Jeokryeohui (3)
“Urgh, aaaagh…!”
A cry of pure agony rang through the air.
The team leader clutched at the empty space below his right elbow where his arm had been and stared at Choi Yeon. His face had gone deathly pale, as if he had just witnessed something that defied all reason. Or perhaps it was simply the blood still pouring from the stump.
“This is… sword aura? Shit, how the hell does a C-class hunter use sword aura…?”
“Hmm. Is that really what matters right now?”
“What…?”
“I think this is the more important part.”
Choi Yeon calmly layered his left hand over the right that still held the dagger. The posture looked almost polite, yet to the team leader it was anything but. This was the man who had just severed a drug-enhanced, steel-clad arm in a single stroke. Death itself rested in Choi Yeon’s grip.
“…I surrender.”
The team leader’s decision came fast. He had no desire to die a dog’s death in the middle of some midnight farce. He dropped to his knees and gathered mana into the stump; the gushing blood slowed noticeably. A hemostasis skill, then. No need for emergency treatment on their end.
“Smart choice.”
Choi Yeon recovered his dagger with a soft tock, the words hanging somewhere between praise and mockery.
The moment he did, Nubyeok moved. Kim In-beom stepped forward and gave the order; the members rushed in and bound the team leader without resistance. He accepted the restraints quietly. Spotty was left to Mr. Woo.
“…Senior, you could use sword aura?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why haven’t you ranked up? If you can use sword aura, you can promote, right?”
“What? To B-class? That’s obviously impossible.”
“Impossible?”
Kim In-beom tilted his head. Even a quick internet search would turn up plenty of hunters who had risen to B-class the moment they learned sword aura. In his mind there was nothing impossible about it.
“Just being able to use sword aura doesn’t change anything else. That just makes me a C-class hunter who happens to know sword aura.”
“……?”
Is… that how it works…?
Kim In-beom’s head tilted the other way. It almost made sense and yet somehow didn’t.
“And more importantly…”
At the next words he stopped thinking and simply looked at Choi Yeon.
“If I become B-class I can’t stay at the Dongdae. I’d get shipped off to a district office or city hall, and the workload would explode. Massively.”
“…….”
“I absolutely, positively refuse to get any busier than I already am.”
“Ah… ha. I see…”
Watching Choi Yeon scrunch his nose in that sly, self-satisfied way left Kim In-beom stammering. Choi Yeon, by contrast, spoke with perfect clarity.
“So, In-beom. Tonight stays secret.”
“Secret?”
“Yeah. If the Dongdae director finds out after tonight that I can use sword aura, I’m going to assume it was you.”
Choi Yeon offered a thin smile. There was nothing natural about it; the expression was mechanical, almost artificial.
Kim In-beom’s body gave a small shudder. He had a pretty good idea what Choi Yeon looked like when he was suspicious of someone: both eyes open.
“…You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Good. I trust you.”
Choi Yeon nodded at once. He said he trusted him, yet somehow it still sounded like a lie. Maybe it was the permanently half-lidded eyes.
Doubt flickered through Kim In-beom’s mind, but he could hardly demand, “You don’t actually trust me, do you?” on the basis of someone’s eyelids. He settled for a strained smile of his own.
Then—
“…….”
“…….”
Both of them whipped their heads around.
Lee Geon-woo stood in front of Spotty, whose head was half-buried in the floor. The boy had managed to lift a heavy blade with both hands. His eyes were red, just like the Jeokryeohui members earlier.
“Geon-woo—”
“That bastard killed my friends.”
Mr. Woo, busy securing Spotty, had clearly missed the boy’s movement. He called out in a flustered voice, but it was drowned by Lee Geon-woo’s low, quiet words.
“So I’m going to kill him too.”
“…….”
The murderous intent in that young voice froze every tongue. Even Choi Yeon, who as a Dongdae Hunter should have been the first to intervene, found himself speechless. The voice dripping with killing intent belonged to a child.
Only one person still opened his mouth without shame—the man the boy was glaring at.
“Yes! Excellent thinking, Number 99!”
No—he practically exploded with it.
“If it’s you! If you do it… I’ll gladly die for you! That was our promise, wasn’t it? Hmm?”
The team leader cackled. The more Lee Geon-woo’s rage swelled, the tighter his grip on the blade became. He looked ready to leap at any second.
One step.
If Choi Yeon had not stepped forward and cut off their line of sight, if Kim In-beom had not stretched out a hand and clamped it over the open mouth, the boy’s feet would already have left the ground.
“…….”
Strange. The guy who surrendered to stay alive is now begging to be killed. Because he thinks the kid can’t actually do it?
…No.
Choi Yeon shoved the rising question aside. There was something far more important to deal with right now.
Stopping him by force would work, but the best outcome was for the boy to lower the blade himself.
Not for today. For tomorrow.
“…Geon-woo. Put the knife down.”
“Put it down…?”
“Yeah. Put it down.”
“Why?”
The boy’s reply was short. The meaning behind it was endless.
Why shouldn’t I kill the monster who kidnapped kids and experimented on them?
Choi Yeon did not give the proper, righteous answer. He himself would not have been convinced by empty moralizing; how could he expect a child who had lived through hell to accept it? Even “once you cross that line you can never come back” would probably only earn a shrug and “I don’t care.”
“…We need information.”
After a careful search for the right words, Choi Yeon chose the practical ones.
Lee Geon-woo’s head tilted.
“Information?”
“The Jeokryeohui hideout. Members. The purpose of the experiments. Things like that.”
“Just… that crap?”
“…….”
…That stings a little.
In truth the information Choi Yeon really wanted was something else entirely. He had simply wrapped it in “that crap” because admitting the real reason out loud would do no one any good.
While he was still tasting that bitter feeling—
“……?”
Lee Geon-woo sensed something off. The boy had always been sharp at reading a room; it was how he had survived this long.
It had been right after the talk of information. The Nubyeok members had exchanged glances and sighed.
The squinty-eyed mister wanted different information. What was it? The reason we can’t kill this bastard…
It was heartbreaking. A child thrown into horror from such a young age could only leap to the darkest conclusion.
“…No, right?”
Lee Geon-woo’s voice trembled. The moment he asked the question he already knew the answer that had formed in his own head.
There might be other laboratories besides this one.
His grip on the blade tightened until his knuckles went white. Knowing that only made him want to kill the man even more.
“Geon-woo.”
A gentle voice called the boy’s name.
“If there are other kids, this mister will save every last one of them.”
“…….”
“So for now…”
Choi Yeon’s right hand pointed toward the closed door. There was no need to repeat himself to a boy who had already understood.
“Let’s save the friends who are right here first.”
“……!”
A little of the red light faded from the boy’s eyes. The faces that rose at the word “friends” pushed the killing intent aside.
“…Okay.”
The heavy word dropped like a stone.
A grown hand carefully slipped into the small one that had just released its weapon. Mr. Woo’s. The other Nubyeok members hurried after Lee Geon-woo as well, ready to reassure the children who would soon come out through that door.
“…He’s a wise kid.”
Kim In-beom removed his hand from the team leader’s mouth and spoke. Watching Lee Geon-woo, Choi Yeon agreed. The boy had already reached the door and flung it wide open with both hands.
“Too bad. I was hoping to keep the possibility of other labs quiet.”
“Ah, sorry about that. Our guys just couldn’t hide their faces…”
“No. When you get down to it, the real culprit is the bastard who made a child grow up like this.”
As he spoke, Choi Yeon shot a sidelong glance at the team leader. The man was watching Lee Geon-woo with an oddly excited expression.
Don’t tell me he set a trap?
No. If he had, Kim In-beom and his detection skill would already have given a warning.
Clang!
The iron door slammed fully open against the wall. Two or three children slipped out cautiously each time. Faces that had been blank with confusion brightened the moment they saw the bound team leader.
Lee Geon-woo’s face, however, did the opposite. The more children emerged, the harder his expression became.
“Heh-heh…”
The team leader let out a laugh he could no longer hold back. Only then did Choi Yeon understand.
His friend was not among them.
Lee Geon-woo charged as if ready to seize the man by the collar. Thankfully Mr. Woo held him back and kept the distance.
Even with one arm gone and his body bound, the Jeokryeohui team leader could still harm a single child if he wanted to. Or perhaps he simply intended to die—and that was a problem in its own right.
Still thrashing in Mr. Woo’s arms, Lee Geon-woo shouted:
“Where is she?! Where’s Na-yul?!”
“Heh… so you even know each other’s names?”
“I said where is Na-yul?!”
“Keh-heh…”
The team leader only snickered and refused to answer. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
Kim In-beom, thoroughly disgusted by the man’s face, grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the floor.
“Answer the question instead of laughing, you piece of shit.”
“Heh…!”
Still chuckling, the team leader pushed his upper body up again. Blood streamed from the split skin on his forehead. His tongue slid out and licked the blood instead of forming words.
“…Haha. A useless tongue can always be cut out.”
“You sure about that? There’s something you need from me, isn’t there?”
“That’s—”
“It’s fine. If you won’t give up the information, there’s no reason to keep you alive.”
When Kim In-beom hesitated for even a second, Choi Yeon cut in smoothly.
Your only reason for existing right now is that information.
The unspoken words seemed to reach the team leader’s ears. Even without a dagger in hand, death still rested in Choi Yeon’s palm—and it would be a dog’s death.
“…Number 100 isn’t here.”
“I already know Na-yul isn’t here! Where is she?!”
“Who knows?”
The team leader shrugged. This time it was not the deliberate stonewalling of earlier; he genuinely seemed not to know.
So Choi Yeon stopped Kim In-beom from yanking the man’s tongue out and asked a different question.
“Why was she moved?”
Choi Yeon glanced at the children now gathered in a loose circle, listening. Fourteen including Lee Geon-woo. The same children from the memories the grandfather tree had shown him.
All of them except the one called Na-yul.
“You didn’t move her because you assumed you might lose, right?”
“Of course not. I never planned on losing.”
“Life rarely goes according to plan, does it?”
“Keh… you’re telling me…”
“So you moved her for some other reason.”
“…….”
The team leader’s mouth snapped shut. Everyone present understood the silence for the confirmation it was.
Why would a child from a secret, illegal laboratory be transferred…?
Usually because they had died. But if that were the case, the team leader’s reaction would have been different. If Lee Geon-woo’s friend were dead, the man would have cheerfully announced the fact and watched the boy break.
Which left only one possibility.
“The experiment succeeded.”
“…Bingo.”
The closed mouth opened again almost at once. He had already been found out; there was no point lying.
“Number 99, the reason you managed to escape today was all thanks to Number 100’s awakening.”
“…….”
“And—”
“Don’t worry.”
Choi Yeon cut him off before he could continue. The man had clearly been about to spit out something useless like “and that’s how you got caught by us.”
“She’s a successful experiment. Even Jeokryeohui won’t treat her carelessly.”
“…….”
“Which means this mister can still save her.”
“Really? Do you really think so…?”
“Of course. If you don’t believe me, want to make a pinky promise?”
A little finger rose in front of the boy’s eyes.
Lee Geon-woo stared at it, then let out a weak laugh.
“Forget it. I’m not a little kid…”
“…….”
Heh. I wonder when he’ll realize that ‘I’m not a little kid’ is exactly what little kids say.
Choi Yeon smiled softly.