Chapter 50: What Kind of Crazy Dream Is This

TL: LittlePeach

Leaving the unconscious bastard where he was, I stepped outside for a moment to take care of the urgent business.

Once the business was done and I came back, the first thing I did was yank open the rear door.

"All of you, step out."

"Ah, aah...."

"Aaaargh...."

Terrified by the sudden turn of events, the two North Korean defectors in the back seat climbed out, trembling.

They had no idea what was going on, and their faces were stiff with fear.

"Take this."

"Y-yes?"

"Uhh...."

Without a word of explanation, I pulled an envelope from my pocket and handed it over.

It was the money envelope left over from the defection deal a while back.

"Take ten thousand US dollars each from this envelope. I cannot explain in detail, but I am trying to save you."

"T-ten thousand US?"

"What in the world...."

"You were not on your way to South Chosun. You were being sold off somewhere else entirely. These men are vicious bastards who divert North Korean defectors and hand them over to criminal organizations."

Whether they believed me or not hardly mattered right now.

I forced the envelope into the hands of the two dumbstruck, frozen people, then pulled out a slip of paper and handed that over as well.

"I am giving you the contact for a broker you can trust. Reach out and tell them you want to go to South Korea. They will take that money and see you safely to South Korea."

When I issued my eviction notice with a jerk of the chin, they stumbled backward, stammering.

Then I searched the man sprawled across the driver's seat.

Patting him down along the belt line, front, back, and the small of the back, my hand landed with a clunk on a lump of steel.

"Well, well. Carrying a gun, are we? No doubt about this one."

He was a Shanyuan Society member, beyond question.

And even if he hadn't been, he was the kind of man I'd have had to kill anyway if it came to that.

"Hup."

I took the gun, tucked it inside my jacket, and shoved his body over to the far edge of the passenger seat.

As I climbed into the driver's seat, the faces of the two defectors appeared in the rearview mirror.

They still had no idea what was happening in front of their own eyes; each stood clutching a wad of cash, utterly dazed.

"I cannot see to your journey back. For that, I am sorry."

Vrooooom!

I stepped on the accelerator, and the two of them shrank into the distance in an instant.

*****

Smack in the middle of the long road from Dandong to Jilin stood a single abandoned guesthouse, bankrupt and left to rot.

A remote spot without a soul in sight.

"Ah, fuck. The mosquitoes are fucking brutal tonight. When the hell is my relief coming?"

- You've got over an hour left. Quit whining and keep your eyes on the perimeter.

- What's there to watch in the first place? Not even a rat comes through here.

"Still nothing from Wang Kei? He said he'd call when he set out."

- That dimwit bastard obviously forgot again.

- Heh heh heh.

An armed man stood at the entrance to the wall that ringed the abandoned building.

All he could do was trade sorry laments over the radio with the colleagues who'd been shipped over from Cambodia along with him.

He was pacing around, puffing away at a cigarette, when the moment came.

"Oh? Car coming."

The man spotted a halo of light approaching from afar.

- Yeah?

- Well, well. Finally.

In the distance, a car's headlights drew closer, hazy as dusk.

Today was the day this hideout finally opened its doors to its first guests.

The very day the broker was set to deliver the defectors.

"Heh heh. Do you have any idea how long we've been waiting for you?"

From the outside the guesthouse looked like a ruin, but its interior was kept as neat and tidy as any hotel.

It even boasted a billiards table, a karaoke room, a lounge, and a fair number of other amenities.

After all, these were the employees who'd be working their fingers to the bone for the Shanyuan Society; surely they deserved at least this much in benefits?

And so, brimming with anticipation, he was preparing to welcome the new recruits....

"Hm?"

Except something was off about the speed of the approaching vehicle.

"Huh? H-hey...."

He waved his signal light, motioning for the car to slow down, but the engine's growl only turned rougher, like a roar.

He stared blankly through the driver's side window.

"Eek?"

Behind the wheel was the face of a total stranger.

It was not the face of the colleague he'd been waiting for, Wang Kei.

The moment he caught the smile playing at the corners of the man's mouth, a chill surged through his entire body.

Like watching a scene straight out of a horror movie!

"...E-eek! Hyeeaaaaargh!"

The instant the guard flung himself clear of the entrance, the car swept through the spot where he'd been standing.

Sure enough.

CRAAASH-CLANG-CLATTER!

"Ah, aah...."

The steel gate they'd so stylishly put up crumpled like paper, and the car, half-wrecked by the impact, tumbled end over end, scattering debris in every direction.

"Ughh...."

Thud. Thud-thunk.

Shattered gate panels and torn scraps of the car tangled together as they fell, and the black smoke pouring from the wreck stained the night an even deeper dark.

The scene defied all sense of reality; the guard sat slumped on the ground, gasping for breath, when...

The door banged open.

"Hff, haah. The air out here is really something."

"...."

At a sight even further removed from reality, the guard forgot how to speak.

Because a man had just walked out of the shredded car.

And then, on top of it all.

KABOOOM!

"Oh."

"Aaaaaargh!"

The car, unable to withstand the damage any longer, blew up in spectacular fashion.

Clatter, clatter-clatter.

Even as debris rained down over him, the man simply stood there applauding, cool as could be.

- Wh-what!

- What the hell was that noise!

"...."

His colleagues clamored frantically over the radio, but the guard was too overwhelmed by the reality in front of him to care.

Meanwhile, the man strode up to where he sat crumpled at the entrance.

"How do you do?"

"Hurk. Huuurk...."

"I have a few questions. How many North Korean defectors are inside this place?"

An unmistakable, textbook Yanbian accent.

Backlit by the flames of the burning car, the man asked with a pleasant smile.

Lips trembling, mouth hanging blankly open, the guard began rubbing his palms together in supplication.

"P-please, spare, spare me...."

"Now, stop begging and answer the question. How many North Korean defectors do you have locked up in there?"

"Th-th-there are none!"

"Do not lie to me."

"I-it's the truth! There's n-no one inside! T-today was supposed to be opening day...."

"Ah, is that so?"

At that, the man grinned and began rummaging through the shopping bag he'd been carrying in his other hand.

What he pulled out was something shaped like a grenade.

"Let's see now...."

Click. Click-clack.

As the man fiddled with the thing, bits that looked very much like safety mechanisms fell away, one after another, as naturally as anything.

Ping. Clink.

And then, before long, whoosh.

"...."

"...."

KABOOM!

"Hurk."

The guard was horrified.

How could he not be?

That thing wasn't shaped like a grenade. It was a grenade!

Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle.

"I did get a bit greedy. Only realized later that I'd packed far too many."

"Hah, haaah...."

"Figured I ought to use some of them up somehow, so this time I brought these along instead of a Claymore."

Whether or not the guard trembled at his inexplicable rambling, the man pulled the next grenade from the shopping bag, perfectly at ease.

Click. Click-clack.

The man finished prepping his next throw.

Whoosh.

Crash!

The grenade smashed through a guesthouse window and slipped inside.

A moment later, KABOOOM!

- Aaaaaargh!

- F-fuck! What the hell is going onnn?!

His colleagues' screams came pouring out of the radio.

Had the man caught wind of that faint little noise?

"That radio looks like a fine one. I will be borrowing it."

"Hah, hah."

The man plucked the radio right off the guard's chest.

He stuck the earpiece into his own ear, rose to his feet, and ambled off toward the building.

All without ever letting up on digging grenades out of the shopping bag and lobbing them, one after another.

And most terrifying of all, there was simply no way to guess how many more grenades that shopping bag held.

Clink, clink.

KABOOM!

BOOM!

"Hah. Hah...."

His heart pounded, hammered, slammed against his ribs.

Watching the whole scene unfold, he prayed desperately that this moment was nothing but a dream.

While ever so carefully tilting the muzzle of the rifle slung from his shoulder toward the man....

Tat-tat-tat!

"Ah!"

He knew it!

"Y-yeah. I fucking knew it was a dream...."

Because even with a three-round burst planted in the back of his skull, the man just blankly turned to look back at him!

The guard shook his head, dumbfounded, and pressed a hand to his forehead.

"Whew. Right. Of course it was a dream. What kind of crazy dream is this, anyway...."

Rattle-roll.

He never even noticed the grenade rolling to a stop right in front of him.

KABOOM!

*****

Triad organizations were, as a rule, involved in illegal business, but most stopped at drugs, smuggling, underground gambling, and fraud.

Violence or murder might occur as an unavoidable means to an end, but organizations that made killing itself their main trade were exceedingly rare.

The Shanyuan Society, however, was different.

They had grown at breakneck speed by professionally taking on the assassination, terror, and arson jobs that even other Triads shied away from. Killing was their business.

And that same Shanyuan Society, having moved its base of operations to Cambodia, had one ambitious new venture in the works.

Voice phishing.

The target had already been chosen.

South Korea.

With grand visions for the business, the Shanyuan Society scoured far and wide for call-center manpower to work the phones on Korean marks.

And so, taking the plunge, it poured serious money into setting up a hideout near Dandong, one to be filled with North Korean defectors.

"Straight."

"Hah. Fuck."

The man dispatched to run the place was none other than Le Wei.

Once a killer of fearsome repute in the back alleys of Vietnam, he was playing poker with the two elite subordinates who had been through life and death at his side.

"You just lost, sir. Why so happy?"

"Heh. How could I not be?"

It went without saying.

Starting today, defectors would begin arriving at the hideout one after another, and once voice phishing took root as the Shanyuan Society's main business, his own standing would naturally become rock-solid, stationed in Dandong, diverting defectors and supplying the manpower.

In effect, this hideout was his ticket to becoming the Shanyuan Society's Dandong branch chief.

"Shall I deal, sir?"

"Yeah, deal."

The organization was finally washing the blood from its hands, stepping out into the light, running a proper business. How could this not gladden the heart?

That was when it happened.

CRAAASH-CLANG-CLATTER!

"Aaaargh!"

"Wh-what the fuck!"

With the sound of the perimeter wall's steel gate being smashed apart, the sudden shock sent everyone scrambling flat on the floor.

Something collapsed with a rumble, and the radios scattered around the room erupted in noisy static.

"...What was that?"

"What? No idea. What was that?"

They were still blinking blankly at one another in confusion when...

KABOOOM!

"A-aaargh!"

"Wh-what the hell?!"

"Wh-what on earth is going on?"

"W-w-was that, w-was that a c-car exploding just now?"

For whatever reason, it had sounded exactly like a car blowing up.

Looking out the window, they saw flames and smoke gushing from a car that had come flying in from God knows where.

But astonishingly, the explosions didn't end there.

KABOOM!

"Urk?"

"Eeek!"

A sound of an entirely different order from the blast just before.

For men who killed for a living, there was no mistaking it.

"D-did we bring any grenades with us?"

"N-no sir, we did not?"

Even as this absurd exchange went back and forth, the explosions continued.

KABOOM!

"F-fuck!"

"I-it has to be an attack, sir!"

"Get to your positions, now!"

The boom, boom of detonating grenades kept coming.

And it was getting closer.

KABOOM!

"Oh, come on, fuck!"

Fine. An attack.

China, Vietnam, Cambodia, wherever.

Attacks were an everyday fact of life. He could accept that much.

Which organization was hitting them, and how the hell they'd even found this place.

He had a mountain of questions, sure.

But if there was exactly one thing he could not wrap his head around, it was this.

KABOOM!

"What kind of lunatic bastard carries grenades around by the case?!"

The moment he grasped the situation, there was no time left to waste.

Le Wei sprinted deeper into the building and burst into the security room on the second floor.

"How many attackers?!"

"J-just one, sir."

"Cut the bullshit!"

The subordinate watching the CCTV monitors answered through his trembling, but in the end Le Wei had to see it with his own eyes.

And the figure on the screen really was a single man.

That one man was rummaging through an ordinary shopping bag, pulling out something round, giving it a few casual squeezes, and hurling it at the guesthouse building.

KABOOM!

"Fucking...."

Feeling his own sanity slipping away at the deranged spectacle, Le Wei tore into the weapons locker in the corner of the security room.

He grabbed a weapon, ran back outside, and leapt straight up onto the second-floor balcony railing.

The explosions, indifferent, went on.

KABOOM!

"Motherfucker!"

Le Wei settled the launcher onto his shoulder and put his eye straight to the scope.

He steadied his breathing, focusing.

Whee-whee, whee-hoo, wheeee.

"...Is that fucker seriously whistling right now?"

His head went hot at a sight he'd never even imagined.

Soon, the man's silhouette settled into the scope.

"Knock it off, you asshole!"

FWOOSH!

The RPG-7 warhead streaked off his shoulder, trailing a white tail as it snaked toward the man.

A moment later, KA-BLAAAAM!

"Did I get him?!"

The blast had erased the man without leaving a corpse, without leaving so much as a bloodstain behind.

*****

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