The Calculated Risk
Shrapnel tore through the air as I dodged with a slight tilt of my head, still running. At least ten people were chasing me. The cloth covering my face kept my identity hidden, but I needed to shake them off quickly. At the corner of the alley ahead, a man in black with an iron mask lunged at me.
“!!!”
I used his shoulder as a springboard, launched myself into the air, grabbed his collar, and slammed him into the ground.
“Kuhak...!”
“A’s been taken down.”
Without sparing a glance at his fallen comrade, the others charged straight at me. God, there was no end to them. Was Oppa safe?
“Wait a second.”
“Yes?”
The thought hit me mid-run. If these pursuers had already finished investigating the flower and everything related to it, did they know about my existence? From everything we’d learned through repeated experiments, these parasites only attached to humans—and exclusively to women.
“...The Ancient Human DNA isn’t exactly common, right?”
“...No.”
According to Chae-yun, I was special. And if I remembered what she’d told me before...
‘The brain cells of ancient humans are a little unique.’
‘What do you mean, unique?’
‘When they parasitize an ancient human male, the brain cells actually consume them as nourishment and grow.’
Those bastards had definitely detected us with that white dome thing. No—more precisely, they’d only detected Chae-yun. There was nothing inside my head for them to sense. Well, maybe the nutrients left behind by the parasite, but that was it.
This was the critical point we had to clarify. If I was wrong, it was a fifty-fifty gamble where both of us would lose our lives.
I yanked Chae-yun’s hand—the one she’d been using to drag me—and pulled her into a narrow alley. Then I took off my hoodie and started tearing it apart.
“Oppa, what are you doing...?”
“I hate saying this, but... do you trust me?”
I wrapped the torn fabric around her face like a scarf and explained the plan.
“...What if they do know?”
“They won’t.”
“We could die, you know?”
“That’s why I’m asking if you can trust me.”
We split up as Oppa planned, but the pursuit only grew fiercer. They were even firing what looked like guns, completely ignoring the risk of hitting civilians. Were those things even real guns? They weren’t aiming for my head—they kept targeting my neck and legs. If I got hit, I’d have to focus on regeneration, leaving this body completely defenseless. They already knew exactly how to subdue us effectively. And it wasn’t about killing—they wanted to capture us. What did they plan to do once they had us?
Too many questions. For now, I just had to run. I slipped out of the alley and into a crowded street, losing myself in the crowd. They followed, shoving people aside as they charged after me.
Then I brushed past Oppa in the throng. He hadn’t covered his face, and he wasn’t running. Instead, he was walking straight toward them.
‘I need to see what they’re capable of. Just run like hell.’
It was such a stupidly simple plan.
An iron-masked man rushed at me. Would he recognize that I was the same as Chae-yun? Dark figures reached for me with their hands. I closed my eyes slightly.
A hand grabbed my shoulder—then I shoved it away. When I opened my eyes and looked back, they were already sprinting past me toward Chae-yun without a second glance.
Phase one complete. The plan wasn’t over yet.
Chae-yun was literally running circles around the neighborhood—through alleys from the university district into the busy streets. She was drawing them away. Those iron masks they wore couldn’t be ordinary gear. Even in this dense crowd, they were tracking her perfectly. Some kind of thermal detection?
At least the masks hadn’t spotted me. But the first thing they’d used to find us was that white dome. Would it detect me too?
I turned and headed back toward the university. The campus was still shrouded in that white light, its buildings faintly visible through the glow. I scanned the people around me, but...
“So I really am the only one who can see it...”
Everyone else was chatting and laughing like nothing was wrong, walking straight through the light without a care.
“...Hoo...”
I took a short breath. If this thing could detect me, they’d come after me. Game over. I was stronger than before, but I didn’t have Chae-yun’s combat skills. I could run, but I wasn’t sure how far that would get me against their level of technology.
Simple and clear: if my theory was right, we gained something. If not, we were all dead.
After a deep breath, I extended both hands and plunged them into the light.
While Oppa headed for the university, I left the busy streets and slipped back into a quiet alley. The moment I entered, iron-masked men blocked my path. I was surrounded in an instant.
“...Isn’t this a bit much, even against a woman—”
Bang.
A thunderous shot rang out from behind. The bullet tore through the back of my neck, exited under my jaw, and left a hole big enough to fit a finger. Dark red blood gushed out in a torrent.
“Kuhk...”
“Target subdued.”
This was bad. If I didn’t regenerate now, I’d die. But healing a wound this severe would burn through too many calories. I was trapped—move and I couldn’t, stay still and I had no idea what they’d do to me.
I stared at their black-gloved hands as they approached, pistols raised.
“Uaaagh?!..Kuhk?!!”
“Halt. Anomaly detected.”
What? My vision was blurring. The men who had been closing in were now on guard, looking around warily. One of the men behind me collapsed, convulsing violently on the ground. Another still had his gun trained on me while the last checked on his fallen comrade.
“...Shock from poisoning...”
“...What kind of poison?”
“Unknown.”
“HQ, G’s been taken down. Was this your doing?”
“Cough...”
Poison? The man aiming at me seemed to be their leader. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t me, but only a weak cough escaped through the hole in my throat.
Then, without a sound, the man in front of me collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Anomaly detected, anomaly detected! J’s down too.”
I had no idea what was happening. One by one, the men in front of me dropped. Even their leader looked shaken for the first time.
“Erase...!!”
The man trying to call for backup had his head and body separated in an instant. He crumpled to the ground. Behind him, a silhouette slowly came into view.
Taller than the average woman, with short black hair, piercings in her ears, and abnormally long, sharp nails dripping blood.
“Se... Hee... unni...”
“It’s okay. It’s all over.”
The bodies of the pursuers lay scattered across the ground, almost comically. How had Unni gotten here? How...
Maybe it was from using too much energy to regenerate—my eyes started to close. I saw Se-hee unni approaching before everything went dark.
“Hello?”
‘What happened to Chae-yun?’
“She made it just in time. She’s sleeping now.”
‘Ah, thank god.’
“So what’s going on? Are those the ones you mentioned last time?”
‘Just come to my place. I’ll explain everything.’
I hung up and looked around the scene.
“Guess I should start with the bodies...”
“...Alpha Team has been wiped out.”
“What about the body cam footage?”
“Nothing recorded.”
I lowered my head and observed a moment of silence for the team members who had done their duty and left.
“...I’ll inform the families of the victims. Please prepare the report.”
“...Yes.”
Stepping outside the trailer, I pulled an electronic cigarette from my pocket and lit it.
“...Hoo.”
Countless people had been sacrificed for this operation. From the first discovery of the parasites until now. Their deaths contributed to the advancement of humanity.
This university, huh. As I looked at the campus with the radar still active, Min-jeong followed me out of the trailer.
“Senior, should we start recovering Alpha Team’s bodies? If we extract the poison from their corpses, we might be able to develop an antidote...”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
“Pardon?”
An entity that uses a deadly poison. The one we were chasing wasn’t capable of that. There was another one. If it could use poison, it would have done so already.
“The situation seems more serious than we thought.”
If there was an entity that could produce poison, an antidote would be useless. It could just make a new one.
How fascinating. A massive ecosystem born from a single small flower. Different creatures emerging from each tiny petal.
“As expected, you’re the best.”