Chapter 658

The Reed Kingdom director pushed Han Yohan into solitude.

Whenever he appeared on screen, everything around him fell silent.

There was no one to talk to, no noise from his surroundings.

As though Taeo were the only person in the world.

The cold wind swept across Taeo’s clothes as it pleased. His hands moved mechanically as he assembled the cold metal components at a steady pace.

Taeo positioned the M200 and lay prone.

Crackle.

A mechanical sound came from the radio Taeo was carrying.

-Field unit R-1. Respond.

-This is R-1. All clear.

-Field unit C-1. Respond.

-This is C-1. All clear!

Now it was Taeo’s turn.

-Field unit S-1. Respond.

“This is S-1. Ready.”

Taeo’s answer was different from everyone else’s. It was impossible not to sense it.

The key to this operation was in Taeo’s hands.

Around fifteen black vehicles entered the factory grounds. Even at a glance, there appeared to be dozens of hired mercenaries.

-Thermal sensor feedback commencing.

Lia’s voice came over the radio. An operational drone rose into the still sky.

Lia’s expression was serious as she controlled the drone through a computer program.

“Currently fifteen people on the first floor, fifteen on the second... Movement toward the basement detected.”

“How many basement levels are there?”

“Three.”

“Good. Once we’ve secured the first floor, we can head straight down.”

While operating the drone, Lia also manipulated the CCTV feeds that appeared on another part of her screen with complete ease.

“As expected, we’ve detected discrepancies from the interior floor plans we obtained.”

“Yes. It appears they’ve made additional modifications beyond what was reported to the authorities.”

Lia’s eyes moved rapidly as she examined the building, whose interior had been modified to prevent intruders from entering.

A flash of genius shone through, though no one could tell what calculations were taking place inside her head.

Before anyone knew it, Lia had handed control of the drone to the senior agent beside her and was moving her fingers across the keyboard as though playing a piano. The rapid clatter of typing filled the operations room.

She appeared to be tampering with the security password system. The screen was crowded with lines of code Lia had created.

-C-1, in position.

-R-1, in position.

Reports came over the radio confirming that the units had completed their movements. The operations officer, radio in hand, gave an order.

“Time.”

A side view of Taeo adjusting his scope on the rooftop appeared on screen.

“Begin.”

A sniper could influence a platoon in several ways.

Bang!

The physical damage of killing a distant enemy with a single shot.

-Fucking cool as hell TT_TT

-This is insane.

-Holy fucking shit.

-LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO

-HOW DID THEY KNOW I LOVE THIS KIND OF SHIT TT_TT

“Shit! What the hell?!”

“Where did that come from?!”

And the resulting disruption of the operation.

“Move! Move, hurry!”

When Taeo killed an enemy with a single shot, the opposing forces panicked. They had realized that their positions had been exposed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Taeo continued sniping. Every shot hit its mark. Watching their comrades collapse instantly seemed to send the enemy into a mild panic.

“Shit!”

The enemy’s attack speed changed, and their rhythm fell apart. The longer the delay, the more impatient and anxious they became.

This was a game that ended once the commander was eliminated.

If the field commander was wounded, the entire unit would descend into panic. There was no way the agents specializing in close-quarters combat would miss an opportunity like that.

“C-1 commencing entry.”

“R-1 commencing rear cover.”

V, who stood at the front, grinned. Even with a mask covering everything but his eyes, his splendid smile conveyed exactly how he felt.

His movements were light, as though he could already taste the thrill of victory.

“Passing through the main entrance!”

Crash!

He smashed through the door with the ballistic shield he was carrying. The metal lock broke with a heavy clang.

“Personnel on the second floor are moving. They appear to be gathering on the first floor, so please be careful.”

-Lia! I'm scared! Worry about me!

Despite not being the least bit frightened, V exaggerated his fear as he charged inside.

“You fucking rats!”

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The enemy, caught off guard by the sudden assault, opened fire wildly. Their bullets failed to penetrate V’s shield.

“C-1, go!”

V gave the order as he charged forward. The unit members behind him split off and spread out to either side.

“R-1, move in!”

He held his shield in his left hand and a SIG P320 in his right. There was an easy confidence in the way he pulled the trigger.

-Please make the male lead a patriot, I'm begging you TT__TT

-Fuck, my head hurts, ah.

-I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

-I love you, Nara, I love you TT_TT

-Who the hell's been calling our country a defeated nation all this time? T_T From now on, you can only call us a developed country lol fuck

Even with only his eyes visible, there was no hiding his naturally handsome face. Viewers watching through their screens went wild over Jo Eunnara.

The rapidly moving camera doubled the thrill.

Meanwhile, Taeo, still carrying out his mission alone, concentrated on the view through his scope. Several enemies entered his sights, but he did not pull the trigger.

It was as though he were quietly setting a trap and waiting for someone.

He checked the people who wandered into his sights, let them go, then checked again and let them go. After repeating this several times—

Bang!

He pulled the trigger.

He had deliberately aimed somewhere other than the head. The shot was calculated to wound his target without killing him.

“Urgh...!”

Several enemies who had been absorbed in the fighting became visibly agitated.

This was a trap using a wounded man.

An injured superior made the perfect bait. Taeo killed the other members of the platoon who rushed in to rescue him.

Then he moved his scope, following the prey as he limped away.

Farther inside.

Deeper.

“Second floor, northwest. Group detected moving in what appears to be Natalie’s direction.”

-Second floor, northwest. V! Move in!

-Roger!

The survivors split up and fled toward the second floor and the first basement level.

Even amid the chaotic movements, Lia fulfilled her role. She struck the Enter key with a cheerful tap and announced,

“Password identified.”

Clank.

The doors throughout the enormous factory building began moving of their own accord. Then, as though they had completely lost their ability to function, every last one of them swung open.

The operations commander grinned. He had a feeling the suppression would be completed more easily than expected.

“C-1, take the second floor. R-1, head underground.”

The cooperation between Interpol and the ICC was flawless. The field tactics unfolded as beautifully as though they had been taken straight from a textbook.

“We’ve detected another device inside, separate from the controlled doors.”

Having disabled every internal control system, Lia had already noticed something else.

“There’s an elevator.”

Just then, the thermal imaging camera picked up new movement.

“Additional vehicles are entering from outside!”

When the fighting shifted outside rather than deeper into the building, reinforcements appeared.

V sprinted toward the northwest, where Natalie was located.

The superior wounded by Taeo’s bullet had served as an excellent guide.

V smoothly disposed of anyone who stood in his way, smashing heads with his shield and firing his gun. It was a chaotic, exuberant charge.

Taeo covered his allies, carefully planting each bullet into an enemy’s head.

Natalie, frantically hammering the elevator button, looked as though she had lost her mind.

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

But the button did not respond. Lia had disabled the program.

Sweat had gathered on the back of Lia’s neck as she watched the screen with a composed expression. Apparently, she was nervous.

In the distance, a man dressed in black approached with rapid footsteps. Natalie screamed.

“Hii—”

“DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!!!”

She fired the gun in her hand wildly. V ducked behind a pillar and avoided every bullet.

“Bang.”

Then, with a single shot, he extended his arm and pulled the trigger. A hole appeared in Natalie’s forehead, killing her instantly.

“Second floor, northwest. V! Target eliminated. Commencing retrieval of personal effects!”

V swiftly retrieved a USB drive from Natalie. He tossed the small silver object into the air and caught it again, his movements full of delight.

Now he needed to head downstairs and help the agents who would be facing the reinforcements.

-V, was Natalie alone?

“Yes. Her accomplice should be nearby, so I’ll capture them alive.”

-Check the floor directly above the elevator Natalie was using. They wouldn’t have pushed forward with the ordinary troops. They’d have stayed behind with private guards around them.

“Roger.”

Key figures did not serve as human shields. That was common sense, so Interpol and the ICC intended to tighten their encirclement and seize control of the enclosed rooms.

-We’ve secured everything down to basement level three.

Just then, a report came over the radio from the suppression team. All that remained was to capture the stragglers on the second floor.

For V, that was an extremely easy task.

Suppress the enemies on the second floor. Eliminate the additional reinforcements.

“Not many bullets left, huh...”

After checking his ammunition, V decided he should take the gun Natalie had been firing.

The gun she had been holding had flown into the corner of the open elevator.

“...Huh?”

And there, V came across something.

“Additional reinforcements are moving!”

Meanwhile, the thermal imaging camera detected something strange.

They were not entering the building. Instead, they scattered in every direction, heading toward the surrounding buildings.

“Time! Get out of there now!”

Their target was the sniper.

They intended to kill the man who could single-handedly wipe out an entire platoon.

Taeo remained unperturbed. On the contrary, he took down several targets as though he did not care if his position was exposed.

“There!”

“That’s where he is!”

The agents pointed toward Taeo’s position and began charging toward him with gritted teeth.

The commander pressed a hand to his forehead.

“That fucking lunatic...”

“Shouldn’t we send reinforcements?”

Lia’s face had gone pale before anyone noticed. The ICC operations officer, however, remained calm, as though this were an everyday occurrence.

“Time doesn’t gamble. He doesn’t act on a whim, either.”

“But...!”

“Think about it. The fact that reinforcements have arrived means there’s still someone important inside.”

Time was mechanical. He was an elite ICC agent who had stripped away all emotion. A man capable of annihilating an entire platoon by himself.

“If we send reinforcements, our personnel will be spread thin. If our formation breaks down, the remaining targets could escape in the meantime.”

Taeo ran down the external staircase from the rooftop.

“Here it comes, here it comes...!”

The KBC director and the drama department staff watched with sweaty palms.

How much money had they poured into this location shoot in Russia?

Just thinking about the additional filming expenses caused by Kim Jisang still made their heads spin, but they did not regret it in the slightest.

“HERE IT COMES!!!”

They shouted like football fans watching their country score a last-minute comeback goal at the World Cup.

The dark night. A cold, abandoned Russian factory. On the rusted exterior metal staircase, Taeo killed the men coming up toward him one after another.

He did not even need to aim.

Years of experience spoke for his skill.

Men fell through the gaps in the staircase, and—

Crash!

A door burst open.

Apparently, the enemy had split into two groups, approaching from both the internal and external staircases.

Surrounded from the front and rear, Taeo remained exactly as he had been.

He did not fear being alone.

A wide-angle camera captured Taeo standing tall on the external staircase. The vast, cold cityscape of Moscow stretched out behind him.

Beyond the shoulder of the man holding a long rifle in one hand, the landmarks of Red Square shone brightly.

Red, warm lights.

They looked almost like flames.

“KYAAAAAH!”

The KBC staff rose to their feet as one. This was not something they could watch while sitting quietly.

Their hearts swelled with excitement.

Sending the production all the way to Russia had been worth it. They wanted to go so far as to say that the cinematography surpassed that of a film.

Taeo fired bullets in front of him, to his sides, above him, and below him.

When he ran out of ammunition, he struck an opponent’s jaw with the metal buttstock of his M200 and snatched away the man’s gun.

The opponent, struck by the enormous rifle, lost consciousness on the spot and fell backward, taking the man behind him down as well.

Taeo’s figure appeared on the feed from an additional drone launched by the operations room. The ICC superior smiled at the horrified Interpol agents.

“First time seeing something like this at Interpol, I imagine.”

The fearless look in Taeo’s eyes as he picked up a corpse and used it as a shield against the hail of bullets.

The unrelenting force of his movements, even as he slipped after stepping on a fallen man’s hand.

And finally, the opponent whose face crumpled beneath Taeo’s perfectly aimed fist.

A wave of emotion showed on Lia’s profile as she took it all in.

It was as though something inside her had begun to crack.

“Because even I’ve never seen a monster like that before.”

Taeo had single-handedly destroyed an entire platoon.

And it had not taken him long.

-Abnormality detected, abnormality detected. This is V. This is V.

Noise crackled over the radio. V was hurriedly bounding down the stairs, taking several steps at a time.

“What’s going on?”

-I checked the buttons inside the elevator, and this place...!

The number of floors shown on the building plans was a lie.

“These motherfuckers dug out more basement levels!”

The basement did not end at level three.

There was something farther below.

A deep, dark underground space came into view. It was impossible even to make out the end of the long, seemingly endless passage.

“....”

Everyone in the operations room fell silent.

Until just moments ago, they had been anticipating victory. They had thought they had crushed the enemy with ease.

They had thought so, and yet...

-The accomplice appears to have escaped through here. There are footprints.

V crouched low against the floor and ran his hand over the ground. There were traces of someone fleeing in a hurry.

-Should I pursue?

“No. But don’t withdraw. Wait until I arrive and search the interior. Head back upstairs.”

-Roger...

The operations officer hurriedly rose from his seat.

“Lia, you’re coming with me.”

“Understood.”

The sound of helicopter rotors filled the air.

Lia headed toward the location where Taeo and V were waiting.

They had to uncover even the smallest clue.

To prevent another failure.