Benevolent, Brilliant, Brave
Benevolent, Brilliant, Brave
The sounds of battle kept rolling on, and with every passing second, Baek Seol's expression soured a little more.
As long as the noise didn't stop, the fight was still going.
"There's no need to worry — that's the part of it. Director Gong told us to stay out of it for a reason. He and that man both know why, so we're sitting tight. Stop fretting and just wait."
Mu Beob-sa said. At that, the youngest spoke up.
"Poke... is he your, your sworn enemy or something?"
"That bastard used to be one of ours. For a very short stretch, but still."
Every ear in the room perked up. Even Kkakdugi Lee Hyun-seong was hearing this for the first time. Gong Won-goo and Mu Beob-sa bickered like cats and dogs on the daily, but in truth the two of them went back further than anyone else in the crew.
Further back than even Lee Hyun-seong, who was currently serving as vice-director.
"You know why we call that bastard Poke? He'll eat any food you put in front of him — except poke. He's got a trauma there, you see. That's the part of it."
With that, Mu Beob-sa glanced over at Jeon Hye-ji, trembling in the corner.
"Don't you worry too much either, student. It'll be over soon. A gold coin is more than enough to see you safely delivered to the Shelter — that's the kind of part it is."
"I'm not a student."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Not a student."
Mu Beob-sa almost asked why she was wearing a school uniform, then swallowed the question. For all he knew, the uniform was an item.
In an upside-down world, not prying carelessly into things like that was a survival tip in its own right. Even the smallest detail could earn you a grudge.
Won-goo's body went airborne, then slammed into the classroom floor. The door had shattered, but he didn't seem much the worse for it.
The man who had sent him flying was powerfully built, wrapped head to toe in muscle. Sang-je — regarded as the single strongest fighter in Poke's gang.
"Still not getting it? I'm telling you, that strength of yours won't cut it. Do you have any idea how much I've invested into this body? You've done plenty by now, so let's just walk away. Before you see something really ugly."
An enhancement-type Gift holder. Enhancement types were useful everywhere. If they simply kept growing at a steady pace, they could stay relevant well into the late apocalypse.
Their one flaw was that they weren't an explosive-growth archetype — without relentless, consistent investment, they got culled fast.
"Isn't the ugly part already on display?"
"So? You're still going to keep going? Aren't you out of bullets? Those precious bullets of yours. What you've already spent is your entire fortune dumped into one pile, no?"
Sang-je sneered. It was true that enhancement types were a terrible matchup for Won-goo. In the earliest days of the apocalypse, one bullet had been an equal-opportunity killer for everyone — but the apocalypse was well underway now.
With a modest investment, you could forge a body that shrugged off bullets just fine.
Enhancement types only, granted.
But give it a little more time, and even non-enhancement types would be commonly sporting bodies that could eat a bullet or two.
"Surviving matters more than money."
"And that's why you'll keep going?"
"Why don't you quit first? Don't you realize you can't work under a head who burns through his own crew like consumables?"
"What do you care whether I'm sorry or not? I'm no consumable. Once this job wraps up, the boss will hand over five coins at the bare minimum. And then this whole area gets cleaned up under our flag."
Sang-je smirked, and Won-goo let out a sigh. His body was covered in the marks of battle, but there didn't appear to be any serious wounds. And he was still gripping the hammer-shaped warhammer tight in his fist.
"You built one fuck of a grand plan there."
"I'd call it thorough."
"Sure. Like you'd know anything. What a damn shame. Enhancement types... would've been nice if the brain came enhanced along with the rest of it."
"What the hell did you just say!"
Sang-je lunged, and Won-goo slipped the attack while swinging the warhammer again.
Poke had ordered his crew to take Won-goo's people alive. Which meant Sang-je couldn't land anything lethal.
From the start, he'd been certain there was no losing with this kind of manpower advantage.
Won-goo knew it, too. The difference between a man with no hesitation about killing and a man who had to take his target breathing was far bigger than most people imagined.
THWACK!
"Told you it won't work. Bullets don't even stick in me — you think that will do damage?"
KWAANG!
Sang-je blocked the hammer with his body, seized Won-goo, and shook him. Grabbed by the collar, Won-goo went airborne again and was smashed into the floor.
Sang-je laughed. He finally had him. But Won-goo was grinning just as wide.
Flat on his back, Won-goo swung the warhammer. Swinging it from the ground didn't take much effort at all.
Thud!
"Pathetic struggling."
Sang-je said, catching the warhammer with his bare hand. But Won-goo's expression was off. He was smiling wider than before.
"Huh? What is this—"
"Quick on the uptake."
"This is damage amplification—"
"Nope."
Whiiiing!
Sang-je, who had been eating the attack head-on while waiting for his opening, recoiled in shock.
He had every reason to. The fingers wrapped around the warhammer were broken.
They dangled limp and boneless, like some mollusk's tentacles.
"How is that even possible?"
"Hit the same spot, damage amplifies. Ringing any bells?"
"......?"
"No? Because this is... you getting weaker."
"You're insane... an item like that..."
Sang-je blanched, showed his back, and bolted. Won-goo started to hurl the warhammer, then stopped and gave chase into the corridor.
Sang-je was no fool, either. An enhancement type scraping by in this godforsaken world, he'd been around the block more times than he could count.
He knew exactly what his powerful body was capable of — and that knowledge held just as true when it came time to run.
He veered, sprinted down the corridor, and timed his dive out the window to the exact instant Won-goo would let the warhammer fly.
CRASH!
Glass exploded as Sang-je plummeted toward the ground.
An enhancement type of his caliber had every chance of walking away from a fall of this height. It wouldn't be painless, but if the alternative was capture, it was the obvious choice.
Except not this time.
"I told you — you're weakened right now. Guess the brain really doesn't come with the enhancement package."
Just as Won-goo said, Sang-je was in a drained state. The option riding on Turnon's Warhammer had hollowed him out badly; his body was now no different from an ordinary human's.
KRAK!
He touched down feet-first with total confidence — and both legs buckled at grotesque angles as the screaming began.
Poke and his men, watching from outside, recoiled in horror. Then their eyes met Won-goo's, poking out through the broken window.
The instant Won-goo's gaze locked onto Poke's, he flashed a grin.
"Not running? Then go ahead and imagine, richly, what kind of treatment awaits you if you get caught, patient. Your diagnosis just came back — and it's worse than anything you could've imagined!"
Poke was already running before the sentence finished. Running flat-out, without so much as a glance back.
Won-goo didn't chase him right away. Instead, he rolled his shoulders and surveyed the room.
Corpses lined the floor in rows. Some of them still breathed.
WHACK!
Won-goo made certain of the survivors, one by one. Equal treatment across the board — a hammer to every head.
"H-hyung-nim. You know me, right? I'm... I'm begging you, just let me live. I'll do anything. Anything at all."
A man pleaded, one eye swollen shut into a throbbing lump.
"Your name is..."
"James! No — Yeong-shik, it's Yeong-shik!"
"Oh! Ppang-shik."
"Yes, sir!"
"Right. Time for your treatment. You'll feel better soon."
"Hyung-niiim!"
"Grudges, you see — even when I don't throw the first punch, they have a way of coming back around. Felt that more clearly than ever today. Black-haired beasts need their treatment done thoroughly. That's what I learned."
CRACK!
Won-goo returned.
"Director Gong got to stretch his legs for the first time in a while — that's the part of it."
"That's how it went. So hurry up and loosen my circuits already, old man. If you geezers could just handle things with magic, I wouldn't have to do this myself. And Hyun-seong."
"Yes, hyung-nim."
"You held out well. Good work."
"Yes, sir."
Lee Hyun-seong bowed deeply.
"Poke? You catch him?"
"I would have. He's already bolted."
"Figured."
"But we catch him regardless. Baek Seol."
"I'll do it free of charge. You want me to track Poke, right? That I can do."
"Free of what? We're the ones owed here."
"Sorry?"
"Sanghae. Our contract's already written and signed, so we can't squeeze him for more — but you can. You can jack your guide fee up nice and fat."
"Can I, now?"
"Of course. The situation's gone to shit — obviously you should. Look how many people we just gave follow-up treatments to. Go work some hardball. Tell him Poke's crew forced an encounter on you."
"That's..."
"Then tell him how many times you got hit on top of it. Either way, half of this job is about prying it loose from them. We are not letting this slide. Got it?"
"Yes."
"And track Poke for us while you're at it."
Baek Seol was quietly thrown off balance. Anyone with eyes could see that Gong Won-goo had just been beaten half to death. Yet here he was, talking like a man back from a leisurely stroll.
Which one was the real him?
"And you — Jeon Hye-ji, was it?"
"......"
"Take the contract. But if you travel with us, you work. None of that protected-client nonsense. Also, we're one bed short in the Trailer. That means when you sleep, you share with someone. Can you live with that?"
At that, Jeon Hye-ji swept her gaze across the room, studying the crew one face at a time.
"I'll do it."
"You pick who you share with — your problem, not mine. No special treatment for being a woman. All right, everyone, up. We've got a man to catch."
At that, the whole crew rose to their feet.
"Oh, and Hye-ji. I can call you that, right?"
"Yes..."
"Tell me about 3B on the way. There's a branch church around here, isn't there?"
"What's 3B?"
Baek Seol asked.
"They exist, miss. A famous cult. Not that I see what 'cult' versus 'legitimate faith' even means in a world like this anymore..."
"Just think of them as a company. A black company — the kind that chews people up and spits them out. Benevolent, Brilliant, Brave, supposedly — that's the 3B. Except the name actually came from their leader. Baek Bong-bae."
The moment Won-goo spoke the name Baek Bong-bae, his eyes glinted razor-sharp.
The crew gathered up the items with practiced ease.
This was a world where everything that had existed before had collapsed. Going through corpses was simply part of the daily routine.
Unlike Won-goo's crew, who stripped the bodies with brisk efficiency, Baek Seol only studied the traces.
A Ttangkkun who hadn't joined the fight had no right to loot the dead.
"James... and Sang-je, too..."
Baek Seol's face stiffened at the sight of Sang-je's corpse, twisted into something grotesque. Sang-je was no pushover. He was a well-respected enhancement-type survivor in these parts.
"His tally must've been pretty steep..."
"Burned through a shitload of coins, yeah?"
At the sudden voice, Baek Seol spun around, startled. There stood Won-goo, a cigarette clamped between his lips.
"Surprised you?"
"James, and Kim Sang-je of all people. He's the strongest fighter in Poke's gang, isn't he? I heard he's sunk nearly Named-level coin into that body."
"He wasn't Named. Still, he was a handful, I'll give him that."
"Because of what, exactly?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your skill..."
"Why? Was I famous around here for being a fucking pushover or something?"
"No, it's just..."
"I had a solid reputation for getting things done, didn't I? Finished every job I ever took."
"I know. I know you're good, Director Gong. But that's a different issue. What's known about you is..."
"Right. That I'm not strong enough to take down an enhancement type on my own?"
"I heard your team's strength was always its synergy."
"Fair enough. Hyun-seong's the backbone. I'd be the brains."
"Yes."
"Then keep saying exactly that, in exactly those words. You know what I mean, don't you?"
"If you can pull off something like this alone, Director Gong... couldn't you be taking on far more lucrative jobs?"
Won-goo snorted. Baek Seol's gaze wavered. None of it added up. With skill like that, he could be earning much better money — that much was simply true.
"Look around."
The room was carpeted with corpses. They shared one common feature: every single skull was caved in. Even where that hadn't been the direct cause of death.
"This is a world where the diagnosis is everything. When a head gets the diagnosis wrong, this is the mess you end up with. That's a service I can provide — heads aligned, one way or another."
"That's not a hard ask. I've got at least that much sense."
Won-goo smiled and held out a cigarette. Baek Seol declined, pulled out her own pack, and offered him one in return.
"I'm good. Those are the sweetened kind."
"Who smokes plain cigarettes these days?"
"Ever heard the saying 'the end of tuning is stock'?"
Baek Seol let out a short laugh — then tossed him one from the pack in her hand.
"You know mine are expensive, right?"
"You don't strike me as the type to give anything away for free."
"Poke. Catch him for me. For certain."
"If you guide me right, of course I'll catch him."
"Cheonchu Mountain has plenty of shortcuts."
"Think three hours will do it?"
"Two is plenty."
"Good. The thought of seeing Poke's face again."
At the same moment, Baek Seol and Won-goo both smiled — bright and wide.