Han Joon-seong stepped off the bus, head down, a shadow falling over his eyes. Even under that shadow, his eyes were glowing faintly, a cold white light behind the darkness. He walked with his hands at his sides, fists clenched, each step landing with the weight of a march rather than a walk.
People on the sidewalk glanced at him, and for once it wasn't admiration that crossed their faces. There was no lingering stare or whispered comment about his looks. Instead, something instinctive made them step aside, clearing a path without quite understanding why. A woman pulled her child closer. A group of students parted without a word, eyes dropping to the ground the moment his gaze passed near them. He walked through the crowd like a blade through water, and the crowd simply let him.
He reached the address from the pin Lee Hye-jin had sent. A department store, long closed, its multi-story parking garage looming beside it. Han Joon-seong stopped at the edge of the lot and looked up at the building.
Ervin, watching through his eyes, let his attention drift upward, and then let go.
His consciousness detached, floating free of the body, leaving Han Joon-seong standing motionless on the pavement below, eyes fixed on the structure, unmoving. Ervin had tried this once before, during the warehouse fight to help find Hwang Cheol, but he hadn't managed it then.
He rose first, drifting up past the darkened windows, past floor after floor, until he reached the roof. Empty. No movement, no guards, nothing but old ventilation units and a layer of dust undisturbed by footprints.
He descended, searching the building's face for a way in — a broken window, a propped door, anything. He found a gap on the third floor, a window with a shattered pane, and slipped through into the building itself.
Inside, the store was a shell of what it had once been. Long-abandoned aisles, the skeletal frames of old shelving units, dust thick on every surface, faded signage still hanging crooked from the ceiling. Ervin drifted through the corridors, turning where a hallway forked, checking one room, then the next. Most were empty so he kept going.
Eventually he found them — a cluster of men positioned loosely around what looked like an intersection of hallways. He filed their location and kept moving. Further in, he found more of them, small groups posted at intervals, each guarding a stretch of the path deeper into the building. He filed each position away, building a mental map as he went.
The path led him, eventually, to a door at the end of a corridor. Beyond it, a single room with windows too grimy and old to see through clearly — the glass fogged with years of neglect. Through the haze, he could just make out two figures inside, still and waiting.
Intuition settled the conclusion into place without needing more: that was where the Executive was.
He couldn't get closer. He wasn't a ghost, whatever else he was — solid walls stayed solid to him, and the windows gave him nothing but shapes and shadows. Two figures. That would have to be enough.
He let go of the resistance an the tether pulled him back.
The pull was immediate, dragging him back the path he came, back through the broken window, and into back and above the man on the pavement below. Han Joon-seong hadn't moved in the ten minutes it had taken. His eyes were still fixed upward, still glowing faintly beneath the shadow of his lowered head.
Ervin settled back in, crossed his imaginary arms, and looked forward with cold resolve.
"Massacre them."
Han Joon-seong's foot came down, the first step forward, and he walked toward the entrance.
He reached the first stairwell and started up, his pace unhurried, but dangerous. It didn't take long before he found the first group.
The first thing Han Joon-seong noticed about them was that they were younger. The other thugs he had faced before were older — around their twenties, maybe twenty-one to twenty-five. But these ones, they looked younger. The oldest in this group seemed around nineteen. Some of them were clearly kids, barely out of high school, a few even wearing school uniforms under their jackets. And their expressions, the way they carried themselves — it wasn't as rough or brutish. They moved differently, with less of that hardened edge.
Ervin looked at them and felt disgust. A quiet, cold disgust. *These bastards*, he thought, *are using kids. Corrupting children, dragging them into the criminal world.*
Han Joon-seong approached the first group. When they saw him, they stood up. Some of them adjusted their clothes, trying to look tough or their best attempt at looking dangerous.
"Hey," one of them said. "What are you doing here?"
Han Joon-seong didn't answer.
Another one stepped forward, puffing out his chest. "Yeah, get lost. Scram, my friend. Or we'll have to teach you a lesson."
Han Joon-seong kept walking. He got close. Very close.
One of them, the one who seemed older than the rest, put a hand in his pocket and hunched his shoulders, making a face — trying to look intimidating. He stepped right up to Han Joon-seong, face-to-face.
"Hey," the kid said, his voice low and aggressive. "Who do you think you are, huh? Huh?"
Han Joon-seong moved. His fist connected with the side of the kid's head, and the boy dropped instantly, unconscious before he hit the ground.
*They're just kids*, Ervin thought, watching from above. *I don't need to be brutal with them. Just putting them down so they don't get in the way is enough.*
The others stared. Then someone shouted the fallen kid's name.
"You bastard!" And they rushed at him.
Han Joon-seong stepped forward. Two more dropped, each with a single punch to the side of the head. Two remained. He approached one and drove his fist straight into his face. The kid crumpled. The last one was still standing, shaking.
Han Joon-seong walked up to him. He looked the boy in the eye and said something with a flat but trully caring voice
"Study hard. So you don't have to deal with things like this"
The kid opened his mouth. "Hel—!"
The punch landed and he went down.
Ervin, floating ahead, looked around. The shout had drawn attention. Two more groups were approaching from deeper inside the building. Han Joon-seong, sensing Ervin's awareness, started walking again, marching forward. He spotted a piece of wood lying in the corner. He picked it up, felt its weight in his hand.
*This'll help speed things along.*, he thought.
He moved through the corridors. The groups were closing in. He reached the first wave and swung the plank. It connected with the first kid's head — he dropped instantly. The next one lunged. Han Joon-seong drove a punch into his chest, and the boy folded, all the air leaving his lungs. Two others grabbed him, trying to hold him up. Han Joon-seong swung the plank once and both of them went down. He finished the one who had lost his breath with another punch, and kept moving.
Ervin watched for a few moments. Then, satisfied that Han Joon-seong could handle it, he sent his consciousness forward, scouting ahead. He let the Auto Pilot take over the fighting. But he gave a clear instruction: *Don't hit them too hard. No serious injuries. They're just kids. No knee-breaking like at the warehouse. This is also a lesson in self-control,* he thought. *To make sure Han Joon-seong doesn't end up crippling another poor bastard.*
Ervin floated forward. The commotion was spreading. More groups were converging. He moved through the corridors until they opened into a larger area — a plaza of sorts, inside the department store. A central open space, with multiple entrances feeding into it.
He counted them. Twenty-one people.
From behind him, he heard the sounds of fighting — grunts, impacts. Then, from the corridor, a boy came flying. Hehit the ground, skidded, tried to get up, and yelled:
"Monster"
Then he collapsed unconscious.
Han Joon-seong stepped out of the corridor. There was blood on his face — not his own. Some kid's teeth had broken from a punch, and the blood had sprayed onto him. He raised a hand, wiped the blood off his cheek. Then he adjusted his clothes, pulling his shirt straight, smoothing his sleeve. He looked presentable again.
His eyes flashed with a cold, dangerous glint of white.
Everyone in the plaza saw it. A chill ran through them. They trembled.
Han Joon-seong walked forward. His voice carried a underlying threat.
"If you don't want the same treatment your friends got, tell me where the girl you kidnapped is."
The young thugs looked at each other, nervous. But they were young, and young people are reckless. They grabbed whatever they could find — baseball bats, pieces of wood, anything. And prepared to charge.
Han Joon-seong sighed.
"I've never hit kids before. This is the first time in my life. And I already hate it."
He advanced. They came at him.
One ran forward with a bat. Han Joon-seong drove a punch into his throat — the boy dropped the bat and clutched his neck, gasping. Another came from the side — Han Joon-seong grabbed him by the head and slammed him into another, then dragged a third and kicked him backward into a fourth, sending them all tumbling. He started pummeling them, fists flying, methodical and relentless.
Ervin watched calmly from above. There wasny any enemy needing his intervention, for these kinds of opponents there was no need to give precise commands. Han Joon-seong was handling it perfectly. But then Intuition pulsed a warning.
*This is making too much noise.*
Ervin commanded Han Joon-seong to step to the side. Just a few steps. Han Joon-seong obeyed, shifting his position while still fighting. As he moved, the thugs converged around him, trying to surround him, and he kept striking them down.
Then, at the corner on his third-person vision, Ervin saw something. A glint from the dark corridor, Then, Movement. Fast. Too fast.
He was in the middle of fighting one of the boys when he saw it coming. He kicked the boy in the stomach — the kid flew backward — and the thing passed right by him, close enough to tear a few strands of hair from his head. The boy hit the ground, terrified, gasping.
Ervin turned his attention toward the direction it came from.
A woman was walking out of one of the corridors. Her hair was long — very long, almost past her hips. Completely black, except for a few streaks dyed red. She moved with an easy, predatory grace.
Ervin stared at her. Intuition told him, without any doubt:
*That's the executive. That's who I have to defeat.*
He stared at her. He felt the oppressive aura she carried, the weight of her presence turnng the room atmosphere heavy. She looked dangerous. She felt dangerous.
Ervin corrected himself.
*No. Not defeat.*
He felt cold sweat on a forehead he didn't have.
*I have to survive her.*
The woman stood on the mezzanine above, watching. She wore shorts and a pair of thigh-highs that stopped mid-thigh, with shoes that clicked softly against the floor. A diagonal belt wrapped around her waist, lined with what looked like small knives — dozens of them.
She didn't seem concerned. She just watched Han Joon-seong dismantle the young thugs below, her expression calm, almost bored. One eyebrow lifted slightly.
Then she reached to her belt, pulled out a small knife, and threw it.
The blade flew straight toward Han Joon-seong. There was a kid in the way again. Han Joon-seong lunged forward, tackling the boy to the ground, rolling with him. The knife passed overhead, missing both of them.
The woman's eyebrow lifted a fraction higher. Ervin couldn't read minds, but in that moment, the woman was thinkin; *He wasn't even looking at me, how did he dodge?*
Han Joon-seong drove his fist into the kid's face — a single, clean punch — and slammed his head into the floor. The boy went limp. Han Joon-seong stood up.
There were about six or seven left. He grabbed one by the collar, punched him in the jaw — down. Turned to another — a punch to the side of the head — down. Another — down.
The remaining four looked at him, trembling. Then backed away. They didn't want to fight anymore.
Han Joon-seong let out a sigh of relief. No more kids to hit.
He looked up.
The woman was still on the mezzanine, watching him. He met her gaze with a cold, flat look.
"Where is Lee Hye-jin?"