WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 95: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (95)
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#95.
A little while earlier, around the time the pension-paying carol of Mariah Carey, the Heavenly Demon of Christmas, began drifting through every street in the city.
Onik had told his fans not to send him presents.
“For Christmas, a warm ‘Merry Christmas’ from all of you is enough for me. Your affection and attention are the greatest gifts I could receive...
“What? You think I’m putting on an act? It’s true. When have you ever seen me lie? Jo Onik, Strongest in Town, isn’t a con man.”
“If you send gifts, it could actually put me in a difficult position. What if several people send the same thing? What if too many gifts come in all at once?
“If you really want to give me something, give me money. You can donate, can’t you? Hehe.”
“You told me to stop putting on an act, and now you’re saying I’m too honest... Is my wiki finally going to get a Controversies and Incidents section?
“I was hoping it would happen when I burned portraits of three generations of the Kims in a campfire, but it never did. I heard that’s like a medal for a real celebrity.”
“Hmm. The more I think about it, the more disappointing that is. Spies, please work harder. Does Pyongyang not pay your activity expenses these days? Work hard and get yourselves arrested by the National Intelligence Service. Report spies at 111. Even an extinguished spy deserves a second look. This has been a public service announcement from Jo Onik.”
“Huh? You’re calling anyone who writes about your incidents on the wiki a spy... No, wait. Could you please stop making me sound like such a bad person?
“What? ‘Jo Onik, Son of the Conservatives, claims that everyone trying to slander him is a pro-North Korean force’... Wait! Stop! The stream is really going to get shut down at this rate!”
“Anyway, really, don’t send gifts. Even if you do, I won’t do an unboxing stream or react to them. Viewers who can’t send gifts might feel left out. I don’t like that...
“Ah, seriously! I told you it isn’t an act! It’s not like I’m trying to scam you!”
“Goodness... Why don’t city people believe anything anyone says? Do people in the city just spend their whole lives deceiving each other? What? They do?
“You people shouldn’t be scamming anyone either. Teacher Lee Eun-jeong was originally from the city too, and the Truffle Candy noonas are city people, but they aren’t like you. You’re awful, really.”
Even after he had made that request so firmly, Christmas Eve came, and all kinds of gifts from every corner of the country began pouring in until they became impossible to deal with.
It was an unavoidable fate for a popular streamer whose home address was plainly exposed to the public.
Besides, viewers strongly associated Legal Hunter and Onik’s channel with generously giving people things.
They invited people worn down by life, fed them, and gave them a place to sleep. The boy also roamed the mountains and fields, gathering things himself before sending them to subscribers through raffles.
(This had the disadvantage of occasionally attracting troublesome visitors.
It was fortunate that the aging village lay so deep in the mountains. Otherwise, the invasion of pathetic people who treated begging as a right would have been much more frequent.
Legal Hunter played an enormous role whenever they had to deal with such invasions.)
So there was no way their devoted subscribers would simply refrain from sending presents.
That was especially true of those whom the boy had comforted kindly during their visits to the village.
They sent a considerable number of gifts as a way of repaying him.
Facing the mountain of presents, Onik let out another long sigh.
“I knew this would happen. You people really can’t be stopped.”
Sera, standing beside him, asked, “What are you going to do? There are so many.”
Meeting Sera’s eyes, Onik smiled.
“What else? I’ll donate them.”
“Donate them?”
“Yes. I’m receiving far more attention and affection than I deserve, so wouldn’t it be all right to share it with people who are lonely or having a hard time? Elderly people living alone, or children in children’s homes.”
“Hmm. Are you planning to take them today?”
“No.”
The boy shook his head.
“I want to, but there must still be gifts that haven’t arrived yet. Shouldn’t we wait a day or two after Christmas if we don’t want the trouble of making several trips?”
“Oh, right.”
“And that isn’t all. We need time to open every box, check whether there are letters addressed to me, and make sure the contents are normal. Then we’ll need time to pack everything again.”
“We’ll help you with that. Everyone’s fine with it, right?”
Sera turned to the other members, and answers came back one after another.
“Of course.” “Yessir.” “Yep.”
The country boy smiled again.
“Thank you. Anyway, once we take all that into account, it’ll probably be tight even if we give them out as New Year’s gifts.
“We can separate the foods with expiration dates first and take them to a children’s home as New Year’s presents. Then we can sort the rest properly and donate them as Lunar New Year gifts. Please help me then too, noonas.”
Mina’s eyes sparkled.
“That’s perfect streaming material!”
Onik did not deny it.
“Yes, it is.”
Sera once again felt proud of this extraordinary country boy.
It was one thing that donation had been his first thought. It was another that he immediately laid out the schedule and plan in such an orderly way.
No matter when she looked at him, he was a child of deep thought.
Yet there was something else that made her proudest.
Like other holidays and anniversaries, Christmas was a day to spend with family.
He must have felt lonely inside. Yet he did not show it, only presenting a bright face. It was terribly grown-up of him.
‘Even I, an adult, miss my family.’
While preparing a Christmas present for him, she had learned something new about Onik.
Onik did not like his birthday.
Legal Hunter was the one who had told her.
#
“Ah, Onik’s birthday...?”
“Yes. While I was thinking about a Christmas gift for Onik, I started wondering about his birthday too. It would be nice if it showed up on Messenger, but maybe Onik deliberately chose not to set it because he’s so considerate...
“Like how people use multiple profiles for people they don’t want to burden.”
“Ah. So that’s why you didn’t ask Onik himself. You did well.”
“...What do you mean, I did well?”
“There’s a reason. I don’t mind telling you the date, but it’s better not to prepare a gift. The same goes for congratulating him.
“He dislikes his birthday. It’s best to let it pass as though it were just an ordinary day.”
“What? Why? Why would anyone dislike their birthday?”
“Hmm... Is it all right for me to tell you this?”
“Ah, is it a sensitive private matter?”
“Hmm. Well. Hmmm...”
“...”
“Ah, well, everyone in our village already knows anyway... And Onik is especially attached to our Miss Sera...
“It was bound to come up eventually, and it would be strange to keep a birthday such a secret forever...”
“...”
“I think it would be better for you to know in advance, so you don’t accidentally hurt him or make things awkward. You see, Onik’s birthday is also the anniversary of his mother’s death.”
“What?!”
“Not only his mother. His twin brother, who was born alongside Onik, passed away on the same day as their mother. Both of them died in the delivery room, apparently.”
“My goodness... That’s...”
“That’s why birthdays are such sad days for Onik. He tries not to show it, but people who know him can always tell.
“He holds a memorial rite for the mother whose face he has only seen in photographs. Then he wakes up the next day, on the day he was born. How could he possibly feel happy?”
“...”
“So as far as I know, Onik and his great-uncle spend the day quietly together. They probably have seaweed soup, at least. Whenever that time came around, his great-uncle would go into town to buy seaweed and beef for soup.”
After saying that much, Legal Hunter muttered quietly.
“He doesn’t ask anyone else to do that...”
After hearing the whole story, Sera’s eyes had grown hot.
She had not asked Legal Hunter any more, but Sera had guessed that perhaps the reason Onik’s father had abandoned his child was related to what she had just heard.
#
Remembering that conversation, Sera felt even prouder of Onik.
“Onik, you really are amazing.”
Sera gently rubbed his head, and Onik blinked.
“Uh... I am amazing in general, but what exactly am I amazing at?
“The more specific a compliment is, the better I like it. So please explain in as much detail as possible. Hurry.”
“Pfft.”
A laugh escaped the idol.
Instead of explaining herself, Sera withdrew her hand. She stared down at it for a moment, then changed the subject.
“Come to think of it, our Onik has grown a lot, hasn’t he? I don’t think you were this tall when we first met. You seem noticeably taller even compared to autumn.”
“Well, I’m at the age when I’m supposed to grow.”
“Even considering your age, you’re growing unusually fast. At this rate, won’t you be taller than noona next year? I’m not even short.”
“Hmm...”
Onik’s eyes shifted this way and that, faintly uneasy.
He had begun to suspect that his body did not grow through three meals a day alone.
The deaths of living things were another nourishment for the frightening boy’s soul and body.
Human death was especially so.
There was a strong possibility that his second murder had accelerated the pace of his growth since last autumn.
Onik brushed it off with a suitable joke.
“Growing this fast isn’t always a good thing.”
“Why not?”
“The Giants uniform I bought in autumn already doesn’t fit me...
“At this rate, I’m going to become a VVIP at the Giants Shop. Honestly, how much have I spent this year alone?”
Sera let out another small laugh.
She had expected an answer about severe growing pains or something similar, but once again, it was that baseball team. He said he liked the Lotte Giants because he liked Lotteria hamburgers. Just how deep could his affection for hamburgers possibly be?
Mina spoke from beside them.
“Wow. If you get a whole lot taller too, Onik really will have everything. The world is so unfair.”
Sera flinched.
She felt that even as an empty compliment, she should not say someone like Onik had everything.
Whether it was fortunate or not, the boy himself did not seem bothered.
Rather, he beamed and agreed with Mina.
“You’re right. I feel like I’m already enjoying far too many things. So many that I wonder whether it’s really all right!”
He meant it sincerely.
His recent daily life was filled with a warmth too excessive for a bad child who had killed two people.
At least, that was what the boy himself believed.
It was a thought that would make Eun-jeong sad if she knew.
Onik’s self-loathing had not improved very much. He had simply gained the strength to endure it and continue living.
“Anyway, we’ll leave the subscribers’ gifts here for now...”
Trailing off, Onik checked the time.
“I should start getting ready for the stream! It’s almost the time Boss mentioned!”
Then Onik tilted his head.
“Our subscribers are strangely obsessed with a Christmas Eve stream. Are they all lonely? There were so many requests asking us to stream as late as possible tonight.
“‘Onik, we’re comrades, right? We’re nakama, right? Right? Answer us.’ They keep saying things like that.”
“Ahaha...”
Sera smiled bitterly.
#
When his young business partner had put on an action-movie-like display at the riding grounds some time ago, Legal Hunter had made a firm decision.
‘That’s it! I’ll make sure this kid becomes a national representative in equestrian sports too!’
The present he had prepared for his young business partner this Christmas was connected to that decision.
A special gift that could contain both business interests and personal affection.
The gift he had diligently arranged over more than twenty days was a four-year-old retired racehorse with a fairly good pedigree.
When Legal Hunter had first decided to get his young business partner a riding horse, he had not considered buying one with his own money at all.
He had approached it strictly as a business investment.
‘Have I lost my mind? A famous horse good enough to enter competitions would cost as much as a decent imported car. Why would I buy that with my own money? Of course the company should pay for it.’
But after looking into the matter, his thoughts changed.
‘Hmph... Retired racehorses? Why are they this cheap? Is this really all right?
‘Horses with genuine pedigrees cost this little? Usually, you get what you pay for...’
The lowest price for a retired racehorse hovered around one million won.
That lower limit had not changed much for a long time.
When Legal Hunter investigated why, he learned that it was the value of horse meat for animal feed, including slaughter costs.
‘...Horse meat for animal feed? You mean they grind up horses with respectable pedigrees whole and turn them into feed?’
Yes. That was exactly what it meant.
Of course, people buying and selling retired racehorses did not say such things openly.
Officially, every transaction was always for riding or breeding purposes.
But in reality, more than half of retired racehorses died or were reduced to dog food.
Even horses that died were often secretly processed into feed afterward. It was no exaggeration to say that animal feed factories were effectively the biggest customers for retired racehorses.
Legal Hunter understood it with a businessman’s mind.
There were simply too few actual buyers, and the value of meat for feed supported the bottom of the retired racehorse market.
‘There’s overflowing demand for racing horses, but demand for riding horses to take them in is not even half that...
‘So all the horses left over because of that difference are ground into feed.’
Then again, how many wealthy riders capable of keeping a riding horse could there be in such a tiny country?
And truly wealthy riders did not particularly want to use racehorse breeds with bad tempers, the so-called hot-bloods, as riding horses.
They usually preferred larger and relatively gentler warmblood breeds.
He had heard that warmbloods were also better than hot-bloods in dressage competitions.
As an exception, many experts rated hot-bloods more highly in eventing, where horses had to run a course over three days.
Still, that advantage only existed on the condition that someone could properly control a hot-blood’s nasty temperament.
‘A nasty temperament? As if something like that could be a problem for our Onik.’
What arrogant horse would dare even think of defying Jo Onik, Strongest in Town?
Legal Hunter trusted his young business partner completely.
His young business partner was a powerful creature who would one day seize the title of strongest in the world.
This belief had steadily strengthened as they worked together. In some ways, it had become close to faith.
Though Legal Hunter himself did not realize it.
An instinctive calculation formed in Legal Hunter’s mind.
‘If it’s merely a matter of demand, then there’s a good chance the horses themselves don’t have serious problems...
‘It would be worth properly looking into when I have time.’
When money was involved, Legal Hunter displayed exceptional initiative.
And a businessman should always make a habit of inspecting goods with his own eyes and going out to hear things for himself.
Not long afterward, Legal Hunter visited a private retraining ranch contracted with the Korea Racing Authority.
“Hmm... You’re looking for a riding horse? Among retired racehorses?”
The trainer, who said they handled retraining and exercise training for retired racehorses, looked Legal Hunter over with suspicious eyes.
Legal Hunter looked like a bandit, and he did not seem particularly knowledgeable about riding.
From the trainer’s perspective, there was no choice but to be suspicious.
But the suspicion did not last long.
For someone who had come merely to buy meat for animal feed, Legal Hunter was far too serious in the practical questions he asked.
(Bad adults were always serious when money was involved.)
The ranch owner and trainer relaxed their expression and answered Legal Hunter’s questions with great care.
A customer genuinely looking for a riding horse could bring in more than eight times the revenue of a feed dealer.
“The thing is, the prices are so cheap that people who do not know much, like you, sir, can easily misunderstand...
“But retired racehorses do not necessarily perform that poorly.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Horse racing is an extremely winner-takes-all world, isn’t it?
“The average margin between first and second place is at most around seven lengths. Sometimes the winner is decided by the narrowest difference, by a head or even a nose.”
“Lengths? What do you mean, by a head or a nose?”
“Just understand it as a very small difference in time. The gap between first and second can be as little as 0.1 seconds, and even at its widest, only around a second.”
“Ah.”
“But that small difference is, in reality, an incredibly difficult wall to overcome.
“So even if a racehorse loses just 5 percent of its performance compared to its prime, its value can suddenly fall by more than 50 percent. Unless both its bloodline and record are top-class enough for it to be sold as a breeding stallion.”
“I see. I understand.”
“To begin with, racehorses retire far too early in Korea. In Britain, they do not retire them until they are six or seven. But here, it is common to send them to feed factories when they are only four years old.”
That was right. In this peninsula of hellfire, it was not only people who lost their jobs early.
A four-year-old racehorse was about twenty in human years.
They debuted the horses at what would be about thirteen for a human, worked them ruthlessly and worked them again, then laid off a twenty-year-old because their body had worn out before they had even fully finished growing.
“Twenty years old? It’s spoiled already, isn’t it?”
The trainer let out a disgusted groan.
“One time, even a horse that had won five races ended up going to a feed factory. It was called Viking Storm, and its pedigree was fairly decent too.”
“Goodness... What a waste.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. So, sir.”
“Yes?”
“There’s a pretty good one at our ranch right now.”
As the trainer deliberately lowered their voice, Legal Hunter lowered his too.
“How good is pretty good?”
“First, it was Class 4 when it retired. That’s the class where promising horses begin to stand out. It’s also where they start racing against imported horses with unusual bloodlines.”
“Ah, I know about the classes. I looked into that much before coming.”
“Then this will be quick. This one really rose through the ranks in excellent form.
“It won its first Class 6 race. Then it placed second in its first Class 5 race and won the second one.
“It only ran three races before rising to Class 4.”
“That’s a very good beginning.”
“But it kept treading water in Class 4. Second place, second place, and second place again. It placed second often, but no matter how many times it tried, it could not finish first. As though it had struck a wall.”
“Second place.”
“Yes, second place. It ran eleven races in Class 4, and it placed second in seven of them.
“It could never break the second-place jinx, no matter which race it entered, so its impatient owner decided, ‘Ah, this horse will never make it,’ and cut their losses.
“On a horse that was not even four yet. Because they believed the words of a supposedly gifted shaman.”
“...A shaman?”
“Horse racing in this country is gambling in the end, isn’t it? No matter how much you improve your ability, it is hard to succeed without luck.”
The trainer shrugged.
“So owners and gamblers alike believe in superstition a great deal.
“You would be hard-pressed to find an owner who frequents the racetrack without checking their horse’s fortune and birth chart. How much they believe in it differs from person to person, of course.”
“Good grief, what kind of...”
Legal Hunter swallowed the rest of his words.
If someone in our clan had behaved that way, Great-Uncle would have given them a solid knock on the head.
The trainer spoke badly of the owner.
“Even taking all that into account, this horse’s owner was especially greedy, easily swayed, and had no perseverance.
“There was an owner who stayed with a horse that lost ninety-six races in ninety-six attempts out of affection. And once, a horse with ninety-five straight losses placed second in its old age and produced a quinella payout of more than eight hundred times...”
A click of the tongue followed.
“With that kind of attitude, how could anyone expect to raise a famous horse? At the very least, they should have waited until it was four.”
Even Legal Hunter thought the person sounded fickle and lacking in perseverance. Yet they seemed to have quite a bit of money.
Being greedy for money himself, Legal Hunter thought that the horse had not found the wrong owner.
The money had found the wrong owner.
‘Businessmen with good sense like me should earn lots of money. How much money in this country must have found the wrong owner?
‘All that money should be made to return to the right place as much as possible, shouldn’t it?’
For that, he had to invest firmly in his young business partner.
And that investment ought to be made in both the public and private spheres.
A businessman who only knew how to save money could never become first-rate.
Footnotes:
“Mariah Carey, the Heavenly Demon of Christmas” jokes that her perennial Christmas hit functions as an annual pension-paying carol.
“Even an extinguished spy deserves a second look” parodies a Korean fire-safety slogan urging people to check even extinguished fires again.
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