Chapter 55
Three years ago now. Back when I was still rotting away in that superhuman training school, grinding my teeth and clawing my way forward with everything I had.
There has been a terrorist attack by a superhuman in the vicinity of Seoul.
That was the urgent line the announcer had cried out back then. Even at the time, I hadn’t been all that surprised.
It wasn’t as if there had never been attacks by superhumans before. I’d figured it was just another lunatic stirring up trouble.
Someone else was probably going to get hurt because of it. That was all I thought.
Then, a week later—
A threatening message has been received from a superhuman.
The individual identifying himself as a terrorist has announced that at 7:00 p.m. today, he will bring down Hyunyong Building in Gangnam.
Accordingly, the Association will deploy the Knight Order......
Terrorist.
The masked bastards who called themselves that with their own mouths had declared that they would become the law of the new world.
That night, at seven o’clock—
“T-the H-Hyunyong Building is collapsing......!”
They blew up the most enormous and glamorous structure in Korea, stamping their existence into the world with fire and ruin.
That was the first incident that made the public truly notice them.
And then three years passed.
The Association and the Knight Order still hadn’t caught them.
By then, it had been a long time since the superhumans of the world had risen up in protest.
There were countless people among them who openly called themselves villains, or who had terrorized entire cities.
If you went country by country and listed the superhumans branded as villains, there were more than enough famous examples.
But there had never been a case this hopeless.
The times had changed. There were far more ways now to deal with people generally called villains.
In a situation like that, the fact that they still couldn’t catch or stop these bastards after all these years meant one of two things.
Was something wrong with the terrorists?
Or was something wrong with the Association?
That was what I was thinking at the very last moment of my miserable teenage years.
[Orgah’s Killer]
A name rose above his head. And in front of that was Yusungin.
...A terrorist.
The bastard wearing a mask to hide his identity was definitely a terrorist, and he was meeting with Yusungin about something.
The goal was—
...that thing Taeyongjin-ajusshi has.
A fragment. Was that what they were after?
I held my breath. I hadn’t expected to run into a terrorist here.
I narrowed my eyes.
Hero's Super-sensory
My senses sharpened, and their voices came through a little more clearly.
“So I’m saying—those guys seem like a nuisance.”
“Hmm.”
“What do you think?”
“Well.”
The masked man tilted his head.
“First of all, I know those two are knights.”
“......Knights?”
He was talking about us. At that, Yusungin’s eyes widened.
“Knights? Why are knights here?”
“Exactly. I was wondering that too. What business would knights have coming all the way out here?”
“How do you know they’re knights?”
“One of them—don’t you know who she is?”
There was a faint sneer in the masked man’s voice.
“Wasn’t Jin Yeonhui there?”
“......Jin Yeonhui?”
Yusungin froze at that. The masked man seemed to have recognized Jin Yeonhui.
“Why? That bitch from Taesung Group became a knight?”
“......You really don’t know much about the world, do you? You know, that thing.”
Tap, tap. He struck the side of his mask twice with a finger.
“The final card the Association put out to catch us.”
“......Ah.”
Only then did Yusungin seem to understand.
“The one they made by bringing in Hale Irene?”
“That’s right. And Jin Yeonhui joined the knights through that.”
“Jin Yeonhui did? Has she lost her mind? Why the hell would she go out of her way to—”
“Exactly. We find it strange too, but that’s not really important. What you’re curious about is the guy beside her, isn’t it?”
“That bastard’s a knight too.”
It sounded like they were talking about me.
“Lee Jinwoo.”
The name slipped out. I narrowed my eyes at the sound of it.
“Wasn’t he called the hero of Yeouido? He’s someone I was already finding annoying...... I never expected to run into him here.”
“Lee Jinwoo?”
“Well, he is there.”
“So he’s a knight too, then......”
“Ah, if the knights get tangled up in this, it gets a little annoying.”
The masked man stretched his body with a creak.
“......What if we kill both of them?”
The question came from Yusungin.
The emotion I caught in it made my heart twitch.
He was serious.
That bastard was asking in earnest.
At that, the masked man gave a low chuckle.
“Why? Are they that irritating?”
“Jin Yeonhui might be too much.”
“You know your limits well. Jin Yeonhui is too much for us. If we touch her now, it’ll cause us some trouble.”
“Then that one beside her means you can handle him.”
“Beside her......”
He sounded as if he were thinking it over.
“What should we do?”
“What do you mean, what should we do? Deal with him now—”
“Ah, but that side already has quite a few people marked, so if I step in too, it’ll look a little odd.”
“Odd?”
At that, Yusungin’s face twisted.
“Does it matter what looks odd right now!? That bastard—!”
“Ah, don’t raise your voice.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“That won’t do. Don’t do that. I might get in a bad mood.”
“......”
Yusungin flinched. An S-class superhuman. The force he released swept through the room in an instant.
“Don’t get impatient. We have our own considerations, and we have our plans. A small deviation won’t change anything.”
“......Damn it.”
“Let’s each handle our own roles, shall we? Whether you touch the knights or not is our young master’s territory, so we won’t interfere. Just make sure there are no problems.”
“......Fine.”
“Still. As for Lee Jinwoo......”
Hmm. The masked man hesitated.
“There’s something nagging at me, so I might just poke at him a little.”
“......How?”
“Who knows. That’s......”
A low laugh followed.
“Something I’ll start thinking about now.”
* * *
“......”
When the conversation ended, the two of them disappeared just like that. In the quiet second floor of the abandoned factory, I sat there and steadied my breathing.
“......Yusungin.”
I thought of Yusungin, and of the terrorist. The point where the two of them connected.
How are they linked?
That question kept bothering me, but—
“Still, the important thing is.”
The real issue was that the terrorist was making a move in Gwangju. I immediately pulled out my phone.
There wasn’t much on it when I opened it after such a long time. A message from Ye Jiram was sitting there unread, but I ignored it and went straight into the chat with Irene.
[I found a terrorist in Gwangju.]
[It looks like I won’t be able to return right away.]
I sent the message casually, then headed out of the abandoned factory.
“Lee Jinwoo......!”
When I returned to where we’d been before, Jin Yeonhui greeted me with an angry face.
“What on earth were you doing? Where did you even go?”
“Sorry. I had something to take care of.”
“Something to take care of......? Do you hear how that sounds?”
Jin Yeonhui sounded incredulous. Well, I couldn’t blame her. I would’ve found it ridiculous too.
“The thing is—”
I should tell Jin Yeonhui. Just as I was thinking that and trying to put the words together—
“Excuse me.”
Someone called out to us. I stiffened and turned my head.
It was a woman with black hair that fell to her shoulders. She looked about Ye Jiram’s age.
“Mr. Taeyongjin said you were knights. Is that right?”
The woman approached with a faint smile. What was this person?
“Who are yo—”
When I faced her properly in order to identify her—
Korca's Illusion is activated.
Eye of Enlightenment is activated.
“Ah, I’m Seong Jiyeon.”
The other person’s false appearance is being seen through.
-S
Yun Yeon.
Her identity came into focus.
I pressed my thumbnail into my palm and did my best to keep my expression under control.
“I work with the Association in this area, but...... if you don’t mind, could we talk for a moment?”
She smiled like a friendly person as she said it.
“Ah, we—”
Jin Yeonhui was about to refuse on the spot, but—
“......A moment is fine.”
“You......!”
“Ah, thank you so much......!”
I cut her off and said it anyway.
“There’s a café nearby. Let’s go there.”
“Understood.”
Seong Jiyeon—no, Yun Yeon—took the lead as if guiding us, while Jin Yeonhui looked like she absolutely couldn’t stand it and tried to speak to me again.
“What exactly are you trying to do?”
I grabbed her wrist.
“......!”
It was a hurried grip, meant to stop her for the moment. But at that touch, Jin Yeonhui froze solid.
“Uh...... you...... ah.”
“Just help me a little. I’ll explain later.”
“Uh...... uh?”
“Please.”
“......”
Jin Yeonhui’s eyes shook wildly.
“O-okay.”
Even her voice trembled. Was she flustered because I asked her for help? It seemed that way.
“Thanks.”
I dragged her along, heading for the café with Yun Yeon. At the way I was holding on and pulling her forward, Jin Yeonhui followed as lightly as a sheet of paper.
* * *
A café set up near the city center. There weren’t many customers inside, so it was a fairly quiet place.
The three of us sat down face-to-face there, and before long Yun Yeon brought over our drinks.
“Thank you for coming out on such short notice.”
“What is it?”
Jin Yeonhui went straight to the point, and Yun Yeon reacted as if she’d just realized something.
“Ah, I can’t waste the time of busy people, so I’ll say it quickly. It’s about the matter involving Mr. Taeyongjin, whom you met earlier.”
“Do you know Mr. Taeyongjin?”
That was my question.
“Of course. He’s the only enchanter around here...... and he’s helped the Association a lot.”
The Association.
She probably meant the Gwangju branch.
...There’s a terrorist working for the Association?
I had to swallow dryly inwardly at the fact that the woman in front of me was a terrorist and also a member of the Association.
I had no idea how far their infiltration had gone.
“Recently, he’s had some friction with Yusungin, the executive director of the Yuyeon Group. You know him, right? The man we met earlier.”
“......”
I hadn’t expected that name to come out of her mouth.
“Yes. I know him. He seemed to be a superhuman.”
“That’s right...... he is a superhuman. Which makes him even more troublesome.”
The problem was—
“What exactly is troublesome?”
That this wasn’t the only thing worth being shocked about.
“From here on, this is the main point I wanted to tell both of you...... and it’s close to providing information.”
Yun Yeon lowered her posture and spoke to me with a deeply worried look.
“......According to what the Association figured out yesterday, it seems Yusungin has some kind of connection with the people called terrorists.”
“......!”
I widened my eyes at that.
It was already enough that she’d brought up Yusungin—
...and she’s saying this out loud?
She was openly talking about a connection with terrorists with her own mouth.
To me, it was an incomprehensible thing to say.
* * *
While passing the time by watching TV, the blonde woman turned off the cake recommendation channel she’d been watching.
It was the kind of channel she normally never turned off, practically one of the small joys of her day, but surprisingly, she had to shut off the TV she was watching.
“......?”
The message that appeared on her phone.
That was the problem.
She’d picked up her phone to search for the cake shop that had just appeared on the channel, and there, sitting openly on the screen, was a notification.
I found a terrorist in Gwangju.
It looks like I won’t be able to return right away.
Sorry.
“......”
Looking at the message, Irene gently touched her lips with her fingers.
Then her lovely brows drew together ever so slightly.
That meant she was displeased.
“......”
In the end, Irene rose to her feet.
It seemed she would have to move after all. Annoyingly, very annoyingly so.
And then—
“I should punish him......”
This time, if she caught him, she was really going to give him a proper scolding.
The self-proclaimed strongest person on Earth had terrifyingly come to that decision.
And that would become a disaster for Lee Jinwoo.