“Attack, we’re under attack!”
“Spread out and take cover!”
The outlaws were confused, but they reacted quickly. While they scattered and took positions, the team leader spoke to the bounty hunters.
“Stay down. Once safety is secured, I’ll untie......”
The team leader’s expression, which had been blank, turned dazed. It was because Kim Yi-hyeon had undone the rope on his own. The surprise did not end there.
[FE―7 Riot Shield] and [Ivory] appeared in Kim Yi-hyeon’s hands. He immediately fired at the outlaw aiming a crossbow toward them.
“Ghk!”
The bullet struck the outlaw’s hand. Perhaps his aim was off, because it did not inflict a fatal wound, but it did make him drop the crossbow.
“That is... a Spell?”
“As you can see. Should I help?”
“Y-yes.”
The team leader agreed while half out of his wits. Unlike the two dumbfounded bounty hunters, Kim Yi-hyeon had foreseen the current situation.
White Fang’s objective. Their relationship with the outlaws. Even the identity of one affiliated person, though it was only one.
‘So the outlaw hunt began from this point.’
This was not a deal, but a hunt.
Lotus Company had dispatched White Fang underground to begin searching for and eliminating outlaw bases.
It was because of certain information they had secretly obtained. They had noticed that a massive threat was approaching Cilicia.
This time, the bounty hunters had been used as bait to lure out the outlaws. The other two might feel wronged, but Kim Yi-hyeon did not.
‘I’m lucky. I was planning to wait until they approached me, or go looking for them myself.’
This was the important crossroads.
If he stayed still, they would rescue him on their own. But Kim Yi-hyeon had no intention of remaining a victim who had been used.
‘If possible, I need to become a collaborator.’
In the story, White Fang were the ones who noticed the abnormality in advance and prepared for it. In other words, they had the same objective as Kim Yi-hyeon.
Now that a point of contact had formed, he had to make use of the opportunity.
“Shoot those things first!”
A metal bolt left the string and flew.
Thoom!
The sound of metal colliding echoed through the underground passage. A heavy impact traveled into the hand holding the shield.
Three times in succession. Not a bad result. Crossbows took an extremely long time to reload. One wasted shot produced a large loss.
‘Think of myself as a tank.’
Kim Yi-hyeon stopped in place and lowered his stance. His fully exposed back bothered him, but he consciously shook off the anxiety.
If he had been alone, he would have backed away and narrowed his blind spot, but......
Thud!
The team leader picked up the crossbow the outlaw had dropped and fired. Including the three who had been ambushed first, all the outlaws in the rear fell.
There were no enemies circling around from the side. They showed signs of reluctance to stick their bodies out. Even though more than ten remained at the base, their counterattack was passive.
It was because their leader had died early, and the attackers had not revealed themselves either. Those were conditions that made their numerical advantage meaningless.
Bang, bang!
As Kim Yi-hyeon fired at the right-side pillar where an outlaw was hiding, he thought inwardly.
‘In the end, it’s this combination again.’
A shield and a gun. He did not know about monsters or Spell users, but against armed humans, there was no equipment better than this.
He poured out bullets without restraint. He did not care even if they missed. He intended to draw the enemy into aiming for the timing when his ammunition ran out.
The tenth shot. The moment their attention had been drawn to Kim Yi-hyeon.
Three silhouettes burst out from the dim passage. The three scattered in different directions.
The outlaws also spotted the attackers.
“They’re coming, three of them! Split up and handle them!”
Living underground, they were used to the darkness. They did not easily lose sight of the shadows moving while taking cover behind structures.
But whether they were skilled in battle was a separate matter.
[Ivory]’s muzzle spat fire. A bullet lodged in the abdomen of an outlaw who carelessly exposed his upper body.
Kim Yi-hyeon concentrated only on the positions he could target. Now, without wasting bullets, he calmly fired at enemies who exposed gaps.
‘He doesn’t look used to handling guns......’
The team leader felt puzzled as he glanced sideways at Kim Yi-hyeon. His grip on the handgun was clumsy, and his firing posture was not stable either.
Crack!
‘And yet he hits just fine.’
There were no ineffective attacks. Even if every bullet did not hit an outlaw, at the very least, they accurately landed on the cover where the enemies were hiding.
That alone placed a great restriction on their actions. How threatening would it be to the enemy? It was enough to make one wonder whether he had received some kind of special training.
The team leader’s lips curled upward.
Even though they had gone to the trouble of setting a trap, the outlaws here were a dud. He judged that they had nothing to do with the target.
But there had been an unexpected harvest.
‘We picked up a decent one.’
Thanks to that, it seemed they would not need to waste unnecessary strength.
Kim Yi-hyeon let go of [Ivory], which had run out of bullets. He could craft two more or so, but there was no longer any need for him to step forward.
Gunshots rang out in succession.
White Fang members raised automatic pistols and reduced the numbers one by one. The rapid callouts that had been flying back and forth soon turned into screams.
A hole opened in the back of an outlaw trying to flee. One man rushed in with a desperate scream, only to have an arrow lodge in his throat.
Had five minutes passed since the battle began? Now only four of them had their limbs intact.
An appropriate number remained. The team leader shouted toward the outlaws who had lost their will to fight.
“Throw away your weapons and surrender, you rats.”
***
The situation was soon settled.
The four surviving outlaws were bound and loaded into the cargo compartment. The situation was the exact opposite of when they had been dragged here.
After the cargo was roughly organized, the railcar began returning along the same route it had come from.
Kim Yi-hyeon did not ride in the cargo compartment. He walked behind the railcar with the team leader.
“What will happen to that base?”
“A follow-up unit is scheduled to come later. We believe they were people who broke off from another outlaw group. We will know once we interrogate them, but for now, no further connection is visible.”
“In simple terms, they were small fry?”
“That would be the case.”
The team leader agreed, yet could not hide his curiosity.
“It feels strangely easy to talk to you. How much do you understand about the situation?”
“I’m only guessing. I don’t know who you are, but you’re looking for a specific outlaw group, right? This incident was also an attempt to gather information while pretending to trade with outlaws... Am I wrong?”
“You have sharp eyes.”
“Those people probably know that too.”
Kim Yi-hyeon gestured toward the cargo compartment with his eyes.
The two bounty hunters were trembling in a corner. Perhaps the shock had been great, because their earlier chattiness was nowhere to be seen.
They had weak mentalities. They needed to be thrown into Tulavia barehanded to come to their senses.
“......Hmm.”
The team leader fell into thought for a moment. Since his mind was already inclined, his decision did not change. Belatedly, he introduced himself.
“We are White Fang of Lotus Company. You can call me Bryce. I registered as a bounty hunter, but well, I’m a mercenary by trade.”
“I’m Kim Yi-hyeon. Sorry, but I don’t really know what kind of company Lotus... Company? is. The truth is, I just arrived in Cilicia today.”
“What?”
Bryce let out a hollow breath. Kim Yi-hyeon had surprised him several times today, but this was the most shocking.
“Are you sane? You came underground on your first day?”
“The station attendant said something too. I told him I needed money. He understood well enough.”
“...Haha! What a strange bastard.”
At Bryce’s laughter, the White Fang members glanced back. Kim Yi-hyeon looked over their faces one by one anew.
‘That one isn’t here. Well, it would be hard to be that lucky.’
The reason Kim Yi-hyeon possessed information about Cilicia, which had not even appeared in the main episode, was thanks to the operatives from Cilicia.
Among them, there was an operative who had once been a member of White Fang. She barely survived Legion’s air raid and ended up joining Selvlogics Lab.
Her side story had a point that distinguished it from many other operatives.
Rather than emphasizing her character, it focused on the process by which Cilicia collapsed.
Among users, it was even treated as part of the main episode. The Professor’s group simply did not appear.
In terms of the whole story, this side was actually more important.
‘I couldn’t recognize the other members because their illustrations never appeared. I do remember the name Bryce.’
Unfortunately, they were all scheduled to die. In the game, there was only one survivor of White Fang.
For a moment, Kim Yi-hyeon remembered Ghost. Just as he felt the situation was somehow similar to back then,
“So, you need money?”
Bryce grinned.
“As it happens, there is a fairly lucrative job. What do you think? Interested?”
It seemed men marked to die said similar things too.
***
The serious offer was to be discussed after they arrived at Metrocity. On the way back, there were two small skirmishes.
They were attacks not by outlaws, but by monsters. Perhaps they had heard the commotion, because Speeders and bat-type monsters called Stitches came rushing in from who knew where.
It was closer to labor than battle. Without Kim Yi-hyeon needing to do anything, the White Fang members easily dealt with them by firing crossbows and nail guns.
On the way, Bryce said something.
“The reason nail guns are supplied to low-tier bounty hunters is to avoid making noise as much as possible when battle occurs. Monsters swarm underground, after all. If everyone fired guns indiscriminately, the job difficulty would shoot up.”
It was the answer to the bounty hunters’ complaints about nail guns. Apparently, Bryce was not as taciturn as he looked.
In the end, they were able to return safely to Metrocity.
A highly developed station, completely different from the dark, musty passages. The absurd difference struck him anew.
The bounty hunters who had been unfortunately caught up in the incident were given a small reward.
They did not forget to silence them by telling them not to speak of it, and aside from Kim Yi-hyeon, they did not even mention the name Lotus Company to the other two.
They remained only victims. If Kim Yi-hyeon had not moved on his own, he would have ended up like them.
“Thanks for the shower, the clothes, and everything else.”
“No need. Use them as much as you like. It is not my money paying for them anyway.”
Metrocity B4. Kim Yi-hyeon was guided to a building owned by Lotus Company. He shook out his still-damp hair and looked around the interior.
There was a pool table, arcade machines, a dartboard, and even a small bowling lane installed. Bryce was sitting at the bar counter.
“What do you think? Do you like it?”
“Is this really an office?”
“We are a company with good welfare. Each platoon is given one facility like this. The offices for paperwork and the training grounds are separate.”
“Wow......”
Kim Yi-hyeon was honestly impressed.
Cilicia was not a city with a large area. Since its population density was high, land prices must have been expensive, so just how many buildings did they own?
Clink.
When Bryce shook his glass, the ice inside collided with the glass. He tapped the seat beside him twice with two fingers and spoke.
“If you are ready to listen, shall we negotiate?”