Boy Monster Chapter 83

I decided to refrain from prying or being stubborn, as that wasn’t how an adult should behave. Instead, I asked a question, intending to pursue a rational approach.

“Then, do you plan to arrest the former head before he steals your film?”

“No, let’s leave it as it is. If we catch him in the act, we can frame him for a much bigger crime.”

Jang Hwonwoo had already finished his calculations. Arresting the person sent to steal the film would not only be definitive evidence of the act itself, but could also be used to frame him for plotting the assassination of a lieutenant.

Jang Hwonwoo laughed darkly as he covered the silver film with dirt.

:･⚜️⊹.️

It was a rainy midday. The former head of the family was strolling through the garden, dressed in his usual Western suit.

Taking advantage of the afternoon while Jang Hwonwoo was away from the mansion, he had sent someone to obtain the film. The former head knew the vulnerable hours and entry routes of the Sashimcheon mansion all too well. At this hour, Jang Hwonwoo would be busy preparing for experiments at the military quarters, and Sa Yeonri, confined to his room, would have no way of noticing a theft occurring silently in the distant library.

He checked his pocket watch; it was two in the afternoon.

This time, I must drive that fellow Jang Hwonwoo out. I don’t trust the way he’s been acting out since taking over the position of head so early. Since his abilities are superior, it would be better for my prestige to kill him if I see any spark of betrayal. For a new successor, perhaps I should train another son instead.

While his thoughts followed one after another, the presence of someone drifted under his umbrella.

The film must have arrived! The lips of the old man, who had turned with a welcoming face while holding his umbrella, turned pale blue.

The presence felt amidst the rainfall was the sound of several policemen’s footsteps. The thief caught by the policemen was hanging his head low. A detective from the Police Bureau gripped his body firmly from behind.

“I am arresting you on charges of plotting to murder the head of the family and treason. Seize him!”

“Murder?”

The detective in charge of the arrest was a detective from the Higher Affairs Section who had been monitoring the former head’s movements. He was the one Jae Eunho had encountered on the night streets previously. A short while ago, Jae Eunho had implanted the former head’s suspicious movements into the detective’s mind, causing the policemen to tail the thief sneaking into the Sashimcheon mansion. It was, of course, a resonance that no one noticed.

There were also surveillance personnel pre-positioned at the mansion by Jang Hwonwoo. The thief was caught helplessly by the police and the mansion security.

The detective subdued the resisting old man. Even if he was a veteran, the former head was a superior Hwelju. He growled, his wrist prayer beads glowing.

“Move if you want to live. I’ll kill you all. Shall I slice your flesh thin while you’re alive and throw it to the pigs, or shall I hang you upside down and strangle you to death while blood pours from your eyes and nose? I am the Poong Hwelju and the Ji Hwelju! I can do as much as…”

Before he could finish his words, an ability-control talisman was stuck to his back. It was the same talisman that had been stuck to Sa Yeonri’s back……. Next, a pill entered his mouth. Before he could even spit it out, the former head realized the situation as he choked down the water pouring into his throat.

The shaman was caught too. They are the only ones who would know this control method and give arrest instructions to the police in advance. The shaman, the State-Protecting Master, or… Jang Hwonwoo.

The bound former head was dragged to the Government-General. The basement of the Government-General was a place where one could not come out with an intact body once dragged inside. Unable to endure his rage, he went into a frenzy. “Do you know who I am! I am the one who rules the Hwelju family that has continued for a thousand years!” He who had been shouting at the top of his lungs until sitting in the basement interrogation room, stopped his struggle before a single sheet of paper placed on the desk.

A blood oath cursing the Emperor and the Japanese military clique. It was the manual for the Yeom-mae curse he had written.

…Why is this here. Cold sweat flowed down both his temples, and his vision turned white. The old man was engulfed in terror and lost his words. A dark yellow military officer’s uniform entered as the door opened. Lieutenant Hiroshi, sitting opposite him, opened his mouth after a brief silence.

“I see you hid an assassin in my room today to try and assassinate me and Sa Yeonri.”

At the unexpected words, the former head instantly snapped to his senses.

“Assassination? How absurd. I only intended to take out your motion picture film. That man is not an assassin!”

“A film… that hobby that only costs a lot of money and makes women treat me like a weirdo, it’s been a long time since I abandoned it.”

At the end of his words, Jang Hwonwoo quietly pushed forward one more sheet of paper. It was a confession written by the thief. One could not imagine how much torture he had endured to give a false confession. A pistol he had never seen before was also placed on the paper. The old man trembled, shouting in an angry voice.

“It’s a fabrication! It’s a fabrication!”

“Isn’t the purpose of trying to kill me and Sa Yeonri to obstruct the Sa Hwelju descent ritual, which is the most important experiment for the Great Japanese Imperial Army tomorrow?”

“It’s a frame-up! A frame-up! This makes no sense! You… this Yeom-mae curse…!”

It was just as the former head’s eyes flashed for a moment, and he was about to blurt out the fact that Jang Hwonwoo had removed the Yeom-mae jar.

The crown of his head was gripped. The moment his breath was choked off, a fist struck his mouth head-on. It felt as if a boulder was striking his facial bones. Broken teeth tumbled down between his knees.

In addition to the pain that paralyzed his lower jaw, blood filled his nostrils. His head, held in Jang Hwonwoo’s hand, rolled and shook in circles. Jang Hwonwoo, leaning down with a face smeared with blood, whispered.

“The list of your crimes is unspeakable… You deserve execution just for the treasonous act of selling out the family and making the Hweljus attack their own people, and cutting off the limbs of Hweljus and Yeonris was a common occurrence. My, how scary…. And you even executed a certain Yeonri’s parents by dismemberment, tearing their limbs apart. You let that Yeonri be insulted by many men.”

A glove was stuffed into his mouth, where blood was filling and bubbling. Lieutenant Hiroshi shouted toward the outside.

“Bring the syringe. Since this person is a Hwelju, you must keep him alive by putting him to sleep with drugs until the day of the experiment.”

A slender syringe containing transparent liquid was placed on the desk. Lieutenant Hiroshi, perched on the desk, was still gripping the traitor’s crown. The officer, thinking the lieutenant was about to give the injection immediately, asked.

“Do you need help by any chance?”

“No, I’ll inject the drug in a little while. I have something to talk about before that.”

In the right hand of Lieutenant Hiroshi, whose back was turned toward the arrested suspect, was a pair of cutting nippers.

:･⚜️⊹.️

Finally, the moon filled into a complete circle.

The arrested former head finished his preparations to be placed on the experimental table, asleep under the influence of drugs. Jang Hwonwoo took out the velvet box from inside his uniform and kissed it dozens of times a day. Jae Eunho kissed Jang Hwonwoo’s long sword and pistol whenever he had a spare moment. Until that morning, they drank and absorbed each other’s fluids.

In the early dawn, Jae Eunho suddenly opened his eyes. Jang Hwonwoo could not easily leave the bedding and was looking down at Eunho. Jang Hwonwoo’s pupils, lost in thought, were so cold that one might mistake them for being blue rather than their original deep grey. For a flash, those eyes looked not like a human’s, but like an evil spirit’s.

―Sleep more.

Jang Hwonwoo returned to his young and intelligent eyes as if he had never been that way. The hand stroking Eunho’s cheek was always rough and hard from holding a sword and a gun.

―Leaving already? It’s early….

―Oh, is this by any chance acting cute?

―Don’t be ridiculous.

It seemed he had unconsciously gripped the collar of Jang Hwonwoo’s uniform. Jae Eunho parted his dry lips and chuckled. Jang Hwonwoo leaned down and kissed Eunho several times. The breath touching his cheekbones and cheeks was sticky and soft.

―I wish you would whine like this every day. Waking up in the same blanket every day and hearing Sa Yeonri acting cute every dawn.

―You would insist it’s acting cute even if I farted.

―I’ve seen you entreating and being coquettish with your private parts in bed so many times that I must have a lustful ghost over my eyes.

―When did I! Don’t write fiction. This is absurd.

They, who had been bickering atop the blankets while entangled, looked at each other quietly for a while. Jae Eunho, breathing shallowly, urged him once more.

―If anything happens, I’ll signal with a butterfly. Follow the butterfly and find me.

―That won’t happen. I told you I’ve prepared for everything.

During the days they spent living together, yet not quite together, since the succession ceremony, this was what he liked most. The dawn when they woke up in the same blanket. This moment, which was nothing special, was better to Jae Eunho than a luxurious room or meal.

―Do that confession one more time before you go. I like that sentence best.

―My awe to your words, your thoughts, and your body.

Recalling the thick eyelashes of the man who had kissed the back of his hand, Eunho put the prayer beads on his wrist. Tomorrow too, we will wake up in the same bed and play with words.

It was a cloudy morning. Jae Eunho stared quietly at his own face in the mirror. A pale man draped in a white robe was accepting the evil side of Jang Hwonwoo with cold yet solemn eyes.

Despite witnessing the chilling murderous intent that had eclipsed the boy’s soul, Jae Eunho was not disappointed or surprised by him.

Does it matter?

……Even if he is a killer and a monster, I will take responsibility for him.

You may abandon me at any time, Hwonwoo-ya. I will absolutely never abandon you during my remaining days.

Today, I become more cold-hearted and perfect than anyone else.

“Break the shackles of fate and shroud the black moonlight.”

He would take back the family, Hweljus, and Yeonris that the former head had sold off, and drive out the enemy nation. If things stayed this way, the divine gifted ones of Joseon would become the spoils of the victors of the World War. Jae Eunho had no intention of giving such a horribly ruined family to Jang Hwonwoo.

Now they were in the middle of a storm from which they could not escape. It was a grand uprising to erase information about the Sashimcheon family from the memories and consciousness of those observing the experiment, and then induce self-destruction through underwater intelligence work afterward. First, it was important to perfectly erase the memory of the divine power.

The papers on which he had written the hallucinatory contents to be input into each target reached dozens of pages. It was also good to know general anatomy and biotechnology knowledge. Furthermore, Jae Eunho had prepared several response manuals for unexpected situations at each stage. He had even prepared responses for when obstructive factors occurred at each stage and withdrawal plans according to the situation. He laid out all the preliminary knowledge on the floor and memorized it one last time.

Jae Eunho did not move from his seated position until he had perfectly memorized the dozens of pages. The mansion was quiet as all the Hweljus serving in the military had been mobilized for palace security.

“Sa Yeonri, here is the newspaper you requested.”

An attendant knocked on the door. Jae Eunho, who had never applied for a newspaper subscription, instinctively felt in an instant that it was a secret letter sent by someone. Upon receiving the two newspapers, he saw they were urgent secret letters sent by Prince Uichin. The information marked with numbers and dots in the newspaper contents was as follows:

[The Minister of the Navy will not enter the country due to personal matters. It seems there is a health issue. Thus, two more people than originally expected will attend. Minister of the Army, Minister of the Air Force, Inspector General of the Army Aviation Inspectorate, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet.]

Two military generals who were not planned to attend were coming to the site. It was an unexpected situation. Jae Eunho’s hands became wet with cold sweat.