The Hunt Begins
The air in the officetel hallway was far colder and drier than the room. The moment Ha Yul pressed the elevator button, her phone vibrated. A short tremor in her palm. The instant she saw the name on the screen, her gaze sank ever so slightly. Seo Yujin. The disaster alert had been a public warning, but this was a personal summons. Ha Yul leaned her shoulder against the wall and answered at once.
"Yes."
The line was noisy. Radio chatter, the scrape of metal on metal, voices barking rapid instructions in the distance, and the distinctive hum of shielding equipment all tangled together. It was an active scene. Yet even amid the chaos, Seo Yujin's voice came through clear.
[Jongro. You need to come.]
The explanation was enough. Her voice moved people faster than any lengthy justification. Yujin always spoke that way—cutting away everything unnecessary.
"Something's off, isn't it?"
[See for yourself. The building and the readings are both strange.]
Ha Yul answered as the elevator doors slid open.
"I'm on my way."
The call ended. While the doors closed, Ha Yul was already mapping the Jongro Redevelopment Area in her mind. For months the site had alternated between demolition and construction, the perfect terrain for illegal training halls that doubled as drug distribution points. In the blind spots of CCTV, unorthodox martial artists often swallowed dangerous pills in pursuit of rapid gains, only to mutate. They survived by preying on other mutants, honing their skills through endless culling. That was why so many high-level experts emerged from the unorthodox factions.
"As usual."
Seoul's morning looked ordinary, yet beneath that ordinariness the residue of night always settled—blood, dust, mutations, disappearances, cordons. People commuted, bought coffee, descended subway stairs, but a short distance away someone's remains might still be rolling in the gutter.
Outside the building, rush-hour air was stirring the city back to life. Office workers in suits waited at crosswalks; people clutching iced cups stood in front of convenience stores. A delivery motorcycle shot forward the moment the light changed. At the subway entrance, a student with earphones and a weary salaryman descended the escalator at the same pace. A distant electronic billboard carried the morning news. Red subtitles scrolled across the bottom.
[Suspicion of mutant appearance in Jongro Redevelopment Area…… Moorim Agency currently controlling the scene]
A familiar sight. Some watched the footage on their phones; others deliberately looked away. Familiarity meant numbness, but it also meant sharper instincts. Anyone living in this city had to know which cordons were genuinely dangerous, which disturbances were mere spectacles, and which warnings could cost you your life if you reacted even a second too late.
Ha Yul flagged a taxi on the main road.
"To the entrance of the Jongro Redevelopment Area, please."
The driver's eyes flicked over her in the rearview mirror—wet hair roughly pushed back, black shirt and coat, a body that carried no openings, a face already hurrying somewhere at dawn. The moment he heard the destination, his mouth tightened.
"Heard another incident broke out there."
Ha Yul kept her gaze on the window.
"Is that so?"
"Just came up on the news. That redevelopment zone is always full of trouble."
The driver clicked his tongue.
"These days it happens way too often. Back then, one report like this and everyone would be shaking. Now folks just shrug on their way to work and grab coffee instead."
Seoul's morning streamed endlessly past the window. On the large screen across the street, footage from a helicopter at the scene played. No concrete details yet, but the anchor's tense voice repeated the same subtitles.
[Suspected mutant appearance]
[Moorim Agency Special Response Team deployed]
[Nearby citizens advised to detour]
The driver kept talking. Seoul taxi drivers were generally talkative, especially on days like this.
"But you know," he said, glancing at her again in the mirror, "days like this, it's better not to go near those places. Roads get blocked by the cordons, and it's just asking for trouble."
Ha Yul gave a small smile.
"Probably."
"Used to be, when people said monsters appeared it was just movie stuff…… Anyway, that damn Great Mutation really changed the world."
The driver muttered as he turned the wheel.
"Young folks these days don't even know to be scared of mutants. When something happens they turn on live streams, film from a distance. Human nature is really……"
Ha Yul didn't reply. She couldn't dismiss the older generation's words as mere grumbling. Those who remembered the war and those who didn't would never think the same way. Twenty years had passed since the Great Mutation ended. The generations on either side of it only knew the pre-Mutation world through old footage.
A few minutes later the taxi stopped where the cordon came into view.
"Can't go any farther."
The driver gestured ahead with his chin. The entrance to the redevelopment area had already become half another world. Yellow tape stretched taut across alleys and roadways. Police vehicles, Moorim Agency vans, and Special Response Team transports lined up in rows. Two small drones circled low overhead. At the entrance stood collapsible shielding equipment and portable bio-response scanners. Behind the half-demolished buildings, torn concrete walls and exposed rebar glinted coldly in the morning light.
Outside the cordon, the usual crowd had gathered. People filming with phones from a distance. Others running live broadcasts in hushed voices. Someone trying to edge closer only to be stopped by police and grumbling about it. Others frowning and crossing to the opposite sidewalk entirely. Fear and curiosity, exhaustion and indifference, all tangled in one place. A now-familiar scene.
Ha Yul paid the fare and stepped out. The driver's last words followed her.
"Be careful, miss."
Without turning, she raised one hand. She straightened her coat collar and walked toward the cordon. Several gazes followed her. A policeman at the tape raised a hand to stop her.
"This area is restricted. Civilians must—"
Before Ha Yul could reach for her ID, a low, cold voice spoke from the side.
"Let her through."
Both the officer and Ha Yul turned. Seo Yujin stood beside a Moorim Agency Special Response Team vehicle. She wore black combat gear layered with ballistic equipment. Reinforced fiber clung to her frame, metal plates covering only the necessary areas. Support gear was fixed cleanly at her waist and back. In her hand she still held an undrawn reinforced metal sword.
The moment she saw Ha Yul, Yujin let out a short sigh.
"Seeing your face first thing in the morning."
Ha Yul's lips moved faintly.
"You called me."
The policeman looked between them, then stepped aside without another word. As Ha Yul crossed the tape, the noise from outside receded by one layer. Yujin scanned her from head to toe—wet hair ends, hastily thrown-on shirt and coat, the tension still radiating from a body that hadn't fully cooled. Her brow furrowed slightly.
"Did you at least come prepared?"
"I have my hands," Ha Yul said calmly. "And a blade."
"You always say that."
Ha Yul stepped closer to Yujin and glanced around. Four Special Response Team members had already finished equipment checks.
"What's the situation?"
Ha Yul asked briefly. Yujin went straight to the point.
"Three missing persons. All registered as subcontracted demolition workers. Last confirmed location inside that building. No contact since the dawn shift change. The patrol that responded detected mutant readings inside and immediately established initial containment."
Ha Yul's gaze rose to the old building's exterior. Half-stripped cladding, shattered windows, increasingly chaotic framing on the upper floors. Good for hiding people—and for hiding other things.
Yujin continued.
"The problem is the interior is unstable. Some supports are already removed because demolition was imminent, and there are signs of illegal modifications inside. Lots of walls torn open. Ducts, stairwells, pipes—anywhere could be hiding a mutant."
"Good for people to hide. And maybe not just people."
Yujin powered off the tablet and looked directly at the building.
"Even for a typical rampaging mutant, its behavior pattern is strange."
She left it at that—partly because she lacked certainty, partly because she refused to cloud the situation with speculation. Typical rampaging mutants moved exactly as the name suggested: running, hiding, pouncing and tearing into people. Individual differences existed, but the basics remained the same. When the behavior pattern itself was abnormal, it could mean either excessive mutation or that "someone had interfered."
One team member approached with a brief report.
"Team Leader, bio-response is weak but we've picked it up again. Estimated upper floors. Structural assessment says the building is still within safe entry parameters."
Yujin nodded.
"We enter."
At once the four team members fell into formation—two on point, one support in the middle, one covering the rear. Yujin positioned herself slightly ahead of center. Ha Yul, without needing orders, naturally took a spot that covered the blind angles.
Inside the building the smell changed. Dust, mold, old concrete, damp plaster. Beneath it all, the metallic tang of blood. And something else—subtle, still-warm regenerative activity. Civilians might register it all as one foul odor, but Ha Yul could separate each layer. Her steps slowed fractionally.
The floor was rough with dust and broken cement. Bundles of wiring hung half-loose from the ceiling, swaying. Scattered across the walls, alongside demolition marks, were gouges that looked like they had been torn by hands or claws—too irregular to be simple collapse damage. Ha Yul brushed her fingertips over one indentation. Powder came away. Beneath it was not concrete but a recently stripped layer of plaster.
"Someone tore open a wall that used to be sealed here."
Yujin asked quietly beside her.
"A hidden room?"
"Or a connecting passage. Either way, someone wanted to hide or move something."
Deeper inside, dark red stains appeared on the floor—not mere splatters, but long drag marks, as though something had been pulled along. Ha Yul crouched to examine them. She didn't touch them; she didn't need to. The blood was human. At least at first. Further along the color grew murky, the viscosity unlike anything a normal human body should produce.
"They dragged it," Ha Yul said.
"One of the missing?" a team member asked quietly from behind.
Ha Yul rose slowly.
"Could be one. Could be more."
Her gaze slid toward the darkness at the end of the corridor.
"There are also footprints mixed in."
"Meaning?" Yujin asked.
Ha Yul followed the marks without answering. At some points the drag marks deepened; at others, clear weight-bearing footprints appeared.
"Started as human," Ha Yul said quietly. "From some point onward, maybe not."
The atmosphere grew heavier. One team member raised a scanner to check bio-responses.
"Multiple weak residual signals. The clearest reading is coming from above. This floor is…… ambiguous."
Yujin gave a short order.
"Check the stairwell. Keep noise to a minimum."
The corridor was deeper than expected. Amid the demolition chaos, someone had erected and later removed temporary partitions. Spaces that had once been rooms or storage areas now connected awkwardly. Handprints on the walls, torn plastic on the floor, a single syringe, a crushed cigarette butt, soil transferred by shoe soles—the scene spoke volumes. Few people could read it.
At the short corner leading to the stairwell, Ha Yul stopped. Yujin stopped at once. So did the team members' footsteps.
"What is it," Yujin asked softly.
Instead of answering, Ha Yul tilted her head upward. Silence. Too perfect a silence. Buildings were rarely this quiet. Dust should fall somewhere, wind should brush empty window frames, loose metal should creak faintly. Yet all background noise seemed strangely suppressed. And above it floated one thin sound.
Scratching. Very slow, very careful—the sound of something hard dragging across concrete.
Ha Yul's eyes rose gradually. Above the stairwell entrance, where ceiling and wall met in a dark corner. In the black gap untouched by morning light, what had first looked like a shadow clung there. A massive shape folded in on itself like some enormous insect. Long arms. Joints bent at impossible angles. Skin glistening with a thin film of blood and regenerative fluid. And below what might once have been a face, something slowly parted.
Teeth almost human flashed briefly—too many, too broken, too overgrown.
One team member sucked in a breath.
At that instant, the thing on the ceiling slowly turned its head. Black eye sockets angled downward. From within came a trembling voice, the last trace of something not yet fully beast.
"Can't…… escape……"
Before the words finished, it dropped.