"Holy shit, run!"
The mortar man shouted, and the raiders gathered around him scattered in an instant.
It was as quick as opening an old door and the rats inside scurrying out.
Osian frowned.
‘What, they realize I'm alive and they choose to flee?’
Its movements were eerily swift for a panicked creature, which meant he'd been expecting this to happen.
'The carjacking, the swiftness of the response, and blatantly targeting me.’
My heart sank. It wasn't dangerous, but it was unpleasant, similar to finding a cockroach in your room.
If I let them go, I was sure they would come back to bother me again at some point.
"Then I'll just have to clean them up here."Osian's figure vanished like a mirage as a bluish crystalline dust scattered on the wind where he stood.
*
The raiders quickly retreated, signaling to each other.
"Keep enough distance. He's basically a hand-to-hand combatant. Avoid head-on combat as much as possible and stick to dodging and weaving."
[Got it......chizizik!]
"Hey. What's going on?"
[No, it's him! He's already......crunch!]
At the scream from beyond the beacon, the squinty-eyed man frowned.
‘He's already caught up?’
There was nothing strange about that. No matter how fast they were running, they couldn't outpace the pace of Osian, a mutant of the Physical Enhancement class.
They'd heard enough about him to know that he could run faster than a car.
But…
[Shit, shit, shit! What the hell is that?]
[The trap isn't working! Damn it! That's a different story!]
[Oh, don't come near me!]
-Chirp, chirp, chirp.
One by one, the raiders' signal was cut off.
Beyond the beacon was the sound of his companion's last gasp, a terminal, and the freezing of something.
"Holy shit. What the hell is going on?"
I knew there would be some sacrifices but it didn't matter. The fewer heads we had, the more we'd get paid when the job was done.
However I didn't choose to push them to their deaths. I planned to keep them alive, at least as long as I could.
‘I've even booby-trapped the area!’
Osian's movements were fast, but almost linear.
It was like a fast-moving personal armored vehicle, pushing straight ahead without looking around.
So they weaved through the abandoned buildings, trying to shake him as much as possible.
They hoped to lure him into a trap and slowly eat him alive but they were wrong.
Osian was far more agile and fast than they had realized.
The trap hadn't even been triggered, and their companions were dying.
Reaching the exit point, Aekunun surveyed his surroundings.
"How many are there?"
"Five."
"Holy shit."
There were over twenty when they started, and only five were left.
More than half of them had died at Osian's hands during their escape.
"What the fuck is he? That’s not what we’re told about!"
"Why didn't the trap work? What the hell did he do?"
"Everyone shut up!"
Aekunun shouted, and the panicked ones fell silent.
They knew shouting and bickering amongst themselves wouldn't change anything.
"First, let's get a handle on the situation. It seems that this Osian brat is a lot stronger than we thought."
Everyone nodded with heavy faces.
"This mission is over, the intel is wrong, and we're going to get screwed, so let's just get it over with, or does anyone else want to stay?"
No one answered his question.
No, there was one.
"I'm thinking of continuing."
At the sudden sound of a third voice, all five eyes at the exit point turned in that direction.
There, standing as still as ever, was Osian.
Everyone stared at him with wide eyes in surprise.
How did he end up here, in a hiding place they'd picked out from among the abandoned buildings, with a complicated geography and undetected by the outside world?
“You seem to be making fun of me. It’s easy to see where you’re running off to.”
They thought they'd outrun Osian, but they were sorely mistaken.
Osian had already heard their footsteps and knew where they were gathering.
Finding the rat's nest was a breeze compared to his recent missions.
"Five."
Osian lifted the sword with the markings of the moon.
In his hand, the blade was enveloped in a bluish aura, curving into a curved shape and a cold chill settled around it.
"I think one mouth will suffice."
The raiders swallowed hard.
The moment they looked into Osian's black eyes, they felt as if they were falling into an endless abyss.
His figure seemed to have grown enormous, staring down at them.
"Among the five of you, I wonder which one of you will be able to answer to my liking."
"All at once!"
The squinty-eyed man shouted as if in a seizure.
The way he craned his neck and shouted, his face bright red, showed that it had taken an enormous amount of energy just to open his mouth.
And it was.
Under the pressure Osian was exerting, he wanted to beg for his life.
It was a kind of survival instinct, and he had to suppress it now and make the most rational decision he could.
Of course, rationality didn't always lead to the best outcome.
A blue flash moved.
The pupil of one of his eyes, which was left open, grew so large that it seemed as if it would tear.
The other four companions, who had been lunging at Osian, all froze in place, turning into frozen statues.
It happened in the blink of an eye. He couldn't even see what the hell had happened.
"What?"
Osian was supposed to be able to manipulate pure white energy with his sword but that one was the opposite. The shape, color, and effect of the sword were all different.
Aekunun‘s legs went weak and he slumped to the ground.
He'd done all kinds of jobs, but nothing like this had ever happened before.
Ossian, who showed an overwhelming presence, lifted his moonlight sword and stood in front of the cross-eyed man.
"You seem to know this situation better than anyone."
Osian looked down at him.
In the poorly lit interior of the abandoned building, it was impossible to see his face.
Only his eyes were visible but the pupils were even more frightening.
Those black eyes, devoid of emotion, and his calm tone were as if he lived in a different world, as if he had slaughtered dozens of people on his way here and hadn't even faltered in his breathing.
"Tell me. Who paid you to do this?"
"Me, I'm......."
He shouldn't have said it but Aekunun wanted to run away from this fear right now.
He couldn't bear it and was about to open his mouth.
Blood!
Red blood spurted from Aekunun's temple, and his body fell to the side.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he didn't even stir. He was dead.
"Who is it?"
Osian's voice carried a note of displeasure.
He stared beyond the ruins, beyond the darkness of the steel.
Pure white fire sparked in Osian's eyes.
"Whoa, whoa. Don't be like that. I saved you, didn't I?"
The man with the relaxed voice was a man with red hair like a lion's mane.
At first glance, it was like seeing an unbridled predator in the wild.
From his bare-chested outfit, to his necklace and ear piercings, to the sunglasses on his face.
He flicked the pistol in his hand, waving it around. It was the one that pierced Aekunun temple.
Behind the man's back, what appeared to be members of his organization rumbled.
"I."
Osian warned the man, his voice raspy.
"I asked who you are."
Answer my question with bullshit one more time, and I will use force.
As the unimaginable murderous intent surged through them, the bodies of the organization members lined up behind the red-haired man trembled.
Some in fear, some in survival instinct.
Unconsciously, they reached for the weapons in their arms, but were forced to stop themselves.
"Who says you can move?"
Their leader glared at them from behind his slightly lowered sunglasses.
At the sight of him, the men stiffened and stood at attention.
Seeing the sequence of events, Osian realized that the red-haired man was no ordinary man.
‘They're all afraid.’
From that alone, he could guess what kind of personality the red-haired man had.
The redhead looked at Osian and smiled again, this time with a friendly smile.
"Now, now, don't be so hard on yourself. I'm not your enemy. You asked for my name. My name is Kursha."
"Osian."
"Oh. Osian. I've heard of you. You're the fixer who's been on a roll lately, right?"
"Why did you interrupt?"
Kursha shook his head at Osian's question.
"There must be some misunderstanding, but that's more what I'm asking. Do you know where we are?"
"It's an abandoned building."
"Well, technically, it doesn't have a building permit yet. But it will be soon, because this is my place of business."
My place of business.
Kursha's voice wasn't loud, but it got through to Osian.
"Anyway, in the midst of all the noise about redevelopment, some cocky bastards were firing mortars and making a mess in our area."
Osian's gaze fell to the dead squinty-eyed corpse.
A pool of blood was widening beneath his bleary-eyed head.
"So I punished him myself. Oh, of course, you don't have to be too grateful. I only helped you because I have a big heart."
Osian's dark eyes turned to Kursha.
"I see."
"Ah. So you recognized my heart? I'm so glad......."
"It was you."
Kursha's mouth fell open at Osian's words.
It had been strange from the start. The speed with which he'd gathered such a large group of people in such a secret place, and the unbelievable timing of the shooting.
It was almost as if he had been targeted.
No matter how much he let his guard down, the shot that killed Aekunun before Osian could react was the same.
The shots were lifeless.
There's only an inorganic motivation, like clearing something off the street.
‘I have no hesitation in killing people, and I don’t attach much significance to it. Since I don’t show my will to kill, my senses don’t work properly.’
Putting it all together, it was simple.
The person who had ordered him to attack was Kursha, over there.
At that point, Kursha stared at Osian for a moment.
Then he stuck out her tongue and chuckled. The piercing on his tongue glinted in the dark.
"Busted?"
Kursha didn't even bother to hide it, just admitted that he had.
Osian's expression sank even colder.
"I'm surprised you admitted it so readily, but you must have been prepared to pay the price, right?"
"Prepared? Haha, hey, buddy. You're under some sort of illusion, but it's you who has to pay the price. You interfered with us, remember?"
"Us?"
"Ah. Now that you mention it, let me introduce myself again. I'm Kursha. I'm the director of the North Blinders. Is that clear enough?"
The North Blinders.
Osian remembered the name well.
A corporate mafia, they had clashed with him once before, during the Witch Asylum.
Osian had fought Balud, one of the North Blinders' directors, then.
"This is Vendetta. You're not going to tell me you don't know what that is, are you?"
Vendetta.
In simple terms, it's revenge, but for these mafiosi, the word means much more.
It was more than retribution, more like a mission that must be accomplished.
"So."
Osian asked coldly.
"Are we going to end this here?"
"Why not?"
Kursha raised his hand, and the men behind him drew their weapons.
Tommy guns with cylindrical magazines and other specially modified firearms.
A few of the more skilled had cold weapons rather than firearms, all of which had been modified.
Osian's sword also had a bluish tinge to it.
The atmosphere on both sides was like an active volcano about to erupt at any moment.
At that moment, a hatchet flew out of nowhere and struck the ground between the two men.
The tension that had been building up to a fight was suddenly defused.
Kursha's expression twisted for a moment, then morphed into a smirk.
"Hey, who's this, our busy director, coming all the way out here on business?"
It was Balud, one of the directors of North Blinders, who had thrown the axe.
He adjusted his glasses, maintaining the crisp white attire we had seen before.
“Kursha. That’s it. Any further actions will not be tolerated.”