After reviewing all of the reports, Go Min-young let out a sigh and tossed the file aside.
“I honestly don’t understand.”
She had intended to erase every scrap of sensitive information.
For that, every Abyss base on the Peninsula had to be wiped, and she had gone so far as to send her daughter, Go Minji, to do it personally.
By that asure, the mission was a complete success.
The thirteen surviving Peninsula bases had blown themselves to pieces the mont they faced Koryo’s fleets.
According to the report, everything had been cleanly deleted.
Facilities, information, people.
Everything.
So, in terms of “erasure,” the mission itself had to be judged an excellent success.
The problem was—
“If they were just going to self-destruct without mounting a proper response, why even build the damned things?”
—intent.
They weren’t exactly trying to fight openly, but neither did it look like they had so clever sche running in the background. She couldn’t grasp what they were actually after.
“They chose self-destruction when our fleets closed to minimum distance. The shock was considerable. Without the anti-air field, the damage would have been significant. It ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) looks like they were aiming for mutual destruction.”
Go Min-young snorted openly.
“Mutual destruction, my ass. Do we look like a corner shop to you?”
“It was a desperate clutch at straws. They knew it wouldn’t an much.”
“Well, whatever. I don’t have to understand their motives.”
She rose from her chair and walked to the window.
Kang Hye-young followed behind her.
“If sothing gets on my nerves, I can just erase it.”
“...”
“At any rate, the Peninsula’s cleaned up, we took no real losses, and my injured daughter is loafing around on her nephew’s island. Nothing to worry about.”
“What about the continent? Abyss has spread into the Continental Korea states and parts of the Twenty States of China. Shall we send operations there, too?”
“...”
Go Min-young fell silent for a mont.
“Even so, once upon a ti... whatever. We’ll show rcy once. It’d be a bit rude to kill them all out of the blue.”
“...”
“Leave the continent be for now. We’ve issued our warning. But anything that tries to co into the Peninsula—don’t ask, just erase it on sight.”
“Understood.”
“If my nephew looks like he’s about to stumble onto so useless clue, or there’s a sign of that happening, then we roll the hamr.”
“Among the captives the young master acquired, several are fairly high-ranking. Shall we erase them as well?”
“...”
She hesitated on that point.
Ordinarily she wouldn’t have thought twice about killing them, but they happened to be Go Muyeol’s property.
If possible, she wanted to protect everything that belonged to her nephew.
“They’re playthings, aren’t they? He’s using them for that purpose anyway.”
“Even so, he does put them through at least minimal information-gathering—mind scans and the like.”
“Tch. Then you go and scramble just that data. He’s not the type to think too deeply.”
“Understood.”
It seed the matter would pass like that.
“...?!”
Even the ever-expressionless Kang Hye-young couldn’t help but be startled by the next report.
After a brief pause, she delivered the news to Go Min-young with a voice tinged by surprise.
“Vice Chair, remnants of Abyss have bombarded Muyeol Land.”
“...What?”
“This isn’t a hunt.”
“...”
Go Minji said nonsense with a solemn face.
She tossed the stun rifle I’d given her onto the bed and folded her arms.
“If there’s no blood, how is it a hunt? Huh? You pacifist punk.”
“Virgin blood splashes.”
“Oh, co on. Say sothing that makes sense.”
What a handful of a woman.
“Tsk, tsk. This is why people without philosophy are hopeless.”
“What did you just say?”
“Hunting needs philosophy. You don’t just sprint out and fling arrows around.”
“What the hell are you rambling about?”
“First—”
I pulled up the status screen on Han Chae-young’s location.
They were hustling at sothing among themselves, and after encountering a woman who’d been dropped on the island about a week ago, they were letting her guide them.
“You make her feel isolated and afraid. Whatever reason that bitch ca here for, she’s got a rock-solid sense of mission, right? You have to break that.”
“Oh wow, the great philosopher descends.”
“Look around. How many people are there? They’ve got guns, they’ve got military vehicles. What’s there to be scared of? Charging out to hunt in this situation is second-rate. You push them into as intense emotions as possible, then take them alive.”
Go Minji smirked.
It was definitely a scoff.
“Oh yeah? Then go ahead and do it your way. Adorable.”
“Priority One is removing their hope, one piece at a ti.”
I called Levi.
Obviously, in pure combat power, a knight like Baekseol would be overwhelming, but a demon was more than enough for this.
“You called~?”
Levi—always in white like a wedding dress—approached with a demure noble-lady smile.
“Start with the n who set foot in the forbidden zone. Kill every last one.”
“Shall I bring back any items you want~?”
“No. Leave the won. Just kill the n and co back.”
“As you wish~.”
Lifting imaginary skirts that didn’t exist, she offered a polite curtsy—and then sprang away.
Guided carefully by Sergeant Lee Hani, Han Chae-young’s party soon located a group of a little over ten won.
They had eyed the approaching military vehicle with deep suspicion, but when they saw Sergeant Lee Hani waving to signal “ally,” they set down the sharpened stakes and rocks they’d been clutching.
“...Feels like a scene out of a movie. Planet of the Apes, maybe.”
“...”
The year was 2077, yet they looked like that.
The adjutant let out a sigh, a mix of bitterness and sothing heavier.
And it wasn’t just him. Han Chae-young, and all the operators who’d co with her, had the sa look in their eyes.
“What happened to you...?”
Most were won of notable beauty, but their condition was abysmal—like when they’d first encountered Sergeant Lee Hani.
Their long hair was matted and tied off with whatever tough weeds they could find. Their clothing was nowhere near adequate for the cold of winter.
As for housing, they were staying in shelters that would be an embarrassnt to call a ho—crude lash-ups of branches with leaves thrown on top, worse than a Stone Age hut.
Han Chae-young stepped forward to address them.
“I’m Han Chae-young, Director of the Headquarters Demon Research Institute.”
“Eh? H-Headquarters...?”
“I heard everyone here used to be at 2-1 (Peninsula Base). Is that correct?”
“Did—did Headquarters co to rescue us?!”
She didn’t answer the question. The won’s exhausted faces brightened with hope, and only after Han Chae-young urged them did they nod and introduce themselves.
Sadly, with the exception of two, they had no combat background.
“It matches what we heard. There are many more captives on this island besides you. We need information.”
“T-there are many! We only see the people here, but when we were brought in, there were a lot!”
Han Chae-young shot a glance at her adjutant.
He nodded, fetched a box of combat rations, and opened it.
“Ah...!”
“Tell us everything you know without leaving anything out. Especially... if you’ve seen soone like , or a captive who’s a blonde white woman wearing glasses.”
The won didn’t answer Han Chae-young yet; they went straight for the rations.
Like Sergeant Lee Hani when they first t, they ate as if they’d been starving for a week.
“F-finally, real food...!!”
“I kept eating that chestnut jelly every night—so sick of it!”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, what took you so long, thank you.”
“Was that really chestnut jelly? It tasted weird and chalky.”
“If it looks like that, isn’t it all chestnut jelly?”
“Don’t jinx it with weird talk. I need to believe it’s chestnut jelly.”
“...Chestnut jelly? You were eating chestnut jelly?”
Sensing sothing off, Han Chae-young asked. One woman, cheeks full of the dessert cake from the ration pack, answered between bites.
“Um—once a day, I think? Supply crates drop all over the island.”
“Supply crates?”
“When you open them, there are 500-milliliter bottles of water and tons of mystery jelly... we lived on those.”
“...”
So they hadn’t been starving.
She’d thought they were surviving by ripping up random grasses, but no—soone had been provisioning them with food.
But this was Go Muyeol’s artificial island... which ant—
You son of a bitch. You’re actually ranching humans...!
Go Muyeol was managing the won so they wouldn’t die.
If a severe injury occurred, a dical team might even co.
It was, in every way, disgusting.
“Here. This is what I an.”
“...”
Han Chae-young examined the jelly Sergeant Lee Hani brought over.
It looked no different from sothing you’d buy in a store, but just in case, she handed it off to her adjutant.
“Analyze the contents.”
“Yes.”
He sprinted to the vehicle and began testing the jelly.
Sis...
Seeing the won’s condition, Han Chae-young felt so reassurance that at least her sister hadn’t been killed, even as dread rose at what horrors she might be suffering.
A short while later, as she was collecting various details from the group, the adjutant returned.
“Perfect nutritional balance. It’s essentially a complete food.”
“Yeah? Any odd ingredients?”
“If they obfuscated it cleverly, maybe—but from what we can see—”
Then—
Face tinged green, he flinched violently, eyes going wide, and dropped the jelly to the ground.
Thunk.
Blood began to run from his eyes, nose, and mouth in bright streams.
“S-self... pre... serv—”
“?!”
A hair-thin line traced down the center of his face.
That line reddened, then welled, and at last his head split open with a wet crack, peeling left and right.
Beyond the parted halves—
“Hello.”
—stood a woman, smiling faintly as she greeted them.
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