It’s Morning. Workers, Please Wake Up.

 

Holiday evening meeting at 8 PM.

Ended at 10 PM.

Materials arrived at 10:30 PM.

Analysis completed at 12 AM.

After that, writing and uploading reports, further investigating related people, organizing more information, researching streamers too…

Tweet tweet-

Before I knew it, morning had broken.

Fuck.

Those Hwaryong bastards, I’ll chew them to death.

‘No. If they did something wrong, they should just stay put, why stir things up?’

I’m already dying busy trying to catch drug dealers.

I’m heading to Jagang Province right now!

Near the old North Korean border!

I need to search that place where secret military factories still remain in the mountains!

Why did they have to add more work?

“It was better when I could just raid in and kill criminals.”

It was nice back then because R.A did all the investigation.

It would be good if I could call them now too, but they’re currently busy chasing returnee criminal groups, working business trips three days a week and overtime five days a week.

If I asked them to help with this case too, that wouldn’t be human.

I didn’t come here to catch criminals in the first place; I came to change the law.

I chose to catch criminals to gain popularity among citizens, so I should consider myself lucky that they even provided Phantom as support.

‘But I can’t just give up either.’

When I took a short break, gangsters immediately ran wild, so I can clearly see what would happen if I completely stepped away.

The level of hunters is high, so it won’t become a crime den like South America or Africa, but the ripple effects would shake industries and cause social disorder.

“Though I’m not sure if things would go back to how they were before.”

Maybe a few slums would form and gangsters would find their romance again.

That damned romance truly needs to be beaten to death.

To be honest, it’s just romance in name; it’s nothing but a delusion born from the collaboration of nostalgia and gangster glorification.

They need to see what it’s like to be truly trampled before they’ll stop appearing.

“Are… are you angry? I’m sorry. Pl-please spare my life.”

“No, it’s not because of you, so please stop trembling.”

Inside the helicopter heading to Jagang Province, Phantom was begging for her life with tears in her eyes, scared of something.

‘She really thinks I’ll kill her.’

Maybe it’s because I always threaten to kill her.

I never actually intend to do it though.

S-rank non-combat professions are more valuable than combat ones.

It might not seem that way in dungeons, but it’s impossible to explain in words how useful they are on Earth.

‘An S-rank farmer can feed an entire country alone.’

We should recruit non-combat team members for our team too.

“I’m. Sorry. So. Please. Spare. Spare me.”

…Fuck, what tune am I supposed to dance to with this kid?

Should I really put her in a mental institution?

If she were an arrogant brat, I’d treat her with physical discipline, but since she’s this timid, I can’t handle her that way.

If I make a mistake and she dies, I’ll clearly die from being buried in work without a single day of rest.

‘Even if I get angry later, it seems better to comfort her now.’

I stroked Phantom’s head to soothe her.

“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”

What’s this? Why is there no response?

Splash-

“No! What’s so scary about touching your head?”

We’re in a helicopter so it’s hard to clean up!

I can’t throw her out of the sky either.

[Activation – Fish Bone Trident]

“I must be the only one using a D-rank weapon as a cleaning tool.”

What should I do about the clothes?

North Korea was destroyed when gates burst open.

The Supreme Leader, likened to the sun, did not become an awakened, and internal strife arose from those who claimed to be the sun themselves.

Fortunately, the person who survived at the end had their mind intact and proposed unification with South Korea, not wanting to hand over land to China.

However, during the internal conflict, some places transformed into areas where humans could hardly survive.

Jagang Province is one of them. When the military facilities inside were damaged, the nuclear weapons inside exploded, and the underground became covered in radiation.

The surface is also affected, but since even D-rank awakened can barely withstand it, South Korea abandoned this place.

It was the same for China, which had its eyes on the Korean Peninsula, and Jagang Province became a gathering place for criminals with nowhere else to go.

Due to the issue of the radiation zone, the Korean military did not dispatch troops here.

If contaminated materials were to enter their territory by mistake, problems would arise, so they only strengthened surveillance.

‘Should I just kill them all?’

I can feel gazes scanning my body.

True to it being a crime city, they just openly look me up and down.

‘Let’s just endure it.’

It’s impossible to distinguish criminals from everyone here, and it doesn’t make sense to kill someone just for pickpocketing once.

In the first place, if they were criminals, they might die, so they’d run away as soon as they saw me.

‘But what about those guys looking at Phantom?’

Looking isn’t a crime, but it feels a bit off when they look at what’s mine with those eyes.

“I should really die. I’m not worth living. I only cause trouble every time…”

Is it fortunate that the kid is too broken to notice such things?

No, it’s not normal to beg for your life one minute and then ask to be killed the next.

‘Should I teach her?’

At this point, I’m curious how broken she can get… no, I shouldn’t think that.

“It’s okay. You’ll get used to it gradually.”

“R-really? But I committed a discourtesy.”

“It’s really fine, so don’t worry.”

After all your rudeness so far, you call just that a discourtesy?

Actually, it was more convenient that you fainted.

We have a lot to do from now on, so please come to your senses.

I hid my true feelings and comforted her.

If I don’t want to go through the hassle of searching each of these complicated tunnels one by one, I have no choice.

I do have methods, but whether this land would remain intact is questionable.

If there are people remaining by chance, I can capture them and extract information.

‘It’s much faster to hear directly than to search for information.’

Credibility?

We’ll find out when we check.

“Then shall we find it now?”

“O-okay.”

-Ah! Damn, what is this nonsense so early in the morning?

As her body turned into particles and disappeared, familiar cursing entered my ears.

‘Should I put her in a mental institution?’

Changing a person’s mind in an instant is also a skill, if you want to call it that.

“Just find the location quickly.”

Phantom’s ability is electronification.

It’s an ability that might seem simple, allowing her to travel through networks, but without an extraordinary mind, it can’t be used properly.

The reason it’s hard to catch Phantom is largely because she can interfere with cyberspace and there are few beings as knowledgeable as her.

Still, this means she’s difficult to catch, not impossible.

Other awakened might take time to catch her, but she is an S-rank awakened who has undergone a second awakening.

Her other ability is to travel to the past within digital spaces.

Even with thorough security, she goes back before it and breaks through, and when trying to trap her, she suddenly disappears.

Even I barely managed to catch her using one of the top-tier equipment.

I caught her by twisting space-time at a level comparable to the Angel of Death I used before.

And I made her mine by paying her worth.

‘Calling her a slave isn’t wrong either.’

A super-grade slave obtained by providing the equipment I used then.

Ding-

-Quickly come to these coordinates!

A slave?

“If only you weren’t so capable.”

[Activation – Gluttonous Mouth]

A hammer with a huge mouth appeared in my left hand.

It’s a great earth-attribute weapon made from capturing a giant worm, but right now I’m just using it as an excavator.

-Crazy, what is that?

-Hey! Run away. Something big will happen if you stay near that crazy woman.

-What is that thing?

-I wonder how much it costs.

As the worm’s mouth opened, it burrowed into the ground, devouring the earth all the way to the underground as it advanced.

Unless it was a living monster, radiation has no effect on a worm processed into equipment.

[Contraction]

The weapon contracted towards the part with the worm’s mouth, quickly moving to the underground facility.

-Wow, a tag bore.

“I’ll really kill you.”

Ah, I need to switch my speech pattern.

“Find the information quickly. 10.”

-10 minutes? I can find everything with time to spare.

“9. 8.”

-Fuck you, bitch!

While using her ability, she can change locations, but her vision returns to the point when she used it.

If Phantom just uses her ability, she can find information before I count to 7.

“Tsk.”

-It’s here! Here! With such an impatient personality, no wonder you’ve been without a man for over 50 years.

“I choose not to date.”

-Yeah~ yeah~ I’m sure that’s it.

“Quickly find information on this time period before I kill you.”

-Ah! You damn bitch!

…

Judging by the aura, it seems like there’s no one here, so let’s look around a bit.

I’m absolutely not shocked by the mention of being over 50 years old.

Originally, many awakened have transcended the human limitation called age, so there’s no way I would be upset about such a trivial number.

But seeing that attitude of mocking a superior, I’ll have to punish her later.

Isn’t there a saying that when kindness continues, people start thinking it’s their right?

She might even bring up age on the broadcast.

…Broadcast, huh?

“Should I make her wear animal pajamas?”

Haran wore a school uniform, so there’s no need for Phantom to appear normally either.

“Would the landmine style suit her?”

I circled the underground facility once, thinking about what clothes would suit Phantom.

Most things have been blown up so there’s not much information left, but Phantom has collected all the information so it doesn’t matter.

I should head back now.

“But something feels off.”

The walls aren’t damaged at all, only the inside is all broken.

The part where I came in was definitely damaged though.

“Did they know where I would enter?”

It’s not impossible if there’s a precognitive ability user.

Then what have they prepared?

From my experience so far, in cases like this, it’s one of three things:

Option 1: Spatial isolation.

Option 2: Stalling for time.

Option 1 is rejected.

To isolate a space of this size, it would be detected by me no matter how well they hide their mana.

Option 2 is also rejected.

If it were a foreign country, maybe, but within Korea, I can move immediately by using equipment.

“The last one, Option 3: They’re just messing with me.”

There’s something strange inside those walls, and the possibility of ruining my mood has greatly increased.

“Seems like someone’s been influenced by foreign methods.”

Since I tend not to run detection in places I think people have already fled from, there are occasionally those who pull these kinds of pranks.

I didn’t expect it in Korea.

“People like that don’t end well, didn’t they study that?”

I hope there’s no damage above.

Bang-