Chapter 52
The door to the Rift Control Agency’s special task force, changgui specialized team leader’s office burst open with a bang! Baek Mujin strode inside, pushing past the aide who was flailing around trying to somehow stop the intruder.
“I’m sorry! Team Leader! I’ll somehow-“
“It’s fine. Please leave.”
His superior Woo Nayeong was calm enough not to even give him a glance, but the aide’s inner feelings seemed different. He shot Baek Mujin one glare with a quite humiliated expression, then closed the door and left.
Woo Nayeong let out a small sigh and closed the laptop she had been looking at. Emergency situations of the team in turmoil like a storm were being updated in real-time, but for now, having a conversation with the person who had barged into her office came first.
“You didn’t even blink an eye after seeing all the data about Guild Leader Baek Sangyeon’s condition, but you came running right away when you heard we caught a changgui that resembles Yoo Eunseong?”
Mujin glanced over Woo Nayeong’s desk once and asked.
“Did you capture it alive?”
At the point when changgui alerts and news bulletins went out simultaneously, Woo Nayeong was already in a throbbing headache situation.
While it was true that there was no manual for new types of monsters crossing into human society through ultra-small rifts, failing to get ahead of civilians was proof of incompetence with no room for excuses. Therefore, she needed Baek Mujin more desperately than ever.
“Want to go see?”
Woo Nayeong stood up from her seat and cracked her neck, which was tired.
“I thought you’d want to see it, Mujin, so I took special care to catch it without a single scratch.”
Mujin, standing expressionlessly, nodded his chin and turned his body. It meant to guide him. Woo Nayeong walked ahead, running simulations in her head about how to persuade Baek Mujin.
The appearance of a changgui resembling Yoo Eunseong, brazenly captured on civilian cameras, had several meanings. It wasn’t to make excuses for her team’s incompetence, but was a fact anyone watching this situation could understand.
The entity sending changgui here, namely the other world beyond the rifts, knew of Yoo Eunseong and Baek Mujin’s existence. Moreover, they had unhesitatingly shown their intention to quite blatantly target Baek Mujin. After all, it had appeared in Yoo Eunseong’s form, of all things. Did it mean they were confident in fighting?
Above all, they seemed to know for certain how to shake him.
“It seems like they’ve been spying on you for quite a while?”
Woo Nayeong spoke as they entered the deepest interior of the Rift Control Agency, the most heavily secured isolation zone.
It was something she brought up to try to open the conversation, but Mujin’s atmosphere was only menacing. In terms of abilities, Woo Nayeong was his polar opposite. She repeatedly clenched and unclenched her fists, consciously trying to relax.
The isolation chamber was a blindingly white space. The white substance painted on the floor, walls, and ceiling without a single scratch had properties opposite to rifts. Not only did it control monsters, but it also suppressed hunters’ abilities originating from the other world.
When the two entered, the changgui specialized team hunters bowed silently and made way. A metal shield slowly rose, revealing the interior of the space where the changgui was trapped before Mujin.
Beyond the reinforced glass, changgui ‘Yoo Eunseong’ was bound in the center of the isolation chamber.
Its limbs and torso were tied with pure white restraints, fixed to the ceiling, floor, and four walls. Its pale skin was so bloodlessly white it seemed to have melted into the space entirely. The changgui, which had been hanging motionlessly like a stuffed animal, flinched as soon as Mujin appeared beyond the glass wall, as if just awakened.
When it raised its deeply bowed head, brown hair swayed softly. The gently sparkling brown eyes and flushed lips were all the color remaining in this space. The changgui’s gaze, blinking round eyes while trembling its eyelashes, slowly moved toward Mujin.
“……”
BOOM! Suddenly an explosion sound burst out and flames rose inside the isolation chamber. Mujin had used his power to set fire to the changgui. Due to being bound in restraints, the changgui, which had no minimum defensive capability, crumbled in an instant.
“Hunter Baek Mujin!”
“What are you doing!”
The hunters nearby all jumped up at once, but they were powerless in the space where their abilities were suppressed. There were even some who watched Baek Mujin using his abilities in this place with stunned eyes.
“Baek Mujin, are you crazy?”
Woo Nayeong desperately tried to use her power to stop him, but even that was insufficient.
The flames Mujin raised while gritting his teeth burned the changgui’s body completely in an instant. The pure white skin and brown eyes became a handful of ash.
“Fuck, disgusting.”
BEEP- BEEP-!
Beyond the quietly muttered curse, fire alarms noisily shook the entire isolation chamber. Sprinklers burst from the ceiling, pouring cold water over Mujin’s head as well. White steam rose eerily from Mujin’s body, which had been like heated metal.
“You bastard! You came here planning to do this from the beginning, didn’t you? Crazy bastard! Even if you’re going to screw people over, there’s a limit! I trusted you and brought you in here, but if you pull this kind of shit, what does that make me!”
Woo Nayeong grabbed Baek Mujin by the collar. Her face, pale blue with rage, glistened wetly with water. But Mujin didn’t even give her a glance.
“Changgui, I’ll catch them all for you.”
His coldly sunken eyes seemed fixed only on the scattering ash from earlier.
“But I can’t capture them alive.”
A deep breath leaked through his teeth without a hint of a smile. It was as hot as the flames filling his insides.
* * *
“Hello, Hunter Baek Mujin. Please take care of me today as well.”
Mujin looked at the hunter Woo Nayeong had assigned to him with annoyed eyes.
Except for the sight of him rolling down in the garbage dump while chasing him before, he couldn’t even remember the guy’s name, but just because they moved together once, she paired them up like this was significant.
His gaze at the pistol and holster the man offered was not just cold but piercing.
“I don’t need it.”
“There were instructions to arm ourselves and disguise as military police since this is downtown.”
“Don’t you think armed military police would look the same to civilians?”
“Th, that’s true.”
The sight of him hesitating and putting Mujin’s share on his own body looked not just unreliable but foolish.
The changgui specialized team was divided and operated in a total of four groups. Each group was assigned the four-stage missions of surveillance, tracking, encirclement, and capture. However, ‘capture’ became impossible once Mujin joined.
A week after eliminating the first ‘Yoo Eunseong,’ changgui continued to appear in Yoo Eunseong’s form as expected.
Mujin had notified them that he would receive only information and move independently, but the answer that came back from Woo Nayeong was firm.
‘Who knows what your bastard ass will do?’
Certainly, setting fire to the Rift Control Agency was an impulsive action that would gain nothing.
“I’ll kill on sight as soon as confirmed. Only I make contact. You just write reports.”
“Ba, Baek Mujin Hunter!”
The hunter frantically chased after Mujin, who was running while adjusting his communicator.
While running through the forest of buildings with him trailing like a tail, Mujin recalled Eunseong’s face. More precisely, the way he looked while staring at the changgui on TV.
The changgui’s appearance contained within the square black frame was unrealistically beautiful, like a hung masterpiece.
Soft brown hair sparkled in the sunlight. The eyes, nose, and mouth on the smooth facial lines were familiar yet strange shapes. The smile was bright and innocent as if no bad things had ever happened, and the red lips were moist.
‘Hello.’
The moment the creature moved its lips toward the camera lens.
“Hello.”
Eunseong overlaid sound onto the screen. He seemed completely bewitched by something.
Goosebumps ran all over his body and an ominous feeling made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Unable to bear it, Mujin ran over and snatched the remote from Lee Haesu.
“That changgui, Mujin.”
The moment he roughly pressed the button to turn off the TV screen, Eunseong looked back at Mujin.
“That’s not me.”
The moment Eunseong said that, Mujin felt as if the ground beneath his feet was caving in. It was the moment when his dirty feelings took on precise contours and materialized.
“Yeah, we all know that’s not you, Eunseong-ssi. You’re right here in front of me.”
In Lee Haesu’s clumsy comfort, knowing nothing, Mujin approached Eunseong closely. He was busy examining his face to see if trauma had struck again, if he had grown pale, if his breathing was even… but Eunseong’s expression was only clear.
Then he moved his lips and stubbornly completed the sentence.
“It resembles Jaeseong, hyung. That thing.”
“……”
Mujin couldn’t answer hastily. It wasn’t that Eunseong’s words were wrong. There was a characteristic expression Jaeseong would make. When he smiled deeply enough to make his cheeks puff up round, a shallow dimple would form horizontally on just one side.
The changgui was definitely a monster modeled after Jaeseong, and the only ones in this world who could know that fact were Eunseong and Mujin.
“Right, Mujin?”
At the repeated question, Mujin reluctantly nodded.
At the same time, he had to accept it. The hypothesis that the target of the unknown enemy from the other world beyond the rifts might be Eunseong.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
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