Resurrection
Everyone wore dumbfounded expressions. Cain dying simply hadn't been one of the scenarios they'd envisioned.
Won-goo hurried over to Cain and checked his breathing.
"Yeah, he's dead for real."
Sensing the situation, Abal came stomping over, still in the middle of her own treatment.
"Hey! Agari!"
"What?"
"What if you killed him?!"
"Why are you pinning that on me? The bastard was weak and died on his own. What, was I supposed to kick him gently because he might die from it?"
"You're the one who got your ass X-beaten into this spot in the first place!"
"Ugh, whatever! All I did was fight and win."
And with that, Abal quickly slipped away from the scene.
"Um... well..."
Running away wasn't Abal's style. The only reason she was slipping off now was that even she hadn't expected things to unravel like this. And on top of that, though she'd pretended to be fine, her eye injury was far more serious than she let on.
Her vision was completely gone. She had to move fast and get treatment.
"What in tarnation? We're just gonna leave him lyin' there? That boy's plum outta his mind."
"He really did cross the line... Ah... a headache's coming on."
With that, Montage called Kiss over.
"Kiss, boy. Take a look at him, will ya."
"Yes, sir!"
"Director Gong. I reckon this time he truly went too far, if ya ask me... What's your thinkin' on the matter?"
Dr. Woo came closer, his face full of complaint.
"So what, was I supposed to throw a party about it?"
"I ain't sayin' it's exactly that, but still..."
"You already know words don't get through to these people. Somebody coming at me like this is basically asking for it, no?"
"..."
"..."
"There's not a soul around here who hasn't thought about trying it. Every last one of them's taken their shot at least once. Didn't you get yours once too, Dr. Woo?"
"There was some friction, I'll grant ya. But nothin' on this scale."
"The timing's bad. First, we're short-handed as it is fighting Ganjeol Point. And second, who's going to step up to do it, if not me?"
"..."
"..."
"Think it through. What happens when a job goes sideways? Remember the incident around here where a whole gang got wiped out to the last man? That happened because somebody botched an attempt to poach Agari there."
"He's lost it, lost his mind. So the intel on Ganjeol Point is just gone now?"
Pacific said. He looked rattled by the situation too, fussing aimlessly with the wheels of his wheelchair.
"I think we can bring him back."
Then came the good news, from Kiss.
Without a moment's hesitation, Kiss pried open Cain's mouth and pushed his tongue inside.
Instantly, groans of despair erupted from everyone around them.
"Oh, for chrissake... Boss. Does it really, REALLY have to be that X to work as treatment?"
"Can't be helped, ya know. I felt the same way at first, but watch it enough times and ya get used to it."
"This is way past too much."
And it was true. Kiss was delivering kisses of nearly adult-rated intensity.
A hulking mass of a man administering a deep, open-mouthed kiss to a man who might as well have been a corpse—it was a sight difficult to stomach unless it was your particular taste.
And because Kiss was built like a mountain, it didn't even look like kissing. It looked like he was devouring the man whole.
Smooch. Smooch. Mwah! Smooch. Schlop! Smooch! Schlop!
With every lurid sound ringing out unfiltered, groans broke out all over the place.
"Ah... make it stop..."
Had someone's plea actually reached him? Kiss, who had been deploying an eerie variety of kissing techniques, stopped.
"W-we need someone who can set bones. Otherwise he'll just die again."
"Bones?"
"Yes. His neck is broken."
"How in the devil is anybody supposed to set a broken neck? Boy ain't a Lego head. Is that even possible?"
But Won-goo's reaction was different.
"So we set the bones and keep his breath going until it takes. That's the play?"
"Yes!"
"The neck bone, where would we even get—"
Won-goo looked back at Mu Beob-sa.
"Mage! I think this is where we need your help!"
"Understood, that is the case."
Mu Beob-sa moved. And so did Pacific.
"Ha... Never thought I'd be wasting this expensive stuff on this bastard."
He'd figured out from the situation which drug would be needed. He pulled out a syringe and tossed it over.
"That goes at the tips of his toes. Put it anywhere else and his heart bursts. Nice and slow, a tiny bit at a time."
"Jo Mu-sa, you handle that part."
"Yes, Director."
Kiss, Mu Beob-sa, and Jo Mu-sa threw themselves into treating Cain.
"You all saw it, right? That's Abal for you. Any of you think you could snap a neck in one shot?"
"..."
"..."
No one stepped forward to claim they could.
For an ordinary human, it would have been possible.
But the opponent was All Kind, a named-tier enhancement type. Snapping that neck had been no easy feat.
"Director Gong. How many coins you reckon that boy's stuffed into himself?"
Dr. Woo asked.
"I'd say he's invested at least fifty? Slightly above your average Named, I'd guess. He is a Ganjeol Point executive, after all."
"Hmm..."
"It's only because it was Abal. Against Goo-shik, who knows how it would've gone."
"Well, true enough—this line of work's always had its matchups, ain't that so."
"Snapping the neck of an enhancement type with fifty-plus coins in one blow..."
Fresh muttered. Montage responded as if prompted by it.
"That's right. Director Gong, didn't ya say ya broke through and beat him yourself?"
"I got a bit lucky, honestly. Thankfully, that bastard handed me an opening by letting his guard down."
"Now that ya mention it..."
Mu Beob-sa went to where Cain's head lay, gave it a long pull, and then pushed it back in.
CRACK!
A grotesque sound rang out. But no one could tell whether that meant it had been set back in place.
How could they? Anyone could recognize a dislocated arm, but re-seating a broken neck was something else entirely—difficult to even comprehend.
Mu Beob-sa held the neck he'd pushed back in place, frozen in the exact same posture.
In the meantime, Kiss showered down kisses with even greater fervor.
Jo Mu-sa, having pulled off Cain's shoes, was injecting the drug into his toe tips in parallel.
Pacific stayed at Jo Mu-sa's side, regulating the flow of the drug.
"Good. A little slower than that. Figures—must be all those years in the medical business. You're good at this."
Jo Mu-sa no longer felt any urge to correct him. Setting the record straight about his origins now wouldn't mean a thing.
Mu Beob-sa gripping the head, Kiss pouring on the kisses, Jo Mu-sa feeding an extremely potent booster into Cain's toes.
About five minutes passed like that before Kiss finally pulled his mouth away, looked at Montage, and gave a nod.
It meant he'd brought him back from the dead.
Inside Sanghae's restaurant, an intensive information-sharing session was in full swing. Naturally, the subject was Ganjeol Point.
They had been hashing out everything they knew about Ganjeol Point's executives—each one's combat ability, temperament, even their Gifts.
In effect, Cain had handed over nearly everything he knew.
"Last one—Ganjeol himself. If that bastard shows up, the plan is we bolt first and think later. He's exactly that dangerous."
"What's Ganjeol's Gift, then?"
"I heard he controls electricity. Lightning."
"So he's a mage?"
"Cain believes he's a mage. A lightning mage."
"Why? Isn't he?"
Fresh asked.
"No. I know for a fact that bastard isn't a mage. This is solid information."
Won-goo was meticulous by nature. Even before signing the agreement with Ganjeol Point, he had been collecting information on Ganjeol.
And what he'd dug up in the process was a single certainty: Ganjeol is not a mage.
"So he really does use lightning?"
Won-goo nodded. The faces of everyone gathered there hardened.
Powers that manipulated the elements were classified as especially dangerous. And among them, the most nightmarish were fire and lightning. Lightning in particular ranked even above fire, because it was the fastest way to kill an opponent.
"But Ganjeol goes around calling himself the Mage of Ten Seconds, doesn't he?"
"That's the image the bastard crafted on purpose."
"What? So you're telling me you knew all along he wasn't a mage?"
Fresh's eyes went wide.
"Of course I knew. That's why I played along and let myself be fooled."
"Then if he's not a mage either... what's his Gift? Do Gifts like that even exist?"
"Probably a psychokinesis type."
"...!"
"...!"
"...!"
"There are psychokinesis types that use lightning?"
"The Mage of Ten Seconds. The Mage of the Instant. My guess is he spreads those names around precisely to hide this. To bury the fact that he's a psychokinesis type."
"Psychokinesis, ya mean... like telekinesis and such? Never in my days heard of a lightning-flavored psychic, I tell ya what."
"A Gift can be anything. That's what they say, isn't it? Let's just hear him out."
Yeongyeong calmly sorted through the flood of bewildered, overlapping questions.
She still looked hideous, wrecked as she was—but there was unmistakably more life in her than before.
And with her sons lined up behind her to help, she had backbone to spare.
"You all know a faint electric current runs through the human body, right? As far as I can tell, his Gift exploits exactly that—those microcurrents."
"So the kind that amplifies what's already flowing inside the body?"
Yeongyeong raised her hand.
"Yeongyeong. Go ahead, ask."
"If that's the mechanism, couldn't he also use body heat? The warmth inside us?"
"There'd be Gifts like that too, sure."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"I get that this is unsettling, but let's stay focused on Ganjeol. Regardless, everything All Kind spat out was true. And that Ganjeol isn't a mage—that's something I can personally guarantee. Which means the puzzle pieces click together. Why this bastard has been hiding everything about his combat style all this time."
"So he's not actually limited to ten seconds of power?"
"Exactly. Ganjeol didn't want to hide the time limit. He wanted to hide the fact that he uses lightning at all."
"But—"
"Raise your hand and talk, Sanghae."
And so Sanghae spoke, hand raised.
"But if it's that kind of ability, couldn't he just get a suit tailored out of something like a superconductor?"
"An insulator, you mean... Superconductors conduct electricity extremely well. What are you, trying to kill everybody?"
Thanks to all his contract work, Sanghae gave off an air of refinement—but the man was shockingly short on common sense.
Won-goo had already known this, and those around him were gradually finding out.
"Anyway, I get your point. We'll take whatever effect it has. But here's the thing—Ganjeol is the head of Ganjeol Point. All Kind said he's consumed fifty-nine gold coins. And apparently the executives average around fifty each."
"So Ganjeol's a fella who's eaten a whole lot more than that?"
"That's right. He might be closing in on his second Milestone Trait."
"He might already have hit it?"
"Possible. Considering the scale of Ganjeol Point, their revenue is anything but ordinary."
Everyone's expressions grew that much graver.
One hundred gold coins.
A threshold none of the people gathered here—except Won-goo—had ever reached.
And yet every one of them was a survivor fully capable of hitting one hundred if they chose to.
Montage had been stockpiling a tidy profit all this while, and Pacific could have hit one hundred on the spot by liquidating the items he carried. Sanghae and Sapiens went without saying. Even Dr. Woo could manage it by selling off every asset he had.
But none of them made that choice.
Because they all knew what a colossal gamble it would be.
Their power would spike, yes—but only by betting everything on themselves, and only if they then raked in coins fast enough on the strength of it would their organizations survive.
What were the odds of actually pulling that off?
The reason these people built crews and ran businesses inside the shelters was that simply getting stronger had never been the goal.
Not dying. Surviving.
Because that was the goal, they couldn't afford to squander coins recklessly.
Coins were power—but they were also life itself.
"Then Ganjeol's lightning's got no answer at all, is what yer sayin'? We just flat-out avoid touchin' him?"
"Our own people will handle Ganjeol."
Won-goo stepped forward. Everyone looked at him with faintly startled expressions.
"You'll be fine? You looked like you couldn't even get a read on him just now?"
"That's only if the bastard crawls out here to face us. If he doesn't come out, we just mind our own business. Either way, thanks to All Kind spilling everything so freely, we're a move ahead. Let's hire every pathfinder and information broker in the area and track the moment Ganjeol Point moves down on us. That's where we take the win."
The plan was rewritten.
From passively absorbing Buri Island's invasion to lying in wait and striking back—an offensive posture instead.