Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Get Up
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Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Damn it! Why won’t this thing open!”
“Hurry up, you bastard!”
“It’s not opening!”
Listening to the voices just beyond the door, Leila rubbed her forehead. The airbag had deployed, but it hadn’t absorbed the full force of the collision.
Her head was spinning, and her vision was staticky and blurred.
“Ugh…”
Leila let out a faint groan as she rubbed her forehead and eyes, then glanced at the men trying to pry open the SUV’s door through the driver’s side window.
Seven of Yohan’s gang members.
They were struggling with crowbars and cutters, trying to force the door open.
What were they thinking?
They’d probably shove a gun in her face the moment the door opened, either to do something awful or just pull the trigger.
A bitter smile touched Leila’s lips.
It was a smile she’d never shown in front of Kanghyeok. She slipped a hand into her coat.
It was just yesterday.
At the supermarket, Leila had put her hand in her coat just like this, but Kanghyeok had stopped her, forcing her to pull it out empty.
But now?
There was no Kanghyeok to stop her.
And so, Leila drew a pistol.
It was a small-caliber handgun, one that even her small hands could grip without trouble, but it was still more than lethal enough.
Especially at this range.
Crunch! Crack! Crash!
Focusing her mind, Leila watched the man battering the door with a crowbar and pressed the button to lower the window.
Whirr.
The man’s head snapped up as the window slid down, his eyes landing on the gun muzzle in the gap.
Bang!
A dry gunshot rang out, and the bullet pierced his forehead.
“You bitch!”
“Get your weapons! The person inside has a gun!”
Crack! Crack!
The gang members started hammering on the window now. Leila fully closed it and squeezed through the space between the driver and passenger seats.
Once she was completely in the back, she confirmed again that all the men were crowded around the driver’s side, then reached for the rear headrest.
Click.
She pressed a button, and the back seat folded forward, giving her access to the trunk.
Leila pulled out one of the bags secured to the trunk floor.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
While the enraged gang members relentlessly battered the driver’s door with their tools, Leila opened the bag and took out the submachine gun resting inside black sound-absorbing foam.
Unfolding the stock of the submachine gun, which looked like a grotesquely modified pistol, Leila threw open the rear door.
Fling!
“Huh?”
The man who spotted her hastily raised his cutters, but…
Rat-a-tat-tat!
He wasn’t faster than a trigger pull.
Using the bulletproof rear door as cover, Leila unleashed a hail of bullets at the gang members.
Was there any weapon better at equalizing the difference in combat strength between men and women?
The gang members, who would have been difficult to fight hand-to-hand, began to drop like flies.
One had three to five new holes in his face, while another collapsed, blood pouring from his neck and chest.
Whizz!
A chilling sound flew past Leila’s ear.
It was a bullet fired by the man in the driver’s seat of the car that had rammed them head-on. He looked panicked, as if he hadn’t expected this situation.
Leila shouldered the stock even more firmly, aligning her gaze with the sights.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The bullets, concentrated in an area the size of a palm, were all aimed at the driver’s seat. Seeing the man dead, his head slumped against the steering wheel and the windshield splattered with blood, Leila lowered her weapon.
Except for the jumbled, panicked voices of people nearby, it was eerily quiet.
Leila’s gaze shifted to the club.
Seeing people screaming and pouring out, she guessed what was happening. She reached into the back seat and grabbed Kanghyeok’s rifle.
Then she headed for the club.
To give Kanghyeok his rifle.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A torrent of gunfire.
“Aaaah!”
“Move! Get out of the way!”
The screams of people bottlenecked at the exit.
Had a club without music always echoed so much, like a cave?
Each gunshot was a deafening echo that assaulted the ears. Kanghyeok hid behind a table, waiting for their fire to subside.
If they had any brains, they wouldn’t waste ammunition with indiscriminate shooting.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat!
After one last, furious burst, the gunfire died down.
Kanghyeok clutched his pistol like a talisman, lowered his stance, and placed a hand on the floor.
Shuffle.
He heard a faint footstep.
Kanghyeok held his breath and focused his hearing.
‘Two on the left, five on the right.’
It seemed they were planning to flush him out from his blind spots since he was holed up like a turtle.
The judgment wasn’t bad.
This method was only useful when the target was hiding behind fixed cover.
Kanghyeok checked the positions of the pillars and other tables, then shoved the table he was hiding behind hard to the right.
In an instant, his left was exposed, and he made eye contact with the two men who had been sneaking up on him.
Crack! Crack!
He fired two rounds.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud! Crack! Splinter!
The bullets fired by the men approaching from the right began to tear the table apart.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Kanghyeok fired suppressing shots at the men near the entrance who were turning their guns on him, then pushed off the ground with his feet, sliding on his back toward another table.
Whizz! Thud-thud! Whizz!
Bullets from the other men rained down around Kanghyeok as he moved low to the ground, but none of them hit him.
With aim that sloppy, they could pull the trigger all day and never hit their target.
Splinter!
Just as Kanghyeok reached the other table, his original cover disintegrated.
Crack!
Kanghyeok, who had been waiting for this very moment, pulled the trigger.
Splat!
First, he blew the head off a man whose face was filled with glee, then immediately turned on the others.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
As Kanghyeok eliminated all four with sharp, precise movements, the atmosphere in the club grew even more vicious.
He was just one man. Kanghyeok.
He wasn’t an army, nor was he another gang attacking in force.
They thought he’d be easy to take care of since he was alone, but as time passed, the gang members lost hope. Instead, they felt an intense need to act more aggressively.
Sensing the change in the air, Kanghyeok reloaded his magazine while hidden behind the table.
‘The weapons they have…’
Mostly pistols, with ten to twelve men carrying rifles.
The chance of grenades or other weapons?
He hadn’t patted each of them down, so he didn’t know.
Hooo.
Just as Kanghyeok breathed out through his teeth…
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat!
The sound of gunfire, completely different from what the gang members had been using, echoed from a distance.
“Aaaargh!”
“Shit, who is that bitch!”
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat!
The atmosphere shifted again.
The attention of the hyenas who had been targeting Kanghyeok was now completely drawn to the club’s entrance. People who hadn’t yet escaped turned pale and started running back inside the club.
‘Could it be?’
Kanghyeok’s lips curled back, baring his teeth.
“Leila, what are you doing?”
(Brrrrrrt!)
Along with the sound of gunfire, Leila’s calm voice came through the comms.
(You looked like you needed help.)
“Don’t do things I didn’t ask for!”
(Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m following William’s orders. Not yours.)
He felt a strange sense of insult and ground his teeth. Leila continued.
(Just wait a moment. I’ll bring it to you soon.)
It was brief, just for a moment.
But Kanghyeok had definitely frozen, replaying Leila’s words in his head.
“Bring it to me?”
(Yes. Your weapon.)
Kanghyeok lowered his gaze and sucked on his lip.
He hated to admit it, but he had to.
For a fleeting moment, he had found Leila dependable.
Kanghyeok looked at the entrance, chaotic with gunfire and muzzle flashes.
Brrrrrrt!
Mowing down gang members with the chainsaw-like roar of her submachine gun, Leila was steadily advancing into the club.
The hallway was narrow, with two corners, so the gang members couldn’t rush her all at once even if they wanted to.
“It’s just one woman! What are you doing!”
Th-th-th-thud!
The man who had shouted twitched as if dancing, then went limp, shot by Leila who had just rounded the final corner.
“Move! Get out of the way, you motherfuckers!”
“Aaaah!”
The gang members who had been escorting people out were now shoving them aside, forcing their way back into the club.
Kanghyeok was a problem.
But this woman advancing from the entrance was just as difficult to handle.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat!
Her skill at shooting only the gang members was uncanny!
Identifying them by their clothes, appearance, tattoos, and the look in their eyes, Leila sprayed them with her submachine gun.
And at last, she reached the inside of the club.
“Stop that bitch!”
Crack! Crack!
Kanghyeok, who was providing covering fire by shooting at the gang members pouring into the club, spotted Leila and spoke immediately.
“Table next to the pillar, seven o’clock.”
Leila glanced at the location Kanghyeok indicated, then threw the rifle without a second look.
Brrrrrrt!
As Leila’s submachine gun spat casings onto the floor, the rifle she’d thrown slid across the ground and came to a stop in front of Kanghyeok.
“Grrrraaaah!”
A man lunged at Kanghyeok as he reached for the rifle. Kanghyeok snatched the man’s arm and rolled on the floor.
Snap! Crack!
The sound of a bone breaking and a gunshot mingled.
Picking up the rifle next to the gang member’s corpse, which had died without even a scream, Kanghyeok felt a shiver run down his spine.
He had handled this rifle before coming to the club.
But holding it now, in the field after so long, felt completely different.
Before, it had been nostalgia. Now, it was the confidence that he could do anything.
Would getting his laptop back feel even more intense than this?
He couldn’t be sure. That’s how potent the emotion swirling inside him was.
Just then, Leila’s voice came through.
(Your back.)
Kanghyeok responded silently, mouthing the words.
Leave it to me.
He then rose to his feet on top of the table. A few men turned their eyes and their guns toward him, but…
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
His rifle unleashed a downpour of bullets.
Kanghyeok closed the distance with the other men, pressing the selector switch with his thumb.
Click.
Switching the selector to burst fire, he aimed at the gang members scattered throughout the club, avoiding Leila.
Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!
A mist of blood bloomed wherever his muzzle pointed.
Kanghyeok kept his eyes and muzzle aligned, pulling the trigger again and again. He then took a fresh magazine from inside his jacket and held it in his mouth.
Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!
The magazine was nearly empty.
With deep-set eyes, Kanghyeok glared at the gang members, mentally counting his remaining rounds.
Pop-pop-pop!
The moment the last bullet left the muzzle, Kanghyeok pressed the magazine release button that his thumb was already resting on.
Clink.
The magazine dropped like a ripe fruit.
Clack!
He immediately slammed the magazine from his mouth into place.
Chk-chk!
He chambered a round just as the empty magazine hit the floor.
Then, before the gang members could raise their guns, before they could turn their muzzles, before they could pull their triggers, he fired indiscriminately.
Pop-pop-pop! Click. Pop-pop! Pop-pop! Pop-pop!
Kanghyeok, switching his fire mode, and Leila, providing cover from the entrance with her submachine gun, assessed the number of remaining gang members at almost the same time.
Of the many gang members, a significant number were down. Now, fewer than twenty remained.