Chapter 128 - Be on Time! (3)

“I'll report this to the police.”

Ska was the first to recover his composure.

Yehyeon nodded, unable to tear his eyes from the video playing before him—the video of Hilde writhing under electric shocks.

“The elders already know, don't they?”

Gilbert, his face equally pale, took out his work phone.

The commander-in-chief nodded again. But he did not stop Gilbert from contacting the elders to make sure.

Pale-faced, he kept staring at the video for a long time, until Ska and Gilbert finished their calls and turned back to him.

“It was really me they wanted to capture,” Yehyeon murmured to himself.

“But they couldn't manage that... When did they abduct Hilde?”

“The records show he was using the shooting range until six this evening.”

Gilbert studied his screen.

“I suspect they abducted him on his way home. I'll contact Yun.”

“Yes. Tell him to come to the office.”

Yun arrived soon afterward.

By then, Yehyeon had answered a call from the elders and was taking the initiative to call his father, who would be resting on his day off. The commander-in-chief quickly wrapped up the conversation in his native language and showed Yun the video.

Yun watched in silence. As soon as the video ended, he spoke.

“It looks like he was abducted after finishing everything on his schedule, but those people won't have done it alone.”

With an effort, Yehyeon tore his eyes from the video he had been playing on repeat.

Ska and Gilbert also stared at the new recruit's training officer. Yun coolly met the profound worry and guilt in the senior leadership's eyes.

“There's no way he wouldn't have noticed a stranger approaching with that much malice.”

“I agree. But that isn't what matters right now.”

Yehyeon's voice was heavy with worry.

“Let's find him quickly.”

“They won't be able to kill him.”

“I know. But he's suffering.”

The commander-in-chief ran a pale hand over his face.

“He's in pain. So...”

He fell silent for a moment before continuing.

“He really is the last person who should have to go through something like this...”

Everyone in the office understood Yehyeon's quiet murmur.

The same guilt in his eyes showed in Ska's and Gilbert's. They knew perfectly well that they themselves were this group's real targets.

Those people must have wanted to capture and kill the three of them. They could guess which group it was: the most radical of the organizations opposed to the Badgers' existence. Just when one attack began to fade from memory, they would launch another. It was the senior leadership they truly wanted.

But they had taken the new recruit instead.

He was not as young as people thought, but he was undoubtedly a new recruit. Hilde could not yet go on missions alone, had never taken the mandatory periodic fitness tests, and had no authorization to use Green Dream at his own discretion.

In short, he was a complete rookie.

Had Hilde been young or sensitive, this incident might have made him give up life as a Badger.

But Yun was not worried about that.

“The biggest problem is that his exam is tomorrow.”

Yehyeon lifted his face from his hands.

The aides' eyes widened as well.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Yun nodded at Gilbert's question.

“It starts at nine thirty tomorrow.”

“What kind of timing is that?” Ska exclaimed in dismay.

“If he doesn't get there before the exam starts, doesn't he fail?”

“That's right. And that rule has never been broken.”

“Though we've never had exceptional circumstances like these.”

Yehyeon muttered, his eyes hollow.

“We'd better rescue him as quickly as possible.”

“They'll have the helicopters and shooting equipment and everything set up already, won't they?”

“Yes. The exam schedule can't be changed.”

“That man has rotten luck,” Gilbert murmured, equally aghast.

“For this to happen the day before his promotion exam, of all days...”

“Call Walker or Achille, whichever of them is free.”

Yehyeon's clear voice cut through the conversation.

The men's heads turned toward their superior, who was looking down at his phone with a faint crease between his brows.

A chill hung over the office.

The commander-in-chief rose and gave a terse instruction.

“I'll contact my acquaintances in the police and intelligence service.”

He went farther inside to make his calls.

The others followed Yehyeon's orders without protest.

* * *

I was hungry.

I had been abducted on my way to buy dinner, so I was unbearably hungry. Lying on the cold floor, I watched the kidnappers bustling about with a sullen gaze.

It looked as though they were heating something.

Burns next, then? I blinked at the thought, unimpressed.

My stomach growled loudly.

“I'm hungry.”

When my guards stared at my stomach, I asked them without a trace of shame,

“Got any dinner?”

THUD!

I was kicked in the stomach.

Unfortunately, it didn't hurt much... Part of that was because my attacker was a civilian, but the guy was simply bad at kicking.

I heaved a deep sigh.

“You could at least give me a last supper.”

“Shut your mouth,” the masked man whispered through gritted teeth.

The person beside him chimed in with, “Yeah, shut your mouth.”

Then suddenly started getting worked up.

“I said shut up!”

Punches.

I stared ahead, bored, as the punches landed. While the agitated guards rained futile blows on me, I watched what the twins were doing. They seemed to be heating something that sizzled.

They were clearly planning to burn me with it.

Part of me hoped they would apply it somewhere not too vital. At the same time, part of me thought they needed to burn somewhere vital so Colton would intervene sooner.

Had they actually sent Yehyeon the footage of me, though?

I pondered that as I watched the red-hot object. It was still dark and cold around me. Until close to midnight, they subjected me to all sorts of violence. It hurt, but it was bearable.

That seemed to get on their nerves.

Oh, and repeatedly asking the same questions seemed to irritate them even more.

Because even while trembling from the aftereffects of the electric shocks, I doggedly kept asking,

“How did you abduct me?”

I refused to give in, even when they put on rubber gloves and pressed the stun device against me over and over.

“Who did you recruit?”

CRACKLE!

After several rounds of that, they eventually threw the stun device aside.

Now they were preparing something new. These bastards were completely out of their minds. I understood perfectly well why they opposed an organization of ageless immortals, but why did that mean they had to put so much effort into killing me?

Well, they wouldn't listen to reason anyway.

The day was drawing to an end.

“Hildebert.”

Just after midnight, the male twin turned toward me.

I sighed at the long branding iron in his hand.

A big one, too.

The glowing iron drew closer.

“I'll put our mark on you.”

“Wow.”

The sheer excess of madness was almost suffocating.

I looked over the design on the red-hot metal branding iron.

There was writing beneath a circle.

It wasn't hard to make out what it said.

'Lab Rat.'

“Why am I a lab rat?”

“Do you know who the first people to receive enhanced-body transplants were?”

The female twin approached, her heels clicking.

I looked up at her as she elegantly tucked a loose curl behind her ear.

Searching my memory, I told a half-truth.

“No.”

“Death-row inmates.”

Her low voice rang through the now-quiet room.

“They experimented on death-row inmates first. Then, once the experiments produced results, the people behind them began having enhanced bodies transplanted into themselves, one by one.”

“Amazing. And how did you find all this out?”

It didn't sound entirely wrong, though.

That probably had happened. Of course, Eve wouldn't have known. She had an innocence about her that was enough to earn Kyle's scorn. But she wasn't the only person who had met us after we came through the portal. And I had never expected the world to work in beautiful ways.

They must have used the results of Eve's experiments to conduct human experimentation on death-row inmates.

The woman's words made sense.

But there was a good chance their baseless speculation had merely stumbled onto the truth.

“Because we dug relentlessly into the past, and at last we came face-to-face with the truth.”

Oh, did you now.

“You may not know this, but there are powerful people in this world who have enhanced bodies even though they aren't Badgers.”

I know. And soon you'll meet the one at the very top.

“We intend to tear this rotten society down. We're sorry that you'll have to be sacrificed in the process.”

“What's the point of being sorry after you've already done it?”

“We'll give you a beautiful death.”

“Saying that while holding a branding iron...”

And you're still filming, too.

I sighed as the heat grew more intense.

The male twin knelt on one knee in front of me. Feeling my clothes rustle and burn, I whispered,

“At least put it somewhere it won't show.”

The kidnappers pinned down my limbs and rolled up my shirt.

Heat engulfed my body.

HISSS!

A strangled sound escaped me.

I twisted in agony, throwing off the civilians holding me down. They fell backward with screams.

Vicious curses battered my ears.

But I had no attention to spare for them.

Ah...

It hurt so much. The pain was enough to make me completely forget, for a moment, that my exam was tomorrow. I writhed in agony, rubbing my skin against the cold floor.

It hurts.

When the hell is that bastard coming...?

“That came out beautifully.”

The woman peered at my abdomen and smiled in satisfaction.

“From now on, all of you will fear this mark.”

I couldn't make a sound.

My heightened senses were keenly attuned to pain, too. Sharpened senses had many advantages, but there were drawbacks as well. Far more sensitive than most humans', mine registered the sound of a kidnapper heating another iron, the air shimmering with heat, and the pain battering my entire body.

As I panted and tried to pull myself together, the man knelt beside my head.

A different branding iron glowed above me.

“Your clothes will hide the one there.”

Smiling, the man brushed the white hair off my forehead.

“It would be a shame if people couldn't see it.”

“Let this madness end with me,” I mumbled, my voice choked with pain.

I was almost profoundly relieved that I was the first Badger they had captured. I had thought they would just fire a few bullets into me. But these people were unhinged beyond all control.

“No. I'll have to make sure it ends with me.”

I had been planning to ask Colton to spare the ones whose crimes seemed less severe.

Watching the branding iron approach, I threw that idea away.

HISS!

My body twisted.

I arched my back in agony, then curled in on myself. The pain in my abdomen had not even subsided when the pain in my forehead overwhelmed me too. I thought I would lose my mind.

Ah.

Thank goodness they abducted me, someone Green Dream doesn't work on.

Even through the agony, I felt relieved.

Thank goodness it wasn't Tom or Heshy. That it wasn't Shu. They would never have made it out of here alive. If things had gone wrong and these people had abducted Tom or Heshy—if my fellow recruits had died like this—I might have quit the Badgers and hunted them down.

The overwhelming pain sent stomach acid surging up my throat.

I retched and vomited.

“The video came out great, too!”

The woman's voice mingled with the pain-induced ringing in my ears.

“Let's send this one as well!”

Crazy bastards.

And stupid ones. If they kept sending videos like that, their location would be exposed.

But the elders would track them down whether they sent them or not, so perhaps it didn't matter. As I thought that, clutching my face with my bound hands, my consciousness began to fade.

I should get some sleep.

Judging by the situation, Colton would definitely arrive before three in the morning.

I needed to close my eyes and rest for a bit.

My vision blurred, and a buzzing filled my ears.

A dull pain spread through my entire body, and the smell of burning flesh stung my nose.

Amid those sensations, I slowly drifted off to sleep, trusting and waiting for the wretched friend I hated.

* * *

The senior leadership received word from the elders.

Yekaterina's people were the first to contact them.

[Location confirmed.]

They had barely read the message and breathed a sigh of relief when Eric contacted them.

[Ah. What a fascinating man! I'm practically trembling all over. I'll go and fetch him at once.]

And last came a message from Colton, who must have been the first to pinpoint the location but would have been watching the other elders' movements.

Surprisingly, it came from his personal number.

[I'll have him transported directly to the exam site.]

The senior leadership and Yun were now certain that Hilde would attend his exam.

With Colton's assurance, the situation was effectively resolved. They no longer even needed the help of the police officers and intelligence agents who had flooded the streets at Yehyeon's request. The unusual white-haired rookie would now arrive at the exam site before nine thirty, no matter what happened.

They breathed sighs of relief and sat down.

Until Mitchell came running in, crying.

“Commander.”

Her voice shook as she addressed him while he rose from his chair.

“A second email— They sent another email—”

The second video left the senior leadership speechless.

Yehyeon buried his face in one hand and did not lift it for a long time. Ska, too, bowed his head and remained motionless. Gilbert went deathly pale, unable to take his eyes off the video.

Only Yun watched with cold eyes.

Then, after scrutinizing every pixel of the footage, he broke the silence.

“If those old bastards leave a share for us...”

His voice was even colder than usual.

“I'll take what's left.”

Normally, even as a joke, those words would have made Yehyeon recoil in horror and smack him over the head.

Ska and Gilbert would have clicked their tongues in warning. This time, no one reacted.

Instead, after a long while, Yehyeon answered in a thick voice.

“Yes.”

His voice carried a thin layer of rage.

“Do that.”