Dirty Sweet Baby Chapter 119

As soon as I turned off the notification and raised my head, my eyes met Cha Moogyul’s. For a moment, a mysterious and difficult silence flowed, as if the air had been turned upside down.

The ability he had been scattering indiscriminately began to slowly settle, and the surroundings grew quiet. Like a mass of lava that had flowed out without limit, the thick and terrifying power was drawn back into his body. Once the ability had completely subsided, two voices rang out simultaneously, ending the stillness.

“Take this.”

“Imprint with me.”

Heeheon opened the chest pocket of his combat suit and held out a letter in a folded envelope. Cha Moogyul also pulled out a small syringe from a storage pouch fixed to his harness.

It was a familiar object.

A syringe with a clear liquid that seemed empty at first glance. A thick needle. Slightly larger than a healing factor…

It was a model synchronized to the unique core wavelengths of Baek Heeheon and Cha Moogyul. In short, the imprinting solution.

“You smuggled this out too?”

“What is this envelope?”

They both frowned, looking at the objects in each other’s hands.

The summons order had been issued, and they had to go immediately, so there was no time for a long conversation.

“It’s a letter. Read it after the mission.”

“I spent quite a bit on backroom deals. You hold onto it, hyung.”

So he really did smuggle it out.

The imprinting solution. A top-level secret. Just how large a sum must he have spent if even Cha Moogyul said he spent “quite a bit”? I felt a chill for a moment.

“You really… Hah…”

Heeheon suppressed the words he wanted to say and took the syringe from his hand. To think he wanted to imprint this badly while pretending he didn’t. Getting jealous of Captain Sung Ahwon. The excitement still hasn’t subsided.

“You wrote a letter? To me?”

Cha Moogyul also took the envelope from Heeheon’s hand. Baek Heeheon’s story, from beginning to end, was all contained in that letter.

They each secured the items in their pockets and their gazes crossed. Their meeting eyes were like a worn-out puzzle. It felt as if two completely mismatched puzzle pieces had hurt, clashed, and chipped away at each other until, finally, just one corner barely fit.

The pager, searching for the two who were running late, rang again, and only then did they turn their reluctant feet toward the garrison.

Now was the time to finally bring down the curtain on the long battle that had not even begun.

The evacuated city center evoked a bitter sense of emptiness, like a meaningless model. The man-made structures accumulated for people, yet with all traces of people erased, created a strange contradiction.

The sun was already setting beyond the horizon, and the vermilion glow of the sunset covered half the world, changing the color of the sky. Tension was added to the cool air that heralded winter.

Heeheon gripped his rifle tightly and followed the special mission unit members who were moving in perfect order.

On the goggle screen covering his eyes, a distinct red dot marked the designated coordinates.

That was the α-creature’s habitat. It was a location that required drilling deep into the bedrock beneath the 3rd Residential District, but this was not a significant obstacle.

“Entering!”

The special mission unit was a squad of the most elite agents selected from among the combat units. Their main tasks were to enter gates and destroy the gate cores, or to battle creatures in the contaminated lands of undeveloped zones.

This meant that in a safe urban area like this, no agent would be frightened by something as simple as drilling down through bedrock. Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t tense, nor did it mean they were careless.

While physical equipment was primarily used in the field, in unavoidable cases, Espers’ abilities were also actively utilized. Espers specializing in terrain pioneering and excavation used their telekinetic powers to move the soil and dig a vertical shaft.

Once a path to enter was cleared, the agents descended without hesitation, using ropes to cross. The bottom was a pitch-black pit without a single light, yet everyone landed in a perfect posture.

Heeheon also switched his goggles to night vision mode and grabbed a rope.

A sunset-colored wind blew towards him.

Scattering his hair and dispersing to the side.

When Heeheon glanced beside him, there was, of course, Cha Moogyul standing next to him. He was adjusting his gloves and watching Heeheon. His face, draped in the beautiful sunset like a soft veil, dug deep inside me.

Eyes as dark as the night on a deserted island. Refined flames. Hardness. The faint scent of musky wood wafting from him. The elegant and overwhelmingly exquisite bridge of his nose and his thin lips parting towards Heeheon. Cha Moogyul, whom I could look at every day and never tire of, whispered with just the shape of his mouth.

‘…’

His slowly fluttering black hair brushed against his earlobe.

The sight of his jet-black hair tickling his pale ear as it passed was like a masterpiece painting, enough to make one forget the urgent tension and lose oneself in the moment.

Cha Moogyul grabbed the rope and jumped down first.

Heeheon, who had stood in the same spot for a moment, followed him and leaped.

Goosebumps ran all over his body as he was sucked down into the deep earthen tunnel, into the darkness. The light grew distant, and the dreamlike sunset disappeared. At the very bottom, at the end, was the destination he had to reach.

Gravity pulled his entire body down deep, like a black hole.

As if it had been waiting for Heeheon to fall. Down, down, down. He plummeted.

Cha Moogyul.

The shape his lips had whispered.

Heeheon repeated it over and over in his mind as he reached the distant floor.

It was a horrific space, a mixture of rotten smells and dampness. Moisture seeped from the walls, and the soil was sticky with mud and decaying matter, making a squelching sound with every step.

It was as if they had entered the entrails of a giant creature.

A low, thumping vibration echoed regularly, shaking the tunnel, and a tense fear and heavy pressure dominated the entire space.

Sassasak.

Seuseuseuk.

Sounds like a many-legged insect crawling, like a beast flapping its wings rapidly; monsters in lowered stances were densely hidden, using the darkness as their nest.

Glowing pupils glinted from all directions.

The weight of the air felt heavier and heavier. The sound of water droplets dripping from damp rock crevices faded, and all senses focused on the only light source here: the glowing eyes of the creatures.

A swarm of β-creatures teemed in the inner part.

And beyond them, in the center, a greater horror lay sleeping.

In the center of the nest. Inside a round membrane that looked like a giant egg, a creature covered in white scales could be seen curled up. It was a bizarre sight, as if an ancient curse or a mythological nightmare had been condensed.

The creature’s body was densely covered in arrow-shaped white scales as if wearing armor, and behind it, strands of golden, mane-like fur trailed down. Beneath its round belly, instead of a lower body, several root-like legs branched out, and black thorns sprouted along the base of the roots.

On its belly were about twenty C-shaped marks, as if made by a spoon, and it didn’t take long to realize that these marks were eyelids, shut downwards.

The creature, neatly coiled, was in a state of quiet sleep, breathing inside the cozy egg. Every time it took a breath, the white membrane pulsed like a protective film incubating life.

Its appearance seemed to lie on the strange boundary between a sacred being and a malevolent monster.

It was an anomaly from another planet, one that could not exist on Earth.

‘Don’t tell me, it’s sleeping?’

If so, were the countless β-creatures holding their breath quietly so as not to disturb the α-creature’s deep sleep?

My heart pounded fast, and every muscle in my body tensed. The darkness of the deep cave, the creature’s quiet breathing, and the foul stench created a disharmony, reaching a strange stalemate.

Just then, an instruction appeared on the goggles.

[Special Mission Unit, lure the swarm of β-creatures to the next coordinates.]

Simultaneously, a black dot was marked on the map.

By a stroke of luck, the target α-creature seemed to be asleep, so if they could quietly draw out the surrounding β-creatures, they could achieve their objective easily and without losses. Dealing with a sleeping α-creature would be much simpler than suppressing and capturing a rampaging, awakened one.

[46.097631, 199.034153, 1.938432]

East.

If they could lure the β-creatures to the ruined eastern development zone, they could complete the mission without causing additional damage to the 3rd Residential District’s city center.

Under the commander’s orders, the special mission unit members quickly lowered their stances and moved. The creatures did not seem to move easily, but when they fired warning shots with silenced rifles, one or two began to bare their fangs and chase the agents.

The solid density of the swarm began to loosen bit by bit, and the creatures were herded to the east. In contrast, Heeheon went west with Cha Moogyul. Once all the β-creatures were gone, Cha Moogyul would use an electric shock on the α-creature to stun it.

Kieeeek!

Sah, sah, sassasa.

Krrrrr…

The black creatures gradually cleared out, and the once-blocked view opened up.