The conference hall Alex had left was quiet.
No, quiet was not enough to describe it.
It was still and desolate.
It felt as though even the smallest sound would echo through the entire room.
The silence was so deep that even the beating of a heart might be heard.
No one opened their mouth.
They could not speak.
That was how shocking what had just happened was.
Adrian, the head of Parallax, had appeared.
That alone was an extremely rare occurrence.
He was someone who almost never showed his face to the outside world.
Without ever revealing himself,
he merely gave orders from behind the scenes.
As long as those orders were followed, the problem would be solved.
And yet the fact that he had come out meant the answer had already been decided.
Wherever Adrian stepped forward, there were only two outcomes.
Submit, or die.
That was an unchanging formula.
But today was different.
Some brat had appeared and overturned the board.
He had raised his voice right in front of Adrian,
then walked out with his head held high.
No one could even stop him from leaving.
.
.
.
This had not been the original plan.
The target had not been Alex himself.
What they truly wanted was what Alex possessed.
Alex had tremendous things.
Alex’s wealth, command, power, reputation, businesses.
And the Phantom Grid.
Whether someone like Alex lived or died did not matter in the slightest.
What Parallax wanted was what Alex had.
Parallax had done this sort of thing countless times before.
Whenever there was an organization that was doing even slightly well, they would pressure it with absurd coercion and swallow it whole.
If that did not work, they simply killed them.
They killed the leader and threatened the subordinates beneath him at gunpoint, reigning over them.
An organization that had lost its leader in the face of fear submitted easily.
Today had been no different.
They had intended to kill Alex.
They had planned to kill him and absorb the organization he possessed in its entirety.
But a problem arose.
As they planned the operation, they realized Alex had nothing.
They had thought he possessed something extraordinary,
but when they actually opened the lid, he had nothing at all.
There was no massive company, no organization.
There was not even a single business card representing Alex.
How could this be?
Usually, when a faction grows, when its strength increases and it gains power, it tries to rise above someone else.
But Alex was not like that.
He had handed everything over to other people.
The position of head of the organization,
the position of company representative—he had given them all to others.
He had willingly made himself an old man in the back room.
From behind, he poured money, food, jobs, and electricity into people’s hands.
He stood at the exact opposite point from Adrian, who clutched everything in his hands and trusted no one.
Adrian trusted no one,
but Alex trusted people and entrusted things to them.
Even so, Alex’s influence was tremendous.
Though he held nothing in his hands,
it was enough to move Asia.
That was precisely the problem.
If they killed Alex as things stood, it would simply end with Alex dying.
There would be nothing for Parallax to take.
Alex needed to be the boss
so they could kill him and seize his organization.
But Alex belonged nowhere.
That was the problem.
On top of that, the troublesome Obsidian Unit made him hard to kill.
This was the first time Parallax’s advance team had suffered this much.
They had planned an operation to kill Alex,
but carrying it out was difficult.
So they changed direction.
From killing him to winning him over, and then threatening him.
First, it was important to open a path.
They would create an exchange between Parallax and Alex’s organization.
Not a simple exchange, but one based on the concept of above and below.
One side would offer tribute and receive orders.
After spending some time like that, they would demand documents under the pretext of management, consulting, and support, and begin making unreasonable claims.
They would nitpick the paperwork, take issue with the organizational structure, and point out problems with personnel composition.
Under the excuse of helping with operations, Parallax would send people in and take control of the organization.
In that process, they would create traitors.
It was an ancient strategy, handed down from long ago, almost like a classic.
But it was always effective.
That was Parallax’s plan.
So they threatened him.
They said they would kill everyone around him.
But it did not work.
They threatened him like thugs, but it did not even make a dent.
Instead, they were threatened in return.
A deadly game of hide-and-seek had begun.
They had been given a time limit of twenty-four hours.
.
.
.
Adrian had come to know Alex through pure coincidence.
Several years ago, he had supplied weapons to rebels in the Congo.
The Congo did not make much money,
but if one considered the future, it was not a bad place.
What mattered was how long the war could be sustained.
From Parallax’s perspective, the government forces were important,
but the rebels were necessary as well.
They had to keep fighting each other.
That was why balance was important.
They had to believe each other was dangerous in order to buy weapons.
Only by selling weapons could Parallax profit.
They had to make both sides buy weapons, not just one.
It became a problem if one side grew too strong.
Parallax had to maintain the balance.
That was when “Okapi Sting” appeared.
Those bastards swept through the rebels.
They began dealing with the rebels mercilessly.
Even when they were hiding thoroughly, they found them and cleaned them out.
The rebels began to grow afraid.
Some of them began to flee.
In particular, the Uvira region where they had settled was an essential area for smuggling weapons.
From Parallax’s perspective, both the rebels and Uvira were necessary.
For the sake of balance, they had to lend strength to the rebels.
But the more Okapi Sting operated, the more the rebels shrank back.
They became afraid to go out on missions.
So they brought in Derek Meyer.
His personality was awful, but his skills were unquestionable.
He was meticulous and sensitive.
He was somewhat rigid, but that was actually an advantage when it came to teaching rebels.
And proudly, he wiped out Okapi Sting.
With a very simple booby trap.
They thought peace would return.
They thought the balance would be maintained.
They thought everything would fall back into place.
But the balance did not last long.
Derek Meyer died.
With a bomb in his mouth.
Not even a corpse was left, let alone bones.
Adrian was curious.
Who had killed Derek Meyer?
The answer came easily.
Candy Boy.
The sole survivor of Okapi Sting.
And its finest operator.
No one said it aloud,
but everyone was pointing to him.
They did not think he would sit still after losing his team.
They had assumed he would plan revenge.
But revenge was not that simple.
At the very least, they thought it would take a year to form a new team, synchronize with them, gather intelligence, draft an operation, and put the plan into motion.
That was, of course, assuming he found good teammates.
During the preparation process, vengeance often weakened,
and there were countless cases where people’s hearts wavered and they returned to their home countries.
So they thought they had time.
They thought they could pull Derek Meyer out and send him somewhere else before then.
At the time, they believed the rebels needed more training.
But their expectations were completely wrong.
Candy Boy prepared everything alone.
Without anyone’s help,
without a team, without support, he completed his revenge alone.
He did not leave even a fragment of Derek Meyer’s bones behind.
When Adrian heard that fact, he was merely impressed for a moment.
He thought, “That fellow called Candy Boy is remarkable,” and moved on.
For a moment, the thought, “Should I scout him later?” crossed his mind.
That was the end of it.
Derek Meyer had been a good teacher,
but mercenaries of that level were everywhere.
The Congo was not a major market either,
and they had to keep creating strife so both sides would take damage.
If the fighting tilted to one side, the market would die from that point on.
The rebels’ forces had already been greatly weakened.
Fighting among the rebels themselves was devastating their strength.
Parallax deliberated.
Should they lend strength to the rebels again,
or abandon the Congo market?
The deliberation was brief.
Parallax quickly withdrew from battlefields that did not make money.
They had no lingering attachment.
.
.
.
When Adrian arrived at the Belle Mare Resort,
he lacked confidence even until the moment he entered the conference hall.
He had no certain card in his hand.
He had no weapon with which to seize and wield his opponent.
Ordinarily, the name Parallax was enough.
Most people lowered themselves at that name alone.
They made an appointment,
then assessed the other party until the appointed time.
They dug into their background.
Thoroughly.
If they did that, something would turn up.
A weakness, a past, relationships with people.
Once they had that, the rest was easy.
They could threaten them or win them over.
But this time was different.
Nothing came up.
There was truly nothing.
No records, no traces.
The name Alex was not merely clean; it was empty.
So Adrian deliberately delayed the meeting.
He said he could not go to Singapore or Hong Kong.
He attached absurd reasons to it.
Instead, he told them to come to the Middle East or South America.
If it was there, he had methods.
If conversation did not work, he could crush them with force.
He could mobilize an army or a cartel.
But the other side rejected both the Middle East and South America.
In the end, after going around in circles, they met in Mauritius, Africa.
Neutral ground.
A place with nowhere to run and no army to mobilize.
The appointed time approached,
but Adrian had no cards whatsoever in his hand.
That continued to make Adrian uncomfortable.
But the moment he walked into the conference room.
The moment he entered and saw his face.
There was a face that came to mind.
He knew at once who he was.
He had seen him in the Congo.
He remembered seeing him at L’Oasis, the place Jose ran.
He had once seen him speaking warmly with Jose.
Because he was an Asian man, rare in the Congo, Adrian had watched him especially closely.
After that Asian man left,
Jose had asked Adrian to procure a sniper rifle for him.
Adrian had gladly obtained the sniper rifle for him.
And only later
did he learn that the man was Candy Boy.
After Derek Meyer died,
and after that Asian man left, he vaguely heard that the young man from back then had been Candy Boy.
And now Candy Boy was sitting in front of Adrian.
Outwardly, he wore a solemn expression,
but tens of thousands of thoughts raced through his mind.
Okapi Sting.
Candy Boy.
Alex.
Gong Inbae.
Many names circled inside Adrian’s head.
Names that had existed separately began to slowly gather into a single point.
And at some moment, they overlapped as one.
“They’re the same person.”
Only then did it make sense.
Why the past of a man named Alex could not be verified,
and why no one could tell where Gong Inbae was or what he was doing.
Once he reached that conclusion,
Adrian’s heart grew lighter.
Now the negotiations would become easy.
Everyone had a past.
And the past always became a weakness.
So Adrian deliberately brought it up.
“Okapi Sting.”
At that moment, Alex wavered.
When he insulted his comrades, he could see his body trembling.
“Candy Boy.”
This time, he closed his mouth.
The moment Adrian saw that, he was certain.
“I’ve got him.”
He thought it was a perfect victory.
There was no escape.
The moment he spoke of the past,
Alex would become Gong Inbae and be buried in that past.
Honestly, he was quite a decent opponent.
For one thing, his ability to get under someone’s skin was remarkable.
Adrian had nearly gotten angry several times, but he barely held himself back.
Experience told him
that if he got excited or angry at a time like this, he would lose.
So he endured and held out until the end.
Though his insides were boiling,
he let it pass with a smile.
And at last,
he thought the fruit of his patience had ripened.
He thought he had suppressed him completely,
that he could take everything Alex had.
But that bastard was different.
As if he had once fought his way out of hell.
He broke straight through the fierce pressure head-on.
The method was simple.
He did not deny it.
He did not run away.
He simply acknowledged it.
I am lacking.
I am insufficient.
He said it just like that.
Without excuses,
without trying to look good.
Without trying to dress it up,
he accepted the past he had lived in its entirety.
At that moment, Adrian understood Alex a little.
He felt he knew why Alex said he lived “a life of writing his own answers.”
He was not a man who chose from predetermined options.
If he did not like something, he was the kind of man who tore up the board itself.
So Adrian envied him a little.
Because Adrian had always lived hidden in the back, tapping away at a calculator.
Because once, Adrian too had possessed something like that.
But what was more surprising than anything was what came next.
Alex began to see through Adrian in return.
He began to guess Adrian’s past.
His limping leg.
The fact that he regarded it like a medal.
Even the fact that he had been injured while saving a comrade.
Through a short conversation, Alex saw through Adrian’s life.
The moment Adrian heard those words, he felt uneasy.
It felt instead as though his own past had been stripped completely bare.
As though all the ugliness he had hidden had been exposed.
Before him, Adrian felt as if he had become shabby.
That was why he was afraid.
An unknowable future warned him.
That this man was dangerous.
Not because he was strong.
This man was one who wrote the answer himself.