Chapter 154. Escape.
Hanna couldn't sleep a wink all night. The thought that Lee Jong-hyun had been personally eliminating the people who had vanished without a trace wouldn't leave her mind.
'What did he mean by growing stronger? Why did he kill those people himself...'
Her thoughts were a tangled mess. Every instinct screamed that she couldn't stay here any longer. She had to run. And she had to save a few of the people close to her—above all, her dearest friend, Jimin.
'I can trust Jimin. I have to take her with me, no matter what.'
Pulling an all-nighter must have been a mistake—she dozed off without realizing it. When she opened her eyes, the sun was already high in the sky. Hanna hurried off to find Jimin, only to hear unexpected news from the people around her.
"Jimin? I saw her heading somewhere. Jong-hyun called for her."
The moment she heard that, Hanna's heart sank. A wave of dread crashed over her—if Jimin fell into Lee Jong-hyun's hands, she could suffer exactly what Hanna had witnessed the day before. Her head spun. She had to come up with some excuse to pull her out.
'What can I say to get her away from him?'
After thinking for a moment, she concocted a rough pretext and headed to the office where Lee Jong-hyun was.
— Knock, knock...
When a voice inside told her to enter, Hanna schooled her expression as carefully as she could and walked in as if nothing was wrong.
"Hanna, what brings you here?"
Jimin was sitting across from Lee Jong-hyun, apparently still unharmed.
"It's about the supply inventory check. I needed Jimin for it, and when people told me you'd called her, I came straight here."
"Hmm... Is that so?"
"Yes. You know how capable Jimin is with this kind of thing."
"That's true, but... I actually had a separate task for Jimin. We were about to head out somewhere together, just the two of us."
The words "just the two of us" made Hanna's heart pound. If she let the two of them leave now, Jimin would never come back.
"In that case, could I just borrow her for a moment and have her come right back?"
"How long would it take?"
"Hmm... I think before dinner tonight would be plenty of time."
"That's a bit long..."
"Haha, they begged me for urgent help—all the supplies they hauled in from that village are a real headache..."
"Alright. The supplies are for the survivors' benefit, after all."
Whether he didn't notice or not, Lee Jong-hyun let Jimin go without resistance, smiling and waving goodbye, saying he'd see them at dinner. Now that Hanna knew the truth, that smiling face was utterly revolting. The moment the door shut, Hanna roughly grabbed Jimin's arm and started dragging her somewhere.
"Hanna... easy, let go. My arm hurts..."
"Everything I'm about to tell you is the truth."
Maybe it was the desperate look on Hanna's face—one Jimin had never seen before—but her expression turned grave as well.
"Jimin... Lee Jong-hyun... is far more dangerous than we ever imagined."
Jimin's eyes wavered, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"What? What are you suddenly talking about? Him, dangerous? That's crazy. He's been saving people here and protecting them."
On the surface, Lee Jong-hyun looked like a good man. But the memory of the shocking scene Hanna had witnessed the night before surged back, and she couldn't hold back any longer.
"Last night, I... I saw something. Lee Jong-hyun, he..."
The scene she'd witnessed flashed through her mind again. Hanna trembled, tears streaming from her eyes as she spoke.
"What? It has to be some kind of misunderstanding, or maybe you just saw it wrong..."
Hanna cut Jimin off, as if she couldn't bear to hear another word.
"No. I didn't want to believe it at first either. But I saw it with my own eyes. That man isn't the righteous leader we thought he was... He's... Hic..."
She told her about all the people who had gone missing and explained what they had in common. Jimin didn't want to believe Hanna's words, but she saw the deadly seriousness in Hanna's eyes and realized she couldn't ignore it any longer. Slowly, fear crept across Jimin's face.
"Then... the reason he called for me... and saying we'd go somewhere together..."
"That's right. He was planning to quietly kill you."
Jimin looked at Hanna with anxious eyes.
"Jimin, we have to run."
"How can we run? If he finds out, you'll be in danger too. Can we really escape?"
Hanna hesitated for a moment, then made up her mind.
"We have to leave before Lee Jong-hyun catches on. The village in Gimpo... if we get there, they'll protect us...!"
The two of them exchanged uneasy looks and began to plan their escape.
With that strange, half-hearted standoff still dragging on, I'd expected some kind of reaction from Lee Jong-hyun's group. But no word came.
"Hmm... He's not the type to sit still..."
"Commander, our intelligence-gathering teams have found some fairly shocking information. Shall I summon them?"
"No. Leave them be for now. With bastards like him, it's better to let them fracture from the inside and collapse naturally. If we poke them from the outside, it just tightens their cohesion and makes them a hassle."
"Yes, understood."
To be precise, there hadn't been any clear change in their actions, but the atmosphere around Lee Jong-hyun had shifted. That didn't mean I was worried about some raid or terrorist attack. He was, by nature, surprisingly objective and cold-blooded.
The fact that he knew his own martial strength was weak and had chosen to push weaklings to the front to wage a PR war said everything about his character.
'And that's exactly why I can't figure him out... Why isn't he doing anything?'
Could the bastard actually be listening to other people's arguments and changing his worldview?
I scoffed and shook my head.
'Not a chance. Absolutely not.'
"Old man, I don't think I can put off the trip to China any longer."
"When do you plan to depart, sir?"
"Within a week, at the latest. And tell the intelligence team that if things get dicey, just assassinate the bastard."
"If the information they've gathered is truly something that could flip the board in a single stroke..."
"Tell them I'm leaving the call on the assassination to their judgment."
The critical discussions continued. Amid the back-and-forth of opinions, a siren began to echo through the village—a sound that had never gone off except when the Celestials had come.
"What's going on?"
I immediately stood and looked out the window. The others in the meeting crowded toward the windows as well, their faces startled. Outside, the villagers were moving in perfect order, grabbing their weapons in response to the siren.
"Several vehicles are speeding toward the village, right now!"
Someone burst into the room and reported breathlessly. Multiple vehicles were kicking up dust in the distance, racing straight for the village. And out in front, two women were sprinting with everything they had, desperately trying to make it through the entrance.
"Lee Jong-hyun, you've really lost your goddamn mind."
I'd never imagined he'd throw himself at us in a blind, suicidal rush like this.
"Old man, tell our guys to stand by. The moment I give the order, I want that bastard grabbed and brought in."
A considerable amount of time had passed since Hanna had gotten Jimin out and they'd agreed on their escape plan. Lee Jong-hyun probably wouldn't care much if they were a little past dinnertime, but if they were gone much longer than that, he'd get suspicious and send people to drag them back.
"Ready?"
Hanna whispered to Jimin in a small, sharp voice. Jimin nodded, struggling to hide her fear. All kinds of fears and anxieties churned in both their hearts, but they couldn't back down now. Lee Jong-hyun's madness was threatening their lives, and now that they had confirmed the truth, they couldn't just sit still.
The vehicle they'd targeted was parked in a lot on the group's far edge. The place was cramped and contained nothing but vehicles, which meant it was relatively poorly guarded—and they meant to exploit that gap. Hanna strode confidently up to the man on guard duty.
The guard, who had been dozing, looked them over with barely concealed disdain. "What business do you have all the way out here?"
"We need a vehicle to sort through the supplies we brought from Gimpo."
Two frail women, rather than men, showing up to move supplies made him eye them with a hint of suspicion.
"I'll have to radio this in."
Hanna nodded as if it were nothing. She'd anticipated this.
"Hey, Jong-hyun. Two ladies are here asking to use a vehicle to organize supplies..."
Hanna snatched the walkie-talkie out of his hand and spoke to Lee Jong-hyun directly, right in front of him.
"Jong-hyun, you know I mentioned the supply sorting earlier? We're trying to grab a vehicle for that."
"You need a vehicle for an inventory count...?"
"You know how huge the quantity is. It's too much to haul around by hand."
Lee Jong-hyun sounded faintly suspicious, but her reasoning made sense, and he authorized the vehicle.
"Alright. Go ahead and use it, but return it to its original spot afterward. Drive safely."
With a bold "See? I told you," expression, she handed the walkie-talkie back to the guard. He wore a dubious look right to the end, but he eventually handed over the keys.
The vehicle doors opened. Jimin climbed into the passenger seat; Hanna got behind the wheel. The engine rumbled to life with a low growl, and the vehicle slowly pulled away. Soon, a fork in the road loomed before them—the split that would decide whether they lived or died.
The right branch led to the supply warehouse. The left was the road out. In that moment, both their hearts began to pound violently.
"Go!"
Hanna drew a deep breath, threw the car into gear, and stomped the accelerator with all her strength. The engine roared and the vehicle shot forward, crashing through every flimsy barricade in its way.
But just before they cleared the perimeter, someone outside shouted.
"What the hell is that?! Stop them, now!"
Lee Jong-hyun had been uneasy about the situation and was keeping an eye on them; the moment the vehicle veered in the wrong direction, he barked the order to his people.
At the sound, Hanna gripped the wheel even tighter and jammed the speed higher. The vehicle bucked wildly. Behind them, gunfire began cracking. Any second now, they'd pile into their own vehicles and come tearing after them.
"We cannot let them catch us!"
Hanna muttered under her trembling breath and started racing down roads left in ruin by the apocalypse.