Discipline 13. The Disciplinary Committee Leader Is Never Ambushed by Villains (2)
I had recorded and memorized every villain I needed to capture.
One of them was the Bomber.
A vicious criminal with eleven counts of bomb terrorism to his name.
He was an event villain unconnected to the main storyline, which made him one of the tasks I was meant to resolve myself.
Just moments ago, I had spotted him among the students at a distance.
The instant I saw the face heading toward the unmanned magazine stand, recognition fired off like a reflex. Purple hair, bleary eyes, a fake piercing on his lower lip.
That getup was one of the Bomber's known disguises. It was one of the entries I'd jotted down in my notes based on my knowledge of the game.
I'd always worried — what if I came face to face with someone I'd only ever seen in the game and failed to recognize them? Now that it had actually happened, I realized the worry had been groundless. If anything, it would have been harder not to recognize that unmistakable face.
Why is the Bomber here?
I wondered as I kept walking, as naturally as I could.
Unless something special was going on, the Bomber holed up in his workshop and never came out. In the game, whenever he went so far as to disguise himself and mingle among crowds, an explosion invariably followed.
But still.
This is the Federation Board's territory. Staging an incident here would amount to openly declaring war on the Federation Board. Would he really do something that idiotic?
The Bomber was a villain who wanted nothing more than to witness as many explosions as possible before ending his life caught in one massive final blast. He was, in short, the model third-rate villain. Whatever stunt he pulled, nothing would have surprised me.
Even so, provoking the Federation Board was recklessness beyond reason. As much of a lunatic as the Bomber was, he wouldn't be in a hurry to hasten the end of his own life.
…I'll report him for now.
Whatever his reasons, he was mine to capture either way. If I took him down here, it would lift a burden from my shoulders later — and I'd save myself the travel fare I'd budgeted for hunting him down. That was a nice bonus.
Besides, if an explosion went off somewhere like this, the damage would be anything but trivial. I had no intention of standing by and watching that happen.
I pulled out my smartphone. Just as I was about to fire off a text message to the Shin Yongsan Administration Bureau—
"……"
I froze for a moment, then tugged the brim of my peaked cap down low to shield my eyes. The Bomber had just slipped something into a magazine and slid it back onto the display rack.
My long bangs kept my gaze from being seen in detail, but his mouth was perfectly visible. He was drawing a line — marking his target. He must have assumed no one was watching. Without my knowledge of the game, I wouldn't have known he was the Bomber either.
So the target is… someone around here. Or me.
I knew the Bomber's methods inside and out. Unless his goal was to level an entire building, he favored small drone bombs — they let him reposition the explosive on the fly. But in front of the actual target, he never let the drone show itself. That would give him away. If what he'd planted in the display rack moments ago was a bomb, then this was the finishing touch. Without a doubt, he planned to detonate the bomb inside the magazine the moment his target passed in front of that shop — a ambush.
That was why I'd judged the Bomber's target to be somewhere in this vicinity.
"Vice Leader, Disciplinary Committee activities start now. Follow my instructions."
"Okay."
I gently drew Baek-seo's captured wrist toward me, shaded my mouth with my hand like a hand-awning, and leaned my head close to her ear. I gave my orders in a condensed, essential summary. As I did, Baek-seo gave the occasional small shudder — nothing more than a tiny twitch, so I didn't think much of it.
She looked at me, then nodded.
"I trust only you."
"You too, Baek-seo. Be careful."
Baek-seo began moving off in the opposite direction from me.
Right. Let's cross one task off today's list.
His bangs were getting on his nerves.
How many months had it been since he last had a haircut?
Lee Ha-min walked Shin Yongsan Street with that idle thought drifting through his head.
Today was a historic day. He'd been commissioned for a murder by a major player, and the target was Ahseong High's Disciplinary Committee Leader.
This very day, the Disciplinary Committee Leader was to be dealt with by one of his own artistic explosions. The thought sent a pleasant shiver crawling up his spine.
Ha-min quietly slipped his body toward the alley.
Every piece of groundwork needed to take down the Disciplinary Committee Leader was already complete. The process would produce plenty of casualties, but that was no concern of Ha-min's. If anything, it was a bonus.
There was no way a man called the Disciplinary Committee Leader would put the students' safety anywhere but first — and from the start, the plan had been to hold the entire street hostage in order to beat him.
Here he comes…!
Ha-min grinned.
The moment he pressed the button on his wristwatch, the cute little mana bomb tucked in beside the magazines on the unmanned shop's display rack would go off.
He had aimed it deliberately along the path Ahn Woo-jin was walking. Woo-jin couldn't possibly have recognized Ha-min in his disguise, so the ambush was guaranteed to land.
He didn't expect to bring the man down with that bomb alone. Dealing sufficient damage would count as a success. He still had plenty of bombs in reserve.
He'd threaten Woo-jin with them and set up a little game of bomb hunting — a thoroughly entertaining spectacle. Fight his way through that, and victory would be his to seize.
Alright…! Let's have ourselves a game, Disciplinary Committee Leader!
Ha-min's heart was pounding out of control. Panting in his feverish excitement, he waited for Woo-jin to hurry up and pass in front of the unmanned shop.
"Hm…?"
In the moment he'd been longing for, a single question surfaced in Ha-min's mind.
Where did Oh Baek-seo go?
She should have been walking right alongside him — the Vice Leader of Ahseong's Disciplinary Committee. At some point, she'd vanished from view.
Shame. It would've been nice to blast her away too.
If he could send not just the Disciplinary Committee Leader flying, but Oh Baek-seo — the once-in-a-generation prodigy — along with him, how electrifying would that be?
Ha-min smacked his lips and swallowed his disappointment.
Well, the target's the Committee Leader and no one else.
The designated target was Woo-jin, plain and simple. He only needed to deal with that man. The luxury of blowing Oh Baek-seo sky-high with his own bombs would simply have to wait for another day.
There was no time for deep deliberation. Soon Woo-jin passed in front of the bomb.
"Now — the game begins."
Ha-min smirked and pressed down hard on his wristwatch button.
Click.
After the briefest delay, the bomb stood one heartbeat from detonation.
And then — Woo-jin, who had been listening for the faint hum the bomb gave off, moved with dramatic suddenness.
"!"
He pounced nimbly on the students passing beside him and hurled them both clear of the magazine shop. Just as if he'd predicted the blast, he had already reinforced his body with mana without anyone noticing.
They hit the ground flat—
KWAAAAAAM!!
Ha-min's planted bomb erupted, and uncanny flames burst outward.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"An explosion!?"
"A bomb! It's a bomb!"
The students passing through the street were thrown into chaos. The very man who'd set the bomb off was no different.
"Wha…!?"
Ha-min couldn't help but be dumbfounded. Thanks to Woo-jin's split-second response, not a single casualty had occurred.
No matter how sharp one's animal instincts were, a response like that was impossible — unless, of course, you had foreseen the blast.
Woo-jin was hardly some freak who could peer into the future. Which meant even the densest observer could work out what the current situation implied.
He knew from the start? That the bomb was going to go off!?
Shock crashed over Ha-min.
What on earth was happening?
While Ha-min floundered in confusion, Woo-jin rose to his feet and dusted off his clothes. Then his gaze, without wandering anywhere, locked onto one single spot.
"!!"
Ha-min's eyes met Woo-jin's.
Sharp, piercing eyes. Fierce teal irises aimed squarely at him and him alone.
Ha-min stumbled backward before he could stop himself.
Damn it!
Clicking his tongue, Ha-min stole away on quiet feet. Deeper into the alley — he had a route scouted in advance.
Reinforcing his body with mana, he sprinted down the deserted back streets, and one thing became certain in his mind.
What? Why? How? HOW did he see through me!?
His disguise, his plan — all of it had been exposed. There was no other explanation. Otherwise, why would Woo-jin have reacted to the bomb in a heartbeat and then glared straight at him?
Woo-jin had clearly clocked Ha-min's disguised form ages ago and been secretly watching what he did at the magazine shop.
So the rumors were true?
He'd once heard that the Ahseong Disciplinary Committee Leader had seen through Anomia's plans in advance and grasped the organization's most vital information inside and out. And that as a result, a villain syndicate as massive as Anomia had been dismantled in a matter of months.
At the time, Ha-min had snorted. Anomia had simply run sloppy security and leaked its own intel. The idea of the Ahseong Committee Leader as some kind of information-war monster was nothing but their overblown hysteria.
Now, he found himself understanding it despite himself. With the situation actually unfolding like this, only bewilderment and questions burned through Ha-min's skull.
But still.
I don't know how he spotted me, but I've got plenty of bombs left.
He still had more than enough cards to play against the Ahseong Disciplinary Committee Leader. All he'd lost was the ambush.
The game is just getting started—!
He was forcing a smile as he ran—
Whooong!
A sharp crack of displaced air bored into Ha-min's eardrums.
WHAM!!
"Gahk!"
In an instant, Ha-min took a savage blow to the head and was slammed into the side of a building.
"Wh-what the…?"
That strike would have knocked him out cold if his body hadn't already been reinforced with mana.
Dazed, Ha-min lifted his eyes to the thing that had attacked him.
It was not shaped like a human being. A monster with a horn sprouting from its head. Its tattered robe flapping, it gripped an iron club in its right hand.
A… dokkaebi?
The moment Ha-min laid eyes on the bizarre creature, the word dokkaebi surfaced in his mind. Its appearance was exactly what you'd expect from the goblins of old legends.
Click, click.
The sound of heels. A woman was approaching.
Ha-min's eyes went round as saucers the instant he saw her.
"Why… why are you—?"
His voice trembled. A question mark rose over his head.
The one closing in was a woman with pale-pink hair tied back. A dokkaebi mask over her mouth, she advanced with murder glinting in her eyes — and that glint meant her mana was active.
There was no way he couldn't recognize her. No — most citizens of Neo Seoul would know her on sight.
One of the Six Sinners, Kim Dal-bi.
Dokkaebi Queen, the Dokkaebi Woman, the Dokkaebi Princess — she bore a host of aliases, and she was one of the worst villains alive, commanding an entire legion of dokkaebi.
In terms of raw personal strength, the lawless giant Goliath was undisputedly ranked strongest. But depending on how you looked at it, Kim Dal-bi — wielding her army of dokkaebi — was sometimes called all but invincible.
Ha-min's brain churned in a tangled mess.
What is going on…?
Being made by the Ahseong Disciplinary Committee Leader was headache enough already — so why was the Dokkaebi Woman, one of these dangerous powerhouses, attacking him out in broad daylight? He couldn't understand any of it.
For Kim Dal-bi, on the other hand, the current situation was nothing at all.
"……"
All she had to do was knock out this two-bit villain called the Bomber and walk away.
The villain getup was purely a precaution. If an unfamiliar student spotted her, she'd need to re-disguise herself as "Kim Yeon-hee" and slip out of Shin Yongsan.
That said—
Dal-bi was finding it very hard to stay calm.
Thank god Woo-jin dodged the ambush.
Dal-bi let out a breath of relief. She had no idea how Woo-jin had caught on to the bomb in advance. But it was a blessing. If he'd been hurt in that explosion, it might have torn her heart apart.
The moment she confirmed Woo-jin was safe, Dal-bi had lain in wait along Ha-min's escape route. That was how she'd come to be here now.
Woo-jin won't know anything anyway. I need to finish this fast and get back before he notices.
There was no way Woo-jin could have recognized Ha-min's disguise. Yes, he'd displayed an overwhelming ability that had annihilated Anomia in one stroke — but there was no way he'd have individual villains like the Bomber catalogued too. That was realistically impossible.
So Woo-jin chasing down Ha-min wouldn't happen right away. If she knocked Ha-min out quickly and fled, she'd never have to cross paths with Woo-jin.
She wanted to see Woo-jin. She simply didn't have the courage to face him.
"Hi there."
Dal-bi greeted him with a sunny smile. But in stark contrast to that lovely, smiling gaze, a vein was standing out on her forehead. She was fighting the urge to snap the neck of the man who had nearly hurt Woo-jin.
"What's your problem…? What is this!?"
Ha-min struggled upright, bracing himself against the wall, and shouted. His voice was thick with indignation.
"Stay back…! You — why are you doing this to me? What grudge do you even have against me—!?"
"We,"
Dal-bi's clear, resolute voice cut him off,
"need to know our respective places."
"……?"
What was that supposed to mean? Ha-min didn't understand. Only one thing was certain: this woman regarded him as an enemy, right now.
Like a cornered rat, Ha-min growled.
"What kind of bullshit is—!"
That was when it happened.
"?"
Dal-bi flinched, sensing a presence other than Ha-min's. Her head snapped straight upward.
Whoooom! High in the air, a man in a black uniform was plummeting with a scream of parting air.
BOOM!
He braced one hand against the ground and landed. A heavy impact rang out, and a cloud of dust bloomed upward. For an instant, Dal-bi and Ha-min both felt the sheer weight of his presence — and then their eyes flew wide open.
Zzt! The black three-section staff clutched in the man's right hand crackled with teal currents. Through the drifting dust, he swept his razor-sharp gaze over Dal-bi and Ha-min alike.
"…So you were here too."
It was Ahseong High's Disciplinary Committee Leader, Ahn Woo-jin.
He glared at Dal-bi and spoke in a voice gone low and cold.