Negotiation (3)
The net came off along with the hat, and the springy hair hidden beneath it cascaded down over the female officer’s face and shoulders with a soft *swish*.
“What the—? How dare you…!”
The startled female officer widened her eyes and whipped her head around. Of course, she wasn’t the only one shocked.
‘Chairman Hwang’s daughter…?’
Yubin’s enlarged eyes were fixed not on her face, but on her hair. The dark brown dye and the silky texture were far too luxurious to belong to a soldier.
If she really was the daughter of Taeyang Group’s chairman, it explained the unnatural reactions the aides had shown earlier when Sheriff slammed the table. But… why would the chairman’s daughter come here? And if that was the case… where was Brigadier General Park?
Wait. Come to think of it, there had been some rumor about Chairman Hwang’s daughter. What was it again?
The moment Yubin’s mind grew tangled, the two aides who had been flanking her sprang to their feet and shoved Mingu aside.
“You son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing?!”
But Mingu didn’t flinch. He slipped past their hands, grabbed the female officer by the chin, and turned her face toward him.
“It’s her, all right.”
Mingu stared straight at her face and nodded. The female officer trembled violently and raised her voice.
“Don’t touch me! Let go!”
“Hey, you bastard! Get your hands off her!”
The two aides flanking her charged at Mingu.
*Shk—!*
At the same time, the man seated to Brigadier General Park’s right lifted his hips from the chair and slipped a hand into the inner pocket of his jumper.
“You think this is a fucking joke?!”
Sheriff, who had already closed the distance, seized the man’s elbow and shoulder and slammed him face-first into the table.
*Thud—!*
Crushed by overwhelming strength, the man on the right couldn’t even resist properly before his face smashed into the table. When Sheriff twisted his arm behind his back, the pistol he’d been trying to draw clattered to the floor.
*Clack!*
Sheriff kicked the pistol toward Yubin with his heel, then pressed down hard on the man’s shoulder once more.
*Crack!*
The sound of something snapping in the man’s joint rang out. At the same time, Sheriff kicked the back of his knee.
“Argh!”
The man on the right, his face now covered in a fountain of nosebleed, screamed and collapsed. Having disabled the man’s right shoulder and left knee, Sheriff snarled like a lion.
“I told you not to pull a gun, you piece of shit! You wanna die?”
“Ugh…!”
Brigadier General Park, watching his aide collapse in a single blow, bit his lip hard and reached toward his leg. But Sheriff was faster—he planted a hand on the table, vaulted over it, and unleashed a kick.
*Crack—!*
The incredibly powerful kick that flew across the table slammed straight into Brigadier General Park’s face.
“Guhk!”
Brigadier General Park’s head snapped backward, his mouth instantly filling with blood. Sheriff followed up by smashing a vicious blow into the man’s temple and roared.
“Both hands on the table, you fucking dog!”
*Thump—!*
Brigadier General Park’s eyes rolled back and he crumpled sideways like a felled log. It had all happened in the blink of an eye—before he could even pull the pistol from his breadbag pocket.
“Kyaaaah—!”
With a brawl erupting right beside her, the female officer screamed and covered her mouth. Even so, her eyes stayed wide open, watching everything—including the close-quarters fight between Mingu and her two aides.
*Crack! Thud!*
Every time Mingu threw a light jab with a loosely clenched fist that landed on a nose or temple, the burly aides’ faces twisted and their bodies staggered. In contrast, their punches and kicks simply slid past Mingu’s body as if slipping on oil.
“You bastard, do you even know who we—!”
The lieutenant colonel aide who had been kicked all the way to the railing reached behind his military jacket.
*Slice—!*
A short but chilling sound rang out. The lieutenant colonel’s face turned deathly pale with agony. Blood instantly gushed from his armpit where the kukri had deeply slashed through.
“Gaaahhh!”
The lieutenant colonel who had been trying to draw his pistol from behind screamed and collapsed. Mingu didn’t even blink.
*Slice! Slash!*
Mingu swung the kukri twice more like lightning, carving wounds into the man’s forearm and the back of his hand so he couldn’t use his arm. Then he spun around, pressed the blade against the chin of the captain on the left, and asked,
“You wanna try too?”
*Gulp!*
The captain swallowed dryly, his chin trembling, and slowly shook his head. He raised the hand he had been reaching behind his back above his head in surrender. The skill was too fast, too precise, and utterly merciless. This wasn’t something you could overcome just by risking your life.
“Smart guy. Hands behind your head and kneel.”
Mingu kept the blade in place and gave the cold command.
*—Chzzt! What the hell, YB? Why’d it suddenly turn into a shitshow?*
Jinwoo’s voice came through the receiver in Yubin’s ear. Yubin pressed the transmit button and answered.
“The soldiers… were fakes. According to Mingu, that female officer… is Chairman Hwang’s daughter. Judging by how the others reacted, it seems to be true.”
—Whoa! *Chzzt!* What a mess…
Jinwoo let out a surprised exclamation. He had no idea what was really going on, but the most important thing was that the current standoff didn’t look particularly dangerous to him.
—*Chzzt!* If it gets dangerous, give me a signal. I’m still *chzzt!* keeping watch.
“Got it. Will do.”
Yubin gave a short reply and cut the transmission.
“Ughhh…!”
The lieutenant colonel, his right arm drenched in blood, rolled on the floor and let out pained groans. The aide on the right, whose shoulder had been dislocated by Sheriff, also had a badly contorted face. But on the third floor of this riverside café, there wasn’t a single person who felt any sympathy for them. In fact, they were completely ignored.
“Well, looks like the cleanup’s done…”
Sheriff, who had searched the men and confiscated all their remaining pistols, jerked his chin toward the female officer in question.
“Who is she, man? Why’d you go this far?”
“Haaah…! Haa…!”
She was panting, her face tense as she scanned her surroundings. Yet even in this situation—where all four of her companions had been subdued—not a single tear welled in her eyes.
“What did you hear? I told you—she’s Chairman Hwang’s daughter. Her name was probably…”
Mingu pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and searched his memory for a moment before speaking.
“Yeah. Hwang… Nayeon.”
“No! It’s not true! That’s not right! Look at the name tag! I’m Yoo So-jin! Major Yoo So-jin of the Army! Don’t you see this?”
The female officer slammed the table and shot to her feet, flapping the name tag on her uniform while screeching. Mingu didn’t even look at her face. He simply lit his lighter and nodded.
“Judging by the way you talk, there’s no doubt. I remember that tone.”
“What tone? Don’t talk nonsense! Are you crazy? I already told you! I’m Yoo So-jin, and the guy you knocked out over there is Brigadier General Park! The real Brigadier General Park! You got the wrong person! What are you going to do about this? You’ve assaulted an active-duty Army general!”
“Don’t you recognize my face?”
Mingu exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke, then pulled the large horn-rimmed glasses off her face and asked. Now that he’d done that, even Yubin felt like the memory was on the tip of his tongue. Though it was covered in thick kabuki-style makeup, that woman… looked like someone he had seen on TV news before. It had something to do with… a major company going bankrupt…
“You motherfucker! How the hell would I remember a face like yours? We’ve never even met!”
“We had a meeting together two years ago with Chairman Yuk Man-bae! In that conference room in Yongsan.”
Mingu tossed the woman’s glasses onto the table with a clack. At the word “Yongsan,” the woman flinched and bit her lip hard.
“Shit!”
Muttering a curse in English, the woman stubbornly crossed her arms and glared at Mingu.
“So what? Why the hell are you doing this? We just came here for negotiations! We don’t want trouble! Damn! What’s wrong with you?”
“Then… is this the woman that employee called the Witch of Ruin?”
Sheriff turned to Yubin and asked. Only then did the nickname the Taeyang Group security guard had mentioned pop back into Yubin’s head.
“…The Witch of Ruin.”
“That’s right, the Witch of Ruin! She doesn’t look the part, but that nickname is fucking perfect.”
Sheriff looked her up and down with an intrigued expression. Yubin had a different question.
“Where the hell is Brigadier General Park, and why did these people come instead? From the looks of it, they all seem to be her bodyguards.”
As he glanced at the groaning bodyguards, Mingu spun the kukri once in the air and regripped it.
“If we tell them to spill the truth, we’ll find out.”
He looked ready to grab any one of them, shove the blade in without hesitation, and begin the torture.
“Ughhh…”
The aide on the right, whose eyes met Mingu’s, let out a fearful groan. But with his shoulder and knee broken and sprawled on the floor, he couldn’t run even if he wanted to.
“Look! That kind of talk isn’t necessary!”
The witch let out a sigh to swallow her fear, but her voice still trembled as she demanded negotiations again.
“This is a simple deal. Our needs are clear. You guys want ammo. Me? Blood. You just sell me the blood of that final-level evolution immune you got from Terra, and I give you the ammo! That’s it. Who supplies the ammunition doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No, it matters quite a bit.”
Yubin put the blood bag back into the icebox and slowly shook his head.
“We don’t do business with just anyone. Especially not with you…”
“Why? You don’t even know me! There’s no reason for you to hate me!”
At the witch’s question, Yubin suppressed his rage and answered.
“I know exactly what you people did in Yongsan.”
The scenes he had witnessed at the Taeyang Group headquarters in Yongsan last summer when they went to rescue Terra flashed vividly before his eyes.
The horrific place where living people were fed to the zombified Little Chairman, where healthy people were abused, tortured, then turned into zombies for experiments. Kyung-soon had been captured and murdered there. Hyeju’s other friends had lost their lives too. They had nearly killed Terra as well… Those insane bastards. The boss of those demonic creatures was now standing right in front of him.
“After doing all that—catching people and feeding them to zombies—you have the nerve to crawl out here like this? Do you have no brain, or are your balls just that fucking big?”
Even Sheriff’s language grew rough. Still, the witch stubbornly held her ground.
“I didn’t do it! Don’t misunderstand.”
“Didn’t do it my ass, you bitch! Your own men confessed that you gave the orders!”
The furious Sheriff grabbed her arm and raised his voice. The witch frowned and screamed.
“Ouch! Stop it! It hurts! Let go! Let go!”
“Let go my ass! Does this hurt? After you let people get torn apart and eaten by zombies? After all the people you killed, you don’t even have the right to say that!”
“I had nothing to do with those illegal experiments at the Yongsan headquarters! I was the one who tried to stop them! Ah! Ah! Stop! Let go!”
“Then who gave the orders? The zombified Little Chairman? That bastard didn’t look like he was in any condition to be giving orders.”
When Sheriff tightened his grip on her wrist even more, the witch slapped the back of his hand and glared with wide eyes.
“You idiot! I—I’m not that bad of a person! Those are all baseless rumors spread by people trying to kill me! It’s my father! The problem is my father, holed up at the top! I never had that kind of power to begin with!”
“Bullshit. If you’re so powerless, how do you show up in a helicopter with four bodyguards? Keep talking nonsense and see what happens.”
“Ugh! I’m just doing what the boss orders! I had no choice but to come here because I was given the order! Otherwise, why the hell would I come to a terrible place crawling with zombies? Team Leader! Help! Say something!”
She turned desperately toward the kneeling aide and begged. But Mingu immediately cut off any chance of the man speaking.
“You keep your mouth shut.”
The tip of the kukri hovering in front of his eyes made the aide clamp his mouth shut instantly. Having given up on help from that side, the witch came up with another excuse.
“Haa…! You don’t have the right to decide this. Don’t make any stupid mistakes and contact your boss, General Kim. I can promise to support him.”
“You just said with your own mouth that you have no authority, yet you can make promises like that?”
When Yubin cut in and struck at the heart of the matter, the witch suddenly began acting like a pitiful woman.
“Please! Are a bunch of big guys really going to torture and kill one powerless woman? This isn’t fair! Aaaah! Hey, short guy over there! You!”
The witch pointed at Yubin, then glared at Sheriff while pretending to sob.
“Stop this big guy! You’re not this savage, are you? Don’t you feel sorry for me? There’s no personal grudge between us!”
“No personal grudge?”
Yubin raised his prosthetic hand covered by the glove and asked her.
“Do you know why my hand is like this?”
The horrific scenes from Yongsan.
People fed alive to the zombified Little Chairman.
Torture. Experiments. Death.
Kyung-soon. Hyeju’s friends. Nearly Terra herself.