# Chapter 117
## Escape
‘Kang Taesung… don’t you know me?’
‘How could you… do this to me…’
‘Listen, I came from the future!’
‘Because someday I’ll be your damn friend?’
‘Taesung… Taesung…’
‘Kang Taesung!’
With a jolt, he sat up, causing fallen leaves to crunch beneath him. Multicolored leaves had piled like a blanket on the depressed ground where he’d been lying.
“Haah.”
What kind of dream had he just had? He tried to recall for a moment but remembered nothing. It just felt like fragments of an irretrievable dream were lodged in his chest, stirring his emotions.
Taesung brushed off the dirt on his body and got up. Every movement created an annoying rustling sound.
‘7:40…’
Having barely fallen asleep after 5 AM, he had essentially just closed his eyes for a moment. And that was on a dirt floor in the mountains with cold dew falling.
This environment would have been more than enough to break an ordinary person’s body, but an S-class Awakened person’s body didn’t know fatigue. It was truly a physique optimized for escape.
The bright autumn sunlight pierced through the leaves like thorns. Taesung checked his bearings, unfolded a map to gauge his position, and contemplated the path down. If he crossed several peaks and descended to a remote area, he would arrive at a village quite far from where they had been spotted the previous day.
From there, if he circled around the region and eventually reached Busan, he could lay low and wait until things calmed down. That is, if he wasn’t spotted again and chased in the meantime.
‘How troublesome.’
He had already prepared for danger when approaching Naru’s reverse scale. Of course, he hadn’t imagined sleeping rough in the mountains like this, but it felt so familiar that it gave him déjà vu, and he had no particular complaints.
Even when a mobile unit consisting of A-class and B-class Awakened persons he’d never seen before—presumably unregistered—pursued him, he merely thought that such actions were to be expected from Naru.
Taesung was just worried about leaving Jade in their clutches. And that person, Joo Lee Hwan, as well.
‘I doubt Kang Dongha will leave him alone…’
This pursuit also originated from him. Even Taesung himself had been reduced to sleeping outdoors, so what might have happened to someone who worked under that bastard?
For a moment, an uncomfortable feeling filled his chest. The kind of emotion that disrupted his usually dry mood in every way possible, but wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
Taesung often felt a similar sensation vaguely when waking up. So he calmly accepted, strange as it was, that he must have appeared in his dreams. After all, he had been immersed in such feelings ever since escaping from the mineral attribute gate, so there was nothing new about it.
Several months had already passed since he had appeared and disrupted his daily life. He was still unpleasant, unsettling, impossible to look away from, and thinking of him constricted his heart.
Every time he recalled those light eyes staring at him, his breathing seemed to follow his heartbeat. When he remembered those eyes that had lost their light and blinked momentarily on that sloped mountain path, in the water, he felt both the urge to choke himself and a terror like the ground was collapsing beneath him.
Even Taesung knew well that this wasn’t normal. Sometimes it all felt like an elaborate joke or a strange dream.
His life was already too exhausting and uncomfortable to accept all of that. Taesung, like a moth to a flame, kept following his footsteps while trying to avoid encountering him directly.
Since they didn’t have many points of contact to begin with, he distanced himself while seemingly staying close, and a kind of peace came to his twisted insides.
That peace was broken when Kang Dongha came looking for him.
“I hate parasites who drool over other people’s food the most. Though your brother Dongying doesn’t like it much either.”
It was quite a disjointed statement for someone who had barged in. Because there had been a similar outburst before, Taesung understood what he meant; otherwise, he would have thought Dongha was just picking a fight with paranoid delusions.
Taesung folded his arms with an expressionless face and bluntly answered.
“For someone who says that, you fetch and carry for Kang Dongying like his lapdog.”
Kang Dongha deliberately smirked at those words. That rising corner of his mouth was characteristically good at grating on people’s nerves.
An Awakened person’s eyes see many things. For instance, the sudden tension in a neck and shoulders, the single twitch of a left eyebrow, or a jaw slightly clenched then released.
Despite clear signals that Taesung wanted to punch him, Dongha’s pretense of composure was solely because his opponent was an Awakened person. Taesung knew well his character of becoming almost servile to the strong and cruel to the weak.
This made Kang Dongha even more unpleasant. His blatant meddling with Jade ultimately meant he had found a weak spot to bite in Taesung.
“Your problem is a lack of respect. We picked up an orphan brat, fed and sheltered him, but as soon as he Awakened, his head hardened up.”
Yet he had never used such vulgar language to Taesung’s face before. This was because Taesung also didn’t have the best personality, and in reality, Kang Dongha’s position was worse, so he knew well that if he picked a fight, he would end up being the one insulted.
It seems he’s found some leverage. Taesung easily guessed. It had been only ten days since he heard about the drugs from Jade. Two days ago, he had deleted some of the CCTV records in Building D.
It seemed he had been tracked. Though he thought he’d handled it cleanly, perhaps Dongha had set a trap and was waiting.
“You’ve been up to something big this time.”
“The big thing is seeing your face first thing in the morning. Get out.”
“You’ll regret cutting me off so hastily. You know what I’m talking about, right?”
“I can tell you’re looking for a fight, but…”
“Ha!”
At Taesung’s response, which showed no change in expression or even voice tone, Kang Dongha let out a laugh of disbelief. Taesung looked down at him with a composed face.
What had he expected? Did he think Taesung would tremble at his words and confess everything?
But that day, Kang Dongha wasn’t backing down either. He stepped close to Taesung’s face and asked sharply, as if scraping with an iron skewer.
“Do you think your S-class Hunter reputation will protect you again? After provoking that madman Kang Dongying and backstabbing Father as well.”
“Do you have a paranoia disorder? You’re not worth dealing with.”
“What did you take from down there? What did you get from giving it to your stalker that you’re still so stiff-necked?”
It was a provocation without a shred of dignity. Though it was excessive, this too was something that could be ignored without much effort.
Fortunately, there was no one else in the advance team’s break room anyway, so there was no concern about this nonsense spreading. It was something he could dismiss as usual. If he didn’t react, Dongha would leave grinding his teeth.
Moreover, what Kang Dongha was bringing up was none other than the issue of Jade’s drugs. He shouldn’t get tangled in his nonsense.
However, despite knowing better, irritation crept up the back of his neck unavoidably. Kang Dongha, who vulgarly mentioned Lee Hwan, seemed particularly annoying and presumptuous.
In the end, Taesung, instead of ignoring him, took a deep breath and tilted his head to the side. As if daring him to continue. It was a different response than usual.
As his seemingly emotionless face hardened, Kang Dongha’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re a ridiculous bastard.”
That distinctive voice irritated him once more. An uncomfortable sensation impossible to describe in words. Taesung felt like he wanted to scratch the inside of his throat hard. Just like when he saw Lee Hwan lying there with a face devoid of any color.
“Get lost.”
His voice, laden with irritation, burst out before he could suppress it. It wasn’t a good sign. He was too visibly shaken by everything related to Lee Hwan.
Especially after seeing him last time. The noticeably gaunt appearance kept disturbing his vision.
‘Other people’s food?’
Kang Dongha consistently made a fuss about not touching what was his, but from Taesung’s perspective, Lee Hwan was just trying to escape to survive. An Awakened person with malnutrition? Was this even a plausible statement?
He could clearly see the scene of exploitation, imagining what kind of treatment he had received while going through gates all this time. If this was how things would roll, it would have been better if Kang Dongying had taken him instead.
Suddenly, Taesung felt the desire to bend one of his fingers backward.
‘…’
Fortunately, most of his life had been about endurance. Taesung hid his complicated feelings and calmly walked to open the door leading to the corridor. And as if Dongha wasn’t even worth raising a hand against, he jerked his chin toward the hallway.
“I’m busy, so babble your nonsense to a mirror.”
“You must be busy. Poking around there without valuing your life.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will know.”
As if he had confirmed everything he needed to, unlike before, Kang Dongha no longer pestered him and left the break room. The chilling feeling from his retreating figure was not just a matter of mood.
Something seems to be going wrong. A situation worse than initially anticipated might be coming. A sudden ominous and sharp sensation found him.
Taesung had only learned about the existence of such a facility in the basement of Building D while erasing the video records. Jade had consistently opposed his involvement in the research, and as if protesting, didn’t properly tell him about even the experiments he had undergone.
After he left, saying he would erase the CCTV footage, there had been several calls as if he wanted to tell him something… but Taesung didn’t answer. He deliberately avoided it before and after visiting the video record room.
So that they wouldn’t immediately associate the incident and Jade, if things went wrong.
Should he have listened? Though he felt some regret, it was too late to reach out again. The severity of the situation remained just a conjecture.
That night, Taesung was summoned by Director Kim.
Given his position as a managing director, most matters were relayed through him without going through the upper echelons, but that day, those standing behind him felt unusually distinct.
Before heading to the location he had specified, Taesung quietly packed his things. His heart raced as if constricting as he left home with a bag containing several weapons and bundles of cash.
No matter how much of a liability he might be, he was still flesh and blood, as well as a high-profile S-class Hunter. Unless there was a truly serious threat, surely they wouldn’t harm him openly.
He hoped the assumption that briefly crossed his mind was just needless worry. Taesung’s car glided out of the apartment complex.
