Boy Monster Chapter 38

Fortunately, the overload phenomenon that had occurred in the reception office, which created a huge rift in the world, did not happen again. Eunho’s communion ability, which was about to explode under extreme stress, was enveloped by memories and found stability.

It seemed that as his consciousness and ego overloaded and collided, the boy’s words, which had been dormant in his subconscious, were touched upon.

However, some things were mixed in that were not words Eunho clearly remembered the boy saying. Cheesy and brilliant words like, ‘It was hard, wasn’t it? Now, step away from the mission. I’ll do everything for you,’ were not actual memories. They were clearly words mixed with fantasy or imagination.

It was absurd why such childish words had calmed his subconscious, but on the other hand, he had this thought.

Wasn’t that, in fact, what I wanted to hear?

Weren’t they words of comfort that I wanted to hear so desperately from the depths of my heart?

Jae Eunho, looking at himself in the rearview mirror, wiped his reddened eyes forcefully.

After reaching that thought, he had no choice but to admit it. That he had desperately wished for someone to hold him and say such childish words.

It was a comfort he had wanted secretly, and even hidden from himself.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was just a little dizzy. I’m fine.”

The national state of emergency declared today, the unprecedented terrorist attack, the mental anguish Eunho had suffered throughout the day. At the end of it all, he felt the pain of the wound on his big toenail getting worse. It was a tingling, stinging pain.

“Haa…. Haa….”

Jae Eunho caught his breath and wiped his face. He readjusted his glasses and focused on the monitor.

The weak and pathetic words of comfort from within are not reality. They are nothing more than escapist hallucinations.

In reality right now…

The espers sent by the enemy were lifting the Ji Hwelju and Poong Hwelju up to the train ceiling, choking them.

“This won’t do. Send a request to release my control.”

It was tantamount to confessing that he had slipped out, but he had no choice. Deputy Chief Oh Jigeun picked up his phone. After finishing his call with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Deputy Chief Oh Jigeun let out a heavy sigh.

“……They say it’s not possible. Because of the possibility that the enemy has a communion-user. They say there’s a risk that you’ll spill secrets you know while you’re using your ability, so no.”

“Two Hwelju are under attack, it’s urgent!”

“……They say you are the priority.”

“What kind of… what kind of sophistry is that!!”

“They’ll send in more commandos, or if it really comes down to it, they’ll handle it with fighter jet bombardment… Shit, dammit! Jungkyung!”

Deputy Chief Oh Jigeun slammed the steering wheel with both hands and spat out a curse.

Jae Eunho grabbed the laptop screen and pressed it against his forehead. A sigh that sounded like a wail burst out. Defeat was not an option. The Hwelju, who were like his family community, could not die because of him. Choi Jungkyung’s neck was lifted high to the ceiling, on the verge of breaking.

:･⚜️⊹.️

The moon was hidden by a deep darkness, blanketed in a damp fog.

The engine room was covered in blood. The body of the engineer, a part of his skull blown off by a gunshot, sat in a pool of blood. The terrorists, who had received instructions from an anonymous figure in the airspace over the India-Middle East border, carried out their promised mission. An astronomical reward of 30 million dollars was scheduled if they succeeded without leaving a single trace.

Their mission was to detonate an explosive just before the train collision to divert pursuit and escape. They didn’t even know that in another car, a cyborg using supernatural powers was trying to kill the S.E.T.U. agents. Their mission ended there.

Because they had to assemble the explosive, they had cleared the car right next to the engine room and were using it as a temporary barracks, having moved all the passengers to other cars, leaving the inside empty. An assailant opened the door to call his colleague in charge of assembling the explosive.

“Hey, how’s the bomb coming along? Is everything okay?”

To avoid detection, they had brought the bomb device completely disassembled. The person in charge of assembling the explosive was sitting crookedly in the middle seat, looking out the window.

A black hat was visible over the back of the chair. Was he wearing a hat? Seeing him looking out the window, it seemed he had finished assembling it and was resting.

“You finished already? Are you sleeping at a time like this?”

The assailant snickered as he approached his colleague.

“10 minutes left. We need to start getting out of here before the collision. Get up.”

But as he walked, something felt strange. The state of the explosives spread out here and there on the chair was suspicious. All the wires were messily cut by pliers, and the core components were smashed by a hammer and an axe.

“What is this? What happened? Did you get separate instructions or something?”

“10 minutes?”

The answer that came back was in Korean. The assailant stopped in the hallway and raised his gun. When he turned, he saw a large golf bag placed on the seat next to him.

The man, lounging languidly where his colleague had been, was wearing an outer jacket carelessly. The black leather jacket had half slipped off and was draped over his forearm, and from the short-sleeved t-shirt underneath, black and red demons blazed on his torso. There were blood clots on the belt at his waist, and blood and red flesh were pooled between his spread thighs.

The neck of his colleague, shoved under the chair with his eyes wide open, was bent 180 degrees and dangled loosely. The gun, trampled under the black-hatted man’s shoe, hadn’t been fired a single time.

“To Gwangmyeong, 10 minutes?”

It was the moment the mouth of the man, hidden by the hat, stretched into a long grin.

:･⚜️⊹.️

—Huh…? The northbound KTX train… the train’s engine is stopping!

“What?”

Deputy Chief Oh Jigeun and Jae Eunho shot their heads up. Oblivious to the honking from behind them, they couldn’t even think of stepping on the accelerator and gathered their heads around the laptop.

Their eyes moved busily, following the shaky footage sent from the aerial infiltration unit. It was the current situation, filmed by a helicopter flying alongside the train at a low altitude. The train, with a clatter and a clank, began to let out heavy rumbles intermittently as it started to slow down.

“Who entered the engine room? Who is it?”

“The terrorists were gathered there, could it be the 707th?¹”

Afterward, in the footage that swept through the train one car at a time from the engine room backwards, the scenes of the assailants’ deaths were captured one after another.

All the assailants who had been subduing the passengers inside the train had been killed and hung out the windows. The bodies had been placed by the windows to be easily identified from the air. Behind them, relieved passengers could be seen embracing each other.

Each time the camera moved quickly from one car to the next, the bodies of the terrorists displayed in the windows and the passengers freed from being hostages were captured.

Now it was the middle car, where the Hwelju had been ambushed by the enemy team’s espers.

“We need to radio them to be careful here…!”

The situation in this car was the same. The moment the enemy, hearing the unusual sounds from the next car, had turned invisible, blood rained down from the air. The esper, who had suddenly vomited blood and rolled his eyes back, collapsed to the floor and lay there, unable to move.

“What is…?”

Jae Eunho focused all his attention on the shaky, low-resolution screen. Through the dark car window, a man in black clothes passed through the car as swiftly as if he were sprinting at full speed.

His build obscured the entire window, so his face could not be identified. After the man passed through the train, the esper who used psychokinesis was also collapsed in the train aisle. The mark of an axe slammed into a chair was clear.

Choi Jungkyung, freed from the brink of death, let out a severe cough.

—Cough! Cough…! Hah…!

—All targets have been neutralized! It seems one of the passengers assisted in subduing the terrorists!

The special forces team reported their assessment. Jae Eunho kept his focus on the screen until the end. It was because of the passenger who was passing through to the last car of the train at a terrifying speed. The man, who had taken down the last remaining assailant with a pipe, shook his wrist out.

“……!”

Though hidden by a black hat and mask, he was unmistakably Shi Taehyun.

Jae Eunho’s heart pounded even more desperately than before.

“Wait! Don’t turn the helicopter, keep filming the end of the train!”

—Yes, sir.

The black figure was last seen in the very last car of the train, and then disappeared. Jae Eunho couldn’t take his eyes off the screen even after that.

It was definitely Shi Taehyun. How…?

Was he bugging the National Intelligence Service? As he turned off that thought, the northbound KTX heading for Seoul came to a complete stop.

The estimated time of collision had passed, but thankfully, the railway was quiet.

However, the two trains were still very close. Moreover, the southbound train, which had not been able to reduce its speed, remained as it was.

In the southbound train approaching Gwangmyeong Station, the Hwelju were struggling because of one communion-user. They had dealt with the other cars, but problems kept arising while confronting the two terrorists and the communion-user in the engine room.

“There’s a communion-user there too? They can commune with targets who aren’t Hwelju?”

—Yes, but it’s not very effective. Their main attack method is to commune and control, but the communion keeps breaking off.

—Aish… damn it! There’s a hostage….

Because of the terrorist who had shot the hostage in the leg and the communion-user, the southbound train raced towards Gwangmyeong Station in a living hell.

It seemed about 5 minutes had passed since the northbound train had stopped. It was when the terrorist, consumed by madness, was screaming at the top of his lungs that he would blow the hostage’s head off.

—The opposing esper has collapsed! He suddenly seemed to get dizzy and staggered…!

All of a sudden, the communion-user collapsed and began to seize, his whole body trembling. Taking advantage of the opening, a Su Hwelju fired his pistol. The bullet hit the terrorist’s head. The other terrorist, seeing this and about to kill the hostage, dropped his gun due to a Poong Hwelju’s psychokinesis.

The enraged Poong Hwelju lifted the two fallen terrorists to the ceiling with psychokinesis and then slammed them onto the aisle floor. The terrorists, their shoulders and sternums shattered, screamed.

The entire scene was captured on the on-site camera of the counter-terrorism special team that had just entered. Jae Eunho gave an order on the special team’s radio.

“Could I get a closer look at the collapsed esper.”

—Yes, understood.

The beam of a flashlight illuminated the dead communion-user. Other than blood-caked lips and blood that had run from his nose, no other external injuries were visible on the corpse. No matter how calmly he wanted to think, this guess kept coming to mind.

This is the power of a Sa Hwelju, who takes and gives life.

¹The 707th Special Mission Group, a direct subordinate of the Republic of Korea Army Special Warfare Command.