Chapter 25
Lee Chanhoo, who had been in the middle of chewing on pig’s trotters, suddenly froze. Just moments earlier, his commander, Kang Jaeha, had said something startling.
“...Huh? Commander, what did you just say?”
Lee Chanhoo, whose eyes were naturally half-lidded, narrowed them even further. He set down his chopsticks and rose smoothly, while Kang Jaeha was still pointing at the TV with one index finger.
“The culprit in this case. He looks like your next target.”
Chanhoo, now standing right beside him, studied Jaeha’s face. He was half convinced and half doubtful. Was this a joke? But one look at Jaeha’s expression changed his mind. There was seriousness in the commander’s eyes, and steel.
“You mean the culprit is one of the mercenary group guys?”
“Yeah.”
Chanhoo’s expression sharpened as he turned back to the TV. The anchor was speaking in grave tones. A woman in her fifties had been attacked by a stranger. There were multiple stab wounds, as though she had been pierced by a knife several times. The victim had miraculously regained consciousness, but the attacker had clearly intended to kill her.
And not just that.
“It’s happening in a chain.”
The victim wasn’t the only one. This was already the second case. One woman, one man. The female victim had survived, but the older male victim had eventually died. A series of incidents with a death already confirmed.
The anchor on the TV added more detail.
“The CCTV around the scene is incomplete, and the evidence left behind is insufficient, so the police are having difficulty investigating.”
The culprit hadn’t left behind a weapon or any trace, and the key footage from CCTV and dashcams had somehow been switched off or corrupted. It was strange. Lee Chanhoo, who had been listening quietly to the anchor’s voice, finally spoke.
“Commander, if the CCTV and dashcams aren’t intact...”
Kang Jaeha finished the thought for him.
“It’s probably some kind of ability. Like your Search.”
It was a guess that the culprit’s power might be something like Jaeha’s Déjà vu or Chanhoo’s Search. Lee Chanhoo muttered inwardly a thought he had been carrying for some time now.
Battlefields. Blood and slaughter. Maybe he couldn’t stand the hunger for it.
It was one or the other. Either he enjoyed killing, or he’d been unable to endure it and finally exploded.
In another world, that might not have been a major problem. But here, slaughter was strictly forbidden. What kept that in check was reason. If instinct got crushed under, then both Kang Jaeha and Lee Chanhoo could very well become killing machines. Of course, neither of them would ever let it get that far.
Lee Chanhoo asked,
“But Commander, are you sure?”
“...”
Kang Jaeha, left without an answer, recalled the Déjà vu he had seen earlier. It had been a different sort of Déjà vu than usual. It had triggered abruptly, with no one else present.
“A space like a department store. Mannequins in neat suits stood on display. Shirts and ties, crisply pressed, were laid out on the shelves. It was a place that sold suits. A few customers were visible, and three employees were working the floor. One of the staff members was a handsome man with a rather tall build and a sharp face, wearing a service smile.
“You have a good eye, ma’am. That item is this year’s new release.”
“Oh? Really? No wonder it caught my eye right away.”
“Is it a gift for your husband?”
“Yes, yes. Uh, it looks about the right fit, doesn’t it? Can I try it against him?”
A woman with a soft voice. The kind of woman you’d instantly think of as a rich matron. She held a suit jacket up against the male employee, then pulled it away. A name tag was pinned to the man’s chest.
- Kim Hoyeon
The employee’s name was Kim Hoyeon. Still smiling, he stepped behind the woman. Then, without drawing attention to himself, he inhaled. More precisely, he was smelling the woman’s scent. Kim Hoyeon’s body trembled faintly.
Something swelled and churned here. The place changed.
How much time had passed, he couldn’t tell.
Silence, darkness. An abandoned factory. Kim Hoyeon in a black field jacket and gloves. In one hand, a sharp knife. In the other, the woman’s hair, which he had seized as she struggled. The same matron who had been giving off that scent. Kim Hoyeon pressed the knife to her neck as she thrashed and begged to live.
“The more you scream, the more I like it. That’s what I do it for.”
Kim Hoyeon smiled with a thin, ugly edge.
“How am I supposed to hold back? These days everybody’s making noise about serial killings and all that, right? That’s me. There was one woman I let live, but I did that on purpose too. It’s fun letting them go and then finding them again. But not you.”
Kim Hoyeon tapped the half-faint woman’s cheek with the knife, and his hand moved.
- Thunk.
Blood burst from the woman’s throat soon after.
Kang Jaeha’s Déjà vu ended there. It was quite different from his usual premonitions. The content had been long, and it had manifested without a clearly defined target. That had never happened even when Jaeha was in the other world.
In other words.
Something that began after coming to this world.
In any case, the Déjà vu wasn’t the important thing at the moment. Kim Hoyeon from the vision. He was definitely one of the mercenary group’s subordinates. And more than that, he was the culprit behind the recent string of incidents.
“Lee Chanhoo.”
Kang Jaeha gave him a short, blunt explanation about Kim Hoyeon. After hearing it, Chanhoo’s eyes widened slightly.
“Ah... that bastard.”
“He was on the assassination squad with you. Were you close?”
“Not really. I kept my distance because he acted like an idiot.”
“His skills were good.”
“Eh, he’s nowhere near me.”
“Name’s Kim Hoyeon. Find him with Search. Where is he right now?”
Since he had Kim Hoyeon’s face, name, and other basic information, it would be easy enough. Lee Chanhoo closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he opened them again.
His brow was furrowed.
“He’s in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province—an abandoned factory. Shit, this bastard’s with some woman right now.”
Without even a second’s hesitation, Kang Jaeha moved.
“You drive.”
About thirty minutes later. An abandoned factory in Yongin.
It was past 11 p.m. The place sat behind a mountain, a dead factory swallowed by the night. Darkness covered everything. The vacant houses nearby made the atmosphere even more desolate. It was the kind of place no one would ever approach. In fact, there was no sign of people anywhere.
And yet sound drifted into that abandoned factory.
A man in a black field jacket. Sharp features. Kim Hoyeon. A knife was in his hand. A sashimi knife, its tip needle-sharp. The corner of Kim Hoyeon’s mouth twitched. He was smiling. Looking down at someone.
A woman with blue tape wrapped around her arms and legs begged him. It was the same matron from Jaeha’s Déjà vu.
“P-please... please spare me. Please.”
Kim Hoyeon crouched down. The tip of the sashimi knife touched the ground. He grinned, looking every bit like a troublemaking brat, without a trace of malice in the smile itself.
“If you came this far, why not just accept it?”
Tears streamed from the matron’s eyes as she trembled.
“Please—please spare me. Please...”
“You’re stupid. At this point, you should’ve figured out you weren’t getting out alive. Just enjoy it yourself too.”
“S-sob...”
“I should’ve known better, huh? You smell so good. Honestly, I was thinking of laying low for a bit, but your scent was so good I couldn’t stand it. I’ll take care of just you, then rest for a while.”
“...Hic. Why are you doing this to me?”
“I told you already. I liked your smell.”
The knife lifted from the floor. The blade touched the woman’s nose. Her body shook nonstop, and Kim Hoyeon’s smile only deepened.
“Want to hear something interesting? The truth is, I’m from this world and not from it at the same time. I was in another world for over ten years, and I sent hundreds of people to hell there. Maybe more. Anyway, does that make sense so far?”
“...”
“And then all of a sudden. I got sent here. Right when I was having the time of my life. Ripping, carving, cutting, tearing out, stabbing, twisting. You think I can just hold that back?”
The blade at her nose slid down to her chin, then her throat, then her chest.
“The sound of intestines spilling across the floor. A severed head on the ground, and the eyes staring up at the blade attached to it. The smell of rot. The screams. That’s what I’ve always liked. I’ve dissected dogs and cats before, even.”
By then, the knife Kim Hoyeon held was pressed against the woman’s abdomen.
“When I came back here, I was crushed. But look at that? Turns out I had an ability too. Nobody can find me.”
His eyes were full of confidence. His expression mixed madness and distortion. Kim Hoyeon was already far beyond ordinary humanity. He was a monster. One who enjoyed slaughter.
“Now then. Let’s go.”
Kim Hoyeon stood. He grabbed the struggling woman’s hair in one hand. The woman clawed and thrashed desperately for her life. The more she struggled, the deeper the smile on Kim Hoyeon’s lips became, and he pressed the sashimi knife in his hand against her neck.
“The more you scream, the more I like it. That’s what I do it for.”
It was the same line Kang Jaeha had seen in his Déjà vu. That meant the knife would soon be piercing the woman’s throat.
And sure enough, Kim Hoyeon lifted the woman by the hair and forced her to meet his eyes.
“How am I supposed to hold back? These days everybody’s making noise about serial killings and all that, right? That’s me.”
His gaze brimming with madness, Kim Hoyeon tapped the woman’s cheek with the sashimi knife. She was still thrashing like a madwoman, but Kim Hoyeon only tightened his grip on the knife without a second thought.
It was just as the blade, pulled slightly back, was about to reach her throat.
- Creak.
The door to the abandoned factory opened behind them. At once, the hand holding the sashimi knife went still. By then, the woman had fainted from the sheer shock, and Kim Hoyeon, his eyes widened a little, slowly turned his head back.
A variable. This was the first time.
Then the smile vanished from Kim Hoyeon’s face. Tension took its place. The factory door had been opened without warning. But it was impossible to tell who had opened it. No one was visible. Only pitch-black darkness. Kim Hoyeon took a stance, ready to use his ability if necessary.
That was when it happened.
“Kim Hoyeon.”
A low male voice carried from the distance. He knows my name? Kim Hoyeon, with the sashimi knife still pressed to the woman’s throat, narrowed his brow.
“Huh? Who is it?”
Then.
- Swish.
Someone brushed past the factory door, which had only been opened enough for one person to pass through. Footsteps, soft and steady. Kim Hoyeon narrowed his eyes. In the darkness that his vision had adjusted to, he saw them. Not one person, but two. Both appeared to be men by build.
The man in front was wearing a coat, and without stopping once, he strode straight toward Kim Hoyeon.
And then.
“Kim Hoyeon.”
The man who stopped three steps away called his name again. Kim Hoyeon, holding the fainted woman in his arms, went serious for a moment, then burst out laughing. He had recognized who the man was.
“Commander?”
The man was Kang Jaeha.
“You really are the commander, right? No, wait, whoa—seriously? Why is the commander in front of me??”
He looked like a child. That was Kim Hoyeon now. He was genuinely delighted and astonished. But he still didn’t take the sashimi knife away from the woman’s throat.
“Commander! It’s really you, Commander! What is this! Did you come over too? When? And the one behind you, you too??”
He even recognized Lee Chanhoo, and Kim Hoyeon bounced with excitement.
“What is this? Both of you came over? You were people from this world too? Ah, that’s dirty! Just the two of you got to have all the fun!”
“...”
Jaeha, expressionless, said nothing and just watched Kim Hoyeon. So did the unconscious woman.
“Did you kill her?”
“Nope. Not yet. I was just about to.”
“Were you going to kill her?”
“You ask like you don’t already know. Why else would I bring her here if I wasn’t going to slit her throat?”
At least this wasn’t the worst outcome. The woman was still alive. Looking Kim Hoyeon in the eye again, Kang Jaeha asked something else in a flat voice.
“You have an ability, don’t you?”
“I do, apparently. Commander, you have one too?”
“What is it?”
“Ah, even if you’re the commander, I can’t just lay my cards on the table. This isn’t the mercenary group.”
“...”
“Whoa, scary. Relax your face a little. Want a hint? If I set my mind to it, nobody can find me. Even if they catch me, that doesn’t mean I’m really caught.”
Kim Hoyeon laughed under his breath. Annoying.
That was when it happened.
The comrade, now a subordinate, has awakened thanks to Kang Jaeha’s achievement in the other world.
A female voice began to sound to both of them. To Kang Jaeha, it was familiar. To Kim Hoyeon, it was the first time he’d ever heard it. At that moment, Jaeha gauged the look in Kim Hoyeon’s eyes. Eyes he knew very well.
He’s lost it.
Full of vitality, yes, but vitality devoted to slaughter. He was already a long way from being ordinary. He had crossed the line long ago. Kim Hoyeon’s hands had already taken victims, and even a death had followed. That matron would be the third.
His ability is probably some kind of stealth-type.
It was a reasonable guess, but not something he could pin down with certainty. It might be another kind of ability altogether. Gambling on something uncertain was a bad move in a situation like this.
And turning him over to the police is awkward.
Even if he were restrained and handed over, there was a good chance he would use his ability and slip away. He might keep quiet for a while, but then Kim Hoyeon would go back to slaughtering people. Just like now. Avoiding Kang Jaeha as much as possible. The number of dead and injured would keep climbing. By then, it would be the kind of mess where you need a shovel to stop a leak that should’ve been patched with a hoe. Maybe not even that would work.
Jaeha looked at the unconscious woman.
“...”
Kang Jaeha had to make a decision. He glanced toward the rear. Lee Chanhoo gave a small nod. His eyes were saying it for him.
That Kim Hoyeon bastard’s already a monster.
Regardless, the female voice kept speaking.
The comrade who encountered the commander is now subject to Absolute Obedience toward Kang Jaeha.
Kim Hoyeon tilted his head and asked Kang Jaeha,
“Absolute Obedience? Commander, what is that? What’s Absolute Obedience?”
Jaeha had no intention of answering. Instead, he said something else. No, it was an order. To stop Kim Hoyeon through Absolute Obedience.
“Kim Hoyeon, hand over the woman.”
Kim Hoyeon grinned and pressed the sashimi knife even harder against the woman’s throat. Refusal.
“Nope. She’s mine. If the commander wants to enjoy himself, go find a separate prey—”
Kim Hoyeon stopped short. Because his heart hurt. What the hell? His hand was shaking too. The smile vanished from Kim Hoyeon’s face, and he tilted his head.
“Commander, something’s wrong. Something’s really wrong here.”
“What is.”
Kang Jaeha answered as he stepped closer.
“No, my heart—”
“What about your heart.”
Another step. And then the female voice came again.
If the subordinate commits betrayal or rebellion against the commander, it will be regarded as violating Absolute Obedience and will result in death. Please take care.
That is all for the guidance. Then, fighting.
As the female voice finished with “fighting,”
“Huh? Ghk—kek!”
Kim Hoyeon suddenly collapsed onto the floor.
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