Chapter 22 - What Are We Moving? (2)

* * *

The reason they needed a child was to use them as a test subject.

Just like him.

They were trying to create another monster like him. They were about to commit that atrocity.

How could his emotions not surge violently?

"You really had no idea, did you? Fucking idiots."

Hyeonyul sneered at the wary looks in his enemies' eyes.

"Kill him...!"

The enemies charged, but Hyeonyul stood calmly.

"Three adults trying to take a child away. Aren't you ashamed? Even villains should observe some basic limits. Leave little children alone."

"You Eagle bastard, are you nuts? Why would I be here if I meant to respect those limits?"

Flames sprang to life in the enemy's hand.

The sight reminded Hyeonyul of Serin.

"Then bark. Animals can't speak human language."

Hyeonyul raised his dagger and hurled it forward. With black power attached to its tip, it lodged firmly in the fire-wielding villain's head.

Watching the dagger wag vigorously like a puppy's tail, he counted.

'Two.'

Hyeonyul caught the dagger as it sprang out of a shadow. Made for him by the Black Eagles, it had excellent springiness.

He stepped forward, passing smoothly beside an enemy as though sliding across the ground. Following the dagger's uninterrupted arc, the enemy's head separated from his body, and blood burst out in a violent gush.

Hyeonyul walked quietly toward the last remaining enemy.

After witnessing his companion die in a fountain of blood, the enemy stumbled over a stone and fell.

'... Th-that thing is a Black Eagle?'

At least none of the Black Eagles he knew were like this. They usually swaggered around in the name of justice, and some idiots would even let you off if you begged hard enough.

And their methods?

Terribly inefficient.

The kindergarten alone made that clear. What kind of idiot raised children with powers like that? They knew keeping them locked up would prevent anyone from taking them, yet they left them out in the open, practically inviting people to take them.

The Black Eagles were idiots who left children out to be stolen, then condemned the theft as wicked.

But something about this man's manner of speaking and his actions was different.

It felt like facing a major villain.

"You understand the situation well enough. Crawl back to your base like the animal you are."

"... A-are you going to let me live?"

Hyeonyul approached the scheming villain and lightly took hold of one finger.

"You have ten fingers. How many would you have to lose before it became inconvenient?"

"..."

The villain swallowed hard.

"I have less patience than you might think. I don't just let people test me."

Hyeonyul brought the dagger forward.

One, for a start.

As the finger came off, Hyeonyul clamped a hand over the enemy's mouth before his scream could carry.

"Shut your mouth and quietly show me to your base."

The villain nodded, his eyes brimming with tears.

* * *

"It's all right now. Have you been waiting long—"

Startled by the sudden voice, Serin involuntarily released fire. Flames blazed around the child's body.

'Small.'

You couldn't even roast anything over that fire.

Hyeonyul calmly extinguished it.

"...!"

Only then did Serin look at Hyeonyul in surprise.

He was looking back with exactly the same expression as before.

"Let's go back to the kindergarten."

"... You're not going to scold me?"

"Why would I? That fire is there to protect you in the first place, and it worked properly."

"Protect... me? But I just tried to hurt you! I tried to do something bad again, again, again!"

"A little fire like that can't harm me at all."

"That's because you're a Black Eagle!"

Serin pointed at Hyeonyul.

He wasn't sure what that meant, but after a moment's thought, he spoke.

"You may hate that fire now, but you just need to make friends with it. Look at it often and touch it, and you'll certainly be able to control it."

The more Hyeonyul spoke, the brighter and more attentive the child's eyes became.

"... Really?"

Once, when fire had come out of Serin's body, it had burned up a room. They had said it was all Serin's fault. They had shouted, demanding to know why Serin hadn't been careful.

After the fire, even the friends Serin used to play with had stayed away.

But Hyeonyul hadn't said any of those things or looked at Serin that way.

He simply looked at the child the same as ever.

"Yes. You don't have to go over there anymore."

"Then can I bring my friends back? My friend is over there."

At Serin's innocent words, Hyeonyul considered several possible answers.

There were precautions he had to observe to complete the assignment.

—Do not forget that the person being protected is a child.

—Do not frighten the child.

—Do not let the child learn that they are being targeted.

"No. They've gone farther away."

Hyeonyul looked straight at Serin.

They might have spirited Serin's friend away somewhere as a test subject.

He didn't make a foolish promise to bring the friend back. There might be no chance of doing so.

It was better not to offer empty words.

"... Hmph! They could've at least said goodbye!"

Serin pressed those lips tightly together, then suddenly waved toward the far side of the forest.

"Hey, everyone! Go on ahead! See you later!"

Serin smiled more brightly with every word, waving vigorously.

Hyeonyul knew it was a meaningless gesture, but he waited a little.

Around the seventh time Serin called out a friend's name, he recognized it as the first name the child had mentioned and spoke.

"Let's go back now."

"You know, mister."

"Go ahead."

"There was something I wanted to do with my friends. Can I do it with you?"

Would it have anything to do with the assignment?

Hyeonyul thought for a moment, then asked,

"What is it?"

"I want to watch the fireworks at the festival!"

Serin raised both arms high, fluttering those hands like sparkling lights. The child's eyes gently closed, plump cheeks lifting.

"I know I'll be happy if I watch them with you!"

Hyeonyul's shoulders slowly sank.

Watching them with him couldn't possibly make anyone happy.

That confident declaration made him feel strange.

He was deeply, deeply confused.

* * *

Even Jihwan's lips were trembling.

How shocked he had been by Hyeonyul's text. Why was he taking the child with him? If he was going, he ought to go alone.

While all those thoughts were whirling through his mind, Hyeonyul had appeared with the child.

["It ended sooner than I expected. Serin is safe."]

At those matter-of-fact words, Jihwan had wanted to say something, but kept his mouth firmly shut.

The child was unharmed, and the eyes gazing up at Hyeonyul were so clear.

["I'll be heading out now, so please take care of the child until I return."]

It had sounded so natural that Jihwan had nearly just waved goodbye.

He soon came to his senses, took Serin back to the kindergarten, and followed Hyeonyul.

'And he meant... here?'

Jihwan's gaze traveled upward.

It was a building.

'... Three floors, five, eight?'

It was quite tall.

Jihwan lowered his gaze to Hyeonyul.

Why had they come here?

Hyeonyul clenched and unclenched both hands, then sat briefly on a nearby bench and took something out.

"Big bro. Where... are we?"

Jihwan was curious about what was in the packet, too, but wanted to know why they had come here.

"The base of the people who tried to abduct the children."

After learning its location, Hyeonyul hadn't forgotten to dispose of the villain.

It was simply that the time to take his medicine had coincided with the moment before he stormed in.

"... What?"

Jihwan couldn't make sense of those words.

Their base?

Was tracking down a villain's base really this easy?

"Mr. Ye Jihwan."

"... Yes?"

As reality sank in, Jihwan felt he might laugh in disbelief.

How many cases could they have resolved long ago if they could track down the bases?

But their enemies weren't idiots. They approached with greater care precisely to keep their bases hidden.

'He solved this... so quickly? What? What did he even do?'

Jihwan wanted to ask Hyeonyul right away.

"Can you destroy it?"

Hyeonyul had seen Jihwan's magic before.

The strength of magic varied from mage to mage, but Jihwan was powerful even among them.

"Destroy... what?"

Jihwan still couldn't shake his dazed look. For some time now, he had been unable to keep up with Hyeonyul.

"The building."

Hyeonyul casually pointed at it.

He had tried swallowing a building before. It had only made him feel ill and had been terribly inefficient.

"I'll go in and kill the president. Once I come out, please destroy the building."

Only after saying this did Hyeonyul look around.

The neighboring building was fairly close, but he didn't think it would suffer much damage.

Above all, he had to kill them in one go if he wanted to leave work early.

Ah.

Remembering something he had forgotten, Hyeonyul continued.

"If destroying the building looks likely to cause serious damage elsewhere, I'll try rescuing the people."

He thought that should be more than enough.

He looked at Jihwan.

Jihwan's vacant eyes had not returned to normal.

"It seems I've asked too much of you. You don't need to worry about it anymore."

"I can do it. ... But, um, what happens to the people in there?"

"They die."

Faced with such an obvious question, Hyeonyul could only give the obvious answer.

When Jihwan fell speechless, Hyeonyul swallowed his medicine and spoke.

"I told you I used to be a villain. Do you remember?"

"I remember."

"Once they've become villains, they aren't working there out of ignorance. You may think they deserve a chance, Mr. Ye Jihwan. But they've already had countless chances. It would have been terribly difficult, but they could have stopped. They're the ones who chose not to."

He had no intention of making excuses for himself, either.

He had remained a villain and worked at a villain's company because he couldn't afford his snowballing medication costs and had to find the bastards who had made him a test subject.

"You don't have to do it, Mr. Ye Jihwan. I already have blood on my hands. One more doesn't matter."

Hyeonyul smiled at Jihwan.

He wouldn't mind being condemned as no different from them.

"Big bro. Let me ask just one thing."

"Go ahead."

"Why do you have to go this far?"

"Villains are weeds. Even when you think you've pulled them out, they grow back the moment you turn around. The more halfheartedly you pull them out, the farther they spread."

Looking at the building, Hyeonyul slowly lifted one corner of his mouth.

Seeing the atrocities of bastards who couldn't even honor a simple employment contract had taught him that villains simply had to be wiped out, every last one.

"If we leave them alone, countless children will be dragged away as test subjects. Children should not grow up like that."

As Hyeonyul's argument grew weightier, Jihwan's lower lip trembled.

"... Big bro!"

Hyeonyul's eyes wavered sharply as Jihwan suddenly approached.

"Big bro Hyeonyul! That's such a wonderful thing to say!"

Jihwan clenched his fists firmly, looking as though he wanted to exchange a high five.

As a colleague who would share many assignments with him, Jihwan had wanted to know what kind of person Hyeonyul was.

'Now I know for certain!'

He was a hopeful person trying to put his past behind him and dream of a new future.

'Right. What do appearances matter?'

The scars on Hyeonyul's face only made him look a little frightening. He was quite a compelling person.

'What does the past matter?'

What mattered was the present.

Jihwan stared hard at the building.

It was a place that sought to turn children into test subjects.

It looked repulsive.

"Big bro. To be honest, I've always wanted to blow up a building at least once. I've wondered countless times whether it was all right, but the weight of responsibility was too great, so I never did."

Hyeonyul watched Jihwan warily and stepped back.

He didn't understand why merely blowing up a building required so much talk.

"If you're that committed, then as your teammate, I should commit myself, too."

"What are you committing yourself to...?"

"Eradicating villains. I've been too complacent. I thought I was doing enough, but I wasn't fully committed."

When something needed doing, you had to do it.

Hyeonyul had taught him that.

Without looking at Hyeonyul, Jihwan raised a thumb.

"Go, big bro. I'll make sure not even a single rat gets out."

"How long will it take?"

"Give me five minutes. I've never blown up a building that big before, either."

"Then I'll finish taking my medicine before I go."

Only then did Jihwan look at Hyeonyul.

At the sight of a handful of pills in his palm and the needle he was inserting into his abdomen, Jihwan couldn't ask anything.

Hyeonyul was a former test subject.

Could a surviving test subject be healthy?

'... So he came to the Black Eagles to burn his final flame?'

The sheer amount of medicine left Jihwan no choice but to suspect that Hyeonyul had limited time left.

A healthy person wouldn't take that much medicine.

'Is this what atonement is...?'

"I'm fine."

As Jihwan's eyes took on a strange look, Hyeonyul spoke firmly.

Jihwan simply nodded.

His eyes still held a strangely unsettling look, but Hyeonyul assumed he had understood. Walking slowly away, he covered his eyes.

The president was usually upstairs.

Hyeonyul began searching from the very top. It was obvious which room was likely to be the president's office. That room alone stood out.

An office designed to maintain a pretentiously imposing atmosphere, even though its occupant did nothing but sign papers and play golf.

'There it is.'

President's Office.

He checked the nameplate.

Hyeonyul walked with his ears covered to make sure the president was actually there.

"... You can't even do that one thing? Is that why you're dragging your feet?"

The reproachful voice alone gave Hyeonyul a good idea.

'That's him.'

"Hurry up! Do you know how angry the Poison King is? Move all the kids we acquired, now!"

'... What?'

Hyeonyul couldn't believe his ears.

Why was the Poison King being mentioned here?

Hyeonyul walked until Jihwan could no longer see him.

There were no surveillance cameras in the president's office.

The shadier a man was, the less readily he installed things like that, for fear of exposing a weakness.

Hyeonyul melted into a shadow and appeared behind the president.

He drew his dagger.

"Don't forget to check the merchandise before you leave! Understand?"

The president irritably ended the call.

"I'll have to kill that bastard one of these days."

He took a cigarette from inside his jacket and opened a drawer to look for a lighter.

RATTLE.

As the drawer slid open, a voice spoke behind him.

"What are you moving, and where?"

It was deep and cold.

The president's eyes shifted, then turned downward.

He saw a blade pressing lightly into his neck.