Dongrang

Overview

Enemy

"Wait!"

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Dongrang
General Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	K Corp. Dept. of Food Resource Development Branch Manager
Affiliations	K Corp.
Relations	Gubo, Yi Sang, Dongbaek, Young-ji, Aseah (Former Compatriots) Samjo (Employee and Implied Lover) Alfonso (Superior)
First Appearance	Canto IV: The Unchanging
Status	Deceased
Voice Actor	Jang Min-hyeok

Dongrang (Hangul: 동랑, Dong Rang) is a Branch Manager of K Corp, specifically overseeing K Corp Department of Food Resource Development. He was formerly a member of the League of Nine Littérateurs and one of Yi Sang's former colleagues.

Dongrang is introduced in Canto IV by his subordinate and secretary, Samjo. He is very cooperative in his temporary partnership with the Sinners of Limbus Company in their combined efforts to stop the terrorist group known as the Technology Liberation Alliance, up until the end of the chapter's dungeon. Where he is fought as a Distortion, and then as an E.G.O. Manifested.

Appearance

Dongrang is a tall, thin man with ghostly-white skin and dull green hair. He wears slim, rimless glasses over bright green eyes, and has a notable mole or birthmark on his neck.

Dongrang sports the typical K Corp scientist uniform, which consists of a long white lab coat with green accents and the K Corp's signature logo on the right sleeve. He also wears a white collared shirt, black shoes, a green tie and a black blazer with green accents. Dongrang's uniform pants are the same set of colors as his blazer, with a diamond pattern on his right thigh, and near his ankles. He has two pens in his labcoat's pockets, and has his ID pinned to his chest on his left.

As a Distortion, he is known as Dongrang Who Denies All. Dongrang takes the form of a centaur-like creature as his Distortion, his lower-half similar to that of a cow and covered in twisted green vines to that of Peccatulum Gulae. His upper-half is more human-adjacent and is seen wearing a large, belled sleeved brown overcoat and dirtied robe, also known as a hanbok (한복). Dongrang Who Denies All also sports a weaved sedge hat (Korean- satgat or 삿갓) with two white horns piercing through it and covering his face. Dongrang Who Denies All wields a bloodied and disjointed plough-like weapon, covered in vines, leaves and cotton.

While manifesting his Farmwatch E.G.O, his appearance is similar to the upper half of his Distortion. He wears the same brown overcoat, hanbok robe and sedge hat, now alongside brown gloves, a small cowbell attached to a robe dangling from his neck, and black boots, also known as hwa (화). We still cannot see Dongrang's face in this form, only the two horns piercing the sedge hat. He also wields a weapon heavily inspired by a plough in this form, an agricultural tool pulled by a draft animal (commonly cows, mules or horses) to dig trenches allowing not only for the earth to be mixed but also for the seeds to be easily buried. The tool he uses may also be slightly influenced by a scythe, an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops.

Personality

At the beginning of Canto IV, he is portrayed as a benevolent and agreeable albeit dismissive and even egotistical man, with him notably mentioning him leaving out flowers for fallen K Corp researchers. However, as the chapter progresses, he is shown to be an emotionally numbed and borderline sadistic person, focused on outdoing his former peers in the League of Nine Littérateurs. In the story dungeon before manifesting his E.G.O, it is noted that he has lost the pity he felt for the test subjects who would generate audiovisual feed for K. Corp's Singularity. He was notably envious of Yi Sang, outright coming to the conclusion that he should kill him to fulfill his longing to finally outshine the League, and to be recognized for his own accomplishments. Despite his sense of pity being impaired thanks to the League's parting, and thanks to witnessing the horrors at K. Corp, he wasn't always doing things for a reward; prior to all of the events of the League's disbanding, he had a softer and more gentle tone, caring for things that were merely injured or suffering.

He has been shown feeling noticeable guilt for what he has done and endorsed, seeking to deny it all. Prior to his distortion, remembering the fear that the calf he saved before the original league disbanded wouldn't recognize him for what he's done, caused him to initially Distort. This is only for a brief moment though, as when he sees what happens when the cow could no longer recognize him, he kills it and joins K Corp. in earnest to follow his ambitions. During the events of the Canto IV dungeon, he vows to rebuild his department one by one, and manifests E.G.O; accepting that he, too, has changed, and will now finally shed his affiliation with the League by killing Yi Sang.

History

Past

Before the start of the game, Dongrang was a kind man who worried for the animals left in his care, especially a yellow calf that follows him around and thinks is his mother. After moving to T Corp to make more of his life, he eventually joined the League of Nine Littérateurs. However, the technology they created soon caught T Corp's attention. Collectors then went to Dongrang and slowly broke his will though interrogation, eventually selling out the League's location in exchange for a spot at K Corp. Driven with guilt, he went back to his old home, initially horrified by what he had done to his friends, and contemplates death for his actions. But when the yellow calf pass him by, unable to recognize him, Dongrang snaps after realizing how much he as changed, and kills the calf before taking the job at K Corp. Using his own version of the mirror technology, he rose through the ranks to gain fame and status to push away his past, eventually becoming the Branch Manager of K Corp Department of Food Resource Development.

Canto IV: The Unchanging

When LCB reaches Dongrang's department after stopping a rampaging abnormality, he, and his assistant Samjo welcomes the sinners to a tour and agrees to hand over the Golden Bough in K Corp's possession over to them. As the tour goes on, the building is attacked by a terrorist organization called the Technology Liberation Army, who "use vile machines to get rid of their vile creators" and create a peaceful world without any advanced technologies. One of their leaders, and an old colleague of his, Dongbaek, leads the charge, wielding the K Corp owned Bough.

When he, Samjo, and the sinners reach Dongbaek at the top floor of the building, she reveals her plan to destroy the source of K Corp's healing ampules due to being dangerous. This remark causes Samjo to give his life to prove their safety, only to die due to effects of healing ampules' source; a giant crying eyestalk called "The Tearful Thing" that weeps when witnessing cruelty. Dongrang can only laugh at Samjo's senseless sacrifice before the sinners defeat Dongbaek for the first time. After she is defeated, Dongrang reveals that everything the TLA did to try and destroy K Corp's Singularity had only made the Tearful Thing cry more, which nearly causes Dongbaek to distort before gaining an EGO and losing anyways.

Upon her second defeat, Dongrang reveals that N Corp is trying to build a new League of Nine Littérateurs, recruiting old members and killing those who refuse. As a form of "compassion", Dongrang stabs her with the Golden Bough due to the threat of Gubo. However, this causes the entire building to become distorted, and the Bough becomes lost in the dungeon formed from Yi Sang's memories. Dongrang then joins the sinners in located Dongbaek's corpse by literally reenacting scenes from Yi Sang's past. But when reaching the scene that involved T Corp's raid on the League's hideout, Dongrang reveals to be the one who sold the others out, leading the real Dongbaek to curse him out. As he explains to Yi Sang later, this was due to interrogation T Corp did on him, and begins to reveals signs of guilt for what he had done.

After reaching the bottom of the dungeon, Dongrang, whose guilt had resurfaced, begins to distort over his actions, empty achievements, and the yellow calf that would no longer recognize him. After becoming "Who Denys All", he attacks the sinners in a frenzy, before being beaten down in hope he is restored. However, the Distortion recalls his memories, he remembers the calf already didn't recognize him. Dongrang then rejects "Ms. Carmen" and then gains an EGO instead, born from his callous desire to kill his past and yearning for achievements, and attacks Yi Sang. While Dongrang puts up a good show with his EGO "Farmwatch", Yi Sang manages to temporally evolve his EGO and defeat Dongrang. Dying, he admits to having wanted to surpass the League, and states how ironic it is to die under its shadow.

Post-mortem Dongrang is blamed for the events of the Canto by his superior Alfonso, all of it being a grab for power.

Observation Logs

• Distortion
• Farmwatch E.G.O

Dongrang, Who Denies All

Log Writer: Yi Sang

• Level 1

Dongrang was fond of animals.

Back home, he would tend to hurt and ailing creatures. That calf...the yellow one was one such animal.

Whenever I visited Dongrang's home, he stood from where he nursed the calf. I remeber teasing him in jest that he may be sleeping in the cattle shed instead of his room.

He told me that the yellow calf was born frail. Because of that, it was abandoned by its own mother, or so I heard.

When one friend of his asked what he tended to the calf for...and he would brush the question aside, saying that the calf is cute.

He didn't change after we moved to T Corp's territory. He readily picked up starving animals from the streets to raise them.

I thought that he was perhaps reminded of the calf he left in his hometown, although I did not say it out loud.

However, as the technologies in the League began to be evaluated for material value, he changed little by little.

While Brother Young-ji's glass window attracted the attention of people in higher echelons and the public, and I presented my mirror... The worth of Dongrang's works wasn't regarded as highly. It must have disheartened the fellow.

When T Corp. came to us for our technology, Dongrag's invention was thrown into the concept incinerator as a means to deceive the greedy guests...

I can only think that the fire scorched his heart more ferociously at that moment.

After the League scattered apart, Dongrang became a researcher working in an enviable position, dealing with matters of life as he had always wished.

Alas...

I no longer see the innocent gaze toward life in his eyes.

In consequence, as he unearths memories of the calf he left behind, buried under the thoughts of his technology falling behind...

...I fear that he may have lost track of where to go.

Effloresced E.G.O::Farmwatch

Log Writer: Yi Sang

• Level 1

After being cast adrift, it would seem that he now has a clearly set path ahead.

I no longer see the Dongrang who concealed shaky eyes with his usual smile.

I now see a man striding forward and straight...toward claiming his glory and power.

He would have pondered a long time for this.

Between a life of the mind's fruitfulness borne out of tending to living beings, and a life of gluttony where he may escape the shadows of the League and find recognition for his own work.

Dongrang seems to have chosen the latter. Doing so, he must have faced the yellow calf that had been weighing his heart down in his mind...and killed it.

Since he abandoned his hometown and the calf, he appeared hungry at all times.

Hunger for recognition, constant weighing of what he left behind and what he has now, and the infinitesimal weight of his share.

Dongrang...has found a way to lead himself onward through the barley hump, ending this period of famine and swiping what few grains of rice that remain for him to chew on.

And now, he seems intent on killing me as his very first move.

Removing the closest shade of the past before his eyes.

Dongrang walks toward me, one step at a time...

And each time his foot touches the ground, sceneries of all things falling ill and being sacrificed hover before my eyes.

Etymology

Dongrang (Hangul: 동랑, Hanja: 東朗) was the pen name of The Mud Hut's author, Yoo Chijin (Hangul: 유치진, Hanja: 柳致眞), a Korean playwright and founding member of "The Circle of Nine" (Hangul: 구인회 , Hanja: 九人會), or the Guinhoe. A literary group whom writers Park Taewon (pen name: Gubo), Gim Yujeong (writer of The Camellias) and poet Kim Hae-Gyeong (pen name: Yi Sang) would later join.

At first, he was a writer who expressed the reality of farmers suffering under landowners, but when he gained a good position, he became pro-Japanese and created works that propagandized Japan's war. After Korea's independence, he committed corruption under the protection of the military dictatorship.  In the game, his actions are depicted in the form of Dongrang, who was once a pure researcher but was reduced to a stooge of those in power.

The Cow

Dongrang's E.G.O, Farmwatch is based on Yoo Chijin's stageplay, The Cow (Hangul: 소, So).

Farmwatch's name in Korean is mareum (마름), a historical term used for a supervisor of a tenant farm. Mareum were landlords that owned farmland but had tenant workers do all the work themselves, and thus were always portrayed as cruel, greedy villains in Korean media.

In The Cow, main character, Kuksŏ (국서), is a joyful man who heavily prides his life as a farmer. The protagonist regards his beloved calf, the titular cow or ox (소, so), as dearly — if not more — as his own sons. The elder and honest son, Malttongi (말똥이, ‘horsey poo'), desires to inherit his father’s farm when he is too old and frail to tend to it, whereas the younger brother, Kaettongi (개똥이, ‘doggy poo'), wishes to leave his hometown for sea work in Manchuria to achieve a fortune.

Malttongi pleads with his father to sell his cow to pay of his bride's family debt, where as Kaettongi desires to sell the cow to pay for his trip to Machuria. In a series of shenanigans, the cow is the central point of conflict in the story and is eventually seized by the landlord (사음, sa-eum) farmwatch (마름, mareum) of the family’s farm, who suddenly shows up to their home and confiscates Kuksŏ’s ox anyway as part of their land tax.

Kuksŏ’s then tries to file a lawsuit towards the landlord farmwatch, but upon learning that the lawsuit won't actually benefit any of the tenant farmers, he immediately gives in and despairs. The play then ends with Malttongi setting the landlord’s grain storage ablaze before being taken into custody by village police.

In a twist of irony, the ox in the end escapes from the landlord farmwatch’s clutches and charges at him — killing the landowner before making its way back home.

Trivia

• Dongrang, Who Denies All bears a resemblance to Peccatulum Gulae.
  • This is similar to how Kromer the Dreamer of Human Wholeness bears resemblance to Peccatulum Luxuriae.
  • Despite this, 'Dongrang, Who Denies All' is given the Sloth Affinity rather than Gluttony.

Gallery

• Assets
• Cutscene Art

Story Log Portrait

External Links

• Dongrang (동랑) - Korean page (Namuwiki)