Ch.31Chapter 31 – Mine

Rumble-

“Surround him so he can’t escape!”

“Circle around! Block the door!”

The gang members formed a circular perimeter to prevent Shin Jaehyuk from escaping. A semicircular wall of about fifteen sturdy men blocked the exit.

“Move aside, move aside!”

With a piercing shout, a man burst through the wall of gangsters. A skinny old man in a white coat. His protruding cheekbones stood in stark contrast to his gaunt cheeks. He was one of the figures Jaehyuk had seen while hiding in the container.

‘They’re all faces I saw from the container… So this really is the entire staff of this secret laboratory.’

The man looked at Shin Jaehyuk while catching his breath. His small frame rose and fell with his rough breathing. His wide-open eyes seemed to ask how on earth Jaehyuk had gotten in here.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Then he pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket and put it between his lips.

“Light.”

“Here you go, Director Heo.”

One of the gang members standing nearby took out a lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette. Thick smoke billowed up.

“Inhale, exhale-“

Even while smoking, Director Heo carefully examined the intruder’s appearance. Black clothing designed not to stand out. A cap worn with CCTV in mind. Mace in hand, ready for confrontation. A bag on his back with unknown contents.

Clearly the attire of a spy. He must have infiltrated to steal his research results. How utterly despicable…

Before he could speak, Shin Jaehyuk beat him to it.

“I take it you’re in charge here?”

“That’s right. And who are you? How did you find this place? The location should be top secret even within the organization…”

Several questions burst forth in succession. The old man called Director Heo nervously scratched his nape with his yellowed fingernails. He muttered irritably.

“Only the Chairman knows about this project. Who sent you? Pal-gwang? Ji-pil? Or maybe Deok-chul? There’s no shortage of backstabbers who smile to the Chairman’s face while sharpening their knives behind his back… Damn it.”

Shin Jaehyuk kept his mouth firmly shut, indicating he wouldn’t answer. Still, he tried to extract meaningful information from the casually dropped words.

Cha Eun-kyung had said that the current Black Snake Faction was a kind of coalition formed by forces dissatisfied with the Red Dragon Faction. When former leaders gather together, power struggles naturally arise. It seemed there were quite a few factions within the Black Snake that harbored discontent toward the current chairman, Ryu Chang-geun.

“Fine. What’s the use of asking in this situation… Pildu!”

He suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs. Based on what the gangsters had said, Pildu must be the cross-eyed man who had collapsed earlier when confronting Jaehyuk. He had passed out in the corridor inside the door-

BANG! CRASH-

The door behind Shin Jaehyuk opened violently, and suddenly two tentacle-like appendages shot out. At the end of one was the sashimi knife he had seen minutes ago.

Swoosh-!

“Ugh!”

‘An Awakened? A body-modification type!’

Two octopus-like fleshy limbs grazed Jaehyuk’s cheek as they passed. Blood sprayed from the lightly scratched cheek.

The octopus limbs instantly wrapped around Jaehyuk’s body, tightening like a snake’s coil and firmly gripping him.

In the blink of an eye, Jaehyuk was completely immobilized.

The pressure squeezing his arms made Jaehyuk drop the mace. It hit the floor with a heavy thud.

“Kugh-.”

“Director! I’ve got him!”

The owner of the tentacles appeared from the doorway. It was indeed the man Jaehyuk had faced earlier. His two arms had stretched out like he’d eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit, binding Jaehyuk. He had clearly seen the man knocked unconscious after taking a blow to the chin, but he was already up!

‘Plus, this guy isn’t an Awakened. I can’t sense any mana. Rather, this evil energy is-‘

“Hehe, indeed, mollusks have better compatibility, endurance, and utility. I must say I did an excellent job.”

Director Heo smiled with satisfaction, tapping cigarette ash into the air. He placed the cigarette back between his yellowed teeth and approached the bound Jaehyuk.

“Well, now it seems we’re in a position to get to know each other better?”

“Urgh…”

Hearing Jaehyuk’s groan, the old man burst into a vile laugh and asked:

“Who sent you? No, no. How did you find this place? That’s what I’m most curious about. How on earth did you find it? I thought we had hidden it thoroughly. Where did the secret leak from?”

Director Heo brought his wrinkled face close to Jaehyuk’s, observing his expression meticulously like a snake examining its prey, anticipating the next answer.

Contrary to his expectation, Jaehyuk didn’t answer. The old man raised his arm.

“Talk. Talk. Talk.”

SLAP-! SLAP-! SLAP-!

He slapped Jaehyuk’s cheek in rhythm. The cheek turned red. He took the cigarette from his mouth, holding it between his thumb and index finger.

“Talk!”

SIZZLE-

The cigarette burned Jaehyuk’s cheek. The smell of burning flesh rose from where the flame met skin.

“…”

“Ha… this fucking bastard.”

Seeing no sign of Jaehyuk opening his mouth, he became furious and shouted.

“TALK! I said TALK!!”

Finding strength from somewhere, the old man began pummeling Jaehyuk’s face with his bony arms. His fists struck Jaehyuk’s face repeatedly, drawing blood.

“…”

Jaehyuk didn’t make a single sound. For someone who had spent his life in battlefields, this level of pain was nothing. Seeing no sign of him talking despite the beating, the director changed his strategy.

“Ha, tough bastard. Fine. What will it take to make you talk?”

Since the opponent seemed unlikely to talk, he tried to coax him instead. Only then did Jaehyuk open his mouth.

“Let’s take turns asking questions, one by one.”

“Finally opening that mouth heavier than gold! Hehehe. A question game, is it? You must be quite curious about my great research?”

HAHAHAHAHA-! KEKEKEKEKIKIK!

Maniacal laughter echoed through the room.

“Fine! Who am I to deny a dying man’s wish!”

The intruder was in the palm of his hand anyway. There was no need to worry about keeping secrets. Once this game ended, he would be a corpse, and corpses don’t talk.

Rather, if he could find out how security had been breached by satisfying the man’s curiosity, that would be beneficial.

‘He took the bait.’

And that was exactly Jaehyuk’s plan.

Why else would he endure the humiliation of being captured, slapped, and tortured by mere street thugs? Obviously, it was to hear information he couldn’t get when perceived as a ‘dangerous person.’

Deliberately getting captured by the enemy, pretending to be weak, and extracting their secrets. People who mistakenly believed they had the upper hand often lowered their guard and blurted out dangerous secrets.

“What kind of experiment, or rather surgery, are you conducting here?”

“Oh, so you saw the operating room! Then you must have guessed? What those creatures you saw in that room are.”

Captive test subjects.

Research journals attached to doors.

Human organs in the operating room trash.

The empty skin of a demon corpse.

Black blood vessels that weren’t human.

The strange energy flowing through those vessels,

Demonic energy

“…Fusion of demons and humans.”

Clap, clap, clap! Director Heo applauded. He looked genuinely impressed.

“Your mind works quite fast! Yes! Something like that. More precisely, rather than fusion, it’s enhancement…”

“Attaching demon organs to humans like Lego pieces. No, is it Gundam? Anyway-“

He chattered away by himself. He seemed pleased to find someone interested in his experiments. How stifling it must have been to be unable to publish his findings to the academic world, trapped alone in a desolate laboratory. And his ignorant subordinates would never understand his research.

“Well, seeing is believing, isn’t it?”

He turned around and wiggled his fingers at his subordinates.

“Boys! Show him! He’s curious!”

The gangsters standing behind snickered as they rolled up their sleeves. As they revealed their skin, grotesquely swollen blood vessels became visible. Dark demonic energy flowed within them. Snake tattoos wrapped around their arms seemed to writhe in sync with the pulsing blood vessels, as if the Black Snake had come alive.

“You’re all… Mains…”

Jaehyuk muttered in shock.

Sharing a body with a demon.

This was a kind of contract.

An indirect contract between demons and gangsters, mediated by Director Heo.

“Yes! Only I! In this world, only I have achieved this great feat! With just one surgery, an ordinary person can gain power comparable to an Awakened! The Chairman will have a powerful army at his disposal and become the king of the underworld, while I will be the founding contributor, a great scientist who advanced humanity one step further-“

Director Heo rambled about his grand, rosy future and ambitions. But Jaehyuk couldn’t care less about such plans. The problem was the very existence of this research.

If he were left alone and this research spread, Mains would proliferate uncontrollably across the Earth.

Like a single spark growing into a wildfire that consumes an entire forest.

He needed to nip it in the bud here.

Jaehyuk’s eyes gleamed coldly with killing intent. He deliberately suppressed his bloodlust. He needed to be patient for now. He had to uncover who was behind this plan…

The old man, who had been rambling to himself, suddenly turned to his prisoner.

“First, I need to deal with this nuisance…

How, did you, find, this place?”

He asked, enunciating each syllable as if chewing on the words.

Snake-like pupils that seemed to pierce through his mind. Clumsy lies wouldn’t work.

“I followed the truck. From Incheon Port. It was carrying containers marked with the Black Snake emblem.”

Director Heo scrutinized Jaehyuk’s face carefully, combining the information he knew with the testimony.

“Tsk- Those idiots… Blatantly engraving the organization’s emblem on cargo? Is there any need to advertise suspicious activities to the whole neighborhood? These fucking bastards. I need to have a serious talk with that gentleman…”

Director Heo recalled someone and expressed his irritation. It was a VIP who had lent them a distribution network to enable secret smuggling. From the beginning, it would have been impossible to import cargo from overseas without at least one collaborator…

Jaehyuk asked his next question.

“How did you bestow demonic traits on humans? Simply stitching organs wouldn’t grant demonic powers.”

“Hehe… A sharp question. You’re clever, very clever.”

So there was indeed someone behind this. Jaehyuk swallowed hard.

Director Heo extended his hand with theatrical exaggeration.

“I received grace from a great being. The knowledge of hell that ordinary humans like you will never know.”

Director Heo gazed wistfully as he recalled the past.

“I still remember that moment vividly. On a particularly hungry night, He appeared to me in the form of a spider. Ah! Though He took the form of a mere creature, I, only I could recognize His greatness! Pleased that I recognized His true form, He asked what I desired. Like the wise King Solomon, I asked for wisdom, and His spider legs, legs, legs entered my ear, whispering forbidden wisdom directly into my brain… That sensation, more euphoric than any drug, enlightening my foolish mind! Ah-! How could I forget that joy?”

He twisted his old body in ecstasy. Saliva dripped between his gums.

‘He’s completely lost it… So he made a contract with some dangerous being.’

From his condition, it seemed the demon he contracted with had directly implanted evil knowledge into his brain. According to him, the demon had given a gift without asking for anything in return.

But Jaehyuk knew demons wouldn’t do that.

Demons are beings that strive to destroy humans by any means. A demon that hates humanity wouldn’t show unmotivated kindness to humans. Beneath the surface of apparent kindness must lie a plot incomprehensible to humans.

Was it planning to proliferate Mains in the middle realm to collapse it from within? Or was this an effort to create followers to expand its influence?

Jaehyuk tried to deduce the demon’s identity and purpose. But he couldn’t even guess. There were too many possible candidates.

For hell is deep, and demons are many.