157 - Love

TL/Editor: raei

Status: 5/week mon-fri

Illustrations: posted in discord

Join the discord! Here

Silence fell over the investigation team's office. The team leader and Yoo Ji-yoo stared blankly at Yeonwoo, their mouths hanging open. It seemed like they couldn't even hear the noise from outside. Only a vague sense of shock filled their heads.

'That woman looked like a civilian. Did he just shoot a civilian dead?'

The team leader and Yoo Ji-yoo unconsciously turned their heads back to the window.

The woman lay on the ground, soaked in blood. Even those doomsday cultists were only wounding civilians for their purpose, but this woman had been riddled with holes like a beehive.

The perfume bottle she had been clutching like a treasure rolled pitifully on the ground.

"Uh, uh."

"Ah."

At that point, the team leader and Yoo Ji-yoo, having somewhat regained their senses, took a step back.

They thought Yeonwoo had lost his mind. That the doomsday cultists had manipulated his mind with some strange anomalous entity.

'He's scarier than the doomsday cultists.'

The team leader swallowed hard and held up the land contract. His hand trembled uncontrollably, making the document flutter.

Yoo Ji-yoo inched towards the reflective vest storage, keeping a careful eye on Yeonwoo. An odd tension subtly settled over the office.

Yeonwoo blinked, catching his breath.

'Ah. I'm back.'

The woman who had made his heart race was dead. The intense emotion that had filled his head evaporated. It was as if he had been possessed by a ghost, but his mind and body had returned to normal.

As that irrationally intense emotion receded, a cold rationality took its place.

Yeonwoo let out a sigh of relief and adjusted his grip on the gun. Then he made a puzzled expression. Something felt off.

'...Was that woman really dangerous?'

For the level of crisis he had felt, it seemed to have been resolved too easily.

Yeonwoo's expression hardened again. He looked down at the woman's corpse, keeping his gun trained on it. She might come back to life, after all. Based on his past experiences, he couldn't let his guard down.

'I might need to use the dice.'

At that point, the team leader spoke up.

"Uh, Yeonwoo. Put that gun down and look at me."

"Yes?"

Yeonwoo turned his head. The team leader observed Yeonwoo's eyes closely as he spoke.

"Why did you kill that civilian?"

"She wasn't a civilian. She was the one who made me feel that sense of crisis. She's probably a doomsday cultist. She approached me at lunch too."

With his survival instinct awakened in this crisis situation, Yeonwoo's mind was racing.

The woman who had triggered his sense of crisis and the doomsday cultists' terror attack happening at the same time. Surely they must be connected? Maybe that woman was even a high-ranking doomsday cultist.

The team leader hesitated, then nodded.

"Is that so?"

The hand that had been gripping the land contract tightly, ready to expel Yeonwoo if necessary, relaxed.

To be honest, he was still suspicious, but that woman had been acting strangely too. Causing a car accident, approaching Yeonwoo, and then coming straight for their building in the middle of this chaos.

"Her behavior was suspicious, I guess."

As the team leader relaxed, Yoo Ji-yoo glanced around before picking up the megaphone again.

"Should we evacuate the civilians?"

"Yeah, let's do it quickly."

As long as Yeonwoo was okay, that was what mattered. He had the ability to cause even bigger accidents than these doomsday cultist mobs, so it was fine as long as he hadn't lost his mind.

Yoo Ji-yoo turned on the megaphone, but it remained silent, probably due to the EMP or lack of maintenance. In the end, Yoo Ji-yoo screamed at the top of her lungs without any equipment.

"Evacuate to this building!"

Meanwhile, the team leader firmly pressed the button to call the Extermination Team. The specially designed button worked fine even in the face of the EMP.

"Good. Now we just need to hold out."

"..."

Meanwhile, Yeonwoo retreated far from the window and stroked his chin.

'That doesn't feel as dangerous as it should.'

Though the doomsday cultists were wreaking havoc outside, the team leader had the land contract, and Yeonwoo himself had plenty of time-buying bills. They could easily buy enough time for the Extermination Team to arrive.

If there was one thing bothering him...

'The problem is that woman. Is she really dead?'

Something felt off. The intensity of the crisis he had felt didn't match the ease of its resolution. No matter how he thought about it, it didn't seem right.

A strange sense of discomfort. After seriously thinking, Yeonwoo finally grabbed a stack of bills.

"Safety first."

He muttered softly as he set fire to the time-buying bills.

The team leader and Yoo Ji-yoo reacted sensitively. They quickly turned their heads to look at Yeonwoo.

But even after all the bills had burned, nothing seemed to have changed. The office, and even Yeonwoo himself, remained the same as before.

Faced with their suspicious glances, Yeonwoo smiled refreshingly.

"I'll help."

He had resolved the nagging issue. Yeonwoo decided to help people within his reach, like the team leader. In a secure situation, at a level that wasn't dangerous.

The team leader rolled his eyes. Certainly, nothing in this office had changed.

"What did you do with those bills?"

"I moved that woman's corpse far away and buried it. She seemed to be a high-ranking doomsday cultist, so it would be dangerous to keep her nearby."

The corpse might come back to life, or maybe it wasn't a corpse to begin with, or it might explode like a bomb, or some monster might tear out of its stomach.

Lacking information, Yeonwoo let his imagination run wild. In this strange world, anything was possible.

The team leader agreed with that opinion.

"Good job. But how are you going to help? It's too dangerous to go outside. It's best if we hole up in the building and take in evacuating civilians."

The team leader made a judgment that would save more lives.

It was better than going out to confront the doomsday cultists. Even just providing timely first aid would be good.

But Yeonwoo just smiled.

"I'll kidnap people."

"Huh?"

"There's no need to wait for people to find their way here. I'll grab them by the collar and drag them in."

Yeonwoo held up the time-buying bills. He would buy time to carry out the labor of kidnapping. It was a safe and quick way to save people.

Of course, he might use up all his bills doing this, but Yeonwoo didn't mind.

'I can just get more from the Club. They want to build a relationship with me, so they won't refuse, right?'

The team leader stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then muttered to himself.

'He's right? I guess he is.'

The team leader mumbled quietly.



"That's not kidnapping, it's rescue. Why the word choice..."

No matter how he thought about it, the word choice seemed strange. Or was it? Since people were being suddenly dragged away, was it kidnapping?

As the team leader fell into confusion, Yoo Ji-yoo's eyes lit up. If she didn't need to shout her throat sore, she could do other work. More direct work to save people.

"I'll prepare the first aid kit and memory erasers."

"There's plenty of bandages, gauze, and disinfectant in my bag, so use those too. Team leader, please get ready to defend with the land contract."

"Alright."

And so, the three of them moved as one to save people.

------

The doomsday cultists slowly gathered near the investigation team's building. They knew the plan too. They were driving people towards that building to naturally infiltrate their spy. Searᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

One of the doomsday cultists checked their wristwatch.

"Looks like we've given enough time? Let's get ready to leave."

"A few of us are missing."

"They've probably gone crazy and wandered off. Abandon them."

To survive long as a doomsday cultist, you had to be strict about time.

They busily prepared to retreat. While waiting for the portal to open, they idly raided a nearby pharmacy for medicine or approached injured people lying on the ground with knives drawn.

A doomsday cultist giggled as they dragged a rusty machete. The machete scraped against the asphalt road, getting closer and closer.

A person who had collapsed with a gunshot wound to the thigh opened and closed their mouth. Overcome with fear, they couldn't make a sound.

"Time to die."

"Uh, ah-"

Swish-

The machete sliced through the air.

"...Huh?"

Literally, it just cut through the air. The cultist had clearly swung at the person, but they had vanished. As if teleported.

The faces of the doomsday cultists gathered nearby hardened.

"Are they here already?"

"Is it the company? The Club? The Artist? A demon? A magician? Who is it?"

They had so many enemies, it was hard to guess who it might be. Any top-tier group could handle space to some extent.

Above all, they didn't have time for leisurely deduction.

The next moment, one of them disappeared. They had been caught by spatial movement and dragged away.

The doomsday cultists muttered curses under their breath.

"There's no way these bastards could react this quickly. Let's scatter!"

"Run-"

And a moment later.

The doomsday cultist with the machete was caught by spatial movement. More precisely, they were kidnapped by Yeonwoo.

The space changed in an instant.

The cultist gripped their machete tightly and opened their eyes wide. They were trying to get a broad view of their environment first. Soon, they blinked.

'Is this... a doomsday cultist hideout? Did another cultist help us escape?'

There were corpses strewn everywhere. Bodies carelessly propped against walls or thrown on the floor. A strong smell of blood wafted from the numerous corpses, and faint groans could be heard.

"These aren't corpses?"

The doomsday cultist snapped back to their senses.

They were all patients. Though it was unclear why they were all sleeping together, the traces of first aid suggested this wasn't the work of doomsday cultists.

That's when they heard a grumbling voice from behind.

"No, Yeonwoo. You should bring civilians, not these guys."

"Well, the bills work well for simple labor. But when it gets a bit complicated, it doesn't work so well."

The doomsday cultist jumped up and spun around. Only then did they see three people.

A middle-aged man, a young man, and a young woman. The atmosphere surrounding them was...

"Who are you people?"

The middle-aged man seemed to have a company employee's sense of mission, the young woman had a gloomy air like a demon worshipper tormented by a nasty demon.

The young man had an unhinged vibe, like an artist, demon, or doomsday cultist.

'What kind of combination is this? No, wait a minute. This man...'

His face looked familiar. It felt like someone had shown it to them. As the doomsday cultist racked their brain trying to remember, their pupils suddenly dilated. Their mouth fell open as they let out a scream-like sound.

"Lee Yeonwoo! What the hell did we ever do to you to make you torment us like this!"

"...Excuse me?"

"Are you doing this because our leader with the eraser attacked you? You killed that leader, so the grudge should end there! Why are you going after all of us-!"

The shout pierced their eardrums. Yeonwoo wore a bewildered expression, while the team leader and Yoo Ji-yoo glanced at Yeonwoo.

The team leader spoke with difficulty.

"Yeonwoo, uh, seems you've got quite a reputation."

"Every doomsday cultist who sees Yeonwoo reacts like this."

"No, no."

They had already heard the same thing while dealing with the doomsday cultists Yeonwoo had accidentally brought in earlier.

Yeonwoo was dumbfounded, but he explained to the team leader and Yoo Ji-yoo as if making excuses.

"No, I didn't do anything special. I just struggled to survive, that's all. It was all accidents."

"You, you, you!"

They could barely speak. The doomsday cultist's eyes welled up with tears of frustration. How could someone who had shattered their organization, regardless of ideology, say such things?

Yeonwoo made an uncomfortable expression, feeling like he had become the aggressor, when he suddenly realized the situation. The person in front of him was a doomsday cultist. He muttered unconsciously.

"Isn't it right for doomsday cultists to face doom?"

Wasn't it better if a group trying to destroy the Earth and kill people didn't exist?

As he uttered this obvious truth, the doomsday cultist's forehead suddenly bulged with veins, and they rolled their eyes back and collapsed. They had fainted.

"Guess we don't need to use the land contract."

The team leader nudged the doomsday cultist with his toe. A few cultists who had been dragged in one by one and overwhelmed individually were gathered in a corner. They all had strange complexions or something like foam on their mouths.

Yoo Ji-yoo muttered.

"I guess doomsday cultists are people with messed up heads. They want to live so badly, yet they try to kill others. I just don't understand."

"They're all the same. Artists say they want to make art, the Club says they want to make money, the company says they want to protect. Enough. Yeonwoo, there's plenty of room in the building. Let's save more people."

Yeonwoo silently burned the bills once more to bring in another person.

This time, it was a civilian. The civilian, who had lost a lot of blood and looked pale, wore a dazed expression.

"Is this a dream?"



"You'll wake up and it'll all be over. So sleep tight."

The building owner's force put the civilian to sleep.

Yoo Ji-yoo moved quickly. She sprayed memory eraser from a deodorant can into the civilian's mouth twice, cut their clothes with scissors to expose the wound, and used bandages and gauze.

The end of the terror attack was gradually approaching.

---