HLSEBT - 13

13. Hapjeong Station Gate 2

The floor of the station was lightly shrouded in white smoke. 

Yoon Taeha cautiously entered, catching a whiff of the musty dust in the air. Updates streamed through her communicator as she moved deeper inside. In wireless communications, the central control room was referred to as the “Anchor,” and field agents were called “Mast.” 

- The situation inside the station is unclear. The Anchor has no prior warnings to provide, so proceed with extreme caution. 

Her response was delayed as she carefully surveyed the darkened station. The control room immediately pressed for a reply. 

- Mast, respond. 

“…Acknowledged. I’m going after the queen now—are you really going to keep distracting me? What if I get caught? Aren’t you worried about me at all?” 

Her sharp retort elicited a brief silence from the other end. She could vividly picture the man in the control room, surrounded by monitors stretching from floor to ceiling, adjusting his glasses. 

- He says he’s not worried. 

What cold-hearted people. Not even a shred of tension. 

“This is ridiculous.” 

- This is a D-class threat. 

“So you’re saying there’s no need to worry.” 

- Exactly. There’s no reason to. 

“Anchor, didn’t I tell you to work on your interpersonal skills while I was away on assignment?” 

- It’s been a week of overtime. Hurry up and finish so I can rest. My eyes feel like they’re about to explode. 

Her assigned Anchor, Ko Seung-won, muttered wearily. His voice was heavy with exhaustion. 

Why did he even choose to work in the central control room? It was notorious for being more stressful than the field. Suppressing a sigh, Yoon Taeha refocused on her role as a field agent. 

“How did someone end up inside the station?” 

- The CCTV on your side is completely down. Whoever it is wasn’t there originally. The evacuation was thorough… 

Static. A burst of interference cut off the Anchor’s steady voice mid-sentence. 

“What’s going on?” 

Yoon Taeha checked her communicator. The power was still on. 

“Hello? Anchor?” 

Mr. Ko? No response, no matter how many times she called. The connection was clearly severed. Other communication devices were predictably useless as well. 

There was nothing to do but move forward. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. 

She continued calmly, her steps steady. The deeper she ventured into the station, the stronger the unpleasant smell became. The white smoke thickened, rising from ankle-height to waist-level. 

All she wanted was to quickly take care of the ominous ant friend and go home for a bath. That was her thought—until a human figure suddenly emerged from the smoke that now reached her waist. 

“What the—?” 

The smoke-formed human moved with an eerie, unnatural gait, like a freshly born zombie. Its pale face twisted unnaturally as its jaw contorted. 

Yoon Taeha froze in place. She recognized that face. 

“…So it’s a high-ranking queen.” 

This, of course, wasn’t a real living person. 

It was likely one of the rare hallucinatory abilities possessed by the queens of the red triangular-horned ants. It couldn’t inflict physical harm. 

Instead, it triggered traumas too overwhelming for ordinary humans to endure—a defensive fortress created by the queen to protect her nest. 

The smoke-formed figure opened its mouth and began speaking fervently. 

“Please help me just once. You’re my Esper, aren’t you…? If the experiment succeeds, your friends won’t have to suffer anymore!” 

It wore the face of the man who had been her fifth rotation Guide. 

That man had claimed to be researching suppressants for Esper overloads, using what he called a noble cause to justify secretly mixing unverified powders into her drinking water. 

It was dried and ground-up dungeon-harvested plants that hadn’t yet been approved for consumption. 

At some point, Yoon Taeha had started vomiting blood. Even as he was dragged away, the so-called Guide had screamed, begging her to let him continue his research on her body. 

With a look of disdain, she glanced past him, and the smoke shifted into another form. 

This time, it took the shape of a friendly-looking woman around her age. 

[“Am I your first friend? Right? Promise me, Yoon Taeha. Promise you won’t get hurt this time.”] 

Her fourth rotation Guide. 

This woman had approached her under the guise of friendship. 

They’d seemed to connect well, sharing similar senses of humor. For a moment, Yoon Taeha had believed she might actually become a good friend. 

Until the day the woman stole her laptop and ran off. 

It wasn’t even a laptop with anything valuable on it—she probably intended to sell it to someone else.

Of course, she was expelled, sent to prison, and two days later, news came that she had been poisoned to death. 

“There wasn’t anything on it.” 

When Yoon Taeha calmly spoke, the woman’s face grotesquely distorted before transforming into someone else. 

Reflecting on her exhausting past, Yoon Taeha pressed forward. Most of the Guides in her life had been like this—even the one she cherished most had only ever seen her as an Esper. 

To anyone who heard it, it might sound laughable, but Yoon Taeha was afraid of Guides. 

While Espers and monsters could, at worst, tear off an arm, Guides tore apart her heart. From experience, those wounds lasted much longer. 

Was it because she had to see the faces of those unpleasant people again? Suddenly, her head throbbed as if it were splitting open. 

She couldn’t afford to lose her composure here. Just a little more endurance. She bit down hard on her lips. 

Static. 

- Communication check, Mast? 

After escaping the smoke-filled corridor and crossing the ticket gate, communication was restored. 

Descending the stairs, she surveyed the platform. There was no smoke here—the queen wouldn’t have filled her nest with it. 

“Communication restored.” 

- So it’s a high-ranking queen, huh? 

“Yeah. I passed through a few hallucinations. No need to worry about that. Let’s carefully decide before deploying other Espers. The hallucinations feel very realistic.” 

- Got it. Check the civilians’ status once you’re down there. 

Crouching low, she descended the stairs. 

In the distance, at the center of the platform, stood a massive nest resembling translucent ice. 

Around it lay scattered ant corpses. Relying on the dim light of the convenience store inside the station, she identified the silhouettes trapped within as human. 

As expected, there were people trapped inside. 

And they were inside the queen’s nest. 

It seemed the trapped individuals had put up some resistance—part of the nest was torn wide open. 

Through the gap, Yoon Taeha caught sight of the hostage’s face. And froze. 

…Cheon Geon-young? 

Why is he here? 

Yoon Taeha was rarely flustered. He wasn’t someone you’d expect to find at a subway station. Why wasn’t this third-generation chaebol accompanied by bodyguards? The unexpected appearance made her headache flare up again. 

Recalling the clear Hawaiian air, she took a silent deep breath. 

Saving the people came first. 

After hypnotizing herself, she whispered back into the communicator: 

- Civilian status? 

“They’re trapped in the nest. One adult male, one young boy.” 

- And the queen? 

“She’s fine too. Her growth seems too good—it’s a problem.” 

The leader of the monsters that emerged from the rift was leisurely crawling along the subway tracks. 

Though it was dark, identifying her wasn’t difficult. The queen ant was about the size of a subway car. 

Occasionally, she turned her massive head toward the nest, as if monitoring the humans trapped inside. 

The red triangular-horned ants were frequent monsters emerging from Asian rifts, so Yoon Taeha knew how to handle them. 

“I’ll teleport the hostages out first and place them on the stairs.” 

- It’s dark. Are you sure you’ll be okay? 

“They won’t die.” 

Inside the massive, translucent nest would be eggs containing the next queen. 

And Cheon Geon-young and the boy were offerings—the first prey for the newly hatched queen. 

The only reason the queen kept humans who wandered into her nest alive was to feed her offspring. 

She wanted to feed her newborn child first. 

The freshly hatched queen was notoriously violent, blind to everything except hunger. 

That’s why the queen gathered food ahead of time and placed it near the eggs. 

If she didn’t provide food, her own offspring would try to devour even their mother—that was their nature. 

Yet, despite this, the queen’s maternal instincts were fierce. 

Touching the eggs would inevitably send the queen into a rampage. 

She would release pheromones, causing any surviving ants to convulse like zombies. The roads above would descend into chaos. 

Conversely, killing the queen first would immediately cause the next queen to hatch. She would consume the food in front of her and take control of the worker ants. 

Thus, the best option was to neutralize both the queen and the eggs simultaneously. 

To save the hostages and consider the situation aboveground, the optimal method—if the two targets were separated and the remaining ants were few—was to deal with the eggs first.

The gigantic queen ant disappeared into the underground tunnel, making a chak-chak sound as she went. 

In the meantime, Yoon Taeha approached the nest stealthily, masking her presence. 

Cheon Geon-young immediately sensed another person nearby. 

Still crouched and cutting something, he turned toward his savior with a welcoming expression. Even in a potentially life-threatening situation, his voice remained calm. 

“Fancy meeting you here—it feels even more serendipitous.” 

Yoon Taeha frowned at the overly casual greeting from this young master. 

“Taking the subway? How humble of you.” 

“I was crossing Yanghwa Bridge by car when the rift opened, and I ended up falling here.” 

“So you’re a ‘rift stray,’ huh?” 

After confirming that he wasn’t seriously injured, she scanned the nest when a small voice piped up. 

“H-Hyung did it because of me...” 

A little boy emerged from behind Cheon Geon-young’s broad back. 

To meet the child at eye level, Yoon Taeha quickly knelt on the dirty floor. She softened her tone, replacing her usual gruffness with gentleness. 

“I see. Are you okay, little one?” 

“Did... did you come to save us?” 

“Of course. Are you hurt anywhere?” 

Her tone was as smooth and soothing as an amusement park employee waving cheerfully at children. Cheon Geon-young watched with amusement. 

“Hyung protected me. I’m okay.” 

“That’s good. Your hyung is kind and brave, isn’t he? Since he protected you, it’ll be safest for both of you to leave together, right?” 

Suddenly cast as a kind and heroic figure, Cheon Geon-young smiled warmly at Yoon Taeha, enchanted. 

“Yes! Hyung even killed some ants. Oh, and hyung hurt his hand too!” 

“Hurt?” She glanced at him, and he slightly raised his left hand. There was a cut. 

“I ran out of bullets, so I used scissors from the convenience store to kill a few ants. That’s how I got this. It’s not a big wound.” 

“...With stationery scissors?” 

The particularly gruesome remains of ants around the nest—she had assumed they were finished off with embedded scissors or similar tools. But he killed them with stationery scissors? A civilian? Aren’t those meant for cutting paper? 

Yoon Taeha, who rarely found herself surprised, was internally stunned.