Chapter 611
“Allah! Oh great Allah!”
“Take care of him, Satan.”
“Evil human, goodbye.”
I left the screaming Al Diab in the hands of the Skeleton King and turned away. Everything that came after was no longer within my jurisdiction.
If he were just some low-level terrorist leader, he’d be executed on the spot without hesitation. But if he was the head of Al-Qaeda, that was a different story. Magic Johnson or Skeleton King would surely find a way to make use of him, whether through magic or authority.
‘I should’ve learned [Soul Capturing Technique].’
A tinge of regret crept in.
The Soul Capturing Technique was a martial art classified under the Demonic Path, but there were some righteous sect practitioners who had mastered it too. Not to mention the [Disguise Technique].
Of course, I never learned either. Not because I didn’t need them, but because I was too busy scraping by with desperate survival antics.
‘Now that I think about it, there’s a Demonic Path martial artist nearby… but I don’t know if he knows the Soul Capturing Technique. If I get the chance, maybe I could learn a few useful skills?’
While I briefly reminisced about the Martial World, the massive underground hideout—like a giant ant nest—came to an end, and a vast desert filled my view. Beneath the glittering stars, a man exhaled cigar smoke and spoke in a rough voice.
“You’re already done? That was faster than I expected. Did you get Al Diab?”
I looked over the corpses of terrorists strewn around him and replied.
“Yes. I left him to the Skeleton King.”
“So a servant of Allah ends up in a monster’s hands. Good. Damn old man. Bet that was a sight.”
“He definitely wasn’t happy about it. He’s probably still screaming about Satan right now.”
Chuck Hagel let out a satisfied grin at my response.
Just three days ago, he had learned the Skeleton King’s true identity for the first time. A brief conversation was enough to prove he thought on a different level from ordinary people.
– ‘Undead?’
– ‘Wait, is that his last name? I could’ve sworn someone called him Stone King earlier.’
– ‘No. That’s his gender. No, not gender—his race.’
– ‘Didn’t you say he was from Georgia?’
– ‘Surprise. Turns out he’s a Skeleton King from the Demon Realm.’
– ‘So he’s a monster.’
– ‘Hey, motherf—. You joking right now? What’s a monster doing he—’
– ‘Technically he’s an undead monster. More precisely, a named undead monster.’
– ‘……Is everyone insane? What kind of lunacy are you people involved in?’
– ‘He may be a monster, but during the second Great Cataclysm, he saved my life from an Arch Lich.’
– ‘What?’
– ‘Also, he helped subdue over 10 mutated Gates and 3 Gateway Waves in Korea.’
– ‘Holy shit. Then he’s a war veteran. Welcome, undead warrior.’
Black cat or white cat—so long as it catches mice.
Even with that saying, Chuck Hagel’s mindset was on another level.
– ‘My grandfather was a damned medal-wearing Indian killer. But I couldn’t care less about that crap. As long as you’re out there stopping terrorists and Gates, working for the people, who gives a damn about your skin color?’
– ‘Chuck. He doesn’t have skin.’
– ‘Bone color doesn’t matter either.’
Chuck Hagel didn’t just disregard racism—he even transcended speciesism. It stirred something in my chest.
He showed a sense of grandeur unthinkable from someone holding the office of U.S. Secretary of Defense.
– ‘Let’s not tell the president.’
– ‘I kinda hoped Chuck would say that… but still, is that really okay?’
– ‘He didn’t ask.’
– ‘Ah.’
– ‘And in the military, if you don’t get caught, it’s not a crime. That’s how it works.’
Of course, that’s nonsense.
The Secretary of Defense knowing this and still keeping it from the president is insane.
But Chuck Hagel is someone capable of such madness.
Uncle Chuck and Magic Johnson were symbols of the United States.
War heroes born from the Great Cataclysm received tremendous love, devotion, and unseen pardons.
‘Even so, this is madness. Hm.’
Fortunately, Chuck Hagel was the kind of madman who had frequently pulled off this level of insanity.
I looked at him with unexpected warmth in my eyes.
“What’s with that look?”
“Just… I like you, Chuck.”
“Is that why you get along with Johnson?”
“…That’s how you take it? Anyway, where are the others?”
Choi Minwoo and Magic Johnson were nowhere to be seen.
Chuck Hagel chewed on his cigar and answered.
“They’re inspecting the Gate. Turns out these bastards had a secret lab for [Magic Stones].”
A secret lab, huh.
I had expected something of the sort.
This wasn’t some small-scale group. Al-Qaeda was a massive organization waging terrorism globally, backed by immense manpower and resources.
Having a laboratory for magic stone research—even with astronomical costs—wasn’t surprising.
“What’s the scale?”
“Bigger than expected. According to Choi and Johnson, it’s been there for over ten years.”
“Ten years?”
“Yeah. We’re not sure if they were running other experiments here or planning magic stone-based terrorism, but one thing’s clear—they’ve been scheming something for a long time.”
Seems like Seok Go-jun wasn’t the first to try using magic stones as weapons.
Then again, it’s expected from a terrorist organization.
“Any findings? Did they uncover anything?”
“Hard to say. We’ll have to rough up their researchers a bit, but if they had any real success, something much bigger would’ve already happened.”
“True.”
“At the very least, the attacks in Texas and other places weren’t linked to Al-Qaeda.
If it was them, they wouldn’t have done something so sloppy. They’d have real data from human testing.”
He’s right.
Even if the terror had succeeded, Al-Qaeda wouldn’t have wasted hunters and magic stones just to pull off a suicidal stunt.
It’s not like they were doing some kind of banzai charge or kamikaze attack.
‘They’d just draw attention and get beaten down.’
As I muttered to myself, Chuck Hagel suddenly spoke.
“Lately, I’ve been wondering if it’s even possible to fully root out these bastards.”
He offered me the cigar he was chewing.
“I don’t smoke.”
“I know. That’s not the point. The important thing is—this damned U.S. military cigar was found among their supplies.”
I muttered softly.
“They’ve got someone on the inside?”
“If it were just cigars, I wouldn’t care. But… they had entire stockpiles. Food, lab and medical equipment, advanced missiles, even artifacts. Most of it can’t be exported overseas without Pentagon approval.”
I firmly patted his slumped shoulders.
“Hang in there, Chuck. This isn’t the first time. And we already knew.”
“Heh. That’s real comforting.”
But it’s the truth.
We’ve dismantled dozens of terrorist groups, and what we saw wasn’t just blood and corpses.
We saw the raw, ugly face of the world.
‘Just who are these people giving them all that?’
Military officials? High-level politicians?
Arms smugglers chasing profit? Maybe all of them.
I don’t know for sure. But one thing is certain. Someone’s watering the weeds we should be rooting out.
“Damn bastards.”
Chuck Hagel grumbled and tossed the cigar far away.
The faint flame burned out in the dark, cold desert.
Watching it vanish, he exhaled like a sigh.
“Crazy Korean. So, what’s your plan now?”
His sudden question made me pause, but I answered calmly. I’d already made my decision days ago.
“I’m going back.”
“To South Korea? Well, it’s not like it’s North Korea, so that makes sense.”
“Maybe.”
Half right, half wrong.
But I simply shrugged without confirming or denying it.
Chuck Hagel gave a bitter smile.
“Right. Can’t keep running around with that silly mask forever, playing vigilante.”
“Hm. I don’t think it looks silly though.”
“Really? That’s your South Korean fashion sense talking, huh?”
I grinned.
“Not to us.”
“Huh?”
“To the rebel groups and terrorists.
Think how it must look to them.”
Chuck Hagel clamped his mouth shut.
I looked up at the nameless constellations in the sky and continued.
“Mujahideen. Al-Qaeda. IS Syria branch…”
Major terrorist organizations whose leaders and bases we’d wiped out in just one week.
Not to mention the small and medium-sized groups we’d completely eradicated.
I recited them one by one.
“We didn’t eliminate everything, but we definitely sent a clear warning.”
They don’t know our names, ages, nationalities, or faces.
Magic Johnson’s spells kept us from being tracked, and we constantly switched weapons and combat styles.
And…
“There’s nothing scarier than an unknown enemy.”
In just one short week, we had become a source of fear for terrorist groups.
They couldn’t catch us despite placing massive bounties, and they couldn’t retaliate because they didn’t know who we were.
Even leaders of world-class international terror groups were either dead or brainwashed, causing internal strife within their ranks.
“They’ll stay low, fearing the same fate.”
Weak deterrence invites resistance, but overwhelming power breeds fear and dread.
The freed captives had already spoken into cameras and microphones, sharing the horrors they witnessed.
And the international community was aflame once again.
Over the atrocities happening around the world.
And over us.
“Maybe things will start getting better, little by little.”
Malice is the first weed to sprout in people’s hearts, and those who harbor malice inevitably commit evil.
But what can you do?
You can’t pull weeds growing in the heart, but you can remove the ones you see.
“It’s not about how many weeds you pull, but how many people are pulling together. Just like you and me, Chuck.”
Some pull one. Some pull two or three.
But if enough people start caring, eventually the weeds will disappear.
I only recently came to understand that small but profound truth.
“Well, that’s what I think anyway.”
Did I talk too much?
As I closed my mouth, Chuck Hagel, who had been watching me with a strange expression, suddenly asked,
“Hey. Can I ask you one thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“I didn’t get an answer earlier… Where exactly are you going back to? From what you just said, it sounds like you should be headed to the Vatican.”
I chuckled and replied.
“It’s hard to say, but it’s a place kind of like this.”
“Where? Afghanistan?”
“Farther. Much farther.”
“…Much farther?”
As he blinked in confusion, I couldn’t help but smile.
That’s right.
It was time to go back.
After wrapping up the one last thing I’d been putting off.