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Chapter 89: The Frog and the Executor - Part 2
Chapter 89: The Frog and the Executor - Part 2
The rookie who had asked the question was met with piercing glares. He couldn’t hide his shock at the intensity of their stares.
“...Why?”
“Why? Where on earth did you get your training?”
“The South.”
“In the South, don’t they teach you about Rift Breakthroughs?”
“Of course they do.”
The slightly older man referred to as the leader spoke in a frustrated tone.
“Most of the difficult dungeons featured in Rift Breakthrough exams were cleared by Esper Yoon Taeha.”
“For real?”
“The more recent the dungeon, the higher the probability.”
A senior colleague standing next to the rookie, who resembled a desert fox, kindly added:
“What about the Forest of Sleeping Souls, Ice and Garden, ED-101, or the Hallucination Labyrinth? Heard of any of them?”
The rookie nodded without hesitation.
“All insanely difficult dungeons. I even wrote a report on the Hallucination Labyrinth when I was an upperclassman. Got a C, though.”
“All cleared by Esper Yoon Taeha.”
The rookie’s jaw dropped at her words.
“All of them?”
“Not alone, obviously. Our company doesn’t allow solo entries into dungeons.”
“But she still got her name on all of them? That person who just went in there?”
“She’s twenty-three.”
“Only two years older than me?”
The female senior placed her palm under his chin. “Your eyeballs might roll out.” Her joke failed to elicit laughter from the rookie.
“Why didn’t I know about this?”
“You’re just oblivious…”
“But someone so incredible—why is she working as an undercover agent? Isn’t that a waste of talent?”
An awkward silence fell. The rookie looked at the female senior, who had been answering him so patiently. She now looked uncomfortable, her lips tightly pressed together.
Finally, the leader stepped up.
“She’s not in good health.”
His expression turned bitter as he said it.
________________________________________
When Yoon Taeha entered the conference room, she flashed a grin at Kang Jin-ho, who was bound to a chair.
“That crazy bitch! What is she doing here?!”
Kang Jin-ho wore a restraint suit that could not be undone by anyone at his level. Tied to the chair, he writhed like he wanted to break free and lunge at Yoon Taeha.
“I’m hearing a lot of curses today.”
“You’re caught too, aren’t you? You’ve used amplifiers too, haven’t you?”
“Jin-ho, the reason I’m here is…”
“Shut up! Put restraints on that bastard too! Why am I the only one wearing them?”
Cheon Geonyoung frowned slightly. An Esper stationed for security purposes asked Yoon Taeha:
“Should I silence him?”
“By the way, may I ask what your ability is? It’s our first meeting.”
“It amplifies the pain of any wounds on my body.”
“Wow. Scary.”
Yoon Taeha deliberately let Kang Jin-ho hear her answer before turning to him.
“Jin-ho.”
“...”
“Heard me?”
His eyes wavered anxiously. Finally accepting reality, he bowed his head.
“You’re tired of yelling, and we’re tired of listening. Let’s finish this quickly.”
Kang Jin-ho, undoubtedly cursing inwardly, raised his head. Fortunately, he hadn’t gone berserk like Kwon Min-gi since he’d received the antidote in time.
“I’ll ask just one thing.”
“I don’t know who brought the drugs first!”
“We’ll ask the adults about that. Don’t worry. Though you’ll still bear some responsibility since you’re old enough.”
Yoon Taeha spoke calmly but with authority. As she fiddled with her black ring, Kang Jin-ho felt an inexplicable suffocation.
It was as if he were flailing toward the shimmering surface of the water while drowning in the infinite depths of the ocean.
Fighting against the suffocating fear, he widened his eyes.
“Who is Lee Kyung-tae?”
In the conference room, the only sound was Kang Jin-ho’s eyes rolling to the side.
“I’ll ask more precisely.”
He began sweating profusely.
“Is Lee Kyung-tae still human?”
________________________________________
The students’ reactions to the news about the amplifiers varied widely.
Unsurprisingly, those who hadn’t known about the existence of the amplifier were the angriest. Even those who knew but hadn’t used it expressed righteous indignation.
“So they were trying to compete with us while using that crap? Those punks?”
“Aren’t they trash?”
“I never thought they’d go that far… They didn’t say a word to me.”
“This is betrayal, seriously.”
The mass testing for amplifiers proceeded without delay.
Everyone had to give blood.
Those who hadn’t touched the amplifier eagerly cooperated, even staying up late to provide samples.
Anonymous tip-offs accusing friends of friends began flooding into the main sports field.
“Don’t we have to recalculate everyone’s grades?”
“We need to expel Kang Jin-ho’s gang. This is doping. Who wouldn’t ace things with doping?”
Students who had been mocked for their grades raised their voices. The student body was desperate to uncover even one more suspicious individual.
The chaos spiraled out of control.
The dorm lights stayed on all night.
And 24 hours after Kim Doo-eon announced the mass testing at the sports field, rumors spread that the principal and his accomplices had been locked in an underground bunker beneath the field.
It was very late at night on the day the rumor surfaced.
Someone, masked to conceal their identity, infiltrated the bunker beneath the sports field.
The intruder approached the room where the principal was supposedly staying but retreated momentarily after being fired upon by guards.
But the masked figure returned to the principal’s room, having evaded the guards.
The principal was asleep under a blanket pinned to the wall. A foul smell lingered. Around him lay flakes of skin he had peeled off his right hand in moments of anxiety. His bald spot confirmed his identity.
“...”
As the intruder plunged a sharp needle into the blanket—
Click.
The sound of locks engaging echoed around the room. Undeterred, the intruder stabbed the blanket again with force.
Strangely, the principal didn’t scream.
While the intruder puzzled over this, their name was called.
“Kyung-tae, who are you looking for?”
The blanket flew off, revealing a dummy with only its upper body convincingly crafted.
Lee Kyung-tae, still masked, squinted under the harsh artificial lighting.
Beside the light stood Yoon Taeha. Agents summoned from ARC and Cheon Geonyoung were also present. It was an overwhelming number that guaranteed the intruder couldn’t win.
“Wh-what’s going on?”
Lee Kyung-tae feigned innocence. Yoon Taeha pointed incredulously at his fully healed leg.
“When did your leg heal? Looks completely fine.”
“Huh? Now that you mention it, when did it heal?”
People whispered among themselves.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Memory loss? Side effects?”
Some agents were genuinely confused. Cheon Geonyoung observed Lee Kyung-tae with an unusually cold expression.
Yoon Taeha sneered.
“You came here knowing you’d be caught during the blood test anyway.”
Her tone implied no time should be wasted. Lee Kyung-tae tried to convince them he had no idea why he was standing there.
“My sleepwalking has gotten worse lately. When I woke up, I was here. Please believe me…”
His voice was desperate.
His gaunt frame and still-youthful face supported his story.
But instead of buying it, Yoon Taeha summoned a dark cyan dagger from her ring and held it to his neck. Lee Kyung-tae burst into tears.
Even Kang Jin-ho hadn’t been threatened with violence by her. Yet here she was, using her abyssal shadows to intimidate Lee Kyung-tae, a mere student who hadn’t even graduated.
Wasn’t this excessive?
Two teachers exchanged skeptical glances at Yoon Taeha.
“I swear, I’m innocent! How can you, another Esper, not understand?”
“...”
“Someone else is controlling my body. Please believe me!”
His pitiful voice caused someone to turn their gaze toward Yoon Taeha. She remained unmoved.
“I think I became like this after taking the pills the principal gave me. It must be true.”
Lee Kyung-tae shed thick tears.
He wiped them away frantically. Just as someone was about to speak out at the heartbreaking sight—
Lee Kyung-tae, having wiped his tears, suddenly stared intently at Yoon Taeha and the agents. It looked like he was counting the number of hostile faces around him.
Soon, his pale face and purple lips moved.
“It’s not working.”
Lee Kyung-tae muttered petulantly, like a sulking child.
“Hmm.”
His drooping eyes snapped back to normal.
He rolled his eyes wildly, as though he had become an entirely different person. His movements were overly flamboyant, like a frog spotting flies in front of it.
They were anything but natural human motions.
“Th-their eyes…”
One man sighed softly. It was the teacher who had eyed Yoon Taeha suspiciously earlier.
Lee Kyung-tae, muttering incomprehensible words while rolling his eyes, suddenly froze all movement.
Slowly raising his head, he glared at Yoon Taeha and spoke.
“That’s why I hate you.”
Though his voice was the same, the speed and tone were utterly different, as if another soul had taken over his body.
“Your senses are too sharp. Are your organs different? Honestly, I want to dissect you.”
Lee Kyung-tae traced an imaginary line from Yoon Taeha’s neck to her abdomen with his finger.
Gasps filled the room.
“Would you let me dissect you? The so-called treatments those bastards call medicine—it’s no different from my experiments.”
Lee Kyung-tae staggered toward her, smiling weakly. Even as a blue blade grazed his neck, he showed no concern.
The blood that seeped from the wound was red, but it turned to dust the moment it hit the air, leaving behind an ugly gash.
He’s not human.
They finally understood Yoon Taeha’s words. No fool would claim Lee Kyung-tae was the same kind of being after witnessing this.
“Our ark’s promising prodigy.”
“...”
“A young, precious lady.”
Suddenly, Lee Kyung-tae gazed at her with affectionate eyes. He reached out to touch her cheek, but another Esper moved to attack him. Yoon Taeha stopped them.
His stiff hand hovered near her cheek as if even touching her was too precious.
Yoon Taeha didn’t hide her disdainful glare.
“Are you curious about me, young lady?”
“Just tell me your affiliation. I’ll find you.”
“Then it wouldn’t be fun, would it?”
“I’m not interested in having fun with you.”
“How sad. I have so many interesting things to tell you.”
With each word, Lee Kyung-tae’s body crumbled further. Looking down at his deteriorating flesh, he sighed thinly.
“Such a weak body is useless.”
He surveyed the humans standing before him, weapons in hand, as if choosing meat at a butcher shop.
His gaze landed on Cheon Geonyoung.
“Here too?”
Before his sentence even ended, Yoon Taeha’s expression turned even more menacing.
The entity wearing Lee Kyung-tae’s shell grinned grotesquely at her reaction.
“How delighted they’ll be.”
Murmuring ecstatically, he collapsed to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Lee Kyung-tae’s body began to disintegrate into powder.
Someone from the research division quickly snapped photos of his form before it vanished completely.
The sound of the camera shutter sliced through the pitch-black silence.
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