Episode 26
Sorae Port, Incheon.
At dawn, fishermen gathered at the port clustered with small fishing boats.
Orange streetlights illuminated the darkness with a brilliant glow.
The fishermen put on rubber boots and gathered their nets.
The morning air was so cold that white breath escaped from their mouths.
“Let’s get moving!”
When a middle-aged man shouted, foreign laborers replied in awkward Korean.
“Understood.”
Thump, thump, thump.
The small fishing boat moved toward the sea.
The unique sound of engines chugging out of sync rang out, and the fishermen’s day truly began.
It wasn’t just fishermen at the port.
There was someone else.
A figure wearing sunglasses and a mask.
Bae Jeongmin, a scout for the Freemen, was there as well.
He was only about twenty-five years old.
The ring on his finger was set with a jewel so large it was almost burdensome.
A violet jewel, at that.
That ring was unmistakably a Space Diamond.
As a broker for the Freemen, Bae Jeongmin did not openly expose his face.
He stared at the Space Diamond.
‘As long as I have this cheat item, I can run away as much as I want even if the police or HA rush at me.’
Therefore, he wasn’t worried even as the investigation net closed in.
‘They’ll never find our hideout either. Because it’s in an unimaginable place.’
He smirked.
The Freemen’s hideout was impossible to enter or exit without a Space Diamond.
Rustle.
In Bae Jeongmin’s hand was a morning newspaper.
An article written in huge letters on the front page particularly caught his eye.
[AWOL National Hunter Im Yeongsu. Escapes through strict surveillance. Is public order in the Republic of Korea truly secure?]
The gist of the article was simple.
The Freemen member Im Yeongsu had broken through the HA and police surveillance network and escaped.
Bae Jeongmin snickered as he read the newspaper.
‘He got caught by HA and escaped this quickly? What a lucky bastard.’
He threw the newspaper into a trash bin at the port.
‘Time to get to work.’
Bae Jeongmin slipped his hand into his coat pocket.
He felt the hard texture of a handgun.
‘Let’s kill Im Yeongsu.’
No telling how much information that bastard had divulged to the police and HA.
On top of that, since his face was already exposed, taking him back in would only give the police a clue to track them.
‘If there’s any fortune in this, it’s that we operate as a cell organization.’
A cell organization had two characteristics.
Cutting off the tail was remarkably easy, and tracing connections was difficult.
Killing just Im Yeongsu would solve all their worries.
‘He’ll be at this port. Because it’s where I first met him. A man who just escaped has nowhere to go. He’ll be struggling to return to the Freemen.’
Bae Jeongmin thought so.
He wandered around the port.
Then he spotted a suspicious man looking about.
His appearance was quite shabby as well.
Bae Jeongmin subtly lowered his sunglasses and scrutinized him.
‘It’s Im Yeongsu.’
Bae Jeongmin slowly approached him.
“Im Yeongsu? It’s you, right?”
“W-who are you!! Are you a cop!”
“No, no. You don’t remember me?”
“What? Don’t tell me, the broker? You’re still covering your face. Do you know how much you startled me?”
Bae Jeongmin smirked.
He pointed toward a shabby building without CCTV.
“Let’s go somewhere without people and talk. There’s an abandoned house over there. Perfect for a secret conversation.”
Im Yeongsu followed Bae Jeongmin’s finger with his eyes. There was an ashen building. It had no glass windows installed, giving off a gloomy atmosphere.
Bae Jeongmin led Im Yeongsu into the abandoned house.
No one else was visible.
Squeak, squeak.
A rat that had birthed young in the abandoned house startled at the sudden appearance of humans and fled.
The second floor of the abandoned house.
It was a memorable place, filled with discarded trash and cracks running through the walls.
Bae Jeongmin slipped his hand into his coat pocket.
He was already gripping the handgun, planning to pull it out and shoot at the right moment.
‘Can’t kill where there are people. I’ll have to take care of him here in this abandoned house.’
He found Im Yeongsu amusing.
‘He doesn’t even know I brought him here to kill him, and follows along innocently. Stupid bastard. Well, he always had an airheaded side from the first time we met.’
Bae Jeongmin stopped walking.
Click.
He drew the handgun from his pocket.
He just needed to aim at Im Yeongsu and pull the trigger, but…
‘W-what?!’
Suddenly, Im Yeongsu moved with lightning speed.
There wasn’t even time to aim the gun.
His footwork wasn’t human but like a beast’s, and his eyes were filled with killing intent.
Shhhk.
A dagger slid out from Im Yeongsu’s sleeve like flowing water.
Slash-!!
Bae Jeongmin felt a burning pain in his wrist in that instant.
He turned his eyes and looked at his hand.
It was severed.
His own hand was cut off and fell to the floor with a thud.
And of all things, it was the hand wearing the ‘Space Diamond.’
“Kuaaagh!!”
Bae Jeongmin screamed.
Gushing blood poured out, staining the floor.
Strength left his body.
Im Yeongsu kicked Bae Jeongmin’s opposite wrist, sending the gun flying far away.
Bae Jeongmin, now disarmed as well.
His knees trembled, and he soon collapsed.
“You… who are you?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not Im Yeongsu? That airheaded bastard couldn’t have realized I was trying to assassinate him.”
“Quick on the uptake.”
Im Yeongsu—no, the man disguised as him—sneered.
Soon his skin fluttered like paper, transforming into another person’s appearance.
The true identity of Im Yeongsu was Nam Gyuil.
He had used a Form Change item to disguise himself as Im Yeongsu.
“Stupid bastard. To think you’d rush over without realizing it was a trap investigation. It went so well it was almost absurd.”
Saying so, Nam Gyuil plucked the Space Diamond from Bae Jeongmin’s severed hand.
He wiped the blood on his clothes and put it on his index finger.
Bae Jeongmin, having completely fallen for the trap investigation, spat curses.
“Damn… shii… ba…”
He lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor.
Soon people rushed to the scene.
Police.
Seoul Hunter Bureau Team 01.
HA.
Everyone looked down at the collapsed Bae Jeongmin.
For now, they had him taken to the hospital.
There was a mountain of things to ask once treatment ended.
Jo Huiyeong made an expression of amazement.
“An item that lets you transform into another person. You really possess something incredible.”
“I found it by luck in a gate.”
“Is that ring an item that leads to the Freemen’s hideout?”
“We’ll have to test it.”
Nam Gyuil, who had almost answered yes, quickly changed his words and said he would test it.
If he answered too readily, Jo Huiyeong would look at him strangely.
Nam Gyuil tapped the ring with his finger.
Then two arrows appeared.
They were visible to Jo Huiyeong as well.
“My goodness, do you teleport when you press the arrow?”
“Yes, it seems so.”
Nam Gyuil answered Jo Huiyeong’s question briefly.
There were a total of three Space Diamonds.
And they only moved to locations where the same Space Diamonds were located.
One was the Freemen’s hideout, and another was where their collaborators were.
It didn’t matter which one he moved to.
Either way, sweeping them all up in one go remained unchanged.
The moment he was about to press an arrow, Jo Huiyeong called out to him.
“Sergeant Nam Gyuil. Just a moment.”
“What is it?”
“You only need to secretly attach a location tracker to their hideout and come out. You don’t need to fight dangerously. Understood?”
“Yes, understood.”
Nam Gyuil answered as such and opened the inside of his robe.
There was a handgun there.
“If it gets really dangerous, I’ll use this. When I was in the army, I was even praised for my handgun marksmanship.”
Jo Huiyeong snickered at Nam Gyuil’s joke.
It was still an era where hunters could be killed with firearms.
Handguns were sufficiently powerful.
However, Nam Gyuil, strengthened through proper training, could respond to firearms to a certain degree.
Because he just had to move fast enough to make aiming impossible.
On top of that, he was wearing a bulletproof vest under his outer clothes.
‘Well, if I get just a little stronger from now on, firearms won’t even work on me.’
Nam Gyuil thought so to himself.
The principles of the Mana Sword.
If applied to armor, defense would rise instantly.
If that happened, firearms would no longer be effective.
Of course, to Nam Gyuil, who still couldn’t properly use the Mana Sword, that was a distant story.
He activated Form Change again.
This time he disguised himself as Bae Jeongmin.
Jo Huiyeong called out to him one last time.
“Then, I look forward to your exploits, Mr. Nam Gyuil.”
Nam Gyuil pressed one of the arrows indicated by the Space Diamond, looking triumphant.
“Of course, you may look forward to it.”
His body was enveloped in brilliant light and disappeared.
***
The place Nam Gyuil arrived at through the Space Diamond was a desolate space.
There were no windows to be seen.
The incandescent bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered uneasily.
Black dust was piled thickly on the floor.
Turning his head, he saw organization members sitting on hard steel chairs.
Among them, a woman sitting at a desk caught his eye.
She was wearing a Space Diamond on her finger.
Nam Gyuil looked at the woman.
‘Is that the Freemen’s second boss? She has quite sharp eyes.’
He carefully rolled his eyes and surveyed the surroundings.
But something was strange.
‘Where on earth is this? The building interior is a wreck.’
Surprisingly, there was no entrance.
It was strangely chilly, and the air was even damp.
A single ventilation opening was barely pierced in the ceiling.
As Nam Gyuil stood still, a man who appeared to be an organization member needlessly addressed him.
“Did you kill Im Yeongsu?”
He used honorifics, believing Nam Gyuil to be Bae Jeongmin.
Just from this, one could tell what position Bae Jeongmin held within the organization.
Nam Gyuil lowered his voice gruffly.
“I took care of it perfectly.”
“What about the mask and sunglasses you usually wear?”
“They broke during the fight.”
The organization member nodded.
Nam Gyuil deliberately prolonged the conversation to extract information.
“By the way, the air here feels especially stifling today.”
“What can you do. It would be strange if a sealed room buried underground with no entrance were cozy.”
“…Right.”
Nam Gyuil’s eyebrows twitched.
Only then did he realize why finding the Freemen’s hideout had been so difficult.
This place was a concrete structure with no entrance, buried underground.
Who could have imagined they would build a sealed room underground to hide in?
Of course, living normally in such a place was impossible.
They had to use charged generators for electricity, and their food was only instant meals.
Aluminum cans piled like a mountain in one corner caught his eye.
The space was narrow too.
‘Even if it’s inconvenient to live in, it makes for a perfect hideout.’
Nam Gyuil thought so.
The only way to enter or exit this place was by using the Space Diamond.
He counted the people present.
There were only five.
It was a number he could take down if he exploited an opening.
Nam Gyuil slipped his hand into his pocket.
There was a knife inside.
Nam Gyuil slowly approached the second leader.
“I have something to say.”
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing else, but…”
“Nothing else, but?”
The moment the second leader asked back.
Nam Gyuil drew the knife from his pocket like a flash.