Operation: Yangpyeong Villa
In the far corner of the Black Whale, we were having a conversation that counted as confidential, so the other guards had stepped aside for a moment.
Luna mulled it over briefly, glanced around in every direction, and then began to speak, carefully, word by word.
"There is... something."
"What is it?"
"It's some kind of video..."
"A video?"
"Ah, nothing major, really... of me... naked?"
"...That's not a big deal to you?"
No, seriously — a nude video? It actually existed?
So, here's how it happened, she explained. Luna said she couldn't stand feeling constricted, and as a result she never slept in underwear. She hadn't always been that way, apparently — it was a bad habit that sprang up back when she was working as a dance singer.
Then CEO Moon had installed cameras in the house she lived in to keep tabs on her, and she, completely unaware, went about her usual routine — and an absurd piece of footage ended up in his hands.
And with that, he'd told her he knew everything, intending to use it to tighten his grip on her behavior even further.
It was such an outrageous story that I honestly didn't know where to even begin taking it apart.
"Well, that's a matter of personal taste, I suppose..."
"In a way, it serves her right."
"How is that serving me right? The creep is the one who planted cameras in someone else's house. The bastard who leverages that is worse."
"...You think so?"
I supposed it was her frustration with an oppressive reality — a longing for freedom — that had erupted in that particular form.
When she'd mentioned earlier that she didn't even pack underwear, I'd wondered what kind of ridiculous nonsense that was, but it turned out she was twisted in her own sturdy way too.
What's more, the fact that she'd experienced that kind of violation and simply let it slide was worth thinking about. Honestly, the first thing she should have done after switching companies was see a psychiatrist.
Come to think of it, her counterpart in Murim had her self-regard sunk clear down to the floor, too. Why on earth had such a staggeringly beautiful woman been so ferociously steeped in self-loathing and contempt for herself?
I'd chalked it up to environment and upbringing back then — Murim was a world where being nothing but pretty, with no strength behind it, was more a liability than an asset. But if Luna, a bona fide star, showed the same strange pattern, maybe it wasn't just the circumstances.
Then again, were the surroundings on both sides actually similar in their own insidious ways?
Whatever the case, she seemed exactly the type to fall prey to gaslighting.
"I don't know what exactly got recorded, but we'll need to get it back. Do you know where it might be?"
"...Roughly."
"Really?"
"I wasn't just sitting on my hands. There's a villa in Yangpyeong under CEO Moon's name, and he seemed to keep the important things stored in the study there."
Yangpyeong, then. Not terribly far.
We should raid it before the man gets wind of anything.
"But wouldn't something like that usually be kept online somewhere? A private server or a cloud locker, that kind of thing."
"Not for CEO Moon."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah, that much is certain. He got properly robbed once before. Ever since then, I heard he keeps everything on an air-gapped laptop or USB drives — nothing with an internet connection."
"Well, that's convenient."
If we were going to clean him out, it was better that there be no backups lying around. Since leaking the material would be a disaster for Moon Entertainment too, it seemed safe to assume the originals in his personal custody were all there was.
So — first move, retrieve them.
"By the way, Siwoo."
"Yes?"
"Why are you doing all this for me, anyway?"
"Ah, well..."
Just as I was racking my brain for an answer, she asked the question. Why go this far for someone like her?
Granted, she had a point. Anyone looking at this situation would find it bizarre.
If you pressed the matter, Luna and I were complete strangers. Nothing more.
Looking at it laid out like that, a strange wave of existential doubt washed over me.
She isn't even her, so why am I doing any of this?
And yet, despite all that, this odd sense of responsibility kept tugging at me...
Is this what they call responsibility without pleasure?
Granted, there had been plenty of pleasure involved, but strictly speaking, none of that had anything to do with this woman, had it?
That was pretty absurd too, honestly.
"Men who are this nice to a woman usually turn out to be one of two things. After my money, or after my body."
"...Really? Sounds like you've only ever met the worst kind of men."
"So I cut them off right away. Usually you can tell at a glance. But you, Siwoo, I honestly can't figure out. For the record — I don't have any money."
"I don't need money. Once you join the company, the company will earn the money, won't it? What does that have to do with me?"
"Then in the end, it's the body?"
"No, not really that either..."
Just as the existential crisis hit and I was pulling myself together, this woman started spouting more strange nonsense.
The body, she says.
Truth be told, I wasn't all that invested in that either. If anything, what interested me wasn't the body I already knew(?) — it was her happiness, the parts of it I knew nothing about at all.
A different era, a different person — but I figured if I could just see her living a life of genuine, felt happiness, then whatever was lodged in my chest might finally loosen.
It was hopelessly sucker-ish behavior, the kind that deserved the phrase "responsibility without pleasure" — but if doing it eased my mind even a little, it wasn't a bad bargain.
"Let's save that conversation for later. First, we run to Yangpyeong and retrieve what needs retrieving. This is a race against time."
"...Right. Okay."
My first thought had been to slip over to Yangpyeong alone, but I figured that would only breed more trouble later, so I briefed the guards on the situation.
Slipping out alone while this many of us were clustered together was impossible anyway, and even if I announced I was leaving, not a single one of them would have listened.
Sure enough, the moment I said I was heading to Yangpyeong, objections rained down from every direction.
"Buddy, you're not planning to go stir up trouble again, are you?"
"Oh, come on. Trouble? Nothing like that this time."
"Which means you did stir up trouble when you brought that woman out."
"Say it straight, why don't you. That was the best call at the time, okay? I'm not thoughtless about this stuff."
Rando, who'd grown fairly close to me, was clearly wary that I'd go to Yangpyeong and cause some fresh catastrophe. He seemed convinced I went around manufacturing incidents on a daily basis.
On this point, I had my grievances too — if anything, I was one of the people most grateful that this world wasn't a lawless wasteland. It could be stifling at times, but I believed it was the right way for things to be.
Given how difficult this world makes it to eliminate loose ends, I always act with the aftermath in mind. The very rare occasions when I resort to violence are precisely when I've confirmed using it will cause no problems whatsoever.
Or when a swarm of bratty little delinquents comes charging at me and there is genuinely no other option.
Being lumped in as a habitual troublemaker over the odd such day did sting a little.
"I understand the concern, so I'll report to the company first."
"Good thinking, buddy. Keep it up from now on, too."
Rando looked like he could headbutt a cow into submission, but he was steady, well-mannered, and dependable. From his perspective, having me call in for instructions had to be far more welcome than me igniting some spontaneous emergency on my own.
For my part, I'd already been marked down over one incident too many, so reporting in and taking orders it was.
"I understand the situation. Then we'll have to collect it, won't we."
"Exactly."
"Though I can't imagine why you insist on going yourself, Siwoo..."
"There's no time. By now they'll have realized Luna slipped their fingers, and they might send people to the villa."
"...Fine. Then hurry. If you go with the other guards, retrieving the item should be simple enough."
Cheon Yua, ever reasonable. She knew full well that dashing straight to Yangpyeong was the fastest solution.
There wasn't even much risk on our end — as far as anyone knew, CEO Moon's private villa sat empty unless something special was happening. Sneaking out of an empty villa with nothing but the goods, with me and a few guards on the job? No reason we couldn't pull it off without a hitch.
In an ideal world I'd have gone alone, but there was no chance in hell these people would let me out of their sight, so that was that.
"If the villa's normally empty, he'll have hidden the goods somewhere clever. How do we handle that?"
"No need to worry. Sally's a specialist in that department."
"Is she, now?"
"The Madam didn't keep Sally around for nothing. She's genuinely versatile. I can't say exactly where, but she used to work in intelligence."
"Oh. Now that's surprising."
An intelligence operative who retired alive and well?
Wasn't that actually incredible?
"You know too much — die!" is practically the unwritten law of that line of work.
Our fair senior was a far more impressive woman than I'd given her credit for.
"Leave it to me. I'll open every last one of them for you~♡"
"...Just don't go opening my heart while you're at it."
"But that's my actual specialty?"
Watching Sally — a.k.a. Slam-her — flash a dazzling smile and throw in a wink on top, I couldn't help thinking she was a genuinely terrifying woman.
Ordinary men wouldn't stand a chance against her.
Still, if she opened safes and secret locks as skillfully as she opened men's hearts, she was worth trusting with the job.
We tore down the road in the Black Whale until we reached the vicinity of CEO Moon's villa as Luna had described, then switched to motorbikes for the final approach.
Three bikes, five guards, plus me. That was the whole operation.
"Why exactly is Sally riding behind me, again?"
"This spot's prime real estate~"
"No — stop pressing your chest into my back."
With Sally's weighty chest rippling against me from behind, I had to admit the spot was, in fact, prime real estate.
Truly a magnificent size. So this is what Mother Russia breeds.
"...Wait. Hold on."
"Someone's there."
"I see it."
"Isn't that a problem?"
Soaking in Sally's pleasant pressure all the way, we arrived at our destination — only to find the Yangpyeong villa, which was supposed to be empty, glowing brightly with lights.
Someone was inside.
"Well, that's a wrinkle."
"What do we do?"
"Do? We go in anyway, obviously. We're short on time."
"A frontal assault?"
"Please. I'm not quite that brainless."
Luna had said CEO Moon's study was on the second floor. Fortunately, the occupants seemed to be gathered entirely on the ground floor, and the second story stayed dark.
We were trespassing in someone else's villa, after all — slipping in as quietly as possible and taking only what we came for was clearly the best play.
And as it happened, the study had a large window, so climbing in through it wasn't out of the question.
"No CCTV, unexpectedly."
"That really is a surprise. A place in this country with no cameras."
"Then climbing the wall should be fine."
"Can't be too careful — masks on first."
The moment the plan settled on infiltrate-then-expropriate, everyone pulled something black over their heads. Rag-like black hoods with holes cut only for the eyes.
"Why on earth do you people carry these around?"
"Standard emergency supplies."
"...Isn't that even weirder?"
Granted, going in with something over our faces beat strolling in bare-faced, but a crew of masked figures swarming over the wall looked, unmistakably, like a band of burglars.
From CEO Moon's standpoint we technically were burglars, but the whole thing left a strange taste in my mouth.
Were these people, by any chance... bored?
Bringing masks along on a retrieval job — the vibe suggested they were quietly enjoying themselves. Well, no harm in it, I supposed. Guarding an office building must be crushing drudgery for them.
"All right, from here we climb up and get in through the window."
"Hold on, buddy. I go up first."
"Fine. Suit yourself."
"Ok."
We cleared the wall, crept through the garden, and found a spot perfect for the climb. According to Luna, the window above opened into the study, so going up this way put us right at the target.
Rando took point.TT apparently uneasy about sending me up first. When it came to this kind of work, Rando was the real professional, so I let him have it.
He clung to the wall and hauled himself up to the second floor. He fixed some strange contraption to the window, cut a hole, reached through, and unlatched it.
The curtains hid the interior from view, but it was clear Rando had slipped safely inside.
"...What was that?"
There was one problem, though: right after Rando went in, a faint sound — something very like a moan — had drifted out from inside.
Something had clearly gone wrong in there.