Chapter 113
Chapter 113
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: Owl Hunt (4)
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"Heh..."
Nine Owls stared blankly, their eyes glazed over.
Oh-jin used Domination on each captured Owl, cross-referencing their information.
"This should be enough to be certain."
The Owl faction's headquarters was currently little more than an empty house, its key members away, leaving only bodies to fill the space.
'Perfect.'
He had considered calling off the plan if Cheon Do-yoon was there, but as things stood, he felt he could reap a greater harvest than he'd initially planned.
-Screeeak.
Han Jun-man was waiting outside the interrogation room.
"Oh, Mr. Oh-jin, that wound..."
"There was a bit of a commotion inside."
Oh-jin wiped the blood trickling down his cheek with a towel as he spoke.
"I'm not sure what trick they pulled, but they suddenly broke their restraints, snatched my weapon, and attacked me."
"Th-They did!"
"Well, fortunately, I wasn't seriously injured."
"How can you say you're not injured when you're bleeding like this!"
Director Han frowned, handing him a potion.
It must have been a high-grade potion; as soon as he poured it on the wound, a cool sensation washed over him, and the cut began to heal rapidly.
"Did you manage to get anything?"
"No. I tried to see if I could bypass the prohibition to get some information... but it didn't go as planned."
"Haa... I see."
In reality, he had found the location of their base.
But he didn't feel the need to mention it.
'To uproot them all in one fell swoop, I need something bigger.'
A faint smile played on Oh-jin's lips.
"Well then, I'll be heading back for today."
"Yes! I'll make sure to replace the restraints with much stronger ones to prevent this from happening again!"
"Haha. Thank you."
He left the Association with a light laugh.
'Alright, then.'
Oh-jin drove his car to the Changhyeon Building in Yongsan, where the Owls' headquarters was located.
"...That's the Changhyeon Building?"
A shabby building in a secluded area.
To think that a commercial building you could see every few seconds on any given street was the headquarters of the terrorist group that had turned Korea upside down.
'It even has a convenience store and a snack bar on the first floor.'
Who would ever look at this place and think it was a terrorist hideout?
"The bastards are clever, I'll give them that."
As they say, the best place to hide a tree is in a forest.
This was a place he never would have found without using Domination to break the prohibition.
-Click.
Oh-jin parked his car nearby and observed the building from a distance.
'I feel like a detective on a stakeout.'
All I'm missing is coffee and donuts.
"Hnngh."
Alright then.
Time to wait patiently.
'I still don't have enough information.'
Even though he had cross-referenced the testimony of nine people.
He couldn't just recklessly infiltrate the Black Star Organization's headquarters.
'Five days... no, I should wait and watch for about a week.'
If he stayed in one place and watched them continuously, they might become suspicious.
Fortunately, he had a skill that was perfect for this kind of situation.
'Black Curtain.'
Completely concealing his presence.
He stared at the building's entrance with cold, sunken eyes.
* * *
A week passed since he began surveillance on the Black Star Organization's headquarters.
"Hnngh."
He stretched languidly, twisting his body.
"Let's see."
He took out the rice ball Ha-eun had packed for him that morning and took a bite.
The texture of the damp, soggy grains of rice felt like chewing a wad of wet newspaper.
"Mmm~ That's my big sister for you."
How could someone make a rice ball taste this bad?
"Hm?"
While eating the rice ball, he found a piece of paper at the bottom of the lunchbox.
From the handwriting, it was a letter from Ha-eun.
"Hehe. My sister can be so cute."
Let's see what she wrote.
[This letter originated in England... ]
"Seriously."
What is this woman writing?
[...If you do not kiss a beautiful woman with auburn hair within 24 hours, you will be struck by a terrible curse.]
Good grief.
"Where did she come up with such a cute little trick..."
[P.S.: The curse is a fun cooking experiment with your big sister.]
"I need to get back home, fucking fast."
Her normal cooking was barely edible, so he couldn't even imagine how disastrous an "experiment" would be.
'I even took off the pendant so Vega wouldn't find out.'
The preliminary investigation was complete.
All that was left was to act.
-Click.
Oh-jin opened the car door and headed toward the building.
Outside the building, two men were loitering and smoking.
'On the surface, they just look like your average guys smoking on the street.'
But there was no way that guys who came in and out at the exact same time every day were ordinary passersby.
"Hey, you can't smoke on the street."
"Huh?"
The man, who was chain-smoking, scowled menacingly.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Your mom, you bastard."
"What?"
Crack!!
He took one down with a surprise low kick.
"Hmph!"
Just as the man next to him hurriedly reached into his coat.
"Hup."
Craaack!!
"Aaaaaaaargh!!!"
He grabbed the hand reaching for a weapon and twisted it until it broke.
"My, my hand!! My haaaand!!"
The man's face contorted as tears and snot streamed down.
The stream of snot and tears soaked his shaggy beard.
"Wow, damn, look at these bastards."
Director Han's guess that most of the Owl faction members were from Cheorwon Prison must have been spot on, because both of these guys had the face of a natural-born serial killer.
'It'd be a crime if someone who looked like this wasn't a criminal.'
To put it as politely as possible, their faces looked like bird droppings splattered on vomit dried onto the asphalt.
"Guh... Who... are you?"
"You don't need to know."
Having subdued the two men in the blink of an eye, Oh-jin held out his hands.
A black, inky cloud flowed from his palms and seeped into the men's minds.
"Heh..."
"Uhihi."
Soon, both of their eyes glazed over.
"Lead me inside."
"...Yes."
He followed the two men into the elevator.
Just as he'd heard during the interrogation, he pressed the buttons in a specific sequence, and the elevator went past the 7th floor, arriving at the 8th.
-Wooooong.
The doors opened to reveal a gate about two meters wide.
'So the Owls' base is in here.'
He stepped inside without hesitation.
"...Huh."
A gasp escaped him the moment he entered.
'What is this place?'
Inside was a massive dome, the size of a World Cup stadium.
'I heard it was inside a gate, so I expected them to be living like some primitive tribe.'
But this was clearly a state-of-the-art building equipped with all sorts of amenities.
'Damn, these bastards really have a massive operation.'
The scale was unbelievable for an organization operating in the shadows.
Oh-jin clicked his tongue in amazement and entered the dome-shaped building.
"Take me to Cheon Do-yoon's room."
"...Yes."
The man nodded and started walking.
"What? Aren't you two on duty?"
As they walked through the building, they ran into a few Black Star Organization members who recognized the two men.
"Why are you loitering around here... Keuk!"
They were easily taken down by Oh-jin's surprise attack, who had been stealthily hidden using Black Curtain.
"Heh..."
After using Domination to create a new puppet.
"You two, return to your posts."
"...Yes."
"As... you command."
He sent the first two he had subdued back outside.
'This makes infiltration easy.'
With overpowered abilities like Black Curtain and Domination, infiltrating the headquarters wasn't difficult.
"This is... Master Cheon Do-yoon's room."
"What about the guards?"
"They're usually here... but he's been away recently, so there are no guards."
I see.
'Then I can investigate freely.'
Click.
It was a simple room, decorated in a traditional Korean style.
There were no common luxuries, and even very little furniture.
"Hmm."
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes and began his search.
"There's nothing here."
He searched high and low, but nothing of note caught his eye.
As he sighed and looked around.
'Hm?'
He noticed a round plaque hanging on a lantern next to the bed.
"This is..."
No.
To be precise, it wasn't a *mapae*, a horse plaque.
"A snake?"
Should I call this a snake plaque?
The palm-sized plaque hanging on the lantern was engraved not with the image of a horse, but with a coiled snake.
'It doesn't seem to be a sacred relic.'
There was no magic emanating from the plaque, or rather, the snake plaque.
"Why is this in this bastard's room?"
Even if it were just a simple decoration, shouldn't it be engraved with an owl, not a snake?
"Hmm."
He pondered it, but no reason came to mind.
'I should at least take a picture.'
*Click.*
He took a photo of the snake plaque and put it back in its place.
"Doesn't seem like there's anything else to find here."
Time to get other information.
"Where can I find the locations and sizes of the Black Star Organization's branches?"
This was the reason he had risked infiltrating the Black Star Organization's headquarters.
To get his hands on the locations of all the Owl branches hidden throughout Korea.
'Even if these guys operate in cells, the headquarters must have that information.'
If they didn't have that information here, they wouldn't be a single organization, just a collection of independent factions.
"It's... recorded in the server room."
Of course.
I knew it would be here.
"Take me there."
"To enter that place... you need... a password."
"Who knows it?"
"Normally, the Senior Executive Officer is in charge... but right now, his second-in-command is managing it."
"What's the deputy's rank?"
"Intermediate Executive Officer."
"Good."
Intermediate Executive Officer... is that the same rank as Ashad Khan?
'At that level, I can take them down easily now.'
Just a few months ago, I had to fight tooth and nail.
But now, I'm confident I could easily handle ten Intermediate Executive Officers at once.
"...This way."
He headed toward the location of the Executive Officer managing the server room.
"Wait."
Before going in.
Oh-jin took a tumbler full of coffee out of his sling bag.
-Pop.
He opened the lid and dipped his fingertip inside.
'Still, if I want to subdue her with minimal fuss, this is the best way.'
Wooooong!
Activating the Scorpio Stigma, a violet venom flowed from his fingertip and mixed into the coffee.
"Take this and tell her you brought something to drink."
"As you command."
The puppeted Owl took the tumbler and knocked on the server room door.
"What is it?"
A woman with short black hair opened the door, her voice hysterical.
She was quite pretty.
"Brought... coffee."
"Hmph, what's this? Are you trying to hit on me?"
The woman scoffed, finding it pathetic.
"Honestly~ it's such a pain being in a place crawling with nothing but men."
The woman clicked her tongue and took the coffee.
"Hmph. I'll drink it out of consideration for your effort, so get lost."
Thud.
The server room door slammed shut.
"Good job. Now go back to your post. Forget everything that happened today."
"...Yes. Understood."
Oh-jin sent the controlled Owl away and waited leisurely in front of the door.
He waited for about three minutes.
-Crash!
"Keuk! Kack! Wh-What is this?!"
The door burst open, and the woman stumbled out.
"Hup!"
Oh-jin quickly lunged forward and threw a rough punch at the woman's face.
Smack!!!
"Kyaaaaak!"
With a short scream, the woman was sent flying backward.
"Wh-What? Who are you?"
"You don't need to know."
Oh-jin grinned and approached the trembling woman.
"H-Heeik! D-Don't come any closer!"
Was it because she was poisoned?
The woman couldn't even control her body properly, scrambling backward on her hands and knees.
-Clang.
To instill even deeper fear in her, Oh-jin took out his spear and threatened her with it.
"Kyaaak! S-Save me. N-No, p-please spare me!"
The woman trembled pitifully, rubbing her hands together like a fly.
'This should be enough.'
Oh-jin reached out his hand to use Domination.
Just then.
"I-If you just spare me."
The woman suddenly tugged down her blouse, revealing a white shoulder.
She lifted her head slightly, sending a seductive glance toward Oh-jin.
"You can do whatever you want with my body—"
"Give me a fucking break."
Smack!
He swung his spear and struck her on the head.
"Aack!"
"I'm not interested in your body, so just shut up and stay still. I don't have time for this."
I need to finish this quickly and go home to break the curse.