract with the ghosts, in exchange for borrowing my body, I can bind you to my actions. Therefore, you must follow my words. You must never quit the police force, and you must achieve the justice that I couldn’t in my lifetime.]
“What? Binding force? Where does such crazy nonsense exist?!”
[Right here. Are you ready to listen to me now?]
The ghost man asked again.
He naturally thought that a “yes” would come out of Haejun’s mouth.
A normal person would understand with this much shock.
But Haejun was not the kind of person he thought.
“Screw you.”
Haejun said.
And in the next moment,
Swoosh-!
Haejun swung his fist at the man without warning.
At that sight, the man gave a wry smile.
[Ha ha. Do you think punching a ghost will work?]
But then, an unbelievable twist occurred.
Bam-!!
The fist Haejun swung hit the man’s right cheek!
[Argh! What, what’s going on?]
Of course, for the ghost man, it was a moment so shocking that he couldn’t even feel pain.
A human hitting a ghost?
This was an unrealistic scene that wouldn’t appear even in fantasy movies.
“...I didn’t think this would work either.”
Haejun also had a slightly bewildered expression.
He hadn’t expected his punch, thrown in a fit of anger, to actually land.
He had once been called the ‘mercenary who catches ghosts,’ but that didn’t mean he literally beat up ghosts.
[What the hell! No one told me about this!]
The ghost man was shocked and gave Haejun’s body another jolt.
But,
[Stop it, you bastard!]
Thud!
He just got hit by Haejun once more.
Only then did the ghost man vaguely realize.
The group of ghosts that had sent him back to the living world had put an ‘uncontrollable madman’ in his body.
[How the hell am I supposed to control such a lunatic....!?]
As Haejun continued to rain punches, the ghost man’s face filled with despair.
***
About 30 minutes later.
“Quickly, tell me what those ghosts said.”
After a long struggle(?), it was Haejun who ultimately emerged victorious.
He, with sheer guts, ignored the ghost’s binding power and kept throwing punches.
As a result, the ghost man in the black uniform knelt in front of Haejun, crying.
[....They told me to help you carry out proper executions. To stay by your side.]
“Proper executions? What does that mean?”
[I don’t know that either....]
“Ha... Okay. Maybe it’ll come to mind if I keep hitting it. Do ghosts nowadays even lose their nails?”
[I told you, I really didn’t hear it! I returned to the living world just two days after dying! And that was forced! I’m still confused!]
The face of the ghost man, pale as could be, seemed genuinely honest.
So Haejun let out a deep sigh and moved on to the next question.
“Then what else did that group of ghosts say?”
[They did give me a mask. They told me to use it for their request...]
“A mask?”
When Haejun asked this, the ghost man pulled something out of his pocket.
It was a black mask with holes only for the eyes, nose, and mouth, without any other patterns.
Though it had appeared as a hologram-like spirit, when Haejun took it, it became a real object.
It was an incredibly strange occurrence.
‘...I’ve experienced all sorts of things in my life. But giving me a mask like this...’
Haejun, who had a mercenary background, roughly figured out the purpose of the mask.
In the past, there had been dangerous missions where he had to thoroughly conceal his identity.
It seemed like such missions were waiting for Haejun.
[And they also gave me this.]
The next item the man took out was an old-fashioned scroll.
When it was unfolded, the following phrase was written in bright red blood:
<Underworld Law Article 231, Clause 42: Special Law for Resting in Peace.>
- For spirits who cannot rest due to intense grudges, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ revenge is permitted.
Seeing this, even more questions filled Haejun’s mind.
“There are laws in the underworld...?”
[It seems so... I was equally baffled... Anyway, these were the only two things the ghosts gave me. They didn’t give any further explanation. They said the rest would become clear naturally if I stayed by your side.]
Since the man’s tone was sufficiently sincere, Haejun nodded.
“Yeah. The rest will become clear in time.”
Having finished that thought, Haejun decided it was time for dinner.
He hadn’t eaten anything since being discharged from the hospital, so he was hungry.
He thought he would eat something first and then continue his thoughts.
But then it happened.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Suddenly, Haejun started hearing a mystical bell sound in his ears.
Hearing that sound, Haejun’s eyes widened immediately.
It was the kind of hallucination he often heard during his mercenary days.
Next,
Creak-!
The laptop on the desk in his room suddenly opened.
No one touched it, but it opened by itself.
[What! What is this!]
The ghost man was even more surprised than Haejun.
It seemed that he had not yet fully adapted to supernatural phenomena since becoming a ghost.
But that wasn’t the only surprising thing.
Tap-tap-tap-
The keys on the laptop started pressing automatically.
And shortly after, news articles appeared on the laptop screen with an open internet window.
“I killed because of this shitty society. I regret not killing more...” The sentence for an unrepentant murderer? Only 10 years.
Three years in prison for a multi-billion dollar fraud vs. seven years in prison for theft out of financial hardship. If you’re going to steal, you better steal big...
Endless funerals for the victims. When will the tears of the victims’ families stop?
Foreign media mock Korean justice. The perpetrators laugh, and the victims cry.
What is judicial justice?
“What is that...?”
[Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a message from the ghosts...]
“You really don’t know anything, do you? Are you sure they are ghosts?”
[Anyway, if you handle their request well, they said they would give you a reward beyond your imagination. Enough to make you richer than a chaebol*.] (T/N: conglomerate, tycoon, etc.)
With those words, Haejun recalled another conversation he had before dying once again.
“The reward will be generous.”
The souls who revived him certainly said that.
