Darkness
"What's Cheol-soo's condition?"
"His arm got cut off!"
"Not that. Anything else wrong with him? Cheol-soo!"
"Yes! Yep! Director!"
"I'm asking if anything else is off. Like, did he get hit by poison or anything!"
"Nothing like that, sir."
"Good. Then get yourself treated right away, Cheol-soo."
"Yes, Director!"
"I'll find you something that's a perfect match for your arm. So don't worry!"
"Yes, Director."
"Jo Mu-sa! Treat Cheol-soo and put him to sleep."
At that, Cheol-soo shook his head firmly. "No! I can't rest over a single arm. I can still fight!"
"You think you can get by without resting?"
"Dulla has to fight too."
Won-goo couldn't bring himself to answer right away. The strength of the Seal Collector he'd glimpsed moments ago had been anything but ordinary.
The members of Won-goo's crew were far beyond ordinary. Every one of them carried coin enhancements and equipment that would have let them pass as Named without a blush of shame.
Upper-tier Named, if you wanted to classify them. Any of them could have gone independent and built their own crew and suffered nothing for it.
And yet even with that level of power, survival was never guaranteed.
The reason fatalities among Won-goo's people had stayed so vanishingly low all this time was that they always moved with that much preparation behind them. They never let greed manufacture trouble, and whatever jobs they did take, they made as easy on themselves as possible before solving them.
That was the secret to their winning streak.
And now they'd been ambushed.
Fortunately, they'd identified who the attackers were, but they knew precious little beyond that.
Ordinarily, Won-goo never picked fights with opponents like this. But trouble had already found them, which meant he had to clean up the situation quickly using only the information gathered so far.
"Director Gong! Why have the Seal Collectors appeared now, that is the question?"
"If I knew, would I be standing here? But my gut says they're after Ganjeol. What do you all think? Feels that way to you?"
The crew members who'd been moving Ganjeol along all nodded in agreement. "That's right. It looked like they were trying to extract him."
"Then let's draft an outline. If Ganjeol's the target, which scenario has the most plausibility?"
"Isn't it that the Seal Collectors have some connection to Ganjeol? Or Ganjeol Point could have placed a commission with them. They're seal harvesters, sure, but they said they also operate like mercenaries, didn't they?"
Everyone nodded at that, Won-goo included. There were plenty of possibilities, but what Jeon Hye-ji had just laid out carried the highest probability by far.
Meanwhile, the Trailer was pulling away from the area at speed.
Weeeeing!
With Won-goo himself gripping the wheel, the Trailer moved with even sharper agility.
The light spilling from the Trailer was pushing back the darkness, if only faintly — but it wasn't enough.
The dark was settling in deeper and thicker by the moment.
When you couldn't get your bearings, the only answer was to keep moving. The hopeful part, if you wanted to call it that, was that the light was at least doing some work to strip away the darkness laid over their surroundings.
Won-goo kept up a running conversation with his crew even as he drove. He had to learn something — anything — to fight back properly. They were riding in the Trailer, sure, but they hadn't escaped the darkness yet.
Whether this darkness simply devoured sight, or whether it was something special that also acted as a barrier — they had no way of knowing that either.
"What the hell is that wolf thing? Anybody get a look at it?"
"Less wolf, more hyena."
"Yeah?"
"That's right. A big hyena."
It was the judgment of those who'd seen it up close, so it could be trusted.
"How was its strength?"
"Monstrously strong, like you'd expect, but manageable."
"So not Large Species tier, like an Ouger?"
"No, sir. Though I can't figure out how it got here so fast."
"That's the part that puzzles me as well. Director Gong, did you see how it arrived?"
"That's been nagging at me too. I knew it was fast, but not this fast. Covering the distance from there to here that quickly just isn't possible. If it were, I'd have told Ganjeol to cut his losses and abandon the trade."
"It closed the distance in the blink of an eye, you're saying? Teleportation?" Pacific asked.
"That's one possibility. Could be tied to this darkness too. And above all, there's that Piercing bastard. Question is whether he's controlling that hyena, or whether..."
"Or what?"
"Some seals transform you. Could be one of those. According to the intel I've gathered, none of them were beast-handlers."
"So transformation is the likelier possibility, the part I'd wager on."
"Let's write off the executives we dragged along. As long as we've got Ganjeol, we can still cut a deal with Bohwacheon. The real problem is..."
Won-goo let the words trail off. He didn't know how long this darkness would last. They'd been driving dead straight at top speed for five minutes already. No matter how much dark had been laid down, they should have punched through by now — yet the blackness showed no sign of lifting.
So Won-goo's thinking was tipping toward the idea that this darkness wasn't merely eating their visibility, but functioning as some kind of barrier.
KWAAANG!
A thunderous boom split the air, and a violent impact slammed through the Trailer.
Won-goo's Trailer was no pushover. It not only granted one-off abilities but could have its very specs raised through coin enhancement. Given enough coins, it could grow to a weight class where a single roadkill could send even an Ouger flying.
Won-goo, wanting to upgrade the Shelter further, had neglected most of the Trailer's auxiliary built-in functions and poured his investment almost entirely into durability. If the Trailer went down, the Shelter went down with it.
Which would have meant watching every one of his long-laid plans go up in smoke.
But something had hit them hard enough to launch the Trailer clean off the ground.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
"Everybody hang on tight!"
Even airborne, Won-goo gathered himself and roared. He didn't think his crew would take serious injuries from an impact like this.
The problem was that the enemy could put out enough force to physically shove the Trailer through the air.
'That hyena? It'd struggle to manage that...'
Even in this desperate moment, Won-goo's mind kept grinding away.
The moment the Trailer crashed back down, another blow landed.
KWANG!
This time, though, it didn't lift the Trailer the way it had before.
'Was that from our speed?'
"Director Gong, how do we proceed, that is the question?"
"We're well and truly trapped inside this darkness, it seems."
"We can't just ride it out, Director?"
"No. The Trailer may be solid, but durability has its limits. Keep hammering away like that, and the moment it breaks will come."
At that, Lee Hyun-sung spoke up quickly. "I'll get the gear ready, Hyeong-nim!"
"Good. Rafael."
BAM!
Another hit. This time the Trailer rocked up slightly and settled back down.
"...?"
"We may need to use that ability. Will it be all right?"
Raphael answered in Elvish. "In places where life is scarce, it will not be so potent."
"Doesn't matter. All that counts is whether you can use it or not."
"It can be done."
"Pacific."
"Yeah."
"Time to show off the old skills."
"You mean the patch job from before?"
"That's the one. Jo Mu-sa."
"Yes, Director."
"Get it out and put it on him."
"On it!"
"In exchange, you're earning your keep proper this time."
"Naturally. I was getting sick of sitting on my hands anyway."
With that, Pacific drew two rings from his backpack — except they weren't just rings. They were rings honed to a razor's killing edge.
Round, circle-shaped blades.
Chakrams.
"You still had those?"
"Nothing suits me better."
"Then why haven't you been using them?"
"Try wielding these from a wheelchair. Impossible. I'd have pulled them out against Sde too, if it hadn't been so urgent. Would've carved that bastard's throat open while I was at it."
"Then show us what you've really got."
"You bet."
"Everybody gear up tight! These aren't ordinary bastards! But we don't lose. Not to anybody."
KWAAANG!
The assault resumed. In the meantime, Mu Beop-sa had been injecting a Reinforcement Pill, cauldron-lid shield raised.
The giant hyena kept going for the Trailer's flank. The darkness was black as spilled ink, but if you knew the timing, countering was easy — and even in this scramble, Won-goo knew exactly what interval the hyena was attacking on.
Pacific, meanwhile, was doling out small buttons one by one from his Subspace Backpack to each crew member.
"D-grade one-use barriers. Not anything spectacular, but they'll come in handy, so everyone carry one."
They were hardly overpowering items, but as the saying goes, magic items start at gold — they were expensive. Even very wealthy survivors couldn't use them casually.
Better versions existed — reusable ones. Better still were rechargeable ones. And their power ranged wildly from A-grade down to F, but the ones Pacific was handing out were D-grade, serviceable enough.
"The instant the next hit lands, the doors open. Everybody dismount and take your positions!"
Won-goo, who'd been watching the clock the whole time, whipped the Trailer around.
Straight toward where the hyena would strike.
Then he burned coins and triggered emergency acceleration.
Weeeeeeeing!
The Trailer rocketed forward like a missile launched from a silo.
KWAAAAANG!
The hyena's skull met the Trailer's front end head-on.
The winner was the Trailer. The hyena simply wasn't built for that kind of collision.
The crew poured out and snapped into formation. Lanterns swept the darkness on every side, and the Wisps Mu Beop-sa had summoned circled the area, burning brighter than usual.
Thankfully, no ambush came.
But Won-goo's crew was still submerged in the dark.
* * *
Dark Eye was staring at the darkness spread out before them like a blanket of storm clouds.
He blinked wearily, over and over. "That's my limit."
Dark Eye muttered to himself. His eyes were stretched open to the point of tearing, and tears were streaming out of them in unbroken lines.
He hadn't allowed himself a single blink. In eyes blacker than india ink, red veins were beginning to show.
All-Tattoo, standing beside him, looked back at Horned Glasses and gave a nod.
Around Horned Glasses, an astonishing number of people had gathered. They were Ganjeol Point survivors with no direct tie to the Seal Collectors.
"This much should fulfill every clause of the contract, don't you think?"
"They do keep their promises, it seems."
"Word's gotten around about us, and none of it's been kind. All anyone ever says is ugly things. But we honor our contracts too. And as for what happened with Ganjeol Point back then..."
"Let's not speak of that again. The one who suffered for it was my own flesh and blood."
The one who'd rallied this many people was Mix — head of the roaming crew that operated outside Ganjeol Point, so nicknamed for eating instant coffee mix like it was her staple food.
Won-goo had never considered the Ganjeol Point personnel who roamed outside the shelter worth much attention. Their skills ranked nowhere near the top tier even within Ganjeol Point's own internal assessments — and in practice, that was exactly true.
But one thing he'd overlooked was Mix's reputation. A woman, yet the head of her own crew. And the only one among Ganjeol's children with any real talent for dealing with people — which, considering that not one of Ganjeol's offspring had interpersonal skills approaching normal, counted as a genuinely significant ability.
It meant she could gather people when it mattered.
Perhaps that was why the escaped Ganjeol Point survivors and the outside crews had quickly converged under Mix's command. And they'd kept watching Slow ever since.
Convinced, all the while, that their chance would come.
But with Ganjeol Point's main fighting strength shredded to pieces, going it alone left far too many variables.
So Mix hired outsiders.
She'd hired the Seal Collectors — the ones who'd do anything for the right price, paid in seals.
They were all but sworn enemies of Ganjeol Point, but Mix judged this was no time to be picky.
"Then you'll want to settle up, won't you?"
At that, Mix handed five skin-covered seals over to Horned Glasses. He unfolded them and inspected each one.
"Will you be needing anything more? If there's additional payment, we can offer further assistance."
"No. The executives have all been released now anyway."
Sure enough, the Ganjeol Point executives who'd been in transit had all been freed by then — and not merely freed. They were already wearing their combat gear, dosing up on recovery agents and Reinforcement Pills.
Which meant Won-goo's crew would soon be facing not just the swarming outside crews, but the freshly released executives on top of them.
"Then we'll consider the contract concluded."
Horned Glasses gave All-Tattoo a short nod. All-Tattoo jabbed Dark Eye with an elbow.
Dark Eye closed his eyes.
And the darkness that had spread like storm clouds across the land returned to normal, as if it had all been a lie.