Assault on the Awakened Prison
Former Head Housekeeper Kang Hwa-Rim was the vassal who had purged the greatest number of traitors—an SS-class Awakened.
As one of the previous generation’s 12 Vassals, she naturally knew of the finger-snap summons established by the former Gaju. Sensing Jeong-Hoon’s call, she had entered without hesitation.
After finishing her explanation of who she was and who her traitor father had been, Hwa-Rim calmly awaited Jeong-Hoon’s judgment. If he declared he could not trust a traitor’s daughter and told her to leave, she intended to withdraw in silence.
“Is that so? But, well… Kang Hwa-Rim, do you harbor any desire to kill me or bring ruin to the family?”
“My, Gaju, those words are rather frightening. I don’t hold even the slightest such thought.”
“Then that’s settled. You must have been enjoying your retirement life, so I’m grateful you’re willing to help.”
Jeong-Hoon’s casual dismissal of her guilt-driven seclusion as mere “retirement life” left Hwa-Rim faintly startled. She glanced at Butler Ju and Lee Young, wondering whether he meant to draw a line—accepting this cooperation while closing the door on anything further.
“Ah! I’m not drawing any lines. If you wish to return as a vassal, I’ll acknowledge it. I simply can’t force a retired person back into the field against their will, can I?”
She studied him, half-suspecting he failed to grasp the shame she carried as a traitor’s daughter. But that was not it. Jeong-Hoon was simply speaking out of consideration for her. Whose daughter she was did not seem to matter to him at all.
“That’s the kind of man he is, so you have no choice but to accept him.”
“Is that so? Ah, Uncle, it’s been a long time. Looking at your face, I’m glad you’ve been well.”
Having finally understood Jeong-Hoon’s intent, Hwa-Rim nodded and offered the greeting she had been delaying to Butler Ju. Even before Kang Hyeon-Jung’s betrayal, the two had been as close as uncle and niece. Both had suffered the pain of being betrayed by someone they trusted, and that shared wound kept their bond intact.
“So what business brought you here today? Important enough to break your seclusion?”
“It’s not as though I washed my hands in a golden basin and retired for good. No need to take it so seriously. I simply heard that my traitor father’s magic had been discovered and came rushing out.”
Hwa-Rim spoke as if it were nothing, yet Butler Ju’s expression hardened. He had not yet received any report on the matter. His gaze sharpened and fixed on Lee Young.
“I came to deliver the report now. That’s why I showed up even though it’s my day off.”
Lee Young’s words cut off the unspoken question of why she had not reported earlier. Butler Ju could only shake his head.
“Uh… it seems something serious has broken out. Shall we convene all of the 12 Vassals for now?”
Seeing Butler Ju’s reaction, Jeong-Hoon asked carefully. Lee Young nodded.
Jeong-Hoon did not know the family’s traitors in any detail. He knew only that traitors had once existed within the family, that they had grown drunk on power, and that they had raised a rebellion to shatter the seals—only to fail. Even the name of the rebellion’s ringleader, Kang Hyeon-Jung, was something he was hearing for the first time.
Yet the more he listened, the clearer it became that the man had been dangerous. The way every one of the 12 Vassals flinched the moment the name was spoken—as if a trauma switch had been flipped—told him everything.
“So those Organization bastards are the ones carrying on that traitor’s will?”
Fernandez asked, voice trembling. Hwa-Rim, who had taken a seat in the conference room, shook her head.
“Not at all, Elder Council President. This is something only I would know—yes, it is that traitor father’s magic, but it is slightly different.”
“……Explain, former Head Housekeeper.”
Even knowing she was a traitor’s daughter, Fernandez did not view her through colored glass. She had proven her loyalty to the family by purging more traitors than anyone else. He had only ever regretted her retirement. Every one of the 12 Vassals present shared that view. That she had stepped down simply because she was a traitor’s daughter was a pity; she herself bore no guilt. Had she not chosen to withdraw of her own will, the current Head Housekeeper would still have been her, not Lee Young.
“The magic our bloodline has passed down for generations—the Art of Reversion—pursues a return to the essence of magic. The problem is that development must come first before any true reversion is possible. Yet this magic discards all development and retains only the reversion. In other words, it is a method refined purely for the sake of fundamentals.”
After laying out the basic principles, Hwa-Rim launched into a full explanation of Kang Hyeon-Jung’s magic. Every one of the 12 Vassals listened with rapt attention, comparing her words against the analysis Woo Do-Il had already provided.
The only person who could not immerse himself was Jeong-Hoon.
Cheerful BGM and a bright voice rang from Jeong-Hoon’s phone.
Unable to grasp the magic discussion on his own, Jeong-Hoon had turned to a game. This was not knowledge one could simply hear and understand; only S-class or higher Awakened who could properly handle mana stood any chance of following it. So he half-listened while playing. The behavior might have seemed rude, yet the highest authority in the room was Jeong-Hoon. Everyone else was the one who needed to watch his mood—not the other way around.
“Oh, are we finished? It suddenly got quiet. Did I miss the conclusion?”
Absorbed in his game, Jeong-Hoon looked up when the room fell silent. Realizing every eye was on him, he quietly muted his phone.
“I’ll stay quiet. Please continue.”
“……To put the conclusion first: because the method was refined solely for ease of learning, the Organization is weaker than the family, yet it is likely to possess a large number of S-class Awakened.”
Hwa-Rim, realizing that what had been an engrossing analysis for them was pure tedium for the uninitiated Jeong-Hoon, hurried to deliver the conclusion. Jeong-Hoon nodded.
“I’d already guessed that much after New York. What’s more important is that the Organization is using that easily learned method to recruit talented people, isn’t it?”
The seven S-class or higher Awakened he had encountered in New York alone made the conclusion obvious. Jeong-Hoon shrugged. Considering they had been only one squad, the Organization’s true scale remained unclear, but he estimated there had to be at least two more such squads. It was a conclusion drawn simply from the word “squad,” yet the kidnapping of Assemblyman Kim Dae-Young’s family made it a reasonable one.
“……Gaju sees one step further than the rest of us. Exactly as you say.”
Hwa-Rim had heard from her successor Lee Young on the way to Lumen that the current Gaju was capable, but she had not expected him to be this sharp. She prepared to move straight to the main point.
“And this is a list I compiled through my network on the way here—A-class and higher hunters whose recent whereabouts have gone completely dark.”
Even in seclusion, the connections she had built while serving as one of the 12 Vassals remained intact. She had been active when the family first founded the Hunter Association; those ties still shone in the hunter world.
“Looking at this list, you can see that the whereabouts of Choi Jae-Yeon—S-class hunter and former master of the Saturn Guild that Gaju himself dismantled—are currently unknown. The Organization almost certainly made contact.”
Seeing her investigate even the details the family, busy with countless other matters, had overlooked, Jeong-Hoon felt a quiet admiration. That alone made her cooperation more than worthwhile.
Aboard a ship bound for a certain island in the South Sea, the head of the Organization—Yong-Ha—checked his attire.
Black suit and helmet. Gear identical in appearance to the outfits the family used when operating under the guise of a mercenary company. Only the exterior matched, however. This was no over-technology suit of the family. It had been manufactured purely to sow social chaos. Yong-Ha had personally brought one full squad of the Organization all the way here.
“Lately I’ve felt strange eyes watching me, so we finish this as fast as possible. Everyone clear?”
The family’s sudden surveillance had forced him to postpone the plan; only now could he execute it. The operatives nodded in unison. Even if the force fell short of New York’s, five S-class or higher Awakened still made for overwhelming power. Against anyone other than the family itself, there was nothing they could not accomplish.
“All right. Operation: Liberate the Awakened—begin.”
The moment the ship reached the waters near the island, Yong-Ha gave the order and was the first to kick off the surface, racing across the water. In his mind, failure simply did not exist. The only question was how quickly they would succeed. This was power enough to shake a small nation; there was nothing they could not achieve—even storming the Awakened Prison to free its inmates.
The Awakened Prison, an entire remote island in the South Sea converted into a fortress, was known as an inescapable hell. Korea’s answer to a modern Alcatraz. The whole island had been remade, and the surrounding currents were so treacherous that approach without a vessel was impossible. Precisely because of that, external security was lax.
Yong-Ha slipped onto the island with ease and climbed the outer wall with practiced skill. The wall rose dozens of meters and was slick, yet he scaled it as if climbing stairs. Reaching the top, he stomped.
A storm of internal energy condensed in his leg. Paseong shattered the wall. The squad members waiting below poured into the prison in a rush.
“Wh-who are you?!”
“E-emergency! The prison is under—gah!”
The collapsing wall brought guards pouring out, but the bullets they fired never stopped the intruders. The guards themselves were Awakened—necessary for a prison holding their own kind—yet against the Organization they were powerless.
“We are Nova! Those who have risen for a world of the new humanity! From this moment we free our kin. Resist, and even fellow Awakened will find no mercy!”
With the infiltration complete, Yong-Ha poured mana into his voice and roared. By wrapping themselves in the name of Nova, they erased suspicion about their true identity and simultaneously announced that Nova—believed destroyed after its exposure in America—still lived. The Organization could hide behind Nova’s banner. They could also accelerate the founding of the PS Association that the family was pushing, while recruiting Awakened who had been locked away and now nursed deep grievances against society.
“P-please let me out! I want to stand with my Nova comrades!”
“……The guild master of AP Guild. We don’t need trash like this.”
Cries begging for release rang from every direction. One voice timed perfectly with Yong-Ha’s passage earned only a snort. It was the former master of AP Guild—the man who had made a scene in front of Jeong-Hoon, been marked, and received a life sentence after an internal whistle-blower report. They could have recruited him under the Nova name, but the ships they had brought had limited capacity. There was no value in hauling out a man who could never serve as real combat power simply to pad numbers.
“Still… even trash has its uses. If you’re truly comrades, prove your worth by escaping from here yourselves.”
About to walk past, Yong-Ha instead smashed the door of the AP Guild master’s cell, released the restraints of every Awakened inside, and turned away. They had not stormed the Awakened Prison for garbage like this. Their true targets were the S-class and higher Awakened locked away under the heaviest security the prison could provide.