WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 56: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (56)

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#56.

Onik knew that Pastor Kim had been subjected to water torture.

Pideuk and Philip had told him about it.

But this time, when Pastor Kim himself recounted the events of that day, there were details Onik had never heard before.

Small details only the person who had endured it could remember.

Pastor Kim had hesitated.

‘Onik is mature and extraordinary, but he is still young. Is it right to tell him, without any filter, such a cruel story about one person torturing another...?’

Still, the child seemed to be seriously wrestling with a question of unusual depth, and Pastor Kim decided to respect that maturity.

Treating a child as nothing but a child, even when the child asked for a serious conversation, was a common mistake adults made.

Pastor Kim did not want to make that mistake.

So he spoke to the boy of the goodness of the God he believed in.

He based what he said on what he knew of Jo Onik's character and on his own spiritual experiences.

“At that time, I truly felt it. God grasped my pain-wracked hand with His light and gave me the strength to endure my suffering.”

Some people would call that nothing more than a hallucination.

There was ample scientific basis for such an explanation.

But to Pastor Kim, it felt like something more substantial than a simple hallucination.

It was a real phenomenon, and a real power.

“When someone is in hardship, there are moments when a person possesses abilities beyond human reach, uses them to help that person, and accomplishes things humans cannot accomplish...

“I believe those miraculous moments are the Lord at work.”

“.......”

To be honest, it was not an entirely satisfying answer for Onik.

When it came to the reality of Pastor Kim’s spiritual experience, Onik agreed more with Moweli Karuru’s assessment than with the pastor himself.

‘No matter how I think about it, Pastor Kim is just amazing...

‘That doesn’t mean I’d ever treat him like an idiot the way Moweli did!’

Onik also wanted Pastor Kim to acknowledge that there were people God did not watch over.

He wanted, even in some secret and indirect way, to receive a little approval for the killings he might commit again in the future.

Approval from a kind, dependable adult he could lean on.

Onik himself thought it was the sort of feeling only a truly bad child would have, but what could he do?

He was already a bad child.

If Pastor Kim had simply ended his answer by saying that he did not know, Onik would have been reasonably satisfied.

But Pastor Kim did not.

He said he did not know why there were people in this world who seemed abandoned by God, but that God was still good.

He said that God was the one who sometimes helped, through miracles, those who wished to help others.

Onik was a little dissatisfied with that part.

But there was something he liked, too.

‘Moments when a person possesses abilities unavailable to humans and accomplishes things humans cannot accomplish...’

Of everything Pastor Kim had said, those words stirred the frightening boy’s heart the most.

After all, he truly did have strange abilities.

Supernatural abilities unavailable to ordinary people.

The problem was that dark, crimson, morbid impulses came bundled with them, like a Lotteria set meal.

‘If what I just heard is right... then helping people with powers ordinary people can’t have is, by Pastor Kim’s standards, a miracle that Mr. God is part of?’

Of course, Onik did not believe in Mr. God.

So when he helped people, he would leave the credit entirely to himself.

Unlike Pastor Kim, he would not do something well himself and then thank Mr. God for it.

Then again, he had to consider the fact that there was not a single part of his frightening talents that was not wicked.

If Mr. God really had given him abilities like these, then Mr. God was undeniably Mr. Cthulhu.

But this was what mattered.

Regardless of what Jo Onik, bad child that he was, thought, by Pastor Kim’s standards, the frightening boy’s abilities and the good results they produced were all God’s will.

Which meant that, though the pastor would never know it...

At this moment, he had given the frightening boy the small approval he had wanted.

Approval from a kind and dependable adult.

It was not exactly the kind of approval Onik had expected, but approval was still approval.

So Onik felt both a faint dissatisfaction and a faint satisfaction.

If he had to choose which was greater, he felt that the satisfaction was a little stronger.

Onik used a self-loathing no one else knew about as a blade of self-restraint, driving it into his own heart again and again as he struggled every day to endure his dark impulses.

Self-loathing always gave rise to gloom.

That gloom, piling up day after day, was a heavy shackle that wore the boy down more and more.

The weight was even greater because Onik could not show it to anyone. Before his grandfather and the others, he always tried to appear cheerful.

It was a burden he could unburden himself of only by voicing a lament before Yohan’s gravestone from time to time.

(That was right. Eighty percent of the energy Onik showed around other people was fake.)

For a precarious boy who lived each day as if walking on a blade, this small approval from an adult he could trust was precious.

He felt as though he could approve of himself a little more, and find enough strength to keep pretending to be a good child.

He felt he could control his dark impulses better and endure them longer.

For a child who could not tell anyone what was truly in his heart, even such a small comfort was desperately needed.

When you had to feel your way down a lonely, hopeless road through pitch-black darkness, even one trembling candle could give you great strength.

The lonely, frightening boy was gathering candles, one by one, from the adults close to him.

Before those adults even realized it...

Having gained a new candle, Onik had a slightly childish thought.

‘All right. From now on, I’m the hero of miracles!’

It was embarrassing, but so what if a thought he kept to himself was a little childish?

As long as it helped him control the gloom and darkness in his heart, that was enough.

Pastor Kim keenly noticed the change in the boy’s mood.

It was because he had been paying such close attention to the boy before him.

“I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems my story helped you?”

Onik nodded honestly.

“Yes! It helped me! Thank you!”

“I’m glad to hear that... though I’m not sure what part helped, or how.”

“It’s okay if you don’t know! No, you shouldn’t know!”

“Ha ha...”

To Pastor Kim, Jo Onik was a child with many secrets.

He was basically honest with the adults close to him, which was why he sometimes openly said that there were things he wanted to keep secret.

But Pastor Kim did not find that strange.

‘Children Onik’s age naturally have many secrets.

‘Trying to force those secrets out of them is exactly what makes someone unfit to be an adult.

‘And children raised by adults like that often grow up warped and twisted.’

So Pastor Kim decided simply to think as a pastor would.

Many people suffered unfair hardships in this world, but perhaps the existence of a God who sometimes helped people through miraculous moments had given the boy before him a little comfort.

Onik jumped to his feet and said goodbye.

“It’s gotten late! I should get going now! Make sure you eat the balloon flower root!”

“All right. Thank you again.”

“It was nothing! You have to stay healthy!”

Onik ran out of the Three-Way Intersection Restaurant Church with the cheerful patter of his feet.

On the way back to the head family’s main house, where his grandfather was waiting, another question that had occurred to him while listening to Pastor Kim lingered in his mind.

‘What if the ones who have done things deserving death aren’t people, but companies or countries?’

His next thoughts were like the dark road stretching before him.

‘What if those two are on the same side? Who can punish them? The law probably won’t help much...

‘Looking at the history in my textbooks, it seems better not to expect anything from gods like Mr. God in the first place...’

Originally, Onik had only wanted to become a less bad child.

He wanted to be a child who did both good things and bad things, rather than one who did only bad things.

He wanted to save more people than he killed.

By Onik’s own judgment, the wish struck him as cowardly in many ways.

The question now circling in his mind had strayed far beyond the worries and desires he had originally held.

But Onik, deep in thought, did not realize that...

Even at this moment, the boy’s heart was continuing to grow.

#

Once a person’s thoughts had opened up in a certain direction, they tended to keep branching and spreading that way.

Columbus’s egg held great meaning in that sense as well.

That was how Legal Hunter was now.

The scenario of his extraordinary young business partner winning a medal at an international competition.

Once he had imagined that happy scenario, every new branch of thought kept stretching in that direction.

‘Do I really have to limit him to archery? The more medals, the better.

‘Anything physical, Onik would probably be good at...’

As a businessman, Legal Hunter tended to take plenty of inspiration from previous success stories.

So he looked into cases where an athlete had competed in multiple events at a single international competition.

He was soon greatly encouraged.

‘There are actually quite a lot of cases where one person tried several events. There are even a few people who won medals in more than one!’

The most striking example was an American track and field athlete named Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, she had won medals in both the long jump and the heptathlon.

The heptathlon itself was a combined event made up of several different competitions.

A medal in that event was considered more prestigious than a medal in other events.

In the women’s heptathlon Jackie Joyner-Kersee competed in, athletes took part in hurdles, high jump, shot put, sprinting, long jump, javelin throw, and middle-distance running.

‘And she even went on to become a professional basketball player? That’s insane. What kind of person was she?’

...After thinking that, Legal Hunter quickly corrected himself.

His young and admirable business partner, Jo Onik, was a genius too.

An out-of-spec genius who constantly made people say, “That’s insane. What kind of kid is he?”

Having found a successful precedent, Legal Hunter’s next action was, fittingly for a businessman, to search for a niche market.

Every businessman should first look for blue oceans where there was little or no need to compete with established players.

His first target was sports with very small domestic athlete pools, where he could make use of his young partner’s physical talent.

His daughter in Seoul, acting as both editor and manager, gave her father all the help she could.

It was work for her precious little boss, so she had no choice but to help.

“Dad. The archery competition is still a long way off, and we don’t know what will happen... Why don’t we try this first?”

“What is it?”

“I looked through the agricultural support policies on the provincial government website, and there’s something called the Student Equestrian Experience Program.”

“Horseback riding?”

“Yeah, horseback riding. It usually costs 320,000 won per lesson, but they cover seventy percent with national and provincial funding.

“Wouldn’t it be a good way to see if Boss Onik has talent for riding?”

“What? Seventy percent government funding?!”

“I’m telling you. It’s only for ten sessions, though.”

Legal Hunter’s beliefs as a businessman had always been consistent.

Whenever possible, run a business with other people’s money.

Whenever possible, make broadcast content with other people’s money.

Even if they used all ten government-funded sessions, they would only save a little over 2.2 million won.

But that was only the visible cost.

If someone wanted to start from nothing, what sport in the world was more expensive than horseback riding?

As his daughter in Seoul had said, being able to give this expensive sport a cheap trial run was a tremendous advantage.

And it looked like a chance to make some unusual internet broadcast content, too.

‘Besides, this is a genuine aristocratic sport.

‘Considering Onik’s ability and how easily he gets along with people, maybe he’ll make friends who can help with our business later?’

Legal Hunter, who always dreamed of becoming rich, had a strong interest in the lives of conglomerate families.

Professional equestrian sport could fairly be called the domain of conglomerate heirs and children of the privileged elite.

The head of the country’s largest conglomerate group had once been an equestrian athlete himself.

And the equestrian athlete currently representing Korea was the youngest son of Korea's seventh-ranked conglomerate family.

Growing excited, Legal Hunter quickly made up his mind.

“Okay! I’ll make some calls!”

“Calls? To the riding school?”

“No, you brat! You said this is funded by the provincial government, didn’t you? Then shouldn’t I call the civil servants I know?

“That way, we can get more than the same lessons everyone else gets!”

“Why is that supposed to be obvious...?”

“Daughter. Connections only mean something when you use them.”

“Dad... I’m only saying this because I’m worried. Don’t teach our precious Boss Onik bad habits.”

“You little punk. What’s bad about it? It’s adult wisdom that’s absolutely necessary to live in this world.”

“Good grief...”

Whether his daughter sighed over the character of the father she loved or not, he firmly did things his way.

And he got better results than he had hoped for.

For his daughter, who often had doubts about the way the country was run, it was hard to tell whether she should be happy about that...

#

Jang Su-won, the publicity chief of the Local Extinction Response Task Force directly under the governor, responded favorably when Legal Hunter called.

“I see. Let me look into it and contact you again.

“This is not directly under my jurisdiction, so it’s difficult to give you an immediate answer.”

As mentioned before, the true purpose of the Local Extinction Response Task Force was not local extinction response.

That meant the publicity handled by its publicity chief could be made to cover anything.

There was no fixed division of duties. Every time the governor chanted the powerful command spell, “Push It Through!”, more work was added to their responsibilities.

The very nature of an organization directly under the governor was far removed from standardized job assignments.

After ending the call, Team Chief Jang fell into thought.

‘What we’re hoping for is still the archery competition...’

That did not mean there was any reason not to help with this as well.

The more stardom and public interest their superstar had, the better. After all, he would help bring in central government funding and give regional promotion and policy initiatives greater momentum.

Besides, Legal Hunter and Onik were people they would continue working closely with to promote local specialties and regional policies, and to expand the provincial government’s own promotional channels.

If they helped now, there would surely be benefits later.

Legal Hunter had also quietly slipped in a remark, mixing in his personal ambition as a broadcaster after correctly sensing what the civil servants wanted.

“Hmm... Wouldn’t it be cool if that kid learned mounted archery too?”

Could that... actually work?

Wanting a genius in one field to be a genius in another was greedy.

If you put a soccer player into a track event, they would get decent results. If you taught wrestling to a judo athlete, they would learn it much faster than an ordinary person.

But archery and horsemanship felt far too different.

Team Chief Jang privately tilted their head but still instructed the team, figuring there was nothing to lose.

“Yeah. Ask the relevant department how far their cooperation can go. If they depend heavily on our budget support, they’ll probably grant nearly any request.

“They won’t have much to lose if the publicity works out well for them, either.”

There was one beautiful administrative tradition in the Republic of Korea.

Civil servants, whose only understanding of field conditions came from words on a page, drove frontline workers and people on the ground mad through mechanical administration.

Of course, there was an exactly opposite tradition as well.

People on the ground committed and covered up all kinds of illegal acts, driving civil servants mad.

So the interests of both sides only aligned when Korean jeong, in the form of bribes, passed between them.

Based on that premise, the reports the task force members gave Administrative Officer Jang Su-won were positive.

“Really? So budget support from us and the city is important to them? The facility itself is public property, and the operating corporation is a local government association jointly run by the city and province?”

The image of horseback riding in Korea was currently terrible.

There had been several athletes who caused social scandals.

For one thing, there was the leading Korean equestrian athlete, the youngest son of a conglomerate family, who had committed sexual harassment, assault, and drunk driving.

He was such an irredeemable delinquent, unable to give up his habit of getting drunk and beating people, that he even beat the lawyers from the country’s top law firm, the one he had hired himself.

“Hey, hey. Do you think I’m on your level? Sit up straight. Call me Mr. Shareholder. How dare you try to call me by my name?”

Then there was the female athlete who had caused a national uproar years ago through her parents’ influence. As a national equestrian athlete, she had received unfair special treatment that ruined the image of the sport.

A wide-area provocation spell she cast through social media had played a large role in that.

“If you have no talent, blame your parents. Don’t tell my parents what they should or shouldn’t do.

“Money is a skill too. If you don’t like it, change sports. No matter what you little bitches try, do you think any of you will succeed?”

The target of her provocation spell had been the other athletes criticizing the special treatment she received, but in truth it ended up provoking the overwhelming majority of citizens who did not have parents like hers.

Her talent as a magical girl had been too great, and it had become her downfall.

Given the situation, the provincial equestrian association depended heavily on national and provincial funding to operate and maintain the organization.

It might be a sport for the rich, but those rich people did not wish to support the association and its infrastructure purely with their own money.

Most people involved in horseback riding were ordinary citizens relying on government programs, or children of moderately wealthy families with assets of only a few billion won.

Even when national and provincial funds were combined, the authority to decide how they were spent lay entirely with the provincial administration.

The central government only got involved when it came time to audit them.

Team Chief Jang smiled as they caught the pleasant scent of abuse of power.

If the management company was a local government association jointly run by the city and province, there would be civil servants over there as well.

But there was a clear hierarchy of power between a manager in a task force directly under the governor and a manager in an ordinary local government association.

The administrative officer, who always dreamed of becoming a high-ranking civil servant, was not someone to miss a chance to wield such a powerful command spell.

“All right. Then, Push It Through.”

A Grade Five civil servant who faithfully served the beloved Leader, Governor Comrade, had issued the powerful command to the team, so the work proceeded vigorously.

#

At the riding school, Onik greeted the horse whose reins were held by the instructor.

“Hello? I’m Jo Onik! Nice to meet you!”

The riding horse met the eyes of the frightening thing wearing a boy’s shape, and immediately became terrified...

Footnotes:

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