Chapter: The Final Request
Inside the Awakened Management Bureau’s special interrogation room.
Daniela, an investigator with Interpol’s Awakened task force, the ECTF, glanced at the mirror fixed to one wall.
Beyond that mirror, Jin Siwon and his team were likely watching the inside of the interrogation room.
After all, seated before Daniela right now was Dr. Alex Vaughn, a major figure from the shadows whom Jin Siwon had arrested.
Daniela had hurried to Korea after hearing that Jin Siwon had caught the man at the airport.
As if the handcuffs were rather uncomfortable, he was clanking them as he tugged at the chain.
[“It doesn’t look possible for those delicate little arms of yours to break them. Why don’t you stop now?”]
At Daniela’s sarcastic remark, he slammed his cuffed hands down on the table as if she had gotten under his skin.
[“Fuck.”]
Unbothered by Alex’s curse, Daniela asked,
[“Did you come to Korea to escape Amakusa Reiji?”]
[“Did I? A big shot like Reiji was looking for me? Should I call that an honor? But what a shame. That isn’t why I came to Korea.”]
[“If not, there’d be no reason for you to come all the way from Mexico to this distant foreign country. Are you trying to salvage your pride?”]
[“Do you want to talk to me, or do you want to piss me off?”]
Daniela smiled brightly.
[“Both. Reiji must have been hunting you down like a rat to kill you, but it seems you stubbornly managed to survive. Congratulations.”]
When she even clapped for him, Alex dramatically placed a hand over his chest.
[“Kind Daniela, thank you so fucking much for congratulating me.”]
Daniela let out a small laugh.
He spoke as if Reiji didn’t bother him, but Alex had started jiggling his leg before he knew it.
Well, of course it bothered him.
Had Amakusa Reiji ever failed a request before?
It must feel as if death were right before his eyes.
[“He’ll come looking for his prey. Reiji will.”]
As Daniela murmured in a low voice, Alex’s eyes flashed for an instant.
[“Oh my, kind Daniela. So it wasn’t me you were curious about. It was Reiji.”]
At his next words, Daniela’s eyes widened.
[“Didn’t you say a close friend of yours died at Reiji’s hands?”]
For a moment, Daniela replied with a face gone cold.
[“……My friend only went missing.”]
[“Do you really think that? There’s no way that Reiji would have made only your friend disappear so nicely, is there?”]
[“It’s interesting that you know more than I expected. Until just now, you were acting like you knew nothing.”]
[“That dear friend of yours and I were once lab colleagues on the same project, so there’s no point pretending not to know.”]
At his snickering voice, she lowered her gaze.
In truth, it wasn’t wrong to say that Daniela had hurried to Korea to find Reiji’s whereabouts.
Officially, she said she was looking for her missing friend, but she was about ninety-nine percent certain that Reiji had killed that friend.
Daniela’s closest soulmate had been one of the researchers who participated in “Project Wilderness.”
But if that was the case……
[“You know that Reiji is killing every single researcher who participated in Project Wilderness, don’t you? And that you’re the last one.”]
[“Is that so?”]
Alex shrugged, feigning ignorance.
[“Did any of the people you worked on the project with contact you before they died?”]
[“Well, I can honestly say we weren’t exactly on terms where we’d contact each other. It was a long time ago, too……”]
Alex crossed his arms as if lost in thought.
After On Ijo entered the 90th floor and stopped coming down from the Tower, the project gradually petered out and ultimately ended in failure.
And when failure was staring them in the face, the researchers who had participated in Project Wilderness scattered one by one.
Since renowned researchers from various countries had participated with the sole goal of inheriting On Ijo’s power, each of them must have had their own ambitions to use the data and reproduce it themselves.
Well, he personally had no interest in that at all.
From the moment Alex joined the project, he had been leaking research materials into the shadows.
On Ijo’s research files?
He had a hunch they would make money.
And that hunch had been right.
They said countless people had been sacrificed in the shadows based on the leaked research files, but that had nothing to do with him.
After raking in money under the table like that, when On Ijo failed to return and the researchers began to scatter, he stepped fully into the shadows.
Because he had realized that he loved work that made money more than research.
He had simply found his true calling at last.
Alex rubbed his wrists, scraped raw by the handcuffs.
If he just waited a little longer, he would be saying goodbye to these cumbersome handcuffs and to that arrogant Interpol investigator.
His partners would come to rescue him soon enough.
How many people would be in trouble if he opened his mouth about the countless pieces of information he knew?
That was why the ones he had to be careful of were not Korea’s Jin Siwon or Interpol’s Daniela.
It was Amakusa Reiji.
Alex irritably kicked the table, banging it with his foot.
[“Hey. Is food still a long way off? You should at least feed me before doing this.”]
[“Alex Vaughn.”]
[“Food! I said give me food! I’m hungry!”]
Bang, bang, bang!
It seemed he had nothing more to say. Daniela crossed her arms.
[“I’ll come again, Alex Vaughn. Eat well and stay alive. And keep your face covered so Reiji doesn’t find you.”]
Grit. Alex clenched his teeth.
[“Sure, Daniela. I do hope you find that missing friend of yours in the meantime.”]
[“…….”]
Daniela shot to her feet.
Behind her, Alex’s cackling laughter slipped out.
Biting her lower lip, Daniela opened the door to the interrogation room.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
As soon as she opened the door, she found herself facing Jin Siwon, wearing glasses.
When he greeted her with a smile, Daniela smiled back and adjusted her translator.
“Thank you for the cooperation of the Korean Awakened Management Bureau, Team Leader Jin. By the way, would it be all right if I visited a few more times in the future?”
There were still more things she wanted to hear, but she also had a strong intuition that Reiji would come to Korea to find Alex.
If she wanted to meet Reiji, she had to stay in Korea, and for that, she needed a suitable reason.
And the excuse that she was interrogating Alex was quite appropriate to offer her superiors.
As if he knew what she was thinking, Jin Siwon said gently,
“As many times as you like, so long as you don’t ask us to leave because you want to speak with him alone.”
“I’m the one asking for a favor, so I couldn’t possibly go that far.”
Since it involved private matters, there was some discomfort in interrogating him openly, but she was, after all, in the position of asking Korea for help.
Daniela was smiling bitterly when it happened.
“Ah, Investigator. Please wait a moment.”
As if he had spotted someone, Jin Siwon smiled brightly and quickly stepped past Daniela.
“Guild Leader On!”
Guild Leader On? No way. Daniela turned around and widened her eyes.
‘On Jurim?!’
His tall height, handsome appearance, and even the glove on his left hand.
It was the very On Jurim she had only ever seen through a screen.
Daniela stared in fascination at On Jurim as he greeted Jin Siwon without any hesitation.
‘Are they close?’
Even though he had defected to Korea, their lines of work were so different that she had thought they would have no point of contact at all.
Daniela couldn’t take her eyes off the two as they spoke familiarly.
It was that On Jurim.
A legend of the Tower. The undisputed strongest person alive at present.
Though rumors constantly followed him, he was an existence admired as an Awakened, and privately, he was someone she had many questions about.
‘Should I at least say hello?’
While Daniela was debating whether or not to make herself known to On Jurim—
“Please take this.”
Jin Siwon was handing On Jurim a mascot costume set.
On Jurim took the costume and glared at Jin Siwon with a displeased expression.
It was the Bureau’s tiger mascot costume.
Its only distinguishing feature was that it was ugly, as though Geuru had made it.
“Is this really all there is?”
“Ah, then you can go to the costume room and choose one yourself. Though they all look more or less the same.”
On Jurim looked as if he wanted to punch Jin Siwon in the face as the latter smiled mildly.
“……Never mind. I’ll go with this.”
Replying as if it were a hassle, On Jurim soon began putting on the ugly tiger mascot suit.
At the unbelievable sight, Daniela’s mouth fell open.
Even in America, On Jurim’s rotten temper was well known.
‘On Jurim…… Why is that On Jurim wearing a mascot costume?’