episode_0229

Time flowed gradually, and the night deepened without purpose.

But it was also a time to gain some substance.

Starting with the terminal that Kim Buh-jang possessed, the two competitively began to spill information.

The situation of them exchanging blows, one at a time, by a hair’s breadth, continued.

Those two might not know it, but the number of times they’d be hit would be similar anyway.

And they’d die anyway.

Forgetting that fact, the two were desperate to get hit even one less time.

As Kim Buh-jang had said, the terminal contained Director Jang’s profile.

And even a map with a live GPS function.

There wasn’t any immediately useful data, but just the map itself was a big gain.

Looking at the map, I asked into the air without designating a target.

“Where were you planning to take Director Jang?”

“O-on the map… if you look…”

“S-Sangildong! Sangildong!”

Thwack!

“Gurgle…”

“Kim Buh-jang?”

“Yes! Taesong Logistics and Engineering are in Sangildong! We were planning to go there!”

“…Hold on…”

I narrowed my eyes, searching my memory.

“Is there a Veterans Hospital nearby…”

“Yes! That’s right!”

There was no hint of lies in his confident reply.

The problem was…

“…There’s just an office building there, isn’t there?”

“Y-you know that place?”

“The building isn’t even that good, so why there specifically?”

“T-that…”

“They set up a barrier… and s-succeeded in… making it a stronghold…”

“Ah…”

Ah, Kim Pro… you were doing so well, but your timing got stolen.

Thwack—!!

“Aaaaargh!!!”

The Team Leader twisted his lips, as if Kim Buh-jang’s terrible scream brought him joy.

“Recite what you know about the stronghold.”

“…They spent enormous sums… and hastily erected a barrier. They mobilized equipment… to maintain electricity, and…”

“And?”

“They gathered supplies…”

…My ears perked up at the word ‘supplies’.

“How much is there?”

“An immense amount! The entire basement of Mulsan and Engineering has been converted into a warehouse!!”

Kim Buh-jang, shouting as if spitting it out, ignoring the pain, confessed everything fluidly.

“They erected a barrier and zoned off the area, though it’s small!”

“How many troops are guarding it?”

“There are 300 men!”

“…Can that even defend it?”

“H-heavy weapons… are heavily deployed…”

“T-Taesong even developed some things themselves!”

According to the two of them, from power generation devices to weapons.

It seems they succeeded in surviving with self-equipped items.

From the armor they wore to the silencers on their guns.

I was astonished to hear they even had custom silencers and subsonic bullets.

While listening to the two’s fervent confessions, there was something that bothered me.

“How did they manage the timing?”

“…Huh?”

“No matter how much money they spent, they couldn’t have bypassed physical time… Did they know beforehand?”

Otherwise, it would be impossible to build a wall and prepare a stronghold in such a short time.

At least, that’s what I thought.

“That’s right…”

The Team Leader began to provide the answer.

“The chairman… carried out his plans through his direct subordinates… gathering people… stockpiling supplies… everyone whispered that the chairman was crazy… Hehehe…”

As expected, it seemed the chairman knew.

Or perhaps he induced things to turn out this way.

“The result, as you can see… Condemnation… turning into fervent support in an instant.”

“So, they even kidnapped people and experimented on them?”

“?!!”

“Seeing your reactions, it seems it’s true. You bastards.”

I alternated glances between the two, whose eyes were twitching, and asked one thing.

“That direct subordinate of the chairman. That’s Choi Sangmu, right?”

“…You know Choi Sangmu…?”

“I only know his name. Where is that guy now?”

“…Why are you looking for him…”

Whoosh! Crunch!

“Gasp!”

“I-I don’t know!!”

Whoosh! Thwack!!

“Khuh-oooooh…”

“Where is he?”

“If we t-tell you, we’ll die!”

“What are you worried about dying by them when you’ll die by me first?”

“Kuk…”

“Kim Buh-jang. Your words are getting short again, aren’t they? Am I making you too comfortable?”

“N-no, I’m not!”

“Damn it, so you’re saying you’re uncomfortable?”

“……”

“Not answering?”

“What the fuck do you want me to do?!!”

Rip! Crunch—!

“……Khuh-oh…”

“Just take a hit.”

“Truly… a crazy bastard. Khuhuhuh…”

Had they reached their limit?

The Team Leader’s eyes lost focus, and he began to laugh excessively.

Kim Buh-jang’s condition was also ragged.

Assessing their conditions, I gave a small nod.

“You’ve adapted to the hammer, haven’t you? Let’s change the atmosphere a bit.”

I put the hammer into my inventory and lightly gripped the kitchen knife.

A mass-produced, brand-new kitchen knife I had never used before.

The blade, gleaming under the light, was chillingly sharp.

Seeing a proper bladed weapon, both of them opened their eyes wide.

Stab!

I approached them both and stabbed them in the abdomen.

Very slowly.

“Khup…”

“Aahh… ha…”

Watching the blood seep out, this time I lit the torch.

Whoosh!

“W-what are you― Aaaaaaaah!!”

Sizzzzzzzzz—

The acrid smell of cooking meat began to spread throughout the hall.

I meticulously cauterized their stab wounds with the flame to stop the bleeding.

“……Ugh…”

“S-stop…”

“That won’t kill you. Look up.”

“……”

“Team Leader Lee, you know, don’t you? It didn’t even reach your organs. I only stabbed the skin and muscle. You won’t die easily, so don’t worry.”

“Huuu… huuu…”

“Even if I stab you a hundred times, you won’t die. I don’t make mistakes.”

At the mention of ‘a hundred times’, both of them flinched.

“Are you afraid of Choi Sangmu, who isn’t here? You should be afraid of me, who’s right in front of you, shouldn’t you?”

“……”

“I don’t know if this will be comforting, but that guy is going to follow after you anyway. So, like men, spill everything. And like men, let’s go out quickly. How about it?”

Unlike Kim Buh-jang, who was almost out of his mind, the Team Leader let out a pained laugh.

“This… this guy was truly insane. I got caught by the wrong person…”

“If you understand, then spill it.”

“…Just one question. Why… why are you targeting Choi Sangmu…?”

The Team Leader, who had managed to ask the question with difficulty, stared intently at me with his one remaining eye.

He seemed genuinely curious, so I answered lightly.

“That bastard was messing around with the local thugs. Thanks to him, I went through a very unpleasant situation.”

“…What?”

“He even triggered hidden traumas I couldn’t forget. So, I’m going to mess him up.”

“W-wait…”

The Team Leader foolishly opened his mouth, and Kim Buh-jang struggled to interject.

“C-could it be… you’re talking about… Yeom Seongjin’s gang…?”

“What? You know about them too?”

“…Was it your gang… that left them in that state?”

From his tone, it seemed he had seen the thugs’ corpses.

I corrected the misconception for the two, who looked as if they’d seen a ghost.

“No.”

“I-is that so…”

“I did it alone.”

They looked as if they’d misheard me.

“……What?”

“I dealt with those thugs alone.”

“Y-you expect us to believe that?”

To their trembling voices, I just shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it. But you fought with me today, so you know well, don’t you?”

“T-that’s…”

“My family has never killed anyone until now. Not once.”

Three eyes, a mix of affirmation and denial, fixed on me.

“I did it all.”

“……”

“It doesn’t matter what Choi Sangmu means to you. To me, he’s just one of those bastards who’s about to die. So tell me. Where is that guy now?”

“Kuh… kuhuhuh… cough… Uhahahahat~”

The Team Leader laughed openly.

Even as he choked, he didn’t stop laughing, grimacing in pain.

“…Are you insane?”

“Huu~ huu~ Ah~ I apologize. This… whether it’s us… or Choi Sangmu… we’ve provoked a monster.”

“You son of a bitch.”

As I approached again, holding the knife and torch, the Team Leader actually seemed to relax.

“Calm down. I’ll tell… you everything… I know. Hooo… hooo…”

“……”

“First of all… that Kim Buh-jang… truly doesn’t know.”

“!!!!”

Kim Buh-jang, startled, lifted his head, his eyes wide despite the pain.

“I, too… am the s-cough, same.”

“…Was there not enough stabbing?”

As I stretched my neck side to side and snarled, the Team Leader slowly continued.

“…Listen. Cough. He’s the guy who was always… stuck by the chairman’s side. Even then… he only moved around a little… for stronghold management, that’s all.”

“Continue.”

“H-half a month ago… he stayed at the Sangildong stronghold for a bit, but r-right now… I don’t know.”

“……”

“…It’s true.”

“…Why is he running around so much?”

As I clicked my tongue softly and frowned, the Team Leader laughed.

“H-he’ll be hard… to find.”

“Well, that won’t be difficult.”

“…What?”

“Where’s the Taesong chairman?”

At the mention of the chairman, the Team Leader was dumbfounded.

“A-are you serious?”

“Then is it fake? He seems like a damn loyal dog, so if I mess up his master, he’ll crawl right to me.”

The two were actually flustered by my unhesitating words.

Normally, they would dismiss it as nonsense, but these two couldn’t.

Especially the Team Leader, who seemed to sense something, brought forth complicated emotions.

In the meantime, Kim Buh-jang stepped up to answer about the chairman.

“He stayed at the Hannam-dong mansion until a month ago, but now I don’t know.”

“…You really don’t know?”

“…It’s true.”

I glared at them both, but they genuinely seemed not to know.

“Who would know?”

“The head of the Sangildong stronghold might know…”

“……”

It’s a shame, but it seems this is all there is concerning Choi Sangmu.

For now, I put aside my disappointment.

“Information about the Sangildong stronghold?”

“…I-it’s on the terminal…”

“Other strongholds?”

“…There are no other strongholds left… in Seoul.”

“What?”

“They’ve all collapsed. The only one left in Seoul is… Sangildong.”

Kim Buh-jang’s words, uttered while enduring pain, were quite surprising.

Given that the Sangam-dong Stadium shelter and Jamsil shelter collapsed, it didn’t seem to be a lie.

There were understandable elements, so I didn’t press further.

Instead, I continued the line of questioning.

“Alright. Then where’s the main base?”

“…Huh?”

“What?”

I pointed the tip of the knife at the two who showed dumbfounded reactions.

“You said they were strongholds. That means there’s a separate main base, so where is it?”

“T-that is…”

I immediately approached Kim Buh-jang, who was trailing off.

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t think so?”

I responded to his unhesitating answer with unhesitating hands.

Stab!

“Ugh!!!!”

“You don’t know either?”

The Team Leader’s one remaining eye was busy darting between the knife and the torch.

As the smell of cooking meat spread once more, the Team Leader abruptly snapped to attention.

“I-I truly don’t know!”

“Damn it. You’re saying you don’t know where the main base is? Are you some Tang Dynasty army [an idiom for a disorganized, undisciplined, or useless group]?”

“It’s true!!! Cough! There were many attempts for shelters… but few succeeded…! Gulp! I-I don’t know… cough cough! a shelter that could be called a m-main base!”

I narrowed my eyes.

“T-that’s right! The c-control tower was the H-Hannam-dong mansion! But…”

“They left that place, you mean.”

“Honestly, the meaning of the main base you’re t-talking about… doesn’t e-exist.”

“Hmm…”

For guys who caused such a huge commotion, their actions were sloppy.

I momentarily left Kim Buh-jang, who was on the verge of fainting, and focused on the Team Leader.

“Then…”

“Ah, is there still more?”

“Shut up. Where’s the research facility in Gangwon-do?”

“?!?!”

“Damn it, stop bulging your eyes and just speak, you bastard.”

“H-how on earth did you know that… What’s your i-identity?”

“Answer.”

As I glared and urged for an answer, the Team Leader struggled to open his mouth.

“Hooo. Do you know the Iginda Unit?”

“I know. But it was disbanded, wasn’t it?”

“That site is the research facility.”

“……”

I wondered if this bastard had gone insane.

Even so, such a dog-shit act at the former site of a unit with history and tradition?

“Beyond that… I don’t know either. Hooo… For a field… agent like me, it’s not allowed… information. Cough! Cough—T-that was also just something I o-overheard.”

“This bastard…”

“Khuhuh… J-just check it yourself…”

This guy now seemed to be on the verge of madness.

I roughly slapped Kim Buh-jang, who was dazed.

“Kuee…”

“Hey. Gangwon-do research facility. Spill everything you know.”

“I-I don’t know…”

“Want to be stabbed more?”

“…Really… ugh…”

“Ugh, he’s useless.”

He must have been a desk jockey, he was so weak.

Kim Buh-jang, whose head slumped, was at his limit.

“You’re going to have to cooperate.”

“…Truly… a damned bastard…”

“And you guys are sons of bitches.”

Khuhuh…

I stared at him in silence, then pulled out a cigarette and put it in my mouth.

“The people you took from the Konkuk University shelter. Where did you take them all?”

“Y-you know… that too?”

“Answer.”

“…To places where people were needed. Most of them…”

He couldn’t continue due to exhaustion, but I knew the rest without hearing it.

“Where did you get weapons and such?”

“…I don’t know… Such trivial details… as for those…”

“Then how many more guard dog bastards like you are there?”

“……”

This time, he hesitated to answer.

I tilted my head and asked again, looking annoyed.

“Huh?”

“…Fuck off…”

“Ooh~”

To his spirited reply, I, too, replied decisively.

Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!

“Kuh-uh-uh-uh…”

It was amusing for the first time in a while.

“You bastards, you shoot and stab defenseless people, and now you’re talking about loyalty? You guys aren’t some romantic group overflowing with honor, are you? Spill it quickly.”

“Kuh-heu… huh… ugh… K-kill me…”

“Why does a defeated bastard want so much?”

“……Monster bastard.”

With trembling lips, he finally managed to utter one last word.

“Honestly, I’ve heard that so much I’m used to it.”

“……”

“But. If you guys hadn’t made such a mess, I wouldn’t have become a monster, would I?”

This time, the Team Leader scoffed at my words.

Seeing him send a look of mockery with his almost unfocused eyes, I had to acknowledge his tenacity.

“…T-that’s not, wrong….”

“Right?”

“Hooo… Can’t you just… let me go now…”

The Team Leader showed a genuinely exhausted expression.

Wishing for death to his very soul…

“Already, with just this much?”

“……”

“Well, fine. I’ll ask a few more simple things.”

“Hooo… hoooo…”

Seeing his breathing gradually grow rough, it was pathetic.

To beg for an easy way out without even thinking of the victims they killed.

I hid my thoughts and asked something simple.

“That injection you used earlier. What was it?”

“…M-military… Modafinil… modified…”

‘…Isn’t it usually called an improved version?’

“What are the effects?”

“Huu. Muscle strength enhancement… reaction speed enhancement… f-forced adrenaline secretion…”

“For all that, the effect doesn’t seem great. You were weak even after using it.”

“…Y-you’re too… much.”

The Team Leader, who grimaced in pain but still spouted nonsense, was remarkable in a way.

“Enough. Where did you get it?”

“R-received it from… Taesong…”

“…It’s all Taesong. Those bastards are the problem, damn it.”

Kuh… cough… huhuhuh…

“Funny. But how did you guys get here?”

“Y-Yongma Tunnel…”

“Can you go back and forth through there by car?”

He couldn’t answer anymore and weakly nodded his head.

“So that’s how it is.”

“……”

“Don’t pretend to sleep. I’ll burn you?”

“…No more…”

“Stop bullshitting. What’s wrong? You’re pros, aren’t you? Weren’t you prepared for this?”

When I strongly conveyed my disappointment, the Team Leader slowly closed his eyes.

“Alright then…”

“My comrades… will kill… you. Definitely!”

“Hmm…”

I was about to finish him off, but he launched a final counterattack.

“…I should have eaten your female comrade…”

“Kuk. Sohee-ssi is terrifying. You’d get absolutely crushed, wouldn’t you?”

“……”

“Anyway, that last struggle was decent.”

“This composure… is only… for now! Our comms… are cut! Soon! Our comrades! Are… coming! They’ll search the area! Thoroughly and kill… you and all your comrades! Kill―”

“You cliché bastard.”

Stab! Stab! Stab!!

“Kuh-uh-uh-uh…”

Listening to his nonsense, I stabbed him in three non-fatal areas.

And then I cauterized the wounds with the torch again to stop the bleeding.

Carefully enough, so that no blood would seep out.

“Gasp? Choke? Choke!”

I calmly spoke to the gasping man.

“This is a pain you’ve never felt before, isn’t it?”

“Gurgle! Gasp! Gasp!”

“It’s not a vital point. But I tore your internal organs bit by bit. Just your stomach and large intestine, a little at a time.”

The Team Leader opened his one remaining eye wide.

“The bleeding will be slow. The contents of your organs will gradually spread inside your body. And that’s going to hurt quite a lot.”

“Huuu! Huuu! K-kill…”

“You’ll definitely die. But it’s going to take quite a while.”

“!!!”

Leaving the gasping Team Leader behind, I approached Kim Buh-jang.

“S-save me―”

Thunk—!!

I plunged the kitchen knife right into the center of his crown.

The entire blade, until the hilt touched.

Kim Buh-jang trembled for a moment, then went limp.

I subtly glanced at the Team Leader and uttered my final words.

“Envy Kim Buh-jang, who died instantly. And for the remaining time, die feeling even a speck of the pain of the women you killed.”

“Kehuk! Huk! Huh-eok! K-kill me!”

“I’ll send your friends to follow you soon. Go wait up there.”

Leaving behind the Team Leader, who shed tears from his intact eye and blood from his empty eye socket, I exited.

First, I set fire to the destroyed cars that hadn’t caught fire yet.

They said there were recording cameras besides the black boxes, so I did it just in case.

Confirming that the vehicles were thoroughly engulfed in flames, I immediately ran towards the shelter.

‘……’

It wasn’t late at night yet.

Perhaps around 9 or 10 PM.

Estimating the time, I hadn’t run far before I stopped.

The familiar intersection in front of the fake house.

I pulled out a cigarette, put it in my mouth, and took a moment to breathe.

My head hurt after digging up and hearing so much.

It also felt like I was getting a bit heated.

Looking at the path leading into the shelter, I started walking.

After walking a short distance, I stood at the entrance to Yongma Tunnel.

Whoosh— Clank!

Goooh-ooh-ooh-ooh—

Just a few meters beyond was pitch-black darkness.

The sound of the wind wandering inside the tunnel sometimes sounded like a ghost’s wail…

I stomped out my cigarette butt and pulled out my familiar flashlight.

‘Hyung. Please bear with the hardship a bit.’

Instead of Hyung suffering, I’ll mess up those bastards who pose a threat.

Until now, I’ve been picked a fight with first, but this time, I’ll be first.

After a brief hesitation, I plunged into the endless tunnel.