Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: You Have a Job to Do
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The remaining gang members didn't have many options.
It was one of two choices.
Surrender, or resist.
“Ughhh!”
“Kill them! There's only two of them anyway!”
The gang members chose to resist.
It was because of the promise Yohan had made them.
He had promised them twenty thousand dollars and control of the club if they eliminated Kanghyeok, a reward more than enough to risk their lives for. The gang members aimed their guns at him.
Like hyenas pouncing on a lion.
*Rat-tat!*
A man took a bullet to the chest and another to the head before collapsing. Another one screamed and charged at Kanghyeok.
*Click!*
Damn it all, his gun jammed. Before he could even get a proper shot off, blood spurted from his forehead and the back of his head.
*Clack! Rat-tat! Rat-tat!*
Having already swapped in a fresh magazine, Kanghyeok mowed down the gang members as if he were hunting.
The gang members' despair grew so thick you could almost feel its texture, and the stench of blood became sickeningly intense.
“Leila.”
“Yes.”
*Rat-tat! Rat-tat!*
Kanghyeok spoke while firing at the gang members.
“Any word from headquarters?”
“I got a text, but I haven't had a chance to check it.”
*Brrrrrrt!*
Leila's voice came through, accompanied by a strangely irritable burst of gunfire.
As if this was the time to be calmly checking texts.
Her tone seemed to be questioning him, and since he could sympathize with the sentiment, Kanghyeok said no more and just kept pulling the trigger.
Watching the two of them was driving the gang members insane.
*Splat! Splat! Splat!*
The gang members' heads were exploding one after another, like watermelons in a field.
They were facing the crisis of a lifetime, with death closing in every second.
And in the middle of it all, these two were casually chatting over their Bluetooth earpieces.
They should have been furious, but their fear was too overwhelming to leave any room for anger.
*Clatter, clatter, clatter.*
The gang member hiding under a table, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, felt much the same as the others.
It was like facing a demon. It was as if the grim reaper from their grandmothers' stories had leaped into reality, trading his scythe for a gun.
*Rat-tat!*
Two precisely aimed shots struck the hiding man in the chest and head.
*Clack.*
Kanghyeok swapped magazines, his eyes scanning the club's interior more sharply than before.
The gang members were steeped in terror and despair. An overwhelming victory was within arm's reach, but he couldn't let his guard down.
Especially not when the survivors had all gone into hiding.
“Clear.”
Leila called out from the entrance, and Kanghyeok turned his gaze toward her.
Leila, who was helping people evacuate, was looking at Kanghyeok with a submachine gun in hand. Piles of gang members' corpses surrounded her.
*Looks like it's over, doesn't it?*
But neither Leila nor Kanghyeok had completely lowered their guard.
*‘There are still some hiding.’*
This was the most dangerous part.
Anyone who's experienced urban warfare knows how dirty and horrifying it can be.
It's like how a cockroach you see and then lose sight of is far more terrifying than one you can see.
Hiding enemies only reveal themselves for two reasons.
When you find them, or when they're trying to kill you.
The terrified gang members were hiding all over the place.
There were disgustingly many places to hide.
Behind pillars, in the shadows next to the stage, under tables, and in the dark, narrow hallway leading to the restrooms.
For now, they were probably just hoping he would pass by. But if Kanghyeok were to show them his back, they would get some wicked ideas.
They would attack, seeking revenge, and there was no guarantee their bullets would miss.
“I'm moving. Cover me.”
So, Kanghyeok kept his eyes aligned with his rifle, watching the likely hiding spots as he moved toward Leila.
*Squish. Squish.*
Just then, as the blood and flesh spilled by the gang members clung to his shoes.
“Dieeee!”
As expected, one of them jumped out from under a nearby table, thrusting a pistol forward. Kanghyeok snatched the man's wrist and forced it upward.
*Bang!*
The muzzle, which had been aimed at his head, fired a bullet into the ceiling. Kanghyeok tucked the rifle under his arm and simultaneously drew a pistol from his pocket.
He was too close to use the rifle.
*Pop! Pop!*
Just as two consecutive shots definitively ended the man's life, a faint sound brushed past Kanghyeok's ear.
*Click.*
In that split second, Kanghyeok's eyes widened.
It was the sound of a grenade pin being pulled.
*‘These sons of bitches!’*
They said they were at war with another gang; I guess they even had these.
Kanghyeok whipped his head toward the sound and saw a grenade rolling toward him like a bowling ball, and under a table, a gang member trembling with venomous eyes.
“Get back!”
Kanghyeok yelled to Leila and threw the gang member on top of the grenade. Then he immediately threw himself backward.
*Thud.*
Right after a table he'd kicked over crashed down in the direction of the grenade,
*BOOM!*
The grenade exploded.
The corpse covering it burst like a water balloon, spraying a red mist like fog, and a tremendous shockwave slammed into Kanghyeok.
*Thump, thud, thump.*
Debris rained down from the ceiling, caught in the blast's radius. The smell of explosives mingled with the stench of blood, instantly filling the club.
And with it, a deep darkness.
The shock must have damaged the wiring; the lights illuminating the club went out all at once, plunging the room into a vicious darkness.
Even with his eyes open, all he could see was darkness and the gray haze left by the grenade.
“Cough, cough!”
“Fuck, aghhhh!”
“What about him? What happened to that bastard!”
The only sounds were coughing and shouting.
*Eeeeeeee!*
And the terrible ringing in his ears.
Covered in concrete dust and table fragments, Kanghyeok couldn't move a muscle.
He could barely move his fingers and eyelids.
The blood vessels in his eyes must have burst, because his vision was crimson, as if smeared with blood.
He had improvised, covering the grenade with a body and blocking the shrapnel with a table.
But he had been too close.
The grenade's terrifying force had rattled his organs and brain, and he felt as if his blood vessels were melting.
*‘Damn it.’*
A familiar sensation crept up from the tips of his toes.
Death.
Kanghyeok had already experienced death once.
So he wasn't afraid, but an indescribably complex feeling washed over him.
What was this feeling?
Regret?
If so, for what?
The laptop?
No, that wasn't really it. He wasn't that desperate for it.
It was simply something stolen that needed to be recovered.
He had no intention of becoming a tycoon with cryptocurrency. The coins were merely a means to survive the coming cataclysm.
Then what was it that he regretted so deeply?
Before Kanghyeok could find an answer, the gang members who had been further away began to move.
*Clack!*
“You bastard! I'm gonna turn your head into pulp.”
Growling, the gang members loaded their guns and began searching for Kanghyeok, using their phone flashlights to pierce the thick darkness.
*Splish, splosh.*
Their footsteps slowly drew closer.
If they found him, he would surely die a gruesome death.
Or perhaps he would die before that.
Kanghyeok slowly exhaled.
His body felt limp, and black spots appeared in his blood-red vision. The spots grew, swallowing his sight, and his heartbeat faded, signaling the end.
This was death.
The same death Kanghyeok had dealt to countless others was now coming for him a second time.
*Fwoosh!*
He vaguely saw the beam of a phone's flashlight shining in his direction.
“Found him! Over there!”
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! I'll kill you!”
Even as he was dying, Kanghyeok managed a weak, twisted smile. Through the encroaching black spots, he could see their feet.
The gang members were rushing toward him, as excited as children running to get presents from Santa Claus.
*‘If only I had a little more time.’*
Things might have been different.
There was one secret that not even Leila knew.
Why was Kanghyeok still alive after that kid who stole his laptop had smashed him in the head with a baseball bat?
He'd been hit with a blunt object hard enough to draw blood.
The reason he'd survived was that, after dying and coming back to life, Kanghyeok had gained a strange power.
He healed quickly.
Much faster than others.
Even though he wore a suit lined with bulletproof fibers, his ability to move so soon after being shot was also thanks to this abnormal healing ability.
But it wasn't strong enough to turn this situation around.
Kanghyeok prepared for death.
It was then.
That the men's feet began to slow down dramatically.
*‘Why?’*
A surge of irritation washed over him.
He'd rather not die at the hands of such lukewarm bastards.
If you're going to kill me, don't dawdle. If you're going to end my life, do it right!
He wanted to scream it at them, but his mouth wouldn't open.
Then Kanghyeok realized their feet were moving abnormally slowly.
The feeling of strangeness was compounded by the sight of a gang member frozen in place, both feet off the ground.
*‘Ah...’*
He had experienced this phenomenon once before.
When Kanghyeok died in what was now the past future, this exact thing had happened.
Time had stopped. Everything was frozen. The only things that moved were Kanghyeok's consciousness and the being that had brought him back to life.
*Thump, thump.*
Familiar footsteps approached from his blind spot,
*Thump.*
And stopped right in front of him.
Sneakers and cotton pants—nothing about them screamed luxury, yet Kanghyeok felt an intense pressure from this man.
A god.
That was the only way to describe the man who possessed such a strange power.
After all, this was the man who had resurrected him.
The man crouched down, and a part of him came into Kanghyeok's low field of view as he lay on the floor.
A field jacket and long hair.
But he couldn't see his face.
*‘Who... Who the hell are you?’*
He could have dismissed it as a final hallucination in his dying moments. But when the man placed a hand on Kanghyeok's head, his vision rapidly returned to normal.
His heart started beating again, and though he couldn't move, he could feel himself recovering.
The pain was gone.
This time, Kanghyeok tried to move his eyes to see the man's face. But his own face was pressed against the floor, and no matter what he did, he couldn't see him.
“Get up. You can't fall yet.”
In the frozen time, only the man's voice came through clearly.
*‘Why? Why are you doing this to me?’*
Kanghyeok spoke to the man in his mind.
The man answered as if he had read his thoughts.
“You still have a job to do. A job that only you can do.”
*‘What is it! You son of a bitch! What is it that you'd kill a man and then bring him back! Why won't you let me die?’*
It was the question he had wanted to ask ever since he'd been brought back.
When other people die, it's over.
He could swear he'd never seen a single person come back from the dead like he had.
If there were, there would be tens of times more people trying to get revenge on him than the gangsters in this club.
He could feel the man's gaze fall upon his face.
The gang members' feet were still hovering in the air, a drop of blood on the sole of one man's shoe not yet having fallen to the floor, when the man spoke.
“Don't get the wrong idea.”
*‘About what?’*
“I'm not the one who saved you. I just gave you a little help.”
*‘What?’*
Just as Kanghyeok's eyes wavered—he had always assumed this man had saved his life—the man spoke in a low voice.
“It was all your own power. The power that saved you.”
Kanghyeok's eyes widened even more, and the man stood up.
The man, now visible only from his shoes and the cuffs of his pants, looked down at Kanghyeok for a moment before turning out of his line of sight.
*Thump, thump.*
“Now, move.”
Just after the man's feet disappeared from view.
*Splat!*
Time, which had stopped, began to flow again, and the gang members' feet, which had been suspended in midair, touched the ground.