Operation Extract Luna
As soon as I got back to the company, I reported to Cheon Yua.
Told her I'd persuaded Luna, so it was time to move on to the next step.
Honestly, this whole process should be far simpler than anyone expects. When you get right down to it, the only reason this has dragged on so long is that she couldn't bring herself to make up her own mind.
Of course, we have our own preparations to make, so we couldn't just kidnap her straight off the filming set — but I intend to resolve this as quickly as possible.
"I'd like to get Luna out of there first, ideally."
"How would you like us to do it?"
"Just go and bring her back."
"We need a little time to prepare on our end, too. If they catch wind of it first, things could get messy."
"True. That's why you couldn't just take her right away, after all."
Luna still being in their clutches even now isn't exactly an ideal situation. The only reason we haven't retrieved her yet is that we need time to prepare on our side as well.
The best-case scenario is for the other side not to notice a thing until our preparations are complete. CEO Moon knows better than anyone that if Luna leaves, his company is finished — he was never going to let her go quietly.
"So, how long will it take?"
"A day or two. We've been making preparations anyway."
"Good. In that case, we can bring her over right now."
"Right now?"
"Yes, now. These are the kinds of people who'd forge a contract by force if they had to, aren't they? They're taking their time for the moment, but who knows how long that'll last."
The company's preparations were much further along than I'd assumed, so it seemed we could move immediately. Now that she'd made up her mind, Cheon Yua didn't want to leave her in that place a single hour longer.
Besides, from what I'd heard, Luna was practically under house arrest at the moment. Apparently it was bad for her emotional state — being kept in an environment like that. She already looked like she was in rough shape, and now thugs disguised as managers were watching her around the clock.
"But how, exactly? Time is on our side the longer we drag this out. It'd be even better if the fact that we took her never comes to light."
"Simple. We just make sure nobody knows who took her."
"Of course, a frontal assault is as good as an assassination if there are no witnesses. I trust that's not what you mean. You're not seriously planning to walk in there alone and haul her off like some kind of kidnapping, are you?"
"Would I be that obvious about it?"
We'd have to go in disguise, obviously.
I told her to give me a moment, then flipped a mianju mask over my face. Something along the lines of a generic middle-aged man?
If an unidentified man made off with Luna, even those people would be at a loss for what to make of it. The surest move on their part would be calling the police — but making that decision wouldn't be easy for them either.
Anyone in the entertainment industry will avoid the police at all costs if they can help it. They wouldn't know if it was an escape or an abduction, and they wouldn't even know the motive, so they'd likely hold off and run their own search operation first. Even if they did call the police right away, nothing would turn up quickly. It would drag on for at least a few days — plenty of time for us to do what we came to do.
"What is that? How did you—"
"Oh, the disguise? I was the one wearing the Elder Yoon disguise too, you know."
"Your past truly is suspect, Siwoo. Where on earth did you learn to do this sort of thing..."
"More importantly, isn't this actually pretty good? If Yua-noona used one of these too, she could move around without a worry in the world."
"...Now that's a little tempting."
"Right?"
"Even more so with you there to make sure the disguise doesn't slip, Siwoo."
"...Let me think about that one."
This was a mess I'd started, so I wanted to see it through with my own hands. But there was no way Cheon Yua would allow that. So I revealed the mianju's disguise abilities to make one thing absolutely clear: my identity would never be compromised. It wasn't any kind of crime, and there was no particular reason to hide it from the company.
And now this woman had started suspecting my past, of all things. Well, fair enough — to anyone watching, it was clearly no ordinary ability.
But even if you dug into my past, the only thing you'd find is that I once beat a division commander in a sparring match during my army days. No matter how deep anyone searched, nothing from my Murim days would ever surface.
Sensing a pointless misunderstanding about to take root, I diverted the conversation by poking at the Heavenly Demon's wanderlust. Cheon Yua herself seemed briefly flustered at the implication that she wanted to drag me along on an outing, but the topic of my past quietly died right there.
"Anyway, with this, we can fool those people one way or another."
"...I honestly wouldn't recognize you as Siwoo looking at that. But does it have to be you, specifically?"
"Would Luna feel at ease without me there?"
"...Fine. Then take someone with you. I'll assign you a guard."
"Fine by me. Oh, and let's borrow one of the bikes in the company basement. It beats a car."
"...You really do pull every stunt under the sun."
I pressed my case with Cheon Yua, using Luna as my excuse. I was the one who'd managed to win her heart where countless companies had failed, so the argument worked — more or less.
Having a tail along was a bit much, but the company's guards were reasonably trustworthy. And if this operation ended up being more than just bringing her back, extra personnel wouldn't hurt.
"Yo, cutie boy."
"Selly's the one guarding me?"
"I'm here too, friend."
"Ah, Rando. And Chulnam-hyung, of course."
Three guards total were being deployed for this extraction (?) operation.
Selly, the multi-purpose operative with a whole arsenal of skills (an uptown lady), Rando, the dashing Black powerhouse with overwhelming physical ability, and my manager, Kang Chul-nam. Chulnam-hyung in particular would be driving the tactical vehicle known as the Black Whale (an affectionate nickname) behind us.
And the Black Whale apparently carried no fewer than seven guards...
"Excuse me, how is this three people? It's ten."
"Just do as you're told. Before I decide not to send you at all."
"...My apologies."
I thought the operation headcount was needlessly bloated, but when Cheon Yua said it like that, what could I do but comply?
But seriously —
"...What is this?"
"The Black Whale. You didn't hear what the young miss said?"
"No, I heard. It's just..."
The question was why on earth this thing existed in the company basement.
"Is that a trailer?"
The Black Whale, so-called tactical vehicle, was a black trailer truck. There was even a black container box mounted on the rear. A blue whale painted on the center of the box was the trailer's charming point.
If this thing drove past, it would draw every eye on the street. And we were making a production this big out of something I could have handled by riding over on a bike alone?
"You have to think about bringing Moon Sooyeon back, too. What, were you planning to strap her on the bike and go on a fury ride?"
"What fury ride? There aren't even any pursuers. Fine, understood. I'll ride the bike there, then transfer straight into the container."
"It's a masterpiece I had built in preparation for my Hollywood debut. You'll be able to travel in comfort the whole way there and back."
Truly, this company had everything. I did wonder if all this was really necessary — though I had to admit, if something like this rolled up, even Luna would probably be pretty impressed and acknowledge the kind of power our company had.
She was boiling alone in her own juices, too naive to read the world. If this put her mind at ease even a little, it wasn't a bad thing.
"Right, let's go."
With that settled, we loaded three bikes onto the gratuitously big-scale Black Whale and sped off toward the lodging where Luna was being held.
Luna's current lodging was not the expensive apartment she'd been living in all this time. A few days earlier, at the company's strong urging, she'd been moved somewhere else entirely — subjected to something very like confinement in a quiet villa neighborhood with few people around. A kind of punishment for the crime of continuing to stall on her contract, you might say.
The area wasn't exactly safe, but it seemed the staff had substituted a 24-hour surveillance detail for any actual security system. The implicit message: if you want to live somewhere normal again, sign first. Sign now.
The reason I'd confidently decided I could sweep in here was precisely because the place was so deserted.
We parked the Black Whale some distance away, loaded a single fried chicken onto a bike, and rode toward the lodging she'd described. The distance was roughly ten minutes by bike.
It wasn't that there were no CCTV cameras, but by the time anyone got around to analyzing the footage, the whole thing would already be over — no need to worry about it.
Her lodging was on the second floor. When I climbed the stairs, two men were standing guard at the door. To their minor credit, they didn't appear to be surveilling her from inside. Then again, with her phone confiscated, talking about their conscience felt a little laughable.
"...Huh? Chi—kugh!"
A man holding fried chicken appears out of nowhere — and while the two of them are still gaping in confusion, I deliver the punch of retribution.
One kick where it counts the most, then a strike to the back of the neck drops the first one cold. The second lunges at me on pure reflex, and I plant Demonic Cult punches into his solar plexus and philtrum in quick succession.
With the men dealt with in a matter of seconds, all that's left is to call her out and wrap things up. She's presumably already packed, waiting for me — when she comes out...
"What the— that was so fa— Siwoo?"
"Yes, it's me. This is a disguise."
"What kind of disguise... And what's wrong with them? Don't tell me you—"
"Quiet. We don't have time, so hurry out. You've packed already, right?"
"Ah, right. One second."
The voice was mine, but the face was all wrong, and she was completely flustered. Can't blame her, with the guards lying there in that state too.
Still, I had no intention of lingering. I hustled the stunned woman to grab her things first. The two goons would be out cold for at least ten minutes by the look of them, but the faster we cleared out, the better.
A few seconds later, she emerged from the lodging again, and —
"That's all your luggage?"
"Yeah, I don't need anything else. Tell them to throw it all away."
The woman came out holding nothing but a single laptop. Apparently the laptop where she keeps her original compositions is something she'd defend with her life no matter what happened — which, fine, is a musician's instinct, I suppose — but showing up with literally nothing else felt like a stretch.
"You don't have any clothes?"
"Clothes don't matter. I won't be filming for a while anyway. The comeback's obviously getting pushed back too."
"No, come on. Fine, whatever. Then what about underwear?"
"Underwear? Don't need that kind of thing. I don't wear it anyway."
"...Stop joking and go pack your underwear right now. You'll be staying out for days."
"Ugh, what a pain..."
What a screw-loose woman... Not that she had a subtle thing for that kind of talk herself, but still.
I grabbed her as she tried to leave and physically sent her back inside to pack her underwear first. And so she boarded my bike carrying nothing but one shopping bag with a few sets of underwear and her laptop.
"...What's this?"
"A vehicle provided by the company. We're going straight in."
After a short ride, we joined up with the Black Whale, our temporary base of operations. It must have been something of a shock to her too, because her mouth hung wide open.
"And these are the company's guards. Once you join, personnel will be assigned to your side as well, Luna-noona. Especially while you're actively promoting."
"Is Flame a foreign company? Why are they all foreigners..."
"Hi, pretty girl~ My name is Selly."
"As you can see, she's fluent in Korean, so there's no need to worry."
"Well... I suppose that's true."
She seemed a bit thrown at first, finding the supposed guards were all foreigners, but word that they all spoke Korean well smoothed her face right back out. And seeing the solid, dependable figures of the guards, she visibly relaxed.
First impressions, then — more or less a success.
"Now then, let's talk."
"About what?"
"Is there something the company's holding over you? If it's CEO Moon, I'm sure he's got some kind of leverage."
"Ah..."
What good was just running away? The moment he regrouped, he'd lash out and cause a scene. We had to do everything we could while he was still scrambling to understand what had happened.
The reason I hadn't asked this earlier was simple: until her safety was secured, asking that kind of question would never have gotten an honest answer. There was zero trust between us back then. If someone you don't trust demands to know your weaknesses first thing, of course you get defensive.
But now, thanks to this rescue, a measure of trust had been established. So it was time to confirm the most important question of all.
Namely — what exactly did CEO Moon have on her?