Chapter 56
Thanks to You, I Felt Refreshed
***
[It seems you’ve co to the wrong place.]
It was a seemingly sly response, but it was nothing more than deception. I had already sensed a presence approaching from beyond the door. He must have intended to lure into lowering my guard and then counterattack.
As expected, old ginger was indeed spicy.
Before coming here, Sham had told that there was a capable right-hand man by Eastern’s side. His na was—
‘Dmarcus Rand.’
He had been an elite among elites who had served long-term in the Public Enforcent Corps for 60 years. After retiring, he had apparently joined Marstop, making use of his experience.
He had chosen Eastern, the youngest, hoping to spend his later years in peace, but even he probably hadn’t known.
That things would deteriorate to this extent.
Of course, there was no room for sympathy. Since he had stood by and cooperated, Dmarcus was an accomplice as well.
Bang!
The mont I kicked the door off its hinges and sent it flying, a lead bullet grazed over my shoulder almost at the sa ti.
It was proof that Dmarcus, ard with a submachine gun, had fired first. Perhaps because of his long service in the Public Enforcent Corps, he showed not a trace of panic and bent his knees steadily.
Tududung tududung.
In an instant, the submachine gun switched to burst mode and spewed fire.
The firepower was strong enough to tear the wall to shreds. Even after pouring out hundreds of rounds, the ford grouping drew a precise straight line.
His skill of aiming only at the target deserved praise, but in other words, if I could predict that trajectory alone, closing in on him was no difficult task.
“Trying to kill without even a warning? As a matter of conscience, I can’t just overlook this.”
I closed the distance with Dmarcus in a single bound and kicked away the submachine gun.
A fierce shock transmitted through his fingertips, yet Dmarcus endured it.
He had implanted an additional Slot, a grip saver, so unless he willingly let go of the weapon himself, it would not fall from his hand.
In other words, by borrowing a powerful magnetic force, it was physically locked in place.
Crunch.
But reality far exceeded Dmarcus’s expectations. Along with the submachine gun, his entire arm twisted grotesquely.
I was about to seize Dmarcus by the nape and finish it at once, but I had no choice but to halt at the intense pain that swept through my entire body.
Soone was breaking through my ntal barrier.
In a split second, blood burst from my nose and stread down. It took only a few seconds for the load on my nervous system to travel straight up to my head.
“I abandoned my conscience long ago. And since you ca anyway, I will deal with you personally.”
Dmarcus’s specialty was not hand-to-hand combat, but electronic warfare. He was capable of hacking a device and inducing self-destruction even with his eyes closed.
Only after a pungent sll, like sothing burning, brushed past the tip of his nose did Dmarcus allow himself a satisfied smile.
“Having your brain roasted to a golden brown isn’t sothing one gets to experience easily.”
No matter how much one trained, the parts that could actually grow stronger were clearly defined.
Plop. Dmarcus, who had been looking down indifferently at Ga-on as I collapsed to the floor, pulled a pistol from his holster.
“To think you barged in without any counterasures against electronic warfare. It seems I overestimated you.”
“Now that you ntion it, I suppose I should have prepared for electronic warfare too.”
He had assud I had lost consciousness, yet what was this? Even with half of my brain practically roasted, I answered calmly, and Dmarcus stared at in shock.
“W-What….”
“Thanks to you, I felt refreshed. It had been a while since I’d had a brain massage instead of just a scalp massage.”
There was no ti to wonder how I had recovered. He only needed to fulfill his objective of killing .
Click.
The instant the trigger was pulled and the slide jerked backward, I slipped my finger into the chamber and blocked the shot.
Dmarcus tried to respond, startled by a feat beyond imagination, but by then it was already too late. The pistol had already fallen into my hand.
“I’ll make good use of this.”
Bang!
***
As I stepped into the living room, a young man ca into view. Features sculpted as if carved from marble, a body of perfect proportions.
Had his inner self been as complete as his appearance, he would have been a blessing humanity would never see again. But I knew all too well that he was not that kind of man.
Eastern Lindberg.
The one responsible for all of this chaos.
“I’ll give you credit for not running away.”
“Run away? Why would I do that?”
“Oh? Are you saying you don’t even realize what you’ve done wrong?”
“Wrong?”
Eastern’s brow twisted at words he could not simply ignore. He genuinely seed to want to ask.
“What wrong have I committed? I rely showed rcy to those who said they needed Slots.”
“You’re unbelievable. Have you already forgotten how you rummaged around inside other people’s heads as you pleased?”
“Not a single one of them would have thought they could receive a Slot without any price. Deep down, they must have known. That they would have to pay sohow. And yet they agreed purely out of their own greed, did they not?”
They should take responsibility.
Eastern remained utterly confident.
“If that is your complaint, then consider the paynt simply delayed. No matter how valuable a body may be, it can’t possibly be worth more than a Slot.”
A purely quantitative judgnt, stripped of morality and ethics.
True.
As Eastern claid, if one looked solely at absolute value, it was difficult to deny that a Slot could be worth more than a single night of soone’s life.
But once one peeled away that final layer, nothing remained.
Perhaps the highest of beasts, but the worst of humans.
“You’re not in your right mind.”
“The ones not in their right minds are those idiots! And what exactly do you expect to do about it? I handled them without leaving a single scar. I even erased their unpleasant mories. Why should I be treated like this?”
It was a shout steeped in arrogance. Not the slightest trace of reflection or regret could be seen.
“Then what about Abigail?”
“…….”
“You’ve been answering just fine until now. Why won’t you say anything about her?”
“That’s because….”
Suddenly, at the sound of sirens wailing in the distance, Eastern curled his lips into a grin.
“There’s no reason for to. You truly are a fool. Don’t you know why I played along with your little rhythm?”
In an ergency, a dedicated security unit was supposed to be dispatched to Sky Village. All he had needed to do was buy ti until the dream team—composed of veterans retired from the Mars Defense Force—arrived. That was why Eastern had cooperated so obediently.
But B&B, whom I had brought over to my side, was no easy opponent either. That variable had long been neutralized.
Unfortunately, the only one here who didn’t know that was Eastern.
Of course, no matter how ignorant one might be, there were things one realized as ti passed.
When the dedicated security unit failed to arrive at the scheduled ti, Eastern sensed that sothing had gone wrong.
“This was your doing.”
“Yeah. Did you enjoy your last happy ti? You seed so deeply imrsed I couldn’t even bring myself to interrupt.”
“Ha, fuck. So you were playing .”
Click. A cold sensation pressed against his brow, but Eastern did not beg for his life.
There was no chance he would survive anyway.
What he needed now was not a plea, but a threat.
“If you want to shoot , fine. Do as you please. But you should know this. The mont my heart stops, those who received the illegal Slots will die as well.”
Fearing that such a situation might occur, he had pre-programd the command in advance.
“So, what will you do? Will you sacrifice the few for the greater good?”
“Ah, so this is your last happy ti.”
A beat late, Eastern realized what I ant and his eyes flew wide open.
“You….”
“What should I do? Contrary to your expectations, they’ve all been free for quite a while now.”
It was after I had finished deciphering the information inside the drive Hald had left behind. The matter of the illegal Slots was the sa.
No matter what trick Eastern tried to pull, the chances of things going the way he wanted were close to zero.
It was at that mont, clenching his teeth so hard they might crack, that Eastern spat out venomous words.
“Insignificant things like you only know how to repay with violence. You don’t understand dialogue or compromise at all.”
Though it was Eastern who had behaved that way, I did not bother pointing it out.
Failing to recognize contradictions—or rather, refusing to acknowledge them and shifting responsibility onto others—was not so different from the way rulers behaved in this day and age.
There was not a single person fit to be a model for all. The sa held true even if one traced it back to the Third World War.
Only the innocent had been dragged into hell and sacrificed.
Not a single one of those who had led the war died.
Not even one.
Though they should have declined after passing through the Ice Age, their descendants still enjoyed their golden age to this day.
Becoming the core of the municipal governnt, becoming the heads of gacorps.
No one took responsibility for the mistakes of the past.
“If you kill , you’ll feel good all day long. But will you lose your lifelong freedom for a mont’s pleasure? For a asly bit of money?”
Glaring at , Eastern babbled desperately.
“That’s why people like you are the problem. Just keep turning a blind eye and watching like you always have. Then I won’t touch you either. Why can’t you understand sothing so simple?”
As if I didn’t want to hear another word, I shoved the barrel of the gun into Eastern’s mouth and placed the pistol in his hand.
Eastern struggled, having predicted how this would end, but there was no way he could break free from , soone who could bend steel plates with bare hands.
“If you act like shit, you get treated like shit. Why can’t you understand sothing so simple?”
Hooking Eastern’s index finger over the trigger, I pulled it together with him so he wouldn’t be lonely on his way.
***
Several Sol had already passed, yet the flas of the exclusive report by Moral Hines on the prostitution scandal—no, Eastern Gate—showed no sign of dying down.
Illegal Slot implantation, brainwashing, pyramid sches, device harvesting—every single one was a sensational topic.
And what if it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory, but there were real victims? And all the circumstances had co to light?
It was no different from an unstoppable express train departing. Moreover, once it was revealed that the one who had orchestrated it from behind the scenes was a third-generation chaebol heir, the business world ca under concentrated fire.
In the process, serious discussions were also exchanged over whether the entertainnt industry’s practice of effectively forcing Slot implantation was truly justified.
Nurous civic groups issued statents, and the calls to strengthen related laws and regulations grew louder as well.
Though a storm had swept through, not a single article could be found ntioning Marstop.
Instead, there was only a brief report that the gacorp B&B had taken over three broadcasting stations it had previously lost.
Because I knew the full story, I could only guess that a dramatic settlent had been reached beneath the surface.
As for Eastern, it was concluded that he had committed suicide, unable to bear his guilt. The dead do not speak. Those involved, knowingly or not, quietly shifted the remaining charges and sins onto him in their entirety.
Eastern must have believed until the very end that Marstop would avenge him, but reality was nothing but cold. They had cleaned everything up before any unnecessary sparks could fly.
I had remained on guard in case Marstop approached , but until the case was settled, not even their shadow could be found.
“I was the one who did it. Was it an unnecessary move?”
“No, if that was the reason, I can understand.”
Chairman’s office at B&B headquarters.
Damian, whom I t again, spoke in a tone that was sohow more familiar. Even the choice of location—the chairman’s office rather than a reception room—suggested as much.
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