[What's life anyway, you just live as you live]
[What's life anyway, you just live as you live]
My party increased by one, but it didn't really cause any issues. I did for her what I had done for Sion during the kidnapping incident before. Of course, weaker than for Sion.
The Force Field I deploy can be cast on others, but the power consumption is different. For Sion, I use almost half my power, enough to keep her safe even if the Earth blew up, but... there's no need to waste that much on a stranger I just met.
Still, it was enough. Even if a bomb went off right in front of her, she'd be fine, so I don't really need to protect her.
"Do you have any information about the lower levels? Even something you overheard?"
"Hmm... I was drugged, so I didn't hear much. But I did hear people badmouthing someone. Saying things like they don't do any work but nag too much... I wouldn't have noticed if it was just once or twice, but I heard it quite a lot. That person's nickname was Chu-Dwaeji."
"Chu-Dwaeji?"
"I don't remember the name well, but I remember the surname is Chu."
Someone who gets cursed at a lot... Usually, in an organizational society like this, that person is definitely a higher-up. Even in the military, unless you're a complete moron, soldiers only badmouth the 'soldiers of interest' within their own platoon, but everyone curses at a shitty officer.
"Let's head down first. We need to find a computer. Get information from there... and after that, we can just beat up and kill all the remaining bastards."
"Ki, kill them?"
"Didn't you see the other people? If you had been here longer, you would've ended up just like them, so why are you talking about conscience now?"
I casually pointed to a few rooms with open windows on the doors. Even though I had saved Yejin, they were full of people just staring into space and drooling without any reaction.
I'm not merciful enough to save things that don't even have the will to live. If they at least screamed for help, that would be different.
"Bu, but wasn't Raccoon Man a hero who saves people, even if he is weird?"
"I'm not Batman, so I don't have a 'no-kill' policy. My philosophy is that bad guys need to die. Everyone here needs to be killed."
"Still..."
"I saw people who were experimented on here outside; they died calling their daughter's name or accidentally killed their own younger sister. Do you think we should spare the guys who made them like that?"
"........"
I have no intention of applying guilt by association. That kind of bullshit guilt by association was what they made a fuss about in the military too. But the very fact that they are working in a facility like this is proof of their guilt. There's no way they didn't know they were working here, especially with confinement cells so blatantly present.
We started moving again. Yejin is also a Force User in her own right, so she followed my movements well. Even if her only Trait seems to be Enhancement, she focuses on using just that, so her physical ability isn't bad.
"Here it is. The elevator to the lower levels."
"If we take this down, there's the place where I was experimented on. I got some weird injections there and..."
"Then let's head down first."
I kicked the elevator door, smashing it, and threw my body into the passage inside. This doesn't lead to the very bottom of the lower levels, but to the first floor of the lower levels. They really made it complicated, those assholes.
It's not like it's a dungeon in a game, twisting it like this just frustrates the people entering. Ah, did they make it like this for that reason?
As we entered the lower levels, a different atmosphere hung in the air compared to the upper and middle levels. If there was at least some warmth above, here... only a chilling feeling lingered.
The expression that things are 'chilly' when people die isn't just a metaphor for corpses. It's hard to explain, but the atmosphere peculiar to a bleak place is so cold it's biting.
"Th, this place is somehow a bit..."
"You said you'd been here when you were experimented on?"
"But I was half-drugged back then, you know? When leaving that room earlier, they always sprayed drugs, so they only dragged me out when I was groggy."
It would have been the standard procedure to neutralize a Force User and experiment on them.
The hallway of the lower level had bloodstains that weren't as old as I thought. That alone is enough to know what kind of horrific things this place was used for.
And there was a new team of Force Users blocking our path. Because of the complex structure, the guys coming down from above were still chasing us, but the guys who were originally in the facility seemed to have set up camp and waited here.
"Kill them!!!"
"Stop them from going any further back!!!"
There wasn't really anything else said. The armed Force Users rushed at us like they were going crazy, and I threw a punch.
And a chaotic battle ensued. The hallway wasn't narrow, but it was too tight for 30 people to be scrambling around. Someone grabbed my arm, and someone else tried to stop me by gnawing on my leg with their teeth.
But it was useless; I killed them one by one with care. What's the point of having good equipment and many people? It's useless in the face of overwhelming power anyway.
When I had killed about half of them, someone shouted from behind.
"Raccoon Man! Don't move! If you move, I can't guarantee this girl's life!!!"
"Ah, Mister...!"
The personnel who had pulled back were holding Yejin from behind and pressing a dagger to her throat. It was a sharp military dagger, so it looked like it would cut well.
However, I had already prepared for this.
"Go ahead, you idiot."
"Wha...?"
"Did you think I was dragging her around so you guys could easily take her hostage? I've already prepared for everything."
At those words, the man applied force to the military dagger pressed against Yejin's neck. But even with the strength of a strong Force User, the blade wouldn't go in at all, so he couldn't even cut a single layer of skin, let alone draw blood.
"How is this...!"
"That's just how life goes sometimes."
A hostage is something you can use to threaten life and safety to get what you want. But if you can't even harm the hostage by a fingernail's breadth, the hostage's value is as worthless as a dead hostage.
As I approached, the man who had taken Yejin hostage freaked out and tried to run away. But I had no intention of letting him go, so I flicked my finger, and his body floated off the ground and flew toward me.
"Ugh, ugh..."
"I'm scary, aren't I?"
I've received enough fearful gazes from people to know. Humans fear and revere a transcendental being when they see one, but if that being is only hostile and lacks even a shred of mercy, all that remains is fear.
They say you can know the depth of ten fathoms of water but not the depth of a person's heart, but since I've been through this once or twice, the psychology emerging in this situation is obvious.
"It's all your own doing. So who told you to cooperate with these guys who aren't even human?"
"We, we were just hired..."
"Excuses are just excuses."
The repertoire of guys like this is always the same. They don't accept their own sins and just blame others, or blame society.
A truly normal person wouldn't even think of committing a crime even if cornered. Even if they did, it would be a livelihood crime to survive, not something that makes others shed tears of blood.
"What was it. They say it's the way of the world that if you commit a crime, you get punished. I'm going to punish you now, so take it willingly."
The famous line from Oh Tae-sik, the protagonist of the movie 'Sunflower', popped into my head, so I spat it out. As I slightly clenched my fist, an invisible force choked the man's neck.
"Ack, ack! Ack!! Sa, save me..."
The man, who had been gagging a few times, soon suffocated to death. I tossed the man's corpse aside and started moving again.
"Mister, that was just like Darth Vader."
"Do kids these days even know Star Wars?"
Even though it's a famous genre, the latest installments flopped, making it practically a dead franchise, so it's fascinating that she knows it.
Well, I guess if it's the protagonist of the line "I am your father," which is a twist that isn't even a twist anymore and that everyone knows, she would know it. Honestly, it's less famous, but so is his specialty, the Force Grip.
The lower levels were full of full-scale research facilities. Looking into one room, there was a surgical table in the center, and around it were eerie circular saws whose purpose was unknown, and various surgical instruments.
Seeing bits of flesh and bloodstains left in one corner of the room, it seems they were used until recently.
And further inside, there was a place where countless people were bustling about. A significant number of researchers were gathered in that room.
Seeing as it's the largest space, I guess this must be some kind of central control room?
"Hurry and destroy the data! It must not be leaked outside!"
"Fuck, that Raccoon Man bastard. Why did he suddenly barge in and cause a ruckus!"
"How much is left for the data deletion on the main server!"
"It's almost done! 95 percent!"
"Ah, that won't do!"
"Raccoon Man!!!"
I moved too leisurely and paid the price. I didn't expect them to be doing this here.
It looks like access permission is already in the process of data deletion, so it seems I can just connect. I immediately pushed aside a few researchers, pulled the USB from my left ear, and shoved it into the nearest USB port.
But it won't go in. Ah, come on! Go in on the first try!
Maybe because of the USB's unique jinx, I flipped it once and plugged it back in, and it went in. A faint light turned on, as if to indicate it was connected.
"So this is what you guys were doing, destroying evidence here?"
"Fuck! Why is Raccoon Man here! Didn't all the teams remaining in the lab go out?!"
"Those guys are all dead."
The Force Users outside are almost wiped out now. At most, a few might be left.
I grabbed a nearby researcher by the collar and started threatening them.
"If you want to die peacefully, stop the data deletion. You're going to hell anyway, so isn't it better to cooperate and go to a less hot hell?"
"I, I can't! Data deletion is being conducted from the headquarters' main computer, so once it starts, it can't be stopped from here!"
That's the most annoying method. This is why I don't like dealing with precision equipment like computers.
Now that I had the USB connected, I contacted Sion.
"How is it on your end? Did you get any data?"
[A significant amount has been deleted, so the information I can obtain is limited... but still, it's better than nothing.]
"Conversely, what about hacking their main computer?"
[That main computer is a Spirit Particle computer. I can access the main server with the lab computer there, but the usage permissions have been revoked, and that computer is just a regular computer, so it's impossible.]
"Ugh, what a waste of effort."
Suddenly, I thought I might be able to get something more if it was the person in charge of this facility, so I grabbed the researcher by the collar again and shook them thoroughly.
"Hey, where is your person in charge? That guy with the surname Chu."
"Are, are you talking about Chu Dae-seong?"
"Are there two people with the surname Chu? If not, then that's him. Where is that guy?"
"In his private room on the lowest level..."
I spread my Sense to find the person on the floor below.
While most are running around busily to destroy data, there is one guy in the corner of a room.
As a rule, unlike the title 'person in charge', they don't have a shred of responsibility; they just play and eat from above, and when something happens, they pass the responsibility to others. It's short for 'person who passes the responsibility'.
In this mess, even though I'm the one who made it a mess, there must be a reason why he's just sitting still in this situation, right? Shall I go beat this guy up first?
I left the researchers and went down. Sion had already done all the hacking she needed to do, and there are plenty of ways to kill from a distance without using my own hands.
...Something feels a bit off.
"Ah, Mister... something feels ominous."
"Hey, you too?"
"You feel it too, Mister?"
The unease gets stronger as time passes. I had an ominous feeling from the moment I first entered here, and I feel something extraordinary from Yejin, who noticed something, even if her reaction was slower than mine.
My ability, 'Sense', maximizes not only the five senses but even the sixth sense, and while faint, it also allows for Precognition. However, I cannot see the distant future. It's too variable.
However, I can know the favorability of what will happen in the near future by feeling. But she noticed that, even though she's less capable than my ability?
"Do you have any other Trait besides the Enhancement Trait?"
"Yes? Oh, no... I haven't had time to think about such things since I was kidnapped."
"Anything that's become strange since you came here?"
"Uh, um..."
"Anything trivial is fine."
"Well, since a week ago, I always wake up from sleep before being dragged out for experiments. But I think that's just because of stress or sleeping lightly..."
I clenched my fist because I had something to test for a moment. And I swung my fist lightly at Yejin.
"Eek!!"
She was startled by the fist in front of her eyes and squeezed them shut. And she covered the back of her head and bowed her head.
The attack came from the front, but she defended her head, mainly the back.
"It's not like a Sense Trait. It's seeing much further ahead."
"Uh, uh? Weren't you trying to hit the back of my head just now?"
"I was trying to hit the back of your head. The fist was a fake."
If she just had good intuition, she would have reflexively raised her arms to block. Regardless of whether she received training or not, that's a natural instinct.
But Yejin defended the back of her head. In fact, I only pretended with the fist, and I tried to hit the back of her head with my ability.
But she saw right through it. To deceive my 'Sense' and react to that extent, the same Sense Trait wouldn't be enough.
"You, by any chance..."
"Wha, what is it?"
"Never mind. Let's talk about it later. Now is not the time."
First, I need to finish my business and escape, then we can discuss Yejin's whereabouts.