Chapter 114
Chapter 114
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 114
Chapter Title: To Be Someone's Hope (3)
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“Aaargh!”
The man reflexively covered his head.
*Click.*
But the shotgun, its ammunition spent, failed to fire. The empty sound almost eased the man's tension, but he panicked again at the sight of Kanghyeok, who hadn't slowed down at all.
*Lunge!*
Kanghyeok wrapped his arms around the man’s torso and charged forward like an enraged bull.
“Ugh! Urgh! Ah!”
Though shoved back, the man hammered at Kanghyeok with his elbows and fists, but to no avail.
He felt a cold draft on his back.
The window was getting closer.
‘This crazy bastard… surely he wouldn’t…!’
As the panicked man glanced back at the rapidly approaching window, Kanghyeok’s arms tightened around him with even greater force.
And then,
*Thud!*
Kanghyeok kicked off the ground, launching himself and the man out the window.
*CRASH!*
Kanghyeok landed on his right shoulder, while the man slammed onto the ground, upper back first.
It was only the third floor, but the impact was more than enough to shatter bones, and it ravaged them both.
“Ssshh.”
A hiss of escaping air came from the man's lips, his spine fractured.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as he felt death's approach.
As the man exhaled, sensing the inevitable end that no human could defy, Kanghyeok let out a groan through his contorted lips.
“Agh, Grrrgh!”
The bullets lodged in his body and the shock of the fall.
Even for Kanghyeok, whose body recovered from injuries at an accelerated rate, the pain was impossible to ignore.
“Grrrgh!”
But he was alive, and so he groaned.
“Hahk! Haaaah!”
*I’m alive.*
As if to prove it, Kanghyeok continued to let out pained groans as he staggered, placing a hand on the ground.
Then, clenching the earth as if to grip it, he pushed himself up.
“Hooahk!”
He let out a ragged breath and swayed to his feet.
He stood beneath a night sky so full of clouds that even the moonlight was hidden.
Exhaling a breath that turned white in the freezing air, he lowered his trembling face.
*What does it feel like to die with a broken spine?*
Kanghyeok didn't know; he had never dealt with an enemy this way before.
Still, one thing seemed certain.
It didn't look like a more peaceful death than being shot.
“Hoo!”
Now somewhat more composed, Kanghyeok gripped his pistol, then took his index finger off the trigger.
*Just die like this.*
*For someone like you, who seeks to destroy humanity, such a death is fitting.*
Kanghyeok clenched his jaw so hard it jutted out, then searched the man’s clothes.
Just as he pulled out the remote control and turned to leave, a faint voice, like a dying ember, followed him.
“You… will… fail.”
Pausing at the surge of displeasure, Kanghyeok started walking again.
“What… can you do… alone?”
As he walked toward his car, taking a picture of the remote with his phone, Kanghyeok didn't once look back at the man.
His words weren't worth a response.
*Alone?*
*No, you're wrong.*
*I'm not alone.*
*There are others who move with the same purpose.*
*Because of them, this night will not go your way.*
*Click!*
Kanghyeok threw open the car door and practically collapsed into the seat.
“Grh!”
The pain that shot through him just from touching the soft seat made him wince.
He clutched his still-unhealed shoulder, gasping for breath, and started the sports car.
“Hoo!”
He thought he should probably hold back on fighting like this in the future as he pulled out his phone.
*Tap. Tap.*
He then found Leila in his contact list and sent her the picture he had just taken of the remote.
Along with a short message.
Kanghyeok bit his lower lip, spun the steering wheel sharply, and drove toward his next destination.
*Bzzz.*
“Check your messages.”
At Leila’s voice, Yohan picked up his phone from the cup holder.
*Vroooom.*
They were in a moving car, driving down the city’s main streets to scout and secure civilian evacuation routes.
The car had been abandoned on the side of the road.
Blood was spattered across the inside of the windows, and the driver's seat was soaked in it.
Driving a car that belonged to someone murdered by gangsters, through a city the gangs were burning down.
Was that why?
Yohan's hand, clutching the phone, trembled as if it weren't his own, and it took him a while to check the message.
“What does it say?”
“It’s a photo. He’s asking for an analysis.”
Leila’s gaze shifted from the road to Yohan.
“Kanghyeok?”
“Yes.”
“Give it here.”
Leila took the phone and drove on, her eyes alternating between the road ahead and the screen.
‘Has he already cleared one location?’
It was an abnormally fast pace.
*How on earth did he do it?*
Leila narrowed her brow in thought for a moment before focusing on the picture.
Whatever the process, this was a piece of the enemy’s equipment that Kanghyeok had done his best to secure.
*Tap. Tap.*
Leila sent the photo to two places.
One to the company, the other to Jeff Black.
She could trust them both.
They would surely provide the necessary information within a reasonable time.
‘The priority is evacuating the civilians.’
But the problem was where to take them, and how.
The city, as observed from the satellite, was being consumed by chaos so quickly that the word ‘abyss’ seemed fitting.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*
Just as they rounded a corner.
Seeing a gang chasing and gunning down a person, Leila clenched her jaw and gave a slight nod.
‘We need a place the gangs can’t approach. Where should we go?’
Her fingers drummed anxiously on the steering wheel.
“How about the supermarket?”
“The supermarket?”
Leila frowned at Yohan, wondering if he had suddenly gotten hungry.
“It’s because of the gangs, right? There is a place they wouldn’t be able to approach.”
Yohan, whom she had thought of as just a kid, spoke as if he had seen right through her worries.
“Where?”
“The supermarket where Kanghyeok worked. The gangs would be too scared to go near there. The people who attacked it before all died.”
It wasn't that Yohan wasn't anxious.
The way he rubbed his wrist and the slight tremor in his shoulders gave him away.
But he knew exactly what he had to do.
“We can set it up as a shelter.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. If I were them, I wouldn’t go there.”
“Don’t gamble other people’s lives on a guess.”
Yohan flinched but replied in a firm voice.
“I’ve been watching the gangs in this city since I was a kid. So I know them well. I know how cowardly and pathetic they are.”
Yohan had seen the gangs at their weakest many times.
He had seen those who strutted around with their shoulders puffed out hide like rats, terrified of being shot by a rival gang.
That’s what they were.
That’s what gangs were.
They would naturally fear Kanghyeok, and they would be terrified of the supermarket where he worked as if it were hell itself.
Seeing the conviction in Yohan’s eyes, Leila drew her lips in and turned her gaze back to the road.
‘So he’s not a kid anymore.’
It was true she had subconsciously treated him as someone to be protected.
But considering Yohan’s training, his situational awareness, and above all, the fact that he knew this city better than anyone?
He wasn’t perfect, but he was closer to a partner she could rely on.
“Lead the way.”
“Left up there!”
*Screeech!*
Leila drove in the direction Yohan indicated.
As they got closer to the supermarket, she started to think Yohan’s judgment might be right.
The rat-like gangsters that had infested the city were appearing less and less frequently, as if by magic.
*Screech!*
Seeing the unharmed road and the intact building, as if the riots had deliberately bypassed this supermarket, Leila patted Yohan's shoulder.
“Well done.”
Yohan nodded and got out of the car.
He looked back at Leila, who remained in her seat, and she turned her gaze to him.
“You search the surrounding area. I’ll lead the civilians.”
Leila then took an earpiece from her pocket and handed it to him.
“Contact me if anything unusual happens.”
Taking the earpiece, Yohan felt its weight.
He was no longer being protected; he was the one protecting others.
Knowing how important his role was, Yohan nodded firmly. Leila gave him a look that said *I trust you* before driving off.
Left alone, Yohan drew his pistol and looked at the supermarket’s parking lot.
A sudden chill ran down his spine.
‘…Mom.’
His mother had been murdered in this very parking lot.
The bullet holes were still clearly visible on the asphalt, and a dark stain remained on the ground.
He couldn't protect anyone then, but now he had to.
‘It’s different now.’
He had been powerless in the past.
That was why he couldn’t protect anyone.
But now…
Yohan bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood and placed his index finger on the pistol’s trigger.
*Click.*
After disengaging the safety, he made a wide sweep around the supermarket and cautiously pushed open the door.
A cool air.
The supermarket hadn't been open a single day since that incident.
Yohan entered the store, his footsteps leaving prints in the thick layer of dust, and headed for the storage room in the back.
‘Please, let there be no one here.’
*Creeak.*
Just as he opened the storage room door.
*BANG!*
The sound of a gunshot, aimed precisely at his head, echoed through the supermarket.
Not too far away.
At a church just a three-minute drive from the supermarket, Leila stopped the car.
A church was a church, no matter how rundown.
The people of this city might believe in God.
But they were conscious of His existence, and in a situation where their lives were like candles in a storm, liable to be extinguished at any moment, Leila judged that a good number of people would have taken refuge in a church.
*Tap. Tap.*
Quickly reviewing the last hour’s logs on the laptop open on the passenger seat, Leila confirmed her judgment was correct.
‘At least twenty people.’
That was the number of people who had entered the church.
None had been observed leaving, so the civilians Kanghyeok had instructed to evacuate were surely inside.
*CRACK!*
A bullet entered through the rear window and shot out the windshield. Leila, who was about to get out of the car, whipped her head around.
“Tch!”
Do all people ultimately think the same way?
Inside a van with a shattered windshield—who knows how they’d been driving it—were people who did not look innocent.
*VROOOOOM! Rat-tat-tat!*
The van accelerated as if to ram her, unleashing a spray of bullets.
*Screeech!*
Leila cranked the steering wheel and slammed on the accelerator.
*CRASH!*
The van slammed into the rear passenger side of her car, sending it into a wild spin. The smell of burning rubber and a heavy impact washed over Leila.
“Kuh!”
For a fleeting moment.
Leila’s eyes met those of the man in the van’s driver’s seat. The man, who had been grinning as if on an amusement park ride, saw his smile vanish.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!*
Partly because the submachine gun Leila held was aimed at his face. The other reason was that he recognized her.
The woman in the suit.
Leila, who moved with Kanghyeok, was also a figure of terror to the gangs.
Though not to the same extent as Kanghyeok.
Still, it was firmly imprinted in their minds that she was someone to be avoided.
“Shit! That bitch has a gun!”
“Motherfucker!”
“Kill her!”
The gang members, unaware that it was Leila in the car, poured out of the van. Leila also got out, taking cover behind the engine block.
She took aim at them with her submachine gun, and then,
*Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!*
She began to unleash a hail of bullets.