Returnee's S-Rank Management Guide

Chapter 207 : King of Outlaws (4)

King of Outlaws (4)

The corridor was silent.

Though it was a facility where magic engineering and science were intermingled, there was no trace of magic power or electricity.

"Strange."

Ivan said as he looked around.

"I can understand leaving the facility unattended. But..."

"You mean it's strange that there isn't a single rat or bug?"

"Exactly. Normally, when a place like this is abandoned, rats or insects would swarm everywhere."

With their natural enemy, humans, gone, it was easy for wild creatures to appear.

Although I had broken through the floor to come down here, there were still enough passages, like drainage channels, for small animals to come and go.

"It hasn't been that long since the facility was abandoned, but it hasn't been a short time either."

Judging by the dust built up on the floor, it seemed like people disappeared from this facility about a month ago.

'A facility of this scale would be pretty important.'

I wondered what suddenly caused it to be vacated.

Was it because it became useless? Or because it became unusable?

"Or perhaps it was deliberately left behind to be used as a trap."

"A trap?"

At Ivan's question, I nodded.

Alcatraz's existence wasn't well-known, but it was known nonetheless, and from the point the Odyssey ended, there had been a full-scale hunt for demons.

If that were the case, they would have anticipated this place being discovered to some extent.

"Indeed... and the fact is, we're here now."

"They couldn't have predicted even you would come."

At most, they probably only imagined government agents or someone like me would come looking.

'If that's the case, it might be difficult to find any useful information.'

I could already guess the purpose of this facility to some extent.

"Looks like this is where the real thing begins."

After walking a bit further down the corridor, we came across facilities lined with various security devices.

There were machines like MRIs, but also plenty of devices to measure magic power and demonic energy, which I had only seen in that other world.

And familiar-looking operating rooms as well.

'As expected, surgeries to implant demon blood were performed here.'

Most of the security devices were turned off, so it was easy to enter.

Of course, even if they were working, I could have just broken through, but convenience never hurt anyone.

"Looks like you have a guess as to what happened here."

"I know. I have to know."

Because I once underwent a very similar surgery.

Though, it looked like some things had been added.

Just shoving demon blood into a human body would clearly result in a short life and death, so they supplemented it with the power of divine art.

'But divine art... if it consumes life force, it would only make them die faster.'

As I searched through other labs, I found, as expected, data related to divine art.

I couldn't tell if the important parts had been destroyed or moved, but the use of divine art was clear.

"The answer is simple. Divine art consumes life, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the life of the one using the divine art."

Ivan spoke, as if reading my mind.

He was frighteningly knowledgeable about divine art, as if he had seen it himself.

"How do you know so much about divine art?"

"Well, I was at Gwehyeoldo too, after all. I had to discipline a certain foolish junior who was there."

By 'junior', did he mean UnderStellar?

'Was UnderStellar there?'

I hadn't known.

Come to think of it, Alencia had brought back a pretty decent dagger artifact from back then—could that have belonged to UnderStellar from Gwehyeoldo?

"If you were there, you would have no choice but to know."

"Yeah, it was a marvelous sight. That man... and you, too."

For once, Ivan's words carried a tone of reverence, which made me a bit embarrassed.

"Anyway, the fact that they left these documents means they're not that important..."

I trailed off as I idly rummaged through the training room documents and pulled something out.

'Experiment subject list.'

That's about how it was labeled.

Why only 'about'? Because it was written in the language of demons.

'They left this behind?'

If you didn't know the demons' language, I could see how, but I existed in this world.

Not to mention, Ardan, a demon, was on my side.

I hurriedly read the documents and soon understood why they'd left them behind.

'It's a list of failed, deceased subjects from the experiments.'

There were no names of successful ones.

Because everyone on the list was dead, it was a document that didn't matter if discovered.

Of course, only the names were listed; there was nothing on how they died.

'Even if divine art is used, if resistance to demonic energy is too low, it's pointless. Hm?'

As I scanned through, I suddenly stopped.

"What the..."

Because a name I never expected showed up on the list.

'Jin Su-hyuk.'

There were names of various ethnicities on the list.

Of course, there were some Korean names, so it could have been a namesake.

However, of all the people who might appear on this list using the name 'Jin Su-hyuk,' to my knowledge, there was only one.

'On hold.'

He wasn't listed as dead.

But his condition must have been close to death, which is why he made the list.

'Has Jin Su-hyuk shown up in public at all in the past month?'

Jin Su-hyuk was known for being quite diligent.

He ran South Korea's largest hunter management agency and was the first star manager.

He often appeared on broadcasts, but recently, he was conspicuously absent.

"Ivan, do you have any thoughts about Jin Su-hyuk?"

"Jin Su-hyuk? Is his name really on that document?"

I nodded at Ivan's puzzled question and briefly explained the document's identity and reason.

"I know the President of Grand Nova well. But... I don't know if he's involved with demons. However, I do know that the demons stopped working with the agency they originally partnered with in Korea and chose to work with someone else."

So did they newly partner with Grand Nova?

'Even if they partnered, why would they use Jin Su-hyuk as a test subject?'

Did he volunteer?

If not...

I pondered while looking at the list, thinking about Jin Su-hyuk.

Kuung.

A dull thud, like something banging against thick iron.

The faintly shaking ground testified to the power of the shock.

Ivan, apparently also hearing the sound, looked at me and spoke.

"Did you hear that?"

"No way I could miss it."

"Seems the homeowner is in after all."

As we murmured to each other, the vibrations shaking the ground grew steadily stronger.

Something was approaching.

As I listened to the ever-closer sound, I thought as much.

And then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped.

"What the...?"

The sounds we'd been hearing vanished without a trace.

And all sense of presence vanished as well.

'Did it teleport?'

If not, there's no way its presence would just disappear like this.

Ivan's face also hardened, as though he'd thought the same.

"Gone."

The fleeting noise and feeling were definitely not human.

After exchanging glances, Ivan and I slowly exited the lab.

We were heading toward the direction of the sound to find its source.

"This..."

"Footprints."

It wasn't hard to find them, as the floor was covered in thick dust.

Footprints that definitely weren't human, but those of a monster.

They'd approached the lab we were in, then cleanly disappeared.

"Looks like they want us to follow the tracks."

The 'something's' footprints coming toward us stretched on and on.

If we traced them back from where they ended, I had a feeling we could get to where that something was.

"Are you going to follow?"

"Of course. Oh, but first—"

I handed Ivan a few documents I had picked up in the lab, including the experiment subject list.

"Take these back and give them to our company manager."

"Are you saying you're going alone?"

"If there's a fight and I lose these documents, that'd be a problem, right?"

Not just the list—there could be other useful information among the remaining files.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"And yet you're going alone?"

"At the very least, I won't be in danger."

Hearing my answer, Ivan gave a wry laugh.

"True, you do have that much strength."

Ivan accepted the files I gave him.

"If I'm to deliver them to Unique's manager, that would be the new manager, right?"

"Right. Manager Ban Jae-hoon. If you give him these, he'll read my intent and take care of it."

"I'll do that, then."

Ivan didn't ask any more.

He must have decided delivering the documents was more urgent.

"Still, you trust me rather well. If I were you, I wouldn't."

"If you were that sort of man, you'd have betrayed me already. Besides, if you did, you wouldn't have your life, would you?"

I pointed to Ivan's neck.

On his neck was the yoke of Estella's authority, a shackle binding his life.

"You may not have much time left to live, but you don't seem particularly eager to die early."

At my words, Ivan snickered and snapped his fingers.

His body lightly floated above the ground.

"Just saying, don't get hurt. For you, it'd just be an injury, but I could die."

"You could've helped out back in America last time, then."

"I was watching, worried sick, you know. You just didn't notice."

With that, he flew toward the gap I had punched in earlier.

After watching the direction Ivan disappeared for a moment, I turned my gaze to the footprints on the floor.

It was considerably dark now without Ivan's illuminating flame, but not so dark I couldn't make out the way.

"Let's see what's really here."

I slowly started walking, following the footprints.

Sending Ivan away first wasn't just for the documents' safety; there was another reason.

The fleeting presence I had felt earlier had been very familiar to me.

***

This Alcatraz was, for me, the worst place imaginable, dredging up all my bad memories.

The terror and despair I'd felt when I first crossed into another world.

The test subjects I'd seen at the auction, and the all-too-familiar labs that made my teeth grind just from looking at them.

And, in this unidentified facility, the familiar presence I'd sensed.

A fragment of 'that man'.

I had to confirm if what I'd sensed was really true.

I kept walking, following the footprints.

Down.

Further down.

The lower I went, the stronger the sense of discomfort grew.

If the upper floor was the lab, below was where the test subjects were kept.

Or maybe, where they were discarded.

Unlike the tidy above, the deeper I went, the more the place was stained with gruesome smells and blood.

It wasn't just the corpses of subjects dead from experiments; there were also bizarre remains that looked as though something had gnawed on them.

By the time I got as far down as possible—when I had reached the deepest part of the facility—I could once again sense the presence I'd felt earlier.

"Ha."

At the deepest part of the facility, something was watching me, as if waiting for me.

It was not human.

First of all, it was over three meters tall.

If a normal person saw its appearance, they would faint from shock.

A giant hunk of flesh.

A grotesque object forcibly mashed together from chunks of meat.

It had arms, legs, and a head.

It was a monster—nothing more, nothing less—that simply gazed at me in utter stillness.

"So fucking disgusting, what have they made here."

This facility was not merely abandoned.

This place was a prison.

A cage meant to quietly lock up the monster.

Even to demons, this abomination must have been a troublesome existence.

'Fucking lunatics.'

Because it was a monster made from none other than the remains of the Demon King.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=

Did they experiment on Jin Su-hyuk and used the Demon King's remains?

Or did they use Kang Min-gi?

Or both?

(ㆆ.ㆆ )