It was past two in the afternoon when Minjae opened his eyes.
The bakery had already turned out its second batch of dough, and in his real-world sink sat a lone instant noodle cup. He looked from one to the other, then drank some water first.
‘Where’s Mora?’
[She has finished the morning’s business. She has also watered the plants.]
‘She beat her big sister, then.’
[Water overflowed from the saucers. I will reserve judgment.]
Minjae laughed and drew back the curtains.
A blue suitcase stood beneath the wall across the way.
The moment he saw the yellow cord tied to its handle, he was wide awake. That same cord had been on the belongings out in the street the day he was struck by lightning.
Lee Sujin was crouched beside the suitcase, pressing down on its split zipper. The cardboard box at her feet was new, but the pots and clothes inside were the same.
Minjae picked up his wallet and went downstairs.
The alley smelled of damp walls. Sujin was trying to stand the suitcase upright when she saw him and stopped.
“Hello.”
“You’re still here?”
He regretted it as soon as he asked. Sujin ran her fingers once over the handle.
“I came to get my things today. I’m staying with a friend for a few days.”
One of the wheels wouldn’t turn. Minjae took the suitcase handle from her.
“I’ll carry it to the main road.”
“It’s heavy.”
“You’re talking to a man who’s moved house carrying a computer.”
Sujin smiled briefly.
She held the plastic document sleeve tucked against her side more tightly than the suitcase. A corner of a lease showed through the clear plastic.
Before they reached the main road, her phone rang. Sujin checked the screen but didn’t answer. A text arrived a moment later.
The smile that had just appeared vanished.
“Your landlord?”
Sujin nodded.
“He says I owe him storage fees, too. For leaving my things in his building’s hallway.”
Minjae set the suitcase down.
“What about your deposit?”
“The man I signed with says he was only acting as an agent. The landlord says he never received any money from him.”
“But you have the account you transferred it to.”
“I submitted that, too. And the lease. But they both keep saying they have nothing to do with each other…”
A bus stopped across the main road. People got off, and someone walked around Sujin’s suitcase.
“How much was it?”
“Seventy-two million won.”
Minjae’s grip tightened.
“Seven years of savings. I put in everything I had in my account.”
Sujin was good at explaining. Like someone who had repeated the same story many times, she knew where the questions would come. She even turned the open end of the sleeve toward Minjae so she could show him the lease more easily.
He hadn’t even asked.
“Are you going to work today, too?”
“Yes. I’m on the late shift, so it’s all right.”
She pulled the extra bag holding her restaurant uniform higher onto her shoulder.
A taxi arrived. Minjae loaded her things into the trunk. Sujin bowed her thanks. Her arm never loosened around the lease.
Even after the taxi left, he stood by the road.
A few days ago, he had been busy counting the days until his own rent was due. The wish to help had always come with the same calculation.
What could I possibly do?
Now he didn’t need to make that calculation.
‘System.’
[I am listening.]
‘The money she lost. Find out where it went.’
Thin outlines of the buildings overlapped in his mind.
He wasn’t seeing through walls. The relationships between addresses and contracts, money and people unfolded across borrowed space. A line extended from the room where Sujin had lived.
[I have traced the full amount paid.]
‘All of it?’
[It was divided among property purchases, assets held in family members’ names, refunds on other contracts, and personal spending.]
‘So when he says he never received it.’
[That is a lie.]
Minjae looked up at the building.
Laundry swayed in a third-floor window. Plastic flowerpots sat on the railing. A notice on the entrance asked residents to observe the recycling collection schedule.
‘Show me from the beginning.’
***
As soon as Minjae shut the door to his studio, he sat down.
On his laptop, Mora was moving the remaining bread into small baskets. He left the screen as it was and looked at the empty space before him.
A lease surfaced in his mind. It was the document Sujin had been holding.
Another lease soon appeared over it.
The same room, the same term. A different deposit.
‘What’s this?’
[A falsified lease for submission to a financial institution. The deposit was reduced and the monthly rent increased to understate the landlord’s repayment obligation.]
‘Did Sujin sign it?’
[Her existing signature was copied over.]
The two signatures overlapped. Even the tiny tremor at the end of a stroke was identical.
Beneath them came an exchange between the landlord, Jang Manseok, and the broker, Ahn Byeongcheol.
How much do we keep on this one?
Collect seventy-two million first. I’ll put it down as forty-five million.
What if it causes trouble later?
There’s nothing in writing saying you’re my agent. What trouble?
Minjae sat forward.
‘They left this lying around?’
[This conversation was deleted.]
‘Both of them?’
[They deleted it from the chat room and their devices. Separate copies were also destroyed.]
Timestamps and records appeared beside the sentences. Traces from the device that had received the messages, documents drawn up afterward, and transactions from the same day fit together. After the deleted conversation returned, it was followed by the phone call ordering its deletion.
Minjae rubbed his lips once.
This wasn’t a plausible reconstruction of missing pieces. The act of deletion itself lay beside Jang Manseok’s words.
‘Is this the only lease like this?’
The space expanded.
The line stretching from one room reached the next building. It ran beyond the alley. Different landlords’ names were grouped beneath one family and a handful of acquaintances.
The same broker.
The same method of altering leases.
The same answers, passing responsibility back and forth whenever someone demanded a refund.
[There are currently nineteen affected contracts. Unreturned deposits total one billion three hundred seventy-six million won.]
Beneath the figure, individual lives appeared.
A refrigerator sold secondhand at two in the morning. A canceled certification exam registration. An installment savings account closed the day after an overdue payment notice arrived.
Minjae stopped at a photograph of a birthday cake on a moving box.
A child was blowing out the candles. Behind the child lay a stack of bedding still wrapped in plastic. On the box beneath the cake, someone had written Winter Clothes in black marker.
‘This family, too?’
[They moved to a smaller room after failing to recover their deposit. Some of their belongings remain in an acquaintance’s storage space.]
When he closed the photograph, the couple’s repayment requests appeared. The dates advanced a month at a time. The messages were long at first, then grew shorter.
Could you please send even a hundred thousand won for now?
Jang Manseok had not replied.
Minjae pulled his notebook toward him. He opened it to the page after yesterday’s drawing of the lights in his in-game shop.
On it, he wrote Jang Manseok.
The pen tip dug slightly into the paper.
***
Jang Manseok turned his massage chair up one level.
On the screen, a presenter explained the importance of assets that generated cash flow. He nodded as he ate a handful of nuts.
Sound advice.
Salaried workers earned money. People like him bought the places money flowed into.
His phone rang. Ahn Byeongcheol.
“What?”
“Lee Sujin contacted me again.”
“And?”
“She says she has nowhere to live right now…”
“Why tell me? You signed the lease.”
Ahn Byeongcheol fell silent.
Jang Manseok set down the container of nuts.
“Did I say I’d guarantee money paid into your account?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then we’re done.”
He rose from the chair and went to his study. Through the window, he could see the roof of one of his buildings. Only three were in his own name. He had scattered the rest among his wife, his brother-in-law, and an acquaintance he had dealt with for years.
He had long since paid for precautions against trouble, too.
“You threw out your old laptop, right?”
“I did.”
“The accounting people were concerned.”
“You can’t do business if you worry about everything.”
Jang Manseok closed the study door and opened the drawer beneath the bookcase.
Inside was a laptop wrapped in black cloth. Its communication functions had been disabled, and it hadn’t had a cable connected in years.
Some records could be entrusted to others, and some could not. Ahn Byeongcheol was no exception. You never knew whom a man would sell out first once he was cornered.
“You deleted everything on your end?”
“Yes. They confirmed it can’t be recovered. The security firm checked it under their highest-tier service.”
“The one that uses expensive artificial intelligence?”
“They assigned dedicated staff, too. They say there’s nothing left.”
“Worth the money, then.”
Jang Manseok closed the drawer.
There were no troublesome papers. The remaining records were in his hands. All the tenants had to cling to were contracts bearing different names.
He opened his schedule.
Tomorrow, one new lease and one overdue household to clear out.
Golf practice in the afternoon.
“What about the person coming in tomorrow?”
“A nursing assistant. Looking for a place to live with her mother. Seventy million for the deposit, partly borrowed.”
“Collect it when the loan comes through. Give her time, she’ll spend it somewhere else.”
Jang Manseok hung up and took out some sparkling water.
It went cool down his throat.
***
[I have located the original ledger on an isolated device.]
A laptop wrapped in black cloth flashed through Minjae’s mind.
‘Is it on?’
[No.]
‘And it’s not connected to anything?’
[I read its stored state through field access.]
The ledger unfolded from the closed laptop.
It was exactly as Jang Manseok had last saved it. Beside the names were the amounts received and the amounts used to cover other payments. Where figures differed from the official accounting records, the destination of the difference was also noted.
A short memo followed Sujin’s name.
No family support. Cannot hold out long.
Minjae read the sentence twice.
Similar remarks appeared beside other names.
Parents live outside the city.
Litigation costs a heavy burden.
Difficult to move because of child.
Jang Manseok hadn’t just calculated how much money he could take. He had recorded how long the people he took it from could keep fighting.
Minjae looked down at the name in his notebook.
‘And the security firm didn’t see this.’
[They performed excellently within the scope of their commission. Remaining external records were made difficult to locate, and the device was isolated from communications networks.]
‘So he thought he was safe.’
[He is currently drinking sparkling water and checking the weather at the golf course.]
Minjae gave a short laugh.
Dedicated staff and expensive commercial AI had shut the door for him. Jang Manseok was resting comfortably inside.
Before Minjae lay the ledger from the closed drawer.
‘Start by stopping tomorrow’s money from coming in. We don’t need another victim.’
[I have identified a safe alternative among the other properties the prospective tenant was considering. I will convey the actual terms so she can compare them herself.]
‘And make sure the existing victims don’t get hurt any further or thrown out.’
[A crew is scheduled to remove belongings tomorrow at two in the afternoon. I will arrange protection at the site.]
Minjae set down his pen.
Three words were written in the notebook.
Money. Records. People.
If he only released the records, people would be angry. Jang Manseok would claim he’d been wronged, and Sujin might have to take out her lease and explain her circumstances yet again.
He didn’t want an ending where all that noise was made and the money still didn’t come back.
‘Does he have enough to pay them back?’
[More than enough. I have mapped the current ownership of the concealed assets and distinguished all movements of the victims’ funds.]
‘Are all the people who lent him their names in on it?’
The relationship chart unfolded again.
Those who had knowingly shared the profits of fraud separated from those who had merely lent their names to hide assets. A repairman who had only done work commissioned by Jang Manseok dropped out of the marked group.
‘Leave anyone who isn’t involved alone.’
[They have been excluded.]
‘What about money he can move and people who’ll help him?’
New lines appeared.
His brother-in-law’s account. Funds sent overseas. A retired public official who had promised to make a call if a case was filed. There were even properties he had placed with agents for a quick sale.
At the end of each line lay the records needed to stop it.
Minjae opened his empty hand once.
Before, he wouldn’t even have known what he needed to learn first to do something like this. Now he could decide on a goal. He had someone who would carry it through with him.
‘All right. Let’s do this.’
[Objective confirmed.]
‘Don’t let it end with a news story. Keep going until they get their money back and he can’t do this again.’
[I will prepare for restitution, accountability for those involved, and prevention of flight.]
‘I want Jang Manseok to understand why he’s losing it all.’
[He kept a remarkably detailed ledger. His own records should assist with the explanation.]
Minjae liked that answer.
***
Toward evening, Jang Manseok stopped by the real estate office.
The prospective tenant had arrived early. She said she wanted to show her mother the place before signing tomorrow.
Her mother rested her cane beside her chair.
“It’s an easy place to get around.”
Jang Manseok smiled.
“Only a few steps, too. I always make a point of checking these things.”
The daughter took a sheet of questions from her bag. Ahn Byeongcheol set down glasses of water and began explaining. Beside him, Jang Manseok nodded at the appropriate moments.
That was when the daughter’s phone rang.
She stepped outside for a brief call, then returned.
“I’m sorry, but could I look around a little more before deciding on the lease?”
Ahn Byeongcheol’s hand stopped.
“Is there a problem?”
“That place I looked at near the hospital. They called to say the terms had changed. It’s also close to where my mother goes for treatment, so I’d like to see it.”
“We have other people waiting for this place, too.”
Jang Manseok kept smiling.
“We agreed you’d look today and sign tomorrow. You might regret missing out.”
The mother pressed her daughter’s hand.
The daughter hesitated briefly, then folded her list of questions.
“Yes. Still, I’ll look before I decide.”
The door closed.
Through the glass, Jang Manseok watched the two women hail a taxi. Then he clicked his tongue.
“All that fuss over a seventy-million-won place.”
Ahn Byeongcheol watched his expression.
“I’ll find someone else.”
“Go down to sixty-five million. As long as we get it this week.”
To him, it was only one empty room.
Jang Manseok checked again on the household whose belongings were to be removed tomorrow.
“The woman on the third floor’s still there?”
“Yes. She’s asking us to wait until she finds somewhere to go.”
“We gave her a date. Tomorrow, get her things out first. Listen to their sob stories and they start taking it for granted.”
Ahn Byeongcheol nodded.
***
Minjae returned with two rolls of gimbap.
As he set down the plastic bag, a report arrived.
[The prospective tenant has inspected the alternative property. After consulting her mother, she chose it. No advance payment was lost.]
‘Good.’
Minjae put a piece of gimbap in his mouth.
On the laptop, the harbor’s evening bell rang. Customers gathered beneath the bakery’s eaves to shelter from the rain. Mora opened the door a little wider but still told them to wipe their wet shoes on the mat.
There was no rain in the real-world sky.
Minjae looked out the window. The place where Sujin’s suitcase had stood was empty.
Selling the game would bring in money. With that money, he could have hired people, brought in lawyers, and helped the victims.
It was a familiar sequence, easy to explain.
‘I could’ve made money first and then done this.’
[That was a viable sequence.]
‘But tomorrow someone else’s things get put out on the street.’
[If Jang Manseok’s plans proceed, yes.]
Minjae picked up the remaining gimbap.
“I don’t like that order.”
Preparations were already moving ahead, regardless of how quickly he ate.
Evidence was linked to its originals. Claims from people who said they didn’t know each other were placed beside transactions made at the same time. Assets in which the victims’ money lay concealed in another form were attached to the records needed for recovery.
What the people arriving at the site tomorrow needed to check, and which records they needed to receive first to avoid being swayed by Jang Manseok’s words, were also set out.
Minjae looked down on it all in his mind.
Only the bakery showed on his laptop.
‘What about anyone knowing we did it?’
[No trace of the access source remains. Only the records’ contents and originals will be delivered.]
‘Make sure no one demands a fee from the victims for helping, either.’
[I will also monitor attempts to approach them under that pretext.]
Minjae folded the empty wrapper.
All that mattered was Sujin getting her money back in her own name. Without having to trust someone else’s goodwill and hold out her papers again.
He took out a shirt for tomorrow. It was badly creased. After trying to smooth it with wet hands, he simply hung it in the bathroom.
[Do you intend to visit the site?]
‘I’ll watch from across the street. Until I see where everyone goes.’
[The café opposite opens at nine in the morning. It has seats with a view of the site.]
‘Good.’
Minjae opened his notebook.
Beneath tomorrow’s date, he wrote a line.
Two in the afternoon. Serim Villa.
The time Jang Manseok had set for removing his tenant’s belongings.
‘Make sure he can’t move the money before then. And have people who’ll stand with the victims get to the site first.’
[I will make the preparations.]
‘Release it after Jang Manseok says it himself. That he never received the money.’
[I will time it immediately after that statement.]
Minjae capped his pen.
Now, when he saw belongings set down beside the road, he knew what to do first.
Tomorrow, he wasn’t going there to carry a suitcase.
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