Substitute-Chapter 133

I finally cut the chains.

Except for Sergeant Lee Hyunsoo, the other two undercover officers were in terrible shape, but at least they could walk on ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) their own two feet.

While the wounded gathered themselves, Kim Jiwon searched the Facilities office used by the maintenance staff together with Gwak Chan. With so few permanent staff, shift work made sense, but he worried the office might not have separate sleeping quarters since the dorms were so well appointed.

But like any shift office, there was a duty room inside, and three folding beds were set up.

They used one of them as a stretcher.

“Where should we take him?”

Kim Jiwon, who had moved Sergeant Lee Hyunsoo onto the makeshift bed, asked the shotgun man.

“Leave him to us.”

While they had been fashioning a stretcher, the shotgun man had called the two over as if something had changed.

“How are you going to move him?”

When Kim Jiwon asked, the shotgun man nodded toward the technicians.

“I’m going to ask those guys. And there’s this, too.”

The shotgun man lifted his gun.

“So, Kim Jiwon and I should go on our way, then?”

Gwak Chan, who had been listening to the conversation beside Kim Jiwon, asked the shotgun man.

“No. Just this side. You two come with us for now. We’re going to take the wounded to the Clinic.”

This side meant Kim Jiwon; that side meant Gwak Chan.

Kim Jiwon could go if he wanted, but it seemed Gwak Chan was needed to transfer the patient.

“The Clinic? Is that okay?”

Gwak Chan pointed out that while they were disguised as guards, Sergeant Lee Hyunsoo was in a swimsuit and his face was fully exposed.

“We’ve got clothes to spare.”

The shotgun man pointed at the face-down black-clad guard still tied up.

Gwak Chan made an “ah” sound.

They planned to pass Sergeant Lee Hyunsoo off as a guard and take him to the Clinic.

“Your target is over there.”

At the shotgun man’s loaded words, Gwak Chan, who had been calm the whole time, lit up.

Target.

What could Gwak Chan’s target be? Who was it?

The shotgun man seemed to know exactly what Gwak Chan intended.

After all, Gwak Chan’s infiltration into the building disguised as a guard would never have been possible without someone’s help.

“Are you police by any chance?”

Kim Jiwon cut in. He wondered if they were Police SWAT coming to rescue them.

“No. We have nothing to do with any public organization.”

But the shotgun man answered flatly.

“Then why are you helping us?”

Kim Jiwon asked genuinely. He was honestly puzzled why a guard would help undercover police who were not his comrades.

“I don’t care what Kim Jiwon thinks. We and you have completely separate objectives. So let’s each go our own way.”

He was so decisive that Kim Jiwon couldn’t press further.

Gwak Chan shook his head at Kim Jiwon. The expression said it was useless to ask.

“All right. Then what will you do with the others?”

Kim Jiwon pointed to the two besides Sergeant Lee Hyunsoo.

“We’ll take them out safely. Don’t worry.”

The shotgun man answered with reassurance.

“One last question. If we find other undercover police, where should we go then?”

Kim Jiwon asked because he wanted to know an escape route in case he found the person registered under his name — probably Park Geonwoo, he hoped it wasn’t — and needed to get him out.

Somehow the shotgun man seemed to know of a safer place. And if the other man were not in good shape like Sergeant Lee Hyunsoo, they’d need help.

“First, get out of the building. Go beyond the fence and find the guard post.”

“Guard post?”

“Yes. There should be a post that looks like a mountain hut. If you go to the post nearest the fence, you’ll get help.”

“But...”

Kim Jiwon had heard guards were posted beyond the fence too.

When his worried expression showed, the shotgun man said, “Once you’re over the fence, you’ll be fine. Just state your identity exactly. Name, affiliation, age — all of it.”

He said this to reassure him.

“By the way, since we’re talking identity, the uniform you’re wearing belongs to someone named Seo Seongmin.”

The shotgun man pointed to Kim Jiwon’s uniform and gave him the supervisor’s personal details and what he did here. No one would ask, he said, but if someone did, it would be necessary.

Relying only on the uniform until now and having overlooked the supervisor’s identity, Kim Jiwon felt sheepish and memorized the information.

He was genuinely grateful.

“Thank you so much.”

He bowed, prepared to leave, and the shotgun man handed him a leather case containing a three-section baton from his own waist.

“Go to Basement Level 1. Pass the central emergency exit and walk to the east corridor’s end — you’ll find a door. It will look like a wall. Push it open and you should find the last undercover police.”

Even having gotten the information he wanted most, Kim Jiwon couldn’t help frowning.

The shotgun man, who had told him only the exact things he needed without being asked, seemed suspicious somehow.

He knew too much, and he was helping while saying they had nothing to do with Kim Jiwon. Why?

Were they really on the same side?

“Why are you telling me this?”

When he asked bluntly, the answer was odd.

“Whatever you witness, focus only on escape.”

With that, the shotgun man turned his back on Kim Jiwon.

Whatever he might witness? What could be on Basement Level 1?

He cocked his head.

Basement Level 1 housed the Facilities office Kim Jiwon and Gwak Chan had just passed through without incident, and he knew the reserve staff were staying there.

So why tell him not to pay attention to anything he might see?

What on earth?

The shotgun man went to the bound technicians and explained the tasks they were to perform.

“Wait, hyung. This.”

Gwak Chan, who had followed Kim Jiwon out of the storage room, handed over a mask.

“Ah! Thanks. Oh, and the owner of these clothes is in the pool, so grab them when you take him out.”

Kim Jiwon thought of the supervisor who would be in his underwear and said, “I will.”

“But... no. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

They exchanged a short look and parted.

He had the vague feeling he might never see him again — not because anything would happen to Gwak Chan, but because he might not get out of here himself.

Then he shook his head.

When he decided to escape he had wanted to live, but he had never come in here to live.

He had no intention of begging for his life.

Save the person taken in his stead.

For now, that would be his goal.

Shaking off the ominous thoughts, he put on the mask. He strapped the leather case with the three-section baton to his left waist.

Again the Facilities supervisor, he turned on his flashlight.

With every step the three-section baton brushed his thigh and felt reassuring.

****

Gwak Hoon rose from the sofa and prepared to move. Of six guards, he left two in the lobby just in case and took four with him.

He planned to go underground instead of to the second-floor headquarters where he was supposed to meet his grandson.

What he had said to that boy had been nothing but nonsense. There would be no grandson to talk with in the headquarters anyway. What waited for him would be nothing but a corpse.

So there was no need to hurry.

He glanced up and pointed to the east emergency exit — the stairs at the dead end right next to the cafeteria.

Walking down the corridor swallowed by darkness, Gwak Hoon whistled.

Then, suddenly thinking the blackout was taking too long, he grabbed his radio.

“Manager Kim, why is the outage lasting so long?”

– I’m sorry, Chairman. Both units 1 and 2 were affected by the lightning. We’ll repair them as quickly as possible.

Manager Kim’s voice was tighter than usual.

It wasn’t just that the blackout was long. When he thought of Manager Kim’s face after giving the order regarding his grandson, Gwak Hoon understood the man’s current attitude.

He was surprisingly soft-hearted.

A guard ran ahead and opened the emergency exit for Gwak Hoon, shining a flashlight at his feet.

“It’s a rat in a jar.”

Gwak Hoon muttered to himself.

Of course the rats and anyone who had betrayed him would not leave this place alive.

The grand eightieth birthday party would belong only to him.

He felt pleasure and bitterness at once.

Betrayal always hurt. Especially betrayal by one’s blood.

He never imagined the events from fifteen years ago would repeat.

Yet his arrogance had been spectacularly off the mark. Like his eldest grandson before him, even the eldest grandson’s child had betrayed him.

He realized it only after he had come too far.

But it was not yet too late.

He could create the bloodline of the Gwak family himself.

Gwak Hoon’s health was better than most men in their sixties. He could live to see a child born and raised to adulthood.

They say the later the better time to start.

He regretted being stabbed in the foot by the axe he trusted, but he was not a man given to lingering regrets.

He would birth and raise a child superior to his grandson.

This time he would train that child so thoroughly that he could never betray him.

Of course, he had not not thought about how he and the boy had come to this state.

In truth, he’d been struck by a great shock when the blood he believed and loved — his grandson — betrayed him twice over. It had been like a bolt from the blue.

There had been more sorrow than anger.

Yes. He was sorrowful. So sorrowful he could die.

Tan was not of his blood, so he could let that pass, but Yeol...

He had asked himself again and again, dozens of times, whether Yeol could possibly—

Yeol was like his life. After his eldest son and daughter-in-law were... well, he had killed them, but after that he’d raised Yeol like his own.

A grandson but like a son.

That must have been the problem.

If he had dealt with his eldest son and daughter-in-law earlier, if he had killed them before Yeol had any memories of parents, if he had adopted and raised the child as a son rather than a grandson, this would not have happened.

There are no secrets one can carry to the grave; sooner or later the truth comes out.

Even knowing that, he had been careless.

He had liked that the boy resembled him in every way, and had overlooked that the child might be as smart as — perhaps smarter than — him.

Gwak Hoon lamented his own foolishness.

Anger came after.

How did I raise you?

His anger was aimed not at Yeol but at Tan.

He raised a non-relative, a nobody with nothing, fed and clothed that woman and child cast out without a penny, and they stabbed him in the back.

And on the day of the officer’s promotion, masked as an eightieth birthday party, they tried to strike him.

How dare that lowborn, not even of my blood.

Gwak Hoon gritted his teeth.

During sleepless, angry nights he thought much of Yeonseo.

My love, my lover. Since she died my life felt like it had been downhill all the way.

It was the price of letting her deteriorate so.

Even while knowing she was falling apart, I turned my eyes to other children and neglected my own side.

Gwak Hoon thought of Yeonseo and cried a lot.

I’m sorry, I beg you to forgive me, a pathetic man who couldn’t even find your corpse.

Then she appeared in his dream.

She appeared in his dream for the first time since she died.

“Kill them. Kill them all, sir.”

She delivered a revelation.

“Drink their blood and enjoy immortality, old man.”

She whispered sweetly.

When he woke, Gwak Hoon felt reborn. He had never felt his head so clear.

Right. Why hesitate.

Kill all the traitors.

Suck the youth from the young gathered in Paradise.

The day that dream came, Attorney Oh Jaehyun visited.

It was incredible timing.

And now, before doing the big thing, he intended to transfuse youth.

He planned to tear them apart and devour them like a beast.