# Chapter 25
“Hey!”
Iyeon, who ran over in a hurry, checked the condition of the collapsed person.
It was a man wearing a white coat over a t-shirt with flashy patterns and colors. His ears were adorned with numerous piercings, faint tattoos were visible above his wrists, and his brown hair was grown long for style. Overall, he was so gaudy that it was impossible to guess what kind of person he was. He definitely didn’t seem like a doctor…
The man could only twitch slightly, seemingly unable to move his body. Judging by the occasional suppressed moans, he hadn’t lost consciousness. Is he injured somewhere? Iyeon asked while gently shaking his shoulder.
“Are you okay? Should I call an ambulance?”
At those words, the man opened his eyes wide and shook his head slightly. He seemed to have some circumstances. I should take him home for now… Iyeon’s eyes widened as he lifted the man’s arm to support him.
Blood was flowing from the man’s abdomen.
The wound was quite large. It seemed difficult to leave this place without any treatment. How do you perform first aid again? Iyeon, fumbling around, drew crooked lines on the dirt ground with his finger. Soon, a pile of bandages that looked like they’d been cut with pinking scissors popped out of the ground.
But when he tried to wrap the bandages, he noticed the man’s body was filthy all over. Is it okay to wrap it like this? Won’t it get infected? As he frantically looked around, he saw a vending machine across the street. Iyeon carefully laid the man down and whispered quickly.
“Stay here for a moment. I’ll get some water.”
It didn’t take long to get a bottle of water and return. In that very short time, just when Iyeon briefly took his eyes off him.
The spot where the man had been lying was empty.
“Haaaam…”
Iyeon, deeply buried in the office sofa, yawned long. Today was particularly warm. It was an excessively peaceful afternoon for someone who had experienced such an incident in the morning.
Thinking about it again, it felt like being possessed by a ghost. A bloodied man suddenly appearing in the neighborhood park—it was an unrealistic scene that could only happen in dramas. Iyeon’s neighborhood wasn’t even an area with frequent mutant battles… If there hadn’t been bloodstains on the ground, even Iyeon would have been confused whether it was a dream or not.
First Sano, now this man—it seemed like sprawling around this neighborhood was becoming a trend.
‘At least he took the bandages, that’s fortunate…’
Although they were created with superpowers and would disappear after a few hours, it was better than nothing. Iyeon rubbed his drowsy eyes and muttered seriously.
“I think I forgot to feed Mungchi.”
Mutants don’t get nutrients through food consumption.
“I should probably go home and check…”
“Don’t try to pull anything.”
The attempt to play hooky was thwarted within 5 seconds.
Despite looking like he wouldn’t, Sano was quite diligent. He regularly came to work and often guarded the office until closing time even when there was nothing to do.
Of course, he would leave without looking back when time was up… but it’s true that he had a diligent side, unlike his first impression which suggested he might crush the office without consideration if things didn’t go his way.
Quickly bored again, Iyeon next peeked toward the desk where Hyegang was sitting. Amidst the leisurely atmosphere drifting throughout the office, Hyegang was busily typing. The momentum was even somewhat combative.
“Hyegang, what are you doing?”
There was no answer for quite some time. Looking closely, Hyegang had something in his ears.
Hyegang’s three monitors displayed various unknown pages as usual. The desktop visible at a glance had all sorts of icons scattered around haphazardly, and the character of the user could be roughly guessed from the various program windows running in an overlapping state.
“Oh, hyung. What is it?”
Only when Iyeon stood right behind Hyegang did he seem to notice him, removing his earphones and turning around. The music was turned up so loudly that a noisy beat faintly leaked from the earphones.
“Just bored… Anything interesting?”
“Interesting? Illegal? Or legal?”
“…”
A strong intuition struck his head that he shouldn’t ask any further. Iyeon closed his mouth.
The abilities Hyegang showed during missions were usually in the realm of illegality, and since Iyeon was close to being an accomplice, he wasn’t about to talk about being a law-abiding citizen at this point… but still, he didn’t want to commit crimes for fun. That’s not to say Hyegang was strange, well, he wasn’t not strange but…
Knock, knock.
What diverted Iyeon’s attention as he muttered excuses to no one in particular was a small knocking sound. Iyeon promptly approached the door.
Chageum rarely had outside visitors. At this time when all members were at work, the identity of anyone who might visit was obvious.
A private client.
This month had been strangely devoid of private requests. Although quarterly missions were Chageum’s most important source of income, quarterly missions alone were not enough to navigate this world of inflation.
The office maintenance costs could barely be covered only if there were at least a few private requests per month, but already half of this month had passed without a single private request. Calculating from previous trends, it was at a dangerous level.
It’s not like he could pay Hyegang’s salary with the Je Sano card… Wait, this might be a good method. Iyeon carefully stored this insurance that had occurred to him like lightning.
Anyway, a visitor had come during such circumstances. Iyeon excitedly opened the door.
“Hello…”
“Hello.”
A man with neatly styled hair bowed his head in greeting. Iyeon, who had inadvertently bowed back, looked at him glumly. It was one thing that he recognized the face, but the visitor’s position was the problem.
“Why is the Director here…”
It was Jin Heesu, Director of the Mutant Response Department at the Superpower Management Office.
Being a civil servant, he was more likely to be here on official business rather than for a private request. Even worse, an unannounced inspection. Whatever the business, it wasn’t a big expectation. Iyeon, whose enthusiasm instantly dropped, lazily guided him to a seat. Noticing the clearly insincere attitude, Heesu curiously stated his purpose.
“I’ve come to place a request.”
“That’s what I was waiting to hear.”
“Pardon?”
Iyeon’s eyes sparkled again. How much does a high-ranking superhuman earn? Unknown, but he must be quite wealthy. A private request from him—we should eat meat today. With renewed ambition, Iyeon urged for a response with a reliable face that said “tell me anything.”
Suspicion appeared on Heesu’s face, unable to keep up with the fluctuating emotions, but he soon reached into his briefcase. As he rummaged for a moment, the two people sitting across from him bickered.
“Try to be more decent.”
“Hey, do you know how many mouths I have to feed? You, Hyegang, Mungchi…”
“It seems like one mouth could be reduced.”
“What? Whose mouth are you going to reduce? Yours?”
“Yours.”
“…”
Heesu couldn’t help but stare blankly at Sano and Iyeon bickering. Although he had known Sano for quite a long time, he had never seen him behave so informally. You live and learn.
“Director?”
“Ah.”
Heesu, snapping back to reality, pulled his hand out of the bag. With a rustling sound, a file folder came out.
“Do you remember the Smoke Fox?”
“Yes.”
The beast-type mutant that Sano and Iyeon had caught at the department store recently.
It was a Grade 5 mutant classified as medium risk. For something they caught without knowing what it was, it was quite a high grade—normally it would have been impossible for Iyeon alone. The old saying “ignorance is courage” fit perfectly.
“I’ve read Jung Iyeon’s mutant response report.”
Heesu took out a document from his bag. The content he wanted to request all stemmed from this Smoke Fox suppression report.
“You mentioned that the Smoke Fox transformed into stains and climbed walls and floors.”
“Yes.”
“Transforming the body into stains is not a characteristic of the Smoke Fox.”
“…What?”
