novelraw Chapter 68 : Chapter 68
Chapter 68 : Chapter 68
Chapter 68. The Intangible Killer (2)
Ting—
At that moment, the traffic light turned green along with the notification sound of the traffic signal.
People flocked together and started crossing the crosswalk.
Simultaneously, the alien light lingering on Gong Jae-byeok's fingertips also subsided.
Gong Jae-byeok thought.
‘…Right, let’s endure. I decided to become a new person.’
While he was pausing briefly to organize his thoughts like that.
Tuk—
“Ah damn what is it, why block the way when I'm busy.”
Someone passed by hitting Gong Jae-byeok's shoulder with his shoulder from behind.
Grumbling sounds were a bonus.
Gong Jae-byeok stared blankly for a moment at the back of the man who shoulder-checked him.
Gong Jae-byeok's breathing, which had barely calmed down, began to roughen again.
“That sh…….”
Blue fury surged up in Gong Jae-byeok's eyes.
Tz-tz-tz-tz—
Light began to linger on Gong Jae-byeok's hand again.
Gong Jae-byeok started to follow behind the man while gripping the shimmering light.
But catching up to a person far ahead in the crowd was not an easy task.
Eventually, the man arrived at the other side much faster than Gong Jae-byeok.
And—
Bu-u-ung—
As soon as the man arrived at the other side, he caught a car and left.
Gong Jae-byeok stared at the back of the departing car for a long time.
“…CF4470D, CF4470D…….”
Gong Jae-byeok muttered the license plate number of the departed car several times as if possessed.
Then, as if suddenly coming to his senses, he shook his head and muttered.
“No Jae-byeok, no. You can't go back to the old days. Don't do this.”
After catching his breath for a moment like that.
Gong Jae-byeok entered the mart.
And at that time.
The villa where Gong Jae-byeok resides.
The man who ignored Gong Jae-byeok's greeting earlier was coming out of the villa again.
In fact, he had a reason to ignore Gong Jae-byeok's greeting.
Because he was on his way home to pick up documents he left behind while receiving an urgent call from a client.
No one could have afforded the leisure to receive a greeting in such a situation.
But once the urgent fire was put out, the situation earlier quietly came to the man's mind.
The man who greeted him with an unusually loud voice.
That man's impression remained strongly in his mind.
But the more he recalled that man's appearance, the more a question arose with it.
“Did such a person live in our villa……?”
This villa had a very low turnover rate of residents.
It was at a level where there had been no change in resident composition for several years.
So the residents of the villa were in a relationship where they knew each other's faces even if they weren't close.
Therefore, the fact that an unfamiliar face entered and left the villa itself was quite a strange thing.
‘Someone who moved in? No, but if someone moved in, I would have known?’
The man, pondering for a moment, soon shook off the thought.
With the excuse that it might be a visitor.
But he didn't know.
That his hunch was pointing to a terrible truth.
* * *
30 minutes later.
Gong Jae-byeok came to the checkout counter pushing a cart full of groceries.
It was a slightly different appearance from the checkout counters of the 2000s.
First, a sensor was installed where the cashier should stand.
And a barrier was lowered at the end of the checkout counter.
First, thanks to the sensor, calculating items ends at once by passing through the checkout counter.
After that, if you pay the price, the barrier goes up.
Then the older employees standing at the end of the checkout counter help put the items in plastic bags.
Packaging staff employed as part of senior welfare.
They divided the groceries Gong Jae-byeok bought into two bags and packed them tightly.
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye.”
Fortunately, this time the employee accepted Gong Jae-byeok's greeting.
Gong Jae-byeok walked to the exit feeling one corner of his heart warming.
There was quite a distance from the checkout counter to the exit.
But it was only a few tens of meters at most.
However, the plastic bags Gong Jae-byeok held couldn't withstand even that short distance.
Tu-deuk.
Hu-du-duk!
The plastic bag tore and the items inside poured out all at once.
Because the sharp corner of a butter box pressed hard on the bag, the bag burst.
Also because the items inside were packed so tightly.
Gong Jae-byeok looked down at the scattered items with a bewildered expression.
‘…Why is it like this today?’
Something began to boil up again in Gong Jae-byeok's heart.
The anger he had barely suppressed at the crosswalk.
Just as it was about to rush up to his throat.
“Oh my! Let me help you!”
A young mart employee ran over and hurriedly gathered Gong Jae-byeok's items.
He brought a cardboard box and put the spilled items in it.
After handling the situation with such quick hands.
The employee smiled and handed the box to Gong Jae-byeok.
Gong Jae-byeok also received the box with a faint smile and thought.
Right, the world is still……
“Work hard (Sugohaseyo).”
Leaving only those words, the employee left the spot.
At that moment, the smile vanished completely from Gong Jae-byeok's face.
Gong Jae-byeok froze on the spot just like that.
His expression gradually hardened.
Because one question began to swirl in his head.
‘Why?’
The employee just now was a young man.
And he clearly said ‘Work hard (Sugohaseyo)’ a moment ago.
Gong Jae-byeok couldn't understand that language at all.
‘Why on earth?’
He clearly learned when he was young.
That the phrase ‘Work hard (Sugohaseyo)’ is something a superior says to a subordinate.
But he was an employee, and he himself was a customer.
Even the employee's apparent age was around his early 20s, and Gong Jae-byeok himself was in his mid-30s.
‘In terms of rank, in terms of age, clearly I am the superior.’
However……
‘Such a guy dares to talk down to me? Dares to ignore me? A mere mart employee?’
His breathing became rough.
Anger once ignited began to spread uncontrollably.
‘Wait a minute, that guy who packed my bag so tightly that it burst earlier, didn't that bastard also pack it roughly like that because he ignored me?’
Gong Jae-byeok shut his eyes tight.
‘Why does everyone treat me like this?’
I decided to live kindly, so why are they doing this, why!
“…I hate everything.”
Seu-reuk—
At that moment.
Gong Jae-byeok's figure disappeared from people's view.
* * *
“I'll go to the restroom for a bit.”
“Why do you say such things before going? Go.”
The employee who helped Gong Jae-byeok earlier entered the men's restroom.
Just as he was about to wash his hands after urinating like that.
Kki-ik—
The door of a stall opening behind his back.
The employee unwittingly raised his head and looked behind him through the mirror.
The open door was swinging back and forth.
A trace of someone opening the door and coming out.
But there was no one in the restroom except the employee.
“What is it?”
Thinking it was just a misunderstanding, the moment he turned his gaze back to the sink.
Hu-uk!
The employee's body was sucked into the stall that just opened.
Simultaneously, the door locked.
“Heup……!”
Because some force pressed down on his mouth, he couldn't even scream.
A moment later.
Blood flowing out under the stall wet the floor tiles and spread out.
A cleaner who entered a little later discovered it.
“Hi-ik……!”
The smell of blood rushing up.
This situation where it was clear someone was murdered in the restroom.
The cleaner turned her steps immediately to escape the restroom.
However, at that moment.
Puk—
A thin and deep hole was pierced in the cleaner's neck.
At the same time, her body floated into the air.
Teong—
And was plunged straight into a mobile trash bin.
That was the beginning.
Pu-bu-buk.
“Keok……!”
“Keo-heok……!”
Holes were pierced sequentially in the necks of people passing through the restroom hallway.
Holes pierced exactly in vital points.
Severed blood vessels sprayed blood everywhere, and the hallway became a sea of blood in an instant.
That wasn't the end.
Puk!
Seo-geok!
People in the mart began to fall one by one.
Some fell spraying blood from their chest, some from their neck.
“Hi-ik……!”
“Kya-a-a-a-ack!”
“Wh, what is it……!!”
The cause was invisible and unknowable.
Confusion began to spread in the mart along with scattering blood.
“Kya-ack!”
“Run away!!”
“Move, you fuck!!”
People scrambled to run toward the mart's entrance.
Since the cause and the culprit were unknown now, the best ordinary people could do was flee.
But even in the midst of that, the massacre continued.
Seo-geok!
Chwahak!
People fall in succession.
Someone's lover's head flew off right in front of their eyes, and parents running holding their child's hand discovered at some point that their child had turned into a corpse.
And even at that moment, still, the cause was unknown.
Because it was completely invisible, the fear became incomparably clearer.
Overflowing fear soaked people's heads, and order was crushed under dizzy footsteps.
“Eua-a-a-a-ack!!”
People scream, run, overtake, trample, and flee.
Soon, those trampled to death also began to appear.
Short people, weak people, people who missed their footing, and thus people who fell.
They were trampled under the feet of other escapees.
Still, amidst that, there were those trying to handle the situation.
Special security guards in the mart drew their weapons and ran to find the culprit.
“Contact upstairs! Recruit detection-type Superhumans as quickly as possib… Keo-heok!!”
But even they couldn't avoid the invisible hand of killing.
Because even the guards fell spraying blood from vital points.
It seemed impossible for anyone to control this situation.
Like that, 30 percent of those who were in the mart died.
An insane situation not short of being called a massacre.
However, the truly terrible point of this situation was the fact that this figure was merely an intermediate statistic.
Puk.
The main street in front of the mart.
Even there, people began to fall bleeding.
“Crazy……!”
The massacre was now moving from the mart to the main street, and from the main street to the downtown area.
* * *
When the massacre started at the mart was slowly spreading toward the downtown area.
The mart's management wasn't doing nothing either.
After grasping the circumstances of the situation, they immediately called in a Solver.
And the most expensive Solver among those who could be called in immediately at that.
“Is it here?”
A man with an impressive, well-trimmed mustache got out of the car.
He looked to be in his early 40s, and wore a long Japanese sword at his waist.
His name is Joseph Han.
He was a Solver recruited by the mart side to resolve the situation.
Joseph looked around.
It was a living hell.
Because starting from the mart's main gate, the road was covered with corpses.
But not a bit of agitation appeared in his eyes.
Just examining the situation indifferently with a businesslike attitude.
Joseph approached toward the mart's main gate.
Beyond the transparent glass door, corpses sprawled all over inside the mart were visible.
A massacre with an unidentifiable killing method.
Joseph, who examined the scene, concluded.
“It’s an invisibility ability user. And a considerable strongman at that.”
At that moment.
Piririri—
A call from the employer.
Joseph answered the phone.
“Arrived at the scene.”
“Do you need any other support?”
“Don't do useless things like calling other Solvers additionally. It interferes with detection.”
…And I hate sharing the pay too.
“Will you be okay?”
“The opponent is an invisibility ability user. And I am a detection ability user. It means I am the perfect counter to this bastard.”
Joseph, who hung up the phone, drew his sword with a confident expression.
“Shall we start work?”
Joseph lightly struck the ground with the tip of his sword.
Tu-ung—
The wavelength of detection he created began to spread extensively.
* * *
At that time, the outskirts of this downtown.
Riman, who arrived there, noticed that the situation was turning unusual.
Because barricades of police and private security forces were set up surrounding the downtown area.
‘Gong Jae-byeok this bastard, don't tell me already……?’
Riman approached toward the security guards.
And overheard the conversation the members were having from a distance.
“They say Joseph Han came?”
“The detection ability user? The situation will end quickly then.”
Riman muttered inwardly.
‘Joseph was deployed against Gong Jae-byeok?’
Deploying a detection ability user against an invisibility ability user.
At a glance, it was quite a reasonable personnel selection.
So everyone was expecting this situation to end quickly.
But Riman didn't think so.
‘These idiots, that guy Gong Jae-byeok isn't a simple invisibility ability user……!’
Riman intuited.
That today, Joseph would be murdered.