A Time of Chaos
The helmet tattoo etched into his cheek was identical to the one Soldat always wore in the game.
So was this guy really one of Soldat’s special detachment?
But figuring out where he belonged wasn’t the priority right now.
Yoo Sung-jun studied the tattoo with cool, lowered eyes, then looked away.
I can figure out which faction the instigators belong to by ordering Jack Kalt and Yoon Choi to look into it.
That meant he didn’t need to waste time analyzing these people right now.
"Are you okay?"
Yoo Sung-jun walked over to Jeyca, who was forcing a bitter smile.
She was trembling, one hand clamped around the nape of her neck.
"I-I'm o-o···okay······."
Had she damaged something near her vocal cords?
She couldn’t seem to get the words out properly.
Yoo Sung-jun took her into his arms and murmured near her ear.
"Your parents are safe. Go into the Enter Room first and get treated. That’s the priority."
"B-but···."
"No buts. Take care of yourself first. I’ll clean this place up while you’re gone."
With her eyes gently closed, a single tear slipped from the corner of Jeyca’s eye.
Was it relief, or regret that she hadn’t been able to help?
Before long, Jeyca disappeared.
She must have gone to the Enter Room for treatment.
"So this is over once I stop this mess?"
He grabbed the head of the man who’d introduced himself as the ringleader.
His tongue hanging out made the sight thoroughly unpleasant.
Still, it would at least be effective at shocking the others.
Yoo Sung-jun contacted Choi Hyun-seok.
He wanted to hear the current situation from him now that he’d reached the airport.
"Hey, Hyun-seok. The inside’s mostly cleaned up. I’m thinking of stopping by the shopping district for a bit, then heading out. What’s the situation looking like?"
"They’re moving in a coordinated way to get as many VIP residents out as possible. They’re obsessively targeting the international terminal, not the domestic building!"
"Then I’ll head that way."
"Right. And···the order you gave the clan members? I don’t think a single word of it was wrong. We can’t carry every person on our backs, but I got greedy, and this is what happened. I’m sorry."
It was hardly the moment for such embarrassing words when all he needed was a situation briefing.
Yoo Sung-jun furrowed his brow, then snorted a laugh.
"You understand, asshole. What’s done is done. Just think about how to make sure it doesn’t happen again."
"...Yeah. Thanks."
He hadn’t gone through all this just to hear crap like that.
Yoo Sung-jun ended the call in a hurry and headed for the shopping district.
The closer he got, the thicker the smell of blood became, stabbing at his nose.
No way.
A bad thought surfaced for an instant, then sank.
He’d seen it.
The shoulders of a man breathing hard, rising and falling again and again.
The blood smeared across that broad back belonged not to him, Cruiser, but to the dozens of rioters scattered around him.
Some of them had to be special detachment too, because a few looked like they’d been equipped properly. All dead, though.
"Ah, hyung."
At the sight of Yoo Sung-jun approaching, Cruiser’s face, twisted like a demon’s, smoothed out.
But he couldn’t quite hide his feelings; the rough, furious sound of his breathing was still plainly there.
"Are you all right?"
"If I said I was···that’d be a lie."
"Fair enough. What about the residents?"
"Behind me. The brothers who survived are guarding them."
"Good. Nice work."
This was one of those times when fewer words were better than a hundred others.
Cruiser already knew how to hold this situation down in a way that was equal to Yoo Sung-jun’s own methods.
He should be fine if I leave him here.
Honestly, it was a surprise.
Yoo Sung-jun had expected him to be swept away by his emotions, unable to control his rage.
But Cruiser was coldly composed.
He had reined in his fury and poured it out on the rioters all the same.
And this was the result.
So this was what it meant to be a team leader.
I don’t know whether he’s crossed the threshold for a user who’s gone beyond the norm, but Cruiser’s definitely grown a lot.
A comrade’s growth was a road to greater safety.
With a satisfied smile, he met Jeyca’s parents again.
"What happened to my daughter?"
"Please···sir, tell us."
At their desperate expressions, Yoo Sung-jun patted both of them on the shoulders.
"She’s fine. She was sent to the Enter Room a little while ago for treatment. She’ll be back here soon."
"Ah···!"
"Oh, thank you···."
Overcome with emotion, tears spilling hot down their faces, Jeyca’s parents took Yoo Sung-jun’s rough hand in both of theirs.
Again and again, they patted the back of his hand as if trying to repay his kindness.
Was this the love only family could feel?
Yoo Sung-jun forced himself to ignore the itchiness prickling at one corner of his chest.
"Then I’ll go put down the riot outside. Please stay here for today. That friend of mine will keep you safe."
Their hands tightened around his.
It was a silent plea not to leave.
But he had to go.
If something like this was ever going to happen again, he needed to tear the roots out completely.
He pulled his hands free by force and stepped away from them.
Holding the ringleader’s head he’d left near Cruiser, he headed for the first floor.
His stride looked slow, but it was fast. And sharp.
The end result of movement so tightly controlled.
BOOM!
Yoo Sung-jun swung his greatsword and swept away the debris blocking the gate, then shouted.
"From this moment on! You are!"
When the people who’d been wielding steel pipes, kitchen knives, and Molotov cocktails all turned toward him, he threw the head.
The thing rolled disgustingly into the middle of them, its eyes rolled back and its tongue hanging out.
The moment everyone saw that hideous sight.
"This is how you die."
The executioner made his declaration.
A few of them snorted.
How was one man supposed to massacre this many people?
They’d just scatter.
Thinking that, they took a step—but the instant they moved, their escape failed.
By then, silver arcs had already been drawn through the air, and they had swept across everyone’s throats.
"Huh···?"
The world tilted before the pain even arrived, and stupid sounds spilled out of their mouths.
The heads of the rioters dropped one after another, announcing the end of the riot.
***
Before the riot could spiral into the worst-case scenario, everything was suppressed.
No one could stop Yoo Sung-jun once he entered the international terminal building.
And it was nearly impossible for the rioters to stop Blood Rain, led by Choi Hyun-seok, as they moved to suppress the disturbance outside.
The moment they realized their plan had failed, they cravenly begged for their lives.
They were reduced to sobbing, clinging wrecks without any will left to fight.
But there was no mercy for them.
And now.
"We will now carry out the execution."
Yoo Sung-jun, his visor darkened, stepped up onto a roughly built platform.
It had been hurriedly prepared by Blood Rain for the sudden execution.
In front of the runway, with dawn just beginning to break, there wasn’t an inch of space left on the ground. Countless people had gathered there.
They glared at the rioters beneath Yoo Sung-jun’s feet, the ones trembling in nothing but their underwear.
On all their faces sat the same emotion: rage.
"Kill them already!"
"Those bastards! Damn fucking bastards! Because of you, my mother···! You sons of bitches!"
These people had killed the innocent.
They’d assaulted and stolen as they pleased, saying they’d be leaving this place soon enough anyway.
And in the process, someone’s family, someone precious, had died.
Now that the shelter of the law had vanished, everyone yearned desperately for someone to punish them.
And that wish was being granted.
By the iron command of the bunker’s chief administrator.
So everyone really is angry.
It didn’t matter at all how many people Yoo Sung-jun and Blood Rain had killed.
People cared first and foremost about the harm they themselves had suffered.
They wanted compensation for the pain they’d endured, and right now, that compensation was being paid out through this execution.
They wanted the rioters who had ravaged their home and caused immense damage to be punished without mercy.
Among the crowd watching, there were surely one or two who would speak up and say this was too much.
But the minority would only be drowned out by the majority, sunk in a frenzy of rage.
"H-hhng! Hhhuk!"
The gagged rioters wailed in despair.
Yoo Sung-jun looked down at them with indifferent eyes and spoke.
"Today, these people defiled the only safe haven in Korea, the one that will one day connect to the bunker. They killed innocent people! And while everyone else was suffering, they shifted that pain onto the many because they wanted the easy way out."
With a sharp motion, Yoo Sung-jun placed the cold blade of the greatsword against a rioter’s neck.
"As the bunker’s chief administrator, I can’t let this incident pass. Measures will be taken so that something like this never happens again. If another person appears who abandons their humanity and commits theft, assault, or rape, then this execution will be held again."
In other words, anyone who committed a crime would have their life taken.
And naturally, the people.
"Wooooo!"
Cheered.
Hadn’t he just announced that criminals would be punished, instead of merely being locked away in prison for a few years or decades?
It wasn’t as if they themselves were going to commit crimes.
So all they had to do was feel the thrill and satisfaction of watching criminals be executed.
"Kill them! Kill them!"
By now, most of them were shouting in unison.
It was time to finish this.
Yoo Sung-jun closed his eyes for a moment and shouted.
"In an age where survival is everything! From this point on, the weak must never mistake the strong’s kindness for their right."
And the fate of those who had acted otherwise now lay spread out before them.
Swish! Along with a chilling sound of severing flesh, several heads tumbled from the platform.
As blood sprayed in streaming arcs, screams and cheers erupted all at once.
From here on, it was the clan’s job to keep them under control.
Yoo Sung-jun climbed down from the platform and headed for the back courtyard.
There, he found Choi Hyun-seok handing him a towel.
"Good work."
"I did work. More than enough, honestly."
Yoo Sung-jun snorted a laugh and took the towel.
He wiped the blood off his suit and quietly listened as Choi Hyun-seok spoke.
"That should’ve been my line. I’m sorry. Because of me, the place you’re supposed to live got dirtied."
"Am I the only one living here? It’s where we all live. Stop beating yourself up already. How bad is the damage?"
"One hundred and seventy-two residents are missing. The users connected to them are currently under quarantine."
The reason they’d abducted residents had only been as part of their plan to extract the clan’s high-ranking users.
So Choi Hyun-seok had moved quickly.
Since there was no telling when they might use the residents as hostages to approach, he’d put them into quarantine first.
If there was any contact, or any sign at all, he planned to seize them immediately.
"Where’s Jack?"
At Yoo Sung-jun’s question, after he’d wiped away every last trace of blood, Choi Hyun-seok nodded.
"The bunker. He’s interrogating the ones we captured. Their clan, their size, their location—everything. He’s finding it all out."
There was no intention of simply sitting around and waiting for them to come.
That was why Choi Hyun-seok had “asked” Jack Kalt, a man with an analytical nature, to handle it.
He’d been asked to uncover one of five things.
"Jack Kalt’s nature, plus the interrogation equipment Yoon Choi modified. With those two, we can dig up everything pretty easily."
"Yeah, I think so too. Then should we head to the bunker right away?"
"Hoo, yeah."
If the roots shook, everything above them would shake with it.
So the two of them needed to finish this incident cleanly and recheck the bunker to make sure it was solid.
Yoo Sung-jun met Ryong-i and his younger brother at the bunker.
They had ridden Ryong-i from the canyon and arrived only moments ago.
"Hyung! I heard about it. What happened? They said Jeyca noona was in danger."
"It’s all taken care of, so don’t worry too much. If you’re that concerned, go check the airport."
"I was going to do that anyway. Can you take care of Ryong-i for a bit?"
Yoo Sung-jun looked at the suddenly smaller Ryong-i in his brother’s arms.
Their gazes crossed.
Those bright, round eyes were actually pretty cute.
Hmm. I guess we’ve got a little more time to get friendly.
Taking Ryong-i wouldn’t mean he missed the interrogation results, after all.
So Yoo Sung-jun reached out to take him, and the moment his brother passed the creature over—
"Kkyueeek!"
Ryong-i’s sparkling gaze abruptly clouded over, and he opened his mouth wide.
Out of it came a plastic bag thickly coated in sticky saliva.
His younger brother’s eyes bulged when he saw the Infector brain inside.
"Ah! Ryong! You weren’t done spitting it all out? Hyung, are you okay?"
Yoo Sung-jun didn’t hear a word his brother said.
The plastic bag Ryong-i had coughed up was now lying in both of his hands···.
Just looking at it made him remember what his brother had said to Jeyca.
What? He takes such good care of lunch? Man, he really doesn’t know how to say no to anything.
And this little bastard Ryong-i.
"Kkyu-hihing."
He was laughing like he’d gotten exactly what he wanted, and that annoyed him.
"You two. You’re both getting a scolding first."
"What? Why am I!"
"Kkyung! Kkyung!"
He dragged the protesting pair along by force.
Screams from a person and an Infector rang out behind the bunker.