78. Cheonan Warlord (6)
78. Cheonan Warlord (6)
Park Si-woo gave in at the third awl.
The awl entering his middle finger.
The women turned their eyes away.
"Aaaack! I'll do it! I'll do it! Fucking hell! Aaaaaack!"
I pulled the awl out.
"Ughhh..."
Then I tapped Eun-bin.
The woman nodded.
ㅡWuuung
The hand being healed.
The man staring wide-eyed at it.
Of course, Seo-yoon, Eun-bin, and Seol-hwa couldn't see it since they were behind him.
Park Si-woo signed with terror-stricken eyes.
ㅡKkudeudeudeudeuk
The contract disappearing.
'This one doesn't have a mental ability cast on it.'
Well, that's because he's Park Young-ho's son.
I asked.
"Where's your dad? I mean, Colonel Park Young-ho."
Park Si-woo opened his mouth.
#
He tries not to speak, but the contract is absolute.
An ability that forces one to unconditionally follow what's written on the contract.
As I expected,
Park Young-ho was in the bunker.
The Cheonan Bunker.
"Bunker?"
"Yeah..."
"Where is the bunker?"
"The mountain south of Cheonan. Toward Mt. Goryeo."
"...It's on a mountain."
No, wait.
He's Park Young-ho's son.
That means he should know most of the information.
I figured I could just compare the information I heard from the previous soldiers with the information he has.
"You, start from the incident in January, tell me everything, without leaving anything out."
"...Ugh."
Park Si-woo, trying not to open his mouth, eventually began to speak.
#
The story of the 37th Division was the same as what the previous soldiers had told me.
The retreat from Daejeon in January, the Infected seen in Daejeon, settling in Jeungpyeong, etc.
The story of the Hive was the same too.
That there's a Hive Infected inside Cheonan, so Infected keep popping out, and they're feeling troubled right now.
However, more came out about IN Company.
"My father made a contract with those guys."
"A contract? Like this?"
"No. A written contract. I've never seen such a crazy ability."
"Right, keep talking."
"We received the bunker on the condition that we supply them with Ability Users. A bunker that only specific personnel can use."
Anyway.
"You received a bunker. Not a Bunker Ability User?"
"Yeah. A bunker built for IN Company to use."
"Why? You could just raise a Bunker Ability User."
I've seen one at the GP Biotech factory. An ability that was like 81 percent.
"Lv.2 is the size of a basement. And when screening for Bunker Ability Users, there were IN Company guys around, so we couldn't pull them aside. Even if we could, there's no way to raise them as long as IN Company is there."
I bet.
"Then, is there nothing else you give besides supplying Ability Users?"
"There is. Cooperating with each other."
"Like removing the Hive or Infected?"
"Yeah."
Ability User supply.
Cooperation.
"Explain. Start with the supply."
"They asked us to send them civilians with high compatibility, meaning abilities over 70 percent."
"Why?"
"Because they said they could extract superpowers from them."
Extraction.
Superpowers.
It's what I expected.
Now it's certain that they are extracting superpowers from humans.
"Did you agree to that? You could just use those people."
"Because they said they would extract the ability and supply it to us. From our perspective, there's nothing to lose."
"What if they don't give it?"
"If they don't, then so be it. We've already confirmed the bunker."
This made sense.
Park Young-ho and a high-up at IN Company made a deal.
IN Company gets Ability User supply from the soldiers, and in return, they give the extracted ability to the warlords + the bunker.
The warlords get the bunker and the ability in exchange for supplying Ability Users.
"Then is there any extracted ability right now? Or anyone who received one?"
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because they said it's still in the experimental stage."
"What? Then they can't extract it yet? But you made a contract?"
"We have the bunker, so we have nothing to lose."
That's true.
Getting the bunker, and for those low-level Ability Users who are useless anyway...
It's better to bet on IN Company and get abilities than to raise uncontrollable guys by leveling them up.
I understand IN Company's position too.
Rather than a company in a ruined world rescuing people, it would be easier for the 37th Division and the 17th Fighter Wing, who have the badge of being soldiers and military weapons, to gather Ability Users.
'......'
Well, that's enough of that.
"How did they make contact?"
"I don't know. My father just made a contract with them, and since then, we've been cooperating with IN Company. We just send them Ability Users and receive support from them."
"Even knowing they made the world like this?"
"Don't be ridiculous. How could a human make something like superpowers?"
"The Nexus Core says they made it."
Oh, right.
If you don't touch the extractor, the words 'innovation nexus corporation' don't appear.
"Who's in the bunker?"
"My father, 37th Division and 17th Fighter Wing officers. And a few IN Company people."
"There are IN Company people there?"
"Yeah."
"Are they special forces types who don't talk?"
"No."
"No? What kind of people are they?"
"Researchers and their families."
Researchers.
Then are they the ones who escaped from the Sejong Branch?
Or the Cheonan Branch ones?
"Do you know what they do?"
"They said they came from the Sejong Branch. They came because something happened at the Cheonan Branch and met us."
"What happened?"
"I don't know, but they said the Cheonan Branch was destroyed. The chief researcher there said so. So they came to support, or something."
The Cheonan Branch was destroyed, so they came to support?
"The bunker must be quite big?"
"Yeah. It can accommodate several hundred people."
"Then why aren't you in the bunker, what are you doing here?"
"I said I'd go out on purpose."
"...You went out on purpose? Why?"
"There are few women there, and I can't do what I want. Anyway, water and electricity are infinite, so if food is supplied, this place is better. Besides, those bastards aren't trustworthy, so why would I be there?"
"Why? The bunker is safe, isn't it?"
"Who knows what they'll do with what they gave."
That is true.
"You said there are few women. So there are some?"
"Yeah, women exclusively for the officers."
I bet.
More than that...
"Do you know why the electricity and water haven't been cut off yet?"
"I do."
"You do? Explain."
He knows this?
"IN Company, I mean, they told us not to worry about that. They said there's a related Ability User."
"Related Ability User? What kind of Ability User?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, fuck."
Whatever.
I can just go and ask about this too.
"Is there a way to contact Park Young-ho directly?"
"There is."
"How?"
"You just have to send a communication to Lieutenant Colonel Kim Sang-chul."
"Communication. Explain."
I heard there was a communication Ability User in Jeungpyeong.
"If you have a medium like a walkie-talkie or smartphone and know Lee Ha-yoon, you can contact her."
Lee Ha-yoon.
She must be the communication Ability User.
"What's the medium?"
"Items like phones. It doesn't work from far away. Right now, the telecom servers are down, so calls don't work, and it's like making communication that shouldn't work, work."
"Ah, so like the water or electricity?"
"Yeah."
"But then that means you can only contact Lee Ha-yoon?"
I understood.
Communication can only be used with a communication device.
But this seems inconvenient since you can only contact the communication Ability User.
"So it's fucking annoying. That's also why we still use walkie-talkies."
Next.
"Can they do something like location tracking there? Like how you were caught."
"No."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I've never seen an ability like tracking."
For now, that seems fine.
Of course, it might not be.
This place, the Bugang-myeon Office, is quite a distance from our base, I-Pension, so there was no problem.
Also, it's been several hours since I took Park Si-woo out.
If they were going to come, they probably would have come already.
('Besides... it's Seo-yoon's ability.')
The contract ability is the same as a brainwashing ability. A feeling that you can never escape.
It seems I've extracted most of the information.
Is there anything else?
Ah. There's that.
What they do in the bunker, the exact location of the bunker, and how to get in.
"Then coming back to that, is the extraction done in the bunker?"
"Yeah."
"Is that so?"
"Right. I've heard them trying to extract it, saying it failed because of this or that."
"What failed?"
"I don't know. They didn't show me. But seeing as they still aren't giving it, it didn't seem like it was going well."
I bet.
"What's the exact location of the bunker?"
"There's a place called High Hotel south of Mt. Goryeo. There's an iron staircase leading underground in the basement of that building."
"Are there guards or security systems there?"
"There are."
"Explain."
"There are soldiers all over the inside of the hotel. There are also IN Company agents, and there are quite a lot of people underground, and they monitor with internal cameras from a negative pressure room and spray poison gas there."
"There's poison gas too?"
"Yeah."
"Are there multiple escape routes?"
"No. There's only one entrance, the hotel side."
Then the thing to be careful of is the poison gas.
"Is there any Ability User there I should be careful of?"
"My father has a binding ability. I don't know about the rest. I haven't seen the IN Company guys use theirs."
Then I'll just have to go with a kill-them-all approach.
Because if it's something high-level, it's dangerous.
Now, the last thing.
"How many people are there in total?"
"There are about 500 soldiers. I don't know about civilians."
"500 soldiers."
"Yeah."
The possibility... exists.
This is a place where not only the 37th Division but also the 17th Fighter Wing are combined.
"Tell me how many are at the Cheonan unit. The factory or Jeungpyeong."
"The Cheonan unit has about 100 people, the factory has about 200, and the rest are in Jeungpyeong and the bunker."
"Exactly."
"I don't know exactly. I think there are about 50 people in the bunker."
"What about the IN Company guys?"
"It's similar there. There are about 100 people there, including the guys with epaulets and researchers."
"Well, then there are over 200 people in the bunker?"
"Yeah."
Just how fucking big is it.
I see.
Come to think of it, the Cheonan unit did seem to have fewer soldiers.
The factory has a checkpoint, so it would need quite a few personnel.
('......')
Then the question is where to raid first.
('Obviously, I have to go to the bunker first.')
High Hotel on Mt. Goryeo.
If I raid that place, I can catch the researchers.
I should go see the faces of the people who made the world like this, and the guys who are holding hands with such people and doing strange things.
I stared at Park Si-woo quietly.
("......" "......")
Appraisal Ability User.
It's better to keep him alive.
Because distinguishing superpowers is important.
An ability to prevent unforeseen events.
However.
I thought about keeping him alive, but the very idea of keeping this bastard alive at our I-Pension didn't sit well with me.
Metal embedded into Park Si-woo's head.
ㅡKkul-leok
ㅡKkul-leok
The man collapsed.
I left him as he was and said to the women.
"Let's go back."
"Ah. Yes."
"......"
I'll just drop the women off and head up immediately.
Because the information that Park Si-woo is dead will have already gone in.
Then the question is whether to go after the communication Ability User or go to the bunker.
('Definitely the bunker.')
I didn't have time because they might run away from the bunker.