Do You Really Think You Can Take on Even a Saint? (5)
“I had a chance to uproot all of Changro’s branches scattered across the entire country in one go~.”
Baek San-a winked at Cheong Ha-rin.
You know? The secret is just between us. I meant what I said. Shhh. It's our little secret. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.
Before long, Kim Rok-hee came dashing into the office with a startled expression.
“Why did I suddenly hear a noise… Oh, San-a? You’re up?”
“Sorry, I was just about to drink a drink and it fell.”
“Oh dear, you have to be careful! No injuries?”
“Yes, yes. But right now that’s not important. Probably an urgent message from the person Mom is looking for!”
“What?! That person? Show it to me right away!”
Soon Baek San-a projected a map on the terminal.
The map had several spots marked with a pen tool, and the story that followed was enough to shock Kim Rok-hee and Cheong Ha-rin.
“There are ten secret entrances to Changro’s hidden base. The two of you are supposed to block them, right?”
Kim Rok-hee frowned. “Changro’s secret base is under Haengbok Convenience Store? That’s impossible.”
But she couldn’t believe the ridiculous story.
After all, it was the information that had driven her crazy. “Suspicious Special-grade fixer” wasn’t just any info.
At that moment, Cheong Ha-rin couldn’t help but chime in. “If it’s information the person gave us, we should probably check it out…”
“Yeah. Even if it’s weird, we have to check it out…”
In the middle of it, what strange scent was emanating from the materials? ‘…Is it the god who turned humans into anomalies?’
Who had collected information that no one knew during the Cheong Clan Alliance incident?
In the Fixer Gallery right now, the god who isn’t known to anyone is the one who turned humans into anomalies. “Anomaly reports”
‘Even though the drugs are clearly being distributed, they couldn’t catch the base because they couldn’t pinpoint it… But they figured it out?’
There was even more evidence. Recent activity logs from the god who turned humans into anomalies. [Anomaly reports aren’t showing up lately]
The guy who had been living in the gallery every day probably just found it boring and stopped coming, but what else could he be doing? Did he get a job? ㄴ That kind of gallery chad getting a job? ㄴ A home protector with a busy life? ㄴ Maybe he’s playing games lol ㄴ How unfair, some people risk their lives for missions ㄴ Weren’t they blocked? ㄴ He went straight to the next one lol ㄴ It’s not like he’s blocked, so of course he comes lol lol lol
If the god who turned humans into anomalies really collected the information, Kim Rok-hee and the suspicious special-grade fixer she was looking for might be the same person. “Whoa, no way there are two people in the world with this level of information-gathering ability.”
Even Baek San-a’s terminal belonged to the representative of the office Cheong Ha-rin belonged to, Chicken Time. Knowing the terminal address meant the representative or someone close to him… “The god who turned humans into anomalies is the office representative and the mysterious special-grade fixer!”
Looking at the puzzle pieces that fit together, it just didn’t seem that clean. “Um, San-a. Maybe…”
“I woke up to do that, so I went back to sleep.”
“Eh? Already? Crap, there’s something I want to ask…”
Kim Rok-hee clicked her tongue in disappointment and started looking through the materials Baek San-a had handed over again. “Well, what can I do? The important thing right now is the mission I took on.”
First, I had to redefine what ‘block the passage’ meant in the message. Blocking the secret passage physically? Kim Rok-hee’s magic could probably do it somehow, but there was a high risk of getting caught in the act. “But they built a base right under the city like that.”
“That much preparation would be thorough, right?”
What if a demonic beast jumps out during the blockade? The whole area would be in chaos, and there could be an enormous number of civilian casualties. “If it’s flying, it would be absolute pandemonium.”
‘Why the headquarters right in the middle of a residential area… Was this also intentional? These evil bastards.’
There was a Sephira that created an invisibility cloak to protect Seoul from anomalies, but what good was it? It only blurred the view from the outside. “It can’t block seeing inside from inside.”
‘They’re not blocking the secret entrance physically. Then…’
I have to monitor without seeming to monitor. “It doesn’t sound like it’s a physical block. It sounds like they want me to block the entrances so they can’t be used…”
Monitoring as the purpose? Ha-rin’s ability couldn’t monitor more than one exit. “Do I have to watch nine of them?”
Kim Rok-hee was busy biting her nails. Even she, who always seemed confident in her missions, was now tense. “I can cover a wide area, but…”
Hearing Cheong Ha-rin’s worried voice, Kim Rok-hee felt even more uneasy, but she reassured herself that it would be okay, that there wouldn’t be any problems. “I got it. I just thought of something.”
“What?”
“If the person who entrusted us with this job is the kind of person who wouldn’t mind what happens to us, then we just have to do our jobs, right?”
“Yeah.”
Cheong Ha-rin quickly shook her head after realizing. “No, no! We have to do our best! It’s not right to half-ass it and pass it on!”
“Wait, wait. There’s a misunderstanding. I’m not saying we should half-ass it.”
Kim Rok-hee took a short breath. “We’re supposed to do our best. What’s so confusing? This special-grade fixer wouldn’t give us a mission we couldn’t handle, right? And this might be a test. To see if you two are qualified to work with me…”
“Ah!”
“I’m also pushing myself, but I’ll do what I can. I’ll handle nine, and you handle one. Got it?”
A short while later, Kim Rok-hee pulled both hands out of her pocket and opened them in front of Cheong Ha-rin. “Sh-sh-sh” several times, various-colored bullets appeared between her fingers like magic. Cheong Ha-rin’s eyes lit up at the familiar object. “Oh, these are the Watchmen, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. I almost never use them for personal activities, but this time I have to.”
“But these are the same ones used against Window Da-112…”
They were set up to block the bugs leaking from inside the Window, but they all got through… “So my belly got through too…”
She almost said that, but Cheong Ha-rin coughed awkwardly. Kim Rok-hee, who had been watching, also coughed. “T-that wasn’t bugs leaking! They punched through it themselves! I made a proper seal so no one from outside could come in, but I didn’t think they would get through while we were gone catching the queen…”
“I know, I know. They say the bugs the tower people caught inside the Window are almost a thousand.”
“It’s actually about two thousand… Ahem. Anyway!”
Kim Rok-hee clenched and unclenched her fists. The bullets between her fingers doubled in number. “We produce them steadily, but as our magic skills improve, we don’t use them as much lately. So they’re piling up. If we stockpile them, we won’t be able to use them impulsively.”
“Oh!”
“I’ll report to the management office and get them to issue a warning. Since I said it, they’ll probably issue at least one for the weak ones. If they find out I lied, I’ll have to write an apology, but what can I do?”
“If I get to use them, I’ll help…”
“Even just hearing that is grateful. Anyway, we’re moving for the purpose of protecting civilians. Okay?”
“Yes!”
Kim Rok-hee took a long breath, as if tense. It was a send-off with just the two of them, but she spoke with a more solemn determination than usual. “Then, shall we go beat up some bad guys!”
In the Changro headquarters, where they started speeding up the distribution of drugs by operating the A-line, a crisis alert went off. “Some guys are occupying the road leading to the headquarters.”
“…It’s Kim Rok-hee?”
Park Secretary also knew the face. The name popped out before the nicknames like Tower Master or Aunt, because they had worked together before. “They issued a demonic beast alert and are controlling the surrounding area… Doesn’t that seem suspicious?”
“…For now, don’t make any hasty judgments. Impose a full ban on the product leaving the premises.”
Kim Rok-hee had already been sent to the office where Baek San-a lived. That’s why the chairman had deliberately gone to see Baek San-a during the time she wasn’t there. “If the information leaked at this point, it’s probably Baek San-a, but did she ever get out of the surveillance net?”
At best, a few minutes of rolling around under a blanket while trolling in the gallery. “We can’t ignore the assumption that anomalies can appear anywhere they want…”
“First, search all CCTV footage to see if a blood vampire has ever wandered inside the headquarters.”
“Understood.”
Ten minutes later, it was determined that she hadn’t left the room. Even after repeating the precise search several times, the result was the same. “No results.”
“….”
Park Secretary looked around the entrance again. “The Watchmen Kim Rok-hee scattered are wandering around, but they don’t exactly guard the entrance.”
“If it’s just guarding the entrance, that’s not it either.”
“They’re subtly sliding by and just guarding a wide area.”
“Maintain the blockade. If someone tries to enter, cut off that path.”
“Understood.”
Park Secretary’s sharp eyes immediately went to the surveillance camera video. In the video, the girl was peacefully sleeping in the morning after breakfast. Even after analyzing the video several times, her daily routine ended with trolling and eating and making the B-line product components. “Where did she get that from?”
‘No, don’t think simply.’
She was a blood vampire. If she was a blood vampire, she must have connected with her subordinates and blood. Then, through the blood vampire… ‘No, no… The barrier is blocking it. If the management office people didn’t deceive the public, the barrier should cancel out the entire wavelength…’
The appearance of an anomaly that crossed the barrier too? Then we should be worried about a national and global crisis, not just Changro’s headquarters. ‘But telling the management office would just cut our own survival short…’
It was a situation where we couldn’t do this or that. “I could talk and try to find out something, but… Would someone like me be able to handle it?”
The chairman of Changro was a born negotiator. Instead, his awkward, broken way of speaking made it impossible for the other party to figure out his intentions. “On the other hand, Park Secretary?”
She had accumulated countless experiences and wisdom, but she still feared anomalies. “Could she handle Baek San-a?”
Her childish appearance was a disguise. Her tail also wagged like a dog’s, but that was probably another deception. “A way of speaking that makes the other party let their guard down and, conversely, causes more tension in a tense opponent…”
‘But… If I stay like this…’
First, she thought it was right to report the situation to the chairman, so Park Secretary was fiddling with her terminal busily. “Shall I report?”
At that moment, a voice brushed past her ear. “Park Secretary, did you hear anything just now?”
“Eh? What did you say?”
“No…”
It was strange. Why was the voice of a girl who should be sleeping inside the penthouse coming out repeatedly? ‘It’s an unnecessary hallucination!’
Just in case, she was staring only at the camera. “Why are you calling? Stop calling!”
“!”
The voice came from behind again. “Huh” she waved her hand, but nothing was caught. “A bit of moisture?”
Checking the humidity meter, Park Secretary saw [71%] “Why is the humidity so high today?”
“Ah, probably because we’ve been running the A-line process all night. To match the quantity the chairman mentioned…”
“The air conditioner is running so hard?”
“Well, just in case, I checked for demonic beast wavelength, but there was no problem…”
[72%]
The humidity was slowly rising to a level where humans couldn’t feel it. “Just in case” Park Secretary looked up the recent humidity records. “…A week ago, the humidity was 50%. It was exactly what the headquarters was aiming for.”
The humidity that had been that way gradually rose as days passed. 52%, 54%, 57%, 60%… At that moment, one fact flashed through Park Secretary’s mind. “By the way! The demonic component in the water droplet sample I gave compared to the original drug is much stronger in my blood’s demonic component.”
Baek San-a’s substance made from her own blood. The substance that was put into the Tamma Drink, which looked like pure water with no demonic wavelength detected on the demonic beast wavelength measuring instrument. ‘If they sprayed it like a spray, the entire base…’
The humidity rising again. [73%]
Park Secretary ran into the penthouse, wiping the sweat flowing down her temples. “Bang!”
Opening the door, the enormous moisture hit her. “It was so humid it made it hard to breathe.”
The humidity meter outside rang an alarm. [Current humidity is too high.]
Closing the heavy door of the penthouse, Park Secretary ran to the bed to wake the sleeping Baek San-a. “Ah, is it hot…?!”
Her hand pierced her body. The body lost balance and fell onto the bed. Rolling once, looking at where Baek San-a was, there was a lot of watery red jelly floating around. “Kyaa!”
“Jinjo-nim…!”
“All gone!!”
The maids, startled by the nervous voice, ran out of the room. Soon the red jelly took shape again. Lying down, Baek San-a smiled with a hehe. “You really can’t fool anyone with the chairman’s secretary. You noticed this~.”
