novelraw Chapter 62
Chapter 62
Chapter 62
“W-What……!”
A third force that had appeared out of nowhere.
It was not only Baek Hwi-young who was flustered by their sudden intrusion, but the Red Hand as well.
“Keugh?”
“W-What the hell?”
The Red Hand soldiers who had been rammed by the car scrambled to their feet without even having time to brush the dust from their tangled clothes, barely managing to fend off the attacks that came rushing at them immediately.
“What are you doing, Beatus!”
“A-Alright!”
Naturally, Baek Hwi-young was not the type to just stand by and watch.
The moment he shouted to Beatus, he sprinted forward first, and slipping into the opening created by an unidentified man collapsing at just the right moment, he drove his spear in.
Kwa-dddeuk!
Special-duty officers—no, superhumans—each possessed a certain signature.
It was the method by which they shaped their psionic energy, and furthermore, it often became the basis for a special-duty officer’s epithet.
For example, the Northern Special Service Academy’s ‘Executioner Judith.’
And Baek Hwi-young’s signature was none other than—
「Penetration」
A spear that always pierced through.
“Kuh-heok!”
What the extended spear tip struck first was the psionic barrier the enemy had instinctively deployed halfway.
Although the opponent’s gear was no more than Dual Gear, his level of psionic energy control surpassed that of most Triple Gear users.
An ordinary cadet would have been stopped easily.
But Baek Hwi-young was no ordinary cadet.
“Kkeuaaaaaak!”
He stabbed into the abdomen and shoved forward without pause.
He twisted the spear shaft buried deep after tearing through organs and spine, then slashed diagonally.
After silencing one man, Baek Hwi-young turned his head to survey the battlefield, and soon had no choice but to narrow his brows.
‘We took advantage of the ambush, but their level is low.’
Seven Red Hand soldiers in total.
On the other hand, the newly arrived third force numbered ten.
But just like the one who had fallen moments ago, their level was insignificant.
‘Hino Kanae. Dokgo Ran.’
Still, since they undeniably bought time, Baek Hwi-young immediately headed toward the leader-type man and the two captives being held by the runner.
‘Saving the two of them is the top priority.’
His senses had already perceived everyone present at the scene.
Famille was protecting Miel well, and Beatus, though hesitating at the end of his gun barrel and restraining himself from killing, was at least taking good care of himself.
All that remained was rescuing the captured Dokgo Ran and Hino Kanae.
Paaang!
Leaving behind the Red Hand soldier whose abdomen had been split in half and was writhing on the ground, he charged straight toward their leader.
‘……They can all die.’
The Red Hand soldiers, the third force that had come to save them, no—every human in this resort could be sacrificed to save those two.
Only the humans in the resort?
Of course not.
If necessary, even all the humans of the Free Planet Alliance would have to be sacrificed to save those two.
Is there weight and hierarchy to human lives?
Of course there is.
……No, this was rationalization.
He just wanted to kill them all.
Baek Hwi-young leapt high into the air once more with bloodshot eyes, and unconsciously let out a mutter laden with his true intent.
“To save pieces of shit like you, the devotion of comrades who died… these maggots.”
What flashed through his eyes in that fleeting moment was the countless deaths of the two who had breathed their last in his arms.
Memories that did not even exist in this timeline, yet were remembered wholly by him alone—old, repulsive memories festering like pus.
The sentence was twisted, but his pent-up rage would be conveyed in full.
“……Things have gotten complicated.”
Whether he had heard Baek Hwi-young’s muttering, or whether his mood had soured simply because things had grown complicated, the Red Hand’s leader murmured as such and extended his hand toward Baek Hwi-young, who was rapidly descending.
At that moment, a flashing burst of light filled his vision.
Kugugugugung!
A sound like lightning striking followed the flash, and Baek Hwi-young grit his teeth, swung his spear in a wide arc to cut through the thunderbolt, then drove it straight down toward the top of the bastard’s head.
Kwaaaaaang!
The spear shaft that split the enemy’s afterimage in two pierced straight through the ground, leaving a long scar, but the real battle was only beginning now.
—Kiiiiii.
Yes, everyone thought so.
They would have continued to think that, had something not entered their field of vision—something charging from afar, kicking up clouds of dust, accompanied by the chilling cry of a beast brushing past their ears.
“……Creature.”
Baek Hwi-young stared beyond the plain with a hollow expression, and the Red Hand’s leader, having confirmed it as well, clicked his tongue in regret and spoke.
“We retreat, Kinn.”
“Yes, Platoon Leader.”
The runner called Kinn slung the limp Dokgo Ran over his shoulder, and Hino Kanae as well, apparently having been sedated in the meantime, was hoisted over his other shoulder.
—Kyaaaaaaaaaa!
The echoing shriek drew closer by the second, and the purple-haired woman who grasped the situation bit her lip hard while forcing herself to ignore the excessive cold sweat streaming down.
“Fall back!”
“……Kuh-luk!”
At her command, the survivors among the intruders retreated, and the battlefield fell into a lull that no one wanted.
“……Fuck.”
In the end, watching the runner and leader disappear swiftly with Dokgo Ran and Hino Kanae, Baek Hwi-young could not help but form a sneering smile tinged with madness.
And then, at that moment—
“……There’s a place our side has prepared.”
The woman with striking purple hair beneath her pulled-down cap murmured as she gathered the wounded and loaded them into the car with its crushed bumper.
Watching her back, Baek Hwi-young failed to pay attention to Beatus, Famille, and the dazed Miel approaching him with expressions of trying to gauge what was going on and feeling apologetic, and instead muttered,
“……Satra. So you were alive.”
It was a line filled with quite a bit of longing.
***
Jin Crow brushed back his slightly disheveled bangs.
The cigarette smell lingering at his fingertips was unusually sharp, but thanks to that, his mind felt all the clearer.
“So, have you thought about the conditions?”
“An advance payment of one billion. And when this job is successfully wrapped up, I’ll hand over the information you want.”
He furrowed his brows at Tita Genorua’s words and shot back a question.
“That’s a bit disappointing, more than I expected.”
“If it’s information sought by someone like you, I calculated that it would be worth that much. Of course, if I can’t give it to you, I’ll gladly prepare fifty billion dollars in cash instead. Cleanly laundered.”
This time, Jin Crow nodded as well.
By his standards, it was a neat calculation.
In fact, calculating things this way was more comfortable.
Anything entangled with emotions always ended up causing trouble.
Because of that, he expressed his intent in his own way—putting a cigarette back in his mouth—and said to her,
“So then, when do we check that chip?”
“Well, you do have the right to see it too.”
Tita Genorua gave a small snort of laughter.
They were now in a contractual relationship, and in the first place, it was the final message of a subordinate who would have died meaninglessly if he had not delivered it.
There was no reason not to show it.
At this point, he must have realized that betrayal meant death.
Tita Genorua handed over the chip and gestured with her eyes for it to be played, and the nameless mafia member who received it from her pushed it into the playback device at the center.
What flowed out shortly after was the familiar yet detestable voice of a man.
〔It’s the Committee’s decision.〕
“……Judas is making an appearance.”
Judas Iscariot.
The son of perdition who sold Jesus, the greatest traitor of the ages.
The moment they heard the voice, everyone’s faces stiffened alike.
Only Jin Crow remained composed, holding the glass in front of him to his lips as he listened to the continuing voice.
〔We can’t defy Stero Mer. So we’ll have to do it.〕
What they spewed out was a business plan—and a series of shocking notions no sane mind could imagine.
〔Procure large quantities of drugs from the Black Market that can knock superhumans unconscious. The payment to be handed over to the Red Hand will be superhumans. They said they’d pay one hundred million dollars per head.〕
〔That’s cheap, for superhumans.〕
〔We’re being supplied with Creatures, so that has to be taken into account.〕
Human trafficking.
〔……Still, isn’t it dangerous? No matter how primitive the species is, I heard both the Composite State and the Empire took considerable damage.〕
〔The risk will be borne by Carpe Diem and the Red Hand anyway. We’re only touching the smuggling routes. Besides, what we’ll be dealing with are small individuals that don’t even have names yet.〕
Creature smuggling. Aiding and abetting crime.
〔Still, it’s a relief. The former Godfather certainly cared for the family, but he couldn’t bend his stubbornness…….〕
〔He went senile in his later years. To raise a hand against Stero Mer in Mercato—what an idiot.〕
Rationalizations too vile to even utter aloud.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Someone should go throw him thirty pieces of silver. Crazy bastard.”
“I’ll go. While I’m at it, I’ll even lodge a lead slug in him as a freebie.”
The mafia did not tolerate insult.
Naturally so.
To be present here meant that all of them regarded Tita Genorua as the legitimate successor instead of the traitor Lucky Anubis.
Their loyalty, of course, lay with the surname ‘Genorua,’ and insulting the former generation was tantamount to denying their own identity.
“…….”
But that fury did not last long.
No—more precisely, everyone’s gaze reached the woman seated in the chair, Tita Genorua, and the man named Jin.
One might think they were reading the boss’s mood.
But in truth, even Tita Genorua, who should have been venting her anger the most, could not help but tense up at the psionic energy unconsciously leaking from the man before her.
‘What kind of killing intent is this.’
Perhaps it felt like a sharply honed blade touching the end of her throat.
No—this was closer to a bomb.
The kind of bomb whose second hand was ticking rapidly, not knowing when it might explode.
Because of that, perhaps.
Tita Genorua reined in the anger she felt at once and spoke to Jin Crow, who was smoking without even noticing that the filter had burned down.
“……It seems you have a story of your own, too.”
“I’ll change the proposal.”
“Hm?”
And the words that followed were such that even she blinked before being forced to doubt her own ears.
“Another one billion in advance, in exchange for cutting down Stero Mer as well. What do you say?”
As Jin Crow spoke those words, he wore a fishy sneer, while his eyes sank endlessly low.
“…….”
“…….”
Silence fell over the basement where dozens of people were gathered.
Where had the bared fangs they had just shown toward Lucky Anubis gone? Everyone stared at him like dogs with their tails tucked between their legs.
Even without explanation, it was a reaction that made Stero Mer’s standing clear.
“……It’s impossible. Him.”
At last, breaking the silence, Tita Genorua murmured in a voice heavy with suffocation and discomfort, unlike before.
“He’s practically immortal.”
And the words that soon left her mouth were a terrifying truth unknown to most citizens of the Free Planet Alliance.
But even at her words, Jin Crow did not waver.
Rather, as if organizing his emotions, he took a sip of his drink and chewed over his reply.
“Then we just kill him until he dies.”
Only then did they realize it.
This man had already made up his mind.