Chapter 13

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: You Damned Bastards
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Hearing Grandma Kim Kkotnim's angry voice from inside the walls, Taeseo turned away from the gate.

“Looks like today’s not the day. I’ll just come back later.”

“What? Later?”

Just then.

“I told you, it’s not true, Grandma! I’ve never done anything like that!”

The voice that followed the grandmother’s shouting was unusually familiar.

“You rotten-minded girl, have you no shame? Messing around with some strange man! Instead of doing your work, you’re off giggling with some man! I never raised you to be like this!”

“Grandma, Grandma, please!”

Taeseo, who was sharp and quick-witted, had a good memory for people's appearances and voices. If his memory served him right, the voice pleading with the grandmother was An Yuna's.

Taeseo, who had been about to turn away at the sound of shouting from inside, changed his mind and pushed open the green gate, stepping into the yard.

“Excuse me.”

In the middle of the yard, a hunched-over old woman was hitting a young woman with a wicker broom. The woman, raising her arms to shield herself from the blows, was, as Taeseo had expected, An Yuna.

“Excuse me!”

Taeseo shouted, raising his voice. The old woman, standing with the wicker broom, looked his way.

“Who’s there?”

“I’m from Namgyeong Development.”

“I said I have nothing more to say. Just leave.”

The old woman waved the wicker broom in her hand. It was a gesture meant to drive away an unwelcome guest, but Taeseo didn't back down and stepped into the yard.

“If you want to get a fair price, you’d better sell the land now. Stop being so stubborn.”

The house was as run-down as its shabby gate. Beneath a red slab roof that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the 70s, the mud walls seemed ready to crumble at any moment.

On the cracked cement of the yard, things that barely resembled household goods were scattered about, and nameless weeds grew sparsely in the grooves of the concrete.

He sized up the place instantly. It was a household with no source of income, clearly desperate to sell a mere 400-pyeong plot of land for a high price.

Like the dented dog bowl rolling around the yard, Taeseo’s brow furrowed. When he looked up, his eyes met Yuna’s. She stared at him, her face a mask of bewilderment, as if asking why on earth he was here.

“It hasn’t even been a year since I buried my old man in that land. His body hasn’t even rotted away yet, so why would I dig it up! That’s just not how things are done!”

It seemed like she was holding out because she didn't want to move her husband's grave, but that wasn't the real reason.

He had heard that the old woman said she would sell the land immediately if they raised the purchase price fivefold.

So, her claim about not selling because of the grave was just an excuse. Taeseo knew this, yet he repeated the words of the previous land compensation representatives.

“We will handle the relocation of the grave with the utmost care. We’ll even build a more magnificent tomb for him at the new site.”

“That same old tiresome story! I've heard it so many times my ears are about to fall off!”

The old woman rushed toward Taeseo and raised the wicker broom. Frowning, Taeseo grabbed the broomstick as she swung it.

“You’re tired of hearing the same story, you say.”

Taeseo snatched the broomstick from the old woman's hands and threw it into a corner of the yard.

“Well, just like you, we’re quite tired of repeating the same thing. So I thought I’d try a different approach.”

The old woman, her broom taken from her, stared at Taeseo in bewilderment.

“Besides telling me to sell my land, what else is there for you people to say?”

“As you know, the golf course Namgyeong Development is building is a public course. It's a facility that will be jointly operated by the local government and Namgyeong Development, and we've been approved as a national sports facility.”

It seemed she was quite keen on playing real estate mogul with a measly 400-pyeong plot, but unfortunately for her, that tactic wouldn't work on Kwon Taeseo.

“You’re aware that we’ve purchased over 80% of the surrounding land, meeting the requirements for eminent domain, right? If you continue to be this unreasonable, Grandma Kim Kkotnim, we can simply expropriate your land at the officially assessed price.”

Strong against the strong, weak against the weak. That was Kwon Taeseo—unyieldingly tough with the powerful, and seemingly generous with the weak.

The people from Namgyeong Development until now might have been flustered by this old woman over a paltry 400-pyeong plot, but Taeseo had no intention of doing the same.

“This son of a bitch, with that mouth of his…”

As expected, the old woman's face twisted into an ugly grimace. She had probably expected the people from Namgyeong Development to haggle, but now that they were threatening her, she looked quite taken aback.

“You should have just taken the same money as everyone else and sold the land, instead of being so stubborn.”

“You’re the stubborn ones, trying to buy land from someone who doesn’t want to sell!”

Taeseo took a business card case from his pocket. It was a new card, printed to match his Manager title after he was transferred here.

“The Namgyeong Development people who visited you before might have only used nice words, but now that I'm in charge, that won't fly anymore.”

With a slow hand, Taeseo took a card from the case and offered it to the old woman. It was a declaration that from now on, he was the one she would be negotiating with about the land.

The old woman tore the card to shreds and threw the pieces in Taeseo's face.

“What kind of public sports facility is a golf course! How is a place where jobless bastards fool around, carrying sticks, a national sports facility that gives you the right to take someone’s land!”

“That’s how the law is. If you think it's unfair, you can sue us after your land is expropriated.”

“Just try and take my land! You think I'll let you get away with it? I'll gut myself and die in front of your damn golf course!”

“Ah, yes, yes.”

Taeseo grabbed a handful of cards from his case and scattered them at the old woman's feet. About ten cards fluttered down in front of her.

“If you feel like negotiating, give me a call at the number on the card. I just came to introduce myself today, so I'll be going now.”

The old woman stared, dumbfounded, as if she'd never seen such a crazy bastard. Taeseo gave a cursory nod and turned to leave. A moment later, the startled old woman shouted for her granddaughter, who was standing in the middle of the yard.

“Yuna! Get the salt, the salt! Hurry up and bring the salt!”

Yuna scooped some salt from a crock in the corner of the yard. The old woman took it, followed Taeseo and Hyunwoo out the gate, and dumped the entire bowl of salt on them. White salt piled up on their shoulders.

“You damned bastards! How dare you come to someone’s house and threaten them!”

After the salt, the bowl came flying at Taeseo's back. It hit him with a thud before clattering to the ground. Taeseo didn't look back and got straight into his car.

Hyunwoo brushed the salt off himself and got into the passenger seat. The old woman, who had gone back inside, came running out the gate with the wicker broom Taeseo had tossed aside.

Just as the old woman was about to swing the broom at the car, Taeseo drove off.

With a roar of the engine, Taeseo's Porsche sped away. The old woman's broom cut through the empty air. She had swung so hard that, with her target gone, she lost her balance and stumbled, falling to the ground.

“Grandma!”

Yuna, who had followed her out, rushed to help the old woman up.

Taeseo watched the old woman in his rearview mirror. Back on her feet, she shook her fist a few times at his departing car.

Hyunwoo, watching through the rear window, shivered and spoke.

“Seriously, you were supposed to persuade her, not pour oil on a burning fire.”

“So, you think the previous reps did such a great job persuading her that she ended up like this?”

“I’m just saying, you should have been trying to sweet-talk her, not start a firefight.”

“You think she wouldn’t have gotten worse if I’d just played along?”

“Well, you've got a point.”

Belatedly fastening his seatbelt, Hyunwoo clicked his tongue as he recalled the old woman threatening to gut herself.

“Wow, but she’s even more of a character than I heard.”

“Tell me about it. She’s really something.”

The venomous look in her eyes when he mentioned expropriating the land, the sudden quickness in her step as she chased them with the bowl of salt, the way she swung the broom—it was all like a fiend.

Neither Hyunwoo nor Taeseo had ever seen an old woman so fierce. They felt that meeting the Grim Reaper would be less terrifying than facing her.

After a five-minute drive down the country road, they reached the convenience store at the edge of the village. When Taeseo got out of the car, Hyunwoo got out of the passenger seat. The sun was now high in the sky, and the midday summer heat had grown more intense.

“So, I can clock out for the day, right?”

“What? You’re not going to the office?”

“My work for the day is done. What’s there for me to do at the office?”

Taeseo wasn't wrong. His role, upon coming down to Seongu Township, was to persuade Grandma Kim Kkotnim to sell her land. The reporting procedures and paperwork were Hyunwoo's responsibility.

“Still, you should at least make a show of working…”

Making a show of working was for people like Hyunwoo, who had been hired through the proper channels. It didn't apply to Taeseo, who was a parachute appointment.

No matter how terribly he performed, Taeseo was destined for a management position; he wasn't someone who would be promoted or fired based on performance reviews.

“Hey.”

It seemed Hyunwoo was forgetting that fact, perhaps because they shared the same title of Manager.

“Yes, Manager.”

If the subordinate kept forgetting, it was up to the one in charge to remind him.

“My job is to persuade that grandmother within three months, and if that doesn’t work, to expropriate the land and go back to Seoul. Isn’t that it?”

“Yes. I suppose it is, but…”

“If you know that, you shouldn’t be talking about formalities.”

“But still…”

“Go on. I’m heading in.”

He gestured with his chin for Hyunwoo to get lost and turned away. After taking a few steps toward the second-floor studio apartment above the convenience store, Taeseo turned back to look at Hyunwoo again.

“Oh, right.”

Hyunwoo was still staring at Taeseo with a dazed expression.