Min-su gripped the collar of the unresponsive Jin-woo and dragged him up through the murky underground of Seoul Station. Jin-woo’s feet dragged helplessly against the cold concrete, creating a friction sound like dry bones scraping together, but Min-su didn’t hesitate for a second.

  The stench of stale soju and rotting leather, tattooed onto Jin-woo’s body, radiated the chill of a grave rather than the scent of life. Gritting his teeth, Min-su shoved Jin-woo into a run-down motel room nearby.

  "Wash up. If Yuri saw you smelling like a rotting corpse, she’d faint twice."

  The name 'Yuri' pierced the silence, sending a ripple through the stagnant air of the room. Jin-woo’s unfocused eyes, which had been dead still, twitched faintly for the first time.

  He collapsed onto the bathroom’s tiled floor, letting the cold water Min-su turned on batter his body. The despair and filth that had piled up over six months washed away in a stream of black water, but the shards of loss embedded in his chest remained unwashed, sharpening their edges.

  Min-su threw a wet towel over Jin-woo’s head and set up a portable gas burner in the middle of the room.

  Sizzle—

  As the crimson marbling of the high-grade Hanwoo ribeye hit the heated grill, the rich, savory scent of melting fat pushed out the stale oxygen in the cramped room. Jin-woo’s olfactory senses, paralyzed by the stench of the underground, screamed awake.

  Min-su picked up a piece of perfectly browned meat and tossed it onto the plate in front of Jin-woo.

  "Eat. Since you couldn't keep your promise, I'm keeping it for you."

  Jin-woo stared blankly at the meat. Hoengseong Hanwoo. The substance of the humble yet desperate wish Yuri had longed for with her final breath was right in front of him. Jin-woo tried to lift his chopsticks with a trembling hand, but his atrophied fingers refused to cooperate.

  Min-su spat out a curse, grabbed the meat with his own chopsticks, and shoved it into Jin-woo’s mouth.

  "Chew, you bastard! If you're going to die, chew this and die!"

  The juices filling his mouth were cruelly sweet. It was the ‘sensation of life’ stimulating the tip of his tongue for the first time in six months. Jin-woo’s jaw, forced to mash the meat, began to tremble microscopically. The moment the savory flavor slid down his throat, the dam of human emotion he had held back collapsed.

  "Ugh... Guh... Huuugh...!"

  At first, it sounded like the wet whimper of a wounded beast. Soon, it turned into a desperate wail that threatened to pierce the walls, hacking the room to pieces. Unable to even swallow the meat, Jin-woo buried his face in his hands and mashed his forehead against the floor.

  Tears he hadn't been able to shed on the day Yuri died, or the day her body was stolen, poured out like a waterfall, mixing with the reek of alcohol.

  "Min-su... Yuri is gone... Not even a piece of bone is left... I thought I burned it all, but those bastards... those cowardly bastards stole my Yuri...!"

  Jin-woo clawed at the linoleum floor with his deformed fingernails, howling in agony. Min-su gripped Jin-woo’s shoulder hard enough to crush bone. Thick tears fell from Min-su’s eyes onto Jin-woo’s wet back.

  "I know, you punk. I know everything. That's why I found you. I found a lead... on where they took Yuri, and under which sky her heart is beating right now."

  Jin-woo’s weeping stopped as if it were a lie. The word 'Heart' shot through his brain like a high-voltage current. Jin-woo lifted his face, smeared with tears and snot, to stare at Min-su. Min-su’s eyes were no longer filled with comfort, but with the cool, calculated killing intent of a warrior heading back to the battlefield.

  "What... do you mean? Her heart... is beating?"

  " The bastards at 'Mask Master' didn't recover Yuri’s body for burial. They extracted 'parts'. And that part has been transplanted into the woman sitting at the highest point in South Korea."

  Min-su pulled a photograph from his jacket and placed it next to the grill. A woman smiling with an ice-cold expression in a lavish banquet hall. It was Choi Seo-hyun, the heiress of Sungjin Group.

  Jin-woo’s gaze locked onto her left chest, the very spot where Yuri’s heart would be pulsing.

  "Inside this woman's chest, Yuri is breathing. It's not over yet, Jin-woo."

  The twisted fingernails on Jin-woo’s hand curled into a tight fist. A blue glint flickered back to life in the dead eyes of 'Phantom'. Sorrow was instantly substituted with cold murder, and a heavy pressure filled the room, changing the very air pressure.

  Jin-woo picked up the chopsticks he had dropped, grabbed a piece of cold meat, and put it in his mouth. He didn't cry this time. As if engraving vengeance into every muscle, he chewed slowly, powerfully, and swallowed.

  "Let's go. To find my woman's heart."

  It was the true resurrection of Kang Jin-woo, the ghost who crawled up from hell.

  Namhae (South Sea). One week later.

  Armed with the fake identity 'Kang Tae-yoon' and a thick stack of cash Min-su had given him, Jin-woo threw himself onto a southbound train. As the scenery outside the window shifted from gray to green, the stench of soju clinging to his chest began to evaporate little by little.

  He unpacked his bag at a worn-down guesthouse in a small port village.

  "Oh my, young man. Why is your face half gone? Did you come to recuperate from an illness?"

  As he took a spoonful of the mullet seaweed soup the guesthouse grandmother served, Jin-woo put on his signature sly demeanor.

  "Grandma, I'm just so handsome that I've been hit by all the world's wind and waves alone. Isn't this the destiny of a handsome man?"

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He had regained his wit after six months, but his Adam's apple trembled as he swallowed the soup. It was the taste of the warm broth Yuri would have loved so much.

  Every night, Jin-woo sat on the breakwater, wrapping Yuri’s old scrunchie—her keepsake—around his wrist, staring at the sea.

  "Yuri, the ocean here is killer, right? You begged me to come here with you... and in the end, I came alone."

  Red moisture filled the eyes of Jin-woo as he muttered to himself. He pulled out the worn photo of Choi Seo-hyun and rubbed it with his thumb. In his memory, Yuri was smiling brightly, but in reality, he was a ghost holding a fake ID, dreaming of revenge.

  The next morning, while taking a walk through the thick coastal fog, Jin-woo spotted a strange sight. Near the rocky shore, a woman was struggling, her high heel stuck in a crevice of the rock. It was a stranger, dressed too stylishly for the rugged coast, fighting a losing battle with the geology.

  "Excuse me! You there, the handsome young man passing by! Can't you help me? The earth is trying to eat my shoe!"

  Jin-woo paused. The address 'young man' overlapped with Yuri’s voice in his memory. When Jin-woo approached, the woman smiled brightly and waved. Jin-woo let out a hollow chuckle at the absurdity.

  "Miss, the rock isn't eating your shoe; you are stepping on the rock. It's gravity pulling your foot, not the earth's appetite."

  Jin-woo tossed the remark as he shoved his hand into the rock crevice. Click! With a sound of release, the shoe came free. Losing her balance from the sudden recoil, the woman fell straight toward Jin-woo’s chest.

  Instead of catching her reflexively, Jin-woo pushed her shoulder away with a look of annoyance.

  "Ah! Cold!"

  The woman landed on her butt in a puddle of seawater next to the rocks.

  "Hey! Are you crazy, mister? You should have caught me! Why did you push me?"

  Jin-woo adjusted his glasses indifferently as the woman shouted in grievance.

  "Ten seconds ago you called me a 'handsome young man', and now I'm 'mister'? Did you develop presbyopia in ten seconds? And throwing yourself at someone in a public place is public indecency."

  "What? Wow, I was going to let it slide because you're handsome, but your personality is total trash!"

  The woman grumbled as she stood up, shaking off her wet skirt. Jin-woo felt a strange tickle in a corner of his heart. Was it guilt for pushing her? Putting the odd feeling behind him, he continued.

  "Ah, the sea breeze is spicy. Miss, don't wear shoes like that to the beach in the future. The earth hurts."

  Jin-woo disappeared into the fog like a ghost without waiting for an answer. Behind him, the voice shouting "What kind of prickly human is that?!" mixed with the sound of the waves.

  Jin-woo gripped Yuri’s hair tie in his pocket tightly. For a man who had to empty his heart for revenge, the trip was not a waste, but a time of recharging.

  Seoul. Three days later.

  The waves of Namhae had eroded some of Jin-woo’s stale despair. Perhaps thanks to the noisy encounter with the nameless woman, the shadow of death in Jin-woo’s eyes had been replaced by a vivid, living murderous intent.

  He met Min-su at a shabby izakaya on the outskirts of Seoul.

  "You look like you've come to your senses. Your eyes look like a human's again."

  Min-su remarked as he filled a shot glass with soju. Jin-woo took the glass with efficient movement and emptied it in one go. The stinging alcohol went down, but it didn't gouge his chest like before. Jin-woo bowed his head briefly to Min-su.

  "Thanks, Min-su. Thanks to you, I had a good tour of hell. If it weren't for you, I'd still be hugging soju bottles on the floor of Seoul Station."

  "Forget it, it's gross. So, what's the plan? You're not going to ram straight into Sungjin HQ, are you?"

  Jin-woo smirked and adjusted his glasses. The gaze behind the worn lenses was that of a cold analyst.

  "No, a frontal assault is for amateurs. I'm going to make them find me. I've picked a small security firm on the outskirts. 'Daon Solution'. It's a place that handles the lowest-level subcontracting for Sungjin."

  Min-su narrowed his eyes in surprise. "Daon? What are you going to do in a mom-and-pop shop like that?"

  "Because that is Sungjin's weakest link. I'll inject poison from the capillary end and make it reach the heart. For the time being, I'll live there as 'Manager Kang Tae-yoon'. There's a team leader named Park there—an old guy whose style is similar to our old team leader. I'm going to roll around there for a bit."

  Relieved by the meticulousness of Jin-woo’s plan, Min-su laughed heartily. "Manager Kang... nice name. Hey, Manager Kang! Then you're paying for the drinks today, right? Celebrating your employment."

  "Don't worry. When Manager Kang gets his paycheck, I'll pay you back with ribeye."

  The two men clinked their last glasses with a laugh. As Jin-woo left the pub, the night wind blew coolly against his back. Between the flashy neon signs of Seoul, the skyscraper of Sungjin Group was visible. Jin-woo cast a cold glance toward it, then hid his body in the darkness.

  Daon Solution Office. The next morning.

  Under the dusty sign of a rundown commercial building on the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do, a man in a neatly pressed black suit appeared. His messy hair was trimmed clean, and his face wore the smile of a 'competent yet subservient corporate slave'.

  Jin-woo opened the door to Daon Solution and shouted loudly.

  "Good morning! I am Kang Tae-yoon, the new manager starting today!"

  As soon as he opened the door, a damp smell of servers and an annoyed shout burst out.

  "No! I told you to finish this security patch by yesterday! Assistant Park, are you kidding me?!"

  Team Leader Park, his face red with rage, was pointing at a monitor as if he were about to smash it. A typical hothead with a constantly serious face. Seeing that scene, Jin-woo raised the corner of his mouth ever so slightly. Compared to the hell of the last six months, this noise sounded like a peaceful lullaby.

  "Hello. I am Manager Kang Tae-yoon, joining the team today."

  At Jin-woo’s greeting, Team Leader Park turned his head, huffing. "Ah, the parachute hire? Sit in that corner over there. Assistant Kim! Give Manager Kang the handover!"

  At Team Leader Park’s call, two female assistants looked up.

  On the left, Assistant Han, looking shy, adjusted her glasses and bowed slightly to Jin-woo.

  On the right, Assistant Lee, known as the office rival, looked Jin-woo up and down and clicked her tongue openly.

  "Team Leader, our company is dying of busyness preparing for the Sungjin Group bid, and you sit this ambiguous middle-aged man as a manager? Look at that tie. Did he come to do sales, not security?"

  Assistant Lee’s sharp voice echoed through the office, but Jin-woo just laughed good-naturedly and put down his bag.

  "I guess since I live a bit of a stylish life, my tie stood out. Please take care of me, Assistant Lee."

  "Manager, my foot. Forget it, just refill the instant coffee mix in the break room. If you want to be treated like a manager, show some skills first."

  Assistant Lee ignored the candy Jin-woo offered and typed roughly on her keyboard. Assistant Han, looking anxious, approached Jin-woo. "Um... Manager Kang, Assistant Lee is just sensitive because of the Sungjin project these days. Let me show you to your seat."

  Jin-woo sat in the worn chair Assistant Han offered and turned on the monitor. Assistant Lee’s nagging continued throughout the work. It was a continuous stream of childish power trips—wrong fonts, insincere code comments. But Jin-woo silently nodded and followed her instructions.

  'Yeah, bark all you want. Right now, that is my perfect camouflage.'

  Avoiding Assistant Lee’s eyes, Jin-woo opened a terminal window in the corner of the screen for a brief moment.

  In less than a second, the status of Sungjin Group's internal server firewall flowed through the text. Behind the mask of the 'incompetent Manager Kang' who was being ignored, Phantom’s hunting spiderweb was silently extending toward the heart of Sungjin.