novelraw Chapter 174 : Prisoner Jae-hee (3)
Chapter 174 : Prisoner Jae-hee (3)
“What the hell is going on?”
Deck 9, the café.
Ghost, who had all but dragged Jae-hee here, checked to make sure they were out of earshot before demanding an explanation.
“Why are you back so soon? What on earth did you do out there? Spit it out.”
Her usual cool tone was gone, replaced by a voice thick with bewilderment.
“Hehe, well…”
Jae-hee decided to tell Ghost everything.
He began with a long-winded account of his heroic exploits over the past few days, then moved on to his agreement to cooperate with Rain Man on a classified mission… and how he’d returned to prison for that very purpose.
“It’s not like I caused some huge accident, so you don’t have to worry. If anything, I was a good, hardworking boy who did everything he was told.”
Ghost’s eyes narrowed as she mulled over his story. “They’re using you as bait?”
“It’s a risk I have to take. I’m an S-Ranker now, after all.”
Ghost still looked thoroughly unconvinced.
Regardless, she eventually let out a sigh of resignation.
“Fine, whatever. I guess the new generation can handle things its own way. A washed-up old-timer like me can only watch from the sidelines.”
It had been thirty years since she’d first dedicated herself to being a blade in the shadows. She had no intention of standing in the way of the young people toiling in the spotlight.
Even so, something felt off.
Rain Man… He’ll handle it, she thought. He’s a reliable kid.
Putting her worries aside, Ghost jutted her chin toward Jae-hee.
“I had a feeling I’d be seeing you again, but I never thought you’d be back in a matter of days.”
“I didn’t think things would turn out this way either.”
Jae-hee’s shoulders slumped for a moment before he perked back up.
“Anyway, to celebrate our reunion, let’s get something good for dinner tonight!” He puffed out his chest and put his hands on his hips. “My treat. I don’t have to save my Credits anymore, so I’m gonna splurge.”
“Forget it. I’m the one who doesn’t need to save, so I’ll buy.” Ghost wagged a finger at him. “The future is uncertain, kid. At your age, you should cherish what you have and save it.”
It was the kind of advice he’d expect from his grandmother, but Jae-hee decided to take it.
A reunion was a reunion, even if it had only been a few days. The master and disciple left the café and walked side by side to get dinner.
***
The next day.
A summons from the commander had Jae-hee rushing out first thing in the morning. This time, however, he wasn’t called to the Commander’s Office on Deck 10 but to Deck 0.
“Master!”
The first person he saw upon entering Deck 0 was Ghost. He immediately offered a deep, formal bow.
“I trust you had a peaceful night!”
“That’s a bit much. Just keep the greetings simple.”
Ghost grimaced as she put out her cigarette. Across from her, Hae-eun smiled brightly.
“Seeing a master and student get along so well brings a tear to this old commander’s eye.”
“That’s rich, coming from the woman without a drop of blood or tears in her body.”
Hae-eun diligently smoked the rest of her cigarette down to the filter before dropping the butt into a portable ashtray.
She gestured with her chin. “All right, Boy. Today, we’re going to form that new team I mentioned yesterday.”
Ghost and Jae-hee fell in line behind the commander.
“What kind of new team?” Jae-hee asked.
“Well, we lost quite a few of our people during the Cheongnyangni Gate mission, didn’t we?” the woman responsible for grinding up top-tier inmates said without a hint of remorse. “And right now, we need manpower more than ever.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? Because our dear President is handing out cuffs all over the country,” Hae-eun grumbled. “Most people in this country are such goody two-shoes that they’ll complain but put on the inhibitors anyway. But there are still factions pushing back, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“The Heroes and the military are handling most of the resistance, but some groups need to be crushed… unofficially.”
Hae-eun clicked her tongue.
“Besides, did you really think those five members of the Heroes’ Meeting could cover the entire country? Maybe it’ll be possible once the system is fully established, but until then, we’re the ones who have to bust our asses.”
“I see.”
“So, we’re running at full capacity. Which means I need to squeeze out every last usable team I can get my hands on.”
Jae-hee tilted his head. “Speaking of which, I heard the members of The Knights came to the prison. They’d be a huge asset, wouldn’t they? Can’t you just use them?”
“Those old geezers are stubborn as hell. Almost none of them even signed the Black Parade contract.”
Apparently, The Knights had unanimously agreed they’d rather rot as common inmates than cooperate with Hae-eun.
“You need to earn Credits by running missions if you want to enjoy any of the amenities in this prison. But those grandpas seem determined to continue their penance without earning a single Credit.”
Jae-hee let out a low groan. Yeah, that sounds exactly like something they would do.
“So what’s a girl to do? Well, your commander came up with a brilliant idea.”
Clack.
Hae-eun stopped moving.
“I decided to recycle these pigs who’ve been sitting around in the corner of our ship, eating up resources.”
Her cane shot out, pointing toward a cellblock ahead.
“Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the commander’s ambitious new unit: the Monster Unit!”
A steel gate to a previously sealed-off section of Deck 0 stood open, leaking a sinister aura. A hastily made sign reading
Jae-hee repeated the name, nonplussed. “The Monster Unit?”
“It’s like the Convict Unit. You just change one letter.”
“Oh, you’re right.”
After spouting her usual nonsense, Hae-eun led the way inside. “Allow me to introduce the members.”
The Monster Unit HQ was composed of equally makeshift cells. This sector housed the monsters they had captured so far. Hae-eun pointed the tip of her cane at a creature locked away in the largest, most fortified cell.
“First up, a Demon Lord’s own daughter, who failed in her attempt to build a castle at Gangnam Station.”
Inside, the girl in the blood-red dress he’d seen before was tightly bound to a restraint frame. Through her long, disheveled pink hair, her golden demonic eyes glittered like stars.
Hae-eun announced the creature’s name with relish.
“Designation: Rose Princess!”
The monster tilted her head at that. She tried, but failed, to break free of her bonds.
Jae-hee broke into a cold sweat and glanced at Ghost. His master didn’t look too pleased to be facing the monster that had punched a hole through her chest.
“Next, our second member! The transforming, super-giant monster that almost became Daegu’s mascot!”
Hae-eun moved to the next cell and gestured inside with her cane.
“Designation: Crying-X!”
The creature that could transform into a building-sized monster was currently in its small, plush lion form, tied up just as securely.
The lion doll, a pained expression on its face, let out a ferocious roar.
“Wahh… Waaaaahh…?”
For a roar, it was pretty pathetic, but a roar it was.
“And finally, our third member.”
Hae-eun moved to the next cell.
“We were originally monitoring this one on Deck 3, but it went out of control when its former cult leader died, so we just transferred it here. Designation: Flying Tentacle God!”
Inside the third cell Hae-eun pointed to was a person.
It was the small girl with the round glasses—Bookworm, the Vice-Deck Leader of Deck 3.
She was bound and lifeless, but her face immediately brightened when she spotted Jae-hee among the visitors.
“Cult Leader!”
Her eyes glowed a brilliant yellow, bathing the surroundings in a dazzling light.
“You came back! I knew you wouldn’t abandon me!”
The ends of Bookworm’s limbs dissolved, elongating into tentacles. In an instant, her human form vanished, replaced by her true self: a mass of writhing tentacles with a single large eye at its center.
The tentacle monster was so happy it was practically weeping.
“We’re bound by an eternal promise and contract!”
As Jae-hee stood there, mouth agape and at a loss for words, Hae-eun cackled.
“So, these three for now. You know them all, yes?”
“Wait, hold on a second,” Jae-hee said, dumbfounded. “Are you seriously going to use these super scary monsters in the Black Parade…?”
“Sure I am. I’ve prepared more than enough ways to neutralize them.”
CRACK!
The words had barely left her mouth when a commotion erupted from the first cell.
Twisting her joints at grotesque angles like a contortionist, Rose Princess had broken free of her restraints and was now charging the bars with a piercing shriek.
“Coome and plaaay with meeeee!”
Hae-eun watched her with a benevolent smile and calmly pressed a button on the switch in her hand.
BEEP!
And then—BOOM!
Rose Princess’s head exploded.
Her body, spraying a fountain of blood, tumbled to the floor.
Jae-hee shrieked and hid behind Ghost. “Aaaah! What are you—wait! It’ll regenerate! It’ll regenerate! That monster’s regenerative power is insane!”
“It would be, under normal circumstances,” Hae-eun replied placidly. “But not right now.”
“Huh?”
It was just as Hae-eun had confidently stated. Rose Princess wasn’t regenerating. She just lay on the floor, her limbs twitching.
“She is regenerating,” Ghost observed. “But the speed… it’s less than one percent of what it was.”
“How?”
“A monster’s abilities are fundamentally based on the same principles as a human Awakened’s.”
Hae-eun pointed to the black cuffs fastened all over Rose Princess’s body. Jae-hee could see countless inhibitors clamped not only to her wrists and ankles but also firmly attached to nearly every joint.
“They can be weakened with inhibitors. Just in case, I used special-grade models with several dozen times the output of the ones for humans, and I didn’t skimp on the quantity either.”
“…”
“I also adjusted the explosive compound and amount in the Guillotine. Anyway, what’s the important thing here? That we can subdue them if necessary.”
Hae-eun beamed. “And if we can subdue them, it means we can use them. Say, as bombs to drop on the enemy.”
Jae-hee tore his eyes away from the grotesque sight of the slowly regenerating Rose Princess and asked, sweat beading on his forehead, “C-Commander. They’re still monsters. If you deploy them on missions, won’t they terrify the citizens?”
“Haha. Boy, it seems you still don’t quite understand.” Hae-eun regarded him. “From a civilian’s perspective, a tentacle monster and a heinous criminal like you are the same kind of scary.”
“Ah.”
“They’re both terrifying disasters that destroy buildings, start fires, and murder people. They just have different forms.”
Now that she mentioned it, he had to agree.
A villain who used superpowers and a monster who used superpowers were both ticking time bombs. In fact, a villain, born human yet casually becoming a world-destroying monster, might be even more dangerous.
“We send you vicious criminals on missions with nothing but a bomb collar on your neck and a cuff on your wrist. So why wouldn’t I use these monsters?”
“…”
“Of course, we won’t be dispatching them into urban areas. They’ll primarily be used for Gate closure missions in remote areas. Monsters are fundamentally hostile to each other, you see. They’re all bastards trying to steal the same planet. There’s plenty of room to use them to viciously kill each other, don’t you think?”
Hae-eun pointed at Jae-hee.
“Well, that’s the theory, anyway. We’re about to run them as a trial unit. And you, Boy, are the team leader.”
“Why me?”
“For one, you have a connection to all three of these monsters.”
Jae-hee had personally defeated Rose Princess. He had retrieved Crying-X from the mayor of Daegu. And he had befriended the Flying Tentacle God during the Cheongnyangni Gate incident.
“More importantly, you’re good at making friends. You get along with everyone, don’t you?”
“I mean, talking about getting along with monsters is a bit…”
Before he could finish, a cry echoed from the third cell. “Cult Leadeeeeer~!”
The Flying Tentacle God, plastered against the bars of its cell, wiggled the tips of its tentacles desperately toward Jae-hee, its single eye wide with glee.
“We’ll be together foreveeeer!”
“…”
“Hold my hand! Hand! Hand-hand-hand!”
Flustered, Jae-hee cautiously reached out and shook the tip of a tentacle with his fingertips.
The Flying Tentacle God’s single eye crinkled into a smile.
“Heh heh, we’ll never be apart again, Cult Leader!”
Jae-hee turned away silently, his expression unreadable. Ghost just shook her head.
Taking in the scene, Hae-eun grinned and gave a thumbs-up.
“That’s the spirit! Let’s get to it!”
And so, the Black Parade’s new experimental unit—the Monster Unit—was established.