Let There Be Light
What was the true strength of Hwaseong Group?
The public generally pointed to their ruthless market domination or their immense financial firepower. Those in the industry, however, told a different story. To them, it all came down to momentum.
It was Vice Chairman Jeon Myeong-cheol's fiery temperament—his habit of bulldozing forward without a backward glance once a decision was made. Over the years, that ferocity had seeped into the corporate culture, becoming Hwaseong's most potent weapon and its enduring trademark.
And that momentum was on full display now.
Less than thirty minutes had passed since Vice Chairman Jeon had barked the order to orchestrate the theft.
At Incheon North Port Pier, an abandoned, decaying warehouse stood shrouded in the stinging reek of stagnant sea breeze and waste engine oil. Tacked onto its flank like a makeshift annex was a rusted shipping container serving as a makeshift office.
Riiiiiing—
A loud, harsh ring shattered the silence.
“Yeah. What is it?”
A man dressed in grease-stained coveralls—the figure known on the docks as Boss Ri—snatched up the smartphone lying discarded on his desk. A deceptively pleasant smile tugged at his lips.
[…….]
“Heh, of course I know who you are. So, what’s the job?”
[…….]
“Arcane Technology? Ain’t that the outfit plastered all over the news lately?”
[…….]
As the voice filtered through the receiver, Boss Ri’s grin widened. He leisurely tapped the thick dust off his desk with a calloused finger before answering in a thick Joseonjok drawl.
“Understood. The moment the advance deposit clears, I'll round up the boys and roll out. But you're dead certain the cops won't stick their noses into this?”
[…….]
“An hour's more than enough to wrap it up. I’ll package up both guests and the cargo nice and neat for delivery, so you just make sure the badges stay bought. It won’t be pretty for either of us if there’s any blowback.”
The line went dead.
A thuggish man with a scar-battered face waiting beside him leaned forward. “What's the play, Boss?”
“Work. Call back all the boys who went out. Quick now.”
“Right now? Every last one of 'em?”
“The client’s a high roller. It’s a two-hundred-million-won score, so round 'em up. We gotta hit fast and vanish, which means we need plenty of hands. Word is the guards are top-notch—ten of 'em—so scrape together at least thirty. Pick the young, hot-blooded ones.”
“Right away, Boss.”
At the mention of two hundred million won, the man’s face brightened, and he bolted out the door.
Left alone in the dim container, Boss Ri chewed over the details of the contract.
Arcane Technology, huh.
The company had made such an ungodly racket in the media that even a man who couldn't care less about tech had heard the name countless times. Recalling snippets of news about multi-billion-dollar deals and absurd corporate valuations, Boss Ri chuckled under his breath.
A place sitting on that kind of cash has gotta have piles of loose bills lying around. While we're packing up the guests and the goods, what's stopping us from pocketing a little bonus?
A row of gold teeth glinted sharply in the gloom.
One hour later.
A 3.5-ton wing-body truck with a custom-modified cargo bay rolled smoothly into the cavernous depths of the derelict warehouse. Minutes later, the heavy vehicle rumbled back out onto the road.
Packed tight inside the cargo hold were thirty members of the Incheon Heuksapa syndicate, their fists clutched around steel pipes, heavy chains, and high-voltage stun batons.
Rewind the clock.
Arcane Technology Laboratory.
CRRRRRAAAASH!
A deafening roar ripped through the tranquil evening as the heavy wing-body truck smashed headlong into the research facility's main gates. Instant chaos erupted across the grounds.
“What the hell!”
“A truck just rammed through the gate!”
“Was it an accident? No, wait, that’s—!”
Because the primary security perimeter had been established around the main entrance of the building itself, no one was caught in the initial collision. But relief was the last thing on anyone's mind.
The gull-wing side doors of the truck hissed open, and a swarm of armed, masked assailants poured out into the yard.
Kim Team Leader, the commanding officer of the security detachment dispatched to protect Arcane Technology, hardened his expression into granite.
“This is coordinated. It’s an ambush.”
Though his voice was tight with tension, his orders snapped out with disciplined composure.
“Fall back! Secure the choke points inside the facility and hold the line. One of you contact the police and headquarters immediately—request emergency reinforcements. Move!”
“Understood!”
The security guards withdrew in seamless, practiced coordination.
Watching the guards pull back, Boss Ri’s right-hand man, Yong-cheol, smacked his lips.
“Looks like those bastards are trying to barricade themselves inside, Boss.”
“Think this is our first rodeo? Smash every window you see and crawl in. Once we hit 'em from every direction at once, it doesn't matter how trained they are—they're finished.”
“You got it.”
“We don't have much time. Move, move, move! Grab every scrap of paper that looks like a document!”
“Yes, Boss!”
SHATTER!
The sharp, violent sound of breaking glass erupted all along the building's exterior. Gangsters swarmed through the shattered ground-floor windows, battering anything in their path.
The guards fought back furiously, using stairwells and narrow corridors to bottleneck the advance.
“Aaargh!”
“There are too many of them!”
“Where’s our backup?! How much longer?!”
Against relentless brutality and overwhelming numbers attacking from every angle, courage alone wasn't enough. In under ten minutes, every member of the security detail was beaten down and incapacitated.
Trampling over their fallen bodies, the Heuksapa thugs strutted through the corridors, tearing through the laboratory with reckless abandon.
The deafening symphony of shattering glass and furious shouts outside gradually died down into an ominous silence.
I held my breath, listening closely to the shifting sounds beyond the door. Coarse, violent voices echoed intermittently down the hall.
“This is bad.”
“W-What’s bad?”
Hyung-joon was shaking, coiled so tightly with terror he looked ready to snap. And who could blame him? When had an ordinary engineer ever experienced a violent raid by armed mobsters?
I kept my voice down to an urgent whisper. “The men guarding us... I think they’ve all been taken out.”
“Then what do we do?! Should we call the police right now—?”
“Shh.”
I placed a firm hand on his shoulder, silencing him before panic could completely overwhelm his senses. Calling the emergency services now wouldn't make a damn bit of difference; they would never arrive in time. In fact, the fact that more than ten minutes had passed since the gate was rammed without a single siren in the distance reeked of deliberate interference.
Finding a way to slip out on our own was by far the safer bet.
Moving silently, I reached over and flicked off the lab lights. Although twilight had not yet fully surrendered to night, casting a dim, reddish glow through the window blinds, the room plunged into sufficient gloom.
Good.
Ensuring Hyung-joon was close enough to observe, I brought my hands together and wove a subtle hand seal, quietly gathering and aligning the ambient mana around us.
“What are you doing?” he whispered, his eyes wide.
“Casting a spell to scatter the light around us. Think of it roughly as an optical camouflage screen.”
In truth, it was far cruder than genuine optical camouflage. Prism Image was merely a degraded offshoot of true invisibility—a 1st-circle spell that bent and refracted light waves to confuse the naked eye. Right now, it was virtually the only defensive spell in my meager repertoire.
Because it was a bottom-tier formula, anyone paying close attention would easily spot the shimmering distortions in the air. But under the current circumstances, it was more than enough.
Men fresh off a violent brawl were always riding an adrenaline high. Their senses would be erratic, incapable of focusing on subtle environmental quirks unless prompted.
“It isn’t complete invisibility, and it won't muffle sound,” I warned in a hushed tone. “From this second on, don't make a peep.”
“Mmph.”
Hyung-joon clamped both hands over his mouth, nodding fervently to show his absolute obedience. I gave him an approving nod, then turned my full attention back toward the laboratory entrance.
“Boss, there ain't nothin' here that makes any sense!” a rough voice called from outside.
“The hell would you know about it anyway? Quit yapping! If it looks like a computer or a safe, drag it out to the truck!”
The coarse northern dialect carried clearly down the hall. Joseonjok, most likely. Hired thugs from an organized crime outfit? Mainland Chinese or North Korean connections? The questions flitted through my mind, but I shook them away almost immediately.
Premature conclusions were useless. All that mattered right now was a single, undeniable fact: these men were our enemies.
The heavy footsteps grew louder, approaching our doorway.
“Hey, but where the hell are the CEO and CTO? You think the bastards slipped out while we were busting through the front?”
“Shut your jinxing mouth! The job ain't done till we bag both of them little bastards and deliver 'em in one piece. If you don't wanna be scouring the docks all night, peel your eyeballs open and search every damn corner!”
Hearing them talk about shipping us off like livestock made my blood boil. I forced my breathing to remain slow and steady, coldly taking stock of my remaining magical reserves.
My accessible magic was strictly capped at the 1st Circle. While I could perform basic elemental conversions across any primary aspect, my output was pitifully inadequate for taking on an entire squad of armed men in direct combat.
When resources are scarce, you return to the fundamentals. Keep it simple. Keep it lethal.
Just like the old days.
Two men wielding rusted steel pipes casually strolled into the darkened lab, completely unguarded. Their gait was loose, arrogant—the swagger of predators who believed the territory was entirely theirs.
“Where’re you little runts hiding~?”
One of them snickered, bringing his pipe down onto an empty workbench with a sharp, echoing CLANG.
In the past life I remembered from my dreams, the very first element any apprentice mage learned to manipulate was light. No one quite knew the theoretical reason, but converting raw mana into radiant photons required the least complex conceptual matrix.
Curiously, the creation myth preached by the Holy Order of Letnia began with light, much like the scriptures of Earth. And so, senior mages would playfully teach newly initiated novices the foundational incantation of the light element with a knowing smirk.
Let there be light.
“AAAAAAARRRRGH!”
The thug who glanced toward our corner suddenly dropped his weapon, clutched his face with both hands, and collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony.
An intensely compressed point of radiant energy had detonated a single millimeter in front of his corneas.
“What the hell?! What's wrong with you?!”
“My eyes! My eyes! I can’t see—!”
Detonating a flashbang point-blank against eyes that had already adjusted to the dark was devastating. The moment the photons scorched his retinas, his vision was annihilated, rendering him utterly incapacitated.
“What the fuck?! What’s going on?!”
The second thug spun around in terror, frantically sweeping his gaze across the shadowy room. The raw dread of facing an unseen, inexplicable attack was written all over his face.
Too bad for you. You just looked right at me.
Take one for yourself.
“AGHHHHHH!”
Another bloodcurdling shriek pierced the laboratory air.
I couldn't help but feel grateful that Earth was so utterly devoid of mana. If this were Letnia, a stunt like this would never have worked so cleanly; back there, even low-level grunts carried enchanted trinkets that passively dispersed low-tier magical interference. Anyone holding the rank of an aura knight would have deflected such a crude sensory trick before the formula could even finish manifesting.
I glanced back at Hyung-joon. His eyes were the size of saucers, staring at me as if I had suddenly grown a second head.
I raised an index finger to my lips, signaling him to remain dead quiet. Hyung-joon nodded violently, his head bobbing like a broken toy. Having a partner who caught on fast was a genuine blessing.
Gripping Hyung-joon’s arm, I guided him silently out through the doorway.
The hallway outside was a scene of pandemonium. Alerted by the agonized shrieks, several gangsters had poured out of adjoining rooms, clustering nervously near the stairwell.
There were too many of them to take down one by one. But a crowd had its own tactical weaknesses.
I pushed Hyung-joon against the wall to keep him out of the line of fire, then locked eyes with a thug a few meters away who was turning in our direction.
One more.
“GYAAAH! MY EYES! MY FUCKING EYES!”
“What’s wrong with him?!”
“What hit him?! Who’s shooting?!”
As the blinded man thrashed wildly on the floor, the rest of the gang rushed toward him in confusion, shouting and drawing their weapons. In the ensuing scramble, I dragged Hyung-joon around the corner and slipped into the fire escape.
From there, the escape was effortless.
With every eye in the building glued to the chaos unfolding on the second floor, we slipped past the perimeter completely undetected, leaving the research compound behind us.
Out on the road, Hyung-joon stared back at the shattered front gate and the monstrous wing-body truck wedged inside it, his expression hollow with grief.
“…….”
“I know how you feel,” I said quietly. “Save it for later. Right now, we put distance between us and this place.”
“...Yeah.”
“I don't care who ordered this hit. We are going to pay them back. In full.”
“Yeah. Every single bit of it. No matter what it takes...”
Hyung-joon ground the words out through clenched teeth, a searing fury vibrating in his voice.
We walked briskly through the darkening streets until the facility was entirely lost from view. Only then did I pull my smartphone from my pocket.
The contact was Section Chief Kwon Jeong-geun of Hwayeong Business.
The call barely rang twice before a crisp, composed voice answered.
"I have already received the report."
“Then this conversation won't take long,” I said coldly. “We need to talk. In person.”
"Understood. Our assets will have the situation contained shortly. Let us meet back at the laboratory in thirty minutes."
The call ended.
Pushing down the simmering rage inside my chest, I turned to Hyung-joon.
“Let’s head back.”