Chapter 110
Chapter 110
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 110
Chapter Title: The Siege Begins
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A 9mm round.
The caliber of the handgun rounds Kanghyeok used.
The walls, typical of an American-style building, were made of wood, not filled with concrete like those in Korea.
So,
Bang!
“Aaaaargh!”
when he fired at the wall like this, the bullet tore right through.
“Ugh! Aaargh!”
As one man's scream echoed through the sparsely furnished kitchen, Kanghyeok raised his rifle and fired a burst at the wall.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
“Aaaargh! Aaaargh!”
“Guaaargh!”
Rat-tat-tat!
As the men returned fire, Kanghyeok threw himself over the wall.
Thud!
Landing on his shoulder, Kanghyeok raised his pistol and fired at the heads of those still breathing.
Bang! Bang!
He ended two of them first.
Shhhk!
A man close to Kanghyeok tried to back away,
Thwack! Whoosh!
but Kanghyeok hooked the man's ankle, tangled their legs, and rolled over once.
Bam!
The man's head, landing shoulder-first, was close to Kanghyeok.
Bang!
After shooting him square in the forehead, he extended his pistol arm and pulled the trigger repeatedly.
Bang! Bang!
No bullets left.
Click.
He pressed the magazine release, dropped the empty clip, and immediately reached into his coat with his other hand. Just then, he made direct eye contact with a man by the refrigerator. Kanghyeok hurled the pistol at him with all his might.
Crack!
The man, struck squarely on the philtrum, ducked his head and let out a dying groan.
Kanghyeok grabbed the rifle he had slung at his side and pulled the trigger.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
The bullets scraped the floor, then tore through the man's ankle, thigh, and body armor before shredding his head.
Click!
He was out of ammo, but three men were still standing.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
The moment Kanghyeok rolled, a hail of bullets rained down.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
With bullets nipping at his heels, Kanghyeok reached the refrigerator and flung the door open.
Tat-tat-tat-tang!
A normal refrigerator would have been riddled with holes, offering no protection.
But as always, what mattered was where a product was made and for what purpose.
“Fuck!”
Seeing the refrigerator door only dented instead of pierced by the automatic fire, the men fanned out, trying to get Kanghyeok.
They moved without hesitation.
After all, he wouldn't be hiding behind a refrigerator if he had any bullets.
Rattle.
Kanghyeok pulled out the refrigerator's vegetable crisper.
The translucent plastic drawer wasn't protecting vegetables, but a submachine gun.
Clack, click!
Kanghyeok pulled the bolt to check if a round was properly chambered, then took a deep breath.
*I'll end this in one go.*
And as if sharing Kanghyeok's thought, one man suddenly revealed himself. Kanghyeok pulled the trigger just a fraction of a second faster.
Bang!
The first shot to the chest,
Tat-tat-tat-tang!
and the kill shot to the head. The remaining men stared at Kanghyeok, their faces filled with shock.
The men hiding behind the dining table and a cabinet held their breath, watching Kanghyeok's position.
Their locations were already exposed.
They knew where each other were.
Even with so many of their comrades dead, there were still two of them.
Yet they couldn't bring themselves to move, completely overwhelmed by the presence of the lone Kanghyeok.
They felt trapped, desperately wishing for some unexpected event to break the stalemate.
It was then.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets flew in from the side, striking the man who was hiding behind the cabinet, his attention focused solely on Kanghyeok.
Killed instantly by the burst of gunfire without a chance to resist, the man fell to the floor. The other man by the table frantically turned his head in that direction.
He saw Leila, her form disciplined, aiming her gun right at him.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
The man fired back in a desperate frenzy, forcing Leila to take cover, but the suffocating premonition of death didn't fade.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tang!
Because a spray of bullets from the submachine gun Kanghyeok fired with one outstretched arm was bearing down on him.
Crash!
The smell of gunpowder and the splintering fragments of the dining table filled the air.
The man curled into a ball at the deafening gunshots. Leila emerged, her weapon properly shouldered, aiming for his head through her sights.
Rat-tat-tat-tat! Thwack!
Without a scream or a final word, the man's life was extinguished. He collapsed, spilling crimson blood onto the floor.
Silence fell.
But neither Kanghyeok nor Leila took their fingers off the triggers. Keeping their sights aligned with their barrels, they scanned the fallen men as they circled the living room.
Bang!
If they saw anyone whose head wasn't pierced, they delivered a final shot, but no one twitched.
“Situation clear.”
Leila said, taking her eye from the sights. Kanghyeok also removed his finger from the trigger.
“Checked the CCTV?”
“Already done. These were the last of them.”
Leila, who had been monitoring everything via CCTV from the moment they broke in, spoke with confidence.
Then, looking at the body armor and rifles on the corpses, she twisted her lips slightly.
“Good thing we prepared.”
It was over in an instant and they'd dealt with them easily, but that was only possible because they had prepared so thoroughly.
If not, they would have struggled far more than they did.
“I've already contacted the company. The police won't be coming.”
Kanghyeok nodded, took two cold water bottles from the fridge, and handed one to Leila.
Then he took a drink of water and lit a cigarette.
Staring at the bodies strewn across the safe house floor.
*Is this it?*
Unlike the relaxed Leila, Kanghyeok looked cautious.
There were fewer of them than expected.
He admitted their infiltration route, methods, and equipment weren't reckless, but their opponent was Iron Mask.
It was hard to believe that the man who had sent operatives armed with combat helicopters and full-body armor in the Middle East would send such a small force.
They even found out where he lived. So why?
Why not use a more definitive method?
Because it's a city center, even if the security is poor?
Was he the type to care about drawing attention?
“Kanghyeok?”
Noticing his stiff expression, Leila frowned and called out to him. Kanghyeok shook his head and brought the water bottle to his lips.
He downed half the cold water in one go, then took a drag from his cigarette as if to cleanse his palate.
It was at that exact moment.
Beyond the window, a flash of light erupted in the far distance,
BOOM!
and a beat later, the roar followed.
***
Psh, pshhh! Weee, weee, weee!
Debris rained down on the road.
Half-demolished vehicles wailed their alarms.
The acrid smell of explosives and shattered asphalt stung the nostrils.
A road connecting Kanghyeok's city to another.
Having blown up one of them, Iron Mask's men stood with their radios, looking west.
“Demolition complete.”
Just after the transmission, a flash of light and a massive roar erupted from the direction they were watching.
KRRR-RUMBLE!
A car, launched high into the air, fell limply back to earth. Black smoke billowed as if to touch the sky.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosions continued in a chain reaction, like falling dominoes.
Casualties mounted during the process, but that was never a concern.
Their objective was to isolate the city.
To prevent anyone or any vehicle from entering from the outside, and to keep anyone inside from escaping.
Having destroyed all roads connecting to the outside world, they looked at the city and raised their radios.
Kssht!
“Leave the watch teams and have everyone else converge on the city. Watch teams, don't let a single ant in or out.”
Kssht!
*(Should we launch the drones?)*
Kssht!
“Not yet. Drones only on my command. More importantly, what's the status of the defeated soldiers?”
Kssht!
*(All units ready.)*
The man stared at the city, radio in hand.
Perhaps because of the explosions, lights began to flicker on in buildings across the darkening city.
There were likely as many people left in the city as there were lights.
Many held a grudge against this city.
The gangs driven out of the city by Kanghyeok, and Nobody's men.
To them, who had been waiting for their time of revenge, Iron Mask's men had given guns and something more.
To the gangs, the hope of reclaiming their lost city.
To Nobody's men, the chance to complete their failed mission.
The man spoke into the radio, his voice devoid of emotion.
Kssht!
“Begin.”
He lowered the radio and cupped a hand to his ear.
He couldn't hear anything.
But he felt as if he could hear the screams, the chaos, and the gunshots.
*You messed with the wrong person, you stupid Asian bastard.*
He didn't know what this city meant to Kanghyeok.
But Kanghyeok had tried to protect it, and that alone was reason enough for it to be destroyed.
***
“Did you guys hear something just now?”
“Shut up with that nonsense, Juan.”
Youths who hadn't yet shed their boyishness.
The three of them, soon to be adults, were crouched in an apartment hallway. One of them, a kid with sharp eyes, held out something made of brown leaves rolled in thin paper.
“We've all done it. You do it too.”
“It's totally different from booze. You gotta try this stuff to become a man.”
“Bullshit, you idiot. You're younger than me.”
Juan smirked and took the paper.
But he couldn't bring himself to put it to his lips.
Drugs.
And the low-quality kind, so cheap that even the kids in this city could get their hands on it.
He'd heard that even one hit of this stuff could permanently mess up your brain.
“Look at this guy, acts all tough but he's chickening out.”
“Puhahaha, what a loser.”
Juan licked his lips and brought the paper to his mouth.
But he couldn't bring himself to smoke it. He gagged and threw it back at the kid who'd given it to him.
“It smells like dog shit. It's disgusting, I can't.”
“He's scared, he's scared!”
“No, you idiots. It really smells weird. Fuck, did you get shit on it?”
“It's supposed to smell like that, dumbass.”
“Supposed to, my ass.”
Juan looked at the paper as if it were something filthy and sighed through his teeth.
At the same time, his gaze shifted to one side of the hallway.
There was an adult there, drooling with his mouth agape like an idiot, either drunk or high.
It wasn't an uncommon sight in this city.
But every time he saw an adult like that, a sudden fear gripped him.
The fear that he might end up like that too.
“Puhehehe.”
The guys laughing stupidly next to him were already high.
Juan clenched his jaw and scratched his head fiercely.
Lately, he'd often found himself wondering if this was really okay.
It wasn't because he was suddenly maturing.
It was because he had seen Yohan—someone he'd always considered beneath him—learn to fight from Kanghyeok and transform into a completely different person.
*Fuck, I hate all of this.*
Juan had had a chance, if you could call it that.
A chance to change, just like Yohan.
But there was one simple yet crucial difference between him and Yohan.
Juan had once stolen Kanghyeok's laptop.
That was why he couldn't cling to Kanghyeok, and why he'd thrown away a chance that might have changed his life.
Now, Juan wasn't even friends with Yohan anymore.
At some point, it had become awkward to see the changed Yohan.
It felt like he was the only one stuck in place.
It was not a pleasant feeling.
Shhh.
Annoyed by the unwelcome thoughts, Juan scowled and stood up. The other guys' eyes followed him.
“Where are you going?”
“Home to sleep, you morons.”
“Hey, don't go. Let's hang out some more.”
“I've got booze at my place!”
“I'm leaving! Fuck!”
Juan stormed off, heading for the central staircase to go home.
Thump, thump.
Footsteps came up from the bottom of the stairs,
“Huh.”
and the adult near the stairs lifted his head at the sound,
Bang!
A bullet pierced his head, and he crumpled to the side.