Black Badger

Chapter 186: Interrogation (1)

Yun told me to calm down since he couldn’t find any personal information on the zombie Creature, but I ignored him.

I also ignored the growing crash of impacts. Whether they were test subjects or subordinates, something was trying hard to open the sealed door.

I had no attention to spare for that.

It’s not in this file.

Not in that one either...

On the monitor was Yehyeon’s profile.

Maybe if I read it all the way to the end, I’d find something.

I lifted my head from the pile of documents I was digging through.

Yun was squinting, and Jaeyeon was smirking.

Bang!

“Can we just take the hard drive?”

Yun looked me in the eye without changing his expression.

He had been watching me the whole time, like I was some lunatic flipping through papers.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I want to examine it.”

“No. Even if you stay unnoticed, the moment I start moving on my own, this will blow up.”

I thought he’d agree, but surprisingly, my superior refused.

He sneered at my surprised face.

“Do I look like a man who lives without any boundaries?”

“A little.”

Bang!

“You won’t find anything useful here.”

I turned my gaze to Jaeyeon.

Jaeyeon’s eyes curved in a teasing crescent.

“If it’s something that important, wouldn’t it be in Yeats’s office instead?”

Yun slammed his elbow into Jaeyeon’s ribs.

Even after taking the blow, Jaeyeon only bent over and kept chuckling.

“Hey.”

When I stood up, my superior snapped irritably.

“Drop the stupid idea.”

“I’ll go alone.”

The knot has to be untied.

Thud! Thud! Thud! The pounding on the door grew louder and faster. I treated it like background noise and walked toward the men.

If I untied them completely now, they’d probably grab me and knock me out.

I still didn’t have confidence I could beat Yun in a fight.

So I loosened the rope just enough.

“Don’t expect help.”

Yun spoke coldly, realizing he couldn’t stop me.

I smiled faintly.

Three minutes would be enough to get the ropes fully undone.

At least that would buy them three minutes. In that time, I had to run for my life.

I picked up the gun I had kicked away earlier and shoved it into my waistband. I took the access card hanging around Jaeyeon’s neck and put it around mine.

Once ready, I walked toward the pounding door.

The moment Yun and Jaeyeon were free, I planned to kick the door open.

The irritated voice of my superior.

Jaeyeon’s teasing retort.

The faint slap of loosened cords hitting the floor...

I flung the door open.

“GRAAAAAAAAH!”

“AAAAAAAHHH!”

The test subject screamed when it saw me, so I screamed back.

The test subject faltered in confusion.

I dashed past it and into the corridor.

“Help me! Help me!”

Shouting, I ran toward the stairs.

Behind me, I think Jaeyeon muttered something about “acting so bad it rots my ears,” but I ignored it. Yun said something like “I never thought I’d be abandoned by him of all people,” but I ignored that too.

With those two working together, the test subject was as good as dead.

They’d handle it.

I threw open the stairwell door and sprinted upward.

“The test subject!”

“In the basement!”

A group of men in suits came rushing down the stairs.

I shouted a reply as I passed and kept running upward.

A few of them glared at me for going the opposite way.

“Where the hell are you going!”

“To get weapons!”

Good thing the test subject had drawn their attention.

“That thing doesn’t go down with bullets!”

Not a lie, so nobody tried to stop me.

In an instant, I reached the fifth floor. I pushed open the stair door and burst into the corridor.

The hallway was completely different from the basement. Heavy scent of wood, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The Elder’s office was easy to spot.

Two subordinates stood guard before the thick door.

“What’s this?”

The blond man with his eyes closed opened one eye to look at me.

“A newbie? Why’d you come up here?”

Relaxed, aren’t we.

The chaos on B1 must have felt like a dream to them. I gauged the situation while walking down the hall.

Since Jaeyeon’s ridiculous acting had worked so far, I decided to keep playing along until I got caught.

“Th-the test subject... bullets don’t work on it...”

I stammered ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) and wiped my sweat.

“There’s already a casualty! Even enhanced bodies can’t handle it!”

“Really? So?”

“You need to evacuate immediately!”

The subordinates burst out laughing.

The blond man and the black-haired woman who’d been staring blankly ahead both laughed together. Their laughter echoed coldly in the quiet hall.

After laughing enough, they turned their sharp gazes toward me.

If they both drew their guns, I’d lose.

But I kept my clueless expression.

“Where did they find such a dumbass?”

The blond sneered and looked me up and down.

“They gave enhancement to someone like you?”

“...I’m not exaggerating.”

“Did the first floor blow up or something?”

The woman’s husky voice questioned me.

“I haven’t heard anything like that. You didn’t just run off alone, did you?”

Would be nice if they made some noise downstairs.

Just as they said, the fifth floor was quiet. I sharpened my senses, scanning the situation. I couldn’t sense humans the way one senses kin, but my five senses were still sharper than any human’s.

I wiped sweat from my hand and took a step closer to the subordinates.

I made my hand tremble faintly on purpose.

“T-then, could I at least get some ammunition...?”

The subordinates standing with hands behind their backs didn’t move.

The blond answered.

“Come get it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come get it yourself.”

What a personality.

“Why are you hesitating? You said you needed bullets.”

But that’s fine by me.

After pretending to hesitate a little, I walked toward him.

The blond raised one eyebrow, watching me approach. As if to see how far this clueless rookie would go.

This clueless rookie is about to knock you out — and the woman next to you too.

I reached for the man’s waist.

The subordinate immediately raised his voice.

“Hey, this bastard really—”

Smack!

I hit his jaw.

It landed perfectly. The snap from wrist to fist was clean. The sound was like a gunshot echoing down the corridor.

“You crazy bastard!”

The woman raised her gun at me.

As expected — I was faster.

Smack!

Bang!

I struck exactly where the jaw met the ear. She fired just before collapsing, but the bullet buried itself harmlessly in the ceiling.

Bits of plaster fell onto my shoulder.

I brushed them off and walked toward the Elder’s study door.

It was open.

‘No one’s here.’

Dragging the unconscious subordinates, I pulled them into the study.

I locked the door and piled them in front of it like doorstops.

It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would buy me another two or three minutes.

Straightening up, I scanned the silent study.

Quite an old-fashioned place. Two monitors, two towers, a desk buried in paperwork, several manila folders, and solid wood drawers probably used for document storage.

The PC would definitely need fingerprint access.

So I started with the piles of papers and manila folders on the desk.

“Ah.”

Amid the reports about territorial recovery, a familiar face suddenly appeared.

A document concerning Erich Erhart.

To be exact — about his famous subordinates.

The redhead and the blond.

Shashinsky and Rabby.

So the ever-smiling one who hated me so much — her name was Rabby.

There was also a picture of the full-banged woman I’d met a few hours ago. I skimmed through the file. Nothing particularly useful.

Instead, it contained things I really didn’t want to know.

That Shashinsky had once been a triathlon athlete who fell into depression after an injury, and Erhart had “saved” him.

That Rabby was an orphan pickpocket who had survived by theft until the day she stole Erhart’s wallet — and since then, she’d been funded by an “unknown sponsor” (obviously Erhart) before becoming his subordinate.

That the full-banged woman with horn-rimmed glasses was named Raquel, who’d run away from abusive control-freak parents and been “rescued” by Erhart.

And that those who had fallen into despair, then grasped Erich Erhart’s hand and climbed out of the pit, often developed passionate devotion and exceptional ability — the ones who did became his subordinates.

Exactly the kind of thing I didn’t want to know.

After finishing my fruitless desk search, I rushed to the drawers.

The one who had died from sickness — the same kind, the same name.

Yun said he couldn’t find anything, but not all data would’ve been open to him. Jaeyeon wouldn’t tell me, and Yehyeon probably only had partial access, so he might not know either.

I could call Colton Wiseman, but lately even the thought of him filled me with disgust. That memory from when Kudo and I suffered through patrol duty must have been the spark.

I didn’t know why the feeling kept growing stronger.

I yanked open the drawer.

And finally found a familiar photograph.

[Lee Yehyeon]

Officially an orphan.

But in truth, the child of Yekaterina’s subordinate Lee Seunghyun and a civilian woman named Sasha.

I stood frozen, reading through the thick file. The sheer weight of it — the Elder had kept everything on paper.

To avoid hacking, no doubt. The chance of someone like me breaking in was far lower than the chance of a data breach.

And because of that, I was reading the information firsthand.

I wanted data about the zombie incident...

Hm?

My eyes stopped on a particular line.

[Weakness: PTSD from child abuse]

What is this.

I forgot all about the zombie incident for a moment.

My eyes widened as I read the next lines.

The more I read those stiff sentences, the faster my heart pounded.

[Members A, B, C, D (all now deceased, see appendix), who served in the same unit as Lee Seunghyun, visited the home under the pretext of assisting child care during the father’s absence and repeatedly abused minor Lee Yehyeon.]

I flipped the pages roughly.

The photos in the appendix made my breath catch.

I knew all their faces.

We’d never spoken, but I recognized them.

They were the special force members who had trained under me alongside Lee Seunghyun.

It felt like my organs sank. I forced myself to keep reading the details.

“Found something interesting?”

A voice I didn’t recognize reached my ears while I was lost in the report.

I didn’t turn around. I kept reading.

Only after the person closed the study door behind them did I answer.

“I feel sick.”

“Ah, so you were reading the little secret of the Commander-in-Chief? Understandable. Not exactly pleasant material.”

“You mean to tell me you treated a kid who went through that like he was nothing?”

Rage at Lee Seunghyun welled up inside me.

My hands shook as I gripped the papers tightly.

“This... how could anyone...”

“Talking about Sukhoi’s subordinate, are we?”

Footsteps approached.

While I’d been drowning in anger, I hadn’t heard them coming.

I didn’t move. Maybe I couldn’t. I already knew there was no escaping this room. All I had left was the guilt of never pulling Yehyeon out of Lee Seunghyun’s neglect. I had some guilt about handing him my sword, too — but that guilt had always been outweighed by the strange joy of having gained a disciple.

But now...

I hadn’t known this.

Suddenly I remembered the pills I’d seen back in the officers’ lounge when I first fell into this world.

The ones Yun took with him, saying he’d deliver them.

Now I knew who those pills had been for.

“And what are you, exactly?”

Patrick Yeats stood beside me.

“Seems you’ve caught the eyes of the subordinates, but beyond the falsified records, I couldn’t find a single trace of you.”

“Just a normal rookie Badger who’s accidentally attracted attention for being a mutation.”

“Hmm. And what kind of mutation?”

“GreenDream doesn’t work on me, and my recovery rate is a bit low.”

Those sentenced to just ten years had all died in different ways.

A drowned.

B committed suicide.

C died in a car crash.

D perished in a fire.

All clearly had Yun’s hand behind it. So this was the extent of what counted as Yehyeon’s “weakness.”

Disgusting bastards.

“Some people with low recovery rates do exist, but I’ve never heard of one immune to GreenDream.”

He didn’t know about the Titans.

I could roughly tell how much he knew.

There was no more useful information to dig up here. I stared at the file with a face gone cold.

Yeats patted my shoulder twice.

“But of course, a body that GreenDream can’t affect — that’s quite a tempting thing. I see now. Everything makes sense. How could anyone resist? You’re a seed showing the potential to become a Superman untouched by Kryptonite.”

The Elder gripped my shoulder tightly.

“Welcome to my mansion, Hildebert. Let’s continue this conversation in the interrogation room.”

I told myself — before escaping, I would burn Yehyeon’s file.

Thinking that, I was dragged to Yeats’s interrogation chamber.

***

“How do you feel?”

The Elder stopped before me, tied to the chair.

I squinted against the stabbing white light and laughed.

“Terrible.”