Chapter 63

● SYSTEM

ΔT+11:25

Bang—.

A damp reek clung to the long-abandoned parking structure, whose exterior walls were webbed with hairline cracks. It was the smell Gye Do-hyeop hated most: the primordial odor of decay, of microorganisms patiently breaking organic matter down into rot. The place felt emptied of vitality, dead long enough that finding the nameless corpse of a street vagrant in some shadowed corner would not have surprised anyone. Even the amber streetlight spilling in from outside seemed alien. Tilting his head toward that thin beam, Gye Do-hyeop let the rifle drop from his hands to the concrete.

Clatter.

Gye Do-hyeop had only brought two handguns from the start. He couldn’t even recall who the rifle originally belonged to, though it had probably been one of the last two.

Both earlier and here, Gwak Chun-young had apparently decided to employ human-wave tactics. The mobs rushing him like a pack of stray dogs mostly weren’t locals, judging by the familiar foreign accents barking commands—accents he had heard plenty from suspects during his counterterrorism days.

“Ah, fuck, this goddamn stench,” Gye Do-hyeop muttered.

Gye Do-hyeop despised the smell of blood. More specifically, the smell of blood from the dead. When administering torture, a subject who desperately wished to survive usually gave off the fresh, living scent of water. But the dark red gore pooling from corpses was thick, foul, and rancid. Gye Do-hyeop knew how to distinguish the two.

“Hands up if you’re alive.”

Gunfire had died down in the building, leaving eight to ten bodies strewn at his feet. Factoring in the other floors, the toll probably reached fifteen. Gye Do-hyeop slowly rolled over a sprawled corpse with the toe of his boot.

One had his lower jaw blown apart; another had his chest split wide. That was courtesy of a shotgun he had commandeered midway through. ‘You bastards definitely got all this handed out by Gwak Chun-young. Fucking ancient junk.’ The moment he drove the buttstock up into the man’s jaw, took aim, and fired, the guy had flown back several meters, vomiting blood.

The problem was that facing overwhelming numbers with irritation boiling inside, he had sprayed fire indiscriminately, leaving no one alive. He checked the vitals of three or four more by grinding his boot heel into their necks or skulls, but they merely flopped like drained squid.

Chk.

A voice crackled over the radio. —“What’s the situation over there? Report on-site status.”

Gye Do-hyeop turned his head. A radio cord trailed down from the shoulder to the belly of a dead man slumped against the wall, head bowed. Striding over, Gye dropped into a crouch. Seizing the black plastic radio mic, he keyed the transmit button.

“Rupurt un-site stutus,” Gye Do-hyeop mocked.

A derisive chuckle shook his chest at his own ridiculous mimicry.

—“The hell?”

Gye Do-hyeop sneered into the mic, “Fucking small-fry bastards, acting all high and mighty just because you’ve seen a few movies.”

—“Who the fuck is this?” a voice snarled over the static.

“Do-hyeop,” he replied smoothly. “Who are you?”

Silence answered him. Why do bastards always ignore a straight question?

—“Where are you right now?”

Asking once more with mock mercy, Gye Do-hyeop straightened his knees and rose to his feet. Because he still held the transceiver in his grip, the corpse attached to the harness slumped forward with a dull thud, its coiled cord stretching taut.

The fact that someone had to report upward meant this place was merely a decoy outpost, not the main hideout. Tapping the wrist terminal twice to summon the extraction chopper, Gye Do-hyeop brought the tactical microphone to his lips.

Static.

“I’m on my way. See you soon?”

Smack!

Releasing the chunky plastic casing, the square mic whipped violently along the tensioned cord, cracking sickeningly across the corpse’s skull before clattering to the floor. As the swinging pendulum settled to a complete halt against the navy trousers, not a breath of life remained in the room. Two minutes later, a violent gust of rotor wash swept across the rooftop before fading into the night.

● SYSTEM

ΔT+13:41

*

“Sorry for the wait. Business keeps me so terribly occupied,” Gwak Chun-young drawled smoothly. “Have you been behaving yourself?”

Having concluded his phone call, Gwak sauntered over with impeccable grooming, burying his manicured hands deep into his tailored trouser pockets. Bound to the wooden chair, Geum Seoul’s scrawny shoulders looked impossibly frail.

“So then, are you ready to talk?” Gwak asked.

“……”

During his brief absence, thick strings of dark blood had seeped through the coarse black hood covering Seoul’s bowed head, dripping steadily onto his thighs. Stubborn little bastard. Gwak Chun-young tilted his chin with an amused click of his tongue.

“Hey. That Deputy Director Gye Do-hyeop you’re so fond of hasn’t shown the slightest sign of looking for you,” Gwak taunted. “What good does keeping your pretty mouth shut do? Is this tragic unrequited love?”

“……”

Again, not a sound answered him. Watching closely, the boy who had been panting for breath minutes ago was now completely motionless. Gwak’s brow furrowed in annoyance.

“Did you idiots lay hands on him?” Gwak snapped.

“No, boss,” the guard behind him answered quickly. “You instructed us to leave him entirely to you, so we didn’t touch him.”

“Then what’s with this? Did he drop dead?”

“Take it off,” Gwak ordered with a flick of his wrist. Stepping forward with heavy strides, the guard grabbed a handful of hair and yanked the black hood away. With a dry rustle, the blood-smeared face was exposed beneath the harsh yellow glare of the overhead bulb.

Plink, plink.

Translucent jewel beads rolled from beneath the discarded hood, scattering across the concrete floor.

Blood streaming from shattered nostrils and a split brow had stained his entire face crimson, while damp brown bangs clung messily to his cold-sweat-slicked forehead. A trickle of red pooling over his parted lips ran down the curve of his chin in a slow, sticky ribbon. Flicker, flicker. His delicate brown eyelashes trembled faintly before lifting upward. Geum Seoul had not lost consciousness at all.

“What’s this?” Gwak asked with an oily chuckle. “Playing possum on purpose?”

“……”

Gwak mocked him, “What, was the hood suffocating? Look at this tiny thing trying to pull tricks.”

Tilting his head, Gwak buried ringed fingers into the sweaty brown hair at the nape of the boy’s neck and yanked until Seoul’s face tipped back beneath the yellow lamplight. Despite the swelling around the split brow—where Gwak’s rings had gouged him during the earlier beating—those amber pupils remained unnervingly clear. A cold, inexplicable shiver prickled along Gwak’s spine. He rolled his shoulders once, as though trying to shake off the revulsion.

“…Hey, brat,” Gwak purred softly. “Want to move into Ahjussi’s display cabinet?”

“I… don’t want to,” Seoul rasped.

“It’s got to be far better than living as Gye Do-hyeop’s cock-sleeve, don’t you think?”

Watching the boy’s face turn rigid as marble, Gwak Chun-young let out a smirk. Massaging the array of heavy signet rings encrusting his fingers, he deliberated for a moment before slipping a plain, unadorned wire band off his pinky—the only ring in his collection devoid of gems.

“My mansion is incomparably nicer,” Gwak cooed. “That bastard never draws his curtains, does he? What does a young kid like you see in such a gloomy crypt? Think carefully. I’m not some repulsive Alpha, and—”

“I said no,” Seoul cut in.

Rebuffed twice in a row, Gwak merely chuckled, circling behind the wooden chair. He inspected the boy’s bound wrists and purple, engorged fingers. Clenching his fists in stubborn defiance without even understanding what was offered struck Gwak as childishly amusing. Forcing an open palm was effortless work; catching Seoul’s pinky, he bent it backward until the joint threatened to snap, forcing the trembling fingers to splay open in agony. Gwak slid the silver band onto Seoul’s forefinger, then stooped to pinch one of the jewel pebbles off the dirt. A brief glance confirmed it wasn’t particularly high-grade. Seems Heaven is fair after all.

“Consider this a commemorative gift for our first meeting,” Gwak purred.

Seoul shrank back against the wood. “No…”

Gwak added smoothly, “I only bestow these on truly exquisite creatures.”

Geum Seoul knitted his brow in revulsion. Though he could have forced the ring off by scraping his joints against the binding ropes, drawing unnecessary scrutiny was the last thing he wanted. Just then, an underling leaned in close to whisper into Gwak’s ear. Backing away two paces, Gwak nodded as the man murmured something muffled about an emergency radio transmission from the eastern sector.

This was his only window. Suppressing his presence entirely, Geum Seoul raised his chin to survey the enclosure. Because clotted blood was steadily draining down the back of his throat, he had to keep his lips parted just to drag in air.

A thick concrete floor stained with dark streaks of rusted runoff. No windows anywhere in sight—just a cavernous underground space. Blinking against the sting of sweat, he methodically scanned the environment from ceiling to floor.

The ceiling vaulted so high it appeared pitch-black, crisscrossed by exposed reinforced pillars and complex structural beams, completely devoid of light fixtures. The sparse yellow bulbs bolted to the masonry walls were cracked in several places, and cobwebs hung thick from forgotten corners. Along one perimeter wall, dense layers of spray-painted graffiti and faded slogans covered the concrete. Nothing immediately yielded an identifiable location.

The throbbing in his split brow blurred his vision into dizzy halos. Tilting his head from side to side to shake off the haze, he forced his pupils to refocus, tracking the tangled network of industrial conduits traversing overhead.

Tap.

“Hey, brat.”

Seoul’s chin was jerked upward once more, Gwak’s rough fingers pinching his lower lip into a pout. The man’s expression was noticeably colder now.

“I’m a busy businessman, so let’s wrap this up,” Gwak said coldly. “You know where the ledger is, don’t you?”

“I told you… everything already,” Seoul choked out.

“That’s fine, that’s fine,” Gwak purred with a cruel grin. “I happen to enjoy destroying beautiful things with my own hands.”

Watching the amber eyes submerge into visceral terror, Geum Seoul slipped the tip of his tongue between his rear molars. He could clearly see the man raising a fist. As his own fist clenched tight, the cold silver ring wound around his forefinger felt utterly nauseating. No. The moment sheer revulsion scrunched his features—

A photograph flashed across Geum Seoul’s mind like a lightning strike.

A sprawling facility with towering ceilings where five people sat around a broad conference table, engrossed in conversation. Three were seated while two stood leaning against the tabletop, surrounded by an open expanse where others drank coffee or handled paperwork. And on the far right stood a Black woman wearing a navy blue jumpsuit and dark-rimmed glasses.

‘Describe what the person on the far right was wearing.’

‘…Pardon? Please show me again.’

‘No. Recall it.’

It was the photograph Gye Do-hyeop had flashed before his eyes for a split second at the hospital. Why that precise image surged with blinding clarity right now, Seoul couldn’t fathom, but he braced his trembling eyelids and drew a tight, resolute breath.