Chapter 117:
“He could escape by levitating with his telekinesis, but he’s not, which means his overload level must be pretty high.”
Using abilities while injured accelerated the overload.
That’s probably why he wasn’t using his ability. Overloading would only lead to death anyway.
“N-No, no!”
The man thrashed as Seo Jae-yi grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
“Excuse me, it’s two in the morning. Do you know what time it is? Let’s keep it down.”
Seo Jae-yi clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him back to the shop. He struggled wildly, but with his limbs broken, he couldn’t escape her grasp.
“Huh?”
The other intruders who had been piled up in the shop were gone. Seo Jae-yi headed towards the greenhouse, where she sensed commotion.
“Baek Joo-won? Logi?”
The intruders were kneeling in a row in the greenhouse, bound tightly by thin streams of water. A small dragon stood before them, glaring fiercely.
They were all neatly lined up for interrogation. Dragons were the best.
“These damned humans! They messed up my beautifully organized shop!”
Every time Airok roared, jets of water sprayed the intruders.
It was entirely thanks to Airok that Seo Jae-yi’s messy shop had been tidied up, so he had every right to be angry.
“Alright, kids, let’s have a confession time. Why did you come to this innocent flower shop in the middle of the night and trash it?”
After forcing the telekinetic Esper to kneel, Seo Jae-yi sat in front of the intruders. Airok flapped his tail and wings menacingly, urging them to answer quickly.
“This is insane. Why is there a dragon in a place like this…?”
The Wind Esper lamented.
Not only was there Korea’s strongest S-rank Esper, but there was also a rare dragon monster. Though small, it possessed immense power, capable of binding them all with thin streams of water.
“Just kill me.”
Realizing escape and attack were impossible, the man declared. The others wore expressions of resignation.
Seeing their determination not to speak, Airok scoffed.
“Everyone has a plan, until they get beaten by Master.”
She didn’t know where he learned that saying, but it was certainly true.
Seo Jae-yi nodded and stood up. Fear flickered in the intruders’ eyes.
“I’m a just Esper, but I’m not just to thieves. So don’t expect me to nicely call the police and hand you over. I’m not a fan of law enforcement.”
These guys might have been hired by the government. Handing them over to the police? That would be like entrusting a cat with a fish.
“Wait.”
Baek Joo-won interrupted.
“I’ve had a sense of déjà vu, and now I know why.”
He must have been pondering the reason for their unusual silence.
“Why?”
“These guys smell like Park Jeong-su. The same scent I smelled at his house.”
Seo Jae-yi’s face hardened.
Even when attacked and her precious shop was destroyed, she had reacted with a smile and anger. But now, with her smile gone, an overwhelming pressure emanated from her.
The intruders, facing the full force of an S-rank Esper’s wrath, choked back their breaths in agony.
Baek Joo-won slowly approached them, stopping in front of the Wind Esper.
“This one smells the strongest.”
So, as she suspected from his speech, this one was the leader.
“Are you sure it’s Park Jeong-su’s scent?”
“I’m sure. But it seems like they haven’t met him directly. The scent is too faint.”
When it came to senses, the dungeon master surpassed even an S-rank Esper, so Seo Jae-yi didn’t doubt his words.
She was glad to have found leverage.
“I have a lot of questions for you. You have seven mouths, so there’s no need to hold back. Speak whenever you want. Even a whisper, I can hear it. Understand?”
Seo Jae-yi’s hand slowly reached towards them.
Unlike her usual cheerful demeanor, her expressionless face was cold and ruthless. The intruders, who had been slightly relieved by her gentle appearance, paled.
It didn’t take long for them to experience the infamous Firestarter’s wrath.
“Hmm. Should I call this expected or unexpected?”
The interrogation was over.
The others, besides the leader, the Wind Esper, knew almost nothing, so fortunately, she didn’t have to thoroughly interrogate all seven.
“Unregistered Espers.”
She hadn’t noticed because of their heavy gear, but during the interrogation, she saw that none of them were wearing the mandatory receivers for Awakened individuals.
An unregistered Esper mercenary group operating underground.
With mandatory registration and strict dungeon management by the Esper Association and Guilds, Korea wasn’t a favorable environment for unregistered Awakened individuals.
Since the number of unregistered individuals was significantly lower compared to other countries, she hadn’t expected these guys to be unregistered.
Apparently, they mainly operated overseas.
‘Well, they are the perfect pawns.’
Difficult to track because they weren’t registered, and if things went wrong and they were caught, it could be dismissed as a simple crime committed by unregistered individuals. How convenient.
“This is quite troublesome.”
Airok, who had assisted with the interrogation, sighed.
“There’s no physical evidence. Are we just supposed to let this go?”
The target of the unregistered mercenary group was Baek Joo-won. The client’s request was to capture him alive, or if that proved too difficult, to at least extract his blood.
And the client was ‘suspected’ to be Park Jeong-su.
The request was made through a phone call, and the voice was described as deep and gloomy. The mercenary leader, tears, snot, and blood streaming down his face, confessed that they had received the down payment in cash, left in a subway locker, to avoid any traceable transactions.
The scent of Park Jeong-su that Baek Joo-won had detected must have been on the cash.
‘The problem is we can’t reveal this publicly.’
They couldn’t exactly say that Baek Joo-won, known to the public as an ordinary S-rank Guide, had sniffed out “a specific person’s scent” like a police dog.
“But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do.”
Seo Jae-yi turned towards the door connecting the greenhouse to the flower shop. At that moment, someone burst through.
“Seo Jae-yi! What’s going on here?!”
His white hair was disheveled, and he wasn’t wearing his usual eyepatch. He had clearly rushed over from his sleep.
“Guild Leader, your eyepatch.”
“Is that important right now?”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, revealing the scar over his left eye.
Kim Yoo-sung had lost his parents and become an orphan on the day he received that scar. He usually avoided showing it, but now, even with Baek Joo-won present, he didn’t seem to care. He must have been truly shocked.
“Were you really attacked?”
Kim Yoo-sung’s eyes widened at the sight of the half-beaten figure in front of Seo Jae-yi, covered in tears, snot, and blood.
After the attempted robbery a while ago, Seo Jae-yi had taken precautions. If someone forced open the shop door, both she and Kim Yoo-sung would be notified immediately.
“Yes.”
Seo Jae-yi relayed the information she had gathered during the interrogation. Kim Yoo-sung’s face flushed with anger.
“The problem is we don’t have concrete evidence that Park Jeong-su is involved, so we can’t expose him publicly.”
She didn’t mention Baek Joo-won smelling Park Jeong-su, but the circumstances were suspicious enough that Kim Yoo-sung nodded without question.
“So, I have a good idea.”
Everyone’s attention turned to Seo Jae-yi.
A “good idea” from Seo Jae-yi? That usually meant she was planning to cause trouble, so Kim Yoo-sung looked apprehensive.
“Seo Jae-yi, is this really a ‘good idea’?”
“Of course! Have you been living under a rock?!”
Seo Jae-yi had never deliberately deceived anyone. It was just that her standards were different from others.
“Just listen.”
Seeing Kim Yoo-sung’s continued suspicion, Seo Jae-yi began to explain her plan.
Early morning.
As soon as Jang Woo-seok got into his car for work, he received an unpleasant report from his secretary.
“It seems they failed to secure the target.”
“Tsk. As expected, those incompetent fools are unreliable.”
“But there’s a problem. We’ve lost contact with the mercenary group we hired.”
“What?”
Jang Woo-seok’s face contorted in a grimace.
“Lost contact? They wouldn’t have run off with just the down payment. Don’t tell me they were all captured?”
“Considering the state of the flower shop Seo Jae-yi runs, that’s highly likely.”
Damn it! Jang Woo-seok cursed.
A few days ago, he had hired an unregistered mercenary group operating overseas.
Kidnap Baek Joo-won. If that wasn’t possible, extract a sufficient amount of his blood. Avoid being seen. Eliminate any witnesses.
It should have been an easy task for Espers who made a living as mercenaries.
Even if Baek Joo-won was physically fit, he was just a Guide. He wouldn’t stand a chance against seasoned Esper mercenaries.
Even if things went wrong, he thought they could at least manage to extract some blood.
However, he had added one condition to the request: don’t engage if a short woman with short hair was present.
He had only told them she was a fairly skilled Esper, not an S-rank, because they would never accept the job if they knew she was an S-rank. It seemed those useless fools had acted rashly.
“There’s no news of Seo Jae-yi attacking us, right?”
“No, sir.”
Jang Woo-seok nodded at his secretary’s reply. That meant Seo Jae-yi was unaware that he was behind this incident.
Knowing her personality, she wouldn’t stay quiet if she knew the truth.
‘Besides, I took out insurance just in case.’
The reason Jang Woo-seok had made such a dangerous request was because of Park Jeong-su.
Just as he was considering cutting ties with Baek Joo-won, Park Jeong-su had appeared as if reading his mind and made him an offer.
‘Wouldn’t the Prime Minister be curious about what would happen if a Guide’s factor was transplanted into another Guide? What if a D-rank Guide received the factor of an S-rank Guide and their rank jumped?’
A gloomy face, but with a strange glint in his eyes.
‘If this succeeds, the Prime Minister will have made a truly remarkable discovery. You won’t have to worry about Director Kwon Yi-soo anymore. I’ll share the results of this research exclusively with the Prime Minister.’
Like the serpents of myth, he had a silver tongue.
But even knowing that, Jang Woo-seok couldn’t refuse the offer.
It wasn’t that dangerous, was it? He only needed a small amount of blood for the experiment; there was no need to kill Baek Joo-won.
So, he joined forces with Park Jeong-su and hired the unregistered Awakened mercenaries.
However, he had taken precautions in case things went south.
He used a voice modulator to make the request sound like Park Jeong-su. The person who delivered the money to the subway locker was also someone of similar build to Park Jeong-su, wearing his clothes.
So, even if the mercenaries were caught, they wouldn’t know he was the one behind it all.
“P-Prime Minister.”
His secretary’s trembling voice called out to him. His face was pale.
“We just received news. Haeil Guild is holding an official press conference at their headquarters.”