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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 52: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (52)

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#52.

At the edge of the land where order still held, the leaders of both the Congolese government forces and the rebels were warlords.

They merely stood on different sides according to their respective interests.

Even the leaders of the government forces were not part of a single camp.

Very few considered themselves part of a country called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Some defended the interests of a particular political party. Some supported tribal leaders allied with the government. Some made secret deals with Western companies that had entered with government approval...

Others offered only loose loyalty because the government guaranteed their interests.

That was why the government forces and rebels fought solely for profit.

Put another way, they saw no reason to fight when there was nothing to gain.

Of course, exploiting and massacring civilians did not count as fighting.

They could loot, rape, and set fires while they were at it. Why would that be a fight?

It was good fun.

The Second Congo War, also called Africa's World War, made that clear.

A little over one hundred thousand soldiers fought in total, yet as many as 5.4 million people died.

At first, Pastor Kim knew little of the local situation. Naively, he went to the government forces and pleaded with them.

"The rebels are exploiting the residents horribly! If they don't give them everything they demand or do as they're told, they're killed without mercy! Please send soldiers to protect them!"

The government lieutenant colonel picked at their ear and replied with an indifferent expression.

"Protect them? Us? Why?"

"What do you mean, why? This village is under your jurisdiction! You're the government's army, aren't you?"

"No, we're not."

"...What do you mean, you're not?"

"Don't misunderstand, Chinese man. We're not the government's army. We're on the government's side. Those are very different things."

The pastor was left speechless.

The lieutenant colonel sneered at him in rough French.

"Honestly, foreigners like you pretending to be good get on my nerves. Why do you think this country ended up like this? Do you think your countries are any better than the others? They're desperate to dig up every last thing this land has to offer.

"And they are doing exactly that."

"...I'm not Chinese. I'm Korean."

"Ha. All Chinese people say that when they're ashamed of their nationality.

"And what difference does it make if you're Korean? Does Korea not use the coltan and cobalt that come from this country?

"Go on, tell me. I wasn't educated much, so I don't know."

Whether they belonged to the government forces or the rebels, the main source of income for warlords in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was running mines and exporting minerals.

For frontline officers, this was their livelihood. They all possessed at least some knowledge of the goods they handled and the people they traded with.

Pastor Kim had heard a little about it as well.

Coltan and cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo were conflict minerals subject to American trade restrictions.

Still, everyone found ways to use them.

Good companies from moral superpowers such as China and France first brought them in and laundered their country of origin.

Naturally, Korea imported and used plenty of them too.

Moral superpowers were moral superpowers because they sold morality for money.

Acting as intermediaries to wash the origins of conflict minerals, allowing major consumer countries to save face, was much like exporting morality itself.

So America's trade restrictions did little in practice beyond lowering the price of Congolese coltan and cobalt at the source.

It was much like how Russia, now struggling to sell oil and gas on the regular market because of international restrictions, sold them off cheaply to India and China.

The dark-skinned lieutenant colonel listened to the pastor's silence, then grinned, showing yellow teeth.

"You people get to pretend you're good, then shove others into life-and-death battles. It's disgusting.

"If you're going to ask for that, at least bring the price of their lives. You should show that much sincerity."

"...You're asking for money?"

"Yes. Pay us. Fortunately for hypocrites like you, lives are very cheap in this country!

"If you pay for my men's lives, well, it wouldn't be impossible for us to fight. We could put up with how disgusting you people are, too."

"......."

"Ah, of course, you'll have to pay every time we deploy. We all live one day at a time here.

"A mayfly's life can only be worth one day's pay, can't it?"

"How much... do you want?"

The lieutenant colonel tapped their epaulet.

"Go negotiate the price with my staff officer. As you can see, I'm not of a rank that has to do such undignified things."

"......."

"I look forward to doing business with you, Korean shepherd. I don't know much about Korea, but Koreans generally have more money than Chinese people, right?

"If you're a pastor, do what pastors do and raise donations. Anyone with money is a customer. Let's both live long enough to see each other again."

"...Yes."

"Good. Bienvenue au Congo! A heartfelt welcome to the 'real Congo.'"

Having gained nothing from his meeting with the commander of the government forces in charge of the area, the pastor next went to a nearby United Nations peacekeeping base.

After pleading his case and waiting a long time, he finally managed to meet an Indian officer.

The peacekeeping officer picked at their ear once, then gave him an answer no different from the government officer's.

"Us? Deploy? There? Why?"

Most peacekeeping officers and soldiers were simply foreign laborers who had come to earn dollars.

They cared about money, but not much about human lives.

No, more accurately, they cared only about their own lives.

What use was earning money if they could not return alive?

The officer wearing a blue-and-white UN armband dismissed him like a call center employee ending a call with a troublesome customer.

"Go home, Pastor. We only follow official orders from headquarters."

It was a lie.

There were times when they merely pretended to follow even orders from headquarters.

That happened when the peacekeeping command's wishes did not align with the chain of command in their home country.

The pastor learned later that local residents did not like the peacekeepers.

They were better than the rebels and government forces, but that did not mean they committed no crimes against civilians.

Even in the villages where the pastor volunteered, children born of rape and illegal prostitution involving peacekeeping personnel were everywhere.

There were also countless local wives, including minors, whom soldiers and officers had enjoyed during their deployments and then discarded.

Even so, the peacekeepers remained the armed force the Korean pastor could rely on most as a foreign volunteer.

As he continued asking for help, he came to know someone.

She was Clementine Ilunga Mikalayi, an investigator at the UN Secretariat assigned to the Congo peacekeeping forces.

She had attended Yohan's funeral and was one of the mourners who gave Onik her business card.

After hearing Pastor Kim's request for help, she looked both sorry and troubled.

"I'm sorry I can't help, Pastor Kim. Realistically, all I can do is crack down on crimes against civilians committed by peacekeepers..."

After saying that, she gave a bitter smile.

"Though even that only amounts to sending them back to their home country."

The authority to punish crimes committed by peacekeeping soldiers belonged not to the peacekeeping force, but to the country that sent them.

So even if the UN Secretariat Office of Internal Oversight Services desperately uncovered a crime, it rarely led to actual criminal punishment.

Trials held in the offender's home country often ended in acquittal for lack of evidence.

When those investigators said they worked desperately, they meant it literally.

Peacekeepers could quietly get rid of an investigator who uncovered a crime, then make it look like the local rebels had done it.

Investigators usually had at least a few guards with them, so it was not easy... but difficult did not mean impossible.

Clementine shrugged and complained.

"Out of ten cases we prosecute, perhaps one leads to an actual punishment. Even then, dismissal or a more serious penalty is truly rare."

That was why most field investigators were steeped in helplessness.

"Still... if you ever need protection from the peacekeepers, please contact me. I'll do my best to help."

Clementine's words brought a hollow smile to Pastor Kim's face.

"Protection from the peacekeepers... Just the phrase itself is quite contradictory."

"What can we do? The reality we live in is full of contradictions."

"If uncovering crimes rarely results in real punishment, does uncovering them have any meaning? There has to be some point to it for protection to be possible."

"Fortunately, it does have meaning. Regardless of whether they are punished, anyone caught committing a crime is sent home without exception.

"To people who came here to earn money, that alone is a great loss. They volunteered for peacekeeping duty because they were dissatisfied with the pay they received back home."

"...I understand. I hope it never comes to that, but if the time comes, I'll accept your help."

"It's no burden. It's a duty I must carry out. I should be the one thanking kind volunteers like you.

"Please take good care of the people of my country who are in difficult circumstances."

As shown by her use of the words my country, Clementine was one of the rare local Congolese people to become a UN investigator.

That was also why she worked with more determination than other investigators.

#

The village Pastor Kim used as his base was exploited by both government forces and rebels.

The two sides had reached an unspoken compromise, each collecting labor and taxes, or protection fees, from the residents. That let the villagers somehow continue their dangerous, exhausting lives.

In this land so full of advanced morality, was it not something that they were not being killed?

By the standards of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it was still safe, orderly, peaceful land, despite effectively lying in a conflict zone.

Here, the pastor made a refuge for children with nowhere else to go.

If left alone, they would meet one of three endings.

First, they would be dragged to mines or plantations and die under unpaid forced labor.

Second, they would be sold as cheap goods in the human trafficking market.

Third, they would be forced to enlist as child soldiers, take drugs, commit war crimes, and eventually become one of the corpses scattered across the battlefield.

Naturally, a refuge for children did not only accept children.

Pastor Kim willingly hid anyone who had to flee in order to live.

"Come in. I'll give you food and a place to rest. If you stay hidden and quiet, I'll contact my supporters and arrange a vehicle and a broker.

"I'll have to take you as far as the meeting point myself, though."

He installed solar panels and small household wind turbines for electricity. Through his connections in religious circles and the field, he borrowed machinery from international charities to dig wells. He brought in seeds and farming tools, then distributed them among the villagers.

He put up lamps to drive away the darkness at night. He taught students language, mathematics, and basic science. He kept various common medicines on hand and taught sick people how to take them.

"...The red medicine isn't meant to be drunk... Don't swallow it. Put it on your skin..."

He was neither a doctor nor a pharmacist, but in this area, severely underdeveloped even by Congolese standards, he was an excellent provider of medical services.

It was because he could read and understand the instructions that came with medicine.

Later, he obtained nursing assistant textbooks and studied on his own.

Provided they could speak French, any Korean university graduate could come to most conflict zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and become a hero from another world.

A hero needed courage and ability.

The courage was proven simply by coming to volunteer in a conflict zone.

As for ability... an education at the average level of a citizen of the Republic of Korea was enough. That alone could leave everyone in awe.

「Hey! That's amazing! This guy can actually read and write 'words'!」

「This can't be! This guy can not only add and subtract, but multiply and divide too!」

「My God! Could it be that he graduated from the legendary educational institution known only in stories, 'high school'?!」

「What?! He didn't stop at 'high school' and even went to 'university'?! You really are someone from another world! I've never met anyone who graduated from university before!」

Pastor Kim's experience was generally like that.

The senior officers of the government forces were not illiterate and were naturally capable with basic arithmetic, but they had nothing to do with aiding civilians.

So local residents rarely had the chance to exchange words with them.

(Usually, getting such a chance meant something terrible was about to happen. Most often, someone would be taken away or killed.)

The pastor did not want to lie, so he constantly impressed upon the residents that despite providing a little medical help, he was absolutely not a doctor.

"Then are you a shaman?"

"I'm not a shaman either..."

"But you're treating sick people, aren't you? Yet you're neither a doctor nor a shaman?"

"Really, I'm not... I'm only an ordinary pastor..."

"A pastor is a shaman, aren't they? They wave a cross around and borrow the power of God and His great spirit, Jesus Christ."

"No..."

In this region, the line between doctors and shamans was unclear.

Even those who called themselves doctors were usually unlicensed, or were only providers of traditional folk remedies and shamanic treatments. People with real medical qualifications were extremely rare.

The fact that there were local pastors who used shamanic practices in God's name depressed Pastor Kim.

...Then again, there was no reason the swindlers found in Korea would not exist here too.

Professional medical volunteer organizations such as Doctors Without Borders were far too few to handle all the world's many conflict zones.

As a result, only a small number of residents in the conflict zones of the Democratic Republic of the Congo had ever met a real doctor even once.

They were the truly fortunate few.

In the end, Pastor Kim's medical reputation as a K-Otherworld Hero only grew with each passing day.

It was easy to understand if one imagined being dropped into a mountain village in the Joseon era with modern medicines.

This reputation was not what he had wanted... but it greatly aided his survival, volunteer work, and efforts to save lives.

Even government and rebel soldiers began using the otherworld hero's high-quality medical services.

At times, the sight of the pastor laying out Korean nursing assistant textbooks and studying them with a worried look gave him the air of a professional medical practitioner rarely seen in this region.

Government soldiers and rebel soldiers, as though they had arranged it, only came on different days. Seeing this side of the Korean hero, they developed deep trust in him.

The rebels coveted the hero's abilities, but did not kidnap him.

It was not that they held any special respect for him.

They simply needed to let the hero remain free so he could go to places the rebels could not enter and obtain medicine.

Thanks to that, even when the hero was stopped at a rebel checkpoint, he could pass safely.

"What, it's Teacher Kim? Going out to get medicine again?"

"Yes. We're about to run out of malaria treatment and oral rehydration solution... Since I'm already going, I thought I'd replenish some other medicines ahead of time too."

"Getting medicine is all well and good, but why are there so many people riding in the cargo bed?"

"It's difficult to explain in detail, but they're people who will help me obtain medicine."

The faithful pastor was not skilled at lying.

Feigning ignorance awkwardly, the Korean hero took a fresh pack of Oris cigarettes from his pocket and handed it to the rebel patrol leader.

The patrol leader held the cigarette pack to their ear and shook it once for no reason, then smiled, showing white teeth.

"Fine, let's say that's what it is. It can't be easy to get medicine."

"Thank you for understanding."

The fugitives, who had been trembling in fear that the rebels would drag them away or shoot them, wept with relief when the patrol leader let the vehicle pass.

The rebel mid-level commanders did not think badly of the hero either.

Their only sources of medicine were looting UN relief supplies or smuggling, which meant it was expensive and scarce.

There was no reason to treat a sucker harshly when he brought in medicine himself and used it for the right purpose.

If they were ants, the pastor was an aphid.

At the truly safe aid base to which the otherworld hero Pastor Kim regularly sent fugitives and from which he collected medicine, there was another person he had befriended since coming to this land.

"Mr. Fraser."

"Ah, Pastor Kim. Thanks be to God. Every time I see you unharmed, I feel relieved."

Charles Fraser was the Congo regional representative for an international charity project supported by member denominations of the National Council of Churches.

Fraser himself was not a clergyman.

But as a member of a prominent California political family, he had inseparable ties with the region's major denominations.

The United States was a democracy, but a closer look revealed countless political families that had inherited political power in particular regions.

These political families cherished their honor and reputation, because those were one of the two pillars supporting a family's influence in a democratic society.

(The other pillar was, of course, money. It took a great deal of money to "persuade" the people, who were the masters of a democratic nation.)

That was why descendants of prominent families had an obligation.

They had to build some honorable background through their own efforts, whatever form it took.

That was what it truly meant to carry on the family line.

Charles Fraser had come to a dangerous place to fulfill that obligation.

A record of Christian volunteer work in a dangerous conflict zone could bring considerable honor in mainstream white American society.

To earn honor greater than that, one had no choice but to become a veteran.

Whatever his motives, meeting and forming a connection with a young scion of an American political family was an enormous stroke of luck for the K-Otherworld Hero, Pastor Kim.

Footnotes:

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