Chapter 102

Chapter 102

THUD, THUD!

Someone knocked on Zeon’s door.

When he opened it, Mandy was standing there.

“Come in.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I slept comfortably.”

“That is a relief.”

Mandy sat down on a chair.

In her hand was a bundle of papers that looked freshly printed.

“Is that it?”

Mandy handed the bundle of papers to Zeon and said,

“You will know once you read it, but he is quite a troublesome person.”

“Is he a big shot?”

“Someone favored by a big shot?”

“That makes him troublesome.”

“Exactly.”

Zeon read the documents Mandy had printed out.

The documents contained Tajik’s personal history in detail.

“A subordinate of Xiaolun? The same Xiaolun known as the overlord of the south?”

“That is right.”

“So he is not merely a big shot.”

“No. He is an enormous figure with enough power to be counted among the top five in Neo Seoul.”

At that level, even the term big shot was insufficient.

Not only was Xiaolun himself an S-grade Awakened, but he also had S-grade and A-grade Awakened under his command.

It was a terrifying force capable of wiping out a colony outside Neo Seoul in an instant.

Tajik was one of the cards Xiaolun controlled.

His official title was “Head Director of Condor SSC.”

“SSC?”

“Security Service Company. In other words, a private security company.”

“Private security. That is a very ambiguous name.”

“It is exactly the kind of company that is useful for reaching into all kinds of fields.”

“Condor SSC, meaning Tajik is the chief manager of this security company?”

“Exactly. He is also in charge of several smaller companies. But his greatest power is still the SSC, the security company.”

Zeon stroked his chin with his finger and turned the page.

“Private security, a monster processing company, and a chemical dye company. Every one of them is useful for shady work. Judging by what is written here, Tajik seems to be a kind of fixer.”

“Wow! You figured that out at a glance.”

Mandy could not help but exclaim.

She was surprised by Zeon’s insight.

Just as he had said, Tajik was a fixer used by Xiaolun.

The companies Tajik managed were all structured to make it easy for him to operate.

The private security company was perfect for disguising Awakened as employees and using them, while the monster processing company was suitable for creating slush funds. As for the chemical dye company, it could hide the handling of dangerous substances exactly as its name suggested.

Every one of them was a company suited for dirty tricks.

Based on that, Zeon guessed that Tajik was Xiaolun’s fixer.

Zeon turned to the next page.

The final sheet contained a detailed status report on the companies.

Mandy said,

“This is the best I could find out. If I dig any deeper, Xiaolun and Tajik will notice.”

“This is enough.”

WHOOSH!

Flames rose from Zeon’s hand and burned the documents to ash in an instant.

“What are you going to do now? As you can see, Tajik has a major figure named Xiaolun behind him. If you touch him carelessly, the entire slums could be devastated.”

When she was active as Eloy, Mandy seemed afraid of nothing in the world. But even she feared Xiaolun, the overlord of the south.

Mayor Jin Geum-ho went without saying, but the overlords of each district were also monsters who had lived for many long years.

Their own abilities were so powerful that they could not be measured, and each of them had built a tremendous force beneath them.

In a sense, they were beings who could be called Neo Seoul itself.

Opposing such people was as reckless as leaping into the jaws of an S-grade monster without even a single piece of armor.

Her other personality, Eloy, was insane, but not quite that insane.

Zeon said to her,

“I do not intend to become enemies with Xiaolun either.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Even after Zeon’s clear answer, Eloy still did not look relieved.

“Haa! I do not know anymore. Do as you wish. With this, I have repaid all my debt.”

“Yes.”

“I will be going now.”

Mandy stood up.

After seeing her off, Zeon sat down again.

The contents of the documents were stored intact in his mind.

“Xiaolun was secretly smuggling goods through the Crocodiles, and when the Crocodiles were wiped out by me, the smuggling route was cut off. As an alternative, they either recruit me or eliminate me.”

It was the information he had obtained from the Inazuma Raid Team.

The one leading all of this was Tajik.

If Zeon simply left him alone, the aftereffects would never end.

That was why Zeon had entered Neo Seoul.

Zeon walked to the window and looked out at the scenery of Neo Seoul.

“Hmm!”

＊＊＊

Condor SSC was located on the outskirts of southern Neo Seoul.

Since it operated by dispatching personnel needed by various companies, its headquarters was not very large.

Even calling it headquarters was generous. It was only a small warehouse-like building with several offices attached.

It was only because this was the outskirts of Neo Seoul that they could keep a warehouse of this size idle. If it were in the city center, such a thing would have been unimaginable.

Tajik was sitting in his office at the highest point of Condor SSC.

From here, he could clearly see the entire interior of the warehouse.

The reason Condor SSC deliberately maintained a warehouse-style headquarters was not because it lacked money.

It was because the warehouse format was convenient to operate in many ways.

Inside the warehouse, low-grade Awakened were training.

They had created terrain and structures that looked as if an entire street of Neo Seoul had been moved there, and they were conducting infiltration training.

Most of the Awakened training here were D-grade or E-grade.

“I told you to use your Skill one more time.”

“Is that your limit? You useless bastard! You have to squeeze yourself to the limit for the power of your Skill to grow stronger.”

“I told you to pay attention to mana distribution, you chicken-headed fools!”

The instructors drove the Awakened harshly.

Most of the people serving as instructors here were C-grade.

They were higher in grade than the Awakened undergoing training and had more experience as well. That was why they had been selected as instructors to help train low-grade Awakened.

“Good.”

Tajik looked down at them with a satisfied expression.

There were fifty Awakened gathered here now.

Once they completed this harsh training, they would become elites and be dispatched to the companies Xiaolun managed.

That would make Xiaolun’s power even more solid, and Tajik’s own strength would become even greater.

“Heh-heh! The true nature of this place lies underground.”

He took the elevator down beneath the warehouse.

Underground, there was a space as wide as the warehouse above.

The underground space was thoroughly divided by bulkheads.

In each space behind those bulkheads, research that could not be revealed to the outside was being conducted.

The place Tajik headed to was the deepest laboratory.

Inside the laboratory, research that could not be shown to the outside world was underway.

Beyond the laboratory glass, a man was strapped to an operating table.

Tubes were connected to various parts of the man’s body, and an unidentified liquid was being injected into him.

The greater the amount of liquid injected, the more severe the man’s pain became.

The muscles throughout the man’s body had swollen as if they were about to burst, and every blood vessel stood out hideously.

It was a wonder that he was still alive.

Tajik asked the researchers,

“How is it going?”

“We have achieved some results, but it will be difficult to proceed any further.”

“What is the reason?”

“As expected, the problem is the quality of the drug. The drug that came in this time has many issues.”

“As expected......”

“The drugs supplied by the old supplier were better. They used human blood as a medium and had few side effects, so they were perfect for experimentation. Is there no way to obtain them again?”

“Please wait a little. I am already working hard on that.”

“Hmm! If this research succeeds, it will become possible to forcibly awaken ordinary humans. Then we will be able to mass-produce Awakened the way a factory stamps out pots.”

At the researcher’s words, Tajik nodded.

The research being conducted here had been inspired by the drugs supplied by the Crocodiles.

The drugs supplied by the Crocodiles had extremely high purity, and because they were manufactured through a special method, they were perfectly suited to explosively drawing out human latent power.

They had created stimulants based on those drugs and temporarily increased abilities.

The researchers wondered whether ordinary humans could also be awakened through the same principle, and so they proceeded with the research.

It was research conducted in secret.

Because they could not carry it out openly, every person who became a test subject had been kidnapped from the slums.

The ones who had carried this out were also the Crocodiles.

They had been useful in many ways. That made their absence all the more regrettable.

That was why Tajik was trying to gauge Zeon.

“For now, his ability is sufficient, but I do not think he will listen obediently.”

The Inazuma Raid Team was by no means an easy group.

Tajik was not naive enough to believe that they had simply missed their timing and failed to leave the Dungeon.

“He must have buried the Inazuma Raid Team in some way.”

The problem was that it had happened inside a Dungeon, so he had no way of knowing how.

Because of that, he could not accurately determine Zeon’s ability.

“The simplest method would be to check his Insignia. But there is no way he will show it willingly......”

If he tried to force it with strength, the means he could use were limited.

The slums had their own order, making it difficult to intervene easily.

This time, he had been lucky enough to use the Goblin Market, but there was no guarantee that would happen next time.

“Do I have no choice but to move personally?”

Tajik muttered as he left the laboratory.

It happened immediately after he left.

Sssss!

Suddenly, sand flowed in through the ventilation duct.

The research wing was managed with extreme strictness.

Naturally, many devices were installed in the ventilation ducts to block outside intruders.

There was not even a gap for a single drop of water to seep in, let alone sand.

If this much sand had flowed in, an alarm should naturally have sounded. Yet strangely, every system remained silent.

The sand piled thickly on the floor writhed like a living creature, then soon transformed into the shape of a human.

It was a soldier made of sand, a Sand Soldier.

On Earth, the only being capable of creating soldiers from sand was Zeon.

Zeon had sent sand through the ventilation duct and created a Sand Soldier.

Because of the great distance and because it was deep underground, maintaining the Sand Soldier was not easy. Even so, Zeon somehow maintained his control.

Through the Sand Soldier, Zeon watched what was happening in the laboratory.

‘Forced awakening using drugs. If this goes wrong, Neo Seoul and the slums will overflow with substandard Awakened.’

Drugs themselves were harmful to humans, but when combined with human desire like this, they could lead to horrific results.

The research appeared to still be in its early stages.

Because the drugs once supplied by the Crocodiles had been cut off, progress was slow.

If the drugs the Crocodiles had made were supplied again, the research would advance rapidly.

As Zeon observed the laboratory through the Sand Soldier, his brow furrowed slightly.

‘As expected, Briel is the problem.’

Now that they had made a covenant, he could not simply leave her alone.

He had to make sure her ability was not exposed somehow.

‘For now, cutting off the connection is the best option.’

Zeon murmured softly and recalled the Sand Soldier.

The Sand Soldier turned back into sand and came out through the ventilation duct.

Zeon was standing in a secluded alley far from the ventilation duct. The sand surged toward him like a wave.

At that moment, Zeon’s subspace opened.

As if it had been waiting, the sand flowed into the subspace.

The thing that took up the greatest volume inside Zeon’s subspace was not monster corpses or items.

It was sand.

More than half of it was filled with orange sand.

The sand that had infiltrated the ventilation duct entered Zeon’s subspace without leaving a single grain behind.

Zeon closed the subspace and murmured,

‘How should I erase it?’