Before the community had dinner on Taehyung’s first day there, Namjoon had been told to go see Leader Oh.

N: “You wanted to see me, sir?”

O: “It looks like you and one of the new members know each other well and, from a little background check, you go way back to high school.”

N: “Yes. He was my classmate in high school and we’ve been friends ever since. But I never expected him to come here. We never talked about New Life Initiative and I didn’t know he was going through such a rough time. If I did, I could’ve recommended this place and we would’ve joined together.” Namjoon lied because even though both of them were aware of Leader Oh’s suspicions towards Namjoon’s convictions, Leader Oh wanted him to continue having the extra pressure of having to act.

O: “I see… How would you describe his character?”

N: “Flexible.” Namjoon answered after thinking about it a bit. “He quickly adapts to any situation.”

O: “What’s one core thing that drives him?”

N: “Survival. All he wants to do is live and be okay.”

The leader weighed Namjoon’s answers and it seemed to him that they were true and reassuring. Namjoon was glad he could say something that was true about Taehyung and also had very little probability of causing him harm later on.

O: “Very well. You may go.”

N: “Yes, sir.”

O: “Wait. How is your research coming along?”

N: “I may have found a combination of plant extracts that would be effective in boosting immunity.”

O: “Good. Run it by me when you’re done and I’ll tell you who you can test it on.”

N: “Yes, sir.”

After Namjoon left, the leader asked one of his lieutenants:

O: “The new recruits are to be assigned rooms in the house in which Kim Namjoon also lives right?”

L: “That’s right, sir.”

O: “Put Kim Taehyung somewhere else. Let’s see… Room R414 recently became vacant. Put him there.”

L: “Pardon me, sir, but that’s the house for recruiters.”

O: “Are you questioning my judgment?”

L: “No, sir. Of course not.”

O: “Recruiters are often away doing field work. In his case, some extra isolation will definitely be better than having people to interact with… Even if interaction is already limited inside the houses… What is Kim Taehyung’s schedule?”

L: “The same as any regular worker and he’s been assigned duties inside the factory. Due to his previous profession as a hairdresser and what abilities our recruiters have seen him exhibit or lack during the nature retreat, we know he has a high level of dexterity with his hands, that he’s somewhat athletic but has little strength and stamina and that he has no knack for dealing with animals. That’s why the recruiters proposed putting him in the factory where he could do swift and precise work with his hands.”

O: “Mhm… Well, we do need someone like that there, but… add toilet duties to his schedule after dinner. He looks like he still has some fire within him, so he needs an extra bit of character crushing.”

L: “Yes, sir.”

A few hours later at building R, Jungkook knocked on Taehyung’s door and the latter opened it. They took a second to just frown at the other before Jungkook handed Taehyung the sheet of paper and said:

J: “Here’s your schedule.”

T: “Thanks.”

Taehyung looked over it and his eye twitched when he read about his evening duties.

J: “Be more careful, will’ya?” Jungkook mumbled.

T: “What do you mean?” Taehyung asked in a low voice.

J: “If you hadn’t so blatantly revealed that you and Namjoon are close enough to hug, you would have been living in the same building as him right now.” Jungkook continued to mumble as he revealed to Taehyung why he had been placed in another building from the rest. “Also, toilet duties are usually assigned to those who need extra character breaking. So, even though your acting was on point up on the platform, you did something that made someone raise an eyebrow.”

T: “It can’t be okay for you to be telling me things like that, so why?”

J: “I can’t help being an idiot sometimes. If anyone asks anything, you had questions about your duties and I told you someone will explain them to you tomorrow.” Jungkook mumbled till the end before he left to go to his room one floor below Taehyung’s.

T: I’ll agree that you’re an idiot. Taking risks for someone you owe nothing to… Well, you’re probably doing it for Joon… Which means I might owe you one for being someone Joon could rely on in this kinda place…

Taehyung then shook the thoughts about Jungkook away and re-read his schedule for tomorrow and for many days after that.

At 6:30, the bell in the public square will ring for the first time to wake up the community. You can wash your face and go to the toilet if you want, change clothes or dress if you have anything else to wear than what you’ve slept in, but everyone has to assemble in the public square by 7. A priest will hold a sermon for half an hour, then the leader will speak to the community for half an hour. At 8, breakfast will be brought out and by 9 at the latest everyone will have to start work.

For Taehyung, work meant some kind of activities inside a factory that will be explained to him tomorrow but, whatever it was, he was just glad he didn’t have to milk any cows.

At 2, the bell will ring again, announcing lunch time. As all the other meals, lunch will be handed out and eaten together with the entire community in the public square. Then, at 3, people were expected to go back to work until 8 when the bell would ring again for the community to gather and have dinner. After dinner, each person might have other duties or activities they need to do, like washing their clothes or their bodies at the river, cleaning their room, taking care of unfinished work etc. For Taehyung, the schedule included toilet duties after dinner, which will also be explained to him tomorrow.

               T: So over 10 hours of work each day, 7 days a week… Not that much different from the salon…

He didn’t like the fact that he had toilet duties, whatever that meant, but he liked it even less knowing that he had been assigned those duties because they thought he was in need of more character breaking.

               T: Guess I have to act even more obedient and mindless…

However, there was one thing worrying Taehyung even more – waking up at 6:30. If anyone, aside from those with special schedules, like the cooks, the lieutenants, the recruiters when they were not in the community, was caught not being present at 7 in the public square 3 times, the punishment was working nonstop until collapse. Taehyung hadn’t been this afraid of potential consequences since his time in the JDC, so he kept chanting Get up early. Get up early. to himself before going to sleep.

The bell had barely made a sound the following morning and Taehyung jumped out of bed like something had bitten him. It took him a few moments to understand that he couldn’t brush his teeth or change clothes, so he just washed his face, went to one of the outdoor toilets and went to the public square where everybody but one of the new members had gathered. The recruiters that had taken the new members to the community the day before had looked around for them in particular and crossed off a list the names of those not present.

The priest, who was also in charge of the workers handling the vegetable fields, went up on the platform and started the sermon without any prayers, without a choir singing, without anything else. Taehyung had no idea how regular church sessions were, so he didn’t think anything was strange. However, he did pick up on the fact that whatever the priest was quoting from the bible was tied in with the cult’s ideology and this sermon was used to reinforce that ideology. There was no church, because apparently God also endorsed not needing assets and not loving materialistic things.

At the end, the priest invited everyone to visualize themselves becoming better people, able to let go of all needs and desires that were detrimental and all selfish and materialistic tendencies and to visualize the community becoming prosperous.

P: “May we be humble, hard-working and free from sinful and selfish thoughts!”

G: “Amen!” the group said in unison.

P: “May we never deal with the destructive ways of the outside world ever again!”

G: “Amen!”

P: “May our community prosper and grow!”

G: “Amen!”

The bell rang again a few times and many people made the sign of the cross with their hands while praying silently or in a whispered voice. Taehyung looked around and tried mimicking what he saw, but he messed up the direction for the horizontal line of the cross sign.

When Leader Oh stepped up on the platform, everyone went silent and directed their attention to him.

O: “My friends, a new day has started and, like always, we need to make the most of it. Because time is of the essence. Yesterday, you’ve heard the stories of our new members and how harshly the outside world had treated them. But some are not lucky enough to find the path towards salvation and get to tell their story. In the last two days, four people had killed themselves because their debts had gotten so tremendous or because they just couldn’t see any hope for their futures. One of these people also killed his family when he drove his locked car into a lake. Also in the last two days, more than 100 businesses have entered insolvency or have filed for bankruptcy, which means many people are now unemployed.”

As the leader spoke, the group gave reactions of compassion and horror at the end of some of his sentences and Taehyung wondered if he should also mimic that. Then he realized that he has to mimic everything, even though that’s the exact intention of the cult’s higher-ups, because over time these reactions and behaviors will become automatic and will start shaping his way of thinking and feeling.

O: “The outside world is slowly but surely self-destructing and rotting. You should all be grateful you found your path to salvation early on.”

Another reaction came from the group that sounded like a short cheer and Taehyung was starting to understand when and how the crowd was supposed to react.

O: “And I have good news too. With the addition our new members from yesterday, New Life Initiative has reached over 900 members.”

The crowd let out exclamations and cheers and clapped. Taehyung knew he should react like that too, but he was just too stunned by the number.

               T: 900?! 9 ing hundred?! Where? How? What the hell…

After checking out the community throughout the day before, Taehyung thought there were between 300 and 400 members living there. Even counting recruiters who were currently working outside the community, of which there may be 100 or 200, it was still very far away from 900. Maybe Taehyung was underestimating the number of people who were in the organization but working and living mostly outside of the commune. Maybe there really was another commune.

T: Wait, why does 900 kinda ring a bell? Ah, Joon mentioned in his notes about that famous cult case in which 900+ people committed mass-suicide. Does that mean that, if things suddenly go sour here, the same thing might happen? No! No way am I letting Joon go through something like that! Or Jungkook! Wait… Why am I including Jungkook? Argh! Focus, Taehyung! Focus!

O: “You have all done a good job in helping our community grow. The more people we save, the better. Let’s continue to grow through hard work and dedication. Go make the day count!”

The crowd cheered again as Leader Oh stepped off the platform, at least a part of them now very motivated to do their best during the day.

Breakfast had been served and, even though Taehyung wanted to find Namjoon and eat with him, he couldn’t because he had to eat fast and get to the factory by 9.

At the factory, Kanghe, the manager, explained to Taehyung what he would have to do – crush dried up leaves with his hands and also with the help of a knife if needed to make pieces as small as possible, then put them in a manual grinder to make them even smaller, then boil them until all the water evaporates and use tweezers to take out all the impurities revealed throughout the process. When he was done with one batch, he would have to put the extremely small fragments of leaves on a tray from where another person would take over. It was very meticulous work and it was preferable if Taehyung could not be slow about it, but it was more important for him to be meticulous.

K: “We produce and process this raw matter for export. It is to be used as an ingredient in a type of medication that is currently being developed by an anonymous pharmaceutical company that intends to make it widely available for common people and put pressure on other pharmaceutical conglomerates that inflate medication prices beyond reason. Our work here will end up helping many people, but also, through this, we are able to finance the recruiting team’s efforts in leading people from our country to a better life. That’s why it’s highly important that we deliver a product of the best quality. Think of your work here like you’re performing surgery, because many lives depend on it, and be more meticulous and careful than you’ve ever been. Do you understand?”

T: “Yes, sir.”

K: “Also, the raw matter and especially our final product after processing are very dangerous on their own, so be very careful to not inhale or swallow any of it. When you’re extracting the impurities and foreign elements from the boiling water, wear this mask because the resulting vapors might also give you strange sensations. As you can see, most of the people working here wear such masks all the time to be even safer, so you should do it as well.”

T: “Yes, sir.”

K: “Alright. Any questions before you try performing the process I just explained while I supervise?”

T: “No, sir.”

Taehyung started crushing the dried up leaves and doing all the other tasks leaving the manager slightly shocked about how fast and precise Taehyung was performing his tasks. Two hours later, when Taehyung was done and looked to the manager for feedback, the latter let out a laugh, patted Taehyung’s shoulder with force repeatedly and said:

K: “Good job, Taehyung! Very good job! You’ll be a very valuable member of our team and community.”

T: “Thank you, sir!” Taehyung said smiling because he was barely holding in his laughter after seeing what other people were doing inside that factory as he placed his work on a tray from which another worker took over.

T: I can’t believe it… I say I want to lead a decent life and here I am again, back in the drug business...

Kanghe told Taehyung to get started on the next batch and come find him if he had any questions or if he encountered any problems, so Taehyung nodded enthusiastically and got to work.

T: Of course! Of ing course! How the hell did I not think about this sooner?! Why else would you put so much money, time and effort into gathering a community of people you need to provide food and housing for? Most people coming here have almost nothing valuable they could donate the profits from to the cult, so that and the events can’t be the main source of income. But if we’re making and selling drugs to external black markets, that’s definitely worth the leader’s effort of maintaining this façade. If there are dealers and so on outside the commune, then having 900 members makes sense. This manager guy probably has no idea how much money the organization earns through this. He seems oblivious and, if I were the leader, I wouldn’t tell more than a handful of very close subordinates.

Taehyung then let out a short snicker, because he really couldn’t keep it in anymore and no one was close enough to hear him anyway.

T: I underestimated you, Leader Oh. My bad. First I thought you’d be some socialist shaman, then I thought you were just exceptionally good at manipulation. But you’ve been orchestrating something like this for quite a few years… My respect to you, Leader Oh. If Joon weren’t also caught up in this mess, I might really want to work for you… But, as such, you’re my enemy. And now I know what kind of enemy you are.

Taehyung was right – no one in that whole factory apart from him was aware that they were making a recreational drug instead of a medical ingredient. That was mostly because no one else there had Taehyung’s background and experiences that led to him being able to quickly and correctly evaluate elements such as the process of producing a drug and to him being able to so easily think from a criminal’s perspective.

When lunch time came, Taehyung managed to sit next to Namjoon and he tapped the bowl with a finger from the hand holding the bowl to ask Namjoon: Did you know we are making drugs? This unexpected question made Namjoon almost swallow his food weirdly and start coughing.

T: “You okay?” Taehyung asked as he pretended to rub Namjoon’s back while he subtly tapped on it to tell him: Don’t freak out.

N: “I’m okay.” Namjoon said, then looked at Taehyung and asked: “You said you were assigned to work at the factory, right?”

T: “Yeah.”

N: “How is it?”

T: “Good.”

N: “You okay there?”

T: “Yeah.”

From that exchange and since there were no other messages conveyed secretly, Namjoon understood that the drug was being produced at the factory and that Taehyung didn’t think he was exposed to anything dangerous while working there. Then Namjoon let out another cough and pretended to pat his chest while asking Taehyung: Type? Taehyung resumed eating and tapping with his finger against the bowl he was holding to tell Namjoon: ty heroin imitation. Namjoon sighed while processing everything and he barely made himself resume eating.

Lunch ended soon after that and they hurried back to their workplaces. Taehyung tried taking more and longer looks around, because asking too many questions at this point might come across as suspicious, but everything he saw just further confirmed his theory.

There was also another type of thing he noticed – he was getting tired. Working long hours with maximum concentration wasn’t that foreign to him, but waking up so early in the morning and adapting to so many new things at once was taking its toll on him.

After dinner, he found himself eagerly looking forward to getting back to the crappy bed in his room, but he still had toilet duties to perform. The toilets in the community consisted of outdoor, wooden stalls in which there was a large wooden crate you could sit on or step onto before crouching. On its upper side, the crate had an oval hole for you to pee or into. Thanks to the leader’s generosity, there was also toilet paper within the stall, but they were told to use it scarcely if they didn’t want to end up using leaves or other things like that after it runs out.

As someone explained to him, Taehyung would have to check the outdoor toilets and, if the crates were halfway full or more, he would have to open them from the back, shovel the piled up excrement onto a big wheelbarrow and, when the wheelbarrow was full, he would have to push it uphill, outside of the community, to a certain place in the woods where there was a large hole dug into the ground to dump the excrement in. If there was a lot of excrement, he would have to make several such trips.

Luckily, there was one other person on toilet duty, so Taehyung only had to check the toilets for the eastern side for the commune. Unluckily, the other person was a woman, so she received the privilege of dumping the excrement on the other side of the commune, where she wouldn’t have to push a heavy wheelbarrow uphill.

Taehyung worked with rubber gloves and his mask from the factory on, but it was still smelly and he still constantly risked dirtying his clothes which would have been extra ty, literally ty, because he wouldn’t get a change of clothes for another 2 weeks minimum. Figuring out how to carry the dirty shovel around while also pushing the wheelbarrow proved to be a difficult challenge, but it was nothing compared to pushing the loaded wheelbarrow uphill a second time.

T: This kinda thing will never break my character, I’ve done far more uncomfortable things, but it sure as hell might break my back…

When he finally reached the whole and dumped the load, he was breathing so hard that it could probably be heard on the other side of the mountain he had started climbing. But he also heard the river close by, so he took the shovel and went towards it, thinking of washing it in the river while inspecting the area. However –

G: “You! New guy! What do you think you’re doing?” a guard said to him in an aggressive tone as he approached Taehyung.

T: “Uh, I wanted to clean the shovel in the river here.”

G: “You can’t clean anything upstream, this is the water we drink and use for cooking, you know? Did no one tell you that? All cleaning activities within the river are to be done downstream.”

T: “Ah, I see. Sorry, sir. And thank you.”

G: “Go back to your duty and don’t wander around. Going off trail in the woods or close to them is dangerous as our hunters might mistake you for a target.”

T: “Hunters?”

G: “What? You think we can feed hundreds of people with just our livestock? We can’t afford to kill several animals each time people need to eat some meat, so our hunters hunt deer, rabbits, wild boars and so on to provide a secondary source of meat.”

T: “I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me.”

G: “Now back to your duty and stay on the given path.”

T: “Yes, sir.”

Taehyung ran off pissed that he had to travel all the way to the other end of the commune to clean the shovel and the wheelbarrow, but he was glad he had learned that extra piece of information.

T: Yeah, right… I’ve had 5 meals here and none of them contained meat. Even if those hunters sometimes hunt wild animals, they most likely most often hunt those trying to escape.

It would take more time for Taehyung to figure out how the commune worked, but for now he was done. After cleaning his tools and placing them back where they belonged, he walked to building R, climbed up 4 floors, entered his room and collapsed on the bed, not having the energy to even take his sandals off.