Chapter 143 : Black Ops
Chapter 143: Black Ops
“It ended up like this after all, Junior.”
The first words Kim Hana uttered to Baek Woohyun when he came to see her were these.
She shook her head as if what was bound to come had finally arrived, then reattached the badge she had received for confirmation to Baek Woohyun’s collar.
Following that, she straightened his wrinkled clothes neatly and let out a short sigh.
“To be honest, I was hoping you wouldn’t come to this side, Junior. This work is nothing but dangerous and has no rewards.”
“……”
“But I also thought it would inevitably end up like this someday. All the agents who were test subjects besides you made the same choice.”
“Are there many agents from test subject backgrounds?”
“Not that many. Excluding retired ones, there are only four currently active.”
‘Four people.’
Among the special agents Baek Woohyun had met in ‘that side,’ there wasn’t a single one from a test subject background, so he couldn’t help but be curious.
The fact that they became special agents meant the same as doing something to take revenge on the research facility, making it even more so.
“They’re the most actively working ones, so you’ll meet them often doing this work.”
Kim Hana suddenly stared straight at Baek Woohyun.
As she talked about agents from test subject backgrounds, one commonality among them flashed through her mind.
They were all burning with vengeance without exception, and often displayed an attitude that their own bodies didn’t matter at all to achieve their revenge.
Her thought was that Baek Woohyun, a decent junior she received after a long time, would be the same. Otherwise, there would be no reason to enter this path.
“Just in case, I’m telling you this.”
“Yes. Please speak.”
“If I see you being buried in revenge and overexerting yourself, I’ll remove you from missions by my own authority.”
“…Understood.”
“Good.”
Having left one warning, Kim Hana finally began explaining about special agents.
“The work of special agents is the preemptive elimination of risk factors that harm Otherworld Management Bureau agents. We pursue thorough elimination regardless of what the target is.”
Preemptive elimination of risk factors without discriminating targets.
In other words, if there was a possibility of harming Otherworld Management Bureau agents, they would kill even if it was a person.
The addition of pursuing thorough elimination was also an expression revealing how extremely special agents had to perform their duties.
“The main opponents we face are corporate-employed awakeners who illegally use supernatural abilities, those who call themselves hunting dogs. You’re familiar with them, right Junior? You’ve already fought them several times.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
When he went on field training with his mentor Lee Yujin.
And when he went alone to sweep the Reverse World.
Baek Woohyun, who had already fought hunting dogs twice, nodded at Kim Hana’s question.
Of course, even if it wasn’t those two attacks, hunting dogs were very familiar enemies to him. He had clashed with them sickeningly often in ‘that side’ and personally annihilated them.
“Of course, this is only the main work and the enemies we mainly face. We perform many other tasks and face many other enemies too. Just one certain point is.”
A bitter smile appeared on Kim Hana’s lips.
“The fact that from now on, the enemies you’ll face in special agent work will be people more than Otherworld creatures. I can assert at least that much, if nothing else.”
“Understood.”
“Ah, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to sweep the Reverse World at all. You have to do both. That’s why special agent work is said to be harder and more arduous, isn’t it?”
***
-ㄹㅇ Fucking company mindsetㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Is this that black company thing
-This is why escaping the Management Bureau is ability순 순이라
-Magic where work doubles ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
“Hey! No slandering the Management Bureau! Special agents aren’t forced to do it! They stepped forward to do it themselves, so it can’t be helped!”
“Hmm. Even if they said they’d do it themselves, isn’t double work too much…?”
“Ah! Seongcheol-nim, even you?!”
-Bluetooth, even you!
-What’s Bluetoothㅋㅋㅋㅋ It’s Burutoosuㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Only idiots in the chat ㅋㅋㅋㅋ What are you saying about Bryutuusyuㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Oh looks like they’re giving special agent missions now
***
“Explanation ends here.”
How much time passed while listing stories related to special agents including main duties?
Having judged that she had said all the necessary content for now, Kim Hana took out several documents from inside the desk drawer.
Naturally, they were handed to Baek Woohyun, and he first skimmed just the front page of the documents.
“This looks perfect for the first mission.”
‘Jeong Jihun?’
The first page’s content was one person’s personal information sheet.
The person who had once sold Baek Woohyun to the Corporate Alliance and even gave false information to the Otherworld Management Bureau, the talkative Support · Auxiliary team employee, Jeong Jihun’s personal information sheet.
A photo was even stuck on one side so he wouldn’t mistake it for a different person with the same name.
‘He died.’
The problem existed in the last line of the personal information sheet.
It said that Jeong Jihun’s death was confirmed a while ago.
The confirmed cause of death was suicide.
“You remember the Support · Auxiliary team employee who sold you out, Jeong Jihun, right? As you can see from the documents, that person died. The police investigation result came out as suicide. Of course you know that can’t be true, right Junior?”
“Yes, well… that’s right.”
A person like this who would commit suicide had no reason to screw over Otherworld Management Bureau agents, and Jeong Jihun, whom Baek Woohyun met at that time, was absolutely not someone who would commit suicide.
Even hunting dogs and the Corporate Alliance were entangled in this, so no matter how he looked at it, he could only think he was silenced.
“I was just planning to go investigate that case. But you came as a special agent at the perfect time?”
“The timing was good.”
“Yes, the timing was good. For me and for you, Junior.”
Baek Woohyun checked the remaining documents behind Jeong Jihun’s personal information sheet while conversing with Kim Hana.
The back pages were also personal information sheets, with one difference being that the people written were suspects who would have murdered Jeong Jihun disguising it as suicide.
Three people total. Unfortunately, there were no faces he recognized among them. Meaning it was impossible to identify the culprit immediately.
‘It’s natural I don’t know them since they’re all low-level small fry.’
Even if he had met them in ‘that side,’ the probability he forgot them completely was high. It was difficult work for Baek Woohyun to remember every small fry.
How could he pay attention to small fry when three-headed Hellhounds, final stage Etinel, and Otherworld Lords were glaring right before his eyes?
Even if they were small fry, it wasn’t easy unless they were someone who directly greatly affected his life in ‘that side.’
“I’ve finished reading.”
“Good! Then let’s go find them one by one from now!”
“Understood. Let’s move right away.”
When Kim Hana sprang up from her seat, Baek Woohyun also responded without another word. He prepared to leave while placing the documents on the desk.
However, his action of following along too refreshingly without asking back seemed rather puzzling to her.
Judging from how she cast a puzzled glance at him when she said to go.
“What do you think we’ll do when we find them one by one that you’re so ready to go right away?”
“…? Well, threaten them, and if words don’t work, use violence?”
Baek Woohyun said calmly. It was an answer given while recalling his contract worker days.
In those days, threats and violence to obtain information were like a set to him. Sometimes when going a bit further, it entered torture territory too.
He thought special agents would be the same. They weren’t Black Ops who couldn’t receive public authority’s help for nothing.
While carrying out illegal acts like murder, assassination, and terrorism that shouldn’t be publicly known, threats and violence against small fry were nothing.
“Hmm. You’re really, how should I say.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No. It seems you fit this side better than expected. Almost to the point of seeming like a calling.”
Kim Hana shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s a good thing. If we’re going to do it anyway, isn’t it better to do it thoroughly?”
Thus, Baek Woohyun and Kim Hana, who moved to find the suspect in the documents, were able to discover the first document’s suspect, Kwon Dojoong, before long.
Kwon Dojoong was a man with a typical thug’s appearance as if drawn in a picture—shortly cut hair, tattoos filling his forearms, and a fierce impression.
Not only his appearance, but his conduct itself wasn’t very good either, as he committed all kinds of criminal acts even while the two watched.
Since he couldn’t know of the two people watching him, it was clear he committed acts like now in his usual life too.
“What should we do, Senior?”
Baek Woohyun, standing on a building rooftop looking down at Kwon Dojoong, asked.
Kwon Dojoong was just entering his house recorded in the personal information sheet. Meaning now was the optimal time to catch and beat him up.
He looked at Kim Hana with the meaning ‘Should I go beat him up?’, and she, who had been pondering something, soon nodded.
“For this case, try doing it however you want once, Junior. I’ll just watch from the side for now.”
“Understood.”
Since permission fell from the senior agent, there was no reason to hesitate, so Baek Woohyun immediately moved toward Kwon Dojoong’s house.
The door was firmly locked, but entering wasn’t particularly difficult. The Superhuman body was too strong to be blocked by something like a front door lock.
Just turning the doorknob a bit strongly caused the locking mechanism to crumble and shatter, and he could infiltrate the house without a sound.
Unlike the reasonably clean building exterior, the house interior was extremely messy.
With thrown-off clothes and trash left as is, to the point where it was questionable when he even cleaned, what more needed to be said?
Of course, this wasn’t something Baek Woohyun needed to be concerned with, so he trampled the clothes on the floor and entered deeper to find Kwon Dojoong.
-“Next news. The whereabouts of a person presumed to be the perpetrator of the recent Geumshin Electronics building attack incident were newly discovered—”
“Ugh, those idiots. What are they doing not catching one criminal.”
Kwon Dojoong, unaware of the disaster about to befall him, appeared absorbed in watching hologram TV while sitting on the sofa.
Even when masked Baek Woohyun reached behind him and similarly masked Kim Hana positioned herself in an appropriate spot and crossed her arms, he remained completely unaware of their presence.
The price for letting his guard down thinking it was his own house was realized through the strong forearm choking his neck from behind.
“Kkeueuk!”
“……”
“Kyeok! Keuheok! Kkeurreuk!”
Kkwaak.
Kwon Dojoong, whose neck was suddenly choked, twisted his entire body with a reddened face.
Kicking not only the can of beer he was drinking but even the table wildly, he seemed quite pained.
“Kkeuheoek!”
“……”
Peok! Peok!
Using his somewhat free hand, he scratched the forearm choking his neck or wildly struck Baek Woohyun’s face, but it was no use.
Baek Woohyun with his superhuman body could endure without blinking an eye even if an ordinary person struck his face.
Baek Woohyun released Kwon Dojoong when the blood vessels standing in his eyes burst and foam dripped from his mouth.
“Heoeoep!”
“……”
Kwon Dojoong, whose windpipe finally opened, desperately inhaled oxygen. Even the stuffy air filling the room must have felt like sweet candy to him.
However, Baek Woohyun wasn’t one to just watch that quietly. He grabbed the gasping Kwon Dojoong’s nape and pressed him down behind the table.
It was an intention to maximize fear by making his appearance invisible.
“Listen well. There’s one rule.”
“Wha, what? You bastard! Do you know who I—”
Eudeuk!
“——!”
Kwon Dojoong tried to scream as his finger broke, but he couldn’t. It was because of Baek Woohyun’s hand strongly gripping his neck, pressing as if to crush his vocal cords whole.
Therefore, the scream he let out merely ended as a crushed sound. Only tears poured down from his miserable state of being unable to scream as he wished.
Baek Woohyun opened his mouth again when Kwon Dojoong’s struggles gradually subsided.
“I’ll say it again. There’s one rule.”
“…Kkeuu.”
“I ask, you answer. Understand?”
“Y-yes, I understand….”
***
-Fucking scaryㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Suspiciously skilled at infiltration and threatsㄷㄷ
-Somehow the special forces background hypothesis gains credibility
-I’m curious what he used to do ㄹㅇㅋㅋ
“Woohyun was just an ordinary college student! Really! I attended college with him, you know?”
“College life is the outward appearance, but maybe he actually did something else behind the scenes…? He’s strangely skilled at Otherworld Management Bureau special agent work…”
“Oh! Mr. Cheater looks like an FBI or CIA agent!”