Chapter 16 - You're a Bug, and I'm an Operator (6)
Dusk had already pushed the sun away, but the nights in Lake City were hotter and more spectacular than the days.
Pshaaaaaaaaa!
Imdiately after, the night sky poured a torrential downpour on the city that never sleeps. As if to cool the city's heat a little. The heavy, dark clouds and the sll of rain had been the harbingers of the squall.
A mont later, the thick smoke was washed away, revealing the horrific scene beyond. The rain hamred on the corpses, each missing a body part, as if they were musical instrunts.
Plink, plink.
The dead outnumbered the living by a factor of two.
It was to the point where you could say nearly everyone was dead.
The few remaining survivors were frozen in place like wooden statues. They too were being pelted by the raindrops along with their fallen comrades, and perhaps because of that, their faces grew pale and cold.
“Hah… hah......”
Fumito gasped for breath. As expected, he was also a ss. Having rampaged without a thought for defense, his body was riddled with bullet holes.
The smoke had now cleared and a silence had fallen, with the steady patter of the rain serving as background music.
They had entered a temporary lull. But it was a precarious situation, where the embers could reignite at any mont.
All eyes were on Lee Taebaek. As if that one man held the power of life and death over everyone.
Gulp–.
Lee Taebaek's gaze wasn't on the scene. His eyes were fixed on a point sowhere in the empty space between the moon and the clouds.
......
[Achieved 'Sudden Quest - Eliminate the Gangster Haiyen'.]
[You have acquired 14,460 EXP.]
[Taebaek's level has increased from 2 to 4.]
[Na: Lee Taebaek]
Level: 4(↑2)
Life: 14 Spirit: 17 Strength: 11
Agility: 12 Magic: 10 Faith: 13
His level had jumped two whole steps. All his single-digit stats had now crossed into the double digits!
That wasn't the end.
[Operator Lee Taebaek has successfully fixed the bug.]
[A 50% EXP Bonus Event has occurred.]
[It will be applied to the two lowest stats.]
Vitality coursed through every corner of Lee Taebaek's body, who had been too weak to even hold his umbrella and was just getting soaked by the rain. And that wasn't all.
[The 'Agility' stat increases from 12 to 18.]
[The 'Magic' stat increases from 10 to 15.]
[The Agility and Magic stats have surpassed 15.]
[Unique Skill 'Bullet Ti' has been unlocked.]
[Bullet Ti (Skill, Secret)]
Description: A speed booster-type skill. Induces neural acceleration, extrely increasing the caster's cognitive abilities for 6-8 seconds. While active, the surroundings will feel about 3 tis slower, but the caster, Lee Taebaek, can move at 0.6 tis his normal speed.
(※Movent speed multiplier increases in proportion to Agility.)
Restriction: However, during Bullet Ti, damage taken increases by 1.5 tis, and 'Faith' cannot be enhanced. Additionally, 'Spirit' becos vulnerable.
“......”
Bullet Ti.
A secret skill that Lee Taebaek and his team mbers had created as a joke. An Easter egg they had giggled about amongst themselves, calling it the most basic implant.
However, due to copyright issues, it was dummy data that had been made half-jokingly and then discarded. But why?
Lee Taebaek felt a chill, as if he had made eye contact with a ghost. Perhaps it really was a ghost. Just that the ghost's form wasn't a person, but a sentence made of listed characters.
'The reward for fixing a bug is another bug.'
It was absurd, but a smile naturally ford on his lips. Lee Taebaek was a gar by nature. The kind of hardcore gar who couldn't get enough of leveling up and would go crazy for rewards.
What's more, he was in the middle of savoring the joy of survival. Separate from any complaints about another bug occurring, the corners of his mouth were turned up high with the sheer fulfillnt of being alive.
Pshaaaaaaaaa.......
Raindrops clinging to his eyelashes ford a film of water, covering his retinas. Taebaek swept his bangs back.
The first thing he saw was Haiyen, dead in a kneeling position. A stream of blood, starting from the blade embedded in his temple, flowed past his split jaw and dripped to the ground.
He frowned, then retrieved his blade from the bastard's temple and the Python from the hole in his mouth.
He stood still, holding the gun and the sword in his hands. For a mont, he washed the greasy blood from them with the rainwater.
Swoosh.
Then, he glanced around with a sideways look. The surviving enemies shuffled backward, their eyes cloudy.
Haiyen was one of the top powerhouses in the underworld. Even if that strength was obtained by doping with Berserk. That was the consensus among all the Triad gang mbers and Lukaken employees.
'For a guy like that to die, it must be quite a shock.'
Lee Taebaek turned his sunken eyes and stared in a certain direction. He saw a lump of flesh stained with desire.
“Haiyen… for Haiyen to... die......”
Lukaken Junior's lips trembled. His already pale complexion was worse than that of the corpses.
He could vaguely guess the outline of the situation. In short, Lukaken Junior harbored an ambition that was beyond his ans.
At the very least, a position right under the gacorps. If he was greedy, the threshold to their level. If his head was really broken, he might have even been aiming to beco a mber of a gacorp himself.
'So Lukaken got Haiyen addicted to Berserk, and by making him his own sword, he dread of sothing beyond...'
Lukaken Junior must have gotten a glimpse of Haiyen's strength and potential through so incident. So he probably provided him with Berserk as part of a clinical trial.
'And while he was at it, he had him launder his dirty money, and after strengthening their relationship, he planned to use him as his personal blade.'
As his train of thought ended, a dry laugh escaped Lee Taebaek's lips. Because the whole thing was just that absurd.
You should keep your absurd dreams within reason. How lightly did that moron pig bastard think of the gacorps?
“That guy, calling him an idiot isn't enough.”
As Lee Taebaek muttered, the disastrous future of the Lukaken pharmaceutical company was painted in his mind's eye.
In any case, as of this mont, they were practically ruined anyway. Because he was going to die by his hands.
And my Python and blade are reasonably clean now.
It's ti to put an end to this.
Splash.
Lee Taebaek, having holstered his Python, took a step. Watery blood, mixed with the rain, splashed up to his ankles.
Splash.
Lee Taebaek knew it too. That in the eyes of others, both he and that pig had a foot in the lawless world. That from now on, he himself would commit nurous unlawful acts.
A person needs to have a core. Ah, he wasn't talking about so moral idealism.
He had no intention of playing the part of a childish hero in the first place.
It was that he would adhere to just one thing. That with his own hands, he would eliminate the things he had strictly forbidden as a developer—the bugs.
For so reason, the bugs that he himself had blocked were now running rampant. For instance, drugs, hu-X-an trafficking, and biological experints.
'Including Bullet Ti, which was dummy data.'
It seed sothing had gone wrong and twisted the flow of the world. But he still didn't know the cause or the full story.
Still, thanks to that, he had decided on a direction and a guideline.
Find and eliminate every last one of the seditious elents.
If you were to ask why, the answer is simple.
Because he infinitely loves this world.
'I will set it right.'
He would gladly accept that task.
I am a mber of Recons, and at the sa ti, I am an operator.
......
The downpour had reached its peak. Lukaken Junior gagged as if his airway was blocked.
“D-Don't co...!”
Lukaken squeezed out a sound like a pig being slaughtered. He even stretched out his hands, as if to grab the very air.
Seen between his fat fingers, the figure approaching with the tip of his sword lowered was just like the Grim Reaper. To the point where the enemies blocking the path began to slowly make way.
“Do you have any idea who's behind !”
The struggles of all villains were so cliché, it was as if they had all studied under the sa master.
“S-Stop that man!”
“......”
“I-if you stop him, I'll give you all the cash that's here!”
“......!”
For a mont, soone flinched. The person next to him, Gang mber 1, shoved his shoulder and spoke loud enough for others to hear.
“Hey, hey— stop. You want to sell your life for money?”
“You idiot. It's 10 billion, 10 billion. An amount that thugs like us will never touch in our entire lives.”
“Jeez. A bastard who only knows one thing and not the other.”
Gang mber 1 shook his head as if he were pathetic.
“The black-haired guy who killed Boss Haiyen is probably from a gacorp. ...And most likely from Siesta...”
“What?!”
Gang mber 1, glancing at Lee Taebaek slowly approaching Lukaken, trembled his lower lip.
“Before I joined the Triad… I saw a swordsmanship similar to that...”
A killing technique specialized in rciless attacks and ambushes. Gang mber 1 wet his lips with his tongue and nodded.
“That guy is definitely an assassin from Siesta. Which ans the gacorps found out about this deal. Tsk, no wonder we never got caught before. Dammit.”
“Then what are we supposed to do...”
“What do you an, what do we do? We just stand here and shut up like we are now. The mont you rush that guy… jeez, let's not even talk about it... I heard that if you get captured by a gacorp, you'll end up begging them to kill you... Not begging to be spared, but begging to be killed...!”
At Gang mber 1's story, the other gang mbers also looked resigned.
Plip, plop.
The wind and rain that indifferently struck their cheeks made their expressions even more pathetic. It seed their spirits had been broken by the re ntion of a gacorp.
Escaping from the web of a gacorp was impossible. They chose their safety over the money in front of them.
“You traitors!”
Lukaken threatened, but the gang mbers just twisted their lips and looked away. A gesture that said he wasn't worth replying to.
Splash.
In the anti, a presence reached Lukaken's feet. He raised his head, and his pupils dilated widely.
At that mont, lightning and thunder struck at once.
KRA– RRRRRRR-ACK!
Black sky and black eyes. Lee Taebaek, with the inky clouds resting on his head like a halo, was looking down at him.
“N-now, wait, le's tal... —keuk!”
A blade sprouted from the back of his fleshy neck. As Lukaken let out a short death rattle, blood gushed out.
Shluk.
The blade that had pierced his Adam's apple sliced horizontally through his neck and ca out the other side.
“Have you ever seen a person talk to a bug?”
Lee Taebaek shook the blood from his sword with a sharp downward flick. Lukaken fumbled at his neck, where a line of blood had been drawn. He gasped for breath, then pitched forward.
The world was quiet.
That dreadful silence was even more unsettling.
The gang mbers wanted to raise their hands to signal their surrender, but it was possible their opponent would interpret the gesture in the exact opposite way.
That's why the gang mbers sent urgent glances toward Gang mber 1. He was the smooth talker; their eyes were telling him to do sothing.
Gang mber 1 looked around with a troubled face. The Lukaken employees had already been wiped out. It was because they had been unard, and the gang had opened fire indiscriminately.
The two people responsible for the situation, Lukaken and Haiyen, had hand-in-hand beco ghosts.
“This is driving crazy...”
...No choice.
The probability of survival would be higher if he, a middle-school dropout, stepped up, rather than so other random idiot running their mouth.
Gang mber 1 was tasked with leading the negotiations.
“Uh, that is, we—.”
After a period of silence, just as he was finally about to speak. Gang mber 1's neck snapped back at a right angle.
BA– ANG!
The gang mbers stared at the limply fallen Gang mber 1 with bewildered eyes. Their heads slowly turned toward the source of the sound.
In the direction the bullet had co from, three people stood silently. A man with broad shoulders. Flanking him were a girl in a mask and a woman in a white coat. It was the three of them.
“They say the main character always appears last, but what's this? Looks like we're just cleaning up leftovers...”
Kang Hyunseong muttered, sounding dejected. Even as he said it, his eyes crinkled in a smile.
“Even for leftovers, this is more than enough to be thankful for. The battalion commanders' eting is tomorrow. This should give our battalion's voice so weight.”
Yoo Da-hee said, gathering her hair and tying it back. Even with a gun in her hand, she braided it skillfully.
“You were always sulking about how you had to take a vow of silence at every eting. This ti, starting with the bonus, it's going to be no joke.”
Having fixed her hair, Yoo Da-hee stylishly readjusted her grip on her gun with a flick. A Beretta 92, made in Italy.
Kang Hyunseong laughed heartily, then began to walk forward, bumping his fists together.
The rain clouds, sliced thin by the crescent moon, began to lose their power. The downpour was weakening to a drizzle.
Reviews
All reviews (0)