Chapter 33

Beep—

With a short mechanical sound, text appeared on the device in his hand.

An old PDA running on a legacy communications network.

Driving the truck, Bunetal let out a low exclamation as he read the message.

“To think they’d send something this detailed… There’s barely anything left for me to tweak.”

Sitting in the passenger seat, Gaksital leaned over and checked the PDA.

On the worn-out screen, detailed information was displayed about the truck heading toward Pungyang Cho Clan’s research facility and its cargo.

The container’s shipping history and authentication codes.

The unmanned freight truck’s chassis number, vehicle registration, even the product ID of the AI unit built into the truck’s black box.

It was as if every possible piece of transport data had been stripped bare and handed to them.

“This makes our job so much easier. Target location?”

“Just passed Daejeon’s 3rd tollgate. Entering in ten minutes.”

“Perfect timing. Let’s get ready.”

With a cheerful tone, Gaksital started the engine of a truck they had parked earlier.

It was the same model as the Pungyang Cho Clan’s truck, with a container of identical size. The only difference was the waterproof tarp draped over the cargo.

[Querying vehicle serial number: 5444768]

[Identification complete]

[This vehicle is registered as a special unit of the Pungyang Cho Clan. All quarantine procedures are waived.]

[Cargo status: Normal]

[Opening barrier]

Even before the truck arrived, the barrier arm rose.

In stark contrast to civilian trucks and private cars, which had to undergo a three-minute quarantine check, this truck rolled through without even stopping.

Above it, a combat helicopter dispatched directly from Pungyang Cho Clan hovered, while armed unmanned drones flanked its sides.

Precautionary measures against hijacking or attacks during transport. Destroying either the helicopter or the drones would instantly send an alarm to the clan’s main estate—an airtight defense system.

[Escort target has passed Relay Point 3. Route confirmed normal. Approaching tunnel entry.]

[Acknowledged. Weapons authorization granted. Fire at will on any suspicious vehicles. Information control will be handled by the Intelligence Division.]

Thus, under heavy guard, the freight truck entered the tunnel.

But at that moment—

“They’re inside! Ready, Bune?”

“Yeah. Let’s go!”

With a short shout, Gaksital signaled.

In response, a loud alarm echoed from the trailer hitched to the target truck.

Beeeeep—!

It was a jamming device, activated by Moo-yeong, who had infiltrated the truck beforehand.

The electromagnetic waves emitted from the cargo scrambled the surveillance sensors of the escorting drones.

For the next three minutes—the time it would take for the truck to clear the tunnel—those drones wouldn’t detect a single thing.

Vroooom—!

From a side emergency exit, the second truck carrying Bunetal and Gaksital shot forward.

Matching speed with the Pungyang Cho Clan’s truck, Bunetal yanked open the door, preparing to leap.

“We’ve got two minutes until it exits the tunnel! If we don’t finish by then, we’re both dead meat!”

“I know already!”

With a sharp cry, Bunetal leapt aboard the parallel truck, his hands moving quickly to rip open the gearbox.

“Let’s begin.”

From his fingertips extended thin silver needles.

He jammed them into the black box beneath the steering wheel. Strange symbols flickered across the dashboard.

Bunetal grinned mischievously as countless signs and numbers scrolled rapidly across the screen, overwriting the chassis number and identification codes of the two trucks driving side by side.

“So? Think I can finish in time?”

“Cutting it close. But still…”

Squinting at the system, Bunetal let out a brief laugh.

“It’s still easier than rewriting the memories of a Royal Inquisition Bureau.”

At those words, a triumphant smirk spread across his face as his fingers danced.

Beep—

[Central database registration complete. Vehicle information updated.]

[Vehicle registration number: 5444768]

[This vehicle is certified as special-use by the noble clan…]

Chassis numbers, vehicle registration numbers, even the identification codes embedded in the black box.

They had successfully disguised their counterfeit truck as the Pungyang Cho Clan’s unmanned vehicle.

Flap—!

While Bunetal hacked the truck’s internal systems, operatives of Hahoe emerged from the decoy truck and began applying camouflage to the real one.

They pulled away the waterproof tarp covering their own truck, swapped in the AI unit that Bunetal had provided, and set its destination coordinates for the Pungyang Cho Clan’s research facility.

And at the exact moment when Gaksital—who had stayed behind to guard the decoy—finally leapt onto the real truck—

Beep—!

The escort drones flanking the Pungyang Cho Clan’s truck reacted, seemingly detecting the switch in identification codes.

But instead of returning fire, the drones naturally shifted formation, now escorting the decoy vehicle that Hahoe had prepared.

This was precisely why Moo-yeong had smuggled himself into the container during the pirate raid.

It was Moo-yeong who had identified the target truck, passed the information to Hahoe, and then, at the right moment, neutralized the drones—buying them the time needed to swap the vehicles.

“Now! Stop the truck!”

Screeech—!

At Gaksital’s sharp command, the “real truck” heading for the research facility slammed to a halt just before the tunnel exit, tires screaming.

Vrooom—!

With a rush of air, the “decoy truck” shot out of the tunnel. The waiting combat helicopters immediately scanned it.

–Tunnel exit confirmed. No abnormalities detected in the scan.

–But the lane changed—what happened?

–Probably just a dead cat in the tunnel. Continue escort. Match speed.

After a brief exchange, the two helicopters veered farther and farther away, their rotor blades fading into the distance.

“Phew…!”

Only then did Gaksital release a long sigh of relief.

It had taken one minute to scramble the drones, two minutes to reprogram the internal systems and swap the tarp.

Had they stopped even a moment later, both of them would have been torn apart and scattered at the tunnel exit.

And yet—

“Ha… hahaha…! Hahahaha…!”

Exhausted, Bunetal laughed weakly, giving a shaky thumbs-up. Seeing that, Gaksital could only let out a helpless chuckle.

“This insane stunt… and you actually pulled it off.”

Now the Pungyang Cho Clan’s cargo was in their hands.

As he scanned the container’s interior, Gaksital mentally retraced Chang-woon’s plan.

‘At the center of the operation, Kim Chang-woon conducts his smuggling runs under the clan’s watchful eye, ensuring the cargo arrives at a predetermined location.’

Later, Kim Chang-woon would return to Hanseong under constant surveillance, thereby removing himself from suspicion.

From Busan until the return trip to the capital, he never once left the Pungyang Cho Clan’s sight.

‘Meanwhile, his bodyguard Moo-yeong orchestrates a pirate attack based out of Busan, using the chaos to infiltrate the container.’

Since Moo-yeong was not an officially registered guard but a personal retainer secretly supported by Kim Chang-woon, their link would be difficult to trace.

And because the raid was blamed on pirates, the clan had no idea Moo-yeong was even inside the cargo—let alone that he existed.

Once Chang-woon and Moo-yeong finished laying the groundwork, it was Hahoe’s turn to execute.

“We use the information transmitted by the bodyguard to tamper with the cargo data, then swap the real shipment with our counterfeit. Once that’s done…”

“They’ll unknowingly deliver a bomb straight into the Pungyang Cho Clan’s lab.”

Responding to Gaksital’s words, Bunetal strode toward the trailer of the truck.

Whrrr—

The heavy door slowly opened as he keyed in the security code.

Peering inside, Bunetal clenched his teeth beneath the mask.

“Bastards…”

Inside the container were emaciated people, their bodies wasted to skin and bone. Their eyes were devoid of hope, like livestock being herded to slaughter.

“Are you… people from Hahoe?”

A voice came from deeper within the dark container.

Moments later, a young man with long black hair stepped forward—Moo-yeong, the bodyguard whom Chang-woon had smuggled in.

“Please take care of these people. They’ve been neglected the entire way from Japan, their condition is…”

“Reinforcement vehicles will arrive soon. Don’t worry.”

At Bunetal’s words, the tension in Moo-yeong’s expression finally eased.

Judging from the atmosphere, he must have exchanged words with the captives while hiding among them.

“Ah, and there’s something the young master asked me to confirm. The package to be sent to Cho Seong-hwan…”

“Don’t worry about that.”

It was Gaksital who replied while Bunetal busied himself with the captives.

“We’ve prepared a fresh one—prime and ready for use.”

Though the mask hid his face, Moo-yeong could easily imagine the expression beneath.

Gaksital was smiling with pure delight.

* * *

“Cargo has arrived. Transferring to Zone 3.”

“Final clearance granted. The doctors are waiting—send it in quickly.”

The unmanned truck rolled into the heart of Hanseong and stopped at the basement entrance, where armed guards rushed forward.

Human specimens required for monster research.

It had been nearly a month since they’d received proper material. A delay of even a moment would bring down thunderous wrath from the clan’s main house.

“How many came in this time?”

“Four hundred seventy. All were specially selected under the age of thirty. Nationalities varied for sample diversity.”

“Now real research can finally begin. Injecting monster samples into addicts or terminal patients never yields clean data.”

“Exactly.”

The chatter came from mid-level researchers.

The fact that even high-ranking nobles, who rarely showed their faces, had arrived in person only showed how desperate they were.

Vrooom—

As Jeong Seunggyum, captain of the research facility’s security, considered this, the guards finished their checks and—without hesitation—opened the container doors.

Thunk—

“…Huh?”

The next moment, a guard stared blankly at his abdomen—skewered through by a writhing tentacle.

A sluglike appendage, squirming with hundreds of suction cups oozing dark red slime.

Wherever the slime touched, flesh turned black.

The pain came only after he saw the grisly sight with his own eyes.

“Aaaaargh—!”

“Guaaaargh—!”

His scream was drowned out by a monstrous roar.

The restraints binding the creature’s body snapped, and a hideous monster burst out of the container.

“Monster! A monster broke out from the container! Open fire!”

“Monster?! What nonsense! The cargo was humans…!”

“Teams 1 and 2, form a net! Get anti-tank weapons from the armory, hurry!”

The guards opened fire with their submachine guns—but it was useless.

Bullets only staggered the beast for a heartbeat. They could not pierce the chitinous shell.

“…Wait.”

Amid gunfire and roars, as employees fled in terror, one researcher fixed his gaze on the rampaging monster.

The black, hardened exoskeleton, the glistening mucous strands that bound it.

Its revolting teeth, its grotesquely twisted body.

And clinging to its abdomen—like the belly of an ant—hundreds of eggs.

…Eggs?

“The monster… it’s bearing eggs?”

In that instant, the researcher felt all the blood drain from his head.

A monster carrying eggs.

That meant—

They had brought in a female monster in its spawning season.

“No…”

Realization came too late. The words slipped from his lips as his strength collapsed.

Kkiaaaaaaahhh—!

The spawning female shrieked, her roar reverberating through the underground. And in resonance, a chorus of monster cries rang out across the entire facility.

“Ugh?!”

“What—what is that sound…?!”

A piercing high frequency swallowed the air, enough to rupture eardrums. Guards and researchers alike collapsed to the ground.

But that wasn’t the real problem.

The researcher, still conscious, stumbled to the wall where the building schematic was displayed.

“Ah… ahhhh…”

The thirty-floor complex map glowed green—then began turning blood red, section by section.

WEEEOOO—!

Alarms screamed from every direction.

No explanation was needed. He knew.

The cry of a spawning female.

A distress call, a rallying cry, a trigger to awaken dormant fighters and drive them berserk.

The experimental monsters, hearing the resonance, began rampaging.

“Grkh?!”

“Krrraaaaahhh…!”

“Kwaaaaghhhh—!”

The beasts imprisoned throughout the building reacted instantly.

Bodies weakened by drugs regenerated. Severed limbs regrew.

As if answering the female’s cry from the basement.

With bone-chilling howls, the captive monsters smashed open their cages and burst into the halls.

“Damn it, what’s happening?!”

“Lab 3 monsters are rampaging! First and second barriers are down—they’re headed this way…!”

“This is Lab 11! The specimen under dissection is regenerating its body! What is going on?!”

“Monsters in the residential block—! They’re slaughtering our staff, it’s—aaaaghhh?!”

“Someone, please! Save meeeee—!”

The blare of alarms, the screams of the dying, and the roars of monsters merged into one.

It took less than five minutes for the pristine Pungyang Cho Clan laboratory to descend into hell.

---The End Of The Chapter---

Join Patreon to support the translation and to read 5 chapters ahead of the release.

Join on Patreon

8Wh37fxkUOP7clyIu3