Chapter 109 – Evacuation (Part Two)

Something shimmered in the clear, sunlit sky.

Before long, the form of a helicopter materialized from what had been empty air, swiftly descending to land.

The door of the helicopter, now landed near a small, solitary villa in the woods, clicked open.

Il-hyeon leaned out through the opening, and she met a face that had become all too familiar.

“What took you so long?”

Seo Jeong-hwa, who seemed to have been waiting below, asked bluntly, her arms crossed.

Il-hyeon offered a short reply, extending his arm.

“I came as soon as I could.”

*Thwack!*

Seo Jeong-hwa took his hand and let him pull her up into the helicopter.

The moment she was aboard, the helicopter lifted off without delay, rapidly gaining altitude and soaring into the sky.

Its form turning transparent once more, the helicopter sped toward its destination.

Il-hyeon and Seo Jeong-hwa flopped into seats across from each other and looked at one another.

“I heard you had something to tell me.”

“Is that all you have to say the moment we meet?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Forget it. Never mind.”

Seo Jeong-hwa clicked her tongue and shook her head, leaving Il-hyeon, who had suddenly been branded as clueless, with a bewildered expression.

Then, Seo Jeong-hwa candidly revealed her reason for calling him.

“To be honest, I don’t really have anything to tell you, and I don’t know anything. I was just getting stir-crazy being cooped up in that underground corner, so I told you to come get me.”

“What? For a reason like that?”

“Like that? Everyone else was running around like crazy, and I was just sitting there awkwardly all day, twiddling my thumbs. And they wouldn’t even let me go outside.”

Seo Jeong-hwa declared confidently.

Il-hyeon, looking dumbfounded, asked her,

“Do you even know where we’re going right now?”

“Yeah, to Deparc. One of the world’s worst prisons.”

“And you want to go there?”

“It’s better than being back there with you. It was nothing but a bunch of boring guys tinkering with computers. Besides, maybe I can be of some help there.”

“I doubt it.”

Il-hyeon gave a lukewarm response and leaned his back against the wall.

But he soon remembered that Seo Jeong-hwa had undergone testing after he left.

He was curious about the results of her ability test, more so than her Awakened test.

Her physical enhancement ability, which turned her body red, was common among those who had artificially acquired their powers, so he wondered what level it was.

“Right, how did the test go?”

“Awakened C-rank, Ability A.”

“What…? A-rank?”

“How about that? My ability rank is the same as yours.”

Seo Jeong-hwa said triumphantly, placing her hands on her hips.

He had never told her about his ability, but it seemed she believed his ability rank was around A-rank.

She couldn’t seem to imagine that it might be S-rank or higher, powerful as it was.

But setting that aside, for her ability to be A-rank…

Even considering the A-rank abilities Il-hyeon had seen firsthand—Alpha Team’s co-leader Jeong Jin-seong’s [Stop], D-Team leader Yoon In-hye’s [Mind Control], B-Team leader Jo Yoon’s [Shadow], and the now-gone Lee Tae-hee’s [Time Acceleration] and [Spatial Severance]—they were all incredible powers.

The physical enhancement ability that Seo Jeong-hwa and the surgically-altered terrorists possessed was certainly powerful, but it was nothing compared to those.

And it seemed Seo Jeong-hwa thought so too.

“Honestly, I’m not sure if the number is reliable. I don’t feel that strong, and there was an error the first time they measured it.”

“An error on the scanner?”

“Yeah, an error. A weird ability suddenly showed up on the results sheet, and I was like, what’s this? It said SS-rank. As if it wasn’t just messing with me…”

Seo Jeong-hwa grumbled.

She felt a flush of embarrassment, remembering how she had been startled by the results, even if only for a moment.

But unlike her, who thought it was nothing, Il-hyeon’s expression had completely changed.

“What…? SS-rank? What was the ability’s name?!”

Il-hyeon grabbed Seo Jeong-hwa’s shoulders.

Caught off guard by his sudden action, Seo Jeong-hwa answered reflexively while still in his grasp.

“Cr… Cryokinesis. But it disappeared when they retested. I told you, it was just a measurement error.”

*‘SS-rank… Could it be…?’*

A simple measurement error.

It was a familiar story, one that Il-hyeon himself had experienced.

The phenomenon of impossibly high-rank abilities occasionally appearing on the scanners.

In most cases, an un-Awakened person would inexplicably show an A-rank or S-rank ability, and in very rare instances, something even higher.

Of course, there were no cases of them actually Awakening with that ability, and a retest would immediately show the correct results.

But Il-hyeon was different.

He was the first in the world to have three SSS-rank abilities appear on his results sheet, and he had successfully Awakened while possessing those very abilities.

It was something that had never happened before, but as long as Il-hyeon’s case existed, an exception could always occur again.

Perhaps what everyone thought was a measurement error wasn’t an error at all.

It wasn’t certain, of course, but what if her Awakening conditions just hadn’t been met yet?

What if, just like how Il-hyeon couldn’t Awaken until he happened to find and absorb a core on his way to work, her trigger simply hadn’t been pulled?

He couldn’t rule out the possibility.

“What’s wrong…? Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?”

Seeing Il-hyeon’s drastically changed expression, Seo Jeong-hwa asked cautiously, her own face growing anxious.

“No… it’s nothing.”

Il-hyeon mumbled, slumping back into his seat.

In Seo Jeong-hwa’s case, she said the SS-rank ability disappeared immediately upon retesting.

Il-hyeon, on the other hand, hadn’t been retested since he first had his ability checked at twenty.

Before Awakening, he hadn’t felt the need, and the embarrassing memory made him avoid it. After Awakening on his way to work, he deliberately avoided ability tests for fear of others seeing the results or leaving a data trail.

Until he could properly confirm it, this was just a leap in logic; it could very well be a simple error.

“You get all worked up and lunge at me… and now this? What a letdown.”

Seo Jeong-hwa scoffed at Il-hyeon’s suddenly subdued attitude.

“Enough about me. How was the mission?”

“It wrapped up well. Though it got dangerous once in the middle.”

“Oh? That’s good. Hey, you guys, come on out.”

She suddenly tugged open her coat and peered inside as she spoke.

Two weasels that had been hiding inside her coat popped out and peeked their heads out.

The long-bodied white weasels waved at Il-hyeon, and he burst out laughing.

“Can you take these guys? Now that you’ve searched my entire mind, you have no reason to suspect me anymore. Stop it, don’t lick me.”

“What’s this? When did you all get so friendly?”

One of the weasels had climbed onto her shoulder and was busily licking her cheek.

But as soon as Il-hyeon spoke, the creatures’ actions came to a sudden halt.

An inexplicable silence fell for a moment, and then the weasel bit down hard on the very cheek it had just been licking.

“Agh! These crazy rats!”

Startled, Seo Jeong-hwa jumped and reached out to grab them, but the two weasels nimbly slipped away.

Then they scurried across the floor and disappeared inside Il-hyeon’s coat.

As they vanished into his coat, Seo Jeong-hwa burst out in frustration, as if wronged.

“Why did you make their personalities so awful?”

“Calm down…”

*Jolt!*

In the middle of their conversation, the aircraft suddenly shook.

Il-hyeon and Seo Jeong-hwa quickly grabbed the inner wall to steady themselves.

“What’s going on?”

Looking out the window, rain poured from the pitch-black sky as if a hole had been torn in it, and high waves churned below.

It seemed the aircraft was shaking due to the bad weather, but the pilot in the front seat soon gave them an all-clear sign.

Fierce winds began to rage, strong enough that a helicopter from the past wouldn’t have been able to stay airborne for a moment, but that was a story from twenty years ago.

This helicopter, built with all sorts of advanced technology, could easily cross the Atlantic even through weather like this.

It couldn’t match a transport plane in speed or stability, but the transports were all being used to move the items seized from the facility.

Not long after the unusual turbulence began, their destination started to appear in the distance.

Radio communications requesting landing clearance were exchanged, and the image of an island drew closer—a massive, man-made steel structure on the sea, its lights shining in all directions.

It was the world’s most notorious prison, Deparc.

On top, guards in black uniforms stood watch with stern vigilance, and menacing-looking anti-aircraft batteries were densely packed.

The helicopter circled the artificial structure for a moment before shedding its transparency and descending onto the helipad.

As Il-hyeon and Seo Jeong-hwa disembarked, a man in a black raincoat who had been waiting approached them.

“I’ll need to see your papers first.”

the man said in slightly slurred English, and Il-hyeon handed over the authorization papers he had received from Jeong Jin-seong.

After confirming the documents were authentic, they took custody of the sword and Defensive Coat that Il-hyeon and Seo Jeong-hwa were wearing and conducted a brief inspection.

It was a process to verify they weren’t Awakened using their abilities to disguise themselves; fitting for a place full of the world’s worst criminals, every step of the procedure was meticulous.

*‘I never thought I’d come to a place like this in my life.’*

Il-hyeon muttered as the surrounding scenery came into view during the inspection.

The unique, suffocating atmosphere, the rigid steel structures, and the gloomy, rain-soaked sky combined to make it seem like the most depressing place on earth, even before they had set foot inside.

He had heard of its reputation, but until recently, he had never dreamed he would see this place—which he had only ever heard stories about—with his own eyes.

Once all the procedures were completed without issue, the man in the black raincoat finally offered a proper greeting.

“Welcome. Thank you for your long journey. Please, come inside.”

“Thank you.”

The man led the way inside, and Il-hyeon briefly glanced up at the sky, which flashed with light.

*CRACK!*

Thunder rumbled, and the wind grew even stronger.

A storm was coming.