Beep—
With a short mechanical chime, text printed out on the handheld device.
A PDA running on an old-model network.
Bune mask, who had been driving the truck, let out a short exclamation as he read the output.
“I didn’t think it’d be this detailed…. There’s nothing left for me to even touch up.”
The one who heard Bune mask’s words and checked the PDA was Gaksi mask, sitting in the passenger seat.
The worn PDA was densely packed with information: the truck bound for the Pungyang Jo clan’s research facility, and its cargo.
The container’s shipping history and authentication codes.
The chassis number and vehicle registration details of the unmanned freight truck—right down to the product number of the AI unit installed in the truck’s black box.
Everything that could be extracted as data about the transport vehicle was in there.
“That’ll make the job a lot easier. Target location?”
“Passing Daejeon Tollgate 3 now. It’ll enter in ten minutes.”
“Perfect timing. Let’s get ready.”
Gaksi mask said it in a bright voice and started up the truck they had parked in advance.
The same model as the Pungyang Jo clan’s truck, with a container of identical dimensions loaded on the back.
The one difference was that the cargo on the newly joined truck was covered with a tarpaulin.
[Incoming vehicle serial number query: 5444768]
[Identification complete]
[Target vehicle is a special-use vehicle registered by the Pungyang Jo clan. All inspection procedures are waived]
[Cargo status: Normal]
[Opening barrier]
The barrier rose before the freight truck had even fully arrived.
In stark contrast to civilian delivery trucks or private vehicles, which had to go through a three-minute inspection process.
The truck cleared the checkpoint without stopping. Above it, an attack helicopter dispatched directly by the Pungyang Jo clan kept pace, and on either side, unmanned drones armed with rifles hovered in formation.
Precautions against any possible attack or vehicle seizure during transport.
The moment either the attack helicopter or the drones were destroyed, a signal would be sent to the Pungyang Jo clan’s main house—a truly ironclad escort.
[Escort target has cleared Relay Point 3. Route clear. Entering tunnel shortly]
[Confirmed. Weapons use authorized. Any suspicious vehicles may be fired upon without warning. The Intelligence Division will handle information containment]
Under that strict protection, the freight truck entered the tunnel.
But at that very moment—
“It’s in! You ready, Bune?”
“Yeah. Let’s go!”
With a short cry, Gaksi mask sent a signal.
In response, an alarm sounded from the trailer loaded on the freight truck.
Beeeeep—!
A radio jamming device, activated by Mooyoung, who had stowed away on the truck in advance.
When exposed to the electromagnetic waves coming from the cargo inside, the surveillance systems on the unmanned drones escorting the truck were thrown into disarray.
About three minutes remained until the freight truck would exit the tunnel.
For that brief window, no vehicle would register on the drones’ sensors.
Rrrrmm—!
An emergency access hatch on one side of the tunnel swung open, and the truck carrying the two of them accelerated.
The moment it matched speed with the Pungyang Jo clan’s transport truck, Bune mask flung open the truck door and readied himself to jump.
“Two minutes until we’re out of the tunnel! If we can’t finish in time, we’re both getting turned into Swiss cheese!”
“I know that!”
With a short shout, Bune mask leapt onto the other truck and immediately ripped open the gear box with quick, practiced movements.
“Starting.”
A silver needle emerged from Bune mask’s fingertip.
He plunged it into the black box beneath the steering wheel, and strange symbols appeared on the truck’s instrument panel.
Bune mask’s face, grinning beneath his mask.
And moments later, a cascade of symbols and numbers swept endlessly across the screen, beginning to swap the chassis numbers and recognition codes of the two vehicles running side by side.
“Well? Think you can make it in time?”
“It’s tight. But…”
Bune mask, grimacing as he manipulated the truck’s systems, let out a short laugh.
“It’s a lot easier than tampering with a Royal Investigative Bureau agent’s memories.”
The moment he said that, a look of smug satisfaction crossed Bune mask’s face as his fingers kept moving.
Beep.
[Central database registration procedure complete. Vehicle information will be updated]
[Vehicle registration number: 5444768]
[The above vehicle is a special-use vehicle certified by the nobles……]
Chassis number, vehicle registration number, the recognition code embedded in the black box.
They had succeeded in disguising their fake truck as the Pungyang Jo clan’s unmanned truck.
Fwap—!
While Bune mask was hacking the truck’s internal systems, Hahoe operatives emerging from the fake truck began applying a disguise to the real truck as it drove.
They stripped back the tarpaulin covering their own truck, swapped in the AI unit Bune mask had transmitted, and set the destination to the Pungyang Jo clan’s research facility.
At last, the moment Gaksi mask—who had held position on the fake truck until the very end—transferred over to the real one:
Beep.
The drones guarding the sides of the Pungyang Jo clan’s truck reacted, as though detecting the swapped recognition codes.
Like returning to their proper places, the drones fell into formation escorting the fake truck Hahoe had prepared.
This was the reason Mooyoung had hidden inside the container during the wako attack.
Mooyoung had located the truck that would carry the cargo, passed the information to Hahoe, and then—by neutralizing the drones on signal—bought Hahoe the time it needed to make the switch.
“Now! Stop the truck!”
Screeeech—!
At Gaksi mask’s voice, the ‘real truck’ headed for the Pungyang Jo clan’s research facility ground to a halt with a brutal squeal of brakes just before the tunnel exit.
Whooom—!
The ‘fake truck’ rushed out of the tunnel in a gust of wind. The attack helicopter waiting at the tunnel entrance immediately scanned the fake truck without hesitation.
-Confirmed exit from tunnel. Scan results show no anomalies.
-Lane changed—what happened?
-Must’ve been a dead cat in there or something. Continue escort. Match speed.
With a brief exchange, the two helicopters receded steadily from the road, the sound of their rotors fading.
“Haah……”
Gaksi mask watched the two attack helicopters grow distant, and only after a long moment let out a breath of relief.
One minute to jam the unmanned drones escorting the truck.
Two minutes to swap the internal system and switch out the tarpaulin.
If stopping the truck had been even slightly delayed, they would have been ground into mince and scattered across the tunnel exit by now.
And yet.
“Ha, haha…! Hahaha……”
Bune mask, slumped with exhaustion, laughing weakly.
When he finally held his thumb up, Gaksi mask could only shake her head and laugh despite herself.
“This insane scheme…. and we actually pulled it off.”
The Pungyang Jo clan’s cargo, now in their hands.
While scanning the interior of the container, Gaksi mask traced back through the plan Changwoon had designed.
‘The linchpin of the operation, Kim Changwoon, handles the smuggling work normally under the Pungyang Jo clan’s surveillance and steers the cargo to a designated location.’
After that, Changwoon returns to Hanseong without ever stepping out of the Pungyang Jo clan’s line of sight—removing himself from suspicion entirely.
From the moment he arrived in Busan until his return to Hanseong, Kim Changwoon himself had never strayed from the Pungyang Jo clan’s eyes for a single instant.
‘And the guard Mooyoung arranges an attack by wako operating out of Busan, uses the chaos of that attack as cover, and infiltrates the cargo.’
Since Mooyoung is not a formally registered escort but a warrior Changwoon supports privately, the connection between Mooyoung and Changwoon is not easy to trace.
On top of that, the ones who attacked the cargo ship were wako.
Thanks to that, the Pungyang Jo clan had no idea Mooyoung had hidden himself in the cargo—never mind grasping that he existed at all.
When the infiltration team of Changwoon and Mooyoung had finished all the preparatory work, Hahoe’s turn came.
“We use the information the guard transmitted to falsify the cargo data, swap the real cargo for the fake we prepared in advance, and extract. Which means…”
“They’ll deliver a bomb to the Pungyang Jo clan’s research facility without knowing a thing.”
Bune mask took up Gaksi mask’s words and moved without hesitation toward the trailer in the truck bed.
Rrrm—
The door opened slowly at the security code input.
Staring inside, Bune mask could only clench his teeth beneath his mask.
“Bastards…….”
Inside the container were people reduced to skin and bone.
People whose eyes held no trace of attachment to life or hope—the eyes of livestock being led to slaughter.
“Are you the ones from Hahoe?”
A voice from inside the container.
Moments later, a young man with dark hair hanging loose walked out of the darkness within.
It was Mooyoung—the guard Changwoon had slipped in.
“Please take care of these people. They were neglected the entire crossing from Japan, so everyone’s condition…”
“A support vehicle will be here soon. Don’t worry.”
At Bune mask’s words, the tension that had been locked in Mooyoung’s face finally eased.
From the look of it, he had been talking with them during his time hidden in the container.
“Oh, and there’s something Young Master asked me to confirm. The item to send to Jo Seonghwan…”
“Ah, no need to worry about that.”
While Bune mask went to tend to the people, it was Gaksi mask who answered Mooyoung.
“We prepared one that’s perfectly in season. Fresh as it gets.”
Her face was hidden behind her mask, but Mooyoung could vaguely guess the expression beneath it.
Gaksi mask was laughing. Far too happily.
“Cargo has arrived. Transferring to Zone 3.”
“Final approval complete. The doctors have been waiting. Get it in, fast.”
As the unmanned truck entered the heart of Hanseong and pulled up to the basement entrance, armed guards crowded in one after another.
Human samples required for monster research.
Proper material hadn’t come in for nearly a month. Any further delay, and there would be an earful from the main house.
“How many came in this time?”
“Four hundred and seventy. Apparently they’re specially selected samples, all under thirty. Nationalities were varied for the purpose of sample testing.”
“Now we can finally do real research. Injecting monster samples into drug addicts and terminally ill patients never gave us proper results anyway.”
“Exactly.”
The ones chattering on the side were mid-level researchers.
Given that the aristocrats who normally never showed their faces had made a personal appearance, they were apparently quite worked up.
Rrrm—
Security chief Jeong Seunggyeom was thinking just that when the guards, having finished their checks, opened the container doors without hesitation.
Thud—
“……Huh?”
In the next instant, a guard let out a dull sound as he stared at his own abdomen, pierced through by a tentacle.
Writhing mollusk tentacles.
Dark red mucus seeping from hundreds of suckers.
And the wound turning black where that mucus made contact.
The pain of having his abdomen impaled reached him only after he had taken in every detail of the scene with his eyes.
“Aaaaaah—!”
“GRRRAAAGH—!”
Horrific screams swallowed the guard’s cries whole.
The restraints binding the monster at every joint snapped free, and a creature of grotesque shape burst out of the container.
“A monster! A monster just came out of the container! Open fire!”
“A monster?! What the hell are you talking about?! The cargo was supposed to be people…!”
“Squad 1 and 2, form a firing line! Get the anti-tank weapons from the armory! Move!”
The guards who grasped the situation unleashed everything they had—but it wasn’t enough.
What they carried were submachine guns designed to kill people.
No matter how many rounds they poured into it, they could only slow its movements momentarily. Penetrating the monster’s shell was impossible.
“……Wait a moment.”
Amid the chaos of gunfire and monster cries—
While every staff member working in the basement was fleeing, one of the researchers stood staring at the rampaging monster.
A black, hardened shell, bound together by a viscous membrane.
The distinctively repulsive teeth and a grotesquely twisted body.
And then—clustered thickly along what looked like the abdomen of an ant—hundreds of eggs.
……Eggs?
“The monster… is carrying eggs?”
In that moment, the researcher felt the blood drain from his head.
A monster carrying eggs.
That meant—
They had brought a female monster in her spawning season… here?
“No.”
He realized the severity of it only after it had already happened.
The researcher, going limp, had just uttered that word when—
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE—!
The female monster in her spawning season let out a roar from the basement, and as though resonating with it, the cries of monsters began to echo through the entire building.
“Krrgh?!”
“What is that sound…!”
A high-frequency shriek that felt as though it would rupture eardrums consumed every corner of the space, and researchers and guards alike began collapsing to the floor.
But that wasn’t the real problem.
Hearing that particular frequency, the researcher rushed to check the building schematic displayed on one wall.
“N… no……”
The research wing—thirty floors.
The building schematic that had been lit green was turning red, spreading floor by floor.
Eeeeeee—!
And at the same moment, sirens howled from every direction.
No one needed to explain what had happened.
The sound a female monster makes when threatened during her spawning season.
A signal that calls for help, awakens dormant combat specimens, and stokes the will to fight.
The experimental monsters that resonated with it began running wild all at once.
“Rrrk?!”
“Rrrrrrrrr……”
“GRWK?! GRAAAAAUGH—!”
The monsters locked throughout the building responded.
Bodies weakened by drugs began to recover. Severed limbs began to regrow.
As though resonating with the cry of the monster that had appeared in the basement.
As though answering that blood-chilling howl, the monsters caged throughout the building began smashing through the laboratory doors and bursting free.
“What the hell is this?!”
“Monsters in Lab Wing 3 have gone berserk! First and second containment walls have collapsed! They’re heading straight this way…!”
“This is Lab Wing 11! The monster mid-dissection has begun regenerating! What in the world is happening?!”
“What’s going on?! There’s a monster in the residential wing! It’s killing our staff…! Ah, AAAAGH?!”
“Someone—someone please help—!”
Alarm bells, screams, and the monsters’ howling roars.
It took less than five minutes for the Pungyang Jo clan’s spotless research facility to transform into hell.
Hello! If you any questions and if you found any errors on my translations, please do @ me on our discord server (@_dawn24) since I might miss your comment here. FYI, you can periodically check my Patreon page where I usually uploaded the completed version of the novels that I translated (including regular and advanced chapters), they come with a discounted price too!
Comments (0)