Running through Pacifica’s dark underground passage, Ji-hwan quickly cut through the ruins of the sealed-off zone swallowed by darkness.
He glared at the people chasing him to the bitter end, irritation boiling over.
"Persistent bastards..."
Then something snagged Ji-hwan’s senses as he moved.
Wheeeeng-.
A barely audible motor whine. An old CCTV lens hanging high on the wall in the dark slowly rotated, tracking his path.
Ji-hwan didn’t turn his head. He only rolled his eyes slightly and caught the lens that was tailing him out of the corner of his vision.
According to the map data Mr. Hands had given him, this was supposed to be a sealed-off area that had lost power long ago.
But nearby, it bordered the Voodoo Boys’ main turf.
'...Placide. That bastard would absolutely betray me.'
He was now a wanted man, and the deal involving the netrunner Marcus was already over.
From the Voodoo Boys’ point of view, he was nothing but dead weight with no use left. Ji-hwan analyzed the situation and muttered to himself as he kept moving along the escape route Mr. Hands had pointed him toward.
"I need to prepare for the worst."
As Ji-hwan picked up speed and followed the retreating path, the CCTV lens kept turning with a faint mechanical whir, stubborn as a leech.
And beyond that lens, through the monitor it was linked to...
Placide, the Voodoo Boys’ number two, was watching Ji-hwan’s fleeing silhouette.
"Can you move the agents to where that bastard is?"
At Placide’s low, rough question, the underling standing behind him studied the map on the monitor and thought for a moment before answering.
"There’s a manually operated gate on the route he’s taking. If we just get there and close it, he’ll be a rat in a trap."
A thin smile spread across Placide’s mouth at that answer.
"I’ll go myself."
Having made up his mind, he jerked his chin at the men lined up behind him.
"The rest of you follow me. Leave a few here to hold this place."
Clack, click-.
The moment the rough order dropped, the Voodoo Boys members grabbed their personal weapons.
Soon, following Placide as he stepped out, the gang members preparing for the hunt began slipping into the darkness of the Maglev tunnel.
And behind Ji-hwan, who was cutting through the debris of the dark tunnel, searchlights suddenly poured down.
"There he is! It’s him!!"
"HQ, we found the target!!"
The instant Ji-hwan’s silhouette was exposed in the beam, the harsh shouts of the pursuing corpo agents and bounty hunters echoed through the tunnel.
Then, with the muzzle flashes ripping through the darkness behind him, Ji-hwan exploded into motion toward the only exit marked in the map data.
Tatatatang!
A hail of bullets rained down like a storm. A few rounds that he failed to dodge in time slammed into Ji-hwan’s broad back.
But the thick back muscles compressed beyond their limits crushed the bullets like armor, and the rounds that had barely bitten into his skin quickly lost force and dropped to the floor with soft taps.
'I have to hurry.'
Realizing he was out of time, Ji-hwan brutally drove his body-enhanced legs toward the blue dot on the map.
Then, as he faced the exit the data had indicated, his stride jolted violently and came to a stop.
A massive manually operated steel gate, shut tight.
Ji-hwan stared at the overwhelming wall of steel blocking his way and checked the map again, but the data made it clear this was the only exit.
'No way Mr. Hands...?'
The suspicion flashed through him, but Ji-hwan immediately shook it off.
To that fixer, he was too valuable a card to throw away this quickly.
Then there was only one variable left.
The old CCTV lens that had been doggedly tracking him a moment ago flashed through Ji-hwan’s mind.
'Placide... this bastard?'
Hoo-.
Ji-hwan let out a long breath of seething heat, then slowly lifted his head toward the camera lens hanging above the tightly shut gate.
"Placide."
He tilted his chin up at the faintly rotating red lens above the sealed gate.
"You rotten bastard. You watching this clearly?"
Ji-hwan’s cold voice demanded an answer.
Screeech-.
Then a rough sound spilled from the speaker mounted beside the old camera.
[So you noticed? Smarter than you look.]
Across the network, Placide snorted as he watched the monitor.
The manually operated steel gate blocking Ji-hwan’s path was thick enough that even a heavy armored vehicle ramming it head-on wouldn’t leave a scratch.
It wasn’t something a man with no chrome could break with his bare hands.
At the mockery echoing through the speaker, Ji-hwan swallowed his rising anger and asked in a low voice.
"Did Maman Brigitte know about this little stunt?"
[Do not speak of her... do not speak of her so casually, Ranyon.]
The moment Placide’s voice turned sharp with hostile disgust, Ji-hwan knew for certain this was his own decision.
"So this betrayal was all your idea."
Ji-hwan exhaled sharply and delivered his verdict.
"Last chance. Open it now."
[You look pathetic, thrashing around like that. How exactly do you plan to open that thick steel gate with your bare hands? That’s your grave.]
Placide let out a thin, ugly laugh as he checked the movement of the mercs and agents pouring in from both ends of the tunnel on another monitor.
Tatatatak-!
The instant Placide’s taunt ended, heavy bootsteps thundered behind Ji-hwan, shaking the tunnel.
"Found him! It’s a dead end!"
Corpo agents and mercs had finally reached Ji-hwan’s back.
Dozens of gun barrels swung toward him at once, and the sharp beams of searchlights tore through the darkness, flooding his back.
But Ji-hwan didn’t turn around, even with the pack of hunting dogs closing in behind him.
He simply stared at the massive steel gate in front of him.
Ssssshhhk-.
Over Ji-hwan’s wet shirt, now strangely calm, red heat haze began pouring out violently.
Ji-hwan compressed his muscle fibers to their limit, clenched his vein-popping fist, and swung at the giant steel barrier before him.
***
The corpo agents and bounty hunters closing in from behind didn’t pull the trigger right away.
The back of the man standing motionless before the dead-end gate. They mistook it for surrender, for giving up. With their guns trained on him, they advanced slowly.
"Don’t move. If you try anything stupid..."
But the arrogant warning never finished.
Ssssshhhk-.
The man before the gate. The red, steam-like haze pouring from his entire body was suddenly sucked violently into a single clenched right fist, compressing into something abnormal.
The mercs and agents instinctively realized something was terribly wrong, and their faces stiffened.
"Stop him!"
"What are you doing, shoot him!!"
With panicked screams, they all raised their guns, but in that instant Ji-hwan’s fist, packed with red energy, smashed into the steel gate.
Kwaang!!!
A deafening blast of force that tore at the eardrums.
The thick steel door, the kind that wouldn’t even scratch under a heavy armored vehicle, caved in hideously from the center where the fist landed, crumpling like paper.
Then the explosive impact burst outward, and the entire massive gate was ripped free and hurled into the tunnel like a shell.
"...?!"
The enemy eyes that had witnessed this impossible force head-on widened in shock.
But Ji-hwan ignored the stunned reaction behind him. He tore through the dust cloud left by the shattered gate and threw himself straight into the newly opened passage without hesitation.
"Don’t let him get away! He’s running!!"
The stunned hunting dogs finally came to their senses and shouted furiously.
They rushed after Ji-hwan, pouring through the torn-open gate in a frantic scramble.
Dust and grit rose from beyond the broken steel door.
Placide’s mouth hung open stupidly at the sight of the steel wall that even a heavy armored vehicle couldn’t breach being blown clear off its hinges.
Tap, tap.
Ji-hwan walked out through the thick dust. Dark red blood dripped from the right hand that had just launched the gate, but he was grinning, a vicious smile on his face.
Placide’s face stiffened at the sight, and the man who had never imagined Ji-hwan was this strong broke into a cold sweat and hurriedly tried to raise his gun.
Tatatatak-!
But the moment Ji-hwan threw himself into the passage, the corpo agents and mercs chasing him from behind flooded in after him.
What they saw, however, were Placide and the Voodoo Boys’ armed men in the outer chamber of the tunnel, guns trained on them.
"It’s a trap!"
"Kill them all!!"
Shouts tangled with misunderstanding and rage. The fierce flashes from the hunting dogs’ muzzles lit the narrow tunnel like daylight.
Tatatatatang-!!Kwaang-!
Sudden volleys of heavy armor-piercing rounds and grenades poured in.
The Voodoo Boys members who had prepared a light ambush aimed only at Ji-hwan had no time to react before they began collapsing in sprays of blood.
The firepower was on a completely different level from the armed corpo strike team. The Voodoo Boys’ poorly equipped gang members were pushed back helplessly, screams erupting all around them.
"Aaaagh!"
"Shit!"
"What the hell...! Take cover!!"
Placide shouted frantically, but under the storm of fire, several of his men had their heads blown apart and died in a flash of useless screams.
At the sight of that slaughter, Placide’s reason finally snapped.
"You motherfuckers-!!"
A roar shook the tunnel. Placide hauled up his massive frame and roughly yanked the huge heavy machine gun from his back.
Clack, tu-du-du-du-du-du-!!
His monstrous recoil control, fitting for his overwhelming size, came roaring to life, and a thick curtain of bullets that looked capable of shredding the entire tunnel poured forward.
Placide’s heavy machine gun crushed the corpo agents’ armor plates and pinned down the mercs trying to advance.
Ji-hwan stood in the middle of the storm of bullets.
But instead of fleeing, he made a stunning move under everyone’s eyes.
He slowly turned his body and exposed his back, defenseless, to Placide and the Voodoo Boys’ forces aiming at him.
It was such a blatant move, as if he were teaming up with them to deal with the corpo hunting dogs blocking the way.
"Th-that bastard...!"
Placide was thrown off by the deliberate act.
Before Placide could even process the situation and stop him, Ji-hwan kicked off the ground and violently plunged into the corpo agents’ formation.
Tatatatang-!
Ji-hwan slipped past the blind bullets flying from behind, then used that momentum to start slaughtering the agents and mercs in front of him.
"Aaaagh!"
"You bastard!"
The screams of the torn-apart hunting dogs echoed through the tunnel, and it was only natural that the corpo agents sheltering behind broken walls in the chaos, gasping for breath, would see Ji-hwan tearing them apart under Voodoo Boys covering fire and mistake it for a pincer attack.
Then one of the corpo agents, likely the leader of the tracking team, pressed himself against the wall, poked out his bloodshot eyes, and shouted.
"You damn Voodoo Boys!! Were you in on that terrorist from the start?!"
In the filthy melee where no excuse would matter anymore, Placide realized they had walked straight into Ji-hwan’s trap instead.
And now that a full-scale fight had broken out with the corpo strike team, the only way to survive this narrow tunnel was to tear the source of it all apart with his own hands.
"You fucking...!!"
Placide spat out the curse through clenched teeth.
Then he rolled his bloodshot eyes and began scanning the chaotic battlefield for Ji-hwan, ready to put a bullet in his back at once.
Everywhere he looked, there were only corpo agents and his own men pouring fire into each other. The one person who needed to be torn apart was nowhere to be seen.
"He’s gone?! You rotten bastard!!"
The instant Placide’s furious curse burst out...
Tatatatatang-!
"Aaaagh!"
"B-boss! At this rate...!"
"Aaagh!"
Under the heavy armor-piercing rounds the corpo dogs were pouring in, Voodoo Boys members’ bodies burst apart, and screams filled the tunnel.
"Fall back! Get out of here now!!"
Even as he urgently ordered the retreat, heat surged all the way to the top of Placide’s head.
The crushing humiliation of having been completely played from start to finish by Ji-hwan’s meticulous acting and provocation. Placide’s reason snapped completely, and he roared at the top of his lungs in the middle of the blood-soaked tunnel.
"K-! You son of a bitch!"
Placide’s rage-filled scream rang out as a hollow echo, stretching far through the dark underground tunnel.
And at the far end of the Maglev tunnel where that sound reached...
Ji-hwan, who had already escaped the chaos and was sprinting toward the exit Mr. Hands had told him about, faintly heard Placide’s furious echo in his ears.
Tap, tap-.
Ji-hwan, slicing through the darkness, slightly turned his head toward the commotion behind him.
A laugh slipped out at the sight of the people who had tried to kill him now tangled up and killing each other, and at last he escaped Pacifica.
"Heh."
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