Chapter 27 - Seeing the Answer First

* * *

'In cases like this, there are two main possibilities.'

One was that this was the very faction that had planted collaborators in the Black Eagles. The other was that a separate faction had planted them, and the people here had happened to get their hands on the relevant information.

Either way, the list simply added people the Black Eagles had yet to uncover.

'Now all I have to do is take this list and weed them out?'

Hyeonyul liked that part.

Those who had survived as collaborators within an organization for years were as tenacious as weeds. Weeds were difficult to pull because their roots reached deep into the ground. But now he had the leverage to uproot the collaborators.

'Surely there's a Team Leader on here?'

Once he dealt with that bastard, the rest would come tumbling down.

Before leaving, Hyeonyul photographed every list and sent the pictures to Haeryeon. Someone might take the documents along the way, or even tamper with them.

[This is the list of collaborators discovered during the mission.]

Hyeonyul gathered the lists and stepped outside, casually removing the poison clinging to his body. The first thing he noticed was the astonishment in the eyes watching him. Their expressions were closer to disbelief that he was actually still alive.

'... He really did defeat the Poison King?'

They had thought it was an unfounded rumor. It wasn't. Only now did they see Hyeonyul in a different light.

"I brought them."

Ignoring the stares directed at him, Hyeonyul handed Nayun the documents.

"... Wow. Wow, thank you so much! Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No."

"No nausea or discomfort anywhere, either?"

"None at all. There is something that bothers me, though."

Rather than answer, Nayun's eyes sharpened as though she were ready to act at any moment.

"If that poison gets into circulation, we'll have the worst possible situation on our hands. Do you have anything I can use to collect it?"

At that, Nayun naturally turned to the talisman caster, who carried their various tools.

"Y-yes!"

Stammering, the talisman caster hurried over and handed Hyeonyul a device. It was shaped like a mosquito, with a bottle attached to the back.

"You just press this button here."

Hyeonyul nodded at the explanation.

"Understood."

He calmly went back inside, collected the poison, and came out again.

"Here you are."

When Hyeonyul held out the device, the talisman caster wrapped it in talismans, said they would be back in a moment, and ran off somewhere.

As he waited quietly, Hyeonyul looked at the Black Eagle approaching him. Despite his sharp features, the man also had a considerable number of ear piercings. He looked like someone one might encounter in some secluded, shady place. His hair reached behind his ears, its ends dyed green. He gave a flashy impression.

The man tapped at his ear, then moved his lips.

<Thank you for going to the trouble of helping us.>

"Oh. He was born unable to speak," Nayun explained for him.

"Not at all. I hear we often work together. I look forward to working with you when the time comes."

The man smiled slightly at Hyeonyul's neat greeting.

'The mission's over now, but...'

Aside from his work, Hyeonyul was curious about the secret base.

"Ms. Chu Nayun."

The moment he addressed her, Nayun looked at him with utter disappointment.

Big sis. Big sis.

She mouthed the words.

Did he really have to do this?

Hyeonyul hesitated, then reluctantly said it.

"Chu Nayun, big... sister."

"Yes!"

Nayun came closer, and Hyeonyul turned his head slightly aside.

"... May I take a look at the secret base?"

"Of course! There could be other secret bases like this, so it'll be useful in all sorts of ways. So..."

Nayun's broad smile faded as her suddenly cold eyes focused on something. Hyeonyul turned to look, but there was nothing there. Only the mountain.

'How far is she looking?'

Nayun grabbed a sniper rifle from among the firearms strapped to her back and immediately took aim. She was astonishingly fast. As she pulled the trigger, energy compressed at the muzzle, accompanied by a heavy report.

BOOM.

Something shot away.

"They were spying on us from over there."

Keeping one eye closed, Nayun shifted the muzzle sideways.

"Two in total. I hit one. We need to capture the other, so I'll shoot them in the leg."

BOOM.

Light shot out in the direction of the muzzle, and Nayun's body rocked.

<I'll go check.>

A message appeared as the man moved his lips.

"All right. Keep me posted. I'll watch from here."

At Nayun's words, he nodded and ran. Sparks of electricity flew from him, and he all but vanished in an instant.

Watching him go, Hyeonyul's lips curled upward. It was a habit, but he often imagined what would happen if he fought the person before him.

'Nice.'

Wouldn't that make for an interesting fight?

A sudden chill ran through Nayun, and she looked at Hyeonyul. His helmet hid his face.

"I'm sorry, Hyeonyul, but could you check the secret base? It seems we missed something."

"Please tell me where it is."

"One moment."

Nayun immediately drew another gun from her side and fired off into the distance. Something flew away, and red smoke rose far off.

"Over there."

"Thank you."

"I ought to take you there. Sorry for pointing the way like this."

"Not at all. I'm grateful just to know the location."

Hyeonyul bowed his head and headed that way.

'... What's going on?'

Nayun furrowed her brow. She had asked Hyeonyul for help because this was supposed to be a simple task. And now an attack?

'What did we miss?'

They had thoroughly searched the secret base. All that remained was to return with those documents.

'Were there documents we overlooked?'

Was someone watching them because of those documents? Or was the secret base the objective?

Either way, Nayun was angry.

* * *

Hyeonyul assessed the situation as he walked.

'Looks like things have gone awry for the villains.'

Whatever purpose the villains had operated this secret base for, what they were trying to do was obvious: monitor other villains and the Black Eagles. He had never seen anything that strayed far from that pattern.

'They failed to account for Nayun.'

Who could have known that one of the Black Eagles assigned to this particular job would have abnormally developed eyesight?

The villains fleeing the secret base had most likely been following one of the procedures their company made them memorize. They must have waited for the Black Eagles to leave, intending to retrieve something truly important, only to get caught.

'Then what were they trying to retrieve?'

That part was hard to guess.

'Whatever it is, they're a shady bunch.'

Holding a dagger in one hand, Hyeonyul slipped underground through the darkness. The instant his view changed, he saw two people holding documents. He immediately checked for eagle emblems attached to their left arms.

'None.'

No emblem meant they were villains.

Hyeonyul glided toward the nearest one and slit his throat. As blood sprayed, a horrified sound escaped the other villain.

"... Eek!"

Hyeonyul pointed his dagger at the remaining villain, who could only breathe, looking bewildered. Judging by that reaction, perhaps he was a novice.

"What did you come here for?"

At Hyeonyul's question, the villain's eyes shifted to confirm the Black Eagles emblem.

["If you encounter a Black Eagle, die."]

Remembering his orders, he clenched his teeth.

But his upper and lower teeth never met. Hyeonyul had seized his cheeks as though he might crush his face at any moment.

"No suicide."

Darkness extended from Hyeonyul's hand and extracted the drug hidden between the man's teeth. Then he grabbed the villain by the throat.

"Why did you come?"

The man's face flushed red in an instant.

"You think I..."

Hyeonyul knew what he was about to say. You think I'll talk?

"That's for me to decide."

The moment Hyeonyul released him, he punched him in the face.

CRACK!

The villain rolled across the floor as though sliding. Hyeonyul approached slowly, and black smoke seized the villain's hand. As it forced his fingers apart, the villain flinched.

"Have you guessed what I'm going to do?"

Hyeonyul showed him the dagger.

"You filthy—aaaaaagh!"

A scream erupted. One finger flew off in a spray of blood.

"Nine left. I'll ask again. Why did you come?"

Through the pain, Hyeonyul's voice sounded different from a moment before. He was a Black Eagle, but he wasn't. Whatever else might be true, this was not how the Black Eagles did things. All they knew how to do was say stupid things like "Please don't" and "Please stop."

Tears spilled from the villain's eyes as his body trembled. This bastard would do absolutely anything. As that thought burrowed into his mind, his mouth moved on its own.

"... There's... something we have to take."

"What were you trying to take?"

"... Documents. We were told to remove the documents. That's all, all of it."

He seemed genuinely ignorant of their contents. Hyeonyul asked something else.

"Are those the documents you were supposed to remove?"

Hyeonyul pointed to the documents they had been trying to take. The man nodded.

"What's here?"

"A lot of... information. Information stolen from... other factions."

"Is that all?"

"I-I don't know anything else. I swear!"

"Understood."

After answering impassively, Hyeonyul walked over and picked up the envelope. As he stood, he drove his dagger into the villain's neck.

THUNK!

"Oh, I never said I'd spare you."

Hyeonyul removed the blood from his body and dagger, then walked on slowly. He had expected a secret base to feel somehow special, but it was merely modeled after a company's interior.

A company underground.

'... This is a terrible place.'

Hyeonyul stopped looking around and took out the documents to examine them. After turning several pages, his fingers stopped.

'... Estimated Locations of Shin Daeho's Forces?'

Even the title was unusual. This was indeed a place for collecting information on villains.

'They put quite a bit of work into this, only for the Black Eagles of all people to discover it.'

It looked as though the Black Eagles would strip them of everything—the location and all their information, too. Perhaps this incident was the person in charge's last flare of resistance.

Hyeonyul stopped walking.

'They'll be sticking together, so let's find them all at once.'

Hyeonyul's eyes and ears naturally melted into the darkness. All his senses scattered, burrowing deep and descending wherever darkness lay. Countless things entered his view, accompanied by quiet sounds.

Then he heard rustling. Hyeonyul sent his eyes in that direction and caught sight of several people gathering documents.

'Shall we pay them a visit?'

* * *

The moment Hyeonyul appeared through the darkness, he seized one of them. He watched all eyes turn toward him, then ostentatiously took the man's head off.

CRUNCH.

He deliberately exaggerated the sound.

Everyone's hands stopped. Taking advantage of the silence, Hyeonyul tossed the villain's corpse to the floor and quietly asked,

"What is this place for?"

Fear was an excellent tool. With this many people, at least one was bound to confess out of an instinct to survive.

"..."

They glanced at one another until someone spoke first.

"I-it's a sort of monitoring hub for other factions!"

"... You crazy bastard. You're telling him that?"

"You'd talk too, so cut the fucking crap!"

The villain raised his voice.

By any measure, the helmeted man was a Black Eagle. What did it mean that he had made it here? It meant everyone else was already dead. The only thing he couldn't believe was that this lunatic, who killed people without a second thought, was a Black Eagle.

"Thank you for telling me."

Hyeonyul bowed his head slightly, then walked toward those who had not spoken. His footsteps were heavy and terrifying, like those of a reaper. Seeing the darkness rise around him crushed even their desire to fight back.

"W-we, we were just... following orders!"

"What's the most important thing here?"

At Hyeonyul's question, someone held something out. The hand clutching the documents trembled.

"Th-this, this is it."

"Thank you."

As soon as Hyeonyul accepted the documents with those words, he examined them on the spot. How important must they be for these people to go to such lengths to retrieve them?

"..."

After checking the contents, Hyeonyul merely let out a breath.

「How to Use Black Eagles as Test Subjects.」

Test subjects.

Just seeing those words made him feel as though the blood throughout his body was boiling.

"... Is there a place for test subjects here?"

Black smoke rippled around his body as his voice grew heavy. It looked as though it might swallow everything.

"W-we don't know!"

"We really... don't know! I-I swear!"

The villains backed away, offering explanations.

"You don't know?"

Hyeonyul asked, suppressing his surging bloodlust.

"... Yes."

Ha.

Hyeonyul found the situation laughable.

"Do you think I'll believe that?"

Villains weren't fools. In situations like this, they assigned people they could trust to some degree.

"There's no way you don't know."

Hyeonyul pierced the throat of the man who had been running his mouth.

THUNK!

"There's no way any of you don't know."

He immediately pulled out his dagger and looked at the others. They were backing away, looking ready to flee at any moment. Hyeonyul stepped forward, and the villain nearest him screamed and collapsed to the floor.

But Hyeonyul was no longer there. He appeared behind the villain farthest away.

"When did I give you permission to run?"

The dagger's point protruded from the back of the man's neck.

No one could escape.

Having made that clear, he pulled out the dagger. The corpse fell, and no one could speak.

Hyeonyul held his dagger out toward a nearby villain.

"Answer me."

The villain looked once at the blood spreading thickly across the floor, then at Hyeonyul.

He was a devil. Who would lie before a devil?

"... Th-there is. Below here, way down below."

"This is why I can't trust you."

They knew everything, yet they had lied again. Blood sprayed violently with the motion of Hyeonyul's hand.

"Do you know how much you deceive me?"

Deep hatred resonated in his voice.

Only then did the survivors realize: he had never intended to let them leave alive in the first place.

Who was the villain now?

* * *

How far down he had gone didn't matter. What mattered was that a different setting had emerged, unlike the office-like space above.

Pure white walls. They gleamed with a tile-like finish, easy to wipe clean whenever something splattered on them.

Hyeonyul knew this place all too well—so obsessively clean that it felt cold.

'... Found it.'