Deal Breaker - Chapter 70
“Haah…”
When someone removed the sack covering his face, Kanghyeon gasped for air. As light suddenly poured in, the hazy blur in his vision slowly sharpened into focus. He had already realized it was indoors when he was dragged here.
The place he had been brought to was the inside of a decrepit building, with bare concrete exposed and crumbling. Whether from shelling or not, a hole about the size of a palm in one wall let a single beam of sunlight pour in. On the floor, thick with dust, the only marks were the footprints of seven pairs of military boots moving around. That meant this wasn’t their hideout.
Two Middle Eastern men who looked like members of an armed group were aiming rifles at Kanghyeon. Among the rest, the middle aged man who appeared to be the leader, and the one arguing with him in English, looked familiar, but not the same as when he had last seen him years ago.
“I thought, if he ever goes bald, he could transplant hair from there and not lose a single strand, there was so much.”
Did words really have power. Kanghyeon let out a hollow laugh at the sight of Borodin’s smooth, egg like head, then grimaced.
His head throbbed even worse. It was because he had used his ability. To report to an acquaintance in charge at the command center.
The fact that Hyeji wasn’t here, and was safe in Korea, being exposed to Borodin was precisely why his life had been spared at that moment.
[ I already reported to the center via telepathy that you were involved in terrorism, and that you tried to kill me and kidnap my dedicated Guide. ]
[ I can just walk out of here on my own and claim it was slander. Unlike you, who’ll end up a corpse in this place. Only the living get to talk. ]
Borodin acted brazen, but perhaps he was shaken inside, because he quietly lowered his gun.
[ We need to kill him right now! ]
And now, instead of using his own hands, he was struggling to have the armed group’s leader kill Kanghyeon for him. A leader who had obtained the terrifying weapon of the world’s strongest mental type Esper wasn’t about to listen to that.
Borodin would regret for the rest of his life that he hadn’t killed him outright. While Borodin, thinking Hyeji was here, had spared Kanghyeon briefly to dig through his memories to find her, Kanghyeon had enthusiastically thrown a reporting party left and right.
[ Then at least bring an inhibitor! ]
Only belatedly did Borodin rummage through Kanghyeon’s belongings to stop him from using his abilities, but there was no way the inhibitor he had left in Korea would be here. So instead, he was making a scene, demanding that they at least procure an expensive inhibitor. In the middle of the Libyan desert.
[ Do you not understand what it means when I say you’re all dead men otherwise? ]
Borodin’s claim that they were dead men wasn’t exactly wrong. Kanghyeon had already relayed everything he experienced to an officer he knew at the operations headquarters. They would already have raided the power plant that Kanghyeon believed was the real hideout.
He didn’t know whether they were tracking his location. Kanghyeon was only a mercenary, after all.
The only places a mercenary Esper could trust were the Center, his affiliated agency, and his family.
He had already sent word to the head of the Center’s Korea branch. From his father…
‘Well done.’
He had received only a single sarcastic remark.
He contacted his affiliated agency, that is, his company, through Hyeji.
‘Secretary Noh.’
‘Gasp, what. I’m in the shower right now.’
‘Ah, sorry.’
‘Please respect my privacy.’
‘No, wait. What does telepathy have to do with showering?’
I can’t even see you.
‘This isn’t the time for nonsense. Secretary Noh, your livelihood’s about to be cut off.’
‘What? Please explain.’
Noh Hyeji, seriously. The moment he said her livelihood was on the line, she finally lowered her voice into a serious tone and listened attentively.
‘This is way over the line.’
‘Totally over the line, yeah.’
‘Are you hurt anywhere?’
‘I’m okay for now.’
‘That’s a relief. If I had gone…’
‘It would’ve been a disaster. Secretary Noh, looks like you’ve got more filial duty to your grandmother now.’
‘…Yeah.’
Since telepathy wasn’t mind reading, Kanghyeon had no way of knowing that, in that moment, Hyeji was calling her child a filial son.
Only after repeatedly warning Hyeji to be careful did Kanghyeon give instructions for his own rescue operation. That had been something he did while being captured and dragged here. He didn’t know how many hours had passed since then.
Should I ask Hyeji?
He immediately dropped the thought. Without a Guide now, he had to use his abilities sparingly and only when absolutely necessary to avoid a rampage.
He had already expended a great deal using his abilities every time he made eye contact with them to grasp their true intentions. Information was power.
The armed group had set a trap and carried out an ambush operation in retaliation for losing their leader to a NATO drone strike last year. They had deliberately let an executive be captured by the military, one who had been implanted with false memories to serve as bait.
The one who implanted those memories was Borodin.
Still, Borodin should not be capable of something on this level.
Kanghyeon had heard rumors that Borodin, having lost his standing after being outdone by him, had started getting his hands dirty. He thought it was something like the Red Mafia at most. But a terrorist group?
Borodin, have you lost your mind.
Even so, he didn’t believe that Borodin, whose abilities were worth a fortune, would have been directly hired by an extremist group suffering from financial difficulties. As expected, the reason Borodin had gotten involved in terrorism was Noh Hyeji.
That bastard’s obsessed with someone else’s Guide.
