Doctor Demon

"Baekha, are you sure this is safe?" Soobin asked hesitantly.

"Don't worry," Baekha assured her as she typed on her laptop. "My computer is safe. It's protected by a super strong software so no one on the dark web can track it down. But I need to know more about this Blue Fish."

They were in Baekha's room. Soobin was staying overnight to help Baekha with their secret mission to track down the makers of Blue Fish. They were in the darkness, watching the screen intently.

"What is this site?" Soobin frowned. 

"This is a forum which many of the dark web users frequently visit," Baekha replied. "It's not much but if I play my cards right, I might be able to find someone who knows about the Blue Fish."

She clicked on a button and a new microsite appeared. It was like a chatbox where thousands of people were online. Baekha scrolled through the forum discussions until she clicked on one named 'Explicit Stuff'.

"Please don't tell me there will be more...more of that sick stuff!" Soobin moaned.

"It can't be helped. This is the dark web. You're bound to run into these things."

A new tab opened which had a dark red interface which reminded Soobin of dry blood. Several disgusting images were popping up on the chat box which made Soobin look away. Baekha was completely unfazed as if she was a pro.

"Let's see…" she murmured. "Aha! Found him."

She clicked on a username called 'Gill_98' and opened a chat box.

"He's online," she muttered and typed a greeting into the box.

"Hi Gale," she wrote. They waited for a reply. He replied within seconds.

"Hey James!" He wrote back. "Wassup buddy?"

"James?" Soobin echoed.

"I pretend to be a guy online," Baekha sighed as she wrote. "I'm cool. Need some info. Do u know anythin' bout a site called 'Blue Fish'?"

There was a few seconds of silence before Gale replied. "The site SJS is talking about? Not much. I just know this dude called SJS66 is talking about this site. I never checked it out but it's probably somewhere here."

"Here?"

"Yeah. He says it appears on the clean net for a minute at midnight but he can give anyone access to it if they ask for it."

"Have you ever visited it?"

"No but I think there's a gaming server where a few guys visited it. One of the guys was talking about gettin' beaten up by a retarded kid and made a wish on the Blue Fish site."

Baekha and Soobin looked at each other in shock. Yisub!

"The guy apparently made a wish and the retarded kid died the next day," Gale went on.

Baekha was now alert and typed, "Gale, how can I track down this SJS66? I'm in major trouble! Some creditors are after me and I need to get rid of them. Can this guy really help?"

"Who knows? You can find him active on the War of Leagues game. But it ain't easy to play the game. You'll need five players and not many people wanna play it. Even by the dark web's standard, it's a hard game to play."

"Five players? Where are we gonna get five people?" Soobin groaned.

"That's okay," Baekha said. "You and I make two players. That alpaca demon makes three. We need two more…"

"Oh no," Soobin said. "Please don't tell me you want the Hwang twins?"

"Do you know anyone else who can help?" Baekha sighed. "Yoonmin is pretty good with strategy and Minyoon might be useful in...something! We'll figure it out."

"So when do we play this?" Soobin asked.

"Tomorrow. But first, we need to tell Jiwoon sis and Detective Hwang about this. It might give them time to track down SJS66."

Soobin nodded. The girls flexed their fingers, ready to take down the site for once and for all.

…

Jiwoon and Hobin were at Youngoo's house where Jina had called them. Hobin carried out a sulphur test and confirmed the presence of the chemical around the wifi router. 

"The sulphur must have been activated after the router was turned on," Hobin muttered. "This explains how the demon is targeting the kids and why we can't hunt it down."

"But the internet is a vast area!" Jiwoon pointed out. "The site is untrackable and if the demon is hiding in the internet, it'll be impossible to find it."

"Not necessarily," Jina said thoughtfully. "Every site has a domain and the domain is handled by someone. I'm guessing the demon needs a servant like Sungki needed his parents and the shaman. This servant is the one doing the dirty work by spreading the news of the site and handling the server. Once that server is traced and shut down, we might be able to stop the demon."

"There are millions of servers out there and most are not traceable," Jiwoon reasoned. "How are we going to find it?"

They were in deep thought. Jiwoon was right. Even if they find the site, how were they going to track down the domain maker? Dahoon tried to track it at midnight but the site's security was too high and he could not penetrate it at all. The case was turning out to be a dead end from all sides.

"The only way to summon the demon is to sign a contract," Jina finally said.

"Can't we use the shaman...Bomi?" Hobin suggested. "Can he summon the demon?"

"It's too dangerous," Jina said. "You saw what Sungki was. What if this is a high level demon? And if summoned, we might not be able to get rid of it. I'll need to destroy the object the demon is tied to in order to kill it."

Jiwoon was about to say something when her phone rang up. 

"Baekha," she muttered and answered the phone. She stepped aside to talk to Baekha, leaving Jina and Hobin alone.

"My grandfather tried to trace the demon but he needs more time to come up with a concrete way of exorcising the high level demons," Jina said. "Magrod said higher level demons aren't easy to exorcise but it's not impossible. It only takes a lot of time and energy."

"This demon isn't like the ones we have encountered," Hobin murmured. "It...it has a code. A strange moral code."

"Moral code?" Jina echoed. Hobin nodded.

"Unlike Sungki and the other demons we have encountered, this demon is sticking to its job," he said. "Kind of like it is simply doing what it's been told to do. The basic function of a demon is to get as many contracts as possible which means in its eyes, it is doing its job. Give out contracts and once fulfilled, take the soul. Simple. It's not possessing anyone nor is it taking any detour. Almost as if...as if it's programmed like that. In other words, it's like a robot doing its job and every robot has a controller."

"You mean to say that someone else is controlling it?" Jina frowned. 

"Exactly!"

Jiwoon rushed back into the room. 

"Baekha just told me something," she informed them. "She said she can find Blue Fish's domain owner!"