Chapter 118
Chapter 118
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 118
Chapter Title: The Weight of Salvation
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“Y-You want us to guard this place?”
“Hey. W-We don't even know how to shoot a gun.”
“What are we supposed to do when the gangs show up? You’re the one who saved us, so you need to take responsibility!”
“Th-That's right. Let everyone else fend for themselves!”
Their eyes gleamed with a selfishness bordering on madness.
In contrast, Leila's face turned cold, instantly silencing their chattering.
Thud.
As Leila approached them, the people who had seemed ready to pounce just moments before flinched back.
“No, I mean…”
“Saving you is not my duty.”
Thud.
“I am merely evacuating you on orders. I didn't save you because you're precious or have any value.”
Clank!
Leila grabbed the rifle in the young man's hands and roughly raised it to his chest.
Then, pressing the rifle against his heart, she continued in a chilling voice.
“Whether you fight to survive or get killed by the gangs is your choice.”
The man's hands trembled, causing the rifle to shake with them.
Leila turned her back on the speechless group and placed a hand on Yohan's shoulder.
“Let's go, Yohan.”
Yohan walked alongside Leila, glancing back at the people.
Some wore expressions of fear.
Others were jealous that he was with Leila.
Yohan already had an inkling of why Leila was taking him. He also knew why they were looking at him that way.
Squeeze.
Clenching his fists, Yohan turned his face forward, his expression a mix of bitterness and determination.
As the two of them boarded the van, a hollow-cheeked old man rubbed his face and spat out a curse.
“Dammit, why'd she take that bastard?”
“What the hell are we supposed to do on our own!”
“Let's just protect ourselves. We have to survive, right?”
“Let's do something, anything. Block the entrance first!”
“There are shelves in the warehouse!”
“Let's get those out first!”
The people began to move.
They set up shelves and boxes in front of the supermarket to create a barricade, but it wasn't what Leila had intended.
A fortress meant only to protect themselves.
A barricade built not for the safety of others, but solely for their own survival, was being erected in front of the supermarket.
“Anyone got zip ties!”
“Here!”
“Throw 'em!”
Their eyes glinting with selfishness, the people began lashing the shelves together with zip ties.
As everyone descended into a frenzy, only one person wondered if this was really okay.
The middle-aged man who had been helped by Yohan in the warehouse.
He knew what Yohan had gone to do.
He knew this was wrong, but he lacked the courage to speak up and stop the others.
He could only watch helplessly as the barricade rose in front of the supermarket.
Vrooom.
Leila drove the van and spoke to Yohan.
“A problem has come up.”
“A problem?”
“You help with the civilian evacuation. I have to go take care of the problem first.”
The gangs were trying to make contact with Iron Mask's subordinates. Bombs and weapons would be exchanged, and if that happened, civilian casualties would skyrocket.
In the long run, it would be bad for Kanghyeok as well, so it had to be stopped at all costs.
“Can you…”
“I understand.”
Leila glanced at Yohan in the passenger seat, then nodded and turned her gaze back to the road.
'He's not a kid anymore.'
Yohan's eyes showed he knew exactly what he had to do.
“First, evacuate the civilians in the nearest locations. I'll text you a few places I've scouted, so you can start there.”
Yohan gripped his pistol tightly and gave a heavy nod of understanding.
“…It won't be easy. Be prepared.”
Yohan looked at Leila, but she said nothing more.
Vrooom.
With only the sound of the engine filling the van, Leila turned the steering wheel toward a side street.
It was an alley where the glow from burning trash cans and the skeletal frames of cars faintly illuminated the corpses scattered about.
Leila stopped the van and looked at Yohan, who sucked in his lips and got out.
Thud.
The door closed.
But Leila couldn't take her eyes off him.
'Stay strong.'
The people he was trying to save might not open up so easily.
Neither their doors, nor their hearts.
But she believed Yohan could overcome it. She took out her phone and checked the coordinates sent from headquarters.
Then she drove the van away, leaving Yohan behind.
Left alone, Yohan exhaled through his teeth and started walking.
Fwoosh!
As he passed a burning car, he happened to see a corpse burning inside.
A shiver ran down his arms and back.
This was the city he had lived in his whole life, a familiar street.
Seeing something he had never witnessed even in his nightmares, Yohan’s face trembled before he tore his gaze away from the car.
Ding-ding-ding!
The sudden, cheerful melody startled Yohan, who pulled his phone from his pocket.
A text from Leila had arrived.
[Go two blocks in. There's a white house. At least 10 people should be there.]
The text also included coordinates for other locations.
The total number of estimated survivors was sixty.
'Sixty people…'
People I have to save.
People who need me.
Yohan sucked in his lips. The fear and darkness vanished from his face as he raised his pistol, flicked off the safety, and placed his index finger on the trigger.
He then set his phone to vibrate and ran in the direction of the coordinates.
Fortunately, he didn't encounter any gangs on his way to the location Leila had given him.
'White house, white house.'
The color stood out, so he found it without much difficulty.
It seemed to be a relatively well-off home, as it even had a gate.
Yohan immediately pushed it open.
Clank.
But the gate, chained from the inside, didn't budge.
Yohan quickly glanced behind him, where no one was, and lightly tapped the gate with his fingertips.
“Hello? Hello? Please open the door.”
Perhaps it was his youthful voice, which didn't sound like a gang member's.
Or maybe it was the sincerity in his tone.
A woman's face peeked through the crack in the gate, which he had thought was deserted.
“Wh-Who is it?”
“I'm here to rescue you. There's a shelter nearby. Let's go together.”
“Get lost. How can I trust you?”
“There are a lot of people inside, right? I'll escort you. It'll be safe once we get there.”
The woman's lips twisted, her eyes filled with a mixture of anger and desperation.
“I said get the fuck out of here. Stop making so much noise.”
Yohan looked at the chain through the crack in the gate.
The only reason this place had been safe was pure luck.
A gate like this would give way easily if someone stuck a gun through the crack and shot the chain, or blew off the hinges.
Clank.
Careful not to make a loud noise, Yohan pushed the gate open a little wider, bowed his head, and spoke with desperation.
“Please. If not now, we might not get another…”
“You, you're that kid, aren't you? The son of the woman who was killed by the gang.”
Yohan's face hardened.
But the person behind the gate didn't stop.
“Get lost! Just because your mother died, you want to get us killed too? Get the hell out of here now!”
Her accusations were laced with desperation.
Just as despair began to spread across Yohan's face at the gate that seemed impossible to open, he heard a shout.
“Hey! Over here! There's one over here!”
“Don't kill him yet!”
“If you kill him, you're dead too!”
“Hehehe, shut up and get over here!”
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The man fired his rifle into the air, announcing his position to everyone.
Then he turned his gaze to Yohan.
In that instant, Yohan felt a chilling, grotesque sensation that made his heart stop.
'A gang member…?'
His pupils were extremely constricted, his face was intentionally smeared with blood, and the machete hanging from his belt was also caked in it.
He didn't look like a gang member.
He looked like something far more dangerous.
Those drunk on blood.
Those who, through repeated killings, had come to see the current riot as a festival.
*Whistle! Whew!*
Whistling to signal his location to the others, the man drew his machete and began to approach Yohan.
It wasn't the way a person looks at another person.
It was closer to the look of someone who had found an amusing attraction or a delectable treat at a festival.
“H-Hic.”
The gate started to close hastily, and Yohan shoved his hand into the opening.
Thanks to that, the chain didn't rattle.
The woman, not understanding his intentions, let out a faint, dying whisper.
“I-I'm sorry for what I said earlier. So, please, this hand…”
She thought Yohan was trying to commit suicide with them.
Standing before her, Yohan kept his eyes fixed on the man and exhaled a hot breath.
Then he spoke to the woman behind the gate in a low voice.
“Stay there. Don't make a sound.”
The woman's bewildered gaze shifted to Yohan's back as he started walking toward the man.
At that moment, both the woman and the man saw the pistol in Yohan's hand.
Hmph.
The woman clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling her breath at the thought that Yohan could have killed her if he had wanted to.
The gang member standing before Yohan sneered and scoffed at him.
“Kid, you even know how to shoot that th—”
Crack!
A bullet lodged itself in the center of the man's forehead from about five meters away.
He collapsed without even closing his eyes, his machete clattering against the ground.
At the same time, the footsteps of the others approaching grew faster.
This was his first real, head-on battle.
Grit.
Gritting his teeth to steel himself, Yohan ran toward the approaching footsteps.
He came face-to-face with the men as they were about to emerge from the alley.
“Th-This bastard?”
Yohan was wearing a suit.
They were startled, wondering if it was Kanghyeok, but the bulletproof vest over the suit and, more importantly, his completely different race told them it wasn't.
“Sh-Shit.”
He and the men flocking behind him relaxed in relief, but—
Crack!
Yohan's bullet struck him in the chest, and—
Crack!
Another bullet immediately flew toward his head, extinguishing his life completely.
“Uh, uhh!”
The other men hesitated, stunned.
Yohan was clearly not Kanghyeok.
And yet, for a moment, they got the same feeling from him.
It was because he handled the gun in a remarkably similar way, even if it wasn't a perfect match.
This kid might be young, but he wasn't ordinary.
Their gaze shifted from looking at a toy to seeing an equal opponent, and Yohan raised his pistol at the men who were raising their rifles and handguns.
Crack!
The bullet Yohan fired lodged in the forearm of the closest man.
“Gah—!”
He could end the man's life by pulling the trigger again.
Crack! Crack!
But bullets from behind did the job for him. The man, who spurted blood with each impact, went limp in front of Yohan.
“Shoot! Shoot him!”
Another man sprayed saliva as he fired his rifle.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
A torrent of bullets hammered the walls of the surrounding buildings and the ground.
“Kuh!”
The bullets followed Yohan as he staggered backward, clutching the corpse.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
As a good number of bullets slammed into the body, sending blood flying, Yohan felt a shock that nearly made him black out.
“Kh! Aah.”
A single bullet had landed between his bulletproof vest and his suit.
It had narrowly struck the vest, but the soul-crushing impact brought tears to his eyes.
Even getting hit in the vest was this painful.
How on earth could Kanghyeok or Leila stand in front of a gun?
The thought flashed through his mind in an instant, so intense was the pain.
Click!
“D-Dammit!”
The man whose gun was empty looked at his rifle in a panic.
In front of him, Yohan glared with tear-filled eyes and raised his pistol.
Crack!
The rifleman's head snapped back.
Crack!
The man behind him clutched his chest and fell.
Crack!
A man who was shot in the thigh collapsed, cursing, and—
Crack!
Blood burst from the back of another who tried to flee.
The pistol was now out of ammo.
“Guuuh!”
“Agh, ahhhk!”
“Dammit, goddammit!”
The groans of the men still breathing as they writhed on the ground were visible not only to Yohan but also to the woman behind the gate.
Her hand clamped over her mouth, she stared at Yohan with trembling eyes. Others, drawn by the gunshots, were also peering at him through the crack in the gate.
In the dead silence where not even a breath could be heard, Yohan reached a trembling hand into his coat.
“Th-That bastard! Magazine, magazine!”
The man with the wounded thigh limped but charged forward, his eyes bulging.
Thud!
He slammed his shoulder into Yohan, and they both fell.
Then, a flurry of vicious punches rained down on Yohan.
Thwack! Thump! Thwack! Thwack!
“You son of a bitch! Agh! Fuck! Die! You son of a bitch!”
Yohan's lip split and the corner of his eye was torn, smearing the man's fist with blood.
“Aaaargh!”
Yohan bucked his hips upward.
“Ugh.”
As the man on top of him lost his balance, Yohan twisted his torso to the side and swung his arm toward the man's neck.
Crack!
“Guh, guhhh. Get up, you idiot.”
“That bastard, kill that little shit! Fuck!”
The men who had been shot but were still alive urged him on from behind, but the man who had collapsed next to Yohan didn't get up.
He had been struck in the neck with the sharp edge of the magazine.
*Gack, gurgle, gack.*
The faces of the other men turned pale as they watched their comrade gurgle and choke, spewing mouthfuls of blood. Yohan, with one knee on the ground, slammed a new magazine into his pistol.
Click.
After pulling back the slide, Yohan stared at the men, his eyes bloodshot.