novelraw Chapter 16 : You're a Bug, and I'm an Operator (6)
Chapter 16 : You're a Bug, and I'm an Operator (6)
Chapter 16 - You're a Bug, and I'm an Operator (6)
Dusk had already pushed the sun away, but the nights in Lake City were hotter and more spectacular than the days.
Pshaaaaaaaaa!
Immediately after, the night sky poured a torrential downpour on the city that never sleeps. As if to cool the city's heat a little. The heavy, dark clouds and the smell of rain had been the harbingers of the squall.
A moment later, the thick smoke was washed away, revealing the horrific scene beyond. The rain hammered on the corpses, each missing a body part, as if they were musical instruments.
Plink, plink.
The dead outnumbered the living by a factor of two.
It was to the point where you could say nearly everyone was dead.
The few remaining survivors were frozen in place like wooden statues. They too were being pelted by the raindrops along with their fallen comrades, and perhaps because of that, their faces grew pale and cold.
“Hah… hah......”
Fumito gasped for breath. As expected, he was also a mess. Having rampaged without a thought for defense, his body was riddled with bullet holes.
The smoke had now cleared and a silence had fallen, with the steady patter of the rain serving as background music.
They had entered a temporary lull. But it was a precarious situation, where the embers could reignite at any moment.
All eyes were on Lee Taebaek. As if that one man held the power of life and death over everyone.
Gulp–.
Lee Taebaek's gaze wasn't on the scene. His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere in the empty space between the moon and the clouds.
......
[Achieved 'Sudden Quest - Eliminate the Gangster Haiyen'.]
[You have acquired 14,460 EXP.]
[Taebaek's level has increased from 2 to 4.]
[Name: Lee Taebaek]
Level: 4(↑2)
Life: 14 Spirit: 17 Strength: 11
Agility: 12 Magic: 10 Faith: 13
His level had jumped two whole steps. All his single-digit stats had now crossed into the double digits!
That wasn't the end.
[Operator Lee Taebaek has successfully fixed the bug.]
[A 50% EXP Bonus Event has occurred.]
[It will be applied to the two lowest stats.]
Vitality coursed through every corner of Lee Taebaek's body, who had been too weak to even hold his umbrella and was just getting soaked by the rain. And that wasn't all.
[The 'Agility' stat increases from 12 to 18.]
[The 'Magic' stat increases from 10 to 15.]
[The Agility and Magic stats have surpassed 15.]
[Unique Skill 'Bullet Time' has been unlocked.]
[Bullet Time (Skill, Secret)]
Description: A speed booster-type skill. Induces neural acceleration, extremely increasing the caster's cognitive abilities for 6-8 seconds. While active, the surroundings will feel about 3 times slower, but the caster, Lee Taebaek, can move at 0.6 times his normal speed.
(※Movement speed multiplier increases in proportion to Agility.)
Restriction: However, during Bullet Time, damage taken increases by 1.5 times, and 'Faith' cannot be enhanced. Additionally, 'Spirit' becomes vulnerable.
“......”
Bullet Time.
A secret skill that Lee Taebaek and his team members had created as a joke. An Easter egg they had giggled about amongst themselves, calling it the most basic implant.
However, due to copyright issues, it was dummy data that had been made half-jokingly and then discarded. But why?
Lee Taebaek felt a chill, as if he had made eye contact with a ghost. Perhaps it really was a ghost. Just that the ghost's form wasn't a person, but a sentence made of listed characters.
'The reward for fixing a bug is another bug.'
It was absurd, but a smile naturally formed on his lips. Lee Taebaek was a gamer by nature. The kind of hardcore gamer who couldn't get enough of leveling up and would go crazy for rewards.
What's more, he was in the middle of savoring the joy of survival. Separate from any complaints about another bug occurring, the corners of his mouth were turned up high with the sheer fulfillment of being alive.
Pshaaaaaaaaa.......
Raindrops clinging to his eyelashes formed a film of water, covering his retinas. Taebaek swept his bangs back.
The first thing he saw was Haiyen, dead in a kneeling position. A stream of blood, starting from the blade embedded in his temple, flowed past his split jaw and dripped to the ground.
He frowned, then retrieved his blade from the bastard's temple and the Python from the hole in his mouth.
He stood still, holding the gun and the sword in his hands. For a moment, he washed the greasy blood from them with the rainwater.
Swoosh.
Then, he glanced around with a sideways look. The surviving enemies shuffled backward, their eyes cloudy.
Haiyen was one of the top powerhouses in the underworld. Even if that strength was obtained by doping with Berserk. That was the consensus among all the Triad gang members and Lukaken employees.
'For a guy like that to die, it must be quite a shock.'
Lee Taebaek turned his sunken eyes and stared in a certain direction. He saw a lump of flesh stained with desire.
“Haiyen… for Haiyen to... die......”
Lukaken Junior's lips trembled. His already pale complexion was worse than that of the corpses.
He could vaguely guess the outline of the situation. In short, Lukaken Junior harbored an ambition that was beyond his means.
At the very least, a position right under the megacorps. If he was greedy, the threshold to their level. If his head was really broken, he might have even been aiming to become a member of a megacorp himself.
'So Lukaken got Haiyen addicted to Berserk, and by making him his own sword, he dreamed of something beyond...'
Lukaken Junior must have gotten a glimpse of Haiyen's strength and potential through some incident. So he probably provided him with Berserk as part of a clinical trial.
'And while he was at it, he had him launder his dirty money, and after strengthening their relationship, he planned to use him as his personal blade.'
As his train of thought ended, a dry laugh escaped Lee Taebaek's lips. Because the whole thing was just that absurd.
You should keep your absurd dreams within reason. How lightly did that moron pig bastard think of the megacorps?
“That guy, calling him an idiot isn't enough.”
As Lee Taebaek muttered, the disastrous future of the Lukaken pharmaceutical company was painted in his mind's eye.
In any case, as of this moment, they were practically ruined anyway. Because he was going to die by his hands.
And my Python and blade are reasonably clean now.
It's time to put an end to this.
Splash.
Lee Taebaek, having holstered his Python, took a step. Watery blood, mixed with the rain, splashed up to his ankles.
Splash.
Lee Taebaek knew it too. That in the eyes of others, both he and that pig had a foot in the lawless world. That from now on, he himself would commit numerous unlawful acts.
A person needs to have a core. Ah, he wasn't talking about some moral idealism.
He had no intention of playing the part of a childish hero in the first place.
It was that he would adhere to just one thing. That with his own hands, he would eliminate the things he had strictly forbidden as a developer—the bugs.
For some reason, the bugs that he himself had blocked were now running rampant. For instance, drugs, hu-X-an trafficking, and biological experiments.
'Including Bullet Time, which was dummy data.'
It seemed something had gone wrong and twisted the flow of the world. But he still didn't know the cause or the full story.
Still, thanks to that, he had decided on a direction and a guideline.
Find and eliminate every last one of the seditious elements.
If you were to ask why, the answer is simple.
Because he infinitely loves this world.
'I will set it right.'
He would gladly accept that task.
I am a member of Recons, and at the same time, I am an operator.
......
The downpour had reached its peak. Lukaken Junior gagged as if his airway was blocked.
“D-Don't come...!”
Lukaken squeezed out a sound like a pig being slaughtered. He even stretched out his hands, as if to grab the very air.
Seen between his fat fingers, the figure approaching with the tip of his sword lowered was just like the Grim Reaper. To the point where the enemies blocking the path began to slowly make way.
“Do you have any idea who's behind me!”
The struggles of all villains were so cliché, it was as if they had all studied under the same master.
“S-Stop that man!”
“......”
“I-if you stop him, I'll give you all the cash that's here!”
“......!”
For a moment, someone flinched. The person next to him, Gang Member 1, shoved his shoulder and spoke loud enough for others to hear.
“Hey, hey— stop. You want to sell your life for money?”
“You idiot. It's 10 billion, 10 billion. An amount that thugs like us will never touch in our entire lives.”
“Jeez. A bastard who only knows one thing and not the other.”
Gang Member 1 shook his head as if he were pathetic.
“The black-haired guy who killed Boss Haiyen is probably from a megacorp. ...And most likely from Siesta...”
“What?!”
Gang Member 1, glancing at Lee Taebaek slowly approaching Lukaken, trembled his lower lip.
“Before I joined the Triad… I saw a swordsmanship similar to that...”
A killing technique specialized in merciless attacks and ambushes. Gang Member 1 wet his lips with his tongue and nodded.
“That guy is definitely an assassin from Siesta. Which means the megacorps found out about this deal. Tsk, no wonder we never got caught before. Dammit.”
“Then what are we supposed to do...”
“What do you mean, what do we do? We just stand here and shut up like we are now. The moment you rush that guy… jeez, let's not even talk about it... I heard that if you get captured by a megacorp, you'll end up begging them to kill you... Not begging to be spared, but begging to be killed...!”
At Gang Member 1's story, the other gang members also looked resigned.
Plip, plop.
The wind and rain that indifferently struck their cheeks made their expressions even more pathetic. It seemed their spirits had been broken by the mere mention of a megacorp.
Escaping from the web of a megacorp was impossible. They chose their safety over the money in front of them.
“You traitors!”
Lukaken threatened, but the gang members just twisted their lips and looked away. A gesture that said he wasn't worth replying to.
Splash.
In the meantime, a presence reached Lukaken's feet. He raised his head, and his pupils dilated widely.
At that moment, lightning and thunder struck at once.
KRA– RRRRRRR-ACK!
Black sky and black eyes. Lee Taebaek, with the inky clouds resting on his head like a halo, was looking down at him.
“N-now, wait, le's tal... —keuk!”
A blade sprouted from the back of his fleshy neck. As Lukaken let out a short death rattle, blood gushed out.
Shluk.
The blade that had pierced his Adam's apple sliced horizontally through his neck and came out the other side.
“Have you ever seen a person talk to a bug?”
Lee Taebaek shook the blood from his sword with a sharp downward flick. Lukaken fumbled at his neck, where a line of blood had been drawn. He gasped for breath, then pitched forward.
The world was quiet.
That dreadful silence was even more unsettling.
The gang members wanted to raise their hands to signal their surrender, but it was possible their opponent would interpret the gesture in the exact opposite way.
That's why the gang members sent urgent glances toward Gang Member 1. He was the smooth talker; their eyes were telling him to do something.
Gang Member 1 looked around with a troubled face. The Lukaken employees had already been wiped out. It was because they had been unarmed, and the gang had opened fire indiscriminately.
The two people responsible for the situation, Lukaken and Haiyen, had hand-in-hand become ghosts.
“This is driving me crazy...”
...No choice.
The probability of survival would be higher if he, a middle-school dropout, stepped up, rather than some other random idiot running their mouth.
Gang Member 1 was tasked with leading the negotiations.
“Uh, that is, we—.”
After a period of silence, just as he was finally about to speak. Gang Member 1's neck snapped back at a right angle.
BA– ANG!
The gang members stared at the limply fallen Gang Member 1 with bewildered eyes. Their heads slowly turned toward the source of the sound.
In the direction the bullet had come from, three people stood silently. A man with broad shoulders. Flanking him were a girl in a mask and a woman in a white coat. It was the three of them.
“They say the main character always appears last, but what's this? Looks like we're just cleaning up leftovers...”
Kang Hyunseong muttered, sounding dejected. Even as he said it, his eyes crinkled in a smile.
“Even for leftovers, this is more than enough to be thankful for. The battalion commanders' meeting is tomorrow. This should give our battalion's voice some weight.”
Yoo Da-hee said, gathering her hair and tying it back. Even with a gun in her hand, she braided it skillfully.
“You were always sulking about how you had to take a vow of silence at every meeting. This time, starting with the bonus, it's going to be no joke.”
Having fixed her hair, Yoo Da-hee stylishly readjusted her grip on her gun with a flick. A Beretta 92, made in Italy.
Kang Hyunseong laughed heartily, then began to walk forward, bumping his fists together.
The rain clouds, sliced thin by the crescent moon, began to lose their power. The downpour was weakening to a drizzle.