WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 24: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (24)

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Onik had somehow become a middle school student.

It was a strange way to put it, but at least to Onik, it felt right. His middle school entrance ceremony had fallen during Yo-han's funeral.

He had gone through the ceremony in a daze and had not properly received anyone's congratulations.

Even when he thanked his beloved teacher for congratulating him, Onik had to carefully watch the grieving woman's expression.

That only made him more depressed.

'How should I put this... I feel like I've been cheated...'

His elementary school graduation and middle school entrance ceremony had both been so different from what he had imagined for years.

The graduation and entrance ceremonies he had looked forward to had been bright pictures drawn in pastels. The real ones were dull and gray, painted only in watered-down ink.

The ink was watered down because tears had mixed into it.

'I feel like I've fallen into another world.'

It was only natural for a boy so deeply sunk in despair to feel that way.

The world he lived in had changed far too much over the past half year.

Once, the boy had lived in a small but bright paradise.

Then merciless, senseless events had stripped the bright colors from his paradise one by one.

In the process, the boy had even become a vampire stained by dark urges, one who had tasted blood.

There was no longer a whole paradise left for him. The paradise that had half collapsed in so short a time remained as a desolate ruin, stirring only his nostalgia.

He tried to live as much as possible as he had before amid that broken paradise, but this life could never give him the happiness it once had.

If the boy's life were a story, this might be called the second act of his life, arriving somewhat early. In one way or another, his life had reached a turning point.

The beginning of this act was far too dark.

Whether it was the darkness before dawn or the gathering gloom at sunset, though, remained to be seen.

In any case, the boy himself was trying to bring some brightness into his life.

First, Onik tried to set his school life right.

By that, he meant trying to make his real middle school life resemble the one he had once imagined as closely as possible.

Getting along well with his new classmates was an essential part of that.

'I have to show them that I'm doing as well and as cheerfully as I can. Then Grandpa and Teacher won't worry about me.'

His new homeroom teacher might have felt hurt to hear it, but Lee Eun-jeong was still Onik's default image of a teacher. She always would be.

At the start of the new term, Onik was drifting slightly apart from the other students in the first-year middle school class. There was only one class, so it was simply called the first-year class.

First impressions mattered in school life as much as anywhere else. While the students who had just met were working out where everyone stood, Onik had been deep in grief and self-loathing.

He had also left early some days and missed school on others because of the funeral.

Still, none of that was a serious obstacle to setting things right with them.

Though they were newly met classmates, it was not as if they did not know Onik.

They had all come up from elementary schools in the area.

From their perspective, Jo Onik had been a famous figure for years, the one who ruined the balance of the elementary division at every regional joint sports day. They could not have failed to know him even if they wanted to.

Thanks to that, the awkwardness quickly vanished once Onik made an effort with them.

"You seemed down for a while. Are you feeling a little better now?"

"Yeah. A little."

"That's a relief. But, Onik."

"Yeah?"

"Why can't you look other people in the eye?"

"There's a reason."

"What reason?"

"Curious? Beat me in an arm-wrestling match, and I'll tell you."

"...?"

The way children, especially boys, worked out their relationships had a rather primal side to it. If someone was strong and good at sports, they were rarely ignored unless they were truly foolish.

(To Onik, arm wrestling, which he could end in under a second against anyone, was a form of physical contact that did not burden him much.)

After all three grades joined in for soccer and basketball, Onik became a central figure in the middle school students' social circles.

Wealthy Onik was generous, too.

That meant he took friends from his grade to the hottest place in town, Lotteria, and treated them to burgers several times.

"Is today your birthday? Then call all your friends, and let's have beef together! I'll buy!"

"Beef? Why beef all of a sudden?"

"Lotteria Korean beef bulgogi burgers! Double sets!"

"...That's beef?"

"Why? The second most delicious beef dish I've ever had is a Korean beef bulgogi burger."

"Uh, yeah..."

"You don't like them?"

"No, Korean beef bulgogi burgers are good. I like them too. I was just thinking you had a quirky side."

"Quirky? I only stated the facts."

"I'm just curious, but what was the most delicious beef dish?"

"Grandpa's beef bulgogi."

"Oh."

With prices what they were these days, buying every classmate a double Korean beef bulgogi burger set with two patties was a considerable expense.

Yet Onik's money kept growing even as he spent it so freely.

Wanting a change and something to devote himself to in order to escape his depression, Onik had accepted Legal Hunter's old offer of a partnership.

Legal Hunter, who had been waiting anxiously for an answer, was delighted to have his young partner join him.

"You made the right choice, Onik! You'll never regret it! You trust me, right?"

They had not started hunting in earnest yet.

Still, simply killing the magpies abundant in and around the village and turning them over to the hunter brought in a tidy short-term profit.

It was a business that earned the hunter nothing, but he collected the bounties for his young partner, considering it a way to earn some goodwill.

The cash Onik had received this way had already exceeded one million won. Not even fifteen days had passed.

Magpies were one of the most notorious pest birds. They not only stole grain and pecked at fruit trees, but also built nests on transmission towers and utility poles, often causing short circuits and blackouts.

Seven out of every ten bird-caused power outages were the work of magpies.

Bounties had been offered for catching magpies for a long time. Catch three, and there would still be change left after ordering a double Korean beef bulgogi burger set.

Even so, there was a reason Onik, who liked killing things, had never killed a bird the country officially recognized as harmful.

The village elders had taught him that magpies brought good fortune.

"In villages with many magpies, welcome guests arrive along with good fortune. Who knows? Maybe the magpies will bring your father to you."

Yes. They had brought him. The problem was that he had left coldly before they could exchange even a few words.

Onik was annoyed.

'Good fortune, my foot.'

His father had left, and Yo-han hyung had died.

How was that supposed to be the result of good fortune?

Just as there was no god in this world who loved people, there were surely no birds that brought good fortune. Mr. God and magpies were both neglecting their duties.

That meant there was no reason not to kill them anymore.

Onik had already held a grudge against these pest birds for a long time.

'How can a bird that looks so decent have such a mean, nasty personality?'

Magpies, the nightmare of fruit growers, had an especially rotten habit.

When they ate fruit, they did not choose one and stay to eat it properly. They pecked every piece of fruit they saw exactly once before leaving.

According to what Onik had heard from the adults around him, there was a simple reason magpies went around taking "just one bite!"

「I am the pest-bird world's greatest gourmet! I shall fill my stomach with the most delicious fruit here!」

How could they find the most delicious fruit among all the fruit hanging from the trees?

「The tasting shall now begin!」

Usually, they filled their stomachs from tasting alone before they left.

Their sense of taste was duller than a human's, yet their greed to eat something better overflowed.

That was why, if a fruit grower spread pesticide on only the most visible fruit on a tree, magpies that attacked the orchard, along with their various corvid relatives that shared the same habit, had a high chance of dying from poisoning.

Even then, the attacks never stopped. Their sheer numbers made it an endless succession of waves.

To fruit growers, they were air raids no different from suicidal charges. Perhaps this was what humanity had looked like when it first ate pufferfish.

They even routinely broke into greenhouses.

Whenever these nasty, deranged flying creatures attacked a greenhouse in a flock, the owner's household was sure to ring with wailing.

Now that he had no reason to endure them any longer, Onik began to inflict cruel punishment on these winged miniature wild boars. He did it to control the dark urges that had grown stronger than before, and to vent some frustration while he was at it.

Magpies were useful for more than making money, too.

'The flavor is clean, so they're not bad. If I get rid of the gamey smell, they're rich in umami...'

There was not much meat on them, but magpie meat was surprisingly not bad. It was only surprisingly not bad, of course. The meat was tough by nature, so it had to be simmered thoroughly like beef.

And Onik was good at cooking. He was probably the best middle school cook in the province.

He had a natural feel for it, handled knives well, and had gained plenty of experience from living alone with his grandfather.

Still, Eurasian jays were much better than magpies as cooking ingredients.

Though their Korean name included the word for magpie, Eurasian jays were not actually magpies. They did not earn a bounty, but they behaved much the same way.

It was as if every corvid relative had "Just one bite!" etched into its genes.

So these days, whenever Onik caught magpies, he caught Eurasian jays too, steadily building up his skill at cooking them.

The village elders had said Eurasian jay meat was very good for restoring one's strength.

He brought the finished dishes to his grandfather or Teacher Eun-jeong.

'I wonder if Teacher is enjoying them.'

Onik worried terribly about Eun-jeong, who had lost Yo-han.

'...I don't think I could bear it if something happened to Teacher too.'

Since Yo-han's funeral and his first murder, Onik had visited Eun-jeong every day.

His teacher had grown noticeably thinner in a short time and did not seem able to eat properly because of her grief. Every other day, he delivered food he had made himself.

Even without an appetite, Lee Eun-jeong was the kind of person who would eat it all, thinking of the care her student had put into it.

Naturally, Eun-jeong had been quite troubled at first.

"Onik... You don't have to do this. I'm really all right."

Despite his teacher's refusal, Onik shook his head.

"I just want to show off my cooking skills! Please eat it! You have to! It'd be even better if you told me what you thought!"

"...All right. Everyone knows Onik is good at cooking. Thank you. I'll enjoy it."

Onik had been the undisputed king of cooking practice in elementary school home economics class. While the other students remained at the level of playing house, he alone made real dishes.

Though Eun-jeong looked troubled, she could not bring herself to refuse the lunch boxes and airtight containers Onik handed her. She knew what was in her beloved student's heart.

Onik hoped his cooking would help Eun-jeong's health.

'Grandpa said even the North Korean Red leader restored his strength with this.'

Long ago, there had been a nasty old man named Kim Il-sung, who had a lump, among the Reds up north. In his later years, the old man had supposedly eaten enormous amounts of Eurasian jay meat.

He said it was delicious and also greatly helped one live long and stay healthy.

So Onik put great care into the bird dishes he would give his grandfather and teacher.

It took at least two Eurasian jays to make one serving, and five or six to gather only the best cuts for one serving, so preparing the ingredients alone required considerable care.

There had to be a reason Kim Il-sung, who liked precious things as befitted a Red leader, had gone mad for them and stuffed himself.

The care Onik put into this was proof of how deep his loneliness had become.

'...I don't want to lose anyone else.'

There was no choice but to do his utmost for the people precious to him.

The lonely boy was also haunted by helplessness. He had been unable to stop the repeated ruptures in his aging paradise, and he felt he would be unable to stop them in the future as well.

Footnotes:

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