Chapter 98 – Commencement (Part Three)

“Ugh! Ugh… Aaargh…”

Seo Jeong-hwa, waking up violently, let out a pained groan and gasped for air.

Dried saliva caked the corners of her mouth, and her eyes were hazy and unfocused. More than anything, even after fainting and waking up, her mind was a jumbled mess, and her entire body ached. She would need time to recover.

Before that could happen, however, CIA agent Danny Hecht saw that she was awake and entered the room.

“Where is that bitch!”

Seo Jeong-hwa shot to her feet and grabbed Hecht by the collar.

“Calm down.”

“Where is that psycho! It felt like my brain was melting!”

Seething with anger, Seo Jeong-hwa shook him as she yelled.

The pain had been so horrific she didn’t even want to recall it.

The moment Yoon In-hye had placed a hand on her forehead and delved into her subconscious, it felt as though her mind was flowing backward, accompanied by a nauseating sensation and a pain like knives stabbing her all over.

If Yoon In-hye had been in front of her right then, she would have lunged to kill, power levels be damned.

“She’s probably on the other side of the planet by now.”

Hecht said, still unperturbed.

Overwhelmed by the awful feeling, Seo Jeong-hwa glanced behind her and realized she was still in the same chair she’d been sitting in before she passed out.

“If I fainted, you could have at least laid me down!”

“We were told it could be dangerous to move you, so we couldn’t. That said, you really need to calm down.”

“That woman tried to kill me!”

“I don’t think so.”

As Hecht spoke slowly to calm her, Seo Jeong-hwa’s legs seemed to give out, and she collapsed to the floor.

Sitting still and steadying her breathing, the horribly unsettling sensation gradually faded, and she began to calm down.

As her senses returned, she remembered the scene she had just caused, and a wave of belated embarrassment washed over her.

“Feeling a bit calmer now?”

“What… what about the others?”

“Thanks to the lead you provided, they’ve moved out to secure individuals connected to the facility.”

“Did they really get useful information from me? I don’t remember anything about the facility…”

“It was Yoon In-hye, after all.”

Hecht said calmly, handing her a bottle of water.

Seo Jeong-hwa, who was intensely thirsty, quickly took it and drained the entire bottle.

“Th-thank you. What time is it?”

“It’s 11 PM.”

“Not as much time has passed as I thought. I figured I was out for at least half a day.”

she said, sniffling.

Considering she had arrived at night due to the time difference, 11 PM meant almost no time had passed at all.

“To be precise, it’s 11 PM the next day. You were unconscious for over twenty-four hours.”

“A… a day? What in the world did she do to my head…”

Astonished, Seo Jeong-hwa scowled and muttered to herself.

Just then, two ferrets scurried in through the slightly ajar door, climbed up Seo Jeong-hwa’s body, and settled on her shoulders.

She stared at them, dumbfounded.

“Why are you two here instead of with your master?”

But the ferrets paid her no mind, busy rolling around on her, and Seo Jeong-hwa just shook her head.

Despite their appearance, there was nothing cute about them.

Tearing her attention away from the ferrets, Seo Jeong-hwa began to massage her stiff, aching body.

“By the way, is Kang Il-hyeon going to be okay? He’s never done an operation like this before, has he?”

“He’s with veterans, so there won’t be any problems. And about the tests we ran yesterday… thankfully, the physical exam came back clean, and it’s been proven that you’re innocent of any ulterior motives. Also, the brainwashing has been removed, so you don’t need to worry.”

“W-wait… what did you say?”

Seo Jeong-hwa, utterly dumbfounded by his casual remark, asked again.

The brainwashing had been removed? For someone who had just woken up and was still trying to grasp the situation, the words were too sudden to be believed.

“Should I repeat it from the beginning?”

“No, not that. You said the brainwashing is gone? I can’t even tell if there’s a difference… How is that…?”

“Yoon In-hye’s ability is ‘Mind Control.’ Removing brainwashing would naturally be possible for her.”

At his answer, Seo Jeong-hwa’s eyes wavered.

Il-hyeon’s condition for her cooperation had been the removal of her brainwashing, but she had tried not to get her hopes up, assuming she would be bound by it forever.

Since being dragged to the facility, she had never seen a single person break free from the conditioning.

But contrary to her expectations, it had ended just like that. So simply.

“Now we just need to finish the basic tests.”

The Awakened assessment to measure her combat power and physical abilities was done, but the ability test had been interrupted by Yoon In-hye’s arrival and hadn’t been completed.

But no answer came back to him.

Head bowed, Seo Jeong-hwa stared down at her hands as if she still couldn’t believe it, her shoulders trembling faintly.

Seeing her like this, Hecht said no more and quietly left the room.

He then approached the Aegis staff member waiting to conduct the test.

“I think it would be best to let her rest for a while before we proceed.”

***

The two key facility personnel that Yoon In-hye had identified from Seo Jeong-hwa’s mind were, surprisingly, not members of the criminal syndicate but outsiders.

One was a professional smuggler, a relatively unknown independent criminal, and the other was a powerful politician serving as a mayor in Mexico.

The two names had come out of left field; they had been assessed as having no significant connection to the current syndicate alliance. No one had expected them to be involved in something this important.

But since the information came from none other than Team Leader D, Yoon In-hye, the operation proceeded without a shred of doubt.

Just as they hadn’t seen this coming, the targets wouldn’t expect to be targeted so suddenly. They anticipated that this mission would be much smoother than the original one.

However, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be challenges.

Catching a smuggler already involved in illegal activities and forcing him to talk was a relatively simple task, but dealing with someone holding the office of a city mayor was a different story.

With no physical evidence, and given that Raven was a covert operations team, brazenly raiding his office, presenting a warrant, and arresting him was out of the question.

But they had an expert for this kind of work. They decided to split into two teams and proceed with a plan to extract information from the targets.

Jeong Jin-seong and Song Jun-ho headed to LA to grab the smuggler, while Il-hyeon and Cha Yeon-hee went to Mexico to target Mayor Nieves.

*Flicker! Flicker!*

In a secluded alley where a streetlight flickered, two people lay unconscious on the ground. Standing beside them were Il-hyeon and Cha Yeon-hee.

The pair rummaged through the pockets of the unconscious figures and pulled out their wallets.

If anyone saw them, they would be reported as vicious muggers without a second thought, but the wads of cash inside the wallets weren’t their goal.

“Mm, it’s definitely the two from the list.”

Cha Yeon-hee said, checking the IDs she had taken from the wallets.

While looking for an opportunity to approach Mayor Nieves, they had learned of a social gathering he was hosting. To infiltrate it, they had targeted two invited businessmen of East Asian descent.

The men on the ground wouldn’t wake up until the next morning. The plan was to use their names to get into the party.

*I feel bad, but we didn’t use violence. We just put them to sleep for a bit…*

“Let’s begin.”

“Understood.”

Il-hyeon morphed the shadow at his feet, summoning two small insects.

The black insects quickly crawled into the mouths of the two unconscious men before losing their form and dispersing, seeping into their bodies.

This was to implant a false memory, making them believe they had attended the party when they woke up the next day.

After confirming that his summons had finished their work, Il-hyeon and Cha Yeon-hee shoved the unconscious men into a vehicle.

“You memorized that man’s face just now, right?”

Cha Yeon-hee said to Il-hyeon, dusting off her hands after closing the car door.

Il-hyeon nodded and brought a hand to his face. In an instant, his features shifted, becoming identical to the man they had just knocked out.

The scar on his face, a souvenir from an A-rank monster, the Nightmare, hindered the transformation, but by expending a little more power, he could still maintain the altered appearance.

However, it wasn’t as perfect as before; the scar itself remained visible.

“Wow, that’s flawless.”

Cha Yeon-hee remarked in admiration, looking at Il-hyeon’s new face.

The change had been incredibly fast, and the resulting face was exquisitely detailed.

Unlike Il-hyeon, however, she had no plans to disguise herself.

“Are you sure you don’t need to?”

“It’s fine. I’m not famous like you, Il-hyeon.”

Cha Yeon-hee replied with a smirk.

Unlike the members of Aegis, whose names were recognizable to most, the Awakened of Raven, who operated in the shadows, were largely unknown to the world.

Even Il-hyeon himself had known nothing about Cha Yeon-hee before meeting her.

“Besides, this is the first time these two are meeting Mayor Nieves, and changing your face isn’t always the best move. Even if the mayor doesn’t know you, someone else might, so it’s something to consider. Um, could you turn around for a second?”

At her words, Il-hyeon turned without comment, hearing the rustle of clothes being shed behind him.

Il-hyeon tensed up, standing stiffly as Cha Yeon-hee quickly changed her clothes.

“Okay, I’m done.”

Il-hyeon turned back to look at her.

Tilting her head slightly as she put on an earring, Cha Yeon-hee now wore a form-fitting red dress that confidently flaunted her curvaceous figure.

Her stunning beauty, combined with her long, flowing hair, was enough to captivate any man.

“Not bad, right?”

“I suppose so.”

Even with strong suspicions, they couldn’t just kidnap and interrogate a politician. The plan was a honey trap: lure the distracted mayor and extract the information from him.

Cha Yeon-hee tossed him a set of clothes as well. After checking to make sure no one was around, Il-hyeon quickly changed into a suit.

“Do you think this plan will work? The man has a wife.”

“Haha, the easiest target in the world is a married man whose wife isn’t around.”

Finishing putting on her shoes, Cha Yeon-hee gave an alluring smile and extended a pale hand to Il-hyeon.

“Well then, shall we go?”