SOG Ch 170

“Did you hear?”

Seon Eun-soo suddenly grabbed Jae-chan’s shoulder. Like Jae-chan, his hearing was temporarily impaired, so he shouted in a loud voice. Did you hear? I said, did you hear? Seon Eun-soo’s voice, which had been ringing as if submerged in water, suddenly became clear with a high-pitched tinnitus, rushing into his ears as if someone had suddenly turned up the speaker volume.

“I said, did you hear! That bastard Go Woo-jin is dead!”

Seon Jae-chan wondered what this situation was all about.

Woo-jin is dead?

He had just heard the explosion, so was Woo-jin caught in it? His mind went cold. He remembered the gunfight earlier. Could that have been related to Woo-jin? For a moment, the situation before his regression and the current one seemed to overlap.

Even in the windless zone, Go Woo-jin was so strong that one might wonder if he was human, but it would have been too much for him alone to protect up to twenty people.

If Woo-jin had moved with his comrades this time as well, he might have reached his limit within the windless zone. It seemed like the horrific situation from the past was repeating itself.

“That bastard had come in. Remember when the power went out? That was Go Woo-jin’s doing. We used you as bait to lure that bastard in.”

While Seon Eun-soo ranted with what could be called madness, laughing hysterically, Seon Jae-chan, on the contrary, gradually became calmer.

The Center’s power outage happened after the gunfight. This meant that Woo-jin was safe afterward. Moreover, did he really do something as simple as heading straight to Research Building 2 after hearing the broadcast? It was hard to believe that the guy whose mind sharpened incredibly when starting an operation would fall for such a simple lure.

Jae-chan observed the Technician receiving reports via radio. Despite his white eyebrows and hair, his skin was still so smooth that it was hard to believe he was an elderly man. Even he didn’t look entirely pleased. There must have been a reason why this shrewd, wolf-like man couldn’t let his guard down.

“…”

Only then could Seon Jae-chan finally exhale the breath he had been holding. Blood began to circulate throughout his body as if his tightly gripped heart had suddenly found freedom.

He had wanted to rush to Woo-jin first this time because of his mistake, but the guy had come again. And now he was in danger because of him.

If Woo-jin was nearby, it seemed they would need to modify their plan. Rather than being dragged to another hideout of these guys like during the Universal and Han Roy incidents, it would be best to find a way to finish things here. Jae-chan fixed his gaze on the Technician again.

Unlike the cheering subordinates, the Technician, who was subtly furrowing his brow, finally spoke.

“We’re moving.”

Meanwhile, among the group moving in perfect unison, only Lee Yundo hesitated.

He still couldn’t get in touch with Hyeon-su, who had gone to Research Building 3.

‘Has he been exposed to the enemy?’

Or he might have just surrendered as the boss had advised. Lee Yundo, after staring for a moment at the silent radio with a conflicted expression, finally decided to follow orders.

“Move quickly! And make sure to keep a good hold on that hostage over there!”

Following Lee Yundo’s instructions, Jae-chan, being dragged along with his aunt, noticed that explosives were also meticulously attached to the walls here. It seemed they planned to blow up the nuclear power plant as well, just as he had seen in the plans in the secret laboratory.

Even as he was being shoved along by the terrorists, he kept his gaze fixed on the back of the Technician.

Why was that bastard so obsessed with Woo-jin?

Looking back, the Technician had been strangely obsessed with Go Woo-jin even before the regression. It seemed excessive to simply consider him the most powerful Esper within the Union or to check him as a potential future enemy. This vague feeling became reality when he discovered the enormous amount of data about Woo-jin in the guy’s secret lab.

Could he have been a researcher at J Pharmaceuticals?

No. The Technician was excessively obsessed not only with Woo-jin but also with his biological father, Chairman Go Young-chang. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that half of the secret room in the lab was about Go Woo-jin, and the other half was related to Go Young-chang’s movements.

‘It’s not that I don’t have any guesses…’

At that moment, perhaps noticing the persistent gaze, the Technician turned around. Jae-chan didn’t avoid eye contact and spoke first.

“I was just looking because it’s fascinating. You look so young.”

Jae-chan gestured towards the unusually young skin compared to the white hair and asked,

“Is that really natural white hair?”

Jae-chan was recalling the intel that suggested the Technician might be intentionally dyeing his eyebrows and hair white.

“Fvck, this little shit keeps pushing it.”

Seon Jae-chan was hit on the back of his head again. He skillfully dodged his head slightly to match the timing of Lee Yundo’s palm strike, but his body condition, crying out for guiding, protested even at the small impact. As Seon Jae-chan was dry heaving, the Technician’s voice rang out.

“Leave him be.”

After that, it was a silent advance.

Jae-chan noticed they were moving towards an area close to the river. In the cold air that made his fingertips tremble, the fishy smell gradually intensified.

Eventually, they emerged into a vast space like an indoor plaza, illuminated by sodium lamps typically used on roads or in ports.

Under the heavy water facilities modified to connect directly to the Nam River, two diesel-powered Orca-class submarines, each about 6 meters wide and 30 meters long, designed for a recommended crew of around 24, were waiting, half-submerged in the calm, deep river water.

“Aren’t the departure preparations done yet?”

The technician asked Lee Yundo as he walked across the concrete floor as if gliding.

“Please wait a little longer. We should be able to depart in about half an hour.”

However, there was something even more eye-catching than the submarines.

Near the boarding platform, Jae-chan’s eyes were drawn to a sight that became clearer as he approached. He couldn’t suppress the sudden surge of anger. These terrorist bastards deserved to be torn apart.

It was a person. A young man with an emaciated body like a mummy, his hair long enough to cover his bony shoulders, but with faint traces of a once healthy, smiling face.

It was clearly the missing university student guide. He was trapped in a machine that looked like an expanded version of a mobile guiding device. Seeing hundreds of wires grotesquely wrapped around the Guide’s entire body, Jae-chan immediately recognized what it was.

“So ‘Chimera’ was your doing too.”

When they finally reached the black device, Seon Jae-chan bitterly spat out towards the Technician in front.

“Oh? You know about the Chimera project.”

The Technician turned around with an interested look. He was aware that the project name was circulating secretly within the research building. He had intended for rumors to spread, as it was difficult to hide the screams of the test subject before them.

“I don’t think of that as a Chimera either. The Chancellor, who underestimates guides, insisted on attaching the Chimera title. I have a different personal nickname for it.”

A smile appeared on the Technician’s lips. Under the dim light, a pair of eyes held a chilling light like an ominous illusion.

“This is like a blessing for Espers. So wouldn’t ‘Angel’ be a more fitting name than ‘Chimera’?”

Jae-chan felt his insides grow cold as if he had swallowed a piece of ice. So his suspicions were correct.

Was the man attached to that device really the Angel?

Everyone had thought that ‘Angel’ was a key leader running Black Swan alongside the technician. But to think Angel was just another victim.

Amidst the confusion, the terrorists approached Seon Jae-chan. He was puzzled when they began to loosen the excessively tight bindings on his upper body.

Jae-chan noticed that the same unbinding procedure was happening on the other side. They were carelessly ripping off hundreds of electrodes from the mummy-like university student’s body. The naked student fell to the floor.

“…”

No one caught the severely emaciated body as it hit the floor roughly. Instead, the space was filled with voices mocking the victim, calling him a worn-out guiding shuttle and such.

A moment later, Jae-chan realized that the unresponsive victim was already dead. At the same time, he saw them start to drag his aunt towards the submarine.

“Jae-chan…”

His aunt, who was barely standing due to her poor physical condition, called out to Jae-chan, but there was no way she could resist the force pulling her.

“What are you doing?”

“If you don’t want that woman to see something unpleasant, it’s best to stay put. This is our way of being considerate to you.”

The Technician said. As his aunt disappeared into the upper entrance of the submarine after being pushed onto the boarding platform, the technician continued.

“We needed a replacement anyway.”

The Technician muttered in a nonchalant tone as if talking about changing a worn-out battery. Jae-chan felt an ominous premonition. He sensed that the man was about to set an extremely unfair trap for him.

“…”

“You’ll be welcomed as the second Angel.”

After being frozen in disbelief for a moment, Jae-chan turned to look at Seon Eun-soo.

For the first time, Seon Eun-soo avoided his brother’s gaze. The old man had promised that his brother would only be attached to that grotesque device temporarily. Once they were established as an official terrorist organization, there would be many ways to kidnap Guides. And thinking it necessary to break the strangely stubborn spirit of his brother, Seon Eun-soo agreed to this treatment.

“…”

As Seon Jae-chan was at a loss for words, the Technician, who was directly inspecting the tangled black wires, muttered,

“You’re perfect for this, being an abandoned child with no one looking for you.”

Jae-chan frowned at the familiar address. He didn’t understand why the man was calling him that.

“What do you mean by abandoned child? Why are you calling me that?”

“This bastard keeps cutting off people’s words!”

Lee Yundo shouted again.

“Let it be. He’s going to be our Angel, our flesh and blood. We should give him at least that much privilege.”

The Technician laughed it off. He was pleased that Seon Jae-chan showed interest in the title he had created, so he readily began to explain.

“I’m very interested in the Esper Go Woo-jin. So when I heard that his pair guide had appeared, I was very intrigued. Even more so when I heard about your background. You were an ‘abandoned child,’ after all.”