Chapter 3 - I'm Looking for a Job (2)

* * *

To work for a villain's company, you had to know how to handle something as basic as a bomb. And bombs weren't all Hyeonyul could handle. He could make simple poisons, too.

"... Can you really defuse a bomb?"

Hyeonyul nodded at Haeryeon's question.

"What reason would I have to lie?"

"Looks like you're trying to use people's lives as leverage to get hired. That's not happening."

When Team Seven's leader spoke up, Hyeonyul merely shrugged.

"I offered to help. I never made hiring me a condition, nor did I threaten you."

Team Seven's leader gave a light laugh. If that was meant as a provocation, it could certainly count as one. If he meant to blindside her, he had halfway succeeded.

"Interesting. You're very interesting."

Her thumb moved rapidly over the phone in her hand.

The situation was obvious. Hadn't they all heard? They had no choice but to accept Hyeonyul's help. Even if he demanded nothing, they would naturally end up indebted to him. How was that any different from what she had said?

"I'm honored."

As Hyeonyul smiled, electricity spread beside him.

CRACKLE

He didn't so much as blink at the flashing sparks.

"Sure. Enjoy this moment."

Team Seven's leader smiled sweetly.

"Child, get your head straight and focus on the situation."

Team Two's leader pressed down on her head to restrain her. This was no time to raise their voices.

"Get your hand off, old man!"

"Team Leader Ye Juhyeon. This isn't the time, is it?"

When even Haeryeon spoke up, Juhyeon looked at her with drooping eyes.

"... Haeryeon."

Haeryeon looked at Hyeonyul. His easygoing demeanor left her uneasy and suspicious. That must be why Juhyeon was so prickly with him.

"I'll take him."

Haeryeon volunteered. For now, her only option was to take charge of Hyeonyul and watch him from close by. They had no time.

She removed the handcuffs binding his hands.

"Follow me."

At her urging, Hyeonyul rose from his seat.

"I know you suspect me. So I'll prove myself with results."

He gave the team leaders a slight bow and followed Haeryeon. Whatever he said now would probably rub them the wrong way.

Haeryeon walked down the corridor so quickly she was almost running, her fluffy hair bouncing along with her.

"Do you know why the Black Eagles are called the Black Eagles?"

"No."

"Then this will be your chance to find out. We're going to ride an eagle to the site."

Hyeonyul considered that for a moment. Ride an eagle? What did that mean?

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I hope your desire to join the Black Eagles is genuine."

Haeryeon grinned.

If Hyeonyul meant what he said, he would undoubtedly be a tremendous asset. Hadn't he accomplished something no one else had managed?

* * *

"... Urgh."

Pale-faced, Hyeonyul leaned against a wall and covered his mouth.

He had wondered what the black eagle was. It turned out to be magic. The world he had been reborn into was modern, but bizarre, with all sorts of powers. Naturally, magic existed.

'Wasn't most magic little more than stage tricks...?'

He had never seen magic this powerful before.

An eagle covered entirely in black had appeared like an apparition. While he was merely staring at it, wondering what it was, it suddenly snatched him up and took to the sky. Before he could even brace himself, he was traveling at an absurd speed.

He had wondered why there were no ordinary cars, only buses, at the building they called the Nest. He hadn't imagined they traveled like this.

'... This is the worst.'

Hyeonyul sensed a looming crisis. If he became a Black Eagle, wouldn't he have to ride one every day?

"Are you all right? You seem to have a rather frail constitution."

Haeryeon smiled awkwardly at this unexpected turn of events.

The black eagle was fast, and first-time riders did get startled, but it was so flawlessly designed that it didn't even cause ordinary motion sickness. Yet Hyeonyul was experiencing adverse effects. Just how frail was he, despite his sturdy build?

"... Yes. I'm in poor health."

Hyeonyul checked his watch. It was almost time to take his medication. He turned to Haeryeon.

"But I'm not so weak that I'm useless. With medication, I'm well enough to function, so I'm always grateful for modern medicine."

"Is it a chronic illness?"

"No. I used to be a test subject."

"..."

Haeryeon's expression froze.

'... A test subject?'

Anti-government forces had tried to create soldiers with powers to overthrow the Empire. They had experimented on countless people, calling them test subjects. The chances of survival were abysmal. Even so, those bastards kept abducting people and turning them into test subjects.

'How is a test subject still alive?'

The question took root in Haeryeon's mind.

'Is that why he came to the Black Eagles?'

One question led to another.

Frankly, his stated motive for approaching the Black Eagles had been far too flimsy. But if he was a test subject, that changed things. How deep must his resentment toward villains run? Simply having all his limbs intact like this could be called a miracle.

"If you find it hard to believe, you can examine me later. They tore through all sorts of places inside my body trying to inject strange powers into me."

Hyeonyul spoke with his mouth still covered.

His body was unlike an ordinary person's. He needed medication to maintain his physical form and sanity, and that medication wasn't free. Only working for an exploitative company had allowed him to afford it.

"... No. I saw the records of your countless hospital visits."

Haeryeon spoke hesitantly. She had seen living test subjects a few times, but never one who stayed alive, and it left her at a loss.

"I'm glad that saves me some time convincing you. Hospital visits are a necessity for me, and my medication is expensive. In that regard, the terms the Black Eagles offered were excellent."

Hyeonyul smiled lightly.

'... This is driving me crazy.'

Haeryeon felt herself wavering. She knew it had begun the moment he said 'test subject.'

She had rescued many test subjects, but every one of them had died. Perhaps this was guilt.

Only then did she notice the scars visible on Hyeonyul's face. Apart from a few dark scars, there were numerous faint ones, as though he had been slashed over and over. They were all traces of the experiments.

'... So that's why he has the power to kill Shin Daeho.'

Now understanding his power, Haeryeon assessed the situation dispassionately. There were too many dangerous factors to judge him on sympathy alone.

'I'll judge Seo Hyeonyul with my own two eyes.'

She rummaged through the bag she had brought and held out a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses.

"Put these on."

"Are they enchanted to make my face harder to recognize?"

"No. They're just a disguise."

The recognition-dampening magic was in the smartwatch Haeryeon was wearing. But she offered no further explanation. She took out her phone and checked several things. People were being evacuated, and the location had been identified as somewhere near their landing point.

'The bomb comes first.'

With her objective firmly in mind, Haeryeon activated her smartwatch.

"Do the Black Eagles usually operate in small numbers?"

Putting on the glasses, Hyeonyul realized no one else was coming and couldn't help asking.

"It depends on the mission."

She could have asked why he was prying into everything, but for now, Haeryeon gave a vague answer.

"This time, it's a bomb. We have to minimize casualties. As a team leader, I can't sacrifice my team members, can I?"

As she smiled, Hyeonyul stared blankly at her.

'... Is she stupid?'

He couldn't understand. If a team lost its leader, it was bound to collapse. Even for the team's sake, sacrificing a team member was the right choice.

But Hyeonyul reconsidered.

'I should learn from this.'

What he had learned was the villains' way. The Black Eagles weren't villains.

"Mr. Seo Hyeonyul, what kind of power do you use?"

She needed to know his power to defuse the bomb.

"Shadows. You could call it darkness, too. I don't know exactly what it is."

He extended his hand, and his fingers melted smoothly away, falling into the shadows. Nothing remained where they had been. Fingers emerged from the shadows and wriggled.

"That should give you a rough idea."

"... Crazy bastards."

Haeryeon swore without realizing it. What on earth had they turned a human being into? She couldn't even imagine what had happened to him before he could melt like that.

"Does it hurt...?"

Her question briefly surprised Hyeonyul. Why would she ask that?

'Is she checking my health?'

He shook his head.

"No. I'm fine as long as I take my medication. Whatever happens, I'll finish the mission before I leave, so you don't need to worry."

His response struck Haeryeon as very strange, and she blinked. It felt almost like a plea. Yet his expression was remarkably matter-of-fact.

"Tell me where the bomb is, and I'll take care of it. Once you see how I handle it, you'll know I deserve to clock out on time."

Haeryeon raised her eyebrows at this latest remark. At first, she had thought she was imagining things, but after this much talk, she was certain.

"You seem to place quite a lot of...importance on work-life balance."

"That's right. I hate overworking."

His unabashed declaration made Haeryeon burst out laughing.

"Honestly, I'd like to tell you you've come to the wrong place. But clocking out on time isn't impossible. Provided you're good at your job."

Haeryeon walked ahead, and Hyeonyul followed, listening. The black eagle ride had kept him from noticing, but the neighborhood was strangely quiet.

"There are always more villains than we can handle, and only a few Black Eagles. The more villains you catch, the more benefits you receive. You're valuable personnel, so you're treated accordingly."

Her confident voice made Hyeonyul feel as though he were drinking warm tea.

"... It sounds like a good place. Workplaces that treat you according to the work you do are really, really rare."

Might this place actually honor at least the basics? Hope blossomed at the thought.

"I hope you're a good person, too, Mr. Seo."

Haeryeon spoke softly, her words carrying a hope of her own.

"I don't know about being a good person, but I'll try to be a good cog in the machine."

Hyeonyul knew what companies wanted: talented people they could use cheaply. What was that if not a cog? They could fire him whenever they liked, so it was easier to abandon any notion of belonging.

"That's not a very nice way to put it."

Haeryeon's brow furrowed slightly before she turned her back. Somehow, she seemed angry.

Not knowing why, Hyeonyul followed her and looked around. He saw an empty playground and signs of a hurried departure. As they approached the apartment building that stood high up even when viewed from a distance, objects dropped on the ground became more frequent.

He pushed up his slipping glasses and took a deep breath.

'The smell of blood.'

The air reeked heavily of it.

Sure enough, as they climbed the hill, bodies began appearing one by one. His gaze turned toward the apartment building.

'There it is.'

He could plainly tell where the bomb was without bothering to ask Haeryeon.

'Their intelligence gathering is good.'

There was a bomb. How long had it been since that report, for them to have already pinpointed its location?

'They seem well coordinated.'

The team that gathered the intelligence, the team that transported them to the location, and finally the Black Eagles who took action. Not bad.

"Is it there?"

Feeling satisfied, Hyeonyul pointed at the apartment building.

"Yes. The bomb is in there."

At Haeryeon's reply, he covered one eye. Beneath his palm, that eye vanished as though melting away and headed toward the building. As it moved through the shadows, a different view unfolded from the one his uncovered eye saw. It was searching inside the building for the bomb.

"Did something get in your eye?"

He shook his head at her question. Two entirely different spaces filled his vision: outside the apartment building and inside it.

"What power do you use, Ms. Oh Haeryeon?"

After asking, he thought for a moment and added,

"Oh, if you don't trust me, you don't have to tell me."

"I'm an alchemist."

She lifted her outer garment, revealing a multitude of small bottles.

"I have all sorts of things, including acid strong enough to dissolve you on the spot."

"Do you have poison, too?"

"I do."

"Then could you give me a poison that can kill all the villains in a room? I'll bring the bomb back without any trouble."

Hyeonyul made his nerve clear: whether there was a bomb or anything else in there, he wouldn't back down.

"You're going in, even with a bomb inside?"

Haeryeon asked cautiously.

"I am."

"You could die."

"If I don't go, I might die in a different way. I want to live a long time."

He had to work to afford his medication. He didn't know how long he could live, but he had to live as much as he could while he had the chance.

"All poisons are dangerous. Don't go in right away."

After hesitating, Haeryeon held out a bottle the size of her thumb.

"Thank you."

Hyeonyul smiled as he took it.

'I wasn't sure she'd give me poison, of all things, but she actually did.'

The male team leader from earlier had voted yes, and the female team leader had voted no. With only Haeryeon's decision remaining, this could only be a highly positive sign.

Hyeonyul erased the hand holding the bottle. It looked like black rain dripping down. Keeping his other hand over his eye, he searched for the bomb.

It didn't take long. Exactly eleven seconds.

'Found it.'

Nine people in total. They were gathered in a single room, with the bomb in their midst.

'Clever positioning.'

If necessary, all nine could be wiped out at once. Judging by the provisions for a clean disposal of loose ends, the villain behind this bombing seemed fairly clever.

'But every advantage has its drawbacks.'

They were rats in a trap.

Hyeonyul sent the hand clutching the poison to where his eye was. It moved beneath the sofa and smashed the bottle. Shifting his eye there, he saw the poison spreading like a faint haze.

He picked up a long nail lying beneath the sofa. Moving his eye upward, he located the surveillance camera. He quietly moved his hand to destroy it, then looked down.

One person collapsed. While the others were still flustered by the sudden incident, two more fell. When someone tried to operate a radio, Hyeonyul moved his hand and drove the nail into their neck.

The nail plunged deep into flesh. Feeling it sink in, Hyeonyul looked at Haeryeon.

"I'll be back in a moment."

The others had already noticed the poison and were covering their noses and mouths. He couldn't let them escape.

"What?"

Before he even heard her response, Hyeonyul melted into the shadows.

As soon as his view changed, he reached toward the door of the room containing the bomb. His hand seemed to pass through the door, seized a fleeing enemy by the neck, and crushed it.

CRACK

He calmly opened the door and stepped inside.

"Nice to meet you."

At his casual greeting, the enemies clutching their throats saw him as a monster. He had entered this poison-filled room without even a gas mask.

"You don't have to look at me like that."

Hyeonyul had resistance to poison. After all the ways his body had been tampered with for experiments, wouldn't it be stranger if he didn't? He calmly put on his gloves.

He snatched the dagger from the waist of a man who lunged at him and stabbed him in the throat. To avoid the blood spatter, he pushed the man away with his foot as he pulled the dagger free.

'Oh, the window.'

Hyeonyul ran over, grabbed the hair of a man reaching toward the window, and threw him to the floor. The man rolled across it. Before he could get up, Hyeonyul approached and stomped on his face.

CRUNCH!

The sound of facial bones breaking rang out clearly.

Hyeonyul swept his gaze around once and thrust his hand to the side. The dagger sank deep.

The enemy who had been creeping up on him trembled with the dagger lodged in his throat. Hyeonyul slashed sideways and looked at the last man.

"... M-monster!"

Faced with this impossible situation, the enemy cried out almost in a scream.

"Monster or not, you'll die if you shout like that. Do something with the time you have left. Text your family, at least..."

THUD

Hyeonyul shook his head at the sound of the man collapsing.

"I told you not to shout."

He approached the bomb. No one else remained standing in the room. He worked on the laptop. There was bound to be a disarm code embedded in it. After dozens of keystrokes, he found the code and entered it.

Even without a disarm code, it would have been fine. There were other ways.

After looking around, he swept his hand over the blood on his body. He became spotless, as though there had never been any blood on him.

'This is an interview. I can't show up looking disheveled.'

He checked again for blood, then picked up the laptop and the defused bomb. He reappeared before Haeryeon as naturally as could be.

"I brought these because I thought you might need them."

"...?"

Haeryeon stared blankly.

"The bomb is defused, and all nine people in the room with it are dead. Does that mean the mission is complete?"

As Hyeonyul gazed steadily at her, she rubbed her face. That wasn't the first priority right now.

"Take the antidote first."

"I'm fine. I have resistance to poison."

He shook the bomb and laptop he was holding out. This was what mattered most.

"I'm pretty useful, aren't I? I resolved the incident in just five minutes. Surely that deserves letting me clock out on time?"

At his rather cheeky remark, Haeryeon blinked, then covered her mouth. With enemies still around, she couldn't laugh loudly. But she genuinely thought he was extraordinary.

Frankly, he had just accomplished something absurd. In only five minutes, he had not merely subdued the enemies but also done the bomb disposal team's job. How many people would it normally take to achieve that?

Haeryeon set everything else aside and focused solely on what he had accomplished.

'I came to keep an eye on him at first, but I really should treat this as an interview.'

She grew serious.

In a sense, Hyeonyul was poison. A poison dangerous to both the Black Eagles and the villains. She didn't know what that poison might bring about, but she asked him nonetheless.

"Are you confident you won't become a villain?"

"Yes."

Hyeonyul answered without hesitation. He might wipe them out, but he had no intention of ever becoming a villain again.

At his firm answer, Haeryeon extended her hand. She absolutely couldn't let him fall into the villains' hands.

"I vote in favor of you joining the Black Eagles, Hyeonyul."

"... Really?"

He reacted as though he couldn't believe it.

"But join my team, Mr. Seo Hyeonyul. That's the condition for my vote."

Hyeonyul gazed intently at her. He was happy, but what was she thinking?

"I'll protect you."

"Protect me...?"

The words were so unfamiliar that his brow creased.

"Yes. I have the power to do that."

Haeryeon beamed.