Chapter 99
Chapter 99
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 99
Chapter Title: I Don't Like Seeing People Die (2)
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What am I supposed to make of this?
A single intruder.
Fallen comrades.
Logically, he knew he had to eliminate the intruder, but an overwhelming pressure made him want to turn and run.
He had never faced a situation like this in his entire life.
But he couldn't run.
For one, the twenty-two of them were packed too tightly together, leaving no room to move. More importantly, he had a gut feeling that the moment he showed his back, his life would be over.
The state-of-the-art weapon in his hand felt pathetic in the face of the terror emanating from just one man.
*Step.*
As Kanghyeok took a step, the men flinched, rippling like a wave.
*Click.*
Kanghyeok raised his pistol.
The men reflexively raised their guns in response.
But the fact that they didn't immediately pull their triggers, that the front row didn't crouch to give the men behind them a clear line of fire, revealed their level of skill.
Perhaps they were too flustered to perform at their best.
Either way, it didn't matter.
They were all about to die.
“Hah!”
Kanghyeok put a spin on his kukri and threw it.
*Whoosh! Thwack!*
The kukri tore through the air and split one of the men's skulls before stopping, and Kanghyeok raised his shotgun.
“Fire—!”
A frantic voice spread through their ranks, and the men hurriedly placed their index fingers on their triggers.
*BOOM!*
But Kanghyeok was just a fraction faster.
To spray them with pellets.
*BOOM! BOOM!*
With each pull of the trigger, two or three men fell, rapidly thinning the number of those still standing.
He targeted the ones most likely to attack.
But Kanghyeok knew better than anyone that this one-sided assault wouldn't last.
*Clink.*
Readjusting the nearly empty shotgun in one hand, he moved his other to his pistol.
“Gah!”
*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*
With fewer men standing, those with more room to move began to fight back.
It was then.
Kanghyeok covered his head and dove at them, rolling on the floor with his target.
“St-Stop!”
Having landed in their midst, the shooting stopped.
Instead, rifle butts rained down, mercilessly striking Kanghyeok's shoulder and back.
“Ugh!”
Though he groaned in pain, Kanghyeok pressed the pistol to the fallen man's forehead and pushed himself up.
*BANG!*
As he raised his upper body, he pulled the trigger and simultaneously shifted his gaze and the muzzle of his gun to the feet crowding the floor.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
“Aaargh!”
“Gaaah!”
Another rifle butt came flying.
Thankfully, this one was aimed at his face.
*Smack!*
Kanghyeok shoved his hand between the gun and the man's arm, then grabbed the rifle with his other hand and twisted it sharply counterclockwise.
*Crack!*
The man's jaw dropped open as his wrist dislocated.
*Thwack!*
Another rifle butt struck Kanghyeok's back and temple, while another man stabbed down at his thigh with a combat knife.
“Gah!”
*Click.*
Kanghyeok ripped the magazine from the man's rifle and swung it at the one holding the knife.
The sharp edge of the magazine crushed the man's eyeball, and a clear fluid trickled onto the floor.
*BANG!*
After shooting the man in the head with his pistol, Kanghyeok moved the muzzle and pulled the trigger again.
*CRACK! CRACK!*
The men were so tightly packed that he didn't even need to aim.
As the number of standing men dwindled, an exceptionally large one roared and charged at him.
*Thud!*
The man grabbed Kanghyeok's pistol hand and, like an angry bull, shoved him against the wall.
“Hold him! Pin him down!”
Another man lunged like a wild dog, pressing down on Kanghyeok's waist and grabbing his legs, forcing him to his knees.
“Good! Keep him there!”
The men behind them shouted and raised their rifles, aiming at Kanghyeok. But they couldn't get a clean shot at his head or hands.
Their comrades were tangled up with Kanghyeok.
More than anything, their desperate urge to eliminate Kanghyeok quickly compelled them to just pull the trigger.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat! CRACK! CRACK!*
Two men fired on full auto, and one fired single shots, spraying bullets at Kanghyeok and their own allies.
*Thwump!*
“Aaargh!”
“Gyaaargh!”
As if in conversation with their screaming comrades, the men in the back yelled.
“Push harder!”
“Keep holding him!”
This was an opponent who couldn't be eliminated without sacrifice.
Knowing this, the men holding Kanghyeok's limbs clung to him like demons, even after being shot.
*Rat-tat-tat!*
Just as the shooting, which had briefly paused, resumed, the light faded from the eyes of the man gripping Kanghyeok's arm. Blood trickled from his mouth, and as death, which willpower could not stop, approached, the strength drained from his hands.
Thanks to that, one of Kanghyeok's hands was now slightly free.
The hand holding the pistol.
*BANG!*
The man, shot through the top of his head, collapsed like a deflated doll.
“Uh, ughhh!”
The others moved instinctively.
A gut feeling that they couldn't let Kanghyeok get free.
*Thud.*
One man slammed Kanghyeok's pistol arm against the wall,
*Thump!*
another hugged the shotgun, and the one holding his waist pushed Kanghyeok against the wall with all his might.
*Click, clack!*
He saw a man a short distance away hurriedly loading a sniper rifle.
Not an assault rifle, but a sniper rifle.
The desperation to end this situation, where his allies were dropping one after another, was palpable in the man's trembling hands.
He managed to place his free hand on the shotgun's trigger, but the muzzle was pointing down the other end of the hall.
He didn't have an angle.
“Hurry! Please!”
As the man holding the shotgun pleaded, Kanghyeok pressed a button near the barrel.
*Click.*
The shotgun's body folded, and the muzzle pointed toward the floor.
“Huh?”
The man's eyes widened, clearly not expecting such a weapon to exist.
*BOOM!*
When he pulled the trigger, blood burst from the man's foot.
“Gyaaargh!”
The shotgun slipped from the man's grasp.
Kanghyeok flicked his wrist clockwise, shaking the shotgun,
*Whoosh, click!*
and as the metal parts locked and the shotgun straightened out,
*BOOM!*
he blew away the head of the man with the shattered instep.
*Smack!*
The recoil slammed his elbow into the wall, but he could endure that much.
He could feel the strength draining from the hands of the men pinning him down. But they didn't seem to be trying to fight back.
Their eyes were filled with fear.
*BOOM!*
The shotgun blast, fired diagonally upward from his waist, killed both the man holding his waist and the one pinning his arm.
Immediately after.
*Clank!*
The man with the sniper rifle finally finished loading. His gaze, gleaming with murderous intent, turned to Kanghyeok.
*Crack!*
The pistol Kanghyeok threw with all his might struck the man's head.
*BANG!*
With a sound like tearing metal, the sniper rifle fired, blowing a large hole in the ceiling.
“You son of a bitch!”
A curse, unclear if it was aimed at their foolish comrade or at Kanghyeok, spread among the men.
And then the other men opened fire on Kanghyeok all at once.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*
They were firing to survive.
As desperate as they were, bullets poured from their muzzles.
Fired wildly without proper aim, most of the bullets lodged in the wall behind Kanghyeok.
But some still hit Kanghyeok, who was shielding his head with his arms.
*Click! Click! Click!*
It didn't take long for them to empty their rifles.
Kanghyeok, hit in the arms, chest, and thigh by rifle rounds, remained standing for a moment.
Then his legs gave out and he collapsed, and a look of ecstasy spread across the men's eyes.
“We… we killed him.”
“Son of a bitch! He’s finally dead!”
The men no longer felt fear.
Relieved to be alive and having turned the tables, they radiated only vengeance and bloodlust.
One of them picked up the kukri embedded in his comrade's skull.
“Wait! We have to report to Mr. Dive first!”
“He’s already dead! I’m taking his head.”
His eyes gleaming, the man strode toward Kanghyeok, kukri in hand. Then he grabbed Kanghyeok’s hair and yanked his head back.
“Huh.”
The man’s body froze the instant he saw Kanghyeok’s eyes.
The first thing he saw was a face contorted in pain.
He also saw the blood flowing from below his lips.
But those eyes.
There was no sign of a dying man in Kanghyeok's eyes.
There was only a simmering fighting spirit.
“Th-this.”
As the flustered man tried to let go of his hair, Kanghyeok grabbed his wrist.
Then he spun with the man, breaking his arm, and slammed the muzzle of the pistol into his temple.
*BANG!*
Kanghyeok took the kukri from the corpse and got to his feet.
“Heuh, huuu.”
In the dark hallway, littered with bodies like a scene from hell, Kanghyeok exhaled.
It was the time of day when the cool dawn air began to seep in from all sides.
As his breath frosted white in the moonlight, the men facing Kanghyeok instinctively flinched.
What? Why isn't he dead?
He was riddled with bullets.
If it were one or two shots, it would be understandable.
But Kanghyeok had been hit by at least a dozen, if not several dozen, rounds.
*Tink, plink, tink.*
The blunted lead slugs that had been embedded in his suit fell to the floor, but the men were so focused on Kanghyeok they didn't even notice.
“Haaaah.”
Kanghyeok let out a long breath.
The bulletproof suit had stopped the rounds from piercing his body, but it couldn't prevent muscle tears, internal damage, and fractures.
Every part of his body was screaming in protest.
If he could, he would have collapsed and lost consciousness right then and there.
But not now.
There was still someone who needed to be killed.
Jeff and Leila haven't escaped yet.
So,
*Clatter.*
The pistol slipped from Kanghyeok's hand and fell to the blood-slicked floor.
And Kanghyeok raised the rifle he had lowered.
“Aaaaah!”
Terrified, the men pulled their triggers at Kanghyeok.
But their rifles were fitted with empty magazines, and not a single bullet reached him.
“Aaaah!”
*Thwack!*
Kanghyeok threw the kukri, hitting the man who was pulling out a new magazine.
The man's feet flew into the air as if he'd slipped, and he fell backward. With both hands free, Kanghyeok gripped the rifle and aligned his sight with the target.
*Click, clack!*
He slapped in a new magazine and fired at the men's heads.
*Rat-tat! Rat-tat! Rat-tat! Rat-tat!*
The heated barrel warmed the surrounding air.
The smell of gas and gunpowder erupting from the weapon felt like it was clawing at his throat.
The smell of blood rising from the floor.
It felt as if the souls of the piled-up corpses were grabbing his body, trying to drag him down.
*Thud.*
Leaning his elbow against the wall, Kanghyeok focused on his breathing.
“Hah, hah.”
It was over.
He heard no sounds of anyone running toward him.
Kanghyeok took out a cigarette, lit it, and simply let it hang from his lips as bluish smoke curled upward.
“Ugh!”
Then, feeling somewhat recovered, he tried to take a drag, but a sudden pain flared in his chest.
He looked down at his chest and saw bloodstains near the buttons of his dress shirt.
A bullet the suit hadn't stopped had pierced his shirt and penetrated his body.
*Tug!*
Kanghyeok tightened the loosened knot of his tie, covering the bloodstain.
He smoked the rest of the cigarette as if it were precious.
All that remained was to make Dive pay for his sins.
‘I wonder how it feels.’
All his subordinates were dead.
I don't know if he'll hide in a corner like Rashid or come out some other way, but just wait.
It won't take long.
Kanghyeok retrieved his kukri and started walking.
He had already memorized the building's layout, so he knew where Dive was likely hiding.
As he headed that way, a small light outside the window caught his eye.
A man, hunched over, was half-running, half-walking toward a running car.
“Found you.”
Kanghyeok rested the rifle on the windowsill and aimed at Dive, who was about to get into the car.
And,
*BANG!*
a single bullet tore fiercely through the darkness and reached Dive.