Chapter 170

The Police Chief?

A bigger name than I'd expected — I was thrown for a moment.

The port was too vast for our small crew to sweep alone, so I'd only asked the police for a quick, quiet detail.

But for the top police official in District Seven to turn out in person…

Just as a wry laugh at yet another display of Chae Junhyeok's influence was about to slip out, an unwelcome sight came into view.

"…Don't tell me you brought a reporter along?"

At my ice-cold voice, a reporter with a camera among the police flinched.

The young officer startled and hurried to lay out an excuse.

"W-well, our comms leaked by accident… we couldn't just arbitrarily block press freedom, could we?"

Lie.

With the top police official in District Seven making an appearance, the idea that they couldn't rein in one lowly reporter was laughable.

They'd clearly brought him along on purpose.

Sure enough, even amid all this chaos, the Chief was inching closer and closer to my side.

"Ahem, since we've all gathered here, how about a photo, to mark our solid partnership?"

The reporter, easy grin in place, hoisted his camera too.

"The two of you together — it'll come out beautifully!"

Ah… fucking hell.

A child kidnapped, life and death on the line, and they wanted a commemorative photo?

A hot murderous urge welled up from deep in my gut.

But in that instant.

I clenched my fists tight against the impulse to smash those smiling faces right then and there —

Direektuh…!

Hayun's tear-streaked face — watching me to the very end at the café — flashed through my head.

Hold it in.

I turned my eyes away, and the endless mountain of containers, the dozens of police personnel, came into view.

I forced the fury already up to my throat back down, over and over, and barely managed to swallow it.

Then, just as I was straining to lift the corners of my twitching mouth into a forced smile —

Thud, thud—.

Kang Taemin, who'd been silently at my back, strode past me.

Whack—! Crunch!

"Aaargh!"

A rough burst of air and a scream — and shattered camera pieces scattered pitifully across the cement.

At the reporter — gone ashen in a heartbeat — and the shocked police, Kang Taemin spoke, ice-cold.

"Unauthorized photography of the Deputy Guild Master is not permitted, under any circumstances."

The silence went so tight it was hard to breathe.

Sprawled beside the shattered camera, the reporter could only gape, mouth working uselessly. The police, gone white as sheets, stood struck dumb.

Just as everyone was frozen in shock —

"Director~!"

A clear voice tore through the sharp silence and rang across the port.

Startled, I turned my head, and my eyes went wide.

"Ma Dohee?!"

There she was, walking toward me with a brilliant smile, a line of black-suited agents at her back.

"H-how is that woman here?!"

Gone ashen, the Police Chief blurted out exactly what I'd wanted to ask.

Ma Dohee, who'd come sprinting over lightning-fast, took in the question marks all over my face and only beamed wider.

"You called the police, didn't you? And you know who sits above the police."

Above the police? Above the police is…

Right — the government.

And where a serious Awakened-related crime was concerned, all the more reason for word to reach central government ears.

But the question remained.

"A government agency stepping in makes sense, but the police are already deployed — why go so far as to come out yourself? You aren't even on the field side, are you?"

At my question, Ma Dohee flushed slightly and, bashful, clasped her hands together.

"Ah, well… I might've arranged things so that any information tagged with your name — police or government — comes straight to me first, on a direct alert. Hehe."

"What? What do you—"

Just as I was about to ask back —

Vwooo—!

From the far side of the port, an enormous foghorn announcing departure rang out like it might split the air.

The heavy vibration carrying up through the ground under my feet snapped me back to myself.

Not the time to pick at small stuff.

I hurriedly hardened my face and turned my attention to what was in front of me.

Skipping every unnecessary explanation, I gave a detailed physical description of the kidnapped Hayun and Sihyeok and ordered an immediate search.

"One condition — the search runs silently. Even if a fight becomes unavoidable, the top priority is the children's safety, absolute. Understood?"

"Understood. Don't worry about the police side."

"Don't worry, Director. Our agents are well versed in covert operations too."

Once the two officials gave their firm nods, the police quickly handed out radios and flares for coordination between search teams.

I clipped a radio to my belt and turned to our group.

"We're splitting up too."

I ran the numbers quickly and set the teams.

"Me, Number Three, Sea-ah, and Hajun — one team. Inho, you take Cha Yul and Suho. Anything even slightly off, fire a flare immediately. Got it?"

"Just leave it to me!"

"Yes!!"

Orders barely out of my mouth, dozens of search personnel threw themselves into the massive container maze without hesitation.

The container search proceeded as quietly as possible.

Police and government agents carefully melted through locks with silent cutters and specialized welders, but muffling the noise inevitably slowed the pace.

The Awakened's methods, by contrast, were overwhelming and fast.

"Please step aside."

Kang Taemin gripped a heavy iron door's hinges with both hands and, without a sound, mashed them flat like taffy.

But District Seven's scale was hopelessly vast.

Door after door, and still the forest of massive steel boxes stretched on with no end in sight.

Where the hell are you.

My mouth went bone-dry with anxiety.

Had they already slipped out to sea?

Had the sharp-eyed bastards ripped the tracker off and dumped it somewhere?

Horrific scenarios chased each other's tails through my head, tangling everything —

Whack—! Crash!

A dull impact rang out from not far off.

Not the sound of a door being opened.

Unmistakably combat.

Kang Taemin and I exchanged a look, as if we'd rehearsed it, then kicked off the ground and tore toward the sound like madmen.

Rounding a corner into an open patch, familiar silhouettes came into view through the dust.

Inho and Cha Yul — and five or six masked men closing them in.

"Hahaha! Consider it an honor to be my new arm's first sacrifice! It was itching for a fight anyway — perfect timing!"

Inho let out his signature booming laugh and shook his prosthetic out.

With a low motor hum, a heat-haze-like aura curled around the silver forearm.

Inho's awakened ability was B-rank [Mana Ki-Strike].

A martial-artist specialty — condensed mana driven deep into a target's body to strike the internal organs directly.

"Die, human-trafficking bastards!"

Kicking off the ground, Inho drove a straight punch into a masked man's stomach.

The man — apparently a tank — immediately deployed a thick mana shield.

The instant the shield and silver fist met.

Thud—!

"Guaaargh…!"

The mana shield held, but the man inside it doubled over, spewing blood as the pulse punched clean through the defense and buried itself in him.

A clean strike that ignored the tough outer shell and wrung the insides out.

"Pathetic. A tank and he couldn't even block it."

Cha Yul, who'd been watching the fight, drawled it out, aloof.

"You cocky little brat!"

Enraged that their comrade was down, two masked men rushed Cha Yul and threw ferocious punches.

Too late to dodge — but Cha Yul didn't so much as blink; he took their physical blows straight into his body.

Thud! Thud!

Heavy impact sounds rang out, but Cha Yul wasn't pushed back — didn't get so much as a scratch.

He'd absorbed every scrap of their strike energy on the spot.

"Wh-what? Our attacks—!"

Just as the pair, shocked, moved to back away, a cool arc curved across Cha Yul's lips.

"I'll give back what you gave me."

The words had barely left him when Cha Yul's form melted out of the air.

Fwip—!

Materializing right in front of their noses in a heartbeat, Cha Yul drove in a merciless fist — every scrap of the energy he'd just absorbed loaded into it.

Kra-krunch—!

Horrific screams — and the masked men rolled across the floor.

Fight was the wrong word — this was closer to a one-sided rout by two monsters.

"Kwahaha! Cha Yul, you fight exactly like the Director! You his apprentice?"

At that bright, uncomfortably on-point observation, my shoulder gave a small jolt — but Cha Yul didn't so much as change expression, and answered with perfect ease.

"Of course. Combat basics, how to use my body — he taught me all of it, personally."

"Ohh! What a Director! Big-hearted enough to teach him all of that too!"

Watching Inho actually clap in admiration, I let out a short sigh and stepped out from where I'd been hidden.

"Fight's not over. Save the chatter for later — we need information out of one of them, so leave one awake."

"Got it, Director!"

At my order, Inho barked back, brisk.

He wrapped up the remaining stragglers in no time and dragged the least-battered one over, forcing him to his knees in front of me.

A moment later, the masked man — collar in Inho's grip — glared up at me, eyes full of venom.

"Kkkh…! You're Chae Ganghyeon's filthy seed! How the hell did you—"

At his voice — thrashing, foaming bloody spit — a strange sense of déjà vu hit me.

People with a blatant loathing for the name Chae Ganghyeon — and who hated me along with it.

I gestured at Kang Taemin with my chin, eyes gone cold.

"Get that bastard's mask off."

Kang Taemin yanked the mask off, rough. On the inside, exposed, was a pattern densely embroidered in red thread.

An enormous grey tower, split clean in half by a blood-red bolt of lightning — a sinister image.

"…The Awakened Liberation Front."

The name that kept crawling back out, cockroach-tough, refusing to die.

Just how many places had they put down roots?

A terror group that trumpeted Awakened liberation and rights, of all things — and here they were, treating little Awakened as merchandise and lining their pockets from human trafficking.

Unable to keep the boiling rage in, before I even knew it, I drove a fist down into his face — whack!

"Aagh!"

The moment I lost it and raised my fist again, Kang Taemin caught my arm.

"Let go!"

At my furious shout, Kang Taemin carefully took my slightly reddened fist and lowered it.

"You'll hurt your hand."

Letting my hand go, he immediately seized the man's collar and rained down merciless violence.

Thud!

Crunch!

"Guaaargh! Guh — sp-spare me…!"

Thud!

Crack!

The sickening sounds of bone breaking and flesh splitting rang out with the dying cries.

Not even a minute had passed, and the man — every trace of the earlier venom gone — was trembling with unfocused eyes.

"Talk. Where are the kids."

Under the cold interrogation, drooling bloody saliva, he stammered out a confession.

"Haah… haah… th-the girl we agreed to hand over, she's on the ship…!"

"Ship? Which ship. Point clearly."

With trembling hands, he pointed toward the far end of Dock Seven, where darkness had fallen.

"There… the red freighter, moored…"

"If the girl's there, what about the boy who was with her?"

"That kid wasn't part of the deal, so we set him aside separately! H-he's probably in one of the other containers around here!"

"Which one."

At my cold pressure, he shook his head, panicked.

"Th-that I don't know! I wasn't the one who locked him up, so the exact spot—!"

Trembling, snot and tears pouring down his face — he didn't seem to be lying.

Judging that squeezing him further wouldn't shake anything useful loose, I turned my head without a second thought.

"Knock him out."

"Yes."

One clean chop and the man's eyes rolled back; he collapsed.

I handed the group straight off to the police who'd just come up and pulled out my radio at once.

"The girl is on the red freighter at the end of Dock Seven. The boy is still somewhere in the ground container area. My guild members and I are boarding the ship right now — ground forces, please find the boy."

"Leave the ground to us!"

"Got it, Director! Be careful!"

The urgent replies had barely finished when we tore off toward the enormous red freighter at full speed.

We took the steep boarding ramp in a single bound and finally hit the deck — and at the sight in front of me, I sucked in a breath, hit with a wave of despair.

Nowhere near the scale on the ground, sure, but the deck too was packed wall-to-wall with more containers than I could shrug off.

… if she's on the ship, she can't run.

I forced the image of a terrified, crying Hayun out of my head.

No time to be swept along by feeling.

We started tearing iron doors off and smashing padlocks again — brute-force, throwing everything we had into a desperate race.

That was the moment.

Bang—! Bang-bang!

Sharp gunshots tore, one after another, through the deep silence of the pitch-black sea.