Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: The First Target
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The sun, its day’s work done, sank below the ridge, and from the other side, a moon rose, ripening to a mellow yellow.
Vrooooom!
Inside the black sports car weaving through traffic, Kanghyeok put a cigarette to his lips.
Click. Haaaah!
The smell of a brand-new car, fresh off the plastic, mingled with the scent of tobacco.
A broken streetlight.
A streetlight with only one of its two lamps lit.
The headlights and turn signals of other cars.
They entered his vision only to stream past like the wind.
People’s gazes followed Kanghyeok’s car, their expressions all stamped from the same mold.
What in the world is that car?
Their faces all seemed to be thinking some version of that.
Some even tried to take pictures.
But before their sluggish smartphones could even launch the camera app, Kanghyeok’s car had vanished from sight.
“Haaaah—!”
Kanghyeok exhaled a plume of smoke, both hands on the wheel.
Ash mingled with his breath, and the thick smoke was sucked out through the slightly open window.
Vrooom!
The more he pressed the accelerator, the lower the car’s chassis sank, picking up speed as if melting into the darkness.
He had to admit, the car was heavy.
But its insanely high-powered engine completely ignored the hefty weight.
It felt like piloting a spaceship.
He knew it was strange to be thinking such things in a situation like this.
But he couldn’t deny that the car was a thrill to drive.
Tick. Tick.
Leila, in the passenger seat, shifted as if uncomfortable and tapped at her laptop.
Her fingernails clicked against the touchpad, her eyes fixed on the screen, glinting with a sharp light.
Real-time satellite observation data streamed in from headquarters.
The data was dizzyingly vast, showing the location of every vehicle in the city and their projected routes, processed by a supercomputer.
“There’s too much data.”
Leila said, rubbing her strained eyes. Kanghyeok, who had just avoided a car that shot out of nowhere with a slight turn of the wheel, spoke.
“Filter out everything but the main routes.”
Leila’s finger, about to press the touchpad, froze in mid-air.
She thought for a moment, her eyes darting, then looked at Kanghyeok.
“What should I filter first?”
Kanghyeok bit his lip and stared through the windshield.
They were heading toward the city center.
It was the shortest path to wherever Nobody decided to strike.
“Anything related to the gang leaders.”
Leila manipulated the touchpad, deleting vehicles heading toward gang hideouts or residences.
“Still too many. Should I remove vehicles heading to civilian residential areas too?”
“The sparsely populated ones.”
Nobody was planning a massacre.
He would naturally choose a crowded place, so areas with few residents were irrelevant.
Tick.
“Still too many.”
Leila gave him a look that asked for more specific instructions, and Kanghyeok flexed his fingers on the steering wheel.
‘If I were Nobody...’
What would I do?
What would make a massacre go smoothly?
And how could I also grab his attention?
Kanghyeok was silent for a long time.
So long that the laptop screen timed out and went dark.
Tick.
The moment Leila touched the pad to wake the screen, he spoke.
“Hospitals, police stations, roads leading out of the city, and power substations.”
“Power substations...”
Leila thought for a moment, then nodded.
Unlike a terrorist group trying to send a message, Nobody simply wanted to kill as many people as possible, making it a plausible target.
If a substation—essentially a station for electricity generated at a power plant—was destroyed?
The city would be plunged into darkness.
A city-wide blackout would make it impossible to call for help, and hospitals would be paralyzed.
Tick. Tick.
Leila set the substations as the top priority and cleared everything else from the screen.
The data became so streamlined it was almost pristine. Leila took a deep breath, filling her lungs, then slowly exhaled.
“No vehicles or personnel are heading toward the substations right now.”
“What about the other locations?”
“Same story.”
Just then.
Movement on the laptop screen caught Leila’s attention, and her eyes snapped to it.
A single car.
It had just left an abandoned building not far from a hospital.
Leila stared intently at the vehicle, and a moment later, its projected route appeared.
“Suspicious vehicle spotted. Destination is the hospital.”
Leila looked at Kanghyeok, a question in her eyes.
Would they head for the hospital?
Or to the place the car had just left?
The decision was Kanghyeok’s.
Kanghyeok clenched his jaw so hard it jutted out.
Screeeech! Vroooom!
He wrenched the wheel, swinging into the left-turn lane.
“To the hospital, then.”
“We have time before his deadline.”
Nobody had said tomorrow night.
There were still about twenty to twenty-four hours left.
Nobody’s choice of the hospital was likely a prelude, a preparation for the chaos and massacre to come.
If so, heading to the hospital was the right move for now.
“Contact headquarters. Tell them to monitor all frequencies and signals in this area.”
“Understood.”
Without a word of protest, Leila relayed Kanghyeok’s message to headquarters through her laptop.
She had a good idea of what he was thinking.
‘A bomb’s detonation signal.’
Nobody's current suspected plan was to detonate bombs throughout the city, and the worst-case scenario was that the bombs were already in place.
The time Nobody gave was short.
There was a high probability the bombs were already planted all over the city.
If they could identify the signal for these bombs, they could shake Nobody’s plan to its very core.
From reverse-tracking the signal to neutralizing it.
Snap.
Leila closed the laptop and took a breath.
Vroooooom!
As the car sped on, Leila leaned her head back against the headrest.
Her gaze drifted slightly upward.
In the night sky, the moon seemed to peek shyly from behind dark clouds, meeting her eyes.
***
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.”
Yohan couldn’t tell if the middle-aged Black woman sitting next to him on the bench was a nurse, a doctor, or just a staff member.
He’d never been to a hospital before.
Hospitals cost a lot of money.
So you shouldn’t go.
It was a rule Yohan had heard so often his ears might as well have callused over, a rule he had faithfully followed until now.
So, despite her words of comfort, fear welled up in his eyes.
“It’s okay now. Gangs have never attacked a hospital before. Nothing else will happen.”
The staff member, misinterpreting his look, offered more reassurance and reached out to pat his back.
But Yohan flinched so sharply that her hand retreated from mid-air back to her own lap.
“So, about that.”
The woman avoided his gaze, pursing her lips before she continued.
“What are you going to do about the funeral?”
“Does it cost a lot of money?”
The woman nodded as if she had expected this reaction.
This was a hospital near the city, so the financial situation of its patients was predictable.
The only patients with money were gang members caught in shootouts.
Most let their illnesses fester until they were on death’s door, and they were often refused treatment for lack of funds or discharged with crippling debt.
So she hadn’t expected a young man like Yohan to be able to afford a funeral.
“Just a burial, without a coffin, is about six thousand dollars.”
The color drained from Yohan’s face.
“S-six thousand?”
“Don’t you have insurance?”
She looked at him with pity, and Yohan answered, his lips trembling.
“Nothing like that.”
“I see. So how much money do you have now?”
Yohan answered as if making a deeply shameful confession.
“Twenty dollars.”
The crumpled bill in his pocket was money he’d planned to give his mother after the memorial service.
“That’s too bad.”
The woman gave a bitter smile and shook her head.
Yohan’s situation was unfortunate, but as a mere employee, there was nothing she could do.
“Um, is there anything cheaper...?”
“Just a cremation can be done for eight hundred dollars.”
The price had dropped drastically.
But even this was beyond a burden for Yohan; it was an impossible sum.
Could he even make eight hundred dollars if he sold everything he owned?
“Is there... is there nothing cheaper?”
“I’m afraid not.”
The woman’s face was full of pity, but her voice was firm.
“Aren’t there any adults who can help you?”
Just then.
Someone crossed Yohan’s mind.
‘Chino.’
Kanghyeok.
Yohan lowered his head.
The only adult he knew who wasn’t a gangster or a drunk.
But they weren’t close enough for him to help.
To Yohan, Kanghyeok was someone he wanted to ask for help, not someone who would give it.
And even if, by some miracle, Kanghyeok did help, it probably wouldn’t be much.
He knew Kanghyeok was the Asian man who had wiped out the gang.
But he also knew how Kanghyeok had lived.
How could he not, when they lived in the same apartment building?
He wasn’t the kind of person to have a large sum like eight hundred dollars.
What about those rich-looking people who had come looking for Kanghyeok?
They would never help.
Yohan knew his place.
‘Who am I?’
Yohan’s face contorted as if he’d fallen into a bottomless pit, and the woman sighed deeply, patting his back.
“Come back when you have the money.”
“My mom...”
“We’ll keep her here.”
“...Doesn’t that cost money?”
“Normally, yes. But... I think it’ll be fine.”
The morgue wasn’t managed all that strictly.
She figured they could store Yohan’s mother with the unclaimed bodies and it would work out somehow.
“Are you... are you sure?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. This is a first for me, too.”
So why was she helping him?
He just seemed like someone she couldn’t turn her back on.
Yohan had a disposition rarely seen in this city.
Even if she couldn’t help him financially, he seemed deserving of at least this small kindness.
“But you have to come back within a week. Whether you have the money by then or not.”
Yohan flinched, then nodded.
“I understand.”
Could he get the money in a week?
He had his doubts, but there were no other options.
“Leave your contact information at the admissions office. It’s by the hospital entrance.”
Yohan stood up and bowed his head to the woman.
“Thank you.”
The woman replied with a sad smile, and Yohan turned his back, trudging toward the first floor of the hospital.
Then, a strange chill ran through him, and he wrapped his arms around himself.
The season had yet to turn to autumn; there was no reason to feel cold.
People in hospital gowns passed by in the hallway.
Doctors in white coats and janitors in uniforms.
None of them seemed to feel the chill that Yohan did.
This cold, then, was something only he could feel.
Yohan knew why he was the only one who felt it.
His mother was gone.
He had to live on his own now.
When he opened the door, only an empty house would greet him. There would be no one to talk to, whether something good or sad happened.
His mother hadn’t loved him.
He knew that. Yohan knew.
And yet, Yohan had loved his mother more than anyone in the world.
Because not being loved wasn’t a reason not to love.
The solitude of being left alone in the world washed over him, a bone-deep chill that struck without mercy. Yohan dug his fingernails into his forearms, desperately holding back tears.
Just then.
BOOOOOM!
The ground beneath his feet shook as if in an earthquake, and a massive sound assaulted him.
Yohan’s eyes flew open as he spun around.
Riiiiing!
Black smoke and the smell of burning filled the hallway.
The scent of gunpowder and soot.
In the midst of the ear-splitting alarm and the vivid screams of people, Yohan stared blankly down the hall.
The explosion had come from the basement.
Where his mother’s body lay.