Outskirts of Luxembourg.
A hastily established base.
Pablo was looking down at the documents spread across the desk.
Photographs, movement records, entry and exit logs, communication logs.
They were scattered in disarray,
but Pablo’s gaze was fixed not on the documents, but on empty air.
“…Strange.”
Pablo muttered to himself.
Adrian had vanished completely.
Of course, with Adrian’s skills, hiding was possible.
But did it make sense for even the attendants who had been with him to disappear like this?
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand.
They had vanished so perfectly it was as if their very existence had been erased.
It didn’t feel like “concealment,” but like something that had been “staged.”
It was then.
One of his subordinates came in holding a tablet.
“What is it?”
“While reconstructing the old communication logs… we found a strange pattern.”
“A strange pattern?”
“It didn’t go through a normal channel. There are traces of it passing through an abandoned satellite once. It looks like someone deliberately routed it that way to avoid leaving logs.”
Pablo’s eyes changed.
“Open it.”
The subordinate held out the tablet.
Part of a recovered message was displayed on the screen.
- Phase-2 maintained. No external exposure.
- LUX used as noise. Continue deployment.
- Team F dispersed. Routes discarded.
- MUS status maintained. Main body stationary.
- Internal contact on hold. Block until verification.
Short, dry sentences were listed one after another.
Because they had not been perfectly restored, they were difficult to make out.
But it was enough.
Pablo’s gaze fixed on one line.
MUS status maintained. Main body stationary.
“…MUS?”
Pablo muttered as if reading it aloud.
“By country code standards, that’s Mauritius.”
The subordinate replied.
Mauritius?
That was the last place Adrian had officially appeared.
After that, Pablo had understood he had moved to Europe.
That was why they had been chasing him here.
Pablo raised the corners of his mouth as if amused.
“…Ha.”
Seeing that, the subordinate flinched in surprise for a moment.
But Pablo was still tapping the tablet screen, wearing a strange smile.
“Is something wrong?”
The subordinate asked cautiously.
“Haha. We got played.”
“Pardon?”
“Look at this.”
The place Pablo pointed to read, “LUX used as noise.”
“Adrian lured us into Europe.”
“Then… are you saying it was all fake? Luxembourg, the old castle, everything?”
“Not fake. Bait.”
Pablo leaned back in his chair and said,
“He made it look like he had come out so we would chase after it, while the main body never moved. Hahaha. That’s just like Adrian. This is the level it has to be to be Adrian. As expected.”
Clap, clap, clap.
Pablo even clapped his hands as he laughed in admiration.
The subordinate asked carefully,
“…Could it be a trap? I believe we need a more thorough verification first.”
“Heh heh. If it’s a trap? Are we not going?”
“……”
“If it’s a trap, all the more reason to go. We need to see who went to all the trouble of setting such an insolent trap.”
“Shall I send an investigation team?”
“No. Our entire team moves.”
Pablo shook his head firmly.
The subordinate was uneasy because Pablo was being far too intuitive.
“If we dispatch an investigation team first, and then move after that…”
At those words, Pablo glared at him.
“I worked with Adrian for twenty years. I know Adrian best. This is Adrian’s way. Adrian is probably in Mauritius right now, drinking whiskey and lying on a white sand beach. He was the kind of bastard who took breaks even in the middle of a war. Hehehehe.”
Pablo laughed as though remembering the old days.
“Still… shouldn’t we confirm it further? Perhaps through another route…”
“The longer we drag this out, the more we lose.”
Pablo cut him off.
“If Matteo secures his position, we won’t get another chance like this. We need to secure Adrian before that so we can shake up the board.”
“…”
At Pablo’s words, the subordinate closed his mouth.
“Prepare. Get the private jet in the air, contact the local coordinator, and search the ports, airports, and private medical facilities. Something might turn up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pablo looked at the tablet screen.
“Raise all information and operations related to MUS to top priority.”
“Understood.”
The subordinate bowed and left the room.
“Wait for me, Adrian. Let’s see your face.”
Pablo spoke in a voice full of conviction.
Because it was information he had uncovered himself, he did not believe it could be contaminated.
He was certain it was one hundred percent true.
That certainty was leading him in an entirely wrong direction.
It made him head not for Luxembourg, but for Mauritius.
But Pablo did not doubt it at all.
Rather, there was another sentence occupying his mind.
He had not mentioned it to his subordinate, but it was another line that unsettled Pablo.
[Internal contact on hold. Block until verification.]
Internal contact on hold?
Block until verification?
Why?
Adrian doesn’t trust Parallax?
There was absolutely no way.
It was an organization he had built with his own hands over his entire life.
Then?
‘That means there’s a problem inside.’
Information was leaking.
A rat had slipped in.
He didn’t know who it was.
It could simply be an operative swayed by money,
someone from Rodrigo’s side on the inside,
or perhaps an even greater being.
The corners of Pablo’s mouth rose ever so slightly.
“Interesting.”
Pablo thought he alone had the answer.
He thought he alone had solved this difficult problem.
Holding on to that sweet delusion, Pablo began preparing to move to Mauritius.
He left Luxembourg and headed for Mauritius.
Never dreaming that the place he was heading was not Adrian’s embrace,
but the false information Alex had scattered.
He was drenched in the swollen dream of meeting Adrian.
*******
Somewhere in Europe.
A nameless small city.
A heavy rain was falling outside the window.
In the end room on the second floor of an old hotel,
where the lights were half-dead and some weren’t even turned on,
Sin Junggi sat there.
The room was narrow,
and the air was damp.
The bed creaked,
and rainwater slowly streamed down the window.
Sin Junggi sat there for a long time,
doing nothing,
just staring blankly outside.
His mind was complicated.
‘It’s right to end it here.’
The boss’s words kept echoing in his ears.
They weren’t wrong.
If anything, they were the correct answer.
Adrian was dead,
and the men who had protected him were all dead too.
Parallax would collapse soon as well.
No, it would be absorbed into Alex Group.
No matter how he thought about it, the boss was right.
Logically and strategically, stopping here was the right move.
“…I know. I know.”
Sin Junggi muttered as if grinding the words between his teeth.
He knew all of it.
That was why it made him even angrier.
“But… it shouldn’t end like that.”
Sin Junggi clenched his fist.
He hated the idea of cold reason inserting itself into Dennis’s revenge.
He could not stand calculating revenge “efficiently.”
Dennis’s revenge.
Dennis’s face came to mind.
His smiling face.
The sight of him holding a cigarette crookedly in his mouth while joking around.
His voice grumbling, asking why anyone would drink this, as he held out iced chocolates with both hands.
Even the warmth of him praising him, saying, “As expected of Junggi,” and “Our Junggi is the best.”
All of that still remained with Sin Junggi exactly as it had been,
and yet those bastards had erased it.
He could not accept that they would end it with just Adrian.
Absorb Parallax and make it “ours”?
That wasn’t revenge. It was business, and compromise.
It was nothing more than a business venture using Dennis.
Sin Junggi shook his head.
Only the sound of rain quietly filled the room.
After sitting for a long time, staring only outside the window, Sin Junggi slowly rose.
He took a USB drive from his pocket.
The one he had brought from Unity Town.
A USB drive containing all of Sin Junggi’s research results.
After staring at it for a long time, he plugged it into his laptop.
The screen came on,
and neatly organized folders appeared in rows.
- High-Explosive Compression Device Design
- Underground Structure Collapse Simulation.
- Chain Explosion Calculations in Enclosed Spaces.
- Urban Strike Profiles.
- Low-Output Distributed Transmission Modules
- Drone-Linked Control Protocol
He took them in one by one with his eyes.
The folders filling the screen were no longer things made for “defense” or “security.”
They were blades created solely for efficient destruction and complete annihilation.
And at the very bottom.
The mouse cursor stopped in one place.
[PHANTOM GRID 2.0]
It was the upgraded version of Phantom Grid he had developed most recently,
and had not yet reported to anyone.
An upgrade, in name.
In truth, it was a completely different technology from Phantom Grid 1.0.
If Phantom Grid 1.0 had been optimized for aerial radar disruption and generating fake signals,
Phantom Grid 2.0 was entirely different.
It could expand the environment.
It could continue sending fake signals even in cities, indoors, and at close range.
It could make the enemy recognize targets that did not exist.
After staring at the laptop screen for a long time, Sin Junggi soon began typing again.
The existing results seemed insufficient somehow.
He thought they would not be enough to bring down Parallax.
He had no team.
This time, there was no team helping him.
He had to do it alone from beginning to end.
So the program had to change.
He had to modify it so he could do everything alone.
He had to integrate the systems.
Everything had to be simple.
It had to be more certain.
It was a fight all his own.
He would not let anyone else become involved in this fight.
He would take revenge alone, and alone he would bear the results in full.
It was something he had already decided when he left Unity Town.
Sin Junggi reaffirmed his resolve and began typing again.
******
Zurich.
Parallax headquarters.
Matteo opened the door to the chairman’s office and entered.
The spacious office was quiet.
Outside, people were moving busily, but this room alone was still, as if time had stopped.
Matteo sat down in front of the desk.
In the chair where Adrian had sat. At that desk.
Sitting in the chair, he looked down at the ring on his hand.
The signet ring.
Adrian’s.
And now, his.
When the signet ring caught the light,
its heavy surface gleamed faintly.
“…Chairman, huh.”
Matteo muttered in a low voice.
The word he had spoken aloud felt somehow awkward.
It was not completely Matteo’s yet.
Formally, he was indeed the chairman.
There was still a lot of talk,
but no one was openly opposing him.
Only Matteo, who possessed the signet ring,
could become the perfect chairman in both justification and procedure.
But everyone knew that was not real.
For one thing, Rodrigo was constantly aiming for this position,
and for Matteo’s life.
If Matteo died, the chairman’s seat could be taken at any moment—
And the face that came to mind before even that.
Alex.
To be honest, this was a position Alex had created for him.
It was not a position Matteo had earned through hard work,
but one Alex had placed him in.
The one who saved him, the one who seated him here,
the one who had designed and was running this entire board—all of it was Alex.
Matteo knew that better than anyone.
That was why it made him even more uncomfortable.
The signet ring on his finger
felt like shackles.
Matteo slowly touched the ring.
This was a symbol of power.
But at the same time,
it was proof that he owed someone a debt.
“This… isn’t right.”
Matteo shook his head.
The Matteo of now was closer to an agent than a chairman.
A scarecrow, a front man.
A being seated on the board Alex had arranged.
He had known that from the beginning, but he did not want to simply accept it.
Matteo’s eyes changed.
Greed began to rise.
At first, it had only been to survive.
He had bowed his back to live,
cooperated so his eyes would not be gouged out,
and lowered his head to seize an opportunity.
As a result, he had come this far.
But… now that he had come this far, his heart was changing.
‘I’ve come this far. Just one more step, and I might become the real chairman.’
His heart began to pound.
‘Is there any reason to stop here?’
This was not Johor Bahru.
It was not an underground warehouse where no one could hear him no matter how loudly he screamed.
He was at Parallax headquarters.
Strength entered the hand touching the signet ring.
He knew Rodrigo was aiming for this position.
That was not a problem.
Alex would take care of blocking him.
Then what should Matteo do?
What did he have to do to swallow Parallax?
How could he make this position fully his own?
Matteo slowly rose from his seat and walked to the window.
Outside the window, the quiet Lake Zurich was visible.
But inside his head, everything was far too complicated.
“…This is definitely an opportunity.”
Right now, the situation was extremely chaotic.
Adrian was dead,
and Parallax was wavering.
Rodrigo was preparing a rebellion,
and according to that, the internal factions were splitting as well.
On top of that, there was also the powerful external force called Alex Group.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been too busy trying to manage this crisis to think,
but now was different.
Chaos was opportunity.
The corners of Matteo’s mouth rose ever so slightly.
“All I have to do is sort them out.”
Who was an enemy,
and who was an ally—he could use this opportunity to filter them.
If Alex had made the board,
then Matteo could use that board.
“…Alex.”
He repeated the name once.
A being he was grateful to.
And at the same time, the most dangerous being.
For now, he was a collaborator,
but if Matteo made even the slightest mistake, he was someone who could pull him down at any time.
‘For now, I’ll go along with him as much as necessary.’
He would cooperate, but he would not obey.
Someday, he would erase Alex’s shadow and stand on his own.
Matteo pushed the signet ring on his finger even deeper.
As if he never intended to take it off again.
His gaze had changed.
This was not a borrowed seat.
It was not a seat he was occupying temporarily.
Matteo was determined to make this seat his own, no matter what.
Matteo’s eyes changed.