< 48. 21st Century Robin Hood (2) >
Minjun’s gaze became heavier.
“Aren’t you mistaken?”
The princess laughed self-deprecatingly.
“I saw it with my own eyes and talked to it. Although I am stupid enough to be swayed by a human without a single layer of scales, I am not an idiot who cannot recognize the ancient race.”
The princess felt ashamed of herself for having harbored feelings for the man who had created the decisive moment for her arrest, and every word she spoke was filled with regret and self-pity that could not be hidden.
Meanwhile, Minjun’s head became complicated.
‘You met Cavite?’
It is hard to believe this testimony. It is strange that this race acts as an immigration broker, and it is also questionable that they showed themselves to the Shutan tribe.
But the more I thought about it, the later reason became quickly understandable.
‘If I hadn’t come forward like that, the princess wouldn’t have believed me. She would have treated my words that I could lobby the Grand Committee as a bluff.’
The lobbyists also showed that they were from an ancient race and gained trust.
However, they did not expect that the princess would be arrested in vain, and as a result, they left behind evidence implicating Cavite in the matter.
The image of that race naturally appeared in my mind. A snake-like body covered in brown hair and a head curled into a spiral shape.
Minjun had hated that race since long ago. It wasn’t just because of their extremist claim that prisoners should not be granted bail and should be exploited until they lose their minds and then eliminated. For some unknown reason, he felt such a strong disgust that he couldn’t even look at anything that looked like them.
“Did they also prepare and move the cargo?”
Shutan nodded weakly.
“We didn’t even know what it was.”
They never even came near Jenkinson’s Lair. They just went to the location designated by the immigration broker, picked them up, and then transferred them to the jump ship.
‘They’re smuggling agents without even knowing the contents… This is a case of being thoroughly exploited and then thrown away.’
The real thieves had guessed that the moment they turned on the lair, the dimension would be sealed. Even in such a situation, in order to launch a jump ship from the terminal, it would have to be at least as good as the transportation for other-worldly VIPs.
The princess said in a tired voice.
“They asked for help because this would happen more often in the future. But they failed on their first try.”
‘We’ve recovered all of Jenkinson’s stuff. Are you saying there’s more stuff to be smuggled out illegally?’
“I risked my life… and yet it was so futile.”
She had known in advance that there were Earthlings who would not welcome her. Minjun remembered the news that there had been unusually loud noises about security during the process of coordinating the princess’s visit to Korea. That woman had come prepared in advance.
But I had no intention of blaming the other party for their foolish actions here. What would have happened if I hadn’t been on guard? Theo Christiansen might have stepped forward, but if he had, he would have been inevitably killed. Jenkinson’s cargo along with her coffin would have been smuggled out to the Gelanco dimension.
Those who commissioned this task may have thought that it was okay for the princess to return as a corpse. If she were alive, they could order her to do similar work again, and if she died, they could just find the next target.
So the question is… what comes next?
“Well then, I’ll stop here.”
Minjun, who had obtained all the necessary statements, stood up from his seat. The criminal’s gaze followed the criminal. The woman who had dreamed of reviving the race by imitating sin blinked her eyelids from bottom to top. Her eyes were filled with emptiness, with all expectations shattered.
The crocodile said.
“······I guess I’ll never see you again.”
It was exactly as he said. That was the last time Minjun saw Princess Vermi.
***
Minjun, who came out of the interrogation room, went straight to the top floor of Jenkinson’s headquarters and confronted the polymorphed red dragon.
“Carbide?! Ugh… Things have gotten too big.”
It was not his place to dig up the conspiracy any further. Minjun faithfully reported the statement as a contract employee, then returned to the position of a creditor and questioned the plan to repay the talent.
Then the dragon’s expression changed.
“Just a little more time···!”
Then Minjun glared at Jenkinson displeasedly and made a suggestion. It was to imply that if there was no way to get money right away, he should make do with his body.
The labor of a dragon has a value that cannot be converted into money. This is especially true if the dragon is the head of a conglomerate that is considered one of the seven largest conglomerates in the country.
“What? Demonic Goblin?”
The hint Dell gave at the terminal was about an extinct species whose DNA the committee wanted to obtain.
Although special missions were also requested from prisoners, it was actually closer to wish torture, and it is said that even the few regular employees directly employed by the committee, that is, the ‘real employees’, took up the work.
I heard that they had half given up on obtaining purebred DNA that was intact and completely pure, and only very recently changed their strategy.
I remembered what Dell had said.
‘In short, the idea is to analyze the DNA of a subspecies that has even a little bit of blood mixed in and map out the genes like a puzzle.’
After much hard work, they made a meaningful discovery: evidence that their blood had been mixed with goblins living in a certain dimension long ago.
But it was too late to find out. As with many dimensions, there were many problems overlapping each other, resulting in a pan-dimensional diaspora, and the goblins had long since migrated to various places in search of a way to survive.
One of those places was Earth.
“Isn’t this like looking for a needle in a haystack?”
Jenkinson grumbled.
“You want me to collect the DNA of every goblin living on Earth and run a test on them? Do you know that in Korea alone, 85% of goblins don’t have health insurance?”
“I know.”
“Yes! Among them, there are many who have never been to a hospital since birth! And what’s more, there isn’t a single medical or insurance company in our group? Because of that evil woman!”
Minjun nodded in agreement.
“It won’t be easy. It’s a difficult problem.”
“okay!”
“Then what should we do?”
“···what?”
“You’re going to have to worry about that from now on. Instead of me.”
“Oh, no. Wait a minute!”
Minjun threw the tricky problem to Jenkinson and returned to his daily life.
The next few days were uneventful and unremarkable.
Minjun would break alien pots every time he got a mission, drink alcohol in the office, watch Baduk TV with the obsession that he would win someday, wait for Dell’s call, mediate between Jeong-pal and Cathy who were arguing over the rental period of a frying pan (‘Hand it over! I’m already addicted! I can’t eat home-cooked meals or restaurant meals!’ ‘Damn, me too! I can’t eat without this pervert!’), and he also used his own information network to find things he could get his hands on during special missions.
Meanwhile, in several dimensions adjacent to the committee headquarters, a certain news momentarily became a hot topic.
***
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“······Really?”
Jenkinson’s eyes grew cold as he received the news late. He pushed away the goblin-related documents on his desk and focused on reading the new document his secretary had brought.
The documents contained information that was not yet known here. Earth was not only quite far from the dimension where the incident occurred, but also had severed relations with the Gelanco dimension, which was a stakeholder, so it had not been broadcast to the media and was unlikely to be covered in the future.
He, who had been sitting there in silence, then suddenly remembered something and gave the order to evict guests.
“Okay, I understand.”
Even after Blair bowed and stepped aside, the Red Dragon glared at the report with a cold expression.
It was news of an accident involving a jump ship that had departed from a remote remote dimension.
As the ship was leaving its starting point and attempting its fourth of six dimensional jumps, the dimensional barrier suddenly and inexplicably rejected it. Despite the lack of a blockade and the fact that the jump codes from the Council had been properly obtained, the ship was exposed to unexpected resistance and pressure. Even the barrier surrounding its outer shell could not hold up.
Eventually, the jumpship that was transporting the criminals known as the Shutan people was crushed by the force of the dimensional barrier.
There were reportedly no survivors.
***
“Excuse me.”
Ha Eun-seong, a ghost who came out to watch the protests at Gwanghwamun this week, looked at a woman approaching him.
‘She’s a shaman.’
The formal term is kinesthetic.
Just as they could see ghosts, ghosts could tell that they were not ordinary people when they saw a clairvoyant. They could tell the difference just by looking at them. They didn’t have to go out of their way to talk to them.
A woman who looked to be in her mid to late 30s took off her sunglasses and smiled.
Looking at her face, it wasn’t the shaman I had met eyes with at the protest site last time.
“I thought you’d be here, but I guess I’m just lucky that we ran into each other right away.”
Since you can’t touch objects, you naturally can’t carry a cell phone, so in order to make contact with the ghosts, you had to go to places they often gather.
“Did you find me?”
“Yes. Are you Ha Eun-seong?”
The ghost’s face twisted for a moment. I know your name.
‘Well… I guess I asked the other ghosts.’
Because it’s not common to see a ghost wearing a penguin suit and walking around with a knife stuck in its neck.
“If you don’t mind, could we talk somewhere quiet for a moment?”
There is something that the seniors emphasize countless times to the new ghosts: you should not blindly follow ‘living people’.
There were two ways to torment and oppress ghosts. One was to use magic that utilized the so-called ‘exorcism’, astral interference waves, or to use the ultimate spell that was so powerful that the spiritual and material worlds would shake simultaneously, regardless of their attributes… only used when the dragons fought each other.
Of course, the former was the most popular, and magicians who could cast such spells were objects of fear for ghosts. Ha Eun-seong had heard urban legends about ghosts who unknowingly followed the call and ended up trapped in an exorcism circle and suffering as guinea pigs for the rest of their lives. For the dead who were not protected by the law, it was literally a future worse than death.
nevertheless.
“Yes, let’s go.”
There are two reasons why Ha Eun-seong followed her.
The first is a new trait I discovered last week.
‘I don’t know why, but… it doesn’t work on me anyway.’
Even though hundreds of ghosts were blown away by the shockwave last week, Ha Eun-seong was fine. Finding this phenomenon strange, he gathered his courage and went to another building where the exorcism was installed.
The result was the same.
‘Huh? This time too… I don’t feel anything?’
Ha Eun-seong passed through the wall that would have made other ghosts run away in fear with ease. There was no pain and no alarms sounded. The anti-ghost defense system didn’t even recognize him.
“Oh, really···.”
And the second reason I followed her.
“What a wonderful job you are doing!”
The shaman secretly showed off her business card so that no one could see it.
He followed her into an office with a strange sign and looked at her with longing eyes.
The woman laughed.
“I’m glad you said that.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I also benefited a lot from the ‘Red Star’ people when I was alive!”
That was the real identity written on the business card.
She held out her cell phone and showed various video evidence, and Ha Eun-seong no longer had any doubts.
If we were to define the identity of Red Star in one word, we could say that it is a modern-day bandit group.
Ha Eun-seong and his siblings, who were extremely poor when they were alive, were driven to the brink of starvation and barely managed to survive with their help.
‘That time, I really came back from the dead!’
Of course, the favorability rating is bound to be high.
They robbed the fresh produce warehouses of major distribution companies that enjoyed corporate tax discounts under various pretexts but did not give back a single penny to society, threatened to expose the sordid private lives of government officials and businessmen to extort money, and stole entire public defense facilities concentrated in wealthy areas instead of slums where public security was at its worst. The media criticized them as a terrible terrorist group.
But the question of how they distribute the proceeds of their crimes has rarely been covered in the news.
‘No matter how much you hide it, everyone who knows will know!’
Red Star distributed food to the poor in this country where the social safety net had virtually collapsed, educated talented children who could not go to school, and organized “real vigilante groups” instead of vigilante groups that were nothing more than subcontractors for the state, to enforce discipline and maintain public order in neighborhoods where the police did not patrol.
However, even among Ha Eun-seong’s old neighbors, there were a few who looked down on them. This was especially true of the Orcs, who were rumored to be related to the ‘Human Rights Solidarity’.
‘I don’t believe such rumors.’
This is because he, too, was a human living in the Orc community who received help from Red Star during his lifetime.
‘Why would human supremacists spread food in an orc village? That’s ridiculous.’
The woman, who noticed that the response was very favorable, calmly introduced her organization. Most of it was already known, but he listened with a pounding heart that wasn’t there.
“More than 50% of the world’s wealth is monopolized by a handful of people who rule across nations. We believe that it should be redistributed in a fair and just way.”
Ha Eun-seong was entranced by her words.
“Many people misunderstand, but we are not idealistic anarchists. We believe that the state should be reformed rather than destroyed.”
“······okay!”
“Yes, this country has already lost its function as a country. It has been taken over by a small number of capitalists who control everything with huge amounts of money behind the scenes. Do you know who I am talking about?”
He said after a short silence.
“Our enemies. Demons who squeeze the common people. For example… people like dragons.”
< 48. 21st Century Robin Hood (2) > End
