Chapter 68
The front of the Nine Nutrition factory was utter chaos.
“Here! CPR on this patient!”
“Stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding first!”
“Aaagh! Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
“Save me...... Please save meeee......”
Rescue workers, police officers, and soldiers performed emergency treatment on the wounded scattered everywhere.
There did not seem to be many people they could save.
Most of them had suffered severe injuries and were hovering between life and death......
“What a mess.”
Captain Im, who had arrived at the scene, squeezed his eyes shut.
Just what on earth was he going around doing......?
He had tracked Eunseong’s location after he sent a message to his mother, and as expected, a tragedy had unfolded.
Meanwhile, the message itself was so affectionate that it sent a chill down his spine.
I am going to sleep over at a friend’s house.
Please go to bed first.
I love you.
‘Could he be deliberately leaking his location? Is he telling me to follow him?’
Captain Im thought that even Eunseong’s message might have been intentional.
In this day and age, there were not many people who turned their phones off and on repeatedly.
It was only circumstantial suspicion, but still......
“Most of the masked personnel appear to be Wreckers affiliated with Nine-Tail Crew. Of course, we will need to investigate further...... but that is how it appears for now.”
“I suppose so.”
Captain Im nodded at his subordinate’s report.
“A precise analysis will be required, but as a result of confirmation, Etherium and several types of narcotic components were detected.”
“So it really was an Overdrive manufacturing factory.”
He had expected it, so there was nothing particularly surprising.
“Contact the relevant ministries, move the injured to hospitals, and keep them under strict surveillance. Send the ones in decent condition straight to the Defense Command for interrogation.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Phew.”
Captain Im let out a deep sigh, then sent Minister Ahn a video of the scene and called him.
“Yes, Minister. I will report.”
Captain Im reported everything that had happened over the past few hours.
Minister Ahn also seemed to think Eunseong was deliberately leaking his own location.
“I apologize.”
“But......”
“Yes, Minister.”
From the other end of the receiver, Minister Ahn let out a sigh deep enough to sink the earth.
Captain Im could not even dare to guess how much stress he was under.
For a fledgling Hunter still wet behind the ears to go around stirring up Bucheon was no ordinary matter.
He would have to face not only Nine-Tail Crew, but also Incheon Union behind them, and even if he had one hundred lives, they would not be enough.
No, perhaps the ones they had to face were not limited to Nine-Tail Crew and Incheon Union.
“Let go! I said let go, you bastards!”
“Sir, please calm down first......”
“What do you mean, calm down!”
A worker from the factory was being dragged away by police officers, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“You sons of bitches! What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong, I said! I just worked for money! I had to put food on the table! If I had not done even this, all my children would have starved to death!”
“We understand. Please come with us and explain there first. If you do this here......”
“What did you do for us! What did the government do for us! Did you give us jobs? Did you do restoration work? Did you at least hand us some pocket change before saying that kind of......”
The worker’s screams clawed at Captain Im’s heart.
He was soon subdued and taken away, but the words he left behind remained vivid.
The government had thoroughly abandoned this city.
Perhaps Nine-Tail Crew had been able to seize control of the city because it filled the government’s empty place.
“......”
As a soldier in uniform, Captain Im felt conflicted by this wretched reality.
But that was only the reflection of Captain Im, an outsider.
Right beside Captain Im.
“Over there, pick up that leg.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Firefighters were picking up pieces of corpses with tongs and placing them into sacks.
The uniformed workers of this city, such as firefighters, police officers, and soldiers, merely repeated their assigned duties mechanically.
To them, the screams of the worker who had been dragged away were nothing more than noise.
A passing noise as common as the sound of a delivery scooter going by.
***
After leaving Ojeong Industrial Complex, Eunseong’s group briefly parked their bikes by a deserted roadside and rested.
“What were you doing there, wearing a Bridal Mask?”
“Haha......”
“Do not laugh. Answer me.”
“Well...... We have been active since before.”
“Before you Awakened? Or after?”
“Since before.”
Oh Taegwon answered.
“Reason?”
“I just hated seeing those bastards swagger around.”
“That is simply all there is to it?”
“Um...... yes.”
“Not bad.”
“Pardon......?”
“I like your reason.”
A smile appeared on Eunseong’s lips.
“That is better than dressing it up with all kinds of fancy words about justice and whatnot.”
“Is...... that so?”
“If your tongue had been too long, I was going to treat you the same as the Nine-Tail Crew bastards.”
“......”
Oh Taegwon’s face stiffened.
“Why are you scaring the kid?”
Choi Yura furrowed her brow.
“Who says I scared him?”
“You just did.”
“That did?”
“How is that any different from saying you were going to kill him?”
“Ah, is that so?”
Eunseong scratched the back of his head.
“That is not what I meant, so relax. I was only trying to check.”
“Check, you say......?”
“It could have been something like a gang conflict.”
Eunseong knew well enough that the Bridal Mask Corps was not that kind of organization.
But that was only based on what had been reported in the news, so he did not know their true intentions.
To begin with, he did not trust things like the news anyway.
“What conflict? It would be a turf war.”
Choi Yura snorted as if asking why he was putting it so elegantly.
“It is absolutely nothing like that. We do not even know who one another are.”
“Really?”
“Yes, brother. And how could a ragtag bunch like us start a turf war against the Nine-Tail bastards? That would be like throwing an egg at a rock......”
Unlike their reckless raid on the factory, they seemed to understand their own limits clearly enough.
“Even so, how long has it been since you escaped Jebudo that you are already running around wearing a mask? If you die like this, saving you will have been pointless.”
“I-I am sorry. Hehe......”
Perhaps embarrassed, Oh Taegwon scratched the back of his head.
“What brings you here, brother?”
“I have business here.”
“Ah......?”
“It seems like our objectives are roughly similar, so will you follow me or not?”
“If it is with you, brother, would there be any hell I could not enter? Hehe.”
Oh Taegwon did not ask for the reason.
Because he clearly remembered that Eunseong had saved not only him but many other people’s lives on Jebudo.
“You will not regret it. By tomorrow night, the idea that Nine-Tail Crew has Bucheon under its control will be a thing of the past.”
There was conviction in Eunseong’s words.
***
A shabby warehouse on the outskirts of Bucheon.
“Do you hear yourself right now?”
Gu Taeil growled at his subordinates standing in a line.
SLAP!
Gu Taeil began slapping his subordinates’ cheeks from left to right.
“You are saying you lost every business site in a single damned night?”
SLAP, SLAP, SLAP, SLAP, SLAP, SLAP, SLAP!
“Urgh!”
“Grrgh!”
Nine-Tail Crew’s executives gritted their teeth and steadied their posture.
If their posture faltered, they might become Gu Taeil’s target and be beaten intensively.
If they were unlucky, it might not end with just a few blows.
The corpses piled up behind Gu Taeil proved that.
They were the traces of gang members who had been indiscriminately executed after becoming flustered or failing to answer cleanly when questioned about whether they were moles.
“These bastards are not answering? Heh!”
His bloodshot eyes flashed wildly, looking for someone to vent his anger on.
“We are sorry, Boss!”
The Nine-Tail Crew executives shouted in unison.
“Incompetent bastards, halfwits, moronic pieces of shit.”
Gu Taeil poured out curses.
The reason he was this furious was obvious.
The office, Taeil Transportation, and the Overdrive manufacturing factory.
On top of that, even the hostess dispatch office and the labor office.
Seven of the organization’s bases had been reduced to ruins.
In the process, the number of gang members killed or injured had nearly reached three hundred.
And all of it had happened in just one night.
“From this moment onward......”
Gu Taeil checked the time and opened his mouth.
The current time was 5:25 a.m.
“Before today is over, catch those bastards and bring them to me. Alive. Understood?”
“Yes!!!”
The executives shouted their answer.
“What are you standing around for? Why are you not running out right now? Run, run, you bastards!”
“Y-Yes!”
The executives fled the warehouse as if escaping.
“Whoever those bastards are...... once I catch them, I will peel their skins off alive...... and fry them to death. In boiling oil......”
A furious mutter flowed from Gu Taeil’s mouth.
***
An abandoned building near Sosa Station.
“......This is uncomfortable.”
Choi Yura woke up with her face twisted in a grimace.
After sleeping on a dust-covered sofa, her whole body felt stiff.
“Snore, foooooo. Snore, foooooo.”
“Grrrrrrrrgh......!”
From the next room came the sound of Oh Taegwon and Duhyeon snoring.
‘They are dead asleep.’
The current time was 4 p.m.
They had entered the abandoned building around 5 a.m., so regardless of the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, they had slept for nearly ten hours straight.
Come to think of it, there was nothing strange about that.
The fatigue from Jebudo had not even fully worn off yet.
And despite that, they had run around causing havoc all night......
‘Where did he go?’
Choi Yura’s gaze swept over the interior of the abandoned building.
‘He sleeps well.’
Eunseong was leaning against a concrete wall, asleep as if dead.
With a gun in his hand, as though preparing for an ambush at any moment.
Since she was awake, Choi Yura took the blanket she had slept under and approached Eunseong.
Perhaps because it was autumn, the weather was fairly chilly.
Not that a Hunter would catch a cold just because he slept a little cold.
‘He is needlessly handsome. Hmph.’
Just as Choi Yura was admiring him inwardly and about to cover him with the blanket.
Slowly.
Eunseong reflexively raised the muzzle of his gun.
She also heard the click of the selector moving.
Flinch!
Choi Yura trembled without realizing it.
She had nearly gotten a hole blown through her head while trying to cover him with a blanket.
“......What is it?”
Eunseong recognized Choi Yura and spoke.
“What do you mean, what? I was going to cover you with a blanket. Why?”
“Why would you do something so useless?”
Eunseong slowly lowered the muzzle and furrowed his brow as if he could not understand at all.
“Something useless......?”
“You and I are both people who can hold up well even in extreme environments, so why would you cover me with something like that? It is not even particularly warm.”
“......”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You are annoying.”
“Who is? Me?”
“You are making me lose affection for you.”
Choi Yura growled and whipped around.
“Wait.”
“Why, what?”
“Not you.”
“......?”
“Now that I think about it...... Is he still shoved into the box truck?”
A look of belated realization appeared on Eunseong’s face.
“Who?”
“That guy, Yeom Taeksu or whatever his name is.”
“That tattooed pig?”
“Yes.”
“Probably? It did not look like anyone took him out.”
“Urgh.”
Eunseong sprang to his feet.
“Surely he did not freeze to death? That would be troublesome.”
“He is still a Hunter, even if his rank is low, so he probably did not turn into frozen pork belly. And he has plenty of body fat too. Though I cannot guarantee it.”
“Is that so? I will go check.”
“Bring me an iced Americano when you come back. I need coffee first when I wake up.”
Instead of answering, Eunseong raised his middle finger behind his back.
Just then.
THUD, THUD!
The box truck lurched.
BAAANG!
A sound like something bursting came from inside the freezer compartment.
Rainy Lotus
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