It took two days to review the draft complaint with Park Do-hyun.
Park Do-hyun was thorough. He nodded when he saw the repeated party pattern between Choi Byung-soo and Kim Do-yoon that Woo-joo had identified, but he did not agree right away.
“The logic is sound. But if we want to use this in court, the pattern alone isn’t enough. We need direct evidence that Taegang Guild gave the orders as an organization.”
“I know.”
“You knew that and wrote the complaint first?”
“The complaint is just the framework. I’ll fill in the evidence.”
Park Do-hyun laughed. Briefly. “Yeah. That’s your way.”
Woo-joo began filling in the evidence. He applied to review the communications records of Choi Byung-soo and Kim Do-yoon and requested the original Bureau report for the rift Jung Tae-ho had raided. At the same time, he organized Taegang Guild’s publicly disclosed activities over the past year.
On the third day, the original report arrived from the Bureau.
Woo-joo unfolded the report and compared it against Jung Tae-ho’s statement. Choi Byung-soo’s name appeared on the list of party members recorded in the report. His affiliation was listed as “freelance.” But Kim Do-yoon’s name appeared in the field for report author. A B-rank Awakened affiliated with Taegang Guild had written the report for a freelance party.
This was a mistake. Kim Do-yoon’s mistake.
The party leader usually wrote the report. Since Kim Do-yoon had been the leader, there was nothing unusual about him writing it. But while disguising his affiliation as freelance, he had entered his real name and actual affiliation in the report-author field. That field was automatically linked to the Bureau’s system, so it could not be edited.
Woo-joo copied the page.
This was enough. Material evidence that an Awakened affiliated with Taegang Guild had infiltrated the party while posing as a freelancer. Combined with Jung Tae-ho’s statement and his medical certificate documenting the assault, it was enough to establish at least a lawsuit against Choi Byung-soo and Kim Do-yoon.
At four in the afternoon, he finished the final revisions to the complaint and prepared it for filing.
Park Do-hyun read the final version and said,
“Clean. File it.”
“I’ll submit it tomorrow morning.”
“Taegang Guild will contact you. You know that, right?”
“I expect they will.”
Park Do-hyun looked at Woo-joo. In the three years they had worked together, he had never once seen this junior attorney back down. That was exactly why he was worried.
“Be careful. Winning in court and surviving are two different things.”
Woo-joo nodded. He knew Park Do-hyun was not exaggerating. Taegang Guild was Korea’s number-one raid guild. Its legal team alone was on the level of a major law firm. And beyond that, it possessed the physical force of an Awakened organization.
But there was no reason for him to back down. He could see the structure of the case, he had the evidence, and the reason his client had been assaulted was unjust. That was enough.
He left work at six. It was rare for him to leave on time. Since he would be busy in earnest once he filed the complaint tomorrow, Park Do-hyun had sent him home to rest today.
He left the building where the office was located. It was an April evening. The days had grown longer, so it was still light out. The wind was blowing, but it was less sharp than it had been a few days ago.
He waited for the light at the crosswalk.
That was when he saw him.
A man stood on the sidewalk across the street. He was tall, somewhere in the mid-six-foot range. Short hair, broad shoulders. He wore a black jacket, and the outline of solid muscle showed beneath it. He looked to be in his late twenties. His face was rugged. Not handsome so much as striking.
He was Awakened.
Woo-joo read it at a glance. He had no evidence. The man was not using his ability, and there was no mark identifying him as Awakened. Yet he knew. The density of the man’s body, the direction of his gaze, the way he stood. Everything about him was different from an ordinary person.
It was the same sensation he had felt during his interview with Jung Tae-ho. As if this man’s ability were “visible.”
Physical enhancement.
That judgment surfaced in his mind. He could not explain why he thought so. He simply knew.
And then, at that moment—
His mind went white.
It was not whiteness. It was light. Though he had not closed his eyes, his entire field of vision was covered in white light. Half a second. No, it might have been even shorter.
Something flashed through that light.
It was not an image. It was not a sound. It was a sensation. This man’s back. Himself walking while looking at the man’s back. Somewhere he did not recognize. Dark, damp, with a stone floor. The man walking ahead, himself walking behind him. Then the man turning his head and saying something. He could not hear the voice. But the shape of his mouth—
“Big brother.”
The light changed.
People began to move. Woo-joo was standing in the crosswalk. People passed around him. The man was walking toward him from the other side.
They passed each other in the middle of the crosswalk.
The man did not look at Woo-joo. He simply walked past. The back of his black jacket receded into the distance.
Woo-joo did not stop walking. He crossed the street. Stepped onto the sidewalk. Kept going.
His heart was pounding. Fast. But his expression did not change.
He looked back.
The man’s back was disappearing into the evening crowd.
Woo-joo watched it for three seconds, then faced forward and kept walking.
He arrived at his two-room apartment, closed the front door, and took off his shoes. He sat on the couch without removing his shirt. Normally, changing into something comfortable would have been the first thing he did, but today he did not have the presence of mind.
Sitting on the couch, he stared at the ceiling.
What had he just seen?
The man’s back. A dark, damp place. A stone floor. The shape of the word “big brother” on his lips.
It was not a memory. It could not be a memory. He had never met that man. He was certain. In his thirty-two years of life, he had never seen that face.
And yet his body knew. It knew the sensation of walking behind that man. The angle at which he turned his head. The shape of his mouth.
Woo-joo covered his face with both hands.
Attorney Kang Woo-joo hated things he could not explain. Everything had a cause, a structure, and a logic. Finding those things was his job.
But this was somewhere logic could not reach.
His fingers reacting to the symbol. Being able to see an Awakened person’s ability. And now, something like a memory flashing from the back of a man he had never seen before.
He could have ignored each one individually. But when three things came together, they formed a pattern.
There was something inside him. That hypothesis was gradually ceasing to be a hypothesis.
Woo-joo lowered his hands from his face and stood. He took off his shirt, showered, and watered the monstera. He went through his daily routine one step at a time. That was how he put his thoughts in order.
Lying in bed, he thought.
Tomorrow, he would file the complaint. The fight against Taegang Guild would begin. That was attorney Kang Woo-joo’s territory.
And separately from that—
He had to meet that man again.
He still did not know why. But Insight was telling him not to let that man get away. It was not a hunch. Something rising from within him was telling him that.
Woo-joo closed his eyes.
Just before he fell asleep, the sensation of walking across a dark, damp stone floor rose from the soles of his feet. Briefly. Then it vanished.