Chapter 173. Beneath the Surface (4)
[Processing...]
Eun-Ho didn’t know what purpose that machine served, nor did he know what kind of effects the bluish liquid had. However, one thing was certain.
“We need to get him out. Now.”
[38/10000]
[39/10000]
[40/10000]
...
The Swear-Master was being processed bit by bit. As the progress ticked upward, the hair that floated like seaweed slowly grew shorter, and his skin became smoother by the second. A quick glance showed his fingernails and toenails melting away from the tips.
“Smash it,” Eun-Ho said.
Jae-Hyuk approached with a mace, whispering anxiously, “A-are you sure?! What if they come back?”
However, Eun-Ho didn’t hesitate. “That’s why we’re breaking it.”
“What?”
Clearly, the capsule was not the only thing Eun-Ho wanted to smash.
***
Seom, a junior Operations Bureau employee, was in a good mood. Only one million points until promotion. He’d earn at least a hundred thousand points by handing over the three newcomers. At this rate, he could get promoted within a year.
“Man, I’m jealous. Just a bit more and you’re really out of here.”
“Then hustle harder.”
“Come on, share your secret.”
“What secret? You chop off heads, cut arms and legs, and split the torso in half. You just do it.”
“Hey, that’s easier said than done.”
For employees pushed far from the center of power, promotion was little more than a fantasy. The only realistic option was to buy rank using Welfare Points. Hence why, when the newly appointed manager suggested a deal and asked him to supply the goods, he had no reason to refuse.
“The commission was thirty percent, right?”
“Yeah. Three to seven.”
Even after the commission cut, it was still worth it. He was pocketing plenty on the side, too.
“Really. It’s a win-win.”
“Huh?”
“I make money, and the manager gets commission and connections.”
“Oh, the guys buying this stuff?”
“Yeah. But I have no idea what they do, though,” Seom shrugged, lips pursed, then added casually, “and hey, we’re giving these poor bastards an easy death instead of a lifetime of suffering. It’s good for them too.”
Creeeak—
Just as Seom was about to open the old door and step out, a loud noise echoed from somewhere far away.
Clang!
“Huh?”
“Did you hear that?”
The two men quickly turned their heads, scanning the room. Still, there was no sign of anyone.
“Must’ve imagined it.”
He thought he was so tired that he started to hear things. Perhaps it was time to slow down a bit. He shook his head. “I guess so—”
His tongue, which had been moving freely just moments ago, came to a sudden halt.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The man who had frozen mid-sentence lost the floor to someone else.
“Hey,” the intruder said.
It was a face he had never seen before.
“Wha—?!”
“Who the hell are you?!”
Seom’s and his colleague’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
“This area is strictly restricted to authorized personnel. How did you get in here?”
“Ah, you can skip that,” the intruder replied.
The stranger had black hair and sharp, upturned eyes. That gaze, cold and piercing, seemed like it could bore straight through Seom’s skull.
“So basically, you were about to debone the guy in that tank? Chop off his arms and legs?”
“What?”
“Who gave you permission?” the intruder demanded.
That alone was enough to make Seom’s knees go weak. He purposefully raised his voice, “Look, I don’t know how you got in here, but get out. Now. Before I report you!”
In response, the intruder let out a quiet scoff, eyes icy. “You were running your mouth just fine about deboning and all that. Ever think you might be the ones on the receiving end?”
“What the hell is this guy’s problem?”
“If you’re crazy, take it somewhere else. Why come to someone else’s workplace and start shit?”
The intruder’s eyes flashed as he raised a jet-black sword.
Woooong—
The blade vibrated on its own.
The intruder approached, spitting his words like phlegm, “You said you start with the head, then the arms and legs, right?”
“W-what is he on about?!”
“I sharpened the blade real nice, so don’t worry,” responded the intruder.
“W-what are you doing? Stop! Don’t come any closer!”
“What’s wrong? You were talking just fine when it was my friend. But now that it’s about you, you're scared?”
“Friend?! D-don’t tell me you’re a new employee?”
This audacious lunatic is a new employee?
“Let’s skip the machine and get straight to it. I’ll make it clean.”
Seom was dumbfounded. “The heck?”
Faced with that overwhelming presence, Seom had assumed the man was a department head or higher. However, he turned out to be a mere new hire.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You came to save a batchmate?”
That changed things. A rookie talking about cutting his head off? He was clearly looking down on them just because they worked out here on the fringes.
“Go ahead. Try cutting me,” Seom taunted.
“What?”
“The deboning. It’s not as easy as you think.” Confidence crept into Seom’s voice because he was wearing protective gear with over three hundred defense power. “Do you know what this suit is? It’s made by lightening the special reinforced glass used in those capsules.”
As a special-order piece commissioned by the Operations Director himself, only two sets existed in the entire Operations Bureau. Seom wore it just in case the capsules went out of control. A mere new employee ought to count himself lucky to even glimpse it.
“So normal attacks won’t even scratch—”
“I did make a cut.”
“What?”
Despite having no reason to entertain such nonsense, they still glanced at the capsule just in case. As if someone had drawn a single line from top to bottom, the curved surface had been cleanly sliced open, gaping like a doorway.
“What the hell?!”
Furthermore, the human that had been inside the capsule just moments ago was gone without a trace.
“What the hell? What’s going on?”
The operators were stunned and they couldn’t even process what was happening.
“L-let’s just—”
“Run!”
They blurted it out by the book, mouths still hanging open.
“Get out and activate the emer—”
Whooosh—
Before they could finish, a gale tore through the space. What remained after the violent rush of wind was a searing heat that surged up from the ends of their limbs.
“Gaaah!”
Pain like burning alive flooded their senses.
“M-my arms! My legs!”
His wrists, elbows, shoulders, ankles, knees and waist had been sliced at perfectly even intervals, as if someone were chopping vegetables. It was not clean enough to sever them completely, but enough for blood to burst out like an overflowing broken toilet.
Splaaash!
The world flipped upside down.
Thud!
Seom slammed face-first into the ice-cold floor, letting out a dying scream. “Y-you crazy bastard!”
The man’s gaze dropped to Seom, sprawled on the ground. “Ah.”
Seom flinched. Those emotionless, icy pupils seemed ready to hack apart even what little remained of him.
As Seom averted his gaze, he heard the man say to his colleague, “Don’t worry.”
“What?”
“I didn’t cut them off. Yet.”
Didn’t cut them? What do you mean after slicing Seom into pieces? What did that even mean? the colleague thought.
“You said the order was neck, arms, legs, right?” The new employee shrugged. “If I cut your neck first, you can’t answer questions.”
“What are you say—”
“So I just made the cuts nice and clean. One twist, and they’ll come right off.”
A chill ran straight down his spine. Instead of blood, pure terror seemed to course through his veins. “Y-you bastard! Are you crazy?!”
“Alright. Now let’s talk.”
Is this really a rookie?!
***
The two men, their spacesuits shredded, knelt on the floor.
Then, Eun-Ho crouched in front of them, asking, “Your name.”
“W-what the hell are you?!”
“I said w-who do you think yo—”
Defiance burned in their wide-open eyes as expected. Therefore, Eun-Ho wordlessly seized the man’s shoulder. “Severing Muscle and Dislocating Bone.”
“Gaaaaaah!”
From the hand gripping his shoulder, smoke crept out, reminiscent of something between insects and serpents writhing together. His already-unsteady self jerked violently, swaying like a festival balloon caught in a typhoon.
Only after confirming twisted limbs, eyes rolled back, showing only white and foam bubbling at his mouth did Eun-Ho let go. He waited three seconds for them to regain their senses before asking again. “I’ll ask you one last ti—”
“S-Seom!”
The answer came before the question was even finished.
“Rank?”
“Employee!”
“So what exactly were you doing here?”
“W-well...” Seom exchanged glances with the one beside him. “We were just passing by! We heard a strange noise!”
“That’s right! It was a coincidence! We just happened to come in!” said the colleague.
Their eyelids were still twitching violently, yet they kept their mouths clamped shut. In other words, the danger of leaking the truth frightened them more than the impending pain.
So it’s not enough yet.
“Really? Do you want me to twist you again so you can speak properly?” threatened Eun-Ho.
Or perhaps, this ran far deeper than he’d thought. As if they’d rehearsed it, both men pressed their lips together with stubborn resolve. Simple threats had reached their limit. It seemed like it was time to take it a step further.
“Well, fine. I’m not into the nasty hobby of deboning perfectly healthy people like someone else,” said Eun-Ho.
It wasn’t like he had any use for it anyway.
“T-then are you letting us go?”
Eun-Ho dangled the hook. “I’ll spare the one who answers first. How’s that?”
“W-what?!”
Lightly, Eun-Ho drew the blade through the air between them. “But the other one—”
Swoosh—
The blade brushed past their Adam’s apples.
“... won’t have any fun.”
They both flinched, their spacesuits crinkling audibly as they stiffened. Both men froze, unable even to wipe away the beads of blood seeping from their throats.
“Think carefully,” Eun-Ho murmured, driving the nail in.
“I-I...”
“I learned everything from this bastard!”
The shouts erupted at the same time.
One of them exploded in fury. “What?! You’re blaming this on me?!”
However, it was already too late.
“Jae-Hyuk.”
At Eun-Ho’s word, Jae-Hyuk nodded and clamped a hand over the man’s mouth.
“You crazy bas—mmph!”
“Alright. So what did you learn?”
“H-he’s the expert! He said they were short on hands and dragged me in!”
“An expert?” Eun-Ho echoed softly, stalling for time. Then a system window appeared at the edge of his vision as he said, “An expert in what, exactly?”
“Deboning! He siphoned off people transferred to the Operations Bureau and sold them quietly!”
Upon hearing that, Jae-Hyuk’s expression crumpled like paper. Whether from tightening fingers or sheer will, the man in his grip thrashed wildly.
“Mmph! Mmmph!”
“Shut up.”
Faced with Jae-Hyuk’s icy glare, he immediately went limp.
“Unless you want your limbs chopped into neat little segments, your organs pulled out, your severed arms tied up nicely, and everything from your eyeballs to your twenty fingernails dismantled, tell me everything. Who you sold them to, what you sold, how you did it. Who ordered it, and how long you’ve been doing this,” said Eun-Ho.
Their denunciations went on for quite a while. When one finished accusing, the other opened his mouth. When that one ran out of words, the first spoke again.
After going back and forth like that and even cross-checking their statements, Eun-Ho had squeezed out everything they knew.
“Okay. That’s enough.”
He got enough, really, to write a full report on this incident. They were small fry, so they didn’t know exactly who was buying people or for what purpose.
But I have a pretty good guess anyway.
In any case, that wrapped this part up. Then, Eun-Ho manipulated a system window he’d prepared earlier and asked one final question. “One last thing.”
“W-what is it?”
“A-ask me!”
“Between ten and eleven this morning, the Operations Bureau tried to interfere with a Sector Thirteen trial. Do you know anything about that?”
“Sector Thirteen?”
The two men, now little more than rags, desperately worked their brains.
Then, one of them tilted his head. “Ah! That was when—”
Seom cut in, “There was a system error! We were checking whether it was a bug or normal operation!”
Fast, Eun-Ho noted, then pressed further. “And how am I supposed to believe that?”
“A bug report! It’ll be written in there!” Fearing his partner would blurt out something else, Seom hastily produced a document. “Here!”
[Bug Report]
[... Additionally, during a Sector Thirteen ROK-district trial, an error occurred in which a specific monster’s vitals surged abnormally. Cause unknown.]
“Cause unknown?”
“Y-yeah! So the order came down to monitor it, but they said it died right away.”
Of course it did, because Eun-Ho had killed it himself.
“Why did its vitals spike?”
“I-I don’t really know.”
Then, maybe someone had implanted a kind of defensive system, causing an error. The Operations Bureau had tried to track it but failed. That was as far as he could get by squeezing these two.
Eun-Ho had seen countless people upstairs staring nonstop at their screens, and yet this interference was subtle enough to slip past even them.
Which means whoever did it is far above these guys. And if they were that high up and if they really wanted me dead, there were much easier ways, Eun-Ho thought.
It seemed their mysterious meddler had a different objective altogether. Of course, it was possible these two were still hiding something.
“N-now you’re done with us, right?”
Given how desperately they’d spilled everything to save themselves, Eun-Ho didn’t think they were lying.
Eun-Ho nodded, satisfied he’d learned everything there was to learn. “Yeah. We’re done.”
The moment he did, the men whose faces had been trembling uncontrollably, even down to their facial muscles, visibly relaxed.
“R-really? That’s it?! We’re done?!”
“So now you’ll let us go, right?”
“I’ve got all the evidence I need.”
Their brows, which had just smoothed out, snapped together in an instant. Clearly, they still had the energy to get angry. They shouted, faces flushed with rage.
“What does that mean!”
“You said you’d spare us if we talked!”
“I said I’d spare you,” Eun-Ho replied calmly. “I never said I’d pretend none of this happened.”
The two men stared at him, mouths hanging open, faces screaming.
What kind of bullshit is that?
Eun-Ho kindly explained, “I picked up a bit of editing.”
“A-and?”
“Wow. This is harder than it looks. Even the shortcuts are complicated.”
“That’s normal for your first time. But you’re picking it up pretty fast. I think you’ve got a knack for it, Eun-Ho.”
He’d only gotten a short, impromptu lesson from Ji-Eun, but he thought simple splicing would be more than enough.
“If I just cut together your answers, I could make a full documentary.”
“Y-you recorded it? No wait, you didn’t, right?”
“I’m thinking of calling it ‘The Reality of Corrupt Operations Bureau Employees.’ Catchy, don’t you think?”
“H-h-how dare you!”
Just as rage began to bloom in the stunned employees’ eyes, Eun-Ho gave a light, almost careless follow-up. “Oh, right. You said you were aiming for a promotion, didn’t you? You might want to give up on that.”
“W-what? Why?”
“I tipped off the Audit Bureau.”
- From: Guk Ryang
- To: Lee Eun-Ho
- Message: They really are top-tier trash. Leave it to me. I’ll make them wish they had begged to be deboned instead.
“My mentor was pretty pissed.”
The guy had always had a strong sense of justice.
Forget promotion. You guys would spend the rest of your lives unable to lift your heads in public, Eun-Ho thought.
***
“Wow, I still don’t really understand what just happened.”
“Seriously! They cleared out like a receding tide!”
Connections really were something. At a single word, Audit Bureau agents had swarmed in, hauling away corrupt employees and every shred of evidence. With that, the filthy business model was laid bare for all to see.
[New content, The Reality of Corrupt Operations Bureau Employees, has been registered.]
[Congratulations!]
[You have completed the hidden trial, Justice Served.]
[You have earned 2,000 Welfare Points.]
[You have defeated the Corrupt Superiors.]
[Resistance stat has been increased by twenty due to exclusive trait Rebel.]
[Your Puppet Master(Lv. 1) proficiency has increased significantly.]
On top of that, he’d received the Rebel trait reward. The Swear-Master and the two Americans still hadn’t shown signs of waking up, but they’d all been brought out safely.
Therefore, now it was time to make the next move.
“Could you gather everyone for me?”
“Oh! If you mean your group, they’re all waiting in the reception hall!” Ji-Eun replied.
“They’re practically wearing a hole in the floor worrying about the Swear-Master, Hyungnim!”
No. Not just our group, Eun-Ho thought.
“No, I mean all the new employees,” Eun-Ho said.
“Huh?”
Ji-Eun, who had been gently patting Yul, and Jae-Hyuk, who’d been cleaning up behind them, both stared at him wide-eyed. As much as he’d like to explain it kindly to their confused faces, that could wait.
“Now,” Eun-Ho said firmly. “All of them.”
“R-right now?”
“Yes. It has to be tonight.”
It was going to be a long night.
“Tell them to gather in the Banquet Hall.”
The ones who had nearly suffered the worst were the Swear-Master and the two Americans. Until now, there’d been no focal point, no justification to bring the survivors together as one. However, this damned company had gone ahead and created one for him. And he fully intended to make use of it.
“I have something to say.”