Korea had always been a country without guns.
That was the string everyone believed could never break.
Until it did.
The first report came quietly.
A convenience store clerk in Mapo, shot dead by a masked man during a late‑night robbery. The footage went viral, the sound of the gunshot echoing louder than the news anchors could frame it.
Detective Lee Do stood in the crime scene, the smell of cheap ramen and gunpowder clinging to the air. He didn't flinch at the blood. He'd seen worse. But the shell casing on the floor? That froze him.
"This isn't homemade," he muttered, kneeling. "Where the hell did he get it?"
Back at the station, officers whispered in disbelief.
"Guns don't just… appear here."
"Maybe smuggled?"
"No. This is organized."
Lee Do stayed silent. He didn't deal in rumors. Only facts. And the fact was clear: someone had opened the door.
And hell had stepped through.
Across the city, in a dimly lit room lined with crates and steel, Moon Baek smiled faintly as he inspected a pistol.
The cold metal felt alive in his hand.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said to the young man across from him.
"Where did you even get all this?" the man asked nervously.
Moon Baek's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"People don't ask where salvation comes from. They just use it."
By morning, the second shooting happened.
Then the third.
The string had snapped.
And no one was ready for what came next.