Chapter 19: City of Sin (1)

The earliest memory Joseph could recall was the feel of a damp, musty-smelling mattress.

One of a row of beds, partitioned like chicken coops, he always slept soundly in his father’s firm embrace.

It was by no means a comfortable environment, but the breathing and heartbeat of an adult he could rely on more than anything in the world provided young Joseph with a warm sense of security.

A partition away, in an equally cramped bed space, he could see his mother and younger sister, Yoanna, sleeping, sharing each other’s warmth.

That was the image of ‘home’ Joseph remembered.

It was the most common form of communal living for most back-alley residents.

A living space where a dozen or so people were crammed like luggage, sleeping in a small room divided by partitions no better than iron bars.

A breeding ground for poverty where a single family couldn’t even fully occupy a single pyeong of space.
(TL: Pyeong is a Korean unit of area, approx. 3.3 square meters.)

But strangely, Joseph’s memories of that time weren’t entirely dark.

Though it wasn’t an affluent life, his mother and father were there.

They always cherished young Joseph and Yoanna, somehow ensuring the siblings never went hungry.

He felt unequivocal love amidst the lacking environment, and that alone made the world bearable.

At least, until then.

Then, one day.

His parents, who had left for work early in the morning as usual, did not return that night.

Nor the next day, nor the day after that.

He still didn’t know if they hadn’t returned because they were exhausted by reality, or if an unfortunate accident had made it impossible for them to come back.

“……….”

All that remained in Joseph’s world now was his young sister.

As he blankly changed his sister’s clothes in place of his vanished parents, words he had heard long ago echoed in his ears.

‘Joseph, now that you’re the older brother, you must always protect your younger sister. It’s a promise between men. Understood?’

Gently patting his young sister’s back as she whimpered and sniffled from hunger, Joseph accepted the weight of life placed upon his shoulders from that day on.

He was no longer a child.

He had become this little girl’s sole protector, the head of the family.

From that day forward, Joseph took to the streets.

He couldn’t let Yoanna starve.

He had to do something, anything.

“Hey, stop right there-!!”

“Tch!”

Clumsy pickpocketing, petty theft for survival to stave off hunger.

His amateurish skills were often quickly exposed, and when caught, he couldn’t escape the beatings from adults.

On such days, he would return home with his whole body aching.

And the moment he met the round eyes of his little sister waiting for him on the bed, the day’s hardships and pain would somehow vanish like a mirage.

“Oppa-“

The responsibility of protecting that small child.

That was the sole reason Joseph lived.

“Yoanna, you don’t have to worry about anything. Okay?”

As he grew a bit older and stronger, Joseph started doing mercenary work.

In truth, it was closer to being an errand boy for miscellaneous tasks, but thanks to his innate perceptiveness and dexterity, he could earn enough for basic living expenses.

Joseph even saved that money to send Yoanna to school.

His younger sister, unlike him, was very smart.

“Yoanna’s grades are excellent again this semester. With a little more effort, she’ll be eligible for a scholarship.”

He believed that if she received a proper education, she, at least, would one day escape these dreadful back-alleys and live in a brighter world.

That was the only hope Joseph clung to amidst his harsh reality.

But misfortune arrived without any warning.

Just like when his parents had vanished in an instant during his childhood.

One morning, Yoanna couldn’t get out of bed.

“O… Oppa… My, my legs…..”

Just the night before, his sister had been her usual self.

But now, she clutched her legs, stiff as wooden logs, her eyes welling with tears.

At the hospital he rushed her to, they diagnosed her with ‘idiopathic muscular atrophy.’

There was no cure, they said.

The nervous system itself was dying, so even if she got cybernetic limbs, she would still be unable to move.

Hearing that, Joseph felt as if his world was collapsing.

Once she couldn’t move her body, Yoanna’s health deteriorated rapidly.

What would happen if a young child who couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone was left unattended?

Thus, Joseph quit his mercenary work and devoted himself to nursing his sister.

He couldn’t afford a caregiver.

However, when he, the sole breadwinner, stopped working, the money they had saved, of course, vanished in an instant.

Soon, they couldn’t even afford proper meals, reduced to surviving on a single bag of cheap calorie crackers that only provided essential nutrients.

Even that was far from enough.

“Oppa, aren’t you eating?”

“Huh? Ah… I ate outside earlier! Don’t worry.”

He tried to put on a brave face in front of his sister, but in truth, he had been starving all day.

There was only enough food left to last three days, even with rationing.

Despite scrimping and saving to feed her, watching his sister’s face grow thinner and paler, Joseph sank into deep sorrow.

One day, as he was losing hope, he found a poster on an old wall near their lodging.

[O ye lost, come to the ‘One Heart Association.’ Our Leader will heal all your suffering!]

It was a typical proselytizing poster for a cult, something he would usually ignore.

But on that particular day, Joseph couldn’t tear his eyes away from those words.

Was it because he had been starving for too long?

Or was it because he was too desperate?

When he went to the address written on the poster, people from the ‘One Heart Association’ happened to be distributing calorie crackers as free meals.

Joseph, as if possessed, took one and devoured it greedily.

Their sermon buzzed in his ears.

“God loves you all!”

Joseph approached a pastor with a protruding belly who was delivering a fervent sermon.

And he asked cautiously.

“Excuse me, my sister is sick. Could you… possibly take care of my sister here?”

The pastor initially frowned.

“Do you think this is some kind of nursing home?”

He was about to retort bluntly, but then he noticed Joseph’s sturdy build and impression, realizing the man wasn’t an ordinary pauper, and his expression changed.

“Ahem, are you perhaps a former mercenary?”

“Hoho, then welcome! Our church was in need of a brother like you, who knows how to use his strength.”

Thus, in exchange for the church facility taking care of his sister, the pastor demanded ‘service for the church’ from Joseph.

At first, it was just simple labor like facility repairs or transporting goods.

Volunteer work or manual labor.

Joseph had done countless such jobs during his back-alley mercenary days, so he did as he was told without much thought.

He was simply grateful that he could work again, thanks to the food distributed by the church and the ‘sisters’ who took care of Yoanna in his stead.

Then one day, the man called the Leader personally sought out Joseph.

He praised Joseph’s faith and, using a miracle as bait, demanded deeper loyalty.

“Your earnestness has reached the heavens. I will specially offer a miraculous healing prayer for your sister. But miracles require greater faith and devotion… How about taking on a more faithful task for the order?”

From that day on, the Leader assigned Joseph the role of an ‘enforcer.’

Threatening and chasing away believers who came asking for their donations back.

Assaulting and intimidating those who harbored suspicions about the Leader to suppress rumors.

Joseph was plagued by doubts about whether this was right, but he endured it because he had nowhere else to go if he left the church.

And above all, when he met his sister again… the story she told him gave him hope.

“Oppa, my body hurts less today. I feel like my legs are moving a little too! It must be thanks to the Leader’s prayers!”

Did miracles truly exist?

His doubts melted away like snow at the sight of his sister’s bright smile, blooming again after several years.

From then on, he truly dedicated himself to performing the role of a ‘believer.’

Sometimes, he even genuinely prayed to God.

‘Please, save our siblings.’

Now, under the pretext of ‘protecting the brothers and sisters of faith,’ Joseph was mobilized in disputes over interests with other organizations.

He even engaged in turf wars against gangs to extort protection money from businesses.

It was packaged as church work, but in reality, it was no different from what those gangsters did.

But Joseph rationalized it all as being for his sister, and for the good brothers and sisters of faith.

As the church’s influence grew, friction with surrounding gangs intensified.

The Leader demanded more power from Joseph, and Joseph, following orders, began to undergo combat implant surgeries.

The pain of remodeling his body was beyond imagination, but he endured it all, thinking of Yoanna.

One day, a cyberdoc from outside the church, whom he had known for a while, was horrified to see Joseph.

“You… Are you crazy? That level of modification already surpasses that of most soldiers. Those guys at least get proper maintenance, but you… You’ll really die if you keep this up. I’m not kidding.”

It was a serious warning, but Joseph no longer cared.

If his only sister could smile again, if she could stand on her own two feet, if she could come and hug him like that…

He could bear any price.

“………….”

Around that time, Joseph began to be assigned to the cult’s dirtiest work.

Deeds so vile he didn’t even want to speak of them.

His doubts reached their peak, but he had already come too far.

The bridge back had long since collapsed.

The only thing that kept him going was his family.

The occasional permitted visits, his sister’s bright smile directed at him, was his only hope.

“Oppa!”

“Have you been well?”

“Yes! The sisters here take really good care of me.”

That single phrase was a comfort Joseph wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

That’s why he could endure no matter how dirty the things he saw.

One day, Joseph accidentally discovered a large quantity of drugs in a secret safe house used by the Leader.

The Leader, realizing Joseph had found the ‘goods,’ stammered and tried to cover it up, but even then, Joseph deliberately turned a blind eye.

It was, again, for Yoanna.

His sister’s condition seemed to be gradually improving; he had to hold on, seeing only that.

However-

One day, Yoanna, whom he met in the visitation room, was unusually flushed.

She seemed much brighter and more energetic than usual.

“Oppa!”

“My Yoanna, you seem extra energetic today. Are you that happy to see your oppa?”

“Yes! And… when they said you’re coming, oppa, the sisters give me medicine that makes me feel good!”

“…What?”

In an instant, Joseph’s mind went blank.

Medicine?

What medicine?

“When I take this, it doesn’t hurt at all, and I feel good. They gave it to me to take when I miss you, oppa.”

Yoanna smiled brightly and showed him a small pill.

It was the drug Joseph had discovered before.

They hadn’t been treating her.

They had merely been making her temporarily forget the pain with drugs, making her feel good for a short while.

His sister hadn’t been getting better; she had just been high on drugs, grinning inanely.

At that moment, Joseph’s world shattered.

In the end, nothing had changed.

There had been no hope from the beginning.

Yoanna was just slowly dying.

He thought he had done his best, that he had protected his sister.

‘But… what on earth was I doing all this for….’

All those filthy deeds, even at the cost of his own life.

Suddenly, something irreparable seemed to snap inside Joseph’s head.

The moment his pillar of support in life vanished, the horrifying side effects of his excessive cybernetic modifications began.

Uncontrollable aggressive impulses: Cybernetic Rage.

“…….”

When he came to his senses, Joseph was standing alone in the middle of the chapel.

‘Why am I here….?’

The rank, disgusting smell of blood assailed his nostrils, and a horrific scene of carnage unfolded before his eyes.

Gruesomely murdered corpses littered the chapel floor.

And at the center of it all, was his own blood-soaked figure.

His hands were still stained with warm flesh and bone fragments.

‘No way, all this… Did I do all this….?’

At that moment, Joseph felt a violent, gut-wrenching wave of nausea.

Fragments of the madness that had controlled him until moments ago began to surface in his dazed mind.

Hatred for the Leader who had deceived him.

The memory of that rage exploding, destroying everything around him.

It was definitely revenge at first.

But that alone didn’t explain it.

What he had done had completely crossed the line.

The terrified face of a middle-aged woman, trembling beside the Leader, begging for mercy.

An old man, hiding under a chair, sobbing, unable to escape in time.

Ordinary, pitiful people who, like him, had been deceived by the Leader’s lies out of desperation and prayed earnestly to God for salvation.

They must have been someone’s precious parents, someone’s beloved children.

They might have been someone’s only brother, or perhaps sister.

And yet, he had killed all those people.

With his own two hands….

‘No…..’

The worst scene, one he didn’t want to recall, surfaced.

A small child, looking no older than ten, crying out for their mother amidst the chaos.

Even before that child, the muzzle of the gun in his hand had mercilessly spat fire.

Yes, it was a side effect of cybernetic addiction.

The nervous system connected to the combat support devices became damaged with use, eventually becoming uncontrollable, and when he was engulfed in madness, he was no longer himself.

Control was impossible.

But that didn’t change the fact that he had massacred countless innocent people.

There was no excuse.

This was Joseph’s own doing.

Realizing there was no turning back, he suddenly looked down at his own hands.

Blood, sticky and beginning to dry.

The hands of this madman, which had taken so many lives.

With hands like these… he might even brutally kill his beloved sister Yoanna someday.

A chilling fear crept up his spine.

The realization that he had stepped into a hell from which he could not return struck him with full force.

His head throbbed as if it would break, and his heart pounded like it would burst.

He felt like he was going insane.

“Ah, ahh…..”

Only meaningless groans escaped his throat.

Joseph completely collapsed onto the chapel floor, covered in blood and flesh.

It was at that very moment.

Someone’s voice gently resonated through the chapel.

“Are you regretting it?”

Joseph’s eyes, drained of strength, turned towards the source of the sound.

An unfamiliar woman was standing there, as if she had appeared out of nowhere.

She was unrealistically beautiful.

Silver hair, as if spun from the purest moonlight, and eyes as clear and blue as the sky.

Like an angel from the Bible he had first read when he entered the church.

An angel who had descended to finally pass judgment after witnessing the horrific deeds he had committed.

In his dazed mind, Joseph thought so, and harbored no doubts.

His thoughts were already filled with guilt and despair, incapable of contemplating anything else.

Only her question, ‘Are you regretting it,’ echoed in his ears.

‘Do I regret it?’

Joseph numbly nodded.

Failing to protect his only sister, being deceived by the Leader’s pathetic lies, and… killing so many innocent people with these hands.

He regretted everything.

The woman asked once more.

“If it truly wasn’t your own will, can you prove it?”

Proof?

Joseph pondered for a moment, then suddenly looked down at his hand.

The blade of his cybernetic wrist, broken during the fight.

A sharp, broken end, about a hand’s breadth long, protruded.

Without hesitation, he brought the tip of the broken blade to his own neck.

The cold touch of metal met his skin.

Yes, this was proof.

The sin of taking innocent lives could only be repaid with his own life.

The monster with nowhere to return had decided to judge himself.

He closed his eyes and pressed the blade harder.

He felt warm blood flowing down his neck.

Saaak-

The red liquid rapidly soaked the front of his clothes.

What came before the pain was a strange sense of liberation, followed by a deep sorrow.

Hot tears streamed down his cheeks.

As the strength drained from his entire body, he slowly collapsed into the pool of blood.

His body grew cold rapidly.

‘I’m sorry. Yoanna. Everyone. Mom, Dad….. This is all…..’

In his fading consciousness, Joseph repeated to himself.

It had been a life full of mistakes.

If I were to be reborn, I really don’t want to live like this again.

If a being called God truly exists, please forgive and save this sinful soul.

As if in response to his final wish, a warm and dazzling aura of light suddenly approached his fading consciousness.

Like his mother’s embrace, the last thing he remembered from his childhood.

That radiance gently enveloped his slowly cooling body.