Substitute-Chapter 137

Hwang Seungmin fired into the air.

It didn’t take long to find Director Kim Hansoo.

Kim Hansoo, who had barely made it out past the iron door, was collapsed unconscious in the open yard.

The platoon members rushed over and checked his breathing. He was still alive, but no one could tell how long he’d last.

Vomit was smeared around the mouth of the unconscious Kim Hansoo, and he was even convulsing.

Hwang Seungmin and the platoon hurriedly carried him to the Guard Post. One of the platoon members, a nurse, immediately injected the naloxone he’d prepared in advance. Then he checked Kim Hansoo’s temperature and blood pressure.

“What the hell, why’s his blood pressure like this?”

Muttering to himself, he measured it again, then even brought out a stethoscope. He tilted his head, then checked the blood pressure again. That was already the third time.

Whether the nurse fussed or not, Hwang Seungmin got ready to head out. There was no time to loiter at the Guard Post.

“Platoon Leader. This bastard’s condition is weird.”

The nurse stopped Hwang Seungmin as he was about to leave the Guard Post.

“Weird how?”

Hwang Seungmin asked.

“His blood pressure changes every time I measure it.”

The nurse answered with a grave expression.

“So?”

Hwang Seungmin raised his brows, thinking he wasn’t a doctor or a nurse, and what was so serious about blood pressure being different.

“The gap is big.”

“So what?”

“He could be going into shock. Cardiac shock.”

He should’ve said that from the start.

“There’s no way to fix it?”

“Well... for now, normal saline is the best we can do.”

“Found a way, then. I don’t care if he dies, but if we can keep him alive, do it.”

Hwang Seungmin answered like that and opened the Guard Post door.

Rain poured down like a curse. Thunder and lightning, too, went without saying.

Thanks to the raincoat, hiding weapons was easy. But with weather like this, would it even be a proper fight?

What kind of preparations was Security Captain Choi Sucheol making right now?

Knowing that man inside and out, Hwang Seungmin grinned without meaning to.

“Good work, Platoon Leader.”

“Yeah. Hang in there.”

Hwang Seungmin exchanged quick greetings with his platoon and walked into the rain.

The platoon members who had followed him to find Kim Hansoo would now scatter in all directions to carry out their assigned missions.

Those guys would decide the outcome of this fight.

My platoon. My comrades.

He prayed there wouldn’t be a traitor among them.

In the relentless rain, Hwang Seungmin’s phone vibrated.

He slipped his hand under the raincoat and pulled the phone from his fatigue-jacket pocket.

After checking the text, he shook the rain off the screen and put it back into his pocket.

Lightning struck.

His vision went white for an instant, then returned.

“From now on, this place is a battlefield.”

For no particular reason, Choi Sucheol’s radio voice popped into his mind.

Calling this place a battlefield was ridiculous.

Anyway, Choi Sucheol never changes.

Hwang Seungmin fixed the hood of his raincoat and set off. It was a path he knew so well he could find it with his eyes closed, but he placed each step carefully.

Like Choi Sucheol said, because a war was about to start.

****

Around then, Jiwon spotted the Chairman’s tail.

Thankfully, he wasn’t late.

He slipped into a room to hide for a moment and listened to the heavy door open and close.

Sweat soaked the hand gripping his three-section baton.

Only after the sound vanished completely did Jiwon wipe his palm on his coveralls and step into the corridor.

Normally, he would have checked every room he passed, but this time there was no need.

Trusting that the undercover police would be wherever the Chairman went, he walked straight ahead.

Step, step, step.

He didn’t even try to hide his footsteps.

He thought he heard people talking somewhere and stopped.

He turned and stared at the door. It looked no different from any other door.

He tilted his head slightly, but the inside was quiet.

So it was my imagination.

Jiwon moved again.

The Chairman wouldn’t be alone, but Jiwon wasn’t afraid. If anything, he was strangely calm.

It was the same kind of calm he’d felt two years ago when he decided on revenge and called Detective Kim Kyungseok.

Ironically, he no longer even knew whether that detective was real or not, but Jiwon didn’t regret it. Even if he went back two years, he would have made the same choice.

Lost in that memory, he reached the place where the Chairman had disappeared.

But a door that looked no different from any other was waiting for him.

Where had the heavy sound he heard come from?

Frowning, he turned the doorknob.

A space he hadn’t expected at all opened up.

A freezer warehouse?

It was structured almost exactly like the frozen-food logistics center where he’d worked right up until he’d checked into this place.

Jiwon realized the heavy sound he’d heard had been the warehouse door opening and closing.

At the same time, something sharp pressed against the end of his left temple.

If he turned his head, he’d get sliced, so Jiwon rolled only his eyes to check his attacker.

It wasn’t a manager, a security guard, or even staff. And it definitely wasn’t Crew or Guests.

The man wore a military uniform like the old frog-suit reservists used to wear, but he wasn’t Korean. His skin tone and build looked Southeast Asian.

How do I take him down?

Jiwon lowered his eyes, checking the man’s lower body. They were too close for a proper kick, but if he could steal the man’s balance, knocking his ankle out from under him was doable.

Of course, to do that he’d have to grab the man’s wrist and jerk it—accepting that he might get stabbed.

He slowly raised both hands to signal surrender and look for an opening—

“Who?”

a voice came from the right.

With the blade still aimed at him, Jiwon stared forward and stated his identity.

“Seo Seongmin. Head of Facilities Management Office.”

He deliberately scratched his neck.

“Seo Seongmin... wait.”

The man lifted a radio and passed along the intruder’s name—Seo Seongmin. The response came back affirmative.

Still, they questioned why Seo Seongmin was here.

“You heard. Why’d you come?”

“I have something to report to the Chairman.”

“Report what?”

“Important information related to the blackout. I’ll tell only the Chairman.”

Because Jiwon showed no fear and spoke firmly, the man clicked his tongue and relayed that answer over the radio.

The other side stayed silent for quite a while, then gave the order to let him in.

But they had to confirm his face.

“Take your mask off. Slow. One hand only.”

The man said.

Jiwon followed exactly, using his right hand to remove the mask.

They wouldn’t be able to recognize him anyway. His face was a wreck.

Sure enough, the man clicked his tongue.

“Why’s your face like that?”

“There was an intruder. I got hit by him.”

Jiwon answered solemnly.

Strictly speaking, the two men around him were intruders too. Maybe because of that—or because they had no way to check his face—either way, his answer went through.

“You got beat up bad. Go in.”

At the radio man’s command, the blade tip withdrew.

He opened the freezer door for Jiwon himself.

A blast of cold air and the thick stench of blood hit him.

All he could see inside was meat.

Pale meat hanging from hooks.

Jiwon stepped into the warehouse.

****

HQ was surrounded. Thanks to the managers surrendering without the slightest resistance, it was a very peaceful encirclement.

Gwak Yeol handed the managers over to the allies who arrived right on time, then texted Uncle about it.

Then he picked up Manager Kim’s tablet. With the actual owner right in front of him, logging into the system wasn’t hard.

He checked the last recorded positions of Crew and staff from just before the blackout.

Among the scattered dots outside the building, only five were still captured inside. More precisely, on Basement Level 1.

Four Crew, one staff.

After confirming the staff member’s name, Gwak Yeol gave a ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ short laugh.

He turned the tablet screen toward Manager Kim.

“Are they at least alive?”

He pointed to the red dots clustered on the same floor.

“Not sure.”

Manager Kim answered vaguely, but there was no way he didn’t know.

There was probably a dead one mixed in.

They’d been so obsessed with trying to kill him that they hadn’t cared about corpses.

Grandfather had called it a war in that grand, solemn way, but this was nowhere near that.

If he had to name it, it was trash collection.

And trash tastes best when you burn it.

Before that—

I’m getting out of these annoying clothes.

“Where’s my uniform?”

When Gwak Yeol turned, a teammate in a uniform stamped with the “Gangnam No.1 Quick” logo tossed him a plastic bundle.

The guy, nicknamed “Gum Kid” because he always had gum in his mouth, was the smallest in the Company. Since Gwak Yeol was the tallest, the two of them were treated like a comedy duo.

“Dunno if the size’ll fit.”

The guy said it with a pretty cheerful face.

“If it doesn’t, I’ll borrow yours.”

At Gwak Yeol’s dry joke, everyone laughed.

The fact they had room to joke meant the situation was turning in their favor.

So far.

Gwak Yeol took the uniform into the bathroom, showered quickly, and changed. Then he packed away the weapons he already carried, and neatly stowed the extra weapons a veteran senior handed him.

“The mercenaries will break in soon, so be ready. Getting hurt is a loss.”

“You watch yourself. Don’t get careless.”

They traded warnings about each other’s safety.

Then Gwak Yeol left HQ alone.

Right on cue, a man in a raincoat came jogging down the corridor, out of breath.

Checking the time, exactly ten minutes had passed since the text.

As expected of a former soldier, he kept time perfectly.

“Why’re you so late?”

Seeing the familiar figure, Gwak Yeol asked playfully.

“Fuck. I’m gonna puke.”

Uncle bent at the waist, catching his breath.

“Told you to do cardio.”

“You don’t know I got discharged because I hated that shitty cardio?”

Uncle straightened, a smile spreading across his face.

“Choi Sucheol surrounded the building.”

For someone being surrounded, he looked weirdly pleased.

“Operation hasn’t started yet. How many?”

After his brief report, Uncle looked past Gwak Yeol and asked.

“Four. Three managers and one merc. He took a bullet, in and out of consciousness.”

“You okay?”

“Of course. I’m fine. Guns really are nice.”

“You little shit. That supposed to be a compliment?”

Uncle frowned.

Uncle was skeptical about using guns. Even when he handed one to Gwak Yeol, he’d emphasized safety over and over. Anyway, thanks to the gun, Gwak Yeol had won comfortably, but Uncle still looked unhappy about it.

Typical rigid soldier. Front to back.

“Where’s the old man?”

Uncle asked, pulling back his hood.

“Basement Level 1, probably. It’s our old man’s routine.”

Grandfather, after sending mercenaries to kill his grandson, would go down to Basement Level 1 at ease. To where he committed monstrous crimes as if they were nothing.

“That damned young blood.”

Uncle scoffed.

“We stop him. This time.”

Gwak Yeol answered flatly.

The more he knew his grandfather, the more the man felt like a bottomless abyss.

A bundle of endless greed and perverted sexual appetite.

It disgusted him that he was tied to that man by blood.

Whenever Grandfather praised him as the grandson who resembled him most, Gwak Yeol couldn’t help feeling both a sick sense of recognition and a deep humiliation.

He was almost scared of becoming like that when he got old.

Had his father, who died in Grandfather’s hands, felt the same?

Trying to picture his father’s face—one he could barely remember—Gwak Yeol let out a short laugh.

At ten, he should have been old enough to remember his parents’ faces easily.

But he couldn’t.

Because right after they died, every photo of them in the house disappeared. Everything that held memories of them, too.

As if they had never existed, Gwak Yeol was raised by his grandfather alone. It had been strange, but there hadn’t been any adults around he could talk to about it. He’d just thought that was how things were.

Ten was too young to understand death.

Anyway, it was time to end it.

“I’ll be back.”

Gwak Yeol said.

“Yeah. See you later.”

They split after a normal farewell.

If he took Uncle with him now, it would be much easier to deal with this. But Gwak Yeol didn’t want that yet.

He wanted to handle it himself, like the original plan.

If that became impossible, then he’d ask for help.

Gwak Yeol hummed under his breath.

(Lyrics excerpted for context; continuing lines omitted to comply with copyright.)

“That person I loved so much...”

It was Cha Jongsoo’s favorite song—more precisely, his mother’s favorite song.

He didn’t know why that song was coming to mind now, but he felt strangely light.

So revenge could taste this sweet.

I didn’t know before.

I really didn’t know.

[Footnotes]

Im Heesook Universal Records split-album track, “I Really Didn’t Know” (1969).