Chapter 26.2 - 27.1

Chapter 26.2

At that moment, the door was shattered, and someone entered amidst the debris. Despite her heart pounding as if it would burst, the atmosphere felt strangely calm.

Every space around her seemed to dissolve away, leaving only her eyes, nose, and ears vividly alert. Even Lee Woo-shin’s emotionless voice was no exception. Only the voice of that man was heard.

—And even if you die, try to take down or hurt at least one of them.

“……!”

—That way, I’ll recognize that bastard at a glance.

He had a ruthless attitude of discarding what needed to be discarded and seizing what needed to be seized until the end.

Lee Woo-shin remained undeterred and consistently assessed the situation. Whenever she panicked, his calm and decisive words echoed in her mind.

Although luck wasn’t on their side, the mere presence of Lee Woo-shin oddly provided some relief.

However, the issue was Seoryeong’s precarious situation. Her left hand was holding Channa’s throat, while her right hand, holding the gun, kept slipping due to sweat and blood.

In the end, she clenched the upper part of the gun with her teeth, trying desperately to pull the slide..

Struggling to pull the slide, she met Channa’s eyes. Seoryeong’s cooling skin reassured her.

“It’s okay, this time I’ll help you. If they come to kill you again…,” she promised with her eyes, “I won’t let you die alone.”

As soon as she said this, the warehouse door rattled.

“―!”

Her whole body tensed, and she couldn’t even breathe properly. The same was true for Lee Woo-shin, who was listening on the other side.

No sound of breathing escaped their lips. Channa tightly shut her eyes. Yet, Seoryeong could feel strength in her eyelids, which reassured her.

Clack… clack… The slow sound of high heels lingered near the door before fading away.

“Don’t be fooled. They’ve already figured out you’re there,” Lee Woo-shin warned coldly. He knew. That person was a hunter, only pretending to hesitate for the hunt.

“Don’t move. Keep aiming and wait.”

Seoryeong tightened her grip on the gun and aimed at the door. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t tremble, from her hand to her shoulder. The muzzle of the gun kept wobbling, unable to hold the aiming point.

But if the door were to open―.

She was on the verge of pulling the trigger. It felt like her head was about to explode from the relentless repetition of that thought. A low voice seemed to lightly scratch at her eardrums, preventing her from slipping into unconsciousness.

―Yeah, grip it tightly. The moment it fires, your wrist will shatter.

Finally, with a bang, the door opened.

“―!”

The appearance of the assassin was far from what Seoryeong had expected.

She failed to properly pull the trigger and the gun slipped from her hand.

Even though Lee Wooshin shouted like thunder, it sounded inaudible to Seoryeong.

The person who chuckled as they looked at the two hiding like rats in the corner was a petite woman. Despite her plain skin, she had flashy features, wearing hot pants, a tank top, and high heels.

Even though she didn’t look like an assassin, this split second of hesitation changed everything.

When her hand slipped, Seoryeong was immediately subjected to a brutal counterattack. The woman slashed at Seoryeong with a crescent-shaped comb with a joyful expression.

Missing her shot, Seoryeong reflexively raised one arm to defend her face. Her other arm was inexplicably slashed repeatedly.

—Damn it, Han Seoryeong!

Her attention was solely focused on the fingers blocking Channa’s throat. If she removes it, Channa will die. If she moves even a little, Channa will start bleeding again.

Seoryeong didn’t even flinch or groan. Eventually, when her arm was mangled, she met eyes with the assassin who was about to kill her.

“…!”

That gaze. That discomfort. Where have I seen it before? Where have I felt it?

At that moment, as if refusing to think any further, her body moved first. She picked up the gun that had fallen to the ground and kicked roughly between the assassin’s legs.

Then the assassin bent her waist and took a step back. She felt something thud in her hand.

It reminded him of the city he’d left with Channa, the alleyways he’d quickly returned to, the prostitutes hawking tourists, and… hot pants. Shoes, the smell of heavy perfume.

“You’re an asshole, but you’re not a woman.”

Chapter 27.1

Employees might have opened the door for her without suspicion, possibly mistaking her for a prostitute. However, Seoryeong, who had spent the past few years blind, trusted her instincts.

As the assassin rushed at her again, she aimed for his vital points and grazed his flexible legs with a knife.

Seoryeong reloaded the gun with her mouth and fired at the assassin’s groin—bang! She fired. As his agonized face turned towards Channa, Seoryeong fired in succession.

From then on, she mechanically fired the gun. The stumbling opponent collapsed into the kitchen as if crumbling.

“Ryeong! Answer if you’re alive!”

A sharp shout rang in her ears. But Seoryeong couldn’t answer.

Damn… This gun is difficult…

***

As Lee Wooshin climbed the stairs, the smell of blood engulfed the team. The cold corridor was even eerier without any sound.

While other members checked the dead medics and transporters, he headed straight for the communal kitchen. Seeing the broken door, he hesitated for a moment.

He frowned and shook off the unfamiliar discomfort.

The kitchen looked dismal at first glance. The military boots quickly soaked the floor, covered in a grim mixture of soybean paste and blood.

In the midst of it all, a petite person who seemed to be a Thai assassin lay dead, bleeding profusely from the lower body. And as the warehouse door swung wide open, Lee Wooshin’s gaze slowly moved inside.

“…”

Han Seoryeong lying down still held the gun. Lee Wooshinbent down to check her pupils. A deep, heavy sigh escaped her lips.

“Wow… She seems to have fainted.”

A soldier who followed in muttered, looking at Han Seoryeong.

Indeed, Han Seoryeong was slumped over, seemingly unconscious. Furthermore, the arm holding the gun was deeply wounded, almost torn apart.

Yet, stubbornly, one hand firmly gripped Channa’s throat.

“She’s as tenacious as they came.”

The sight of the two of them, bundled up like a blood-soaked lump, was grim. They hadn’t expected them to be unscathed in the first place.

“Hurry up and move her.”

Lee Wooshin visibly frowned.

Although he had ordered them to hold out, it was nothing more than words. Desperately struggling was better than passively giving up on false hope.

Still, the chances of He Channa and Han Seoryeong surviving here without combat support were zero.

He requested body bags from the company.

To be precise, he asked for four.

He couldn’t shake off the dreadful feeling that he wasn’t just a contractor, but might have pushed Han Seoryeong towards death himself.

Lee Wooshin paused, clutching the sink for a moment, and exhaled a blocked breath. Finally, his chest fluttered like someone taking their first breath.

Just then, doctors, who had been called ahead, rushed in with emergency beds.

At that moment, one soldier exclaimed, almost mockingly, “Wow, Team Leader, this assassin isn’t a woman, but a man?”

“What?”

“There’s a pair of balls, sir.”

“…”

“It looks like the lady here had her way with him.”

At the soldier’s words, Lee Wooshin bent one knee and pulled up the dead man’s clothes for inspection.

While stray bullets were embedded all over the kitchen, there were quite a few bullets that had precisely pierced the man’s body.

Four in the groin, and one in the neck.

His expression became oddly perplexed. The neck… it was a similar location to where Channa was injured.

“Wow, how did she notice that? I aimed straight for the groin! What kind of intuition…!”

At that moment, the doctor who was moving the two survivors spoke up, looking perplexed.

“Um… Sir, the gun isn’t coming out of this one’s hand.” Seoryeong, even unconscious, gripped the gun like her life depended on it.

…That’s not an owl.

She is a strange woman, someone I had never encountered before.

That fact alone was branded into his mind like a red light.

***

“―.”

Seoryeong struggled to lift her heavy eyelids, having just experienced a very long dream she couldn’t even remember now.

For a moment, she was taken aback when she saw the white ceiling, but the sound of a humidifier running made her realize, ‘I’m not dead….’