Chapter 609
“Stand straight. Hassan.”
“……?”
Muhammad Saladir ad-Din, the leader of the massive Islamic terrorist organization, momentarily faltered.
Who was Hassan? And whose voice was echoing from his bedroom, where no one else should be?
But if something as trivial as this could shake him, he wouldn’t have made it to his current position.
Muhammad calmly responded,
“I’m afraid I’m not Hassan. Whoever you are, it seems you’ve got the wrong person.”
“I don’t think so.”
Step.
The intruder emerged from the darkness, speaking flawless Arabic. Upon seeing the masked man’s face, Muhammad narrowed his eyes.
‘What the hell is this freak?’
While his facial features were obscured, the mask itself was bizarre beyond belief.
It wasn’t a turban or cloth, but a thick red knitted fabric with holes for the eyes and mouth.
The strangeness of the mask was one thing—but who in their right mind would wear something like that in the heat of the desert?
Muhammad asked with suspicion,
“Who are you?”
The masked man, who appeared to be an assassin, replied, “I’m Mami…”
“Mami?”
“No, I’m Scratch-back.”
“…?”
Scratch-back? What kind of nonsense name is that?
What was clear, though, was that this freak hadn’t come to pay his respects or bring any filial piety.
“Who sent you?”
“Allah.”
“Allah?”
“Yeah. The same Allah you never stop worshipping. Told me to pass along a message—he never asked you to do any of this, so stop twisting the scripture.”
“You insane bastard.”
“Wow, now I’m being called crazy by a terrorist leader. What a fucking life.”
Muhammad slowly reached for the scimitar at his waist and said gravely, “Fool. Do you really think you’ll get away with this?”
“Yup. Pretty sure.”
“Seems like you’re desperate to die. If you surrender now—”
“Yeah, I feel like I heard that line earlier. Hold on a sec.”
The intruder rummaged through his clothes and suddenly threw something out from his sleeve.
Thud. Roll…
A round, heavy object landed at Muhammad’s feet.
Tanned skin like a desert warrior’s. Eyes wide in shock, frozen. A cleanly severed neck with not a single drop of blood.
“K-Kasim?”
“Why so shocked? Friend of yours?”
“……!”
Muhammad froze completely.
Kasim was his most trusted bodyguard and assassin.
An undisclosed S-rank Hunter, a specialist in assassination—countless enemies had died at his hand.
‘And he killed Kasim? So quickly and silently that no one noticed?’
Allah preserve me. This was real.
Gripped by fear, Muhammad’s voice trembled.
“I’ll give you one last chance. Leave now, and I’ll forget this happened. There’ll be no retaliation.”
“Nope. Dumbass. Why bother negotiating when I can just kill you?”
“T-Then I’ll give you whatever wealth you want! Diamonds! How about diamonds?!”
His trump card: diamonds!
“Diamonds? You mean the ones in the safe under your desk? Already took those. Pretty things.”
But nothing happened! Muhammad’s world turned black!
“Guards! Guards! Omari! Sadat! Nasser! Where is everyone?!”
As Muhammad screamed in panic, the intruder echoed his call mockingly.
“Omari! Sadat! Nasser! Present!”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“Woohoo! Triple headshot combo!”
Where were those even hidden in that tiny sleeve?
As Muhammad stared at the rolling heads in horror, the door—which had stayed tightly shut throughout the chaos—suddenly swung open.
Another man entered, wearing the same bizarre mask, his hands drenched in blood.
“You still haven’t killed this terrorist bastard?”
Muhammad froze at the sight of the blood, while the original intruder raised a hand casually.
“There’s still something to be done. Is the cleanup finished?”
“Mostly. The other two are downstairs searching for more stuff. Can we take off these shitty masks now? I’m suffocating.”
“No.”
“Goddamn it. At least let me smoke a cigar. My face is covered by an illusion spell anyway.”
“You might as well wear an ID card around your neck. Use your head a little. With your size and your power, if you smoke a cigar, you’re basically advertising that you’re Chuck Hagel.”
At that moment, Muhammad’s eyes widened in realization.
“C-Chuck Hagel? You bastards… You’re from the U.S.!”
“Oh? How’d he figure that out? Chuck, we’ve definitely got a leak in the American leadership.”
Startled, the masked man glanced at Chuck Hagel, who bit down on a cigar and muttered,
“…Crazy Korean.”
“Are you insane, Chuck? He’ll understand if you say Korean here!”
“I’m gonna lose it. I swear, I’m losing my damn mind. I think I’ll have lunch outside…”
But the one truly losing his mind was Muhammad.
As if the name Chuck Hagel wasn’t enough, now ‘Korean’ had been tossed around too.
At this moment, there was only one Korean known around the world that he could think of.
“J-Jin Taekyung?”
“No, I’m Scratch-back.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You think I’m an idiot—?”
‘Shick—’
The turban adorned with jewels was sliced clean off, along with the few strands of hair clinging to his scalp.
As Muhammad stood frozen, barely breathing, the intruder—no, Jin Taekyung—asked coldly,
“Let me ask you again. Who am I?”
“S-Scratch-back.”
“You just said Jin Taekyung.”
“M-Must’ve been a mistake! I was mistaken!”
“Is that so? Can you swear on it?”
“I swear upon the Great Allah and the Prophet Muhammad! You’re Scratch-back!”
“How dare you lie while invoking God’s name. I’m Jin Taekyung, you apostate scum!”
“GYAAAAHHHH!”
Muhammad screamed at the top of his lungs, but the sound never left the room.
A tightly sealed barrier of ki completely enclosed the space.
“W-Why?! Why are you doing this to me?!”
As Muhammad cried out in tears, Chuck Hagel chuckled.
“You’re asking the wrong people. Ask that god of yours you kept selling out. You’ll be seeing him soon anyway.”
“……!”
“Oh, right. There’s one thing you’ll need to do before that.”
Chuck’s final words barely reached Muhammad, whose mind was already consumed by the previous sentence.
‘See God? I’m going to die? Me?’
Death.
Everyone contemplates it—but for Muhammad, that was never the case.
He was the one who dealt death, not received it.
His lips trembled as he whispered,
“T-That… That can’t be. That’s impossible.”
Since boyhood, he had lived in militant terrorist groups. Traded pencils for rifles. Held a blade after awakening.
He rose to become the leader of a terrorist group—abducting, imprisoning, and executing countless victims.
Muhammad. Named after a prophet, he fancied himself a new prophet and leader.
And yet… why?
“I—I’m chosen by God. How could I—?”
“It’s simple.”
The sneer rising from the hole in Jin Taekyung’s mask gradually faded.
His voice dropped to a cold chill.
“Because you’re a deranged psychopath who did every imaginable atrocity in God’s name. That’s why you’re going to die.”
“……!”
“Attacking civilians, abducting children and brainwashing them, strapping bombs to bodies for suicide attacks… There’s too many to count. Honestly, I’ve lost track.”
‘Hwak.’ ‘Ptooey.’
Chuck Hagel spat a thick wad of phlegm that slapped against Muhammad’s face. His gruff voice followed.
“So here’s your final chance. You’re a fucking terrorist who deserves a week of torture under Johnson, but if you cooperate, maybe you’ll have something to say in front of your god.”
“W-What do you want?”
“Orders.”
“What?”
“We know you’ve got branches all over the place. And that there are rival militant groups you’ve been clashing with. Problem is… if we go after them one by one, it’ll take forever. So here’s what you’ll do—give the order.”
The smell of cigar smoke thickened as Chuck Hagel grinned.
“Order your forces to launch an all-out assault on your enemies. Let the two of you grind each other into dust. Got it, you bastard?”
“……!”
Eyes wide, Muhammad trembled. Jin Taekyung brought his hands together, as if in prayer, and delivered the final command.
“From now on—kill each other.”
Muhammad finally realized.
There was no choice left for him.
Refuse this final offer, and all that awaited was agonizing, gruesome death.
* * *
If I were just a half-decent webnovel author, I could’ve stretched this arc into five episodes.
Power struggles between terrorist groups, political maneuvering, some spicy drama—probably could’ve milked ten chapters out of it.
But I’m not a webnovel author, and the number of terrorist groups and rebels I had to deal with was enormous.
Long story short, I had to run around like crazy.
‘BOOM!’
‘BOOM BOOM BOOM!’
I tried to keep it quiet at first, but there were too many places and too few people. At some point, we started getting a lot more… attention.
And inside the word “enemy” were gunfire, artillery, and Awakened lunatics calling themselves “Warriors of God.”
“Kill them!”
“They’re the ones who annihilated the Mujahideen!”
“Whoever captures or kills them gets thirty million dollars!”
‘Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!’
Dodging a barrage of attacks from every direction, I shouted in disbelief,
“Wow, our bounty went up!”
“Shut up and dodge!”
“Yesterday it was ten million. No wonder Luffy enjoys piracy!”
“Fucking shut up, motherfucker!”
“Fifty mil! Let’s go, baby! The Grand Line is just ahead!”
Sometimes we fought in bloody battles. Other times we struck like shadows, sweeping through terrorist cells and rebel bases in the dead of night.
And finally, on this Grand Line—no, this desert—we found a living treasure waiting.
“Leader of the Sunni faction. Omar al-Hussein. That’s you, right?”