Became a Failed Experimental Subject Novel - Chapter 46

Yoo Hye-na, who had searched for a nearby gukbap (Korean soup with rice) restaurant and arrived, immediately ordered gukbap for the hungry Han Mu-ryeo as soon as they sat down.

“Excuse me, please give us six bowls of gukbap first.”
“Yes, customer. Are… four more people coming?”
“No, we’ll eat it ourselves, just the two of us.”
“Oh…? Yes… um…? Alright.”
Of course, that would be the reaction. Even as she blinked, she looked at Han Mu-ryeo, thinking how could this big man eat so much.
What to do? Six bowls was already ordering less than she wanted, worried they’d tell her to stop joking if she ordered more.
A moment later, Yoo Hye-na saw the gukbap arrive and immediately ordered five more bowls.
“Could we get five more bowls?”
“Excuse me? They just came out?”
“Uh… wait, would you like to see? You’ll understand if you see it.”
“Kheheor…!”
Gulp, gulp, gulp. Han Mu-ryeo gulped down the hot gukbap like alcohol and set down the empty earthenware bowl, making the server’s eyes widen.
Then, another bowl was swallowed down. It took about 10 seconds to finish one whole bowl.
For Han Mu-ryeo, one bowl of gukbap was like one spoonful of Yoo Hye-na’s gukbap.
“R-right away! I’ll bring it!”
“Chives.”
“Yes, I’ll bring you some chives!”
“Haa…”
Yoo Hye-na sighed and slowly began to eat the gukbap in front of her.
She felt foolish for having been momentarily flustered by such a man, yet she also felt at ease because Han Mu-ryeo genuinely seemed to have no ulterior motives.
“Eat slowly. I won’t say anything even if you eat until you’re full.”
“I am eating slowly.”
“And you’ve already emptied four bowls?”
“Gukbap is here… Wow, it’s real! Should I clear these away right now?”
“Ten bowls… No, just keep giving them until I tell you to stop.”
“Yes!”
A middle-aged man, who seemed to be the owner, brought the gukbap and spoke in a surprised voice, as if he had come to see if someone could really eat that much.
What a windfall! The owner, delighted, turned away, and Yoo Hye-na quietly watched Han Mu-ryeo and asked,
“Do you like gukbap?”
“Gukbap is the best food. It’s not expensive, it comes out quickly, there’s a lot of it, and it has soup, so it fills you up very well.”
“Huh…? So, you like it because it’s filling, not because it’s delicious?”
“It is delicious too.”
“No… if that’s the reason, I could just let you eat a lot of other food.”
If he came to the gukbap restaurant for that reason, she should have just taken him somewhere with a nicer atmosphere.
As Yoo Hye-na felt a little disappointed, Han Mu-ryeo emptied his tenth bowl and said,
“There’s something all foremen commonly say at any construction site: you can only get gukbap for free.”
“Oh…”
“A maximum of three bowls.”
What? So, he knew he ate a lot and was considerate enough not to eat anything too expensive?
Suddenly, Yoo Hye-na felt that gukbap wasn’t so bad and glanced at the menu.
“…Do you like suyuk (boiled pork slices) too?”
“Suyuk is expensive, so I haven’t tried it.”
“Excuse me~! Here, please bring us four plates of suyuk too!”
“Do you like suyuk?”
“I ordered it for you to eat!”
With the suyuk also ordered, Han Mu-ryeo’s eyes widened, and he began to gobble down the food.
He wasn’t eating messily or spilling anything, and the way he neatly picked up the food with his chopsticks looked fortunate, if you didn’t consider the sheer amount he was eating.
Yoo Hye-na peeked at the steadily piling empty bowls and the bill, then carefully pulled out Yoo Anna’s card from her bag.
If possible, she had intended to pay with her own money, but… this man also ate at soup kitchens, and it was her older sister who told her to feed him and use him as a bodyguard.
As Han Mu-ryeo was enjoying his meal, he suddenly spoke as if something came to mind.
“I have a question.”
“Huh? If you’re wondering if you’ll really be fed until you’re full, then as promised…”
“What is a just punishment?”
“Punishment…?”
Han Mu-ryeo put a large amount of chives into his gukbap, and the sound of him chewing and swallowing, crunch, crunch, overlapped with the sound of crushing the hands of the robbers from her memory.
Suddenly, last night’s events flashed through her mind. Han Mu-ryeo was asking Yoo Hye-na again, in detail, why she had stopped him from crushing the criminals’ hands.
“I thought about it while sleeping. Is it because I am not human that it is not just for me to crush their hands?”
“Espers are human, Han Mu-ryeo.”
“I am different from humans.”
“Well, yes, but… still, because you’re human, the same laws apply to everyone.”
“Laws.”
“Yes, so even if the one who committed the crime is a villain, and the one who apprehended them is an Esper, the standards always apply equally. If you were to do that to someone you apprehended who was also a non-powered individual, it would be excessive force, so you shouldn’t do it, Han Mu-ryeo.”
Suddenly, Yoo Hye-na remembered what her sister had experienced recently.
Even if they are a villain, a criminal, or a citizen who doesn’t follow an Esper’s instructions.
Espers must protect citizens, so they cannot easily kill.
If the opponent is a villain, it’s like both sides are pointing weapons at each other, so the law becomes a little looser… but even then, killing is the last resort.
Those who can be rehabilitated after apprehension are guided, and only those who cannot are punished.
It’s frustrating, but that is the law.
“Why must one follow such things?”
“Do you perhaps not know what laws are?”
“I generally know, but it hasn’t been long since I heard about them.”
“Were you perhaps confined somewhere…?”
“Something similar.”
What kind of life did this person live to say something like this?
She had met many people while going to Sector 4, but this was the first time she had heard such words.
“Hmm… laws are rules that people live by. For example, right now, with this gukbap, if Han Mu-ryeo wanted to eat it, he could just hit the owner and take it, right? But why doesn’t he do that?”
“Because the owner would get hurt.”
“Right? So, laws are about saying, ‘Let’s keep these things so we can all live happily together.'”
“G-gukbap… is here.”
The owner, glancing nervously, placed the gukbap down, and Han Mu-ryeo blinked, lost in thought.
A moment later, Han Mu-ryeo emptied another bowl and spoke as if something was odd.
“What if the other party broke the rules first?”
“You don’t know the circumstances of why those people broke the rules, do you? The people you saw yesterday were just bad criminals, but there are also criminals who have no choice.”
“What does ‘no choice’ mean?”
“Some people commit crimes to make a living.”
“If one wishes to make a living, one can go to a construction site.”
That’s true.
As long as society exists, a normal person, if they have the courage to work, can always earn money through their own sweat.
But why do criminals resort to robbery and theft without even doing that?
“There might be people who find even that difficult, right? If they’re truly hungry and have no work.”
“As you say, there are children who steal to survive, and there are those who are forced to commit theft and robbery by others.”
“Exactly. I don’t think it’s fair to give the same punishment to them…”
“Support programs.”
“Yes…?”
“You said it. That there are government support programs.”
True to his words, Yoo Hye-na had told the residents of Sector 4 exactly that.
That there were welfare programs from the government to help those in need. If they applied, they would get immediate financial assistance, and they could start working slowly with that.
“Those who have power but break the rules don’t even try to find a way and instead take up a knife. They bite their own kind, trying to lick their blood.”
“That’s… just, some people don’t know the right way.”
“Even animals hunt when they are hungry; they rarely choose to prey on their weaker kin. Only monsters make such choices as a matter of course.”
“…Those who chose crime of their own free will should be punished for the wrongs they committed.”
Yoo Hye-na also agreed with that point.
If someone chose crime for their own convenience, even knowing there were other paths, they should be punished.
Like a child who learns that touching hot fire will hurt them, they should understand that committing crimes brings no benefit to themselves, but anger from others.
“Then, why should they not be punished?”
“Well, because we don’t know what they’ve done.”
“They pointed a knife at you.”
“That’s true for those people, but others might have different circumstances. There are also people who take up a knife, hoping no one gets hurt, just to earn money for a day’s worth of formula for their baby.”
“Then should those not be punished?”
“Yes, but if such excessive actions are taken as punishment for theft and robbery in various places, excessive punishment becomes the legal standard. Before you even know why someone committed a crime, excessive punishment might be meted out, don’t you think?”
“I see.”
“…Do you understand?”
“Cutting off the hand of a thief is not a bad punishment, but if that punishment continues, the hands of those who had no choice will also be cut off. Consider that the opponent might be weak, and then decide.”
“T-that’s right! So… for someone who committed theft, give them a light common punishment first, and then if an investigation confirms they had bad intentions, additional punishment can be given.”
“Is it the police who investigate?”
Nodding, Yoo Hye-na was caught in a strange feeling.
Huh? This person, she thought he was foolish, but he might be surprisingly smart? Was his remark about having just come out of confinement not a joke?
Han Mu-ryeo stopped drinking his gukbap and murmured quietly, as if writing new information on a blank page.
“The reason for investigation is to confirm intent.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“If the intent is already known, then punishment is permissible.”
“That’s why Espers with mind-reading abilities testify in trials for the final verdict.”
“If one knows the opponent’s true intentions, then punishment doesn’t matter?”
“No, no, no, that’s not… right. Many people need to know that intention. If an individual judges, they can’t know if it’s the correct answer. The person who said they had bad intentions might be lying, right? That’s why there’s a court of law.”
“Monsters are immediately exterminated, but humans who are like monsters are not exterminated?”
“Exterminated? Espers shouldn’t talk like that.”
“I am not an Esper.”
Yoo Hye-na was shocked, albeit slightly, by that statement.
True to his words, strictly speaking, the man in front of her was an illegal Esper.
Neither an Esper nor a villain.
“It helps humans if those who are not human die. But why do you not try to kill them?”
“That’s not… wrong, but… wait a minute, Han Mu-ryeo, have you ever killed a person?”
“Yes. Those who kill children like garbage, and… dying humans asked, so I killed them.”
Crunch, crunch. Han Mu-ryeo, who had chewed and swallowed a piece of meat with a bone still attached in his gukbap, spoke with the same demeanor as when he would say his meal was delicious today.
How could his words carry such a scent of blood? It felt like talking to a beast, not a human.
The thought that it must be a delusion slowly faded as the thick scent of blood spread, making the greasy smell of the gukbap in front of her start to feel nauseating.
“You don’t seem surprised or run away even when I say I killed humans.”
“Well, that’s… it just doesn’t feel real when you say it like that, and this is the kind of era we live in. A world where people die easily to monsters…”
“Yet you say killing humans is wrong? Why?”
“That’s…”
“If fruit has a rotten part, you tear it off and eat it. If you eat it with the rotten part, you’ll get a stomach ache. Why shouldn’t humans cut out the rotten parts?”
“Humans are not germs.”
The more she talked to him, the more Yoo Hye-na felt that Han Mu-ryeo’s standards were a little off from those of ordinary humans.
However, that didn’t mean Han Mu-ryeo was simply a crazy serial killer who went around killing people.
The very fact that he was asking Yoo Hye-na these questions proved that.
“Han Mu-ryeo? Wait, may I tell you why I think even criminals shouldn’t be killed carelessly?”
“Do so.”
“Of course, the person you killed… seems to have gone beyond the limit. Yes, if it was a serial killer targeting children, even if they were handed over to the police, they wouldn’t have escaped the death penalty. But, Han Mu-ryeo, you’re not wondering whether such people should die or live, are you?”
“Hmm.”
“It seems they haven’t done something deserving of death, but they should be punished, right? If you cut out everything that’s ‘rotten,’ you might cut out even the perfectly good parts.”
“That is correct.”
“Then first, I’ll tell you why they shouldn’t be killed. Because people can change. Even criminals can be rehabilitated, so they shouldn’t be killed.”
“Rehabilitation…?”
Again, Han Mu-ryeo reacted as if he had never heard the word “rehabilitation” before.
He was almost like a blank slate, a strong child who knew nothing.
His actions were brutal, but the reason for them was a benevolent desire to clean up the trash that harmed others when he saw them.
At this moment, Yoo Hye-na felt that depending on her words, Han Mu-ryeo could become a villain or an Esper.