Chapter 74 – Catastrophe (Part Three)

Heo Yu-ra’s heart sank at Lee Soo-yeon’s blunt words.

She didn’t know how, but Lee Soo-yeon already knew what she had done.

Even Team Leader Jo Yoon, standing beside her, wasn’t surprised in the slightest, staring at her with a blank expression.

Faced with this unexpected crisis, Heo Yu-ra’s eyes wavered violently.

But she quickly collected herself and steeled her resolve.

Neither Lee Soo-yeon nor anyone else could possibly know what she’d done.

Hyeon-seo, the only one to witness her actions up close, had been dragged away and killed by an A-rank mutated monster. There was no concrete evidence, not even a shred of suspicion.

“I… I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Did I mishear you?”

“No, you heard me right.”

Lee Soo-yeon replied, her gaze still icy.

Faced with her firm attitude, Heo Yu-ra hurriedly opened her mouth to make an excuse.

But she never even got the chance to finish.

“That’s ridiculous—urgh!”

“Looks like you brought some bad habits from your last job. How reckless.”

Lee Soo-yeon grabbed Heo Yu-ra by the throat and slammed her against a tree.

Her face turning crimson, Heo Yu-ra choked and clawed at Lee Soo-yeon’s arm with both hands.

She struggled to break free, but she was no match for Lee Soo-yeon’s monstrous strength.

“Did you really think you could pull something like that here and get away with it?”

“W-wait… ghk…”

Heo Yu-ra’s feet lifted off the ground.

Just as her trembling face turned pale, Lee Soo-yeon released her grip.

“Cough! Cough!”

As Lee Soo-yeon let go, Heo Yu-ra collapsed to her knees, coughing repeatedly.

A vivid bruise was already forming on her neck where she’d been grabbed.

But Lee Soo-yeon felt no pity.

She had put them together thinking there was some misunderstanding, but in the end, Heo Yu-ra had done something absurd, proving where the problem lay.

She’d been told to protect her teammate, but instead, she’d deliberately endangered Hyeon-seo—who was trying to maintain the barrier—with the intent to kill her. Then she had the audacity to put on an act right in front of her. There was no way Lee Soo-yeon would see her in a favorable light.

“Your reputation was decent, and there were no bad rumors. I can’t believe you’ve been going around doing this. How many people have you harmed in the field until now?”

“H… how.”

Heo Yu-ra muttered in a trembling voice, looking up.

Her work had been flawless; she hadn’t left a single piece of evidence.

Seeing her look of disbelief, Lee Soo-yeon spoke.

“Because the teammate you tried to kill is alive and well.”

“That’s impossible!”

Heo Yu-ra shot to her feet, screaming as if having a fit.

There was no way that woman could have survived after being caught defenselessly by the ankle and dragged underground by an A-rank mutated monster.

But unfortunately for Heo Yu-ra, it was the undeniable truth.

After trying to hold on until the end, Hyeon-seo, unable to maintain the barrier surrounding the island, had immediately used her spatial leap ability to escape the danger.

While her quick thinking was partly to thank, Lee Soo-yeon, who had been suspicious of Heo Yu-ra, had also given her a heads-up to be careful, allowing her to react swiftly before the monster’s follow-up attack.

Hyeon-seo had teleported to Il-hyeon and quickly explained the situation. Lee Soo-yeon, who heard the details through a private channel, cut off Heo Yu-ra’s communications and finished assessing the situation properly.

“You didn’t even know what kind of ability Hyeon-seo has, did you? We have the recording, so you’d better give up any thought of getting out of this.”

“Grr!”

Heo Yu-ra gritted her teeth.

If Kang Hyeon-seo was really alive as she said, she couldn’t even argue for them to produce evidence.

The camera built into the coat would have recorded everything, and at this rate, she’d be cornered and blacklisted in the industry.

Heo Yu-ra’s eyes darted around, quickly scanning her surroundings.

Only Lee Soo-yeon and Jo Yoon were nearby, and they hadn’t drawn their swords or shown any signs of caution. In other words, they were completely unguarded.

Normally, she would have tried to escape the situation by using her greatest strength—her speed—to slice the throats of the two unsuspecting women in an instant.

This time, however, she couldn’t bring herself to draw her sword.

Her opponents were Aegis team leaders.

She knew full well that if she foolishly drew her sword here, her own two arms would be gone in a flash.

She had to find another way.

“I… I was wrong. I think I made a stupid choice in the moment. I’ll quietly accept any disciplinary action you give me. But… that bitch, Kang Hyeon-seo! Does it make any sense for her to be here? Since when did Aegis start letting in people with no background! Am I wrong? How can you recruit an Awakened who can’t even fight?”

Heo Yu-ra spewed out her words desperately.

She firmly believed the nonsensical rumors circulating among a few ignorant Awakened.

Absurd stories, like Kang Hyeon-seo getting into Aegis through connections, or that her personal combat skills were rock bottom.

“Good grief…”

Lee Soo-yeon scoffed, looking at Heo Yu-ra, who was glaring back with eyes burning with malice.

She wondered how someone like this had passed the basic psychological evaluation. No, more than that, she was puzzled that her issues hadn’t surfaced until now.

The truth was, while Heo Yu-ra’s character was rotten, she wasn’t the type to act recklessly without thinking. She acted after making calculated decisions, which was how she’d managed to avoid her past misdeeds from being publicly exposed.

This incident, too, would have remained buried and undiscovered if not for Hyeon-seo and her special ability.

And now she was spouting nonsense about quietly accepting her punishment. It was laughable.

“Don’t tell me you actually think you’ll be able to keep working?”

Lee Soo-yeon said, incredulous.

“Are you going to fire me just like that?”

At her words, Heo Yu-ra bit her lip hard.

Fired on her very first day.

Strangers would whisper about her, calling her the troublemaker who got kicked out of Aegis after causing trouble right after signing her contract.

That story would likely follow her wherever she went, even if she tried to join another organization.

Her career, which she had expected to skyrocket after joining Aegis, was about to be shattered in an instant.

Unable to accept that, she pleaded with Lee Soo-yeon.

“I’m truly reflecting on my actions. Please, just transfer me to another team. You have no idea what I did to get in here…”

“I wish you’d stop talking nonsense.”

But Lee Soo-yeon’s stance was firm.

Far from being able to continue working at Aegis, the moment this came to light, even her former company would turn its back on her.

Of course, besides terminating her contract, she intended to take every possible legal action.

When her pleading failed, Heo Yu-ra’s expression twisted in irritation, and she clenched her fists.

“Ha… It’s not like I actually killed someone. You think you can send an Awakened like me to prison for something like this? Even if the charges stick, the most I’ll get is probation. And there are plenty of places that would welcome me with open arms. If I naturalize abroad, where they’re lining up with all sorts of offers, I’ll live comfortably. But I want to work here, you know? I hear Aegis is short-staffed these days because of the Gates.”

“That’s enough chatter.”

Jo Yoon, who had been watching silently, stepped forward and spoke.

There was no value in listening to her any longer; it was just tedious.

The shadow stretching out behind Heo Yu-ra suddenly stirred and began to move.

“I don’t want to run into scum like you in the field again… I’ll make sure you can never hold a sword again.”

“Ah, w-wait!”

Heo Yu-ra instinctively sensed the danger and cried out, but a black shadow whipped around her body.

The shadow snatched her sword, flung it far away, and shattered her coat’s defensive function.

Choking again as her throat was constricted, Heo Yu-ra gasped for air.

But more than that, Heo Yu-ra was staring down with eyes full of terror.

Her pupils trembled as the shadows enveloped her arms and legs.

Jo Yoon intended to completely shatter her arms and legs.

With the recent advancements in healing technology, most injuries could be recovered from, so she wouldn’t become a cripple, but it would be impossible for her to regain her former physical abilities.

Regardless of her ability, if an Awakened of Heo Yu-ra’s caliber couldn’t use her limbs properly, she would become utterly useless compared to before.

Watching this, Lee Soo-yeon hesitated for a moment.

It wasn’t just anyone; this was someone who had officially joined her team and then pulled a stunt that endangered one of her own. She thought Heo Yu-ra deserved it.

But she also knew that handling things this way wasn’t right.

Letting her emotions get the better of her… the things she’d done in the past were enough.

Just as she reached out to stop Jo Yoon, the shadow was sliced away.

“What?”

It wasn’t Lee Soo-yeon who had cut the shadow, nor had Jo Yoon withdrawn her ability.

Hyeon-seo, who had briefly escaped using her spatial leap ability, had reappeared and sliced through the shadow with her sword.

Wearing a black coat, Hyeon-seo swept her slightly disheveled hair back.

“How…?”

Jo Yoon muttered, frowning.

Setting aside the fact that Hyeon-seo—not a team leader like Lee Soo-yeon—had so easily cut through her shadow, she hadn’t sensed her approach at all.

It wasn’t simply a matter of being caught off guard.

No matter how you looked at it, it made no sense that both she and Lee Soo-yeon had failed to notice.

‘Something feels different…’

Lee Soo-yeon felt something was off as well.

The aura she was exuding was different from usual.

She could tell for sure.

It was a change that Lee Soo-yeon, with her natural intuition—no, even an ordinary person with no intuition at all—would have recognized at a glance, if they knew her.

Her once bright, sparkling eyes were now sunken and cold as she looked down at Heo Yu-ra, and her usual cheerful atmosphere was gone without a trace.

“Ugh…”

Heo Yu-ra groaned, pushing herself up from the ground.

As soon as she came to her senses, she quickly checked her body; thankfully, her arms and legs were unharmed.

But seeing her own disheveled state, Heo Yu-ra gritted her teeth and looked up to glare at the person who had caused all this.

To others, it might have looked like a blank expression, but to Heo Yu-ra, that face seemed to be openly mocking her, filling her with unspeakable rage.

“You… you…!”

Just then, Hyeon-seo bent down and picked up Heo Yu-ra’s sword, which had been thrown to the ground.

Then she took off the Defensive Coat she was wearing and tossed it aside.

As everyone watched, puzzled by her sudden actions, Hyeon-seo threw the sword she had picked up.

*Thwack!*

The sword, deeply embedded in the ground right in front of Heo Yu-ra, quivered from side to side.

“Pick it up.”

Hyeon-seo said coldly.

Her gaze was ice-cold.