IC C1

by berry

0. Prologue

“Did you hear the rumor? They say a spy has infiltrated our casino.”

With around thirty minutes left until the end of his shift, Kang Siwon, who had been sorting poker chips, halted his hands at his senior colleague’s words.

“A spy? No way. This isn’t some research lab or government agency—why would anyone bother to infiltrate…”

“You’ve got no idea. Do you know how ferocious the casino business is? It wouldn’t be surprising if some competitor planted a spy.”

His senior flicked a chip into the air. It spun, twirling as it fell, and he snatched it out mid-air like a hawk. Kang Siwon flinched as though the one seized had been himself.

“Well, it’s just a rumor anyway. But entertaining, isn’t it?”

Not in the least. While Siwon forced his face into near neutrality, the door swung open with a bang.

Already on edge, Kang Siwon trembled as though startled out of his skin. Jushang, who had just entered the cage room, looked at the sight and sneered.

“What are you doing? Slacking off, weren’t you? That’s why you’re so jumpy.”

“Jushang, don’t bully Xie Wei. He was working hard, right up until I spoke to him.”

“What were you two talking about, then?”

“Oh, you know the rumor nowadays—that a spy sneaked inside.”

“…”

For a moment, Jushang’s face stiffened. Another employee would not have noticed. But since Kang Siwon was in the same circumstances as him, he did.

He could even read Jushang’s thoughts: Specifically, “Shit.” After all, that exact thought had flashed in his own mind the moment he’d first heard the rumor.

“…Hah. Who the hell spreads such garbage nonsense? Clearly some bored bastard with nothing better to do.”

“You’re foul-tempered today. Something happen with your surveillance team?”

“No, just that new recruit—”

His senior and Jushang continued chatting. The two shared a bond ever since rooming in the same dormitory; even though their job divisions differed, they remained fairly close.

Siwon half-listened to their chatter, resuming the stacking of chips. But his concentration kept breaking apart. The rumor about a spy infiltrating Sovereign Casino surged inside his thoughts like fog.

Was it baseless gossip, or had he truly been exposed?

Before his eyes, he thought he saw the black currents unique to Macau, flickering. If he had been caught, then from now on…

“Xie Wei, are you finished?”

The senior’s question snapped him back.

“Yes.”

Thanks to his mechanical movements while lost in thought, he had stacked the chips perfectly. The senior, checking, gave a small nod.

“Good work. You may leave now.”

“Yes, see you tomorrow.”

Siwon bowed politely. He even offered Jushang a farewell, though the man ignored him. As he hadn’t expected otherwise, he felt nothing in particular. Smirking inwardly, he exited the cage room.

Outside stretched rows of game machines, their dazzling graphics in endless cycle hypnotizing all who gazed. LED decorations gleamed across walls and ceilings, while thick pillars bore dragon carvings.

It was like watching a liquor-drenched street at night: contours blurry and colors blazing.

Being in it, however, made his breath choke. If he stayed much longer, he feared he too would go mad.

If not for the debt, he would never have stepped foot in this gaudy, cheap world…

“…”

Siwon clenched his teeth. The memory of the day his life first swerved into full-blown ruin washed over him like surf.

Barely half a year earlier, Siwon had lived a relatively ordinary life.

He was building work experience as a chef, carefully putting aside meager savings, sketching possible futures of success. From the outside, his life looked plain. Yet to him, the peace was something he had never enjoyed in childhood. He was more or less content.

Then one particularly muggy evening, Baeksa‑pa¹ stormed into his home, and everything unraveled.

“Hey, Kang Siwon. Long time.”

On reflection, his life had in truth been a mess from the start—ever since he was born to a gambling-addicted father. Otherwise, by the age of twenty, would he truly have confronted a mobster head-on?

They had barged in three years earlier as well, demanding repayment. At that time his father had already fled under cover of night, leaving Siwon snatched away instead. He was blindfolded, taken to a shipping container, and beaten within an inch of death. A memory he knew would never leave him.

By some means, that event had passed. But Siwon always braced himself for their return. And indeed, tonight was that day.

“…It feels mean to deliver such news right at our reunion.”

“…”

“Well, fuck it, I’ll say it straight. Your father’s dead.”

Siwon received the news without reaction.

Given his father’s life drowned in alcohol and gambling, death at any time was no surprise. Whether stabbed by someone, struck by disease, or even by his own hand—it was all the same.

He felt neither sorrow nor shock. What troubled him was only the aftermath.

Debts don’t dissolve easily. Legal theory said debts died with the debtor, but reality ignored theory. In the face of brute fists, law meant nothing. Once ensnared by debt collectors, escape was impossible. Just as now.

“Do you even remember how much he owed us?”

“1.3 billion… isn’t that right?”

“3 billion.”

“….”

“So, what will you do?”

Breath seized in his chest. He had prepared for steep interest, but 3 billion? A laughably impossible sum for a man employed barely a year. Siwon had no thought of shouldering it.

This was no longer his twenty-year-old self, technically legal but without power. At twenty-three he stared at Director Park straight.

“I will file for formal inheritance renunciation. That way, I won’t receive his assets and I won’t owe his debts, either.”

“Fine, do that.”

The easy consent left him stunned.

Surely Baeksa‑pa would never release him. Debt collectors always found ways to squeeze blood from stone. Especially this group—rumored to deal across China and Japan as well. So, he had braced himself even for human trafficking or organ trade.

“Hey, why that face?”

“…”

“Don’t think we wasted precious time here just to screw you over, kid. Don’t be mistaken—we just want what’s owed. We don’t care who pays it.”

“But… my father’s already dead.”

His mouth turned dry as bad premonitions rose. Director Park smirked wickedly.

“Oh yes. He croaked. But before dying, he left behind a joint guarantor.”²

“…Excuse me?”

Someone had guaranteed debts for a man addicted to gambling for fifteen years? Nearly unbelievable.

“Curious, aren’t you?”

“Is it someone I know?”

“Guess.”

His voice drawled as he said, “Jung Gyucheol—ring a bell?”

Siwon’s eyes widened.

How could he not know. Jung Gyucheol was one of his father’s longest comrades, even a business partner once. Despite his father’s ruin, their ties had not quite severed. Clearly, they had once been inseparable.

To Siwon, Gyucheol was special too. The man had fed him when he was a homeless child wandering, bought his school supplies, helped enroll him.

In truth, he was far more of a father than the biological one.

“…Uncle Gyucheol signed as joint guarantor? Is this true?”

“What’s the matter, kid—fooled all your life? Want proof?”

Pulling out his phone, Park showed him a photo. Siwon stiffened.

In the image, Gyucheol sat awkwardly on a plastic chair. While not tied up, everything suggested he had been kidnapped there. His expression, stricken with confusion, confirmed it.

Yet what shook Siwon most was the backdrop: a grim shipping container.

The same one where three years ago, he himself had been dragged and thrashed.

“You kidnapped him? This is illegal debt collection! Release him—otherwise, I’ll report—”

“Hah, you’re kidding me. Don’t paint us as goddamn kidnappers. These days you exchange a few words with a guy and suddenly it’s ‘abduction’?”

“A few words? You did exactly what you did to me! Is that what you call conversation?”

“Listen, brat. Behave while I still find you cute for your age. You like laws so much? I’ll play by the law. You said you’ll renounce inheritance?”

“….”

“Then go ahead. Whether the son pays, or his fool of a friend, the 3 billion stands.”

The ground opened beneath his feet. Having shackled house-breaking debt to someone else didn’t lighten the weight upon him. It might even have been preferable he himself be ruined. But to watch Uncle Gyucheol suffer—that was unbearable.

“No. Not Uncle Gyucheol. Please, not him. He doesn’t even have 30 million, let alone 3 billion…”

“Kid, debts don’t vanish just ‘cause someone dies. If repayment fails—we pass it to the next. Ain’t that right?”

Darkness closed over his vision. Who would have thought Uncle Gyucheol had ever stood as guarantor?

Fury rose like fire toward his father who shoved his friend into this hell and selfishly died. But hopeless as it was, the situation left him no choice.

“…So, you mean if I renounce inheritance, debt falls on Uncle. Right?”

“Correct.”

“And if I don’t renounce… Uncle remains safe?”

“That’s right.”

As though with quicksand at his feet, swallowing him with no escape.

“You catch on fast. Always were sharp, weren’t you. Your dad too—brains sharp as needles, just misused on cheap tricks.”

“….”

“There’s a job precisely suited to you.”

“…And what job is that?”

Director Park’s smile curled upward. The smile of a predator pleased that its prey had bitten the bait.

A foreboding shiver coursed his body, yet Kang Siwon had no avenue of retreat.

Footnotes

Baeksa‑pa (백사파): A fictional name for a mafia-like crime syndicate. The suffix -pa (파) is often used in Korea to denote gangs or factions.
Joint Guarantor: In South Korea (and other East Asian legal systems), before stricter modern regulations, it was common for someone to act as a guarantor (연대 보증인) for another person’s debt. Unlike in some Western legal interpretations, this bound the guarantor entirely to repay the debt if the debtor defaulted. This concept has been notorious for trapping family or acquaintances in financial ruin.