WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 26: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (26)

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The bad adult had a cunning plan to soothe Jo Jeong-ho's anger.

"Onik. I've got a good idea."

"What is it?"

"You've got midterms coming up soon, right? Let's tell your grandfather when your report card comes out."

"My report card?"

"Yeah. Rather than just showing him the money, I think it'd be better to show him proof that our partnership isn't hurting your studies too. What do you think? Sounds good, right?"

The Legal Hunter thought it was a truly good idea.

Jo Jeong-ho might have been a dignified elder, but whenever his grandson came home with an award or a high test score, he could never hide his pride, even in front of others.

'This kid is famous for getting good grades even though he runs all over the place every day, so his grades will obviously be great... If I praise his grandson to the skies in front of him, it won't be easy for him to get angry. Heh heh heh.'

Once they got over this hurdle, the road ahead would be smooth.

Only a bright future remained for the Legal Hunter who made a habit of breaking the law.

Then he could gently push the matter of having Onik appear on YouTube too. Even apart from his extraordinary hunting skills, Onik was the kind of kid who was practically content in human form.

The Legal Hunter was not a professional broadcaster, but he saw what people called star quality in Onik.

'Other than hunting, the only content I've got is mukbang... There's only so much I can differentiate it with a Joseon-era hunter concept...'

The key to this plan was Onik's grades.

Yet Onik himself had a strange reaction.

"Uh..."

"What was that reaction for? Don't tell me you're not confident you can get good grades. That won't do."

"No, it's not that! I'm good at studying! But there's a problem!"

"A problem? What problem?"

"We haven't taken any tests yet!"

"Huh?"

"We don't take tests! Until the first semester ends, we don't have midterms or finals!"

"What?"

The hunter was dumbfounded.

"Who ever heard of such a thing? Why wouldn't you take tests? Are there really students in this world who don't take tests?"

"There are! The first semester is a free semester!"

"Huh..."

Onik had never taken midterms or finals before.

It wasn't as though he hadn't taken tests in elementary school, but those had been called unit assessments rather than midterms or finals.

So he only knew that midterms and finals were tests that existed.

"...Really?"

"Really!"

"Good grief. What is this country coming to? Do kids even study if they don't take tests?"

"I do!"

"Yeah, you would... You're Onik..."

The hunter felt awkward, stopped short by an unexpected generation gap.

When he had first tempted Onik, he had boldly said, "Even if someone gets scolded, it'll be me. I'll say I was the one who talked you into it." But he did not actually want Jo Jeong-ho to scold him.

He had always disliked the thought, but he disliked it even more after seeing the Village Youth Association President get thrashed because of his tattling.

(He did not particularly feel sorry for his friend, who died in a dog attack not long after being beaten. The hunter had already rationalized it perfectly in his mind.

Why had he done something that deserved a beating? At his age, he should have given up, grown old, and died alone.)

So the hunter agonized over it.

'Ha. This won't work. I thought I could get through it easily... Looking at the way the old man beat him, he wasn't just healthy for his age. What if I get treated to a clubbing at my age...?'

Surely the old man would not beat him that badly, but this involved his only grandson. There was no telling.

Onik watched the troubled adult from the corner of his eye and tilted his head.

"Should we wait until the second-semester midterms, then? I don't mind!"

"Tsk... Waiting that long is a bit... The money would pile up, but..."

Keeping their secret partnership, begun by tempting an innocent child, hidden from Jo Jeong-ho for too long was not exactly a good idea either.

The longer they hid it, the more likely Jo Jeong-ho's anger would grow.

They had to strike the right balance. Against a stubborn old man who loved his grandson deeply, simply bringing more money would not solve everything.

"Ah, it can't be helped!"

After wavering back and forth, the hunter finally steeled himself as he thought about all the money they would earn. There was no path to easy money in this world.

"Let's save up until around the middle or end of next month, then face him head-on! Onik, we can do this!"

"We can do this!"

"High five!"

"Yay!"

Even if they did not meet each other's eyes, they could meet palms. The bad adult and the frightening child smacked their hands together with a sharp clap.

It was closer to the child playing along with him. The clever boy had noticed that the adult was scared inside.

That was how the two of them came to kneel side by side before Jo Jeong-ho, with a Vita 500 box before them.

The silence in the main room of Onik's house was heavy.

And long.

The bad adult felt his legs slowly going numb as he watched the stubborn old man's expression.

"Um, sir. Could you say something...?"

"..."

Deep in the old man's throat, the rebuke the hunter had anticipated earlier remained caught, unspoken.

'Are you trying to persuade me with money over a matter concerning my grandson? What do you take me for?'

Still, there was too much money for him to scold them outright.

In the past, he would have shouted at them immediately, no matter the amount. But he could not do that now.

His worries about his grandson's upbringing had only been deepening by the day.

The Vita 500 box, filled with the money-minded portraits of Shin Saimdang and King Sejong, had the power to make him picture his gifted grandson living in Seoul's Gangnam school district.

'Leaving aside whether it's possible, is this something I have to do...?'

If there was no lie in how the two kneeling before him had made this money, Onik could save more than three hundred million won by the time he graduated middle school.

Had they not said this was the result of making time for a couple of hours of hunting each day during the school term?

During vacation, he would surely be unstoppable.

He was still growing, so his physical abilities would improve rapidly with each grade he advanced.

Then there would be no problem with Onik beginning life in Seoul once he entered high school.

Taking into account the money he had saved and the income he would earn from the rice paddies and fields, Onik could rent a place in the best school district, spend time with children from wealthy families, and enjoy an easy school life.

The more he turned it over in his mind, the more he leaned toward allowing his grandson to partner with the hunter.

It was certainly outrageous that they had kept it from him and done something that might be dangerous.

For more than a month and a half, no less.

But he trusted his grandson. He believed Onik would not have broken his promise to back down when it was time to back down.

Was he not a child who deeply respected his great-grandfather and trusted and followed his grandfather?

'There truly must not have been any need for him to retreat.'

It was not as if he had only seen his grandson's extraordinary nature for a day or two.

The possibility of danger was only something he understood in his head. It had not truly struck him in his heart.

If Onik had been born during the Japanese occupation, he would have been the sort of child to slaughter traitors and Japanese police in droves from his primary school days.

Even so, the words granting permission did not come easily.

Because he was ashamed.

To think of relying on money his child earned while raising that child was something any guardian should naturally be ashamed of.

Jo Jeong-ho was a guardian with a conscience.

He was unlike the beastly father from the Princess Maker series.

He also could not help considering what would happen if his grandson's secret partnership with the hunter were discovered.

'I am truly ashamed. I have failed as an adult.'

After hesitating, he asked his grandson directly.

"Onik."

"Yes."

"Do you truly want to do this? You're not just doing it because this fellow talked you into it?"

Onik shook his head firmly. He did not trust the adult beside him, so he thought he had to make his own wishes clear.

"No! Mister was the first one to suggest it, but I thought about it carefully before I said I would do it! I've tried it, and it's not dangerous at all!"

"Is that so?"

"Yes! Whether it's a wild boar or water deer, if it runs into me, it goes down in one shot! Ah, by one shot, I mean it's that easy. Sometimes it actually takes two or three shots! Usually about three to five seconds, if you count the time!"

Onik held up his fingers, eagerly appealing to his skill, his confidence, and the safety of hunting.

"Ah, but that's counting from when I aim and fire the bow until it hits! The time it takes for it to actually stop breathing is separate! Anyway, wild boars and water deer die before they can even get close to me!"

"..."

"So please let me do it! You said you worked from when you were little too, Grandpa! You delivered newspapers at the market and made deliveries for a rice shop! You said you even worked at a factory for a little while in high school! I want to do that too! Like you, Grandpa!"

There were words he left unsaid.

He wanted to be good to his grandfather that way.

When the hunter had first tempted Onik, this was the part Onik had listened to most seriously.

There was not just one reason why Onik accepted the hunter's offer of a partnership.

First, he thought he needed a change, something to immerse himself in so he could escape his present gloom.

Second, he thought he needed to kill more things to control the dark impulse that had grown stronger than before.

Third, he wanted to lighten his grandfather's burden.

'I want him to do less hard work now. He's still healthy, but he's old. And he doesn't even like it when I help with farm work...'

People could grow old suddenly.

The lonely boy did not want to lose anyone precious to him again.

More than anything, he wanted his beloved grandfather to live past a hundred. That was the private wish of a boy who had become even lonelier after Yo-han's death.

As Onik said, Jo Jeong-ho began earning money while he was still in primary school.

Back then, there were far more people living around here than there were now, and the market in town was permanent rather than opening every five days.

Jo Jeong-ho delivered between fifty and one hundred newspapers there, earning a few thousand won to put toward his school expenses.

Sometimes, a few merchants even hit him.

The newspaper distribution managers had newspaper quotas forced on them from above, so they pressured the children to put papers everywhere. The result was that the children forced newspapers into shops that did not want them.

He remembered what the distribution manager had shouted at him.

"Do what you're told! Do you think getting paid is easy?"

Bad adults exploited children far more in the past than they did now. Rather than go all the way to the distribution office to complain, the merchants simply beat up the nearby children who looked like easy targets.

Like everyone else, Jo Jeong-ho carried nostalgia and pride over his difficult youth. Knowing his grandfather well, Onik tried to persuade him by touching on that point.

"You said it before! You said lots of people who tried all kinds of work from when they were young went on to become great! I'll become great too! So please let me do it!"

The examples Jo Jeong-ho had given of people who became great were chaebol founders like Chung Ju-yung, Kim Woo-choong, and Shin Kyuk-ho.

Kim Woo-choong had made far too much of a mess in his final years, but even so... no one could deny that, for good or ill, he had become a great figure.

Jo Jeong-ho had told his grandson those stories because he wanted him to grow up strong and upright.

He gave a short sigh, then spoke to his grandson.

"All right. Go outside for a moment. I need to speak with this fellow alone."

"Um, okay..."

Onik watched their faces before going out into the yard. His hearing was so sharp that it would not be difficult to listen in while wandering the yard or sitting on the wooden porch.

Once his grandson left, Jo Jeong-ho fixed his piercing eyes on the Legal Hunter, who had shrunk back as though he expected a knuckle strike.

"So you say you'll keep giving all the bounty money to Onik? And you'll be satisfied with nothing but nominal hunting records in your name?"

"Yes..."

"Do you expect me to believe that? If Onik keeps earning money at this rate, how much tax will fall on you? And how much will your health insurance premiums be?"

More wrinkles formed between the old man's brows.

"And how do you intend to give all that money to Onik? You don't mean to keep bringing it in cash like this, do you? If you don't tell me exactly what you're plotting, I won't allow it."

The taxes imposed on high-income self-employed people were beyond what ordinary office workers could imagine.

Farmers were in a similar position to the self-employed when it came to paying taxes.

Agricultural prices were extremely volatile. There were years when farmers were ruined even after working hard and enjoying a good harvest, while in years of record bad harvests, they could strike it rich through no effort of their own.

That was why people said farming was gambling, not labor.

Like any farmer who had tended fields for a long time, Jo Jeong-ho had experienced many different tax rates himself.

He knew how high taxes could rise with income, and how high the health insurance premiums for an individual enrollee could go.

At least farmers in towns and rural districts received reductions in health insurance premiums and national pension contributions. Hunters received nothing of the kind.

'If what this fellow says is true, even paying every cent he earns in taxes would not be enough.'

The words the Legal Hunter had used to deceive Onik about money sounded like nothing but flimsy, transparent lies to Jo Jeong-ho.

The hunter cleared his throat, then put on a serious expression.

"Sir. I've got it all planned out."

"What plan?"

"I've had a corporation set up for a while, and I receive the bounty money through it."

"A corporation? You?"

"Yes. Right now, it's just a small corporation with me, my family, and a few relatives and acquaintances listed as employees and shareholders, but all the hunters around here do it to reduce their taxes."

"Is that common?"

"Of course it is."

Of course it was not. Setting up corporations only became popular after the hunters in this area started getting involved in illegal trading.

Everything was hard at first.

Once they had gotten a taste of lucrative illegal work, they began to see more ways to be dishonest and their thinking broadened in that direction.

It was only inevitable that they would start looking for illegal ways to handle taxes.

Reducing one's own salary in a high-income year and carrying the profits over to the next year might have been a loophole, but it was still tax-saving.

But spreading income by paying salaries and dividends to family members and relatives who did no actual work was clearly tax evasion.

Then there were all sorts of other forms of tax evasion. They made interest-free loans through corporations to avoid gift tax, hunters worked together to cycle loans through dozens of corporations before adjusting the books and declaring bankruptcy, they inflated business expenses by exchanging ceremonial payments back and forth at weddings and funerals, or they registered relatives' buildings as offices and processed rent as an additional expense to siphon off profits.

Of course, the hunter did not really think of any of this as illegal.

'What has this country ever done for me? Why should common people like me get fleeced out of all that money?'

To the Legal Hunter, taxes were simply money the country unfairly extorted from him. Ordinary people like himself should have been exempt from taxes.

What mattered was not getting caught.

There was no chance of that. He knew all the local old hands who worked as public officials.

Since he did not think it was wrong, he spoke confidently too.

"...People in the industry, families, relatives, we all pitch in and help one another, sir. Mutual aid, you could say. There's even a kind tax accountant who handles things like this for us. Heh heh."

"Is that what pitching in means? That is simply tax evasion. What is kind about a tax accountant who helps with it?"

Jo Jeong-ho looked at him in disbelief, and the hunter puffed out his chest and pretended to be bold.

"Great-uncle, sir! This is how taxes are paid! If you fail, it's tax evasion. If you succeed, it's tax-saving!"

Smack!

"Ow!"

The Legal Hunter clutched his forehead with both hands. The strong old man had finally given him a knuckle strike.

Jo Jeong-ho continued speaking calmly as the hunter's eyes watered.

"At least I roughly understand the tax matter. It isn't as though you would stop just because I told you to."

He shook his head as he spoke, wondering when this fellow had become so warped. He had had the same thought when he beat the Village Youth Association President.

Part of him wondered whether it was really all right to leave someone like this near his grandson. Another part thought that was exactly why he needed to send his grandson to Seoul as soon as possible.

"But I still don't understand. Even if you evade taxes, the burden can't disappear completely. Are you taking on that burden just to boast about your performance?"

In truth, there was no burden at all. The tax-evasion network among this area's hunters was that well established.

But rather than boast about how spectacularly good he was at evading taxes, the Legal Hunter produced another excuse he had prepared beforehand.

"Well, you see, I run a YouTube channel."

"YouTube? You?"

"Yes, sir. You do know what You-Tube is, right?"

"How could I not? Why are you stretching out the pronunciation so strangely?"

"Uh, well..."

Jo Jeong-ho was a modern boy who could easily use even a cutting-edge IT device like a Lotteria kiosk.

He did more than simply watch videos on YouTube. He knew enough about the ecosystem of broadcasters active there to follow what appeared in the news.

After recovering from his embarrassment, the Legal Hunter spoke with exaggerated excitement.

"If it goes well, it'll be a real, real jackpot. But for it to go well, I need something that sets me apart from everyone else. Something like results that no other hunter would dare dream of. There are plenty of hunters doing personal broadcasts these days, not just me."

"Hmm..."

"Onik is still a child, but I seriously consider him my business partner. I don't just want to hunt with him. Later, I hope he'll appear on my channel too. In other words, catching wild boars is only one part of the business we're doing together."

"You want to put Onik on your broadcast?"

"Yes. But of course I'm not trying to show Onik catching wild boars or water deer and the like."

"Then what?"

"With the traditional stove hearth lit in the kitchen, or with a cauldron hung outside, a child making all sorts of food... And surely there's no harm in showing people his skill at catching small birds like Oriental turtle doves and Eurasian jays with a bow or sling? To city people, all raised sheltered and soft, it would be new and fascinating to watch."

"...That may be true."

"Let me say it again. If this You... ahem, if YouTube goes well, it'll be no joke. Can't I take on a new challenge at my age? I'll make sure Onik gets a fair share of the income from it too. I'll tell you about the broadcast content in advance, sir. What do you think?"

It sounded plausible. It was not merely an excuse he had made up to talk his way out of trouble.

The Legal Hunter genuinely had ambitions of succeeding through personal broadcasting.

Even Jo Jeong-ho thought his grandson Onik's talent was enough to draw people's attention.

Just looking at his skill with a sling made that clear. Perhaps Onik was the world's best boy with a sling.

The thought that the income from broadcasting might make his grandson's life in Seoul even more comfortable brought down another wall in Jo Jeong-ho's heart.

In any case, his grandson had to go to Seoul. Someday, he had to leave this aging village...

"I'll ask again. How will you give Onik the money? You can't keep filling a box with bundles of cash and bringing it here."

"Well, if you dislike tax-saving... I can simply hire Onik as a full-time employee of my corporation and deposit it into his account as salary and performance bonuses. A lot would be taken out in taxes, though."

"How can you hire a child that age as an employee? In the old days, primary schoolchildren delivered newspapers, but that can't be allowed nowadays, can it?"

"Don't worry, sir. I've prepared everything. Look at this."

The hunter placed a document before Jo Jeong-ho. Picking it up, the old man narrowed his eyes and read the words.

"Employment permit... application?"

"Yes. It only needs the signatures of me as the nominal employer, Onik as the employee, you as his guardian, and the principal. If you put in a good word, getting the principal's signature will be no trouble."

"Such a thing exists? Can a child who has only just entered middle school really be hired as a full-time employee?"

"It becomes possible exactly at Onik's age. We have to wait until his birthday, though. There are a lot of limits on where he can work, but if we write that his duties are appearing on YouTube, there is no reason it wouldn't be approved."

"Huh..."

After one final hesitation, Jo Jeong-ho finally made up his mind to allow it.

"Do you have a pen?"

"Yes, sir!"

Taking the pen the hunter promptly offered him, Jo Jeong-ho wrote his name on the employment permit application. His neat Hanja, written alongside his name in Hangul, served in place of a signature.

"Take it."

"Thank you, sir!"

"I'll be watching from now on. If you lead Onik astray even once, I won't let it pass."

"Of course! You will never regret this!"

"And don't forget that a student's duty is studying above all else. If I think Onik's education is being affected, I'll make him stop immediately."

"I'll make sure that never happens! Trust me!"

A broad smile bloomed on the Legal Hunter's face as he accepted the document.

In the yard, where he had been listening to the adults' conversation, Onik clenched both fists.

Footnotes:

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