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Yoon Tae-ha stood still and looked down at him until he calmed down a little. After a while, Lee Won-shik, his neck veins bulging, tried to point his finger at her. But his wrists were tied, so he could only feebly wag his fingers.
“What is the meaning of this!”
“Did you betray us? Why are you so surprised?”
At the word betrayal, Lee Won-shik's chest heaved rapidly. Meanwhile, the employee calmly brought up a hologram screen showing his physical condition and concentrated on it.
“Betrayal? What on earth… someone must have framed me. Who is it this time?”
As if feeling dizzy, Lee Won-shik began to sweat profusely. Reading his reaction, Yoon Tae-ha realized that the trust among the Chancellor's people was thinner and more transparent than oil paper. She thought she could get some useful information if she pushed him.
The most important thing was to find out how much the Chancellor trusted the Chimera and what specific mission he had given her. Changcheon had not yet found anything related to him in Gaia. It was highly likely that Geum Gang-seop had conveyed it directly to the Chimera by word of mouth, rather than it being left as a separate document. He might have shared the content only with his close associates.
“I received intelligence. The news was that you were up to no good. The Chancellor ordered me to confirm whether it was true.”
“No. Absolutely not. I have a hunch who said that. Is it Na Young-gyo? If you listen to that coward's words and corner me, you will deeply regret it.”
Yoon Tae-ha sneered coldly. To Lee Won-shik right now, she was just the Chimera.
“D-don’t just laugh like that, and untie me first. I’m not a superhuman, and what good is it to tie an old man's wrist so tightly that it feels like it will break?”
“I'll be in trouble if you run away.”
Talking too much when your hand is weak is a shortcut to falling into a trap. Yoon Tae-ha pretended to listen to his persuasion and unbuttoned the front of her gown. The key hanging from a string was there. Lee Won-shik, who felt that her gaze was directed at the key, used it to emphasize his loyalty.
“I've carried the item the Chancellor entrusted to me as if it were my own life. As he requested, I have never been separated from my body for a moment. I have shared the risk that the Chancellor had to bear.”
According to Hong Eun-soo, last night, Blackwood and Lee Won-shik went out to sea on a yacht and secretly met. It would have been better to have an important conversation under the Chancellor’s protection. Why did they go out to sea to meet? It was highly likely that they had a secret conversation that they didn't want Geum Gang-seop to know about.
“Why didn’t you tell the Chancellor that you were meeting Blackwood separately?”
When she asked with a cool expression, Lee Won-shik's pupils widened in fear. It was the signal of a person whose secret had been found out.
“Did you think we wouldn't know? Gaia's eyes are everywhere. Even if it's in the middle of the sea.”
“…Let's make a deal.”
At the sudden proposal, Yoon Tae-ha crossed her arms.
“Didn't you say you wanted to continue living in that body? The Chancellor will kill you after he creates the world he envisioned. Because you’re a stain. But I and Blackwood can guarantee your survival.”
“That's not a tempting offer. One man who gives orders to Gaia and two men who can't even properly hide a secret meeting… whose orders would I rather listen to?”
Yoon Tae-ha said coolly and tore off the necklace around Lee Won-shik's neck. Lee Won-shik then spat and shouted.
“Give me the key!”
The black key, the length of a pinky finger, had various sized grooves meticulously carved into it to make it difficult to duplicate. The material also seemed unusual.
“Put the key back immediately!”
As soon as she tore off the necklace, Lee Won-shik's heart rate rose sharply.
“If I was going to give it back, I wouldn't have taken it in the first place.”
He seemed to be greatly enraged by the very fact that the Chimera had retrieved the key. His reaction was bigger than she had expected. Yoon Tae-ha twirled the necklace around her finger in a disrespectful way to provoke him. Then, a new fact finally flowed out of Lee Won-shik's mouth, who was flushed with excitement.
“Those who saw or touched the key died brutally. That was your doing, wasn't it? How long did you think you could hide that from us?”
“Then you meet suspiciously in the middle of the sea? What do I know, you might have been planning to stab me in the back there.”
“We only promised to protect each other's lives. We wouldn't have had to meet like that if you hadn't been going around butchering people the Chancellor entrusted with important tasks!”
— Ah. So he entrusted the Chimera with cleaning up the people who saw or managed the key? That’s why he was trembling when you touched the key.
Hong Eun-soo, who was also watching the scene through a surveillance camera, muttered. It was not uncommon in this world to hire a hitman in advance in case a close associate betrayed them. Yoon Tae-ha, who had found a clue, smiled brightly.
“Where is Noah Blackwood? The casino?”
Lee Won-shik ignored her words and rolled his bloodshot eyes toward the ceiling. With a face that was certain Geum Gang-seop was watching somewhere, he accused the unseen opponent.
“If you get rid of me too, there will be no one left! If you kill the person who helped you get to that position, who would want to follow orders from a guy like you!”
“Do you think a person would even blink an eye at this?”
Yoon Tae-ha added a prompting word. At that moment, Lee Won-shik, who was shouting, trembled like a person who had been electrocuted and suddenly closed his mouth tightly. A thick, viscous spit and foam flowed out of his mouth.
“What did you put in my body…”
“It's a sedative. Your life is not in danger, so don't worry.”
The employee, who was calmly watching his physical condition, said.
“L-lie… it’s a monster’s blood. The blood of the monster you’re raising…”
Lee Won-shik was in agony, but neither the employee nor Yoon Tae-ha felt sorry for him.
— Leave the cleanup to us, Agent Yoon Tae-ha, and return to the rest room. I've already sent the information from here to Cheon Geon-young. It might be useful for a psychological battle. The key will be retrieved by the crow waiting outside and will be taken out immediately.
Yoon Tae-ha, who had confirmed the instructions, turned around. Lee Won-shik, his stiffening upper body twitching, gathered his last remaining strength and shouted.
“If I, h-hic, don’t make contact, Blackwood will also go into hiding. You will never be able to go to paradise without us…”
It was a curse from someone who couldn't even imagine that Blackwood would be in the same situation as him. When she left the hospital room, the door closed firmly again. Lee Won-shik's screams did not leak out of the hospital room at all.
Yoon Tae-ha, who went outside through teleportation, met the crow on a tree branch. As soon as the bird saw her, it tried to peck the back of her hand, urging her to give it the necklace. After she put the key around its neck, the bird left without looking back. Since it was Knox's bird, she didn't have to worry about it leaving AMC’s grounds.
Yoon Tae-ha returned to the hospital room and quickly changed her clothes. She folded the clothes she had worn to meet Lee Won-shik and hid them among the tree branches outside.
She lay down quietly, as if she had never left the rest room, covered with a blanket, and after a while, Lee Yeo-sol knocked on the door. She rubbed her eyes as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep and followed Lee Yeo-sol for the next test.
After completing all the tests except for the ones she couldn't do because of the identity chip embedded in her body, it was already late afternoon.
“Please wait here for a moment.”
It was a space with a low sofa and a beautiful wooden bookcase. Yoon Tae-ha looked around and confirmed that no one else was there, then picked up a book and sat in a corner. At that moment, Hong Eun-soo said in a slightly excited tone.
— An unexpected situation has occurred.
Amidst the calm and lyrical symphony playing in the waiting room, the urgency from the other side of the communicator intruded like an uninvited guest. The veins on the back of Yoon Tae-ha’s hand, which was holding the book, stood out.
The mission to steal the key was a mission that she, Cheon Geon-young, and a third team were carrying out simultaneously. They had initially thought the possibility of all three successfully retrieving the key was low, but a communication that a variable had occurred always made her heart sink. Hong Eun-soo, who had a quick conversation with her superior, returned to the communication with Yoon Tae-ha.
— The entire team in charge of the Chancellor is dead.
The thin sense of euphoria from having safely taken the key melted away helplessly.
— An alert for an emergency situation would have gone out to all agents currently on the island. Geum Gang-seop has grasped our existence. He will raise the state of alert and move the plan forward.
No sooner had the words about moving the plan forward ended than the Chimera's phone rang. Yoon Tae-ha checked the content of the message. It was an order to retrieve Blackwood's key. She tilted her phone and adjusted the angle so that the screen could be seen by the surveillance cameras around her.
— Should I magnify the phone screen? Ah! I see it. It's an order for you to retrieve Blackwood's key. Just a moment, I'll report it to my superior…
Hong Eun-soo seemed to be flustered by the sudden crisis. At that moment, Moon So-eun walked down the end of the hallway with a anxious expression.
— Why is that woman like that again?
Moon So-eun said to Yoon Tae-ha, who was sitting on the sofa, in a firm tone.
“It's an emergency. Follow me.”
Yoon Tae-ha replied, showing only the screen of her phone, which was turned off, so that the contents of the message could not be seen.
“I was also about to leave because I had an urgent matter to attend to.”
“I don't know what task you've been given, but this one is just as important.”
“I can't make a judgment without more details.”
“There’s a cultivation center in the basement of the medical center. Your friends are being raised there. They're still immature and can't survive outside the capsule. They're important test subjects, so we need to get them out safely, but we're short-staffed right now.”
— There is no such facility in the official blueprints registered in the system. This is either a trap or a very big opportunity. What are you going to do?
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