Chapter 87
Chapter 87
A Nostalgic Name
***
It was an extremely calculated movement.
Since it had been foreseen from the moment we left the Seed Colony, friction was inevitable. After all, our objective was the same—to arrive at Hyphen Colony.
However—
“I didn’t expect them to catch up this quickly…….”
Im Sol, who had taken a submachine gun from the bed of the pickup truck, slung the weapon over her shoulder. With a drum magazine attached, she used the pickup as a shield and brought the stock to her shoulder.
“You’re going to fight with me? I’m touched.”
“This is no time for jokes. Ga-on, please arm yourself at once.”
Being outnumbered, setting up booby traps would have been the standard approach, but there was no time.
Die or live—there was no choice but one of the two.
Unlike the tense Im Sol, I leisurely looked over the truck bed. The Qiongqi I possessed packed tremendous power with each shot, but its rate of fire was just as slow. It was a firearm bound to have flaws when facing a group.
What suited this situation was—
“There it is.”
An anti-materiel sniper rifle.
True to its name, it was not designed for targeting people but for confronting heavily armored objects.
The Phantom N22 I selected was a masterpiece produced by Seven Metal. Like the megacorp obsessed with high firepower and heavy mass, it valued destructive power over efficiency.
With a barrel length of 932 mm alone, and proprietary ammunition utilizing shaped charges, it resembled artillery more than a rifle.
There could be nothing more fitting to answer the threat from moments ago.
Click.
Standing upright, I lifted the Phantom N22—nearly 50 kilograms—barehanded without any support. I shouldered it and pulled the trigger without even looking through the telescopic sight.
Boom!
A 12 mm supersonic round, fired faster than the sound itself, struck the front of the oncoming van. In an instant, reinforced glass scattered into the air along with a spray of blood.
As the leading vehicle skidded and overturned, the vans trailing behind scattered like startled water deer.
Im Sol did not miss the opening and began suppressive fire. Even so, she could not take her eyes off me. Despite firing in rapid succession as if I had no intention of controlling the recoil, every shot hit its mark.
Boom!
Following the first van I had checked, another lost its balance and flipped over.
It was impossible to tell who the prey was.
At that moment, a man suddenly flung open the rear door and leapt out, sprinting forward.
Closing the distance of several hundred meters in an instant, he moved like an arrow. It was not a speed a human could possess.
As expected, his legs were prosthetics.
Each time he struck the ground, boosters erupted from his calves, accelerating him continuously.
To avoid the bullets, he even executed zigzag evasive maneuvers, reminiscent of a jaguar or a cheetah.
A formidable expert of no ordinary caliber.
It happened in an instant—the man who had evaded every single suppressive shot leapt forward.
“Ga-on!”
“What the hell is this bastard?”
Ga-on narrowly dodged the kick by a hair’s breadth and thrust the Phantom N22 forward, but the man had already closed in and slipped into his guard.
As his forearms opened to reveal a multi-barrel machine gun, Im Sol’s face turned pale. At such close range, it was a weapon that would reduce its target to minced meat.
However, before flames could erupt from the muzzle, the man was kicked.
No, to be precise, he was sent flying.
Dozens of meters away.
“Wha…….”
A human was not a soccer ball—how could someone possibly sail that far through the air?
Im Sol was astonished by the reality unfolding before her eyes, but for Ga-on, who had established the Arhat, it was not particularly difficult.
[Arhat First Form False Rotation Axis]
He had gained the ability to arbitrarily set a rotational axis.
He no longer needed to spend time on preliminary buildup. Shifting the axis from vertical to horizontal had also become easier than before.
The kick just now was an extension of that principle.
With superhuman strength combined with the subtleties of rotational mechanics, there was no way a mere individual could withstand it.
Even if his skeletal structure had been replaced with a slot—frame—it was not something he could endure.
The man coughing up bloody foam ultimately collapsed to his knees and died, proof of that fact.
Ga-on had brushed aside the approaching danger as if swatting a fly, but even that brief moment worked against him.
Before they knew it, men had poured out of the vans and surrounded them.
Im Sol frowned as she recognized one of their faces—a man whose body was half-replaced with machinery, nearing the threshold of becoming a cyborg.
He was someone she clearly remembered.
“You are?”
“Oh? You know me?”
“How could I not?”
Not all fixers were riffraff. Wherever people gathered, exceptional talents occasionally emerged—individuals who surpassed even the elite class.
He was one of them.
Alonso Duffy.
His alias was Terminator.
It might sound like an ordinary title, but maintaining one’s position was far more arduous than gaining fame.
In that sense, Alonso was an excellent fixer—a veteran among veterans who had survived for decades.
“So you accepted Young Master Baek Ryang’s request after all.”
“You could say the timing was right.”
“So you were selected purely based on your skills and track record, not due to personal ties or connections.”
“If you insist.”
“Then I believe there is room for negotiation.”
It was true that Snow Apparel was of a lower tier compared to the megacorp Baekdu, but that did not mean its available funds were limited.
“Under normal circumstances, that might have been enough to convince me. But accepting Vice Chairman Baek Ryang’s request was merely incidental.”
“What do you mean…?”
Alonso tore his gaze away from Im Sol and turned his head toward Ga-on.
“You there.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you—the one who killed my sworn brother. I came here solely to beat you to death.”
“Are you sure you’re not mistaken? A newcomer like me wouldn’t have any grudges tangled up with someone like that.”
“Norman Sanders. Or would you recognize the name Sprinter?”
“Ah, that guy.”
“You’re not even going to deny it.”
“You must have investigated.”
When wandering the underworld, there were inevitably a few ill-fated connections one became entangled with. And at times, they produced unexpected variables.
Just like this.
“But where does that confidence come from? If you investigated, you should know my track record.”
“What are you referring to? That you exposed the Eastern Gate? That you played a role in the Eden Park drug factory incident?”
At the absurd bluster, Alonso clenched his teeth.
“You expect me to believe that?”
It was practically industry practice for fledglings to spread false rumors to inflate their value. Though rare, brokers sometimes even assisted from the sidelines.
The higher the compensation, the greater the brokerage fee they could claim.
“Whatever the reason, it seems Fernandez is openly backing you, but don’t think that will work on me. I couldn’t care less about his influence.”
Ah, so that was how it was. Understanding the power dynamics at once, Ga-on nodded.
“If you truly want to settle this, go back to the Seed Colony and wait. I’ll follow after completing the request.”
Even if he killed Alonso here, no rumors would spread, and it would do nothing for his career.
As it was, he had accepted only specialized requests, leaving him virtually without a reputation in the industry.
Truthfully, he also wanted to avoid brawling in a place where no one would ever know.
However, Ga-on’s inner thoughts appeared differently to Alonso and the others. To them, it looked like nothing more than a desperate struggle to escape the immediate crisis.
With a faint, sardonic smile, Alonso looked down at Ga-on.
“Everyone wants to be my friend, my comrade, my brother. Do you know why?”
“Who knows.”
“Because I have a code. Any debt owed by someone within my circle is repaid without fail. Though someone as self-absorbed as you might not understand.”
Those who stood out in the industry were invariably gifted with exceptional talent. But not all of them earned an alias. Many were trapped by the belief in their own superiority, preferring to act alone.
“Alone, you are bound to reach your limits.”
Im Sol shuddered as her eyes met Alonso’s when he beckoned with his index and middle fingers. She realized it a beat too late—the sniper who had blown out the pickup truck’s tires was still alive and well.
The atmosphere shifted in an instant.
Too late.
The moment she recognized it, her body fell backward.
“That makes one. In this place, only strength—”
“Finished barking?”
Ga-on cut Alonso off mid-sentence as if his words were not worth hearing. He postured as a magnanimous man who cared for his own, but in the end, his essence was self-aggrandizement.
Had he truly regarded Norman as his sworn brother, he would have come immediately after his death.
From the moment he accepted the request and came here, his intentions were bound to be questioned.
An opportunist.
That was Ga-on’s impression of Alonso.
“So you refuse to admit it even in death. How very childish. Then again, that explains your lack of judgment.”
At that moment, a fixer standing behind Alonso raised his arm. As his forearm opened, a device resembling a parabolic antenna emerged.
Its identity was the Pain Maker.
It was a beam that stimulated only the nociceptive points distributed beneath the epidermis.
Since it would not work on someone as close to a cyborg as Alonso, it was indeed an appropriate choice.
Of course, that was only if the target had not been Ga-on.
Thud.
Without hesitation, Ga-on discarded the Phantom N22 and, in an instant, seized Alonso’s arm and slammed him into the ground.
“Cough.”
A bullet that had flown from a distance too far to perceive pierced straight through his glabella, yet Ga-on paid it no heed as he mounted Alonso.
With Im Sol down, there was nothing left to hold him back.
It was time to make full use of the advantage of immortality.
Startled by the unexpected turn of events, the fixers poured down a hail of lead, but Ga-on ignored them and drove his fists into Alonso’s face again and again.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The impact was like an industrial wrecking ball crashing down, shaking the very ground. There was no way Alonso, at the center of it, could remain intact. The moment he was struck, his broken neck was driven deep into the earth.
Leaving the motionless Alonso behind, Ga-on rose and swung whatever he could grasp.
He threw a folding knife, dodged buckshot, seized a submachine gun, kicked away a grenade, and finally kicked a van, toppling the fixers who were firing from behind it.
All those identified as enemies were exterminated—
“No.”
The one who had sniped Im Sol still remained.
Estimating the sniper’s position beyond the horizon, Ga-on dashed forward without hesitation.
Watching him through the telescopic sight, the sniper swallowed dryly. It had only been a few minutes. In that time, he had gone from heaven to hell.
The leader he relied on had died in vain, and the comrades he trusted had been torn apart.
Above all, what terrified him most was the young man who revived again and again, no matter how many times he was killed.
“A monster.”
“A nostalgic name.”
Before he knew it, Ga-on had already approached within arm’s reach of the sniper and spoke.
“You’re not the first to call me that. Nor will you be the last.”
At the same moment his words ended, the ultra-compact railgun, Qiongqi, released a beam of light.