Dawn of the Raid
Damn it all!!
His arm swept violently across the desk, and the glassware that had stood so neatly in its rows shattered with a crashing clamor.
It was the dead of night.
A sound far too violent for an hour when the city had gone to sleep.
It took Dr. Pyeong So-woon quite a while to recover her usual composure after repeated bouts of breathless, pointless venting.
Hooooo……
A long, syrupy sigh escaped her lips.
Just what could possibly have gone so wrong to bring things to this state? To So-woon, it was simply beyond comprehension.
No—if she were pressed to explain, it had been this way from the very beginning.
A mana engineering university built on the full backing of the government. For someone who had boasted one of the finest careers anywhere in that institution, this era was not an age of loss but a paradise for opportunists.
And that was exactly how it turned out.
She piled up achievements faster than anyone else. With America's help, she gave the wobbling field of mana engineering a foundation that looked, more or less, like the real thing. In this country's mana engineering, the name Pyeong So-woon was nothing short of that of a founding titan.
And yet.
One of the specimens she had submitted had a flaw.
A test subject whose performance should, by all rights, have ended in disposal—yet she had kept it alive, sensing some odd utility in it. Who could have imagined that the flapping of a single pair of wings would come back with such catastrophic consequences!
……The condemnation of a man hailed as a hero. The denunciation of a being called humanity's strongest.
In the end, the government decided to scrap the very research institutes that had quietly propped the nation up from behind the scenes.
And so, Pyeong So-woon—arguably a pillar of Korea's hunter society—was cast aside like a worn-out rag.
A researcher who had used her brilliant mind since childhood to predict that the world would soon enter the age of hunters. Even a life that had walked a smooth road all its length could tumble into the abyss in a single instant once it went off course—such was the cruelty of timing.
But.
If there was one thing that set her apart from the others, it was that So-woon was stubborn to a degree no one could have imagined.
The government had abandoned her to join hands with the heroes. Then So-woon would simply abandon the government in return.
An unspeakable humiliation. The unbearable fury of an elite who had walked a straight road to success, only to become a castaway in a heartbeat.
Even so, So-woon kept researching. She scraped by on patent royalties she had quietly registered under other people's names long ago.
An anonymous devotion. Nice-sounding words—but she, too, could become a discarded pawn at any moment. She had never seriously believed it would happen, yet the insurance she had prepared just in case proved its worth at exactly this kind of time.
And then.
At the end of that road, So-woon seized another chance.
Novus Ordo Seclorum. The New World Order.
That was the name this secret organization called itself, and they said they wished to hire her.
Their grand and noble ambition. Their laments over why they had been left with no choice but this. Or the conveniences they could offer her—none of it mattered.
For So-woon, the only thing that mattered was that a chance had come again for someone flung off the rails.
In that sense, Dr. Pyeong So-woon felt no guilt whatsoever about betraying humanity. If anything, it was exhilarating. The plan to sell out this country that had dared, in its ignorance, to throw her away drew outright laughter from her.
And there was pleasure, too, in the peculiar intellectual vanity of the elite being sated at the same time.
Extra-standard rank. The truth behind the great incursion. And the countless people who would die today, never knowing any of it!
Hello, and thank you for your hard work. Do travel well, you nameless extras! Thank you for dying ahead of me, for my sake!
She meant every word of it, sincerely.
And now.
So-woon was, quite uncharacteristically, chafing with impatience.
Yes. Just like that day, this, too, was all because of the flapping of one accursed little bug's wings.
'Park Woochan!!'
It was not the kind of killing intent one would level at someone she'd never so much as laid eyes on.
And yet, So-woon considered her rage entirely justified.
The time to execute the plan was finally approaching. And at its head, she would have tasted boundless glory.
That damned hunter was the problem after all.
The sleazy bastard who'd appeared out of nowhere and stolen away So-yeon, the heart of the ritual. And on top of that, a monster of a man who carved through the organization's hastily prepared countermeasures—and even the monsters themselves—in the blink of an eye.
Thanks to him, So-woon's standing within the organization was now all but that of a useless ornament.
With the conditions for the ritual still unmet, there was simply nothing she could contribute.
What galled her even more was that her very competence had begun to come under suspicion.
For the sake of the operation, she had poured out the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime in mana engineering without reservation. Miserable, tail-wagging behavior toward the organization, in a sense—and yet the results had been dismal.
As she'd said a hundred times before, it was all because of that hunter named Park Woochan. That son of a bitch who appeared again and again to block the organization's every move.
And so now, with the dream-monsters' servants falling in a line thanks to the cooperation So-woon herself had provided, the organization's members were harbor-ing doubts about Dr. Pyeong So-woon's abilities as a whole.
All this talk of being a doctor—is that really the limit of someone who gets stopped by a single hunter? Does she actually possess knowledge worthy of the title?
……Honestly, if that were the extent of it, she could have sneered it off.
With her research in hand, she could overturn everything with results. So-woon truly believed that.
But.
This situation, no matter how she looked at it, was beyond anything she had predicted.
Outside New City—beneath it.
Near the leyline that ran along the city, close to the secret laboratory built there, she could feel personnel drawing near.
Numbers of them, closing the distance with impeccable discipline. However she looked at it, this was no coincidental approach.
In truth, it had been going on for some time. Someone, somewhere, had been quietly tightening the noose around this place.
'They stepped on our tail.'
So-woon could think of it no other way.
Why now, of all times! This was the very moment that could flip her standing within the organization!
She ground her teeth until they cracked, but the outcome didn't change. The enemy's encirclement was terrifyingly thorough. For days on end, they had painstakingly sealed off every route So-woon might use to flee.
By the time she noticed, she had already realized the truth: she would wither and die inside this laboratory.
So-woon was no fool. Whatever else was true, she abandoned any hollow hope of breaking this encirclement alone.
Hence the rage. Or perhaps just irritation. At a world that refused to flow according to her plans, Dr. Pyeong So-woon vented her long-suppressed fury.
Annoying, but there's nothing to be done about it.
She muttered it with murderous heat boiling in her chest. Well. Nothing to be done.
Her pivot in thinking was swift.
Dr. Pyeong So-woon was paranoid and hysterical in equal measure, but once she decided something had to be done, she grew calm with equal speed.
And so, as ever, she coolly concluded: breaking through the enemy's encirclement in her current state was impossible.
Then what?
Cause a commotion. Patiently, and viciously, until a hole opened wide enough for her to slip through.
Once her thoughts reached that point, the conclusion was simple. From the research wing where she stood, So-woon sent a signal to the other laboratories.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Midterm exam day.
Standing out on the street ahead of time, I let the pre-dawn wind hit my face. Everything was ready.
Thankfully, there'd been no sign of Dr. Pyeong So-woon making her move before the midterms. Not that I expected it—against a mere researcher, the suppression plan was polished far too cleanly to be beaten to the punch.
Circumstances being what they were, I couldn't borrow manpower from Choi Seungjun's side, but for something as simple as sealing off escape routes, the Honin Guild's people were more than enough.
Add that to the hunters I'd borrowed from the Association itself, and… sorry to the hunters sweating it out before sunrise over an illegal laboratory, but this was more than worth the trouble.
……Honestly, if nothing had gone sideways on Choi Seungjun's end, I wouldn't have gone to the Association at all. My relationship with them had been a touch delicate ever since that last incident.
But fine. Crisis into opportunity, as they say.
Publicly announcing the identity of the New World Order—or whatever those bastards call themselves—was too dangerous. But if I left behind a record of moving like this, it would make sitting down with the Association far easier.
And for an Association whose image had been sinking thanks to the Seo-ah affair, this was the kind of incident that could polish that image right back up. The bust of a research wing belonging to a researcher long designated illegal for human experimentation. A trophy that'd make them lunge with their eyes on fire, no?
Better still, if things went well, I might pull the Association fully into this. Nine times out of ten, the organization's people were sitting in the upper ranks too. But I couldn't believe the majority—President included—were among them.
I mean, would they have burned down two whole branches if they were?~
So this time, the goal is to create a seat at the table. Then, from there, take one step further and draw them in. At minimum, I need to sort out whether the Association's president is friend or foe.
People like the President, the Joint Chiefs chairman, or the Association head—surely they haven't gone wading into some secret society. Even granting that their schedules are packed beyond belief, would they even have the free time to be doing that?
That's what I thought, anyway. But you never know with people, so a little certainty wouldn't hurt.
In that sense, too—a raid on an illegal laboratory is neither a fight between hunters nor the sudden appearance of a monster to slay. Look at it any way you like, it's not standard hunter work. Just to keep myself off the hook later, putting a public institution one foot in the door wasn't a bad choice.
Let's finish before the workday starts, then.
"Hey, you didn't even take leave? You just came in?"
"I told you in advance, didn't I?~ Still, you're already skipping several days. People are starting to notice."
The eternal sorrows of the salaried man. Him and me both—funny how much we suffer over the smallest things.
Chattering away, I loosened up one last time. Let's see. I'd told Hayeon and the other students to sit their exams. Tiamat was barred as well—if it turned out they were raising a monster in there, I might just end up killing Tiamat along with it.
But I wasn't worried. The guy they call humanity's strongest was joining this operation. If anything, that was almost worrying in a different sense.
"You remember, right? You're only circling the perimeter."
"I remember."
Moon Youngseok had given us the location of the core laboratory. Taking the research wing where Dr. Pyeong So-woon was almost certainly holed up was my job. Whatever else was true, that place was dangerous to him in more ways than one.
Above all, it's a bit much these days for a man who's become a National Assembly member to join the suppression personally. I couldn't even promise he'd keep his cool if he saw what Dr. Pyeong So-woon had done. And knowing her personally, it might open a gap in him instead.
Here, letting him circle the perimeter—properly yielding the credit to the Association—was the right answer.
Of course, if he truly insisted on swapping places with me, I couldn't stop him, and I wouldn't have wanted to anyway.
"You sure about this?"
"I'm sure."
Not a single word of protest, as usual. He answered flatly, as if he'd already known the question was coming. It was, frankly, the patience of a saint—humanity's strongest, indeed.
Watching his profile like that, I felt too sheepish to say anything and hunched my shoulders for a moment. Then I caught sight of the sky—the dawn burning at its edges as morning slowly bloomed.
"Did you tell Yeeun yet?"
"Not yet. Planning to tell her today."
"Unbelievable, you brat. Fine—let's go."
And so, Lee Joongoo and I started walking.
It had been roughly two weeks since I'd resolved to properly antagonize the organization. This was our first true assault campaign against Novus Ordo Seclorum.