23
Chapter 23
Screech—Bang! Screech! Boom!
A series of loud crashes echoed through the air.
Lee Yeon-woo slowly opened his eyes. Cracked glass and an aching body. His dazed eyes widened in an instant.
'Driverless cars, an accident! An attack!'
Memories flashed through his mind like successive bolts of lightning.
Bang!
He lunged for the truck door and threw himself out, but the seatbelt kept him pinned to the seat. Flailing his arms and legs, he reached behind him with his head and his good hand.
He desperately searched for the red PRESS button, and the moment he hit it, the belt snapped open and he dropped.
"Ugh!"
He landed precariously on a manhole cover. Without a moment to recover, Yeon-woo scanned his surroundings.
"What the...?"
Bang! Bang!
The collisions continued without pause. Driverless cars rushed in, packing in around the truck from every direction.
The road was completely blocked, resembling a massive pile-up or a highway during a holiday rush.
Then, he heard a click—the sound of footsteps.
"...!"
The sound came from the other side of the truck. Yeon-woo lowered his center of gravity and pressed himself tight against the vehicle. After listening to a voice, he rounded the truck.
"Yes! We can't move any further! ...The unit was wiped out? Then—wait, reinforcements are coming? How long will that take? ...That's way too long! We'll lose him at this rate! ...No! Cleaning up the mess isn't the priority right now! ...Then at least tell me who the attacker is—what? Who? ...What do you mean 'just handle it'! Dammit! I'll do it my way!"
The man in the driver's seat was screaming into his phone. He wiped blood streaming from a gash on his forehead and violently threw the device.
The phone bounced several times on the asphalt before sliding to a stop right in front of Yeon-woo.
The man and Yeon-woo locked eyes. Yeon-woo spoke first.
"What exactly is going on? Should we run?"
"No... giving up is the lesser of two evils. We must protect the Stuck Man. That is the best option."
At those words, Yeon-woo looked at the road with a gloomy expression. The road was as congested as his own frustration.
"That makes no sense. How are we supposed to protect anything here? You said the combatants were wiped out."
"There is a secondary option."
After a brief hesitation, the man pulled a short knife from the inner pocket of his suit. Yeon-woo asked, feeling a sense of dread.
"You aren't suggesting we fight with that, are you? Please tell me fighting the attackers isn't the 'secondary option'."
"No. ...We kill the Stuck Man."
A sudden silence fell over the road as the accidents stopped.
There was no time. The man bit his lip and walked behind the truck, talking as if to convince himself.
"The Stuck Man is an Anomaly Entity. Even if he's killed, he doesn't truly die. He'll just respawn somewhere on Earth. Rather than letting the Doomists take him, it's better to send him far away..."
The Doomists operate like cell-based organizations. With the company's overwhelmingly superior information resources, this wasn't a bad result. They would find and recover him first.
'Is it roughly over? Now I just need to find a way to survive. It's probably better to run or hide, right?'
Yeon-woo thought about how to stay safe from any potential outbursts by the terrorists.
He followed the man for a bit before a sudden thought made him stop. He returned to where he had landed and saw the round manhole cover.
'This is...'
Lee Yeon-woo spoke.
"Excuse me, how many attackers are there, and what are their Anomalies?"
"The attackers are human. They are fugitives—the Seizer and the Driver—who use Anomaly Entities as weapons. To put it simply."
The Seizer.
A thief who steals company property using a gun that bores blue holes into space.
The Driver.
A controller of lifeless vehicles, a terrorist who causes car accidents, crashes planes, derails trains, and utilizes tanks and fighter jets.
Yeon-woo thought for a moment and then gave the manhole cover a light kick.
"So you're saying they can't do things like observation or tracking?"
"Yes. The Driver might be able to do it to some extent, but since he's currently on his way here, he probably—"
An answer suggesting it might be possible. However, Yeon-woo spoke quickly.
"Then we just need to hide, right?"
"Pardon?"
The man, who had been placing his hand on the cargo tent, peered out toward Yeon-woo.
Yeon-woo pointed to the manhole cover.
"Why don't we hide that Anomaly Entity under the manhole? What do you think?"
"...That's not a bad idea. I'll open the cover."
***
Swish!
Yeon-woo and the man pushed the cargo tent aside. The dim interior of the cargo hold became faintly visible.
A door standing upright, and the upper body of a man protruding from it. The Stuck Man looked up as the sunlight suddenly poured in.
"Excuse me. My back hurts so much, please let me change my position. If I wiggle a bit, I can get out. I won't run away."
Yeon-woo and the man looked at each other and gave a brief nod.
"Let's do it."
"Ah, thank you. Seriously, my back is killing me—"
As the man climbed into the cargo hold and shook the door violently back and forth, the Stuck Man swayed slightly and then, at some point, slipped out of the door like a ghost. He stretched and let out a deep breath.
"Ah, that's better."
"We don't have time for this. Get out, quickly."
"Ah, yes, yes. I'm coming."
He grabbed the man's outstretched hand and climbed down from the cargo hold. Squinting against the sunlight, the Stuck Man spoke.
"That was a huge accident. So, where am I going?"
"Get in here."
Claiming that opening manhole covers was a basic skill for field agents, the man took a tool from the truck and opened the manhole. Rusty handles were embedded in the wall like a ladder. A faint stench wafted up.
"In here?"
Yeon-woo gave the hesitating Stuck Man a firm push on the back.
"We're out of time. Hurry up."
"Ah, I don't want to... Fine. I should listen to the company."
Step, step, step.
Fortunately, without any getting stuck along the way, the Stuck Man climbed down. Next, Lee Yeon-woo lowered himself into the manhole. He stepped on the ladder with both feet and gripped the edge with one hand.
Step, step, step.
Having reached the sewer, Yeon-woo looked up and shouted.
"Come on down!"
"No."
"What?"
The manhole opening glowed like a round sun. A round head cast a shadow over the opening. The man spoke.
"I'll act as the bait. I'll lure them elsewhere so they can't find you."
With that, he closed the cover. The entrance shut like a closing crescent moon. Yeon-woo shouted quickly.
"Wait, hold on! Give me the knife!"
He paused, the opening only partially closed. Yeon-woo's voice leaked through the gap.
"Just in case I get caught, I'll need a backup plan!"
"Understood. Be careful."
The knife dropped. Splash. It hit the filthy water.
Ignoring the sewage, Yeon-woo picked up the knife and let out a sigh of relief.
'Perfect. If those guys catch me, I can just threaten them.'
It was just a blade, but it was a weapon. He could use the Stuck Man as a hostage.
He could hold the hostage to buy time until reinforcements arrived, or if necessary, trade the hostage for his own life.
Yeon-woo placed the knife on his cast and took his mobile phone out of his pocket to turn on the flashlight. The bright white light illuminated the pitch-black sewer.
Damp humidity, a terrible stench, filth and moss. A spine-chilling darkness.
But it was safe.
Just then, the Stuck Man called out to Yeon-woo.
"Excuse me..."
"Ah, yes?"
As he turned the phone, the Stuck Man reached out toward him.
"My foot is stuck, please help me out. This dampness feels disgusting..."
One of his feet was buried deep in a drainage gutter. Avoiding the sewage, Yeon-woo approached the Stuck Man and shook him haphazardly.
Below the ground, Yeon-woo and the Stuck Man waited for everything to be over.
***
They were naive.
They had presumed the thoughts of a terrorist, the thoughts of a madman intent on destroying the world, to be like those of an ordinary person.
That he would simply turn back if he couldn't seize the target.
"Aren't you going to follow them?"
"...."
The Seizer stood beside the truck, watching the man in the suit a short distance away.
The man fled the moment they appeared, as if he had been waiting for them all along. He ran hard down the sidewalk, making it blatantly obvious that he was trying to escape.
The Seizer wasn't fooled.
"He's bait."
"Him?"
"There's no NPC. No need to chase."
Running alone without the Stuck Man was a dead giveaway that he was mere bait.
The real prize was either hidden nearby or had already escaped.
"Then can I do whatever I want?"
The Driver gripped the controller. The outermost car among those blocking the road suddenly accelerated and struck the man. A brief scream echoed. The car surged back and forth over the man's body several times.
"Ahahaha!"
Against the backdrop of the Driver's laughter, the Seizer closed his eyes in thought.
Two clocks were ticking in his mind.
The time it would take for the Seizer's Dedicated Task Force to arrive. There wasn't much time left.
And the time that had passed since the transport truck was stopped.
He made his decision and opened his eyes.
"If he's hidden, it's nearby. If he's escaped, he couldn't have gone far."
"Are you going to look? He wasn't near the cars."
"No. There's no time to search."
That is the meaning of a Red grade, and the meaning of a Dedicated Task Force. Destruction and slaughter are the only priorities. To achieve this, they possess the armaments, training, and personnel designed solely to deal with that specific entity and fugitive.
The Seizer's Dedicated Task Force moves faster than airplanes to hunt down the Seizer, who operates on a global scale.
Since his appearance had been reported, they would arrive shortly.
"What, so we're just leaving?"
"No. There is a third option."
The Seizer lifted his toy gun.
The objective for when they can neither seize nor kill.
Experimentation. In other words, terror.
Click—
The Seizer spun the dial on the side of the toy gun. There were twelve designated numbers linked to holes he had opened in advance.
Click, click, click.
Number one, two, and three.
Three blue holes tore open, and an NPC popped out of each one.
Then, the error began to erode reality.
The Broken Woman and the Repeating Man made contact. The surrounding road shattered like glitched graphics.
The Falling Man pierced through the broken pavement. Distant objects floated upward as if thrown into a zero-gravity space.
The sprawling error, now uncontrollable, surged downward into the ground, reaching the place where the Stuck Man was hidden.