Harley’s Modern Diary (2)
“We’re done cleaning up here!”
“We’ve already lost a lot of time, so let’s start right away. The guests are all ready, too?”
“Yes, Producer. They say everything’s finished and they’re on standby.”
Filming, which had been halted by the sudden incident, resumed.
In truth, judging by the atmosphere just moments ago, the whole thing had been as good as called off, but perhaps the higher-ups on both sides had reached some sort of agreement, because orders had come directly down to the set to keep going.
Of course, that was not the development the uninvited guests who had come all the way here in person wanted, but unfortunately, there was nothing they could do.
And for good reason...
“Mm, looks like we’re finally ready to have a calm conversation!”
Right now, they were in no position to worry about anything else.
“Ugh...”
“......”
The entertainers who were former returnees had barged in with confidence, only to be forcibly dragged outside the filming site against their will.
Groaning as if they had been hit somewhere wrong, they glanced at one another, then met Harley’s gaze as he looked their way and quietly lowered their heads.
They were clearly cowed.
“A conversation... Is there really anything left for us to talk about?”
Only one woman still looked straight at him, even after coming this far.
Cheon Seolhyang, the leader of the group.
‘...Why is a monster like that taking the Blood Alliance’s side?’
Of course, that was only how she appeared on the outside. Her true feelings could not possibly be calm.
Having reached such a lofty realm, she had keenly felt the gap between herself and her opponent from that brief fight just moments ago.
‘If that man had truly put his mind to it...’
Every one of them would already be a cold corpse.
It was only natural that the group of former returnees, accustomed to the logic of power, could do nothing but watch the man called Chief Ha for his reaction.
They had avoided using their energy as much as possible to prevent collateral damage, but if one thought about it, the same had been true for their opponent, hadn’t it?
‘Even if we’ve grown weaker in real combat after entering the entertainment industry, still.’
It had begun with the fist strike of an action actor who had reached the entrance of the Transformation Realm in martial arts being blocked by nothing more than a palm.
That actor, whose hand was seized and who was slammed to the floor, had been neutralized immediately by a single stomp of his opponent’s foot.
The protective astral qi he had used at just the right timing had been destroyed in one blow.
It had been the same afterward.
The broadcaster who had once been a dragon hunter, having slain countless dragonkin.
The model who had once been a battle mage active on the front lines of the battlefield.
Before they could properly show anything, one after another, they had been subdued by their opponent.
Even with the buffs from the singer, a priest of the God of Banquets, added to them, it had been the same.
In the end, the only one left standing until the end had been Cheon Seolhyang, the strongest among the group.
But even she, who had faced him using the flexible sword she had kept wrapped around herself like a belt, was forced to give up all resistance before long.
After clashing with him several times, she had no choice but to acknowledge the fact she had been desperately trying to ignore.
No matter what she did, she could not defeat that man.
‘...To think an existence on the level of a transcendent is working as a mere manager.’
The pressure she had only felt in the past when facing the Returnee Association president during her time as a Guardian.
She had never expected to encounter it again here.
She had known that Phantom was also a transcendent, but she had thought he would never personally step forward just to look after a newly debuted idol group.
“Why wouldn’t we have anything to talk about? Since ancient times, there’s been nothing better than conversation for clearing up misunderstandings between people! We’ve even built some camaraderie by lightly conversing with our bodies, so now shouldn’t we have a serious talk?”
As she sank into thought, the carefree voice of the man flowed into her ears.
‘Lightly?’
‘Camaraderie...?’
His attitude made it seem as if even the disturbance that had happened just moments ago had been nothing at all.
Those who had been avoiding his gaze and watching his reactions stared blankly at him, dumbfounded.
But Harley was sincere.
If he hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have been able to sit there in such good condition in the first place.
‘Well, they probably calculated that much before coming here to raise hell.’
They must have already known that the Blood Alliance was dangerous, that if its leader, Phantom, put his mind to it, he could kill them at any time.
Even so, the reason they had barged in so openly was because they had assumed this side would not be able to use such hardline methods.
‘That’s why this is such a headache.’
The moment he killed them for interfering with the plan, the idol project would be over.
No, not only that, but the image they had worked so hard to reform until now would be blown away in one fell swoop.
The Ability Management Bureau and the Guardians would once again define them as demons and thoroughly ostracize them.
‘Assassination is out, too. No matter how little evidence there is, just being suspected would be fatal. Brainwashing them or turning them into vampires is the same.’
It was an inevitable limitation they had to accept from the moment they declared they would step into the light.
If it were something that happened in the shadows, it wouldn’t matter if they disposed of it without a mouse or bird knowing, but in a situation like this, with so many witnesses, they had no choice but to handle things the way the light handled them.
‘Well, to be honest, I can understand how they feel.’
The Blood Alliance had existed for more than fifteen years.
On top of that, it had not even been a year since the hardliners who had seized control and behaved no differently from the mafia had disappeared.
From their perspective, it could only look like heinous criminals were trying to launder their identities and blend into society after doing a few volunteer jobs.
‘Even if they expected the Blood Alliance wouldn’t be able to act rashly, this is still a situation where they could lose their lives if things went wrong. Just the fact that they stepped forward like this is impressive.’
Whether it was their chivalrous spirit as former Guardians, their sense of responsibility from having been treated as strong people, or their affection for the entertainment industry they had long been part of.
Since they had come all the way here carrying their own sense of justice, he could not treat them carelessly.
“Then let’s get to the point. Were you people the ones who ordered the bomb to be planted in our car?”
Of course, that was only if they had nothing to do with the bombing.
He could understand and overlook this level of disturbance, but a bomb attack had clearly crossed the line.
Not only had they deliberately tried to kill this side, innocent civilians could have been sacrificed in the process.
“...What?”
“A bomb? What are you talking about!”
Harley’s sharply honed senses dissected each of them as they were shocked by his sudden words.
It was not merely a matter of analyzing their reactions.
The flow of energy within their bodies, the contraction of their pupils, changes in body temperature, hormone secretion, the flow of blood, the stiffening of muscles, and more.
There was no one in the world who could avoid the gaze of one who had reached divinity through the single possibility he possessed as a living being.
Unless they were nonliving beings such as robots, undead, or spirits.
‘They really didn’t know.’
The result was that all five were innocent.
But was it a coincidence that their visit and the bombing had happened to overlap?
‘Well...’
Harley stroked his chin as he looked at them, each of them protesting that it was ridiculous.
Several possibilities flashed through his mind.
Starting with the possibility that someone had incited and used them, all the way to the possibility that, if the terror attack had succeeded, someone had intended to pin it on them.
“Hmm, so you’re saying that terror attack had absolutely nothing to do with you?”
“Of course! No, more importantly, is it true that there was a bomb attack?”
Either way, it was a rather troublesome problem.
Things were already complicated because the situation had gone awry, so when was he supposed to investigate all of that and identify the suspects?
“Good. Then let’s do this!”
So, rather than agonizing over it bothersomely.
Since it was something that had happened in the light, he decided to handle it the way things were handled in the light.
***
A man stepped out through the front entrance of a building and stretched refreshingly.
“Eutcha—! Let’s see, with this, I’ve bought some time for now.”
With a sturdy build, sunglasses, and a suit, he had an appearance that was obviously far from ordinary at a glance.
It was Chief Ha—Harley—who had left Lycoris to the other managers and driven here himself.
‘This is what you call killing two birds with one stone. If it’s that woman, she might be able to persuade those people and make them behave.’
Behind him as he nodded in satisfaction, the building’s signboard glittered in the sunlight.
—Korea Returnee Association, Seoul Southern Branch
One of the operation headquarters of the Guardians, who symbolized Korea’s public security alongside the authorities.
Since even the Ability Management Bureau, a national agency, sought their cooperation first when it came to matters involving the mysterious, they were practically the foremost organization in Korea when it came to responding to ability crimes.
‘This bombing can clearly be called an ability crime. Of course the Guardians should step in personally, shouldn’t they?’
No matter what anyone said, “Lunatic Entertainment” was a company of the Republic of Korea established through lawful procedures, and Lycoris was an artist affiliated with it.
Setting aside the fact that they were vampires, as long as a magic bomb had been used in the terror attack, the Guardians had a duty to actively step forward and resolve the matter.
‘I also made a separate request to Branch Chief Yun Jiyun, who agreed to cooperate with us.’
As a bonus, he had foisted the former returnee entertainers onto them under the pretext of investigating their connection to the suspect.
If it was Yun Jiyun, who had a senior-junior relationship with Cheon Seolhyang, she should be able to persuade them in their stead while they were unable to move rashly during the investigation.
Since she knew this side’s strength better than anyone, she would be more proactive if only to prevent unnecessary conflict from breaking out.
‘Just in case, I also reported it through the official route to the Ability Management Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division. I pay my taxes faithfully, so I should look after my own rights.’
Before the appearance of Hahoe Mask and Phantom, those agencies had somehow held up public security, which was worsening by the moment, while maintaining an extremely inefficient humanitarian policy.
No matter how meticulous the culprits were, it would not be easy to hide when those two public security organizations moved at the same time.
Even if they failed to catch them, they would be able to drive them into a corner...
‘And the moment their tail shows.’
A ferocious gleam burst from behind his sunglasses.
The tongue that slipped out between the corners of his mouth, which had curled up in a grin, swept over his snow-white teeth.
“Ahem, hm. Good! Then I should prepare on my end in advance, too!”
Harley nodded broadly and strode away.
Since something more urgent had come up, he would be taking a break from his manager work for the time being.
As for Lycoris, the Blood Alliance just had to pay a little more attention to them.
In truth, the fact that he had taken on manager work at all was the stranger thing.
“Let’s see.”
He took out a smartphone from inside his clothes and checked an email.
It was the report from Andrew Weaver that had arrived while he was handling matters at the Returnee Association.
Perhaps he had been preparing it even before receiving separate instructions, because the data was far more detailed than expected.
“Kahahah! Then why don’t I take this chance to go pick up some friends who’ll become our employees?”
Strike while the iron was hot, as they said.
Now that he had obtained the list needed to expand the intelligence organization, there was no reason to hesitate any longer.
‘But why is the file name the Book of Death?’
Harley tilted his head for a moment, then shrugged.
Well, Andrew was a foreigner, so maybe he had simply confused it with a roster.
A list steeped in the resentment of one man who refused to die alone quietly emitted light in the hands of a reaper.
***
Harley, who had been working as a manager in Korea, did not have his usual enormous physique.
His height, which had easily exceeded 2.3 meters, had been reduced to the point that it was not even quite 2 meters, and his broad, muscular frame had also shrunk accordingly.
He had already caused a major uproar in Southeast Asia once, and his previous appearance stood out far too much, so he had taken measures to remove elements by which he could be identified.
‘And there weren’t any suits that fit that physique right away, either.’
Hiding the tattoos engraved across his entire body, including his face, beneath his skin was also part of that.
Having lost all of his individuality and become nothing more than an ordinary large man in a suit, Harley...
Creeeeak—
“Honestly, a guest is calling, and you don’t even come out.”
He was tearing open, with his bare hands, an entrance sealed by thick metal and peering inside through the gap.
“Kyaaah! A m-monster!”
A sharp female scream rang out from inside, but he paid it no mind. He widened the gap and shoved his face in.
“Ugh, it’s musty in here. It’s bad for your health, so you should ventilate once in a while. The air’s going stagnant because you keep the door blocked like this.”
So, having finished rationalizing that this was all being done for their own good, he pried the torn gap even wider.
A shrill sound of twisting metal rang out, but thanks to the soundproofing barrier that seemed to have been installed for security, the commotion remained confined to the immediate area.
“Hmm, so you’re Hugin?”
Having stepped in past the defensive wall that had completely lost its original function of blocking outside intruders, Harley slowly looked around.
The windowless basement, lit only by electric lights, was packed with more than ten large monitors and computers running without pause.
‘As expected, it seems there’s no doubt they’re capable.’
After roughly scanning the contents displayed on the monitors, he nodded in satisfaction.
Then he turned his gaze to the woman sitting collapsed on the floor, trembling all over, and…
“Ghk!”
He reached a hand behind him and seized the neck of the man who had been trying to ambush him.
“Then this one must be Munin.”
The man repeatedly stabbed the knife in his hand into Harley’s arm, but there was no way such paltry skill could pierce his flesh.
“Let go of him!”
At that, the woman, her eyes suddenly sharp as if she had never been trembling in fear, swung threads too fine to see.
“Kek!”
But when Harley pulled on those threads, she was dragged straight over and ended up being subdued side by side with the man.
‘Hugin and Munin, the duo currently making quite a name for themselves in the underworld.’
Harley looked back and forth between the spoils in his two hands and smiled in satisfaction.
Operating under the name “Odin’s Eye,” taking commissions and providing information, they were talents who ranked near the top even in Andrew’s roster.
And since they had hidden themselves so thoroughly, he had only been able to find these big shots in the field after mobilizing even Hesperon’s network based on the information in the list.
How could he not be satisfied, having obtained such elites so easily?
‘Ah, right. Physically getting my hands on them isn’t the end of it, is it?’
Realizing his mistake, he carefully set the two of them down on the floor.
“Kahahaha! My apologies! I came here to make you a good offer, you see…”
“……?”
“A-an offer?”
“That’s right, that’s right. Once you hear it, you’ll be satisfied too. I’m telling you, there aren’t any conditions better than these.”
Ignoring the fear in the eyes of the two as they tightly clasped each other’s hands, Harley earnestly launched into his sales pitch.
After all, he had come here to recruit them peacefully.
…For the record,
his scouting success rate up to this point was one hundred percent.