Chapter 20 : Surgery

Near the West Beltway Parking Lot

Detective Lee, sitting in the driver’s seat, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the binoculars.

The youngest member of the narcotics unit, sitting in the passenger seat, yawned, stood up, and was very flustered.

When Detective Lee had his eyes closed earlier, he had been watching out the window, but when he opened them, he was in the exact same position as before.

“Detective Lee, are we really just going to sit here like this?”

“What’s wrong with that? I’m on leave anyway.”

“I didn’t take leave though.”

“Then get lost, you little shit.”

The youngest was about to say “Yes, I’ll leave” but stopped himself.

If he really left now, he knew he would probably get punched.

Since yesterday, Detective Lee had been sitting there, glaring at the blocked entrance to the West Beltway all night.

He tried to enter the accident scene under the pretense of providing support, but the traffic police blocked him.

Even after revealing his detective identity, they refused to let him through.

He tried to use connections from higher-ups to force his way through, but everyone just told him to back off and didn’t offer any help.

After that, Detective Lee got really pissed off and had been keeping vigil ever since, monitoring the area.

“What’s with all this fuss about a few tankers exploding?”

There wasn’t any gunfight or terrorism involved.

If it was just a chain explosion involving tankers, there was no reason to block police officers from entering.

Moreover, what kind of accident cleanup takes this long overnight?

He hadn’t even seen any road repair vehicles enter the scene.

“Ah, here comes the car carrier.”

“Take a picture. Take a picture. Press the shutter!”

“Yes, yes, I’m holding it down.”

Click, click, click— he took pictures of the car carrier leaving, and Detective Lee immediately snatched the camera and checked the photos.

But— the car carrier had tarps covering it, completely obscuring the vehicles being transported.

Why would they cover the accident vehicles? Are they hiding something shady?

The problem was, even though he suspected something, he didn’t have any solid evidence.

“If you’re getting out, do it now.”

“Did you say something?”

“I’m going to chase after that car carrier and check what’s under the tarp, so if you don’t want to get involved, get out now.”

“Ah. Yes, sir.”

“….”

The youngest got out of the car without hesitation.

Detective Lee glared at him with a “You little bastard” look, but with no time to waste, he stepped on the accelerator.

Vroom- As the car sped off, the youngest shook his head.

People who have to live should live.

“Hmm? What’s this?”

Just then, a notification went off, followed by a barrage of messages.

It was an emergency alert telling all narcotics unit members to return.

The youngest deleted the notification and opened another messenger app.

There were a lot of messages from a contact.

“Hey, what’s this? You’re a cop, right? Just tell me if this is real or fake.” -(Video link)

He clicked on the video link, and the YouTube app opened.

The screen displayed a familiar road.

Wasn’t this near Gangnam Station?

The phone was clearly handheld, and the screen was shaking.

Suddenly, the screen spun around, and a man in a bulletproof vest, stumbling drunkenly, appeared.

[What the hell? Why is the guy missing his head? Is this for real?]

[No way, it must be a movie shoot.]

[Zoom out. Zoom out. We can’t see because the zoom is too much.]

As the screen zoomed out, the entire upper body of the man was revealed.

But what should have been above his neck was missing.

A headless corpse walked slowly, bleeding profusely from the stump of its neck, soaking the asphalt.

The man’s body, with a ragged and dirty cut, kept stumbling forward.

Then suddenly, the page refreshed and a notification appeared saying, “Deleted Video.”

What… what the hell was that? The youngest’s hands trembled.

More emergency messages from the team leader, urging them to return immediately, flooded in.

At the Company Hospital

Dr. Park carefully entered the restricted area, avoiding jostling his aching ribs.

With each step, the anger built up more and more in his mind.

It all started with the failed attempt to take down Min Cheol-woo, only to be wiped out in return.

Had he been careless? No, that wasn’t it.

Detective Jeong also got caught without a way out—so would I be crazy to let my guard down?

The plan was perfect, and the ambush was successfully carried out.

The anesthetic was properly administered.

So, wasn’t that supposed to be the end of it? Wasn’t it normal to capture him?

After a long fight, the sniper was the only one left alive, and his report was “Everyone’s wiped out except for me.”

“Sigh, shit…”

If that was all, I would just be frustrated.

Min Cheol-woo could always be chased later.

The real problem came up while handling the scene.

These crazy bastards, after injecting drugs and putting grenades in their mouths, blew themselves up, and there were body parts all over the place—cleaning it up was not an easy task.

But no matter how much I searched, there were pieces of flesh that couldn’t be found.

It wasn’t something tiny, either.

A whole human torso had completely disappeared.

So, are they saying that the headless torso somehow walked away from the scene by itself?

[What the hell? Why’s the person missing their neck? Is this for real?]

[No way, it’s probably a movie shoot.]

[Zoom out. Zoom out. It’s hard to see with all the zoom.]

“What’s this now! Why isn’t the video taken down yet?”

“We’ll take it down immediately, sir.”

It really walked away.

The body of Team Leader Lee was found 200 meters away from the scene, in the city center.

It was outside the area that had been blocked off by the traffic police earlier.

Fortunately, Team 2 responded quickly, and after retrieving the body with a jeep, they brought it back.

If they had been even a bit late, the police or the National Intelligence Service might have gotten their hands on it.

“Oh, Dr. Park, you’re here. We’ve been waiting.”

“Damn, this is really something…”

When they reached the isolation room, the body was lying on the operating table, its limbs strapped down.

It looked exactly as reported, just like in the video.

The neck had been torn apart by a grenade explosion, leaving no form.

Not even the brain remained.

It was completely gone.

Yet, the body of Team Leader Lee was still twitching and jerking around, spraying blood everywhere.

“What’s going on? Is it postmortem rigidity?”

“No, he’s alive. It’s not a muscle spasm; he’s really alive. The heart is still beating, and his nerves are still functioning. We’re currently connecting the severed artery to keep the blood flowing… Look, the pulse is normal, and the heart rate is steady.”

“Is it normal for him to twitch like that?”

“Well, considering his head’s been chopped off, this is normal.”

Dr. Park was at a loss for words at the doctor’s casual answer.

The pulse was erratic, jumping up and down, but the heart was still beating.

How could the heart still be working, with the head completely gone? How were the nerves still alive?

The doctor couldn’t explain it either.

[Doctor, the pulse is dying. Should we use the defibrillator?]

“Use it! Quickly!”

The doctor rushed to put on his protective mask and ran into the isolation room.

Once, twice, and then three times.

It was a strange sight to see the defibrillator used repeatedly on a headless body.

But still, the heart wouldn’t start beating again, and the body was dying.

As the doctor and nurses started to give up, Dr. Park took a blue vial out of his pocket.

Team Leader Lee’s final transmission had been “I’ll take the pills and perform a suicide attack.”

Then… Could it be?

“Doctor! You can’t come in without protective gear!”

“Move aside. I have something to try. Is this the vein? Remove the tube.”

“What?”

“Remove the tube.”

The absorption rate of the drug was fastest through blood vessels, then mucous membranes, and lastly orally.

So, how fast would it be if injected directly into the vena cava?

When the tube in the neck was removed, the jugular vein was exposed.

Dr. Park furrowed his brows as he looked inside.

From inside, a sizzling sound was heard as if something was being torn… or growing?

Without hesitation, Dr. Park injected the blue vial into the vein.

“Re-insert the tube.”

“Yes.”

“Doctor, the pulse is coming back!”

The heart started beating again, thump-thump.

The body seemed to regain its strength, twitching its arms and legs once more.

Even with a brain-dead patient who is on a ventilator and undergoing dialysis, life can only be extended for a few weeks.

But this body, with its head completely gone, had all its organs functioning normally just by connecting the blood vessels.

If the digestive system is fine, it could continue living this way, right?

“In just one hour, around 2 millimeters of flesh has regrown in the wound.”

“Crazy. Is that even human?”

Dr. Park had thought he’d seen all the side effects of the blue vial, but this was a first.

The usual effect of the blue vial was an increase in aggression, violence, muscle density, and bone density.

But rarely, very rarely, there were people who didn’t lose their sanity after taking it.

Those people each displayed some unusual side effects, and in the case of Team Leader Lee, it was an unbelievable regenerative ability.

What the hell kind of drug did these Chinese bastards create? Dr. Park started to feel scared.

A drug that lets you survive and regenerate from any injury.

It would revolutionize the medical field, but the problem was that this side effect only occurred in one out of a thousand cases.

The supply of the blue vial from Hong Kong had nearly been cut off, and there was no material left for experiments.

Team Leader Lee’s body was the only sample of this side effect.

“Is his head going to grow back too?”

“We’ll have to wait and see if bones or brain tissue regenerate. That’s why I suggest, sir, that I take full responsibility for managing Team Leader Lee and monitoring his condition. I’ll report his status daily and make sure the nurses keep quiet about it.”

Dr. Park couldn’t say much and just laughed, stunned.

If it had been another doctor, he would have beaten him senseless for saying such a thing.

“Report on Team Leader Lee’s condition every 12 hours. I’ll send the blue vial as soon as I get it, so make sure he doesn’t die.”

“Yes, understood. Thank you for your continued support, Dr. Park.”

That sly bastard whispered quietly, and Dr. Park left the isolation room.

It was the doctor who had secretly implanted a tracking device in Min Cheol-woo’s abdomen and had informed Dr. Park about it first.

Of course, I’ll report to CEO Kim later, but the important thing was that I went to Dr. Park first, not Director Yoo.

The first ambush failed, but now we could still continue chasing Min Cheol-woo, so there’s no doubt that a significant achievement had been made.

“How much more of that blue drug is he going to take…?”

Once the research results on that headless monster start coming in, it’ll be pretty profitable, but how are we going to manage the cost of the blue drug until then?

What if the blue drug runs out before we even see proper results?

Shit, then both Team Leader Lee and the money will go down the drain.

Dr. Park scratched his head and rushed out of the hospital.

Team Leader Lee was taken care of for now, but the pursuit of Min Cheol-woo had to be sped up.

“Hey! Have you found Min Cheol-woo yet?”

[We’re almost there. He’s been loitering near the lower part of Anyangcheon.]

As soon as I heard the ambush had failed, I immediately sent out a secondary pursuit team.

Min Cheol-woo must be feeling the pressure of being chased, but what can he do about it? How is he going to remove the tracker inside his abdomen?

Unless he cuts himself open, there’s no way he can escape the pursuit.

“Ugh, that doctor, he’s clever, I’ll give him that.”

When I first heard he had inserted a tracker into the wound, I thought, what kind of crazy doctor does that? But, truthfully, it’s benefiting me, so I can’t really complain.

Of course, Dr. Park wasn’t going to let that doctor operate on him.

[It looks like he’s near the walking path. We’re closing in.]

[Front team has been positioned. The trap is set.]

[We’ll strike from the rear. One, two… Huh?]

[What’s going on? Where did he go?]

As I watched the live feed from the body cams, my eyes widened.

The tracker was definitely showing that he was at that location, but there was no one to be seen on the walking path.

And he was still moving?

Is he underground? Or up in the air?

Despite all the searching, my staff couldn’t find him.

[Wait, maybe?]

One of the staff members lifted a stone cover next to the walking path.

With several of them working together, they finally managed to lift the stone slab.

[Huh?]

[Why… is this here?]

On the body cam screen, a small piece of wood was seen drifting down a drain.

It had a blood-stained small capsule attached to it.

The staff were stunned.

I was stunned.

“He… he removed it from his abdomen? How?”

Didn’t they say the tracker was pushed deep into the wound from the gunshot?

He removed it?

Without going to a hospital, without proper care?

And it didn’t even get infected?

As I scratched my head in disbelief, muttering “What the hell…” and “This crazy bastard,” one of the staff members reached into the drain.

[We’ll recover the tracker now…]

“Hey, don’t touch that! It could be a booby trap—”

Boom!

With a loud explosion, the screen spun around, and the connection was lost.

Damn it, my blood pressure spiked.