Substitute-Chapter 125

Attorney Oh forced himself to ignore the wave of bad premonitions and peeled away from the Chairman’s side.

Where was he supposed to go?

He glanced back at the two bodyguards assigned to him, but they were no different from NPCs in a game and told him nothing.

With a massive iron gate between them, the road split in two.

One side was choked with wild grass, the other a neatly kept footpath.

Afraid of bugs, Attorney Oh chose the footpath.

Then one of the bodyguards spoke up.

“That way’s blocked by vines.”

“What are you talking about? There’s a perfectly fine road right there.”

Attorney Oh snapped.

Anyone could see it was a carefully kept path.

“The path is fine, but it dead-ends.”

“And I’m supposed to take your word for it? I’ll check with my own eyes.”

He dug his heels in and strode off.

His bodyguards followed, but the Chairman’s group stopped before the iron gate.

He glanced back and then took a few curves.

The bodyguard had been right.

After a long walk, they arrived at a place where, oddly, trunks sprouting from two huge trees tangled into a makeshift barrier. ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) To get inside, he’d have to push through the vines.

Seriously?

“Jesus, fuck. Who built this shit like this!”

Attorney Oh took it out on the bodyguards for no reason.

Should’ve just listened.

He regretted it, too late, and retraced his steps.

After a few more curves, the massive iron gate came into view again.

Four Seekers in red wetsuits and nine black-clad shadows were waiting for him.

For some reason the suits looked blood red.

An involuntary chill ran through Attorney Oh and he shivered.

“Find anything?”

The Chairman asked, offhand.

“No. It was a dead end.”

“Good. Still, I rate you highly for not taking someone’s word and checking for yourself. I like that.”

The Chairman praised him.

Somehow it didn’t feel good at all.

There was only one road left.

The opposite side looked dark enough to be haunted.

Not just dark—overgrown. And thick with grass as tall as he was.

“Counselor Oh, what are you waiting for?”

The Chairman prodded the hesitating Attorney Oh.

His voice was so sharp it cut through the rain.

“I’m going. Of course.”

Attorney Oh answered grudgingly and stepped into the grass.

Even with an umbrella, when the wet blades brushed his face or the backs of his hands, his skin crawled.

It was at least something that he was wearing a wetsuit so it didn’t touch his body. Otherwise he wouldn’t have set a single foot into that grass. That was how much Attorney Oh hated bugs.

As he walked gingerly, one of the bodyguards closed in right behind him.

“Hey, don’t get so close. It’s uncomfortable.”

Attorney Oh reacted touchily, and unlike when he’d been on the footpath moments ago, he didn’t stride along.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.

Who knew what bugs were in that grass.

Cockroaches or ground beetles might fly or jump, and centipedes could climb on him.

Just imagining it gave him goosebumps.

“Don’t get so—ugh!”

Attorney Oh froze at the sensation of something sharp piercing through his body.

When he looked back, he saw the bodyguard who had spoken to him a moment ago. And behind him, under an umbrella, the Chairman and Captain Choi Sucheol.

Attorney Oh couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

No way. Maybe not a knife—did a branch jab me? Bugs? Not that, please.

As if reading his mind, something sharp and heavy drove into his back again.

Fuck, this isn’t it....

A bolt of terror. He was terrified.

There was a different betrayer—so why me?

“Ch—air—man....”

He tried to ask the man who was on his side to help him, but this time not one but two hands grabbed Attorney Oh’s shoulders and stabbed his back mercilessly. Metal punched through his back in succession.

A vicious pain he’d never felt in his life raked through his whole body.

They stabbed him from behind, but somehow there was blood in his mouth.

“Aaaaugh!”

Attorney Oh screamed and tried to run.

But he stumbled after only a few steps and went down flat. He fell into the grass.

No, no. This can’t be happening.

He’d never once imagined he would die like this, and it drove him crazy.

He wished it were a nightmare.

Please, someone save me.

Tell me it’s a mistake.

Bugs no longer mattered at all.

With blood pouring out of him like water, what did a bug matter.

Attorney Oh flailed, trying somehow to live. He groped at his back to try to stop the bleeding.

That was when he realized there was someone in front of him.

Judging by the suit color, one of the runners. Hunched still in the grass, the guy stared at him, eyes wide. He looked as shocked as Attorney Oh was.

“Hel...p me.”

Attorney Oh reached a hand toward him.

That son of a bitch—why aren’t you getting over here to save me?

Rage welled up. He couldn’t believe that trash was alive while he himself was dying.

“Fuck. Hurry—”

As he tried to crawl along the ground toward the man, someone in combat boots flipped him over.

Strangely, he didn’t feel pain anymore.

Through the sheets of rain, he saw the Chairman.

Looking down at him, the Chairman was smiling.

“Please... save... me, Ch...air... man....”

Looks like I got done in by the lackey,

Attorney Oh was sure.

Hearing people nearby, Jiwon flattened himself into the brush by the gap.

It wasn’t his imagination.

“Jesus, fuck. Who built this shit like this!”

Someone shouted in frustration.

One?

Since each Seeker had two guards, that meant three in reality.

If there was one more Seeker, six.

He took it for granted they would squeeze through the gap.

Jiwon gripped his pocketknife and readied himself to strike if it came to that.

But contrary to expectation, it stayed quiet. Judging by the footsteps receding, they seemed to have turned back, but they could be faking it to spring an ambush, so he didn’t relax.

He counted in his head. Past three hundred, it was still quiet out there. Looked like they really had gone.

Relieved, Jiwon sprawled on the ground.

He had nothing left.

The announcement had said 9:50. Subtract the time from then until he’d hit the retaining wall and made it back here, and there wasn’t even an hour left until midnight. And the lights that had been such a fine guide on his way here had gone dark at least fifteen minutes ago, so it might be even less.

Please. Time, go faster.

He prayed silently.

Even if there was a power cut, he couldn’t just bolt. With the Seeker’s voice so close a moment ago, odds were high some of them were near the iron gate.

So Jiwon decided he would simply go over the mesh. If the power went out, the high-voltage current wouldn’t run, and that would actually favor him.

For that, he needed to conserve strength. It was a barbed mesh fence, so he needed a countermeasure for that too, but all he had were a flashlight and a knife, so there was nothing to prepare.

While he waited for the power cut, Jiwon gathered as many branches thick with big leaves as he could to keep his body from chilling in the rain. He stacked them in layers to make a nest. Then he tucked himself underneath.

He pulled his legs in, tucked his knees tight up to his chest, and curled himself as small as he could—the so-called fetal position—to keep warm.

When his mind wandered, he counted sheep.

One sheep, two sheep. Three sheep.

Then he felt pathetic about his situation, and when regret surged he started counting sheep from the top. Even when sheep jumped fences they bolted across the field; they did everything they could to keep Jiwon from counting.

He deliberately didn’t think about memories of his family.

He erased Detective Kim Gyeongseok from his head too.

Instead of wasting time counting sheep, he decided to picture going over the mesh.

How tall was the mesh again?

What was its structure?

With a power cut, there was no reason to worry about CCTV.

The problem was the damn barbs.

He didn’t care if his palms got pricked, but if his clothes snagged and tore, he was fucked. In this weather, escaping bare-skinned was next to impossible.

Still, best to get over in one piece if he could.

So what could protect his body?

Jiwon had nothing, but the place was littered with leaves.

If he stuffed wide leaves inside his clothes, they’d make a kind of temporary padding. And if he wrapped elbows, knees, and palms round and round with branches and stems, they could serve as makeshift guards.

Hope flared higher and higher.

Hope that he could get out.

He had no idea what was beyond the mesh, but at least there was a good chance it would be a path people used. Otherwise there was no reason to put up a long, demarcation-line-length barbed mesh carrying high voltage.

Honestly, he wanted to believe that.

He had to, to escape.

While he was working up his escape plan, Jiwon found it funny how completely his situation had flipped in half a day.

If this were a movie, the audience would be complaining the genre had changed in an instant.

You came for an erotic film and now you’re watching a prison break—who wouldn’t.

Better an action star than a porn star?

With that silly thought, he flexed his arms and legs a little.

He did a bit of stretching in the tight space, then curled up again.

No matter how he built the nest, there were gaps, so he couldn’t keep the rain off entirely.

Tap, tap—raindrops fell through the leaves.

A mountain in the rain felt less like midsummer than early winter.

On such a small patch of land, could the temperature swing this much? It struck him all over again.

He kept thinking about Park Geonwoo and Kim Yunho.

He’d hoped to meet them on the way back, but the two had already left.

Maybe they’d chosen to get caught by the Seekers because they were too cold, or maybe their paths had simply diverged.

Whatever it was, he hoped those two were safe.

Especially that Park Geonwoo hadn’t done anything stupid like pretending to be an undercover cop under Jiwon’s name.

There was no reason and no pretext for it.

Broker request or not, that order crossed a line. Park Geonwoo wasn’t an idiot; of course he wouldn’t go along with that. He wanted to believe that.

There he goes again. Overthinking.

Jiwon went back to counting sheep.

It was the moment the sheep went from twenty-five to twenty-six.

A loud fanfare blared from the speakers.

The same fanfare that sounded every time a Seeker caught a runner.

No way. After catching the undercover cops, there was no way they were still playing that dumb game.

But Jiwon’s expectation missed wide.

From the speakers, the Emcee’s cheerful voice, no different from before, announced the capture of a runner.

[Wow, everyone. There are finally only five runners left! Our Seekers are amazing, aren’t they? And of course we should praise the runners too. Applause for the runners and Seekers doing their best in this game despite the terrible weather! I can’t wait to see what ending awaits us. Hype is hype, but aren’t we forgetting something? Oh, you know. Everyone gather in the center of the garden. We have to carry out the whipping.]

Jiwon frowned.

Why go this far? What was this game to them?

The host’s obsession felt creepy.

With a man whose obsession was this perverse, escape would be anything but easy.

This wasn’t the time to stay curled up.

Time to get ready to move.

Jiwon slipped out of the hide he'd made. He stripped the leaves off the branches covering him, shook the rainwater off fast, and started stuffing them inside his suit. No matter how much he shook them, there was still moisture, and the inside got damp, but he didn’t care.

The whipping began. As always, the Crew’s screams piped through the speakers.

Shouldn’t that guy get a reward, not punishment?

Even now, Jiwon thought it.

Wasn’t the devotion of a guy who’d stayed hidden this long in this weather admirable?

Bastards.

He wondered for a moment whether the one screaming was enjoying it or in pain and then hoped they enjoyed it. Fair’s fair.

Grumbling inwardly as he packed in leaves until his whole body felt puffed out, Jiwon stopped moving.

Because the screaming cut off without warning.

No matter how loud the rain or how the thunder rolled, the speakers had been viciously clear.

No way they’d finished punishment that fast. It was strange.

Jiwon listened hard.

But there was no sign the sound would resume.

The silence stretched.

Power cut!

Jiwon knew on instinct.

It felt a bit early for midnight, but who cared.

The chance had come.

Which meant he had to take it.

He hurriedly braided stems with broad leaves. He took enough time to cover his palms.

The trunks of the trees standing near the gap had spring to them on their own, useful for braiding or tying. He cut branches with the knife and wedged other leaves or branches between them to make guards.

He kept tweaking them, checking how they fit his hands. The left hand was tough because he had to hold the knife.

He wouldn’t get many shots at escape.

Maybe only one.

Just one.

He wrapped the finished guard round and round his left hand, then his right.

He didn’t know how effective they’d be, but even if they weren’t, even if his palms got shredded, he burned with the will to get out of here no matter what.

He pried apart the gap, clotted with thick stems and leaves.

He couldn’t see a thing. Only pitch-black darkness.

His field of view was already narrowed by the swelling around his eye from getting hit by Son Geonwoo, and he realized that this way he’d get nothing.

It was finally time to act.

Knife clenched tight, he stepped through the gap.