Chapter 101 - Back There Again (1)

The lights came on. None lit up where the ceiling had collapsed, but everywhere still intact was illuminated.

Fortunately, we remained hidden in the shadow of the rubble. Several sets of footsteps drew closer.

"Much better!" Mick said. "Though this place is a mess too!"

I could easily imagine him delivering those irritated words with a perfectly unruffled expression.

Riccardo and I stayed motionless behind the rubble, pressed against the enormous slab casting its shadow over us, barely breathing.

"Where did the other two go?"

It was the woman who had realized a few hours ago that Green Dream wasn't working on me.

"There should be two of them out here..."

"Probably got crushed to death!"

"Hey!"

Wasn't that the cop?

The male officer who had picked a fight with Achille shouted, "How the hell did this happen?"

His voice shook with anxiety.

"We turned a blind eye! The least you could do was run the matches properly!"

"Shut up. We've suffered more than enough losses ourselves."

They were turning on each other.

The officer's shout sparked an argument. I listened closely as the corrupt cops and Mick's gang fought.

Why had the arena suddenly exploded?

They didn't know. Some lunatic had set off bombs.

What were they going to do about all these deaths?

Clean up and get the hell out.

Easier said than done. This had gotten too big. The cops were washing their hands of it. They'd only ever looked the other way at the gang's misconduct; they had nothing to do with this disaster...

"The police should've done a proper safety inspection in the first place!"

The Mafia's argument was absurd.

Neither side realized they had been dancing in the palms of the elders' hands. Each blamed the other for the disaster, so the shouting showed no sign of abating.

Riccardo muttered just loudly enough for me to hear.

"Kill each other."

Huh?

I turned to my senior with an incredulous look, but he ignored me.

And things actually went the way he wanted.

"Usually you're too busy wiping the Badgers' asses."

Jaeyeon?

It was Jaeyeon. I narrowed my eyes and leaned to one side.

He was posing as an officer among the corrupt cops. His young, obnoxious voice scraped at the gangsters' pride.

"Everything was served up for you, and you went and shat all over it!"

Guns cocked.

It sounded like Mick and his men.

The officers' response sent the situation hurtling toward disaster even faster.

"How dare you point guns at the police!"

"You pieces of shit. Kill us and you'll have an even bigger problem!"

The male and female officers who had picked on Achille shouted.

Then came Jaeyeon's voice.

"As if you've got the guts to shoot."

I could hear his smirk.

He wasn't even talking to me, and I wanted to strangle him. It was a wonder the gangsters didn't pull their triggers right away.

His next words were just as grating.

"Go on. Shoot."

He hadn't lost his knack for getting under people's skin.

"What's wrong? I said shoot."

"You little punk..."

"Shoot me! Do it! Shoot! Shoot! What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to shoot?"

Ah.

"You fucking maggot!"

If it were me, I'd have lost my temper and put a bullet in Jaeyeon's guts...

BANG!

Huh?

For someone who had just been suppressing his own irritation, I was pretty surprised.

They couldn't know Jaeyeon had an enhanced body.

They'd shot a cop?

I blinked several times, then murmured to myself.

"Impressive."

My senior answered with his head bowed.

"I almost charged out there myself..."

The bullet seemed to have hit Jaeyeon in the guts.

I hadn't heard any bones shatter. All I heard was a brief grunt from him, followed by the sound of him clutching his wound and falling to the floor.

The conflict escalated.

"Fuck, those bastards actually shot him!"

"I know! Shut up, Regina!"

"Didn't he tell me to shoot?"

Mick had a point.

"He told me to shoot, so I did. What the fuck is your problem?"

His delivery was exquisite: utterly flat, yet steeped in irritation and anger.

Now the cops cocked their guns too. More of Mick's men followed suit, audibly readying their weapons and taking aim.

I felt a little sad that I couldn't watch this entertaining spectacle with my own eyes. If listening alone was this much fun, how much better would it be if I could sneak a look?

BANG!

This time, one of the cops fired.

But unlike before, it didn't stop at a single shot. Gunfire began pouring down like rain. The noise was enough to tear through eardrums, and the caged creatures thrashed in response.

The thick smell of blood wafted over.

I heard muscles and bones being shattered, skin blown apart. Stifled screams, and bodies dropping heavily to the ground. Even without seeing it, I knew a massacre was taking place on the other side of the rubble.

Hmm. I had definitely heard sounds like these before.

There had been no guns in the world where I was born, so I must have encountered this kind of chaos after crossing over here.

But I had no intention of revisiting the past now faintly threatening to surface. This was far too satisfying a situation to spoil by dredging up depressing memories.

I waited quietly, and the wild gunfire died down.

Silence descended.

The air settled. Once I was sure it was quiet, I slowly rose. Riccardo also got up, bracing himself against the rubble.

After checking that he was all right, I walked toward the smell of gunpowder, blood, and torn flesh. Where gunshots had raged moments earlier, there were only groans and desperate, faltering breaths.

As soon as I cleared the rubble, my view opened up, revealing the gruesome aftermath of the firefight.

It was over.

Most of them were dead. The two cops were certainly gone. Jaeyeon lay facedown and motionless, but he was obviously playing dead.

The Mafia had fared much the same. Joints twisted in impossible directions, brains leaking from shattered skulls. Mick's eyes stared into space, not quite closed.

"It's all over, sir."

"So it seems."

Riccardo walked over slowly and remarked, "Nice and quiet now..."

I agreed in silence, looking at the bodies strewn across the corridor.

Mick caught my eye. His strange posture puzzled me. He seemed to have met his end while pulling something out of his inner pocket. There was something round and black in his left hand.

What was that?

I stepped over the bodies and bent down.

At the same time, someone abruptly sat up amid the pile of corpses.

"Ah," he murmured nonchalantly. "Good thing I wore a bulletproof vest."

What a shameless act.

Jaeyeon raked a hand through his blood-matted hair and looked up. Holding the remote, I slowly straightened and gave him a sour look.

His blue police uniform was torn, his cap lying upside down in a pool of blood.

He grinned at me.

"We meet again."

He strode toward me.

"It was a long trip getting here. I have a present for you."

I didn't answer.

I simply watched his approach with the same sour expression. Jaeyeon stepped on a corpse's split skull, squeezing out its brains, then trod on a twisted joint, forcing it wider as he closed the distance.

He stopped in front of me and smiled.

"Ta-da."

I readily accepted the ziplock bag he took from his inner pocket.

It was transparent and about the size of a napkin. Inside were syringes filled with pink liquid.

"The antidote. Enough for five people, so give some to Achille too."

"Is this really the antidote?"

I turned and showed Riccardo the bag.

My green-eyed senior was standing there, silently watching everything unfold.

He looked at the bag I held up and nodded, his expression utterly unreadable.

I had no idea what he was thinking, but at least he had confirmed that this was indeed the antidote. That was enough.

"Thank you."

I put the bag in my pocket.

Then I released the death mask I'd been holding all this time.

I also made sure to pull the remote from my pocket and press its button.

[Warning. All cages will open in 10 seconds.]

Time to run!

I spun around and sprinted toward my senior.

[Warning. All cages will open in 10 seconds.]

"You fuck..."

Jaeyeon swore.

I kept running. I scooped Riccardo up and raced toward the elevator, ignoring his incredulous protest. The AI counted down in a clear, ringing voice. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six...

[5]

"You..."

Hanging over my shoulder, my senior clicked his tongue.

"How did you do that?"

"The remote!"

[4]

I kept running straight ahead as I shouted, "I opened them with Mick's remote!"

Three, two. I reached the elevator. As the AI said one, I hit the down button, and the closed doors slowly opened.

I squeezed through the narrow gap.

The countdown ended the instant I stepped inside.

[0. Opening all cages.]

CLANK!

The cage doors rose.

I carefully set down the senior I'd so unceremoniously hoisted up. Then I watched the horde of creatures pour out of the cages.

Some crawled slowly; others shot out like bullets.

And there was Jaeyeon, watching me with an incredulous laugh.

He didn't even turn toward the creatures charging at him.

"You crazy bastard..." he muttered.

The elevator doors began closing. Creatures rapidly flooded the corridor on Level A. Yet within my narrowing view, that foxlike figure remained motionless.

Even as the swarming creatures engulfed him, he kept both hands shoved into the pockets of his blue police uniform.

THUD.

The elevator doors closed heavily.

We made it safely down to the first floor.

* * *

We got out of the collapsed tower safely, and Riccardo regained his physical abilities.

It looked as though everything would work out smoothly now.

If only we hadn't started arguing in the elevator.

"I'll be right back. Haven't I handled everything well so far?"

"Where does a half-wit who was vomiting blood get the confidence to run his mouth like that?"

The argument continued even after we got off on the first floor and ran toward the stairs that supposedly led to the arena.

I didn't want to let my senior go up there, and he had no intention of letting me go up either.

Conceding that some of his points were valid, I suggested that he only come as far as the floors that hadn't collapsed. He refused even that.

In the end, I was the one who gave in.

Because Riccardo snapped coldly, "Who outranks whom here?"

A new recruit who hadn't even known the promotion exam existed, and a war hero.

I bowed my head and submitted to authority.

"I'm sorry. I'll follow your orders."

"Good..."

"Just let me come with you."

I knew how overpowering PTSD could be, and I was desperate.

"If I get in your way up there, I'll come straight back down without another word."

After a brief silence, Riccardo nodded.