Ch.575Chapter 22. The Price of Labor (7)

That moment, in the underground server room of Haeguneul.

“Ugh, uuugh…!!”

A group of disheveled men huddled together, their bodies trembling violently.

“God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Heavenly Emperor…!!”

They prayed to every deity imaginable, hands clasped together, desperately wishing for something.

“Please, please…!”

“I told you it’s safe.”

Yoon Hye-ra, a red-haired woman perched on a desk in the server control room, crossed her legs as she swallowed a piece of chocolate.

“I said we’ll guarantee your safety, didn’t I? Even if you die, we’ll resurrect you.”

“Aaaagh!! We’ve been scammed after all!”

The men wept streams of tears and wailed.

“I knew it! You’re going to kill us and then resurrect us as machines!”

“……”

“You’ll extract our brains and turn us into cyborgs with our brains floating in fluid!”

“No, I wasn’t planning to go that far…”

“You say you weren’t planning to, but that means it’s possible!”

“……”

Yoon Hye-ra scratched her cheek with her finger.

“See!”

And that silence was taken as confirmation by the disheveled, sobbing men.

“Look, gentlemen. What I explained earlier—”

“Stop messing around.”

SMACK!

The white-haired woman struck the back of Yoon Hye-ra’s head hard enough to make a loud sound.

“Ouch!”

“What are you doing when you should be building trust and persuading them?”

“But sis, I already said everything! It’s not our fault they’re looking for Jesus-Buddha-Allah-God instead of us! And they’re programmers, for crying out loud!”

“What, programmers can’t have religious beliefs?”

Hyun Se-rin stepped forward with a composed face, positioning herself in front of Yoon Hye-ra.

“The Syndicate will take responsibility for your future, lives, and families. Even if problems arise, we’ll safely send you from Korea to America, so don’t worry.”

“Is… is that true…? We’re not going to die like this…?”

“Of course. Even if…”

Hyun Se-rin pointed to the flashing red alarm in the server room.

“Even if Haeguneul actually installed real bombs in the server room, they won’t go off.”

“Eeeek!!”

“You all know that better than anyone.”

Hyun Se-rin picked up an employee ID card from the table.

The ID contained a photo of a vibrant young man when he was first hired, with the Haeguneul logo stamped below it.

“Mr. Kim Gwang-woon?”

“Y-yes!”

“Since you’re the team leader of this server management room, please tell us how Haeguneul planned to destroy this server room.”

“W-well.”

The server room team leader glanced at his team members, then extended his Taeguk Watch forward.

“First, the Taeguk Watch triggers an explosion.”

“Ex-explosion?! Team leader, what are you saying…!”

“Mine!! Not yours!!”

“Oh.”

At the team leader’s words, the team members’ expressions fluctuated between shock and relief.

“B-but we’re all here together!”

“What good would it do if the team leader’s head gets blown off first? The detonator for the bombs installed in this server room would activate. Then we’d all die anyway. They’ve set it up so the door won’t open without my Taeguk Watch.”

“H-hieek…!”

“And before the explosion, all the servers would be degaussed by a powerful electric current….”

The team leader looked at the woman standing next to Hyun Se-rin and nodded heavily.

“…Even if the Choi family activates the degaussing protocol by remote control, the servers won’t stop if that electrical signal doesn’t reach inside. Even if external power is cut off….”

Crackle.

“…If emergency current continues to be supplied like this, the servers won’t die. All of Haeguneul’s electronic data in this country, everything.”

“As expected of an S-class….”

“Ahem.”

The mysterious woman wearing a white baseball cap pulled low over her face cleared her throat as blue electric sparks continued to fly from her hands.

“My presence here is a secret, everyone.”

“O-of course! The fact that Thunder Empress is working with the Syndicate—mmph!”

“I apologize. This guy isn’t a spy. He’s just terribly tactless. I swear on my life.”

“……”

Hyun Se-rin lowered the gun she was about to point forward.

Though the blade was still aimed at the tactless speaker.

“B-but. Really… if we go to America.”

The team leader pressed his still-glowing red Taeguk Watch with his hand and asked in a trembling voice.

“Will you really give us that money?”

“Of course. The Syndicate never jokes about money. It’s all legally earned.”

“But… even in America, how could you possibly have that kind of money…?”

“…Money laundering?”

“Hey.”

Hyun Se-rin covered her face with her hand at Yoon Hye-ra’s answer.

“That’s technically true, but saying it like that causes misunderstandings. Are you trying to mess around?”

“But the section chief said so! That I’m Miss Yoon Hye-ra who likes to joke around. That I seem more alive than before. Hmph.”

“…Sigh. I should just stop talking.”

“Um, may I ask something too?”

The mysterious woman in the baseball cap raised her hand.

“Where exactly does the Syndicate’s funding come from…? Do you really launder money…?”

“We launder black money just like this. Through ‘taxes.'”

Hyun Se-rin shrugged and looked up.

“What’s good about ability users? No matter how much money you have or how armed you are with guns, it’s useless against ability users.”

“……Don’t tell me?”

“We also have government employee status?”

Hyun Se-rin tapped her Syndicate Watch and displayed a line of text.

“Tax Crime Investigation Bureau, Ability Team. Simply put, among our identities, we’re also members of the Federal Tax Service.”

“……That.”

“Yes.”

“Is it okay for America to intervene in Korea?”

“Well, that’s a bit of an issue, but we make it not an issue. Do you know what the abbreviation for the American tax agency is?”

“Ah, I know.”

The team leader cautiously raised his hand.

“IRS, Internal Revenue Service…?”

“Right. But we need to change one word.”

“International.”

Yoon Hye-ra giggled and created something resembling an employee ID card with flames.

“Think of it as the International Revenue Service, something like that?”

“……”

“By the way, it’s not just international in name. Because….”

Yoon Hye-ra got up from the desk, linked arms with the mysterious woman, and smiled.

“We have a cooperative relationship with the International Hero Association.”

“……”

“A hero’s job is to defeat villains. Those who break the law are villains. Tax evasion is illegal. So….”

Yoon Hye-ra pointed upward.

“Isn’t it also a hero’s job to intervene against those who commit illegal acts like tax evasion, smuggling, and blood selling?”

“So….”

“That’s right. Your new salaries will all be paid from the penalties collected from these criminals and other sources.”

“More precisely, the tax bureau collects the tax penalties, and ‘The Company’ pays you normally.”

Hyun Se-rin added to Yoon Hye-ra’s explanation as she handed the Haeguneul employee IDs to the programmers.

“So don’t worry. You’re not traitors; you’re ‘whistleblowers.’ Whistleblowers won’t suffer any harm.”

“What did that guy causing trouble upstairs say… ah, right. There can be happy endings, but no hellpy endings.”

“…Um.”

The team leader clutched his Haeguneul employee ID with both hands, his face extremely tense.

“Will we get full benefits? The medical insurance in America….”

“Korean things are good things. That’s why we finally succeeded in implementing it this year. Korean-style health insurance. Starting next year, medical insurance will be applied throughout the American federation. Just like in Korea.”

“……”

Snap.

“I’m boarding the American Dream.”

The employee ID was torn in half.

At the same time.

CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!!!

A powerful electromagnetic pulse spread throughout the server room.

* * *

Clunk.

The elevator stopped.

The power suddenly cut off at the top floor, and I immediately swung my sword forward to break down the door and leaped ahead.

Rumble!!

The elevator plummeted downward with the power outage.

If I had been just a little late, I would have been sliced in half, but fortunately, the elevator stopped the moment it reached the top floor, allowing me to safely land in the corridor.

‘The EMP went off.’

My Syndicate Watch still works properly.

But all electronic signals are dead, with only mana-based signals maintaining normal operation.

-Persuasion successful >_

A message arrived.

Either the emoticon was cut off, or there was some typo.

Probably sent the message as is.

‘That’s a relief.’

Even though money is supreme, some people find it difficult to leave their familiar environment.

Living in an unknown land where you don’t even speak the language isn’t an easy thing.

But the persuasion was successful.

The most significant factor behind that persuasion was….

Step.

Not fear of retaliation for betraying Haeguneul.

Step.

Not being swept up in the mob mentality of collective anger.

Step.

Just pure, sincere anger that anyone would feel.

Creeeeak.

I open the door.

Forcibly breaking through the electronic door lock, I arrived at the Haeguneul chairman’s office with a clear view of Busan’s landscape.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

A man in a suit stands right in front of the window.

[You’re not the chairman.]

“The chairman was never here to begin with.”

[Then where is he?]

“Who knows. Somewhere on the Korean peninsula, I suppose.”

The suited man turned around.

He was a rather young-looking man with eyes that sparkled blue.

And on his black leather gloves was the seal of Haeguneul.

“The game is over. I cannot forgive any more thuggish behavior.”

[Thuggish behavior, you say.]

“What else would you call someone who breaks into another company, causes a blackout, terrorizes the server room, and kills all the server administrators?”

[Aren’t those your own actions?]

I pointed behind me.

[Wasn’t it you who just made the elevator fall?]

BOOM!

A loud vibration echoed from below.

Probably from the elevator crashing.

[Are you going to pin everything on me? Haeguneul Bank, Haeguneul Securities, Haeguneul Insurance, and all the other data that’s gone?]

“That’s rich coming from a terrorist who deleted it all.”

[Is that so?]

Right now I can’t check because access is cut off, but he doesn’t know we’re isolated from the outside.

“Why are you so relaxed? Do you think you can recover it? There’s no one who can recover it anyway.”

[Why are you so certain there isn’t?]

However.

[Even if you planted spies inside, did you think we wouldn’t know? I’m sorry, but there are at least three S-class ability users deployed to the server room.]

“……!!”

The servers containing all of Haeguneul’s data, including Haeguneul Bank used by 20 million Korean citizens, are protected by S-class heroes.

[Even if you recover the servers, you’ll do something truly despicable.]

“Despicable?”

[Yes.]

[You’ll keep the deposit records but only recover the loan data, won’t you?]