The Scorpion's Trap
“Ha, what is it this time?”
“The Seochok faction came up with a rather interesting plan.”
If what Yu Hana said was true, the Seochok faction’s scheme went like this. They would release the Scorpion gang to occupy Seou Industries and stage a sit-in. The Scorpions would take the company employees hostage and demand the release of ‘Poison Scorpion.’ That way, the Korean government would mistakenly believe the purpose of this terror attack was to free ‘Poison Scorpion.’ After all, that really was the Scorpions’ goal. In exchange for supporting the Scorpions, the Seochok faction naturally demanded the technical data on the new technology held by Seou Industries.
Once the Scorpions occupying the building sent them the data, they would detonate the bombs they had planted in advance and blow up the entire structure. In one fell swoop, they could wipe out the remaining Scorpions along with every employee inside, perfectly concealing their true intentions. There would still be questions about why the building suddenly exploded in the middle of a terror incident, but without any evidence, what could anyone do? The Superhuman Bureau would simply be left chasing chickens that had already flown the coop.
“So in the end, the Scorpions are just sacrificial lambs?”
“They really do all sorts of things in someone else’s country.”
From our perspective it seemed insane, but from the Seochok faction’s point of view, it was an incredibly efficient operation. They could obtain what they wanted without ever revealing their own involvement.
“Well, that’s everything I dug up. Now we just need to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
“...By the way, Yu Hana. How exactly do you even find out things like this?”
“Aww, it’s nothing special~. Both China and our country use messengers that are ridiculously vulnerable to hacking~ Dig into their emails or chat apps and everything spills out.”
“Still, even so…”
“It really isn’t that hard.”
Seong Jiyeong looked utterly sick as she listened to Yu Hana casually explain how she had easily gathered information from Seou Industries—which had terrible security—and cracked the Chinese side’s “secret text” encryption because its pattern was so simple. I had already experienced her abilities firsthand, so Jiyeong’s horrified reaction didn’t feel particularly surprising. That girl was strangely, almost eerily, talented when it came to this kind of thing.
“Oh, and while we’re on the subject. I think we need to decide on a proper means of communication. As you can see, the messengers used in our country are extremely vulnerable to hacking~”
“That’s true. Right now we’re still pre-debut, so we can all gather like this, but…”
“Once we debut, we’ll have individual schedules too.”
“Ji Seoeun, isn’t that communication device you made immune to hacking?”
“Not hacked. But mine cannot change shape.”
“...Those rabbit ears?”
“Correct.”
Yu Hana was right. We really did need a reliable way to stay in contact. If we were just ordinary idols, we could have used a normal messenger like everyone else, but since we were also the Phantom, that was too risky. Not only was there the threat of hacking, but the server administrators could apparently read the contents too. The idea of Phantoms getting caught because they were chatting on a messenger was just too pathetic to even consider.
The only viable option was Ji Seoeun’s custom-built communicator. The downside was that using it required wearing those rabbit ears. What kind of humiliation play was that? There was no way we could walk around with rabbit ears on normally, so we had to give up on that idea.
“What about you, Seong Jiyeong? You must have people you contact for your Phantom activities, right?”
“I generally do not use a smartphone at all. Mechanical devices carry too high a risk of being hacked.”
“I see. So that’s why.”
“No wonder she barely carries a phone around…”
Seong Jiyeong almost never carried a phone. I had wondered why, but it turned out to be because of the hacking risk. For someone with so many clumsy sides, she was surprisingly thorough about that. Well, that was probably how she had managed to do this for over three years without getting caught.
“Then how do you stay in contact?”
“I simply move myself. There is only one person who assists my activities, so most things can be handled through them. The rest are almost all compartmentalized cells.”
Using her space teleportation to deliver messages in person—Seong Jiyeong’s method was perfectly safe since hacking wasn’t even a factor, but it wasn’t particularly helpful for the rest of us. That was something only she could do.
“You move in person? Wow~ impressive. Guess if your head’s bad, your body has to suffer.”
“What did you say? Yu Hana, then do you have some special method?”
“Of course I do! Ta-da!!”
Direct contact through teleportation. It lacked versatility, but I had thought it was at least safe. Then Yu Hana butted in. She even shoved something at the fuming Seong Jiyeong. Curious, I looked closer. It was a messenger app I had never seen before.
“So… Kakdugi Talk?”
“Yup yup. It’s the messenger I use with the people at my company. No need to worry about hacking with this! We made it ourselves and we manage it. It’s protected in real time by superpowers.”
“The people at your company… you mean those Kakdugi older brothers from before?”
“Aww, why would you say it like that? Kakdugi older brothers?”
“Then why is this app called Kakdugi Talk? Doesn’t that mean you secretly agree?”
“No no. Kakdugi is the name of our kimchi company. It’s called Kakdugi Talk because it’s the messenger used by the company employees.”
“Your company is named Kakdugi?”
“You’ve eaten our kakdugi before. We might not be confident in everything, but we’re definitely confident in our kakdugi.”
“So that’s why it’s called Kakdugi. Anyway…”
This was giving me a headache. Of course, among the kimchi Yu Hana had brought, the kakdugi was by far the highest quality. While the other kimchi was just decent, the kakdugi was on a level comparable to Seong Jiyeong’s family kimchi. Even so, naming your company Kakdugi? If the kimchi company was called Seou Kakdugi Co., Ltd., then the kakdugi made by those kakdugi-looking older brothers would be Kakdugi-brand kakdugi kimchi. Just thinking about it made my head spin. It was a bizarre hybrid.
Besides, why would a kimchi company even need a custom-made app like this? Just looking at it screamed that something was off.
“If there’s an app like that… there’s no reason not to use it.”
“Indeed. The place I used to belong to had something similar.”
Nothing about it seemed trustworthy, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t use it. Even Seong Jiyeong, who had been grumbling, acknowledged the usefulness of a self-made app. And as Tasha had pointed out, I had used something similar back when I was in the Special Task Force. It was the bare minimum measure to prevent information leaks.
“Hah, fine. Let’s go with that as our group’s official messenger for now. Then we need to decide how we’re going to handle this.”
Having settled on Kakdugi Talk as our official communication method, we moved on to the next topic—how we would act.
“But you know… do we even need to get involved?”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Jiyeong’s goal is to punish Seou Industries, right? If we just sit back, it looks like they’re going to self-destruct anyway. If the whole building blows up, we’ve basically seen everything there is to see. Plus, they don’t even seem interested in protecting their information.”
The first to voice an opinion was Yu Hana. She suggested we simply leave them be. This incident was essentially Seou Industries reaping what they had sown. They had poked their noses everywhere trying to jack up the price and ended up inviting disaster. If we left them alone, the Scorpions and the Seochok faction would clean up the mess for us.
It sounded pretty tempting, but I couldn’t just let it slide. According to that plan, all the regular employees at Seou Industries would die too. The Scorpions or hired thugs might be worthless, but not every employee working in that building was a thug.
And Tasha pointed that out quite appropriately.
“It will not be that simple. Even a security company will have regular office workers. And if the building explodes, there will be collateral damage as well.”
“I suppose that’s true~”
Besides, I was a little curious about that new technology that companies from three different countries were eyeing so greedily. What on earth was it that made them so desperate?
“If we leave the situation as it is, there are two losses. Innocent victims could appear, and the technology could be stolen. By the way, what exactly is this new technology that was supposedly developed in a lab?”
“Hmm, I don’t know the details either. I’m more of a liberal arts person. From what I heard, it had something to do with plasma?”
“...Plasma?”
Plasma. Honestly, I had no idea what that meant. The only plasma I knew about was the beam weapons that appeared in games.
“Do you know what it is, Seong Jiyeong?”
“I am also liberal arts. In fact, I couldn’t even figure out what the research topic was.”
“Not helpful at all.”
“...My apologies.”
Asking Seong Jiyeong didn’t yield any answers either. That left only Ji Seoeun.
“....What field? Ion? Nuclear fusion? Laser?”
Wait, why were her eyes spinning like that?
“Ji Seoeun, are you okay?”
At least when it came to this kind of thing, Ji Seoeun was reliable. Her designs were extremely questionable, but she was the one who had made that rabbit helmet thing. I had been about to ask for her input when I noticed her eyes had completely rolled back. The girl who had been wearing a sullen expression throughout the entire meeting had suddenly done a complete one-eighty?
It was a bit awkward to ask questions when her eyes were like that, but at the very least, it was clear that this technology was something even the Space Battleship Villain found tempting. In that case, we probably shouldn’t just hand it over to another country.
“Jiyeong, what do you think? After all, you’re currently the person closest to that technology.”
“Well… as I said before, I’m not particularly interested in technology. But the idea of all the hostages dying doesn’t sit well with me. There are quite a few normal employees there. The logistics business itself is being run legitimately.”
“Since they at least outwardly operate as a logistics distribution company, there must be related staff.”
“Then isn’t the answer simple? When the Scorpions raid the building, we also move in, beat the crap out of the Scorpions or whoever, and completely destroy the technology. That way we won’t have any annoying loose ends.”
“So we’re saving the hostages, then.”
The most common-sense approach would be to rescue the hostages and leave the technology to the state, but… well. Our country was notoriously incompetent in these matters. Even if we handed them the technology, it would probably only benefit other countries. Besides, other nations had already noticed and were rushing in, yet our own country was staying completely silent. At this point, it was safe to assume they had no idea at all.
“Oh, right. I heard that technology has high potential for use as a weapon. It seems both China and America plan to use it that way.”
The more I heard, the less I wanted to hand it over to the government. The thought of the Security Force waving around some strange new weapon and trying to catch us made me furious. Maybe it would actually be better if we just buried this technology ourselves.