Chapter 68 - Extra Pay (3)
12 min read ·
* * *
After settling the nausea caused by riding the Eagle with a sedative, Hyeon-yul reviewed the mission briefing.
「*Incident Start
―While investigating a company operated by villains, an item believed to be a drug was discovered.
*Incident Progress
―A rapid composition test confirmed that it is an unidentified drug.
―The company is being inspected and surrounded to recover it quickly.
―While villains and civilians are being separated, determining whether additional drugs exist is a priority.
*Points of Caution
―Confirm with certainty whether additional drugs are present.
―Wear protective equipment in preparation for exposure to the drug.
―A villain attack may occur.」
Hyeon-yul shifted his gaze toward the company building.
It was a five-story building belonging to a company large enough to be considered almost mid-sized.
Hyeon-yul checked the company logo and immediately recognized it.
‘This is one of the companies I circled as villain-operated.’
Using the companies the Black Eagles had already considered suspicious, Hyeon-yul had examined their logos and symbols appearing anywhere inside their offices.
It felt like he had done that only recently, so he had not expected the investigations to advance this quickly.
He could not even guess how deeply the Black Eagles had already been investigating these places before he joined.
‘At this speed, they probably already know that Asan is dead.’
Why had they not told the other Black Eagles?
Along with the question came a little more confidence in the organization’s capabilities.
Hadn’t yesterday’s cult operation already revealed one important fact?
Alongside the brainwashing of believers, the villains had used a drug capable of turning abilityless people into ability users.
It was the same drug that had been discarded because of severe side effects during the experiments performed on Hyeon-yul.
They had found a transaction record on the cult leader’s computer after his confession, but that was all.
Judging by the speed of this investigation, perhaps a transaction record alone was enough for the Black Eagles to trace the supplier.
Just in case, Hyeon-yul also planned to visit Yujong tonight, the information broker known as the Night Rat. With that in mind, he walked forward.
The closer he came to the building, the more people he saw.
The surrounding area had been sealed off, and he could feel some kind of force enveloping the entire structure.
‘...Magic?’
It did not quite feel like magic, which made a supernatural ability more likely.
“Are you a Black Eagle?”
Someone came hurrying over and immediately showed an official identification card.
The newcomer was a White Sparrow in plain clothes.
“Yes.”
Hyeon-yul answered briefly and presented his own black civil-service identification card.
“Welcome. We still haven’t separated the villains from the civilians inside. An ability-suppression device is currently active.”
“Does that mean abilities can’t be used inside?”
“No. Black Eagles can use theirs after going through an exemption procedure. Would you follow me?”
The White Sparrow spoke with unexpected politeness, even though he should have been able to see clearly that Hyeon-yul belonged to Team 3.
“There’s something I’d like to ask, if that’s all right.”
This was Hyeon-yul’s first time dealing with a situation like this, so he could not help asking.
“Please ask anything.”
“How does the exemption work?”
What kind of force was this, and how did it operate?
“The uniform you’re wearing is already configured to exempt you from the suppression field. Also, this time a Black Eagle with a supernatural ability is controlling the field directly, so adjustment is smoother than it used to be.”
Hyeon-yul looked down at his uniform while listening.
The more he learned about it, the more useful it seemed.
“Thank you for explaining.”
“Not at all. This way, please.”
The White Sparrow walked ahead, and Hyeon-yul followed.
The area around Hyeon-yul was crowded with people everywhere.
‘Are all of them White Sparrows? This many?’
Unlike Black Eagles, White Sparrows did not normally wear uniforms, so the area almost looked crowded with civilians.
Hyeon-yul had never seen this many of them even on other missions, so he kept looking around.
They continued working, but many also glanced toward him. Their gazes were not as sharp as they had been before.
Had stopping the Poison King’s mass poisoning really been such a big deal?
‘I don’t understand.’
Hyeon-yul decided not to dwell on it.
“...I’m sorry.”
The White Sparrow walking ahead stopped awkwardly in front of a door and addressed Hyeon-yul.
Hyeon-yul quietly watched the White Sparrow before the man continued.
“I judged you based only on rumors and misunderstood you. This is just my personal opinion, but if I ever met you, I really wanted to apologize.”
The White Sparrow bowed deeply and opened the door for him.
Hyeon-yul watched him for a moment.
Whether they apologized or not honestly did not matter much to him.
It was hardly the first time someone had disliked him, and he believed proving himself through ability was enough.
Still, people acting like this did make things easier.
What was he supposed to say at a time like this?
After thinking briefly, Hyeon-yul smiled more brightly.
“Thank you for saying that.”
He could not know whether the apology was false or whether the man was only trying to ease his own conscience.
If it was a lie, Hyeon-yul could simply answer with a lie.
He entered the building, and the White Sparrow belatedly pressed a hand to his chest in relief.
‘...He isn’t as frightening as I expected.’
Even beyond the naturally heavy atmosphere Black Eagles carried, meeting Hyeon-yul personally showed how exaggerated the rumors had been.
The White Sparrows themselves had been among the loudest voices saying Team 3’s new recruit could not be accepted.
They had even committed the enormous mistake of withholding information only from that rookie despite knowing a Black Eagle’s life could depend on a single report.
Yesterday, a serious incident had erupted within the White Sparrows during the cult operation. Even after everything that had happened, they had heard that Team 3’s rookie had defended them.
He might have been a villain in the past, but at least now, it seemed right to believe he was no longer one.
‘I should reflect on my own behavior.’
The White Sparrow nodded to himself.
* * *
“...Oh!”
A woman with naturally half-tied hair spotted Hyeon-yul and ran toward him with widened eyes.
Her voice was still as loud as ever.
“Are you the person I met before? The, um, uhh...”
“I’m Seo Hyeon-yul.”
“Right, Seo Hyeon-yul! No, I mean, the person from Team 3. Do you remember me?”
“Didn’t you use the power of clouds?”
“That’s right. How did you remember? I’m Im Taerin from Team 2, the team that can make anything.”
Taerin smiled and held out her hand. When Hyeon-yul offered his own, she shook it enthusiastically.
“You were excellent last time.”
Taerin raised one thumb enthusiastically, and Hyeon-yul leaned his upper body slightly backward and gave a polite bow.
“Thank you.”
“Our team leader, Team Leader Dojin, said he was bringing excellent support. Are you the person he meant?”
“I don’t know about excellent, but I am the support.”
“As expected of Team Leader. He really did bring someone excellent.”
Taerin kept praising him, and Hyeon-yul hesitated under the pressure.
‘Did she make some kind of agreement with Team Leader Dojin?’
Dojin wanted Hyeon-yul to join Team 2.
If so, it would be natural for the other Team 2 members to flatter him as well.
Hyeon-yul was unsure whether he should interpret her behavior that way.
“Ah! This isn’t what I should be doing. Follow me. I’d like to introduce the rest of Team 2 too, but they’re busy separating civilians from villains right now.”
“That raises a question. May I ask something?”
“Of course. I’m ready to answer anything.”
Hyeon-yul did not understand how everyone could approach him so quickly and naturally.
Avoiding Taerin’s sparkling gaze, he asked the question that interested him most.
“How do you normally distinguish villains from civilians?”
Did they see something he did not?
Was there some method for identifying villains?
“...Hmm. The answer probably won’t be what you’re hoping for.”
Some of the energy left Taerin’s voice and steps. She hesitated over whether to explain before finally speaking.
“First, we examine asset records. On average, villains often show sudden increases in wealth compared with their official salary. Second, for safety, we divide people into high-risk and low-risk groups based on their abilities. Finally, we examine ability flow through brain waves and estimate how frequently that ability has been used.”
“So you distinguish them statistically?”
“That’s right. Other than that, we’d need a confession or voluntary report, and those aren’t exactly easy to get. For now, this is the best method we have.”
“Thank you for explaining.”
“...Are you disappointed?”
“No. I think there is reasonable evidence behind the method.”
Hyeon-yul genuinely meant what he said because it was true that the more villainy someone committed, the more their wealth often increased.
Hyeon-yul himself had never taken anything beyond unpaid salary and money he was owed, but the other villains had apparently helped themselves to the property of people they killed.
Separating high-risk and low-risk groups based on ability also made sense. The better someone’s ability was, the more likely villains were to recruit them.
Hyeon-yul already knew that brain waves could reveal patterns of ability use because he had undergone those tests constantly during his years as an experimental subject.
“I just didn’t know you could access asset records that quickly.”
“That part is honestly a little scary. It sounds like they can do absolutely anything, doesn’t it?”
Taerin lowered her voice to a whisper.
Her concern was not wrong. For now, that power was aimed at villains, but if someone pointed it elsewhere, it could become an extremely dangerous weapon.
After answering his question, Taerin mostly hurried ahead, only speaking to him occasionally.
The mission had clearly begun in an emergency. The office was full of signs that everyone had abandoned their work and rushed out.
Hyeon-yul straightened a telephone handset that was beeping repeatedly.
“Oh. That’s it.”
Rather than entering the office itself, Taerin pointed toward an object visible in the distance.
Something had been placed on the desk farthest from the entrance.
When Hyeon-yul started toward it, Taerin stopped him and pointed immediately to the right.
“You need to put on protective equipment first. When I checked earlier, the contamination level was increasing, so we moved it far away from everyone.”
“Understood.”
Hyeon-yul did not particularly need the equipment, but he put it on anyway, and Taerin equipped herself beside him.
When Hyeon-yul looked at her, she answered proudly.
“On Team 2, we’re taught that if we accept a mission, we take the lead ourselves!”
Her voice boomed through the office.
“Understood. Then I’ll check it.”
Hyeon-yul walked toward the container holding the drug and heard Taerin following behind him.
The substance was stored inside a case shaped like a travel bag, and the liquid itself was transparent.
“I’ll open it for a moment.”
The container was sealed so tightly that no smell escaped.
Hyeon-yul opened it and briefly lifted the face covering of his protective gear.
The instant the scent reached his nose, he almost let out a hollow laugh.
‘...They found it this easily?’
It was the same drug he had identified yesterday.
‘Is this place simply distributing it, or are they producing more here?’
After a moment of thought, Hyeon-yul looked toward Taerin.
“I know what the drug is.”
“...Already?”
“I’ll check whether there is any more of it. In the meantime, could you tell them this is the same drug Team 3 found during yesterday’s mission? Also, did you confiscate the computers and other electronics from the president’s office?”
“I believe we did. I’ll report this first and come back.”
Taerin nodded and ran off at once. The way she moved urgently showed that she still did not know exactly how broad the mission had become.
‘The CCTV is over there.’
Hyeon-yul did not touch the camera. He simply stood with his back to it.
He had identified this company as villain-operated, but he had never known what it actually did.
Its owner had simply been one of many villains who came to flatter Shin Daeho.
There had been plenty like him.
Shin Daeho himself had been remarkably weak, so Hyeon-yul had never understood what they expected to gain from him.
Both of Hyeon-yul’s eyes melted away.
He first searched the company as a whole, moving his sight from the top floor all the way down to the basement, but found nothing.
‘Is that really everything?’
‘Really...?’
Hyeon-yul thought again and again as he stared at the case, trying to determine where it had come from. He smelled the outside of the container.
There was a trace of oil.
‘...A car.’
Hyeon-yul returned only one eye to its original place and headed outside.
“I reported it...”
“Go to the basement immediately and lock down every vehicle.”
Lights came on as engines began to start.
“W-Wait!”
Hyeon-yul ignored Taerin’s protest and ran.
Even an ability user could be helpless if struck head-on by a speeding car.
Aware of the hallway CCTV, Hyeon-yul disappeared only after turning the corner.
He reappeared in the underground parking garage.
One car, no, four vehicles were preparing to leave.
Hyeon-yul quickly assessed the situation around the parking garage. White Sparrows were coming downstairs, but there was no way they could stop the vehicles in time.
Hyeon-yul pulled every moving wheel partly into the shadows.
The cars lurched, but their wheels only spun uselessly in place.
After confirming it worked, Hyeon-yul returned to the hallway above and pretended to continue running normally.
“Why are you so fast...?”
Taerin spoke while struggling to keep up.
Taerin wondered whether he had disappeared for a moment in the middle, then decided she might have imagined it.
“Did you get a report?”
“Oh! One moment.”
Taerin touched her wireless earpiece and continued walking while quietly speaking into it.
After a short exchange, her eyes widened.
“They found it!”
“They did?”
“Yes. They said the cars strangely couldn’t move. Apparently it looked like their wheels were... missing?”
Hyeon-yul released his ability as she spoke.
“They only need to search inside.”
“How did you know?”
“It was closer to intuition. I inferred where the case had come from.”
Hyeon-yul offered the most plausible explanation.
“Well, cars are the easiest way to move a case like that.”
“Exactly. Ah, may I help with identifying the villains?”
Hyeon-yul changed the subject before Taerin could dig deeper.
“...Really? You’ll help us?”
“Yes. I’ll help before I leave.”
They were separating villains from civilians.
If Hyeon-yul could help catch villains, why would he refuse?
‘...Ah, so this is why Team Leader wants Seo Hyeon-yul. He’s really kind.’
Taerin thought it casually, then another question occurred to her.
Taerin could not understand why the rumors about him were so awful.
‘Then why are the rumors about him so awful?’
* * *
“...Are you investigating properly?”
At the cold voice behind him, Yujong did more than rise from his seat. He nearly jumped into the air.
‘...Fuuuck!’
Yujong swallowed the curse surging up inside him.
Things had been quiet for a while, so he had no idea why this bastard had suddenly come to torment him again.
“Were you that happy to see me?”
At Hyeon-yul’s question, Yujong bowed deeply.
‘Would you be happy to see someone like you, you fucking bastard?’
His true thoughts were very different.