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Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 130: Anti-Imperialist Communist Organization 【Gyeongseong Troika】 (2)[1]

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A rescue operation called for gathering the troops first. Even Saving Private Ryan said so.

But Red Mask did no such thing.

Instead, he crossed names off the roster one by one.

"I'm not taking the Chuk Brothers."

Starting with their leader, Hong-cheol, they were certainly strong and loyal. But what use would that be in this sort of intelligence work?

"Party Secretary Myeong-su and Chairman Jun-ha are fairly quick on their feet, but Myeong-su is handling Inje and Sokcho, while Chairman Jun-ha has business in Chuncheon."

Peering at the list through the eyeholes of his red hood, Han San crossed out another name.

"Actually, I'm not taking Jae-seok either."

"What!?"

Chuk Jae-seok was startled.

Han San drew the horse pass from inside his clothes. It was the token of his father's friends, the Inwang Gang.

"Jae-seok, go to Sokcho and make contact with the Inwang Gang. There's an older fellow named Park Sang-jun there, right? Work with him to smuggle the man out to Primorye."

"Primorye..."

"We can't keep him on the peninsula. He's not a loosely wanted fugitive like the Chuk men. He's a major fugitive who's slapped the Police Bureau across both cheeks over and over.

"And if he's involved in communist activity, no, leftist activism... Well. If he goes to Soviet Primorye, the Japanese Empire bastards won't chase him all the way there, will they?"

To be honest, Han San didn't know much about it either. This was his first time being Red Mask, something he had never been fated to do before. How could he know?

Still, he had the broad strokes right. Chuk Jae-seok pushed up his glasses and nodded.

"That's right. If he takes refuge in Soviet territory first, he should be able to weather the storm."

"Right? Then after some time passes, things will quiet down. Administrative power and policing have their limits."

"Yes. But... for me to withdraw that far to the rear..."

They were going to save his friend. He had been the one to ask for help.

The thought of not setting foot at the most dangerous site troubled Chuk Jae-seok.

But Han San remained firm.

"Withdrawing is helping."

Someone believed to be close to Lee Jae-yu was wandering around the heart of Gyeongseong? At a time like this, right after Lee Jae-yu had escaped?

Did he want to help someone, or did he want to deliver himself as food to a police station basement torture chamber?

"And I'll feel better if someone like you handles the rear. The moment he reaches Sokcho, there needs to be an Inwang Gang ship waiting. Then that ship needs to head straight out to sea. To arrange it all so neatly, honestly, is there anyone besides you I can entrust it to right now?"

"..."

People had to be used where they were most useful. Han San understood that principle well.

Chuk Jae-seok was a smart man too. Feeling ashamed was one thing, but he knew making the operation succeed mattered more.

He clenched the horse pass in his hand.

"I'll complete it without fail, Red Mask!"

Han San grinned. A neat curve appeared along the mouth of his red hood.

"Good. I'll handle getting him to Sokcho... You said he's in Daehangno, Gyeongseong?"

"Yes. He's said to be hiding at the residence of a Gyeongseong Imperial University[2] professor named Miyake Shikanosuke."

Before Han San, who trusted him and was about to step onto dangerous ground, Chuk Jae-seok no longer had anything to hide, whether about himself or the socialist movement.

So he also revealed the greatest secret in the peninsula's red underworld.

It shocked Han San enough to call for a sanity check.

"A Japanese professor is hiding him!?"

"Yes. Among the students... well, he's known for having a bit of a political bent. Despite being Japanese, he's even caught the attention of the Gyeongseong Special Higher Police[3] because of it."

"I see..."

Han San fell silent.

A Japanese professor at an imperial university was running a real-life serial about hiding a Korean fugitive.

'No wonder he's this era's red idol.'

It wasn't fan service. The fan was serving the idol instead.

With his social life, and perhaps even his actual life, on the line.

Then again, perhaps that was the relationship between idols and fans in any age.

"All right. Then I need to stop by Gyeongseong anyway."

It would be his first time setting foot in Seoul in this life, and instead of going there to do business, he would be going to do communist nonsense. His second life had been truly eventful.

"Please, Red Mask!"

"Likewise. See you in Sokcho.

"Now then... let's see... for a back route into Gyeongseong... I should speak to that young lady."

How high had Han San's [standing] risen by now?

He was the lord of Middle Hamlet and the true king of Sebeom Valley, ruler of Inje and Sokcho, the man who had swallowed a corner of Chuncheon. That was why he had proudly earned a place among the young princes of Gangwonland.

Yet the dark fantasy peninsula was a world of strict class divisions. Even if he had made a name for himself in Gangwon, the Middle Realm, he would need help to swim through Gyeongseong, the Celestial Realm.

'Let's go see Kim Seong-ja.'

Han San headed for the Blue-Gold Pavilion.

In the lightless basement of the Blue-Gold Pavilion, Han San sat across from the second daughter of a famed Gyeongseong gangster family.

"A back route into Gyeongseong...?"

"Yes. One I can slip in and out through. It would be even better if I don't draw anyone's attention."

Kim Seong-ja blinked. Her eyes alone gleamed behind thick lenses within the round silhouette of her owl-like crouch.

"Hmm... what are you going there for...?"

"Isn't it better not to know? If things go wrong, it'll be something you know nothing about. If all goes well, I'll make sure you're rewarded."

"That makes sense..."

Kim Seong-ja nodded. As a woman of the night, she did not ask needless questions.

She got straight to the point.

"Hmm... if you want a secret route to Gyeongseong from here, you could follow the Bukhan River in... or take a boat through Ganghwa Island... Ah, you're good at climbing mountains, so you could take the long way around and come down Bukhan Mountain..."

"Bukhan Mountain."

Han San sank into thought. He was confident about mountain climbing, of course.

'Using a sea route overlaps a little with sending him to Primorye after reaching Sokcho. Would it be better to go through the mountains this time?

'The problem is that I know Seorak inside and out, not the paths through Bukhan Mountain. And could this Lee Jae-yu fellow climb mountains as well as I can? I heard his health suffered after months of interrogation...'

Han San's brow furrowed.

"But... my recommendation is to just go..."

Kim Seong-ja spoke, and Han San blinked.

"Just go?"

"Mhm. Openly...

"Because Gyeongseong has been awfully unsettled lately, you see? At times like this, police constables keep their eyes peeled around so-called [out-of-the-way roads]..."

"Ah."

Han San immediately understood the logic.

It was a little different from the saying that it was darkest beneath the lamp.

It was closer to the logic of a hunter setting traps.

Han San knew that logic better than anyone. A hunter chose the paths animals traveled and set torabasami there.

And what were Gyeongseong's out-of-the-way roads? Were they not the first routes considered by people trying to escape Gyeongseong?

'No.' Han San recalled Tono's style. 'The very existence of these [out-of-the-way roads] might be because they normally leave them alone so they can set traps there at times like this...'

If there was one thing a seventy-five-year-old man who had lived through a military dictatorship knew, it was that enforcement squads loved catching bastards bolting out the back door. That was where the biggest net had already been spread.

"You're absolutely right, big sis. I nearly made a huge mistake. Thank you, big sis. You really do have to ask people."

At the sight of the honest nineteen-year-old bowing his head, Kim Seong-ja gave her characteristic "huheehee" laugh and crooked a finger.

"Right... you're always so obedient when it matters..."

"I'm always obedient."

An open mind capable of accepting others' words. That was one of Han San's strengths.

"Since you're being obedient... could you ease up on the wordplay from now on...?"

"I'm leaving."

The stubbornness to ignore others' words and push forward with his own way. That was one of Han San's strengths.

Kim Seong-ja was half impressed and half lamenting that such a bastard existed in this world, someone who could so thoroughly ruin her Dao heart[4].

"Before you go... if my advice was useful, can I ask you for one favor?"

Han San paused.

"A favor?"

"Mm... you know Anna, Tae-chon's wife?"

Mrs. Go.

"I know her. Why?"

"She's in Gyeongseong now, but I haven't heard much from her lately... If you happen to run into her there, could you help her?"

"She's in Gyeongseong?"

Han San blinked.

Only a month ago, when talk came up about Han-ga Academy being established and Jin-dong going to school, she seemed to have been working at an Inje restaurant...

"What did she go to Gyeongseong for?"

Kim Seong-ja folded her hands, rested her chin on them, and smiled brightly.

"Isn't it better not to know...? If things go wrong, it'll be something you know nothing about..."

Han San received his own words back, but scratched the back of his head.

"No, I need to know if I'm going to help her, don't I?"

"Mhm... I just mean, if you happen to meet her, and it looks like you can help after seeing the situation, I'd like you to do so..."

"Honestly."

Han San sighed.

Gyeongseong was enormous. What were the chances he would happen to encounter Mrs. Go there?

Han San looked at Kim Seong-ja with that thought in mind, but he did not ask further questions.

The owl of Chuncheon watched him with a strangely pleased look.

And the seventy-five-year-old mountain hunter realized that the owl believed he would definitely meet Mrs. Go.

Han San clicked his tongue.

"If I get the chance, I will. For your sake, big sis."

"Mhm... don't force it if it's too difficult."

"Of course."

Having decided to head openly for Gyeongseong, Han San immediately began preparing for the trip to the capital.

As it happened, he had a perfectly respectable excuse.

"Miss Ayame! Let's go to Gyeongseong together to prepare for the publishing house. We can have writer meetings, or whatever they're called. We can meet that young man Kim Yu-jeong too."

"Yes!"

Preparations to establish Sanreung Publishing!

They would look for a printing house, meet writers, and recruit talented people. Even if the Government-General wondered, 'Why is he going to Gyeongseong?' it would nod and say, 'Ah, that's why he's going to Gyeongseong.'

And so.

The cleanest car owned by Han's Myriad Commerce set off for Gyeongseong.

"San, San! The most important thing about a printing house is the letterpress machine! We have to find one that uses a newer model!"

Ayame chattered without pause from the passenger seat. Her notebook, open on her lap, was packed with lists of printing houses, paper wholesalers, literary groups, and people they needed to meet.

"Is that so? The letterpress machine."

"Yes! And the cover, you know? It needs a different kind of paper..."

Watching Ayame, who was genuinely thrilled at the prospect of founding a publishing house, Han San felt a strange sense of guilt.

'I kept it a secret from her...'

Half of it was to protect Ayame. If she didn't know, that would count in her favor.

For the other half, frankly, Ayame was not an intelligence agent.

Wasn't she the sort of young lady who slapped the table whenever she was happy and raised her voice whenever she was surprised? Even at a glance, she had lived a life far removed from [secrecy] and [stealth].

As a reporter, she could keep her mouth shut and observe an embargo strictly, but secrets showed in one's expression and actions as well.

Given the stakes, Han San wanted to leave no room for error.

'Besides, if she truly knows nothing, the way she acts could serve as a cover in other people's eyes...'

But still.

'I feel bad about it.'

Rarely, Han San's chest ached at the thought of keeping secrets from someone smiling so brightly and using her as cover.

'When the chance comes...'

Han San made a vow to himself.

When all this was over and everything had become safe. After liberation, perhaps. No matter how many years it took. Then he would tell this young lady everything he had hidden from her.

'That's the right thing to do.'

While Han San silently strengthened his resolve, Ayame continued chirping excitedly.

"Ah! And, and!

"San, there's a place called Mitsukoshi Department Store[5], you know? It has a garden on the roof! There are Western restaurants near Gyeongseong Station too. They say the food at the Chosun Hotel is good!

"And Changgyeongwon[6], was it? They say the cherry blossoms at night are blooming beautifully right now..."

'But isn't this conversation gradually drifting away from publishing houses...?'

With a strange feeling wrapping around Han San, the car carrying the two entered Gyeongseong.

It was spring.

[1] The Gyeongseong Troika was a clandestine anti-imperialist communist organization active in colonial Korea.

[2] Gyeongseong Imperial University was colonial Korea's Japanese imperial university, founded in 1924 and chiefly serving the colonial elite.

[3] The Special Higher Police, or Tokkō, was Imperial Japan's political police force, which surveilled and suppressed socialist, nationalist, and other dissident movements.

[4] Dao heart is a Daoist and wuxia-inflected term for a person's inner devotion to the Dao or spiritual path.

[5] Mitsukoshi Department Store was a Japanese department-store chain whose Gyeongseong branch was a prominent colonial-era retail landmark.

[6] Changgyeongwon was the Japanese colonial-era name for the former Changgyeong Palace, which had been converted into a zoo and botanical garden.

Footnotes:

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