Boy Monster Chapter 19

He opened the lid of the hair wax, intending to style his eyebrows, and prompted for a response.

“Choi Jungkyung? Respond.”

Choi Jungkyung’s radio was silent, and only Hyeon Jaewoong’s brief reply could be heard.

—What the… The guard patrol still hasn’t come.

“The patrol hasn’t come yet?”

Eunho put down the hair wax container. He was about to go down to the C.R.P.T. office on the second floor. Frowning, he shuffled down the stairs in his slippers.

Choi Jungkyung still didn’t respond as he descended the dark stairs and hallway. Eunho knocked on the office door and then flung it open. The computers were all turned off, and the chairs with jackets draped over them were empty, as if no one had been there.

“It seems Jungkyung went out? Did he go to check on the guards on duty?”

—He might have gone to look at Shi Taehyun’s investigation records. He said he was curious about the psychological evaluation results earlier.

“Without a word? Have I been too good to him? He’s wandering around without the captain’s permission.”

He muttered half-jokingly as he left the office, but Eunho’s intuition felt uneasy. It was rare for Choi Jungkyung to miss radio calls during an operation. Jae Eunho tilted his head.

“Choi Jungkyung, report your location.”

Shuffling his slippers out of sync as he walked, he suddenly looked back. The dark hallway, with the lights off, was empty. Clang, clang, clang… An iron door rattled in the wind outside the building.

“Choi Jungkyung, is something wrong? If you can’t speak, send a coded message.”

Even if he found Choi Jungkyung’s location, he had to request the release of his ability control first. Jae Eunho hurried up the stairs, reaching the floor where his room was. It was so dark that it was difficult to see properly. To think they saved this much on lighting even at night, the correctional authorities were certainly diligent about their energy-saving campaign.

He fumbled along the hallway wall, searching for the light switch. Even when he flipped the switch, his dark vision remained unchanged. Turning his head this way and that, Jae Eunho suddenly realized. No light was leaking from under his door.

He hadn’t turned off the lights when he left his room.

“…….”

Eunho dragged his uncomfortable left leg and went to his door.

He had to send a request for the release of his ability control immediately. There was no time to call Deputy Director Oh Jigeun.

His numerous field experiences told him. He was certain something had happened inside the eerily silent main building of the detention center. A sense of crisis ran down his spine.

As he inserted the key into the doorknob, Eunho took out his phone. He pressed and held the button to send an emergency rescue request. It was a race against time. Sending an emergency SOS would immediately notify the Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters and release his ability control to level 1 for one minute.

A jingle came from the hot air balloon keyring. While pressing the button, he pretended to be looking at the music streaming app on his phone screen.

The moment he grasped the unlocked doorknob and looked back into the darkness, click,

“Don’t move.”

Figures with their faces covered by bandanas flashed past in the fleeting light from his phone screen. Jae Eunho’s arms were twisted behind his back and tied together. A gun barrel pressed against his forehead, then into his mouth.

He couldn’t confirm whether the emergency rescue request had been sent. Eunho kicked the floor with his right heel, sending a secret code. He could only hope that Hyeon Jaewoong would hear it. A bright light shone, forcing him to close his eyes tightly. It was certain they were confirming his identity.

Hyeon Jaewoong’s radio transmission cut off mid-sentence.

—Captain, there’s a power outage… are you alri…

The radio was crushed underfoot. A stranger wearing a cleaning service uniform and hat, carrying a machine gun, nodded. He had confirmed Jae Eunho’s identity. Bloodstains already marked their clothes. Eunho spoke while the gun was still in his mouth.

Did you kill Choi Jungkyung? Did you kill my colleague?

They didn’t understand Korean. The phone that had fallen on the floor landed in the stranger’s hand. Jae Eunho focused his mental strength, conscious of the four prayer beads on each wrist. As a faint light began to emanate in the darkness, they cursed and slapped him across the face. The brutal force ripped off the prayer beads.

He heard hurried Tagalog. It seemed to mean “Hurry! Hurry!”

A sharp syringe needle approached Eunho’s neck under the swaying lantern light. Soon, stiff and awkward English echoed in his ears.

“Jae Eunho, subdued. Incapacitated.”

The stranger, after finishing his sentence, dropped the syringe and collapsed. Watching them fall one by one, Jae Eunho snatched their pistols. Four strangers surrounded him.

He had used his ability to make the stranger on the radio give a false report. Fortunately, the emergency SOS had been sent. He had bought some time. Jae Eunho ran down the hallway, unaware that the slipper on his left foot had come off. He had to do what he could in one minute.

He called Deputy Director Oh Jigeun as he climbed to the top floor. While hurrying his uneven gait, he tried to connect to all the minds within the detention center.

“No…!”

Due to the large-scale hallucination he had performed recently, the range he could sense with only level 1 ability released was too narrow. Moreover, he didn’t have his prayer beads, which helped organize and concentrate the power of the Hwelju and Yeonri. He couldn’t sense as far as the inmate housing unit. Confirming Choi Jungkyung’s status was the priority. Eunho focused and meticulously searched the consciousnesses around the main building.

[Jae Eunho… Capture successful… ‘Achilles’ team standby… Execute prisoners…]

Two individuals were thinking about executing the prisoners. Sensing deeper, he found they had herded the guards and C.R.P.T. members, whom they had knocked unconscious with tranquilizer guns, into a corner of the first-floor hallway and were awaiting orders. Fortunately, Choi Jungkyung was asleep among the unconscious prisoners.

There was no way Choi Jungkyung would be subdued without a fight. What did those strangers do? The question arose, but it was something to address later.

Eunho immediately put them to sleep. Two of the dots, representing consciousnesses, drawn like a celestial chart in his mind, disappeared. Now, the only consciousnesses detected near the main building were the oblivious guards in the exercise yard.

—What the! Captain Jae Eunho! Explain!

“Ah…!”

Snapping out of his mental sensing at the loud voice of Deputy Director Oh Jigeun, Eunho shouted into his phone,

“Emergency! Requesting full release of control! Level 1 isn’t enough!”

—Alright. Wait. I’ll request it immediately.

Now, there were only a few dozen seconds left before the emergency release ended. Eunho kicked off the slipper he was wearing on his right foot. As he reached the first-floor hallway, he made eye contact with a large figure that suddenly appeared from the wall.

“Captain!”

“Why are you here…!”

It was Hyeon Jaewoong, wearing a prison uniform. It didn’t make sense that he would have come looking for Jae Eunho’s dorm by turning invisible. Hyeon Jaewoong was still a level 2 SuHwelju and hadn’t acquired the ability to pass through objects. Hyeon Jaewoong hurriedly explained.

“Skilled men armed with machine guns stormed in and searched all the solitary cells. I left the inmate housing unit when they broke down the doors.”

“Who were they looking for? You?”

“I don’t know. Whoever they were targeting, it doesn’t seem like they succeeded. They dragged all the inmates out of their solitary cells, made them sit, and screamed…”

Before Hyeon Jaewoong could finish, a deafening sound enveloped his head. Beep— A piercing sound and a blunt impact hit his mind simultaneously.

“…What… the…?”

As his blurry vision barely returned, he saw Hyeon Jaewoong’s head, collapsed face down. The strangers, who had infiltrated using ropes, had fired several shots at Jae Eunho and Hyeon Jaewoong’s legs. Hyeon Jaewoong had pushed Jae Eunho and turned invisible to block the bullets. Fortunately, the bullets had passed through his transparent body, avoiding gunshot wounds, but he seemed to have been hit by a tranquilizer dart.

“Gasp.”

A musty-smelling cloth covered his mouth. Eunho struggled with his twisted left leg as he was dragged away by the strangers.

He was gradually losing consciousness from the anesthetic. As he desperately tried to use his sensing ability, Eunho noticed a dark shape blocking the distant night sky.

It was a massive figure sitting atop the guard tower. A solitary shadow stood against the night.

The misty drizzle blurred his vision. The figure, shrouded in the night, rose. Its outstretched wings stretched high as if to pierce the sky. They were wings he had seen a very long time ago. Two curved lines, red horns, sprouted between the wings and slowly turned towards the windows of the main building.

“…!”

Was it a hallucination? When he looked at the guard tower again before the cloth covered his head, there was nothing there.

The strangers moved swiftly and silently. They covered Eunho’s head with the cloth, tied his arms behind his back, and then tied him to a rope they had previously set up on the wall.

“Drag him! Put him in the car, quickly!”

Those who received Eunho over the wall immediately assaulted him. Eunho curled up, enduring the kicks and blows from the pipes. The sound of machine gun fire and the screams of the mob echoed from the detention center.

Eunho was dragged along the mountain path. If there was any consolation, it was that his consciousness didn’t succumb easily to the anesthetic, as if his ability had been fully released. Struggling to wake up and grasp his sensing ability, Eunho let out a bitter chuckle inwardly. It was like fighting the sleep paralysis that had recently plagued him.

The men, who had thrown Eunho down and beaten him to check if he was unconscious, suddenly started shouting excitedly. He heard Philippine-accented English yelling, “Give him more anesthetic, quick!” As Eunho stirred, a long machine gun poked his side.

“Fuck him, fuck and kill him!”

They ripped the cloth off Eunho’s head. His hair was pulled hard. One of them seemed to be pulling off Eunho’s pants. It seemed like he was trying to shove the barrel of the machine gun inside him. A syringe needle, appearing from somewhere, pricked his neck again.