Chapter 12 – A Blessing in Disguise (Part Two)

A transport helicopter was flying over the Seoul sky.

The logo “AEGIS” was emblazoned on its side.

It was the logo of Aegis, the world’s top corporation for the Awakened.

And inside, three Awakened were on board.

Each sat wearing a black coat, a white communicator fitted in one ear.

Two men and one woman.

All of them were so famous that more people in the world knew them than not.

“An eleven-minute semi-surprise Gate… and a B3-rank at that. One thing after another, right after being forced back from vacation.”

Seok Pil-joon said, gazing out at the Seoul landscape.

He was a tall, clean-cut man, but his slightly protruding eyes and dark circles gave him a unique air.

A hint of fatigue laced his words.

It was understandable, considering the government had sent an urgent request while they were returning from a mission, simply because they were in the vicinity.

“What can you do? Two people took vacation to rest up before the next cycle, so the team’s short-staffed. Does it make any sense to have two team leaders and only one team member?”

Lee Soo-yeon, a team leader of Aegis’s Alpha Team, grumbled.

At twenty-nine, she was a veteran among veterans, having been an Awakened for nearly thirteen years.

With a strikingly beautiful face, her long, dark black hair was worn down, quite long for an Awakened.

“Speaking of which, where did Team Leader Jeong go?”

“He went to support E-Team. An A5-rank Gate opened in the Middle East… That one will probably activate soon, too.”

Lee Soo-yeon said, glancing down at the watch on her wrist.

The Gate her team was assigned to also had only four minutes left until activation.

“Ghost, you asleep? We’re almost there.”

She nudged the leg of the man sitting across from her, who was staring blankly with his arms crossed.

But the man answered without moving a muscle.

“Can’t you see my eyes are wide open?”

“With that damn mask of yours, how am I supposed to know if you’re even alive?”

The man called Ghost, not by his real name, wore a black balaclava with a white skull painted on it.

Moreover, the only openings for his eyes were covered by dark sunglasses, leaving no part of his face exposed.

“Arriving in one minute!”

The pilot in the front seat called out to the Awakened.

“You heard him. Everyone, get ready. You remember what the analysis team told us. This Gate’s monster generation speed is supposed to be incredibly fast, so let’s clean it up quickly and head home.”

Lee Soo-yeon told her team members.

Although the Gate was on a tight schedule, the police were already on site, and since it was mostly a commercial area, the civilian evacuation was nearly complete.

They didn’t have to worry about that.

The three Awakened, including her, all limbered up and grabbed their weapons.

Amidst this, Seok Pil-joon asked his team leader a question that had been on his mind.

“By the way, are we going to continue as a four-person team?”

“No, we have to recruit at least one more. I don’t want to poach from another team… I wonder who I should try to persuade.”

* * *

Il-hyeon, whose face had now taken on a sharp-featured appearance, arrived at the scene without much delay, aside from getting slightly lost while riding the hawk.

Still, he wasn’t late.

“Hm?”

Looking down to find a suitable place to land, Il-hyeon noticed something strange.

‘Why is the control zone so wide?’

A radius of several kilometers around the Gate’s location was cordoned off.

It might have made sense on the outskirts, but this was a busy downtown area packed with buildings and heavy traffic.

For a mere D4-rank Gate, the response was excessive.

‘Well, it’s good for me, I guess.’

The wide control zone made it easier to move around and to land without being seen.

When Il-hyeon pointed to a building, the hawk changed direction.

The hawk carrying Il-hyeon turned translucent again and descended, landing on the rooftop of a building.

As soon as he dismounted, he quickly dismissed the summon.

Its form dissipated and vanished like mist.

Il-hyeon crouched and approached the edge of the rooftop.

The building he was on was the tallest in the area, offering a clear view of the surroundings.

“Wait… what is this?”

Looking down closely, Il-hyeon realized something was wrong.

The monsters were all dead, and only three Awakened stood amidst the numerous corpses.

The Gate, having disgorged all its monsters, flickered for a moment before closing and disappearing.

‘It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes.’

Il-hyeon quickly pulled out his phone.

He had tried to avoid reaching into his pockets during flight, ever since dropping something nearly caused a major accident.

But in that time, the Gate’s rank had jumped from D4 to B3.

‘That’s a huge difference! And Aegis, of all people…’

The fact that it was already cleared didn’t matter so much; he could just write it off as being a little late.

Since he wasn’t operating with direct contact from the disaster observation department, coming up empty-handed sometimes was unavoidable.

The problem, however, was the identity of the Awakened.

He had inadvertently run into one of the two groups he’d thought he absolutely had to avoid: the government’s Response Team and Aegis.

They were all familiar faces, celebrities he often saw on TV.

‘Seeing that strange mask, that must be Ghost. His concept is still the same.’

Il-hyeon focused and observed the people below.

The first one to catch his eye was, of course, Ghost.

He was famous not only as a B-rank Awakened from Aegis, but also for the mask he wore.

He’d taken the name Ghost from his special power, hiding his real name and completely covering his face.

It was said that no one besides his teammates knew his face or identity.

It was the kind of thing that garnered a lot of public interest.

And the other people also came into Il-hyeon’s view.

‘That face is Seok Pil-joon… and my god, Lee Soo-yeon is here too.’

Lee Soo-yeon, the co-team leader of Alpha Team, one of the faces of Aegis.

An A-rank Awakened, she was one of the most powerful individuals in the world.

His friend Byeong-cheol was also a huge fan of Lee Soo-yeon.

If he had met her somewhere else, he might have asked for an autograph, but right now, her presence was anything but welcome.

‘Should I run now? Or wait quietly and slip away later?’

He couldn’t make a quick decision, thinking that any rash movement could get him caught.

Il-hyeon had only heard stories; he didn’t know the actual skill level of A or B-rank Awakened.

But he knew for certain that if he was spotted, escaping would be difficult.

The monster with blue horns, over four meters tall, looked powerful at a glance.

He could tell just by seeing the several B-rank ace monsters torn to shreds on the ground.

The Aegis Awakened were chatting amongst themselves, surrounded by monster carcasses.

Just then, all three of them turned their heads simultaneously.

Directly in his direction.

Their eyes met Il-hyeon’s.

“Hk!”

Startled, Il-hyeon gasped and stumbled back.

‘Don’t tell me they noticed me from this distance?’

Even for Awakened, that seemed excessive.

With a sense of disbelief, he peeked down again.

Only two of them were still looking this way, same as before.

The other one, Ghost, had vanished.

Just then, something suddenly appeared and blocked his view.

“Who might you be?”

“Agh!”

The face of a masked person emerged from the rooftop floor, causing Il-hyeon to jump back in surprise.

The man who had suddenly appeared was phasing through the floor, visible only up to his shoulders.

Ghost tilted his head and asked again.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ah… I think I took a wrong turn while evacuating.”

Flustered, Il-hyeon made up a lame excuse while still wearing his Defensive Coat.

At that, Ghost’s body passed smoothly through the floor and materialized.

His previously translucent body returned to the solid colors of a person.

“I’ve been doing this for years; I can identify an Awakened blindfolded. I have a guess…”

He trailed off, then suddenly grabbed one of Il-hyeon’s arms.

The moment Il-hyeon reflexively tried to shake him off, both of their bodies became blurry.

Seeing Il-hyeon’s eyes widen as he looked at his own body, Ghost laughed cheerfully and yanked him downward.

“Haha! Let’s go together!”

“What is this…!”

Il-hyeon and Ghost’s bodies became intangible and were pulled down through the building.

He couldn’t even bring himself to scream.

Floors that should have been solid obstacles flew past as they descended through the levels, and he felt a dizzying sensation as if the world were spinning.

About three stories from the ground, Il-hyeon was thrown out of the building and rolled across the pavement.

“Cough, cough!”

Il-hyeon was disoriented by the experience, the likes of which he’d never had before.

Meanwhile, Lee Soo-yeon and Seok Pil-joon were approaching from the front, while Ghost, having emerged from the building, came up from behind.

Surrounded by the three Awakened in black coats, Il-hyeon let out a small sigh.

‘Haa, looks like a clean getaway is out of the question.’

“I never thought the Scavenger I’d only heard rumors about would show up right in front of us.”

Lee Soo-yeon stepped forward, brushing a stray strand of hair back as she spoke.

For Awakened, having their assigned site encroached upon was a rather sensitive matter.

But she was just looking at him with curious eyes, as if she found it fascinating.

It seemed she had never expected a Scavenger to visit one of their sites.

That was only natural, as even Il-hyeon, who had come here himself, hadn’t expected it.

“Well, I’m not a Scavenger…”

Il-hyeon paused mid-sentence.

Judging by their expressions, they seemed convinced he was the Scavenger.

They weren’t people he could easily fool, and he figured denying it further would be pointless, so Il-hyeon decided to be honest.

“My apologies. I came to the wrong place, I didn’t realize it had been reassigned. I’ll leave quietly without disturbing you, so please, carry on.”

It was his fault for trespassing, so he humbly deferred to them.

Despite Il-hyeon’s attempt to end the conversation quickly, she paid him no mind and continued to speak.

“Are you affiliated with anyone?”

“Pardon…? No, I’m not.”

“How long have you been Awakened?”

“About two weeks.”

As the woman kept talking, Il-hyeon gave curt answers while diligently scanning his surroundings.

He was looking for an escape route, trying to figure out how to get away.

Hoping for even the slightest opening.

“Two weeks? That’s not enough time to get familiar enough with Scavenger work…”

“What are you doing?”

“Just wait.”

Seok Pil-joon looked quizzically at his team leader, who was chatting with the man instead of immediately apprehending him.

But she, her interest piqued, continued the conversation.

“With an ability to freely change your face, you’d be a hot commodity for intelligence agencies, not just Awakened corporations… Are you intentionally unaffiliated?”

“I can’t say.”

“Hmm.”

Lee Soo-yeon toyed with the corner of her mouth.

“Then I suppose you can’t tell me why you became a Scavenger either?”

“Well… that’s right.”

Having already heard in detail from an acquaintance that the recently trending Scavenger had been at the forefront of rescuing civilians at every site he visited, she had become curious about his story.

But when it seemed the man wouldn’t answer any more questions, she clicked her tongue in disappointment.

“I don’t like to meddle, but there are so many flies buzzing in from overseas… I don’t exactly have a good impression of Scavengers.”

Even if she had heard one good story about the man before her, the fact remained that he’d poached monsters in someone else’s territory.

A Scavenger was a Scavenger, and even his claim of coming here by mistake wasn’t very credible.

There were plenty of Scavengers who took risks, aiming for a big score by targeting high-rank Ether Cores.

They had no reason to let Il-hyeon go.

“We’ll hand you over to the police outside. Let’s end this without getting worked up, shall we?”

It was a softened way of telling him to surrender quietly.

In a situation where the power difference was obvious, it was a rather generous offer.

But Il-hyeon had no intention of being taken quietly.

He bolted in the direction he had scouted out earlier.

Lee Soo-yeon sighed at his action and gave a nod.

At that, Ghost made his move.