3. Burnout Syndrome (3)
"How do you plan to repay me?"
Etrella decided to reveal a secret that would instantly increase her wanted level by several tiers if disclosed to a peripheral dimensional being like this.
"Do you know why so many criminals flock to Earth?!"
She tilted her chin as if urging him to continue.
"It's because the greatest oracle in the dimensional system made a prophecy! It foretold that in the most distant peripheral dimension, fragments of the soul of history's worst criminal are scattered!"
A secret most Earthlings had no clue about.
"And I have the transcript of that prophecy!"
Etrella hurriedly added.
"It contains detailed hints about the location where the soul is hidden! If I sell this, bounty hunters will line up for it! If you promise to spare me, I'll give it to you…"
"And what if I take it and sell it to someone else? The Committee would put me on the wanted list too, with a bounty far higher than yours."
"…!"
Her last-ditch attempt to lie her way out of the situation failed.
"Thanks for the nonsense."
"?!"
At that moment, Etrella froze, staring at Minjun. Her gaze fixed on his left hand.
That hand, which had transformed into something like shriveled tree bark when black magic was cast, had returned to normal in an instant.
"This is impossible!"
In her understanding, no human could pull off such a feat. The vitality sacrificed to black magic was never restored. This was a law as immutable as the expansion of dimensions and the ceaseless birth of new worlds.
Yet, here was someone who knew forbidden knowledge and defied the chains of black magic.
It was only then that Etrella realized he wasn't an ordinary Earthling.
"This shouldn't be possible. You…"
Despair seeped into her gaze.
"What kind of being are you?"
Minjun muttered indifferently, "I don't know either."
Etrella instinctively looked up.
Boom!
The shadowy monster swung its fist down like a hammer.
The world she perceived fractured with a sharp crack and dissolved into darkness.
Minjun stood over the corpse of the alien, its head crushed into a bloody pulp.
As he had assured, No Kyung-goo hadn't needed to smash in the old woman's skull. Minjun had taken care of that himself.
'Ah, this is tiresome.'
The weariness and burnout that had vanished while he was working surged back up his throat as soon as the mission was over. How many alien skulls had he crushed with his own hands on Earth? He could check the statistics, but he didn't have the motivation.
'The hostage…'
Though riddled with dozens of holes, the hostage was still alive.
The faintly telekinetic man had likely been a perfect target for Etrella's plan. She had used similar tactics before, robbing banks by controlling unsuspecting ability users with her tentacles to commit robberies on her behalf.
'Mediocre powers proved to be a liability.'
Targeting weak ability users was necessary because stronger ones couldn't be controlled. They had to be ability users because, apart from increasing the success rate, Etrella could also drain their energy before discarding them. Once abandoned, the target would be killed on-site as a criminal, erasing all evidence.
But eventually, her trail had been caught.
'If I had the traits of the Odense, I could probably come up with a hundred better ways than this. To think she used mind control and power absorption just to rob banks.'
For a moment, he indulged in his imagination.
'Why stop at banks? She could have latched onto the vault keeper of a chaebol family… Oh, wait. Someone like her couldn't penetrate that level of security.'
The private vaults of conglomerates were incomparable to ordinary banks.
'Exchanging Earth's currency for Dalant at illegal brokers would incur a 70% fee. After that, robbing banks would be the only viable way to gather enough money for amnesty.'
Criminals only needed large sums of money for one reason: to buy their amnesty by offering Dalant, the universal currency of the dimensional system, to the court.
'It's enviable that her crimes could be pardoned with just a few bank heists.'
Even though she was his victim, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy when comparing her situation to his own.
As the fog cleared, the police and vigilantes who had been keeping civilians at bay approached the bank.
"Is it over?" asked Lieutenant Park Jung-pal.
"It's over. Take care of the cleanup," Minjun replied, nodding.
Amidst the vigilantes entering the bank, an excited voice shouted, "Wow, this is insane! Look at this! Someone take a picture of this freaky alien!"
Jung-pal barked, "If those photos end up online, you all know the drill! Everyone's fired!"
But everyone, including Jung-pal and those rowdy youngsters, knew the grotesque images of the alien would flood the internet within an hour.
"The hostage is alive, at least."
Jung-pal surveyed the scene and seemed to grasp the situation immediately. The old woman he thought was the hostage was the alien criminal, and the young man he thought was the perpetrator was the real hostage.
"It's a relief. I was worried the culprit might be too young again. At least the actual criminal wasn't killed this time."
"What does age have to do with anything? A crime is a crime."
"Even so, I'd prefer not to see a kid with a hole in his forehead being carried out. It'd mess with my dreams."
"…"
Picking up on the rebuke in the silence, he added defensively, "I've just seen too many young people die lately."
"I've told you before, you won't last in this job with that soft heart of yours."
Jung-pal snorted in an orcish manner and laughed. Minjun chuckled faintly in response.
As he turned to leave, he paused as if remembering something. "Oh, right. Not the forehead, but there are a few holes elsewhere on the body."
"?"
"Let's grab a drink soon."
"Sure. Take care."
Leaving the police behind, Minjun walked away.
A few steps later, a notification pinged.
Ding!
'Limited Partnership Jenkinson Father & Sons Co._National Administrative Services Privatization Division (Korean Immigration Office)' has deposited ₩223,540,000 into your account.
As always, the payment was swift. Minjun knew this was a privilege he enjoyed.
Most contracted agents only received compensation after on-site verification and internal reviews. But as soon as Minjun sent a simple "completed" text, the Immigration Office promptly wired the bounty. The amount was also more generous compared to others.
This was a testament to Minjun's reputation as an elite among elites, the top performer in the office. Everyone around him knew he was the best agent.
"Where to?" the taxi driver asked.
Minjun gave a short reply, and the car started moving. Staring blankly out the window, he waited for the next call.
Unlike the Korean Immigration Office, the other side's response was bound to take longer. Minjun understood that.
After a while, another notification arrived.
This time, it wasn't his old 2G phone but inside his head.
Beep!
Alien text materialized in the air, visible only to him.
○ Inmate Information
Inmate ID: Asif-666Dispatching Agency: Interdimensional Intelligence Redistribution CommitteeDepartment: Early Stabilization Taskforce for Group ImmigrationAssigned Location: Earth (Dimension #22-189, Extreme Outskirts Level 4)Employment Status: Indirect Penal Labor under Sentencing for Rehabilitative Correction
Note: Partial memory erasure has been applied to the inmate.
The information was far more detailed than what the doctor had seen during today's consultation.
"…"
Most people around Minjun only knew of his official status as an independent agent.
An untouchable number one. A legendary agent with a 99% success rate on his missions.
However, there is one thing most of the people around him do not know.
Alias (Name/Race): Ye Minjun/Human
Ye Minjun is an alien.
A long time ago, he committed a crime (a strange one), but unlike Etrella, he wasn't executed immediately. He was captured and sentenced to labor reform.
Before his capture, the philosophy of the intelligent beings in the place he lived was that the duty of a sentient being was to freely pursue self-actualization and happiness, and labor for compensation was looked down upon. Socially essential but undesirable labor was temporarily assigned to criminals whose memories were erased. In other words, employment was confinement, and resignation was liberation.
The decision to dispatch him to a remote place like Earth was rooted in this complex social background.
The committee that indirectly employed him sent him to the periphery. Minjun infiltrated the chaotic primitive dimension, concealing his true identity, and carried out missions, earning talents for every task completed.
○ Account Information (Inmate ID: Asif-666)
"Committee" has deposited 200 talents into the inmate account.
One of the few advantages of working under an alias was that even for the same job, you received compensation from both sides.
Today, Minjun earned 200 talents from the Committee and about 200 million Earth currency from the immigration department for capturing a criminal of another race.
And right after the deposit was completed.
Ding!
Coincidentally, the account information was updated again.
Automatic Transfer Notification: "Tax Collection Command" has withdrawn 2,000 talents from the inmate account. (Inmate's regular tax payment)
200 talents were deposited, and at the same time, 2,000 talents were withdrawn.
And the current balance is:
Current account balance: 21,523 talents.
Caution: When talents in the account turn negative (-), statutory interest will be imposed, and in cases of excessive arrears, immediate execution may be carried out.
The severance pay (immediate release bail) for Inmate ID: Asif-666 is 5,124,990 talents.
Here, the meaning of severance pay is different from Earth. It's not money you receive when you retire; it's money you have to pay to retire.
Minjun, with only 20,000 talents in hand, needed a whopping 5 million talents to escape from this prison without bars and break free from the punitive employment status.
The bail for Etrella, whom he killed, was probably in the tens of thousands of talents.
The reason he stole Earth currency and exchanged it for talents, then struggled to pay the bail before being detained, was that once the prison life began, the difficulty of earning talents would become hellish.
In a word, Etrella was struggling so that she wouldn't end up in Minjun's position.
The legal ways an inmate can acquire talents and the range of rewards are as follows:
A. Capture/kill wanted criminals: 10% of the posted bounty paid in talents.
B. Perform special missions requested by agencies: Rewards vary per mission. See details below.
Propose a solution to the chronic food issue in Dimension #31-490: 40,000 talents
Identify and report the secret base location of the dimension pirate group led by the wanted Petchinog: 45,500 talents
Develop a vaccine and cure for the cross-dimensional plague "Seger Papino Virus," which reoccurs every 260 years: 47,700 talents
Identify the mechanism by which certain species release pheromones to attract members of other species: 50,000 talents
...
Once an inmate begins their sentence, they can no longer steal like Etrella. They are always under surveillance due to the prisoner stamp branded on their soul.
Minjun had mostly been capturing criminals to gather talents so far, but at this rate, resignation and release were still distant dreams.
So now, he was turning his attention to money-making methods that he had previously dismissed as unrealistic.
...
Scientifically prove the origin of ghosts: 520,000 talents
Discover and commercialize a way to perfectly control the abilities of prophetic individuals: 530,000 talents
Secure and provide a perfect DNA sample of the following extinct species (reported as extinct long ago):
(1) Demonic Goblin (2) Metal Moss Type 7 (3) Intergalactic Floating Slime, golden variety
: 580,000 talents per species
Witness and report on the events occurring inside Dimension #77-102, which has entered self-isolation: 610,000 talents
...
The list continued down.
A list Minjun once never even glanced at, but now he no longer felt like he could hold on much longer. Earth was the seventh dimension he had been dispatched to. Even after traversing seven worlds, there was still no sign of his sentence ending.
Minjun was tired, and bored.
Swish!
As he transmitted his will, the list sped down.
His eyes stopped at the very last item on the mission list.
...
Perfectly decode the constituent materials of the soul: 3.8 million talents
Investigate the driving force behind the endless expansion of the dimensional realms and the creation of countless worlds: 4 million talents
(Classified) Acquire and submit the soul fragment of inmate ID 'Asif-1': 7 million talents
*** Last page of the list ***
**** For a better tomorrow, the Correctional Bureau will guide you to a hopeful sentence. ****
He focused on the final 444th item.
It was enough compensation to cover his severance pay in one go.
Minjun made a firm resolve. In this seventh world, Earth, he would surely succeed in resignation.
"...This time, I will definitely quit. I'll throw in the towel!"
Apparently, the taxi driver overheard his muttering.
"Sounds like work is tough? But in this day and age... I don't know what kind of work you're doing, but it might be better to stick with it."
Though it was an insensitive comment, Minjun didn't brush it off. He replied seriously, as if reaffirming his own resolve.
"No, I'll definitely quit soon... I've been at this company for far too long."
When Minjun first started his prison life, there was something he had overlooked.
He never imagined that this forced employment would last for over 800 years.