"What... is this...?"
"Urk..."
Chang-ho, appalled, and Jae-hwan, fighting back the urge to vomit.
After each had shown their disgust in their own way, the team examined the eyeball.
"No other traces, right?"
"No. Of course not."
"What a crazy freak. Was there anything besides this?"
"There wasn't. Just this eye, that's all."
"This is probably..."
"Yes. A warning, I'd guess."
"......."
A chilling silence fell.
A moment later, Chang-ho spoke in a gloomy voice.
"Don't tell me... this isn't Kim Min-jun's eye, is it?"
Assuming it was meant as a warning, it was entirely possible.
"It might be. Meaning, if you don't want to end up like this, don't pursue this any further."
Jae-hwan thought back once more to Section Chief Kim Min-jun.
Picking fights on the rooftop, he hadn't exactly left a good impression.
But even so, he didn't deserve to die, did he?
"So be even more careful. It looks like this one is far more dangerous than the ones we've met so far."
Jae-hwan nodded heavily at Chang-ho's warning.
"Then what now?"
"What else can we do? We have to keep looking. It might not be Kim Min-jun's eyeball, after all."
"No matter how I think about it, I doubt he's still alive..."
"Well, same here. But isn't it only right to keep looking for him to the end?"
Chang-ho went on with a sigh.
"So be more careful from now on. I'm going to report to HQ first."
"Okay."
Ji-yeon asked Chang-ho a question, as if trying to plan ahead.
"Are you going to request backup?"
"I'd like to, but..."
He looked out the window and clicked his tongue, tsk.
"Every second counts for us right now. There's no time to wait for backup."
"Then are we going in on our own?"
"No, not that."
Chang-ho got up and spoke to the team.
"Let's go to the police box."
"To the cops?"
Jae-hwan let out a quiet sigh.
Police leading the way in keeping that vile practice alive.
Even if guys like that helped, how much help could they really be?
Reading Jae-hwan's expression, Chang-ho spoke as if he understood.
"Well, sure, they're not trustworthy... But what else can we do? We don't know a single thing about this place."
"Right, we have to use everything we can use."
At that, Jae-hwan sighed as if he had no choice.
In truth, nothing Chang-ho said was wrong.
But the unease in Jae-hwan's heart still wouldn't go away.
The central government's reach didn't extend to this place.
This being the most backward of backwaters, it wouldn't be strange if the authorities had joined forces with the local bigwigs.
What's more, Jang-hoon had said in their earlier conversation that the officer was his nephew.
"Will the police really cooperate with us?"
"Who knows. I don't particularly believe they'll do anything for us either."
It seemed Chang-ho's thinking wasn't much different from Jae-hwan's.
"Well, and if things go sideways, we just beat the crap out of them."
For a moment, Jae-hwan began to wonder whether they were civil servants or thugs.
'This is... a civil servant?'
Leaving the dumbfounded Jae-hwan behind, Chang-ho immediately headed out the door.
"What are you doing? Let's go."
"...Ah, okay."
***
A country road without a single speck of light.
Following a faintly visible light, the team arrived at the police box.
But the officer at the police box reacted even more unpleasantly than they'd imagined.
"I told you, no."
The officer had been giving nothing but cold answers for some time.
It seemed he had no intention whatsoever of helping the team.
An ordinary officer would naturally follow the National Police Agency's instructions.
But with some kind of nerve, he was ignoring those very instructions from the National Police Agency.
Watching the scene, Jae-hwan fell into thought for a moment.
Jang-hoon had definitely mentioned before that the officer was his nephew.
A closed-off island village and the local bigwigs who held absolute power within it.
And the authorities who obeyed those local bigwigs absolutely.
Which meant...
"Did the village elders tell you to keep your mouth shut?"
Quietly gritting his teeth, Jae-hwan pressed the officer.
At that, the officer's expression turned fierce, and he spat out words as if threatening Jae-hwan.
"Cocky little bastard..."
No matter how unchecked their power within the village, in the end it was just a backwater.
If they kept acting like this to the end, it would only bring greater disaster on themselves.
Chang-ho let out a small sigh and looked back at the team.
"Lock the door."
Jae-hwan didn't understand what Chang-ho intended to do.
But Ji-yeon seemed to grasp Chang-ho's intent and immediately took action.
"What, what are you...?"
THWACK!
Before the officer could even finish speaking, Chang-ho drove a fist into his gut.
"Gahk...! I'm a cop! What do you think you're doing...!"
"Police? Not the old geezers' bodyguard?"
At Chang-ho's sneer, the officer said nothing.
"So, what did you do?"
"What do you mean, what did I... gahk!"
"Section Chief Kim Min-jun. I said, what did you do to him?"
Only after taking the second punch did the officer seem to grasp the situation.
"Wait... wait! I don't know anything! I was only told to destroy the evidence! So..."
"So you're saying you're not guilty?"
"Yeah, that's it...!"
Hearing this, Ji-yeon made an incredulous face.
"A cop destroys evidence and says he's not guilty? That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard."
"What?! You think you could've done any different? This place has always been like this! We were living just fine to begin with. You're the ones who ruined it!"
"Ruined...?"
Jae-hwan flared up at the officer's drivel without realizing it.
"Yeah! The government jerks never help us with anything, they just take away the workers we fed and housed...!"
"You mean the island slaves?"
"Slaves? Slaves, my foot...! We fed them, housed them, clothed them, that should've been enough! Backwater villages like ours have no choice but to do this to get by! He got in the way of that, so we took care of him too!"
At the officer's insane claims, the team fell silent for a moment.
"So."
Jae-hwan steadied his breathing for a moment before continuing.
"You killed Section Chief Kim Min-jun because he got in the way of your precious customs...?"
Section Chief Kim Min-jun had been murdered by humans.
The Aberration Security Department, which protected humans against aberrations.
At the hands of the very humans they were trying to protect.
"You... do you even know what you've done right now..."
At that moment.
BOOM!
A violent explosion and acrid smoke spread out.
Before they knew it, the inside of the police box was engulfed in vicious flames.
'Fire...? What on earth is this...?'
The team was just as unable to grasp the situation.
Chang-ho soon threw the cop aside and looked out the window.
There, a crowd of people holding torches had gathered.
"These bastards... don't tell me...?"
Ji-yeon muttered to herself, appalled.
"The villagers set the fire! They're going to kill us all! Find an exit first!"
"Damn it, when did they barricade the doors and windows?!"
In the urgent atmosphere, the team hurried around trying to find an exit.
Accordingly, Jae-hwan also hurriedly looked around.
At that moment.
BANG!
A sudden gunshot rang out.
At the same time, an intense pain shot along the nerves of his spine.
Jae-hwan froze and looked behind him.
There stood the officer, aiming a smoking muzzle at him.
"Gahk...!"
Only then did Jae-hwan let out a pained breath.
That officer had been one of the local bigwigs' cards from the start.
In a way, it was only natural for such an officer to attack the team.
"For the sake of the village elders... you all have to die here...!"
The officer shouted at Jae-hwan, burning with a laughable sense of duty.
"What nonsense...!"
Jae-hwan strained to reach out toward the officer, who kept firing shot after shot.
'I have to hurry before the others get hurt...'
But his hand didn't reach the officer.
'...Huh?'
Feeling dizzy, Jae-hwan slumped to the floor.
While staggering from the gunshot, he had breathed in the toxic gas.
The others' urgent voices reached him faintly, from somewhere past his ears.
But Jae-hwan could no longer hear anything.
Wringing out the last of his strength, he reached toward Ji-yeon, visible beyond the flames.
But the space between them was soon blocked by burning debris.
Beyond the flames, Ji-yeon gestured as though urgently shouting something.
But Chang-ho hurriedly dragged her away.
He must have decided to save the one he could definitely save, instead of Jae-hwan, for whom it was already too late.
"Damn..."
His consciousness slipped further and further away.
In the end, he lost consciousness right there in the pit of fire.
***
As he began to come to, a familiar smell drifted to the tip of his nose.
'This is... the smell of grass?'
Struggling to sit up, he looked around.
Brightly shining morning sunlight and dense grass.
And a grave before his eyes.
This area seemed to be a cemetery.
But there were no gravestones anywhere nearby.
'Why am I here right now? Don't tell me someone saved me?'
Maybe Senior Ji-yeon had saved him.
So Jae-hwan slowly opened his mouth and called for Ji-yeon.
"Um... Senior?"
But no answer came back.
In the end, Jae-hwan overcame the pain and got to his feet.
Nearby, an old man sat slumped on the ground.
Unkempt white hair, a bent back, and even a bushy beard.
It seemed that old man was the one who had saved Jae-hwan.
But the unusual air the old man gave off made Jae-hwan hesitant to speak to him.
Something was off.
The people in this village, even the police, were all in it together.
There wouldn't be a single person he could trust.
What's more, an old man of such advanced years was surely high up in the village.
'This is suspicious, isn't it?'
Organizing his thoughts, Jae-hwan quietly formed a blade.
Preparing for the worst, Jae-hwan slowly approached the old man.
The moment he faced the old man, Jae-hwan knew instinctively.
'...An aberration?'
Eyes rolled back to the whites.
A mouth sealed shut, as if it had never been there to begin with.
The one who had saved Jae-hwan was the very aberration the team had originally set out to subjugate.
Jae-hwan couldn't hide his bewilderment.
No matter how much he looked around, there was no one else in sight.
'This aberration really saved me...?'
In this awkward situation, Jae-hwan was at a loss over what to do.
His mission was surely to exterminate aberrations and protect humans.
Should he kill the aberration that had saved him from dying, right here and now, or should he thank it?
It wasn't a conclusion he could reach easily.
And so a short time passed.
"...Sir."
The old man turned his head toward the sound.
"Thank you for saving me."
Suppressing his emotions, Jae-hwan went on.
"Do you happen to know what happened to my companions?"
After keeping silent for a moment, the old man slowly shook his head.
It didn't seem like the old man was lying.
'He doesn't know?'
Swallowing a lament inwardly, Jae-hwan asked a second question.
"Then may I ask why you're here?"
But the old man gave Jae-hwan no reaction at all.
He just quietly gazed into the distance.
Drawn by this, Jae-hwan too turned his gaze toward the place the old man was looking at.
'...A salt farm?'