Chapter 171

The instant that happened, Roy changed his tone and barked at Yeonwoo.

“People make mistakes! It happens, okay?!”

Anyone can get confused in the moment.

Yeah. Exactly.

And if a minion of the Lord of Chaos is determined to lure you, how many people on earth wouldn’t fall for it?

Of course, I’d never fall for it.

At Roy’s shout, Hojin lifted his head a little.

Their eyes met, and Roy slowly blinked as if to reassure him. As if to say: Don’t worry. I’m not bringing up your brother.

“Anyway, that’s not the point. What matters is every researcher died suddenly during interrogation.”

“What?”

At the word died, a heavy silence dropped over the music room again.

The cause of death for each suspect was cardiac arrest. No signs of forced entry, no indications of homicide.

For now, the most plausible explanation was that someone had set things up in advance so their lives would be threatened if they tried to divulge information.

“As a result, all we learned from upstairs is—”

That a deacon named Lee Hashin was a key figure in developing the new drug “Power Ping.”

That there was a vast, temple-like empty space under the church.

And the method for procuring test subjects.

“The routes differed by age group, but there was one thing in common.”

They were people without parents or socially isolated—people whose disappearance wouldn’t be questioned.

In other words, people with no ties, like orphans or the homeless.

“And sometimes they were lured in under the pretext of clinical trial part-time work for a new drug.”

“Those bast—...”

Taeeon clenched a fist hard, his face turning stiff.

Of the victims rescued on scene, only one survived.

A woman wearing a name tag that said F17—the one Roy had spoken with, if only briefly.

“But we’ve found one more person who appears to have been harmed through a similar route recently.”

Roy paused, then slowly spoke the name.

“I think you all know. Gwak Hyeol, F.”

A contestant who, after leaving Star Hero, had naturally faded from everyone’s memory.

“Wait! Gwak Hyeol? The guy who was always blue in the face and coughing blood...?”

“Right.”

Yeonwoo sprang to his feet on reflex, jaw hanging, then only sat back down when Hojin gently tugged his sleeve.

“My guess is the drink he took was an early version of Power Ping.”

The symptoms of victims believed to have ingested the drink overlapped startlingly with Gwak Hyeol’s condition.

Above all, there was one decisive commonality that convinced Roy...

“When you drink it, you look awakened at first, but as time passes, you lose reason and go berserk.”

And by berserk, he meant Blood Fiendification.

“...Blood Fiendification?”

All through Roy’s explanation, Han Gyeol couldn’t shake a grim expression, muttering the word back.

Is there a more violent word in the world?

A human becoming a Blood Fiend?

Not just Han Gyeol—Yeonwoo and Taeeon also couldn’t relax the stiffness in their faces.

Only Roy and Hojin stayed relatively composed—they already knew.

Hojin in particular was the only witness who had seen “human Blood Fiendification” up close.

“Exactly what it sounds like. Take the drug, go through an incubation period, and you turn into a Blood Fiend.”

“Th-there’s no way something like that...”

Shocked at hearing something he felt he shouldn’t, Han Gyeol belatedly covered his ears.

But the word Blood Fiendification, already driven deep into his mind, wouldn’t budge.

Then Hojin cautiously raised his hand.

“Can I... ask something?”

“As much as you want.”

Roy twitched an eyebrow, granting the floor.

“If it’s true Mr. Gwak Hyeol drank the same drug as the mente— I mean, the victims... how is he still alive?”

A good point.

“Gwak Hyeol first drank it last summer. And he said he awakened around then, too.”

The person who gave him the drug introduced himself as a pharmaceutical sales rep, even down to the distinctive red horn-rimmed glasses.

And the frequent coughing and hemoptysis started around that time as well.

Even so, there was only one reason he could still be alive.

“Because that batch was a failure.”

Among the seized items were labels that said “tonic.”

Naturally, it was an unlicensed product with no approval from the food and drug agency.

From that, the Bureau judged they had intended to use the power of the church organization to distribute the drink on the open market.

And that wasn’t far from the truth.

And so upstairs reached this conclusion:

“The group’s goal may be human Blood Fiendification, and it may be linked to the recent spike in Blood Fiend incidents.”

“...!”

Too many things pointed the same way to chalk it up to coincidence.

“That’s why our team took the Blood Fiend investigation. Questions?”

Roy gave a light wave and swept his gaze over the team. Every rigid face looked more than a little shocked.

After a brief silence, Han Gyeol cautiously raised his hand.

“Um, no matter how I look at it, I don’t belong here... I should probably just—”

“Hyung.”

Right then, Roy cut him off.

It annoyed him that Han Gyeol kept trying to slip out whenever he could, but Roy knew this was the time for a carrot, not a stick.

He forced his mouth into a smile and spoke as gently as he could.

“For now you might feel behind the others. But that’s temporary, okay? Yeonwoo hyung re-awakened in no time. Your rank is low, so it’ll actually be easier.”

“No way...”

“I’m serious. You don’t trust me? I’m S-rank. I’m Roy.”

You’re going to grow in a way that’ll amaze people.

Soon you’ll hit a second golden age—not as an actor, but as an Awakener.

Roy poured out hopeful words without stopping, shoring up Han Gyeol’s confidence.

And then, noticeably, Han Gyeol’s expression brightened.

“...Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely. And I specifically need you.”

Even during that old music video shoot, Roy had had a lot of scenes paired with Han Gyeol.

He clashed with Hojin’s water element, and his synergy with Taeeon’s earth wasn’t great either—water and earth can smother fire with ease.

Yeonwoo’s light was better, but still not ideal.

In the end, the ability that paired best with fire was clearly Han Gyeol’s wind.

“So be confident. We saw it that day at Daegwallyeong. How far a flying spark can grow on the wind.”

“...!”

Han Gyeol’s eyes flew wide. The single line hit him in the chest, and his face said he’d realized something.

Only then did Roy exhale in relief and turn his head.

“Anyone else with questions or worries? Speak now while I’m feeling generous~”

Roy’s mischievous expression returned as his eyes met Taeeon’s.

Taeeon hesitated a moment, then parted his lips.

“Then... is our team’s final objective to find that researcher, Lee Hashin?”

“Nope. One step above that.”

“...Above?”

Roy raised his index finger and pointed at the ceiling.

“You think there’s another mastermind behind Lee Hashin?”

“Yup. The board’s too big for one guy.”

Lee Hashin was just a puppet of the Lord of Chaos.

The number “6” carved into the floor that day had to mean the sixth soul.

If the worldline had flowed as written, the drink called Power Ping would’ve been distributed illegally without a hitch, and the sixth soul of the Lord of Chaos would have obtained a body.

But before the story could even properly start, Roy barged in and flipped the board.

That didn’t mean what was fated would vanish.

It only meant the schedule had been pushed back a bit.

Danger still lurked somewhere in the Wasteland, and even if the sixth had been dealt with properly, five souls remained.

Right now, somewhere, they were surely moving by any means necessary to resurrect.

The only saving grace was that the souls didn’t know of each other’s existence.

Each one believes they’re the true Lord of Chaos.

Just as Roy was about to sink into thought, Hojin carefully spoke up.

“But... about that drink. Why doesn’t it turn you into a Blood Fiend right away? Why does it show something like an awakening effect first?”

A good question.

Every Blood Fiend confirmed so far had occurred naturally—beings born from the mere presence of the Lord of Chaos’s soul on Earth.

But the naturally occurring numbers alone were far too few.

The Lord of Chaos’s goal was to take Earth.

And because of the Blood Fiends, a counterforce—Awakeners—had appeared in the Wasteland.

To face them, a far stronger army would be needed than before.

The conclusion, then, might have been to create awakened Blood Fiends.

That was Roy’s thought.

“My take is their plan is to produce Blood Fiends stronger than the ones we’ve seen.”

“How could they...”

Hojin narrowed his brow, shaken.

“Which is why we need to find them fast, right?”

Yeonwoo chimed in this time.

“But where do we even look for those punks. Our country’s tiny, but flip it over and it’s secretly big.”

Hojin nodded—he sympathized.

There was that time Roy had told them to find “the cafe with the handsome owner,” and they’d had to comb through practically every cafe in the country.

If this were his first life, Roy might have felt lost too.

But who was he?

Even if he couldn’t recall exactly who the Lord of Chaos was, he was still the seer who grasped the big currents of this world.

Euhyang-hyang-hyang!

“If it were me—”

Roy drew it out, and naturally every gaze gathered on him.

“I’d try to get that Power Ping or whatever back into circulation.”

The moment that drug hit the market was when this worldline began, so it was bound to appear sooner or later.

They just wouldn’t use the same method that failed once.

So, the church is out.

With the Bureau tightening surveillance, fast-rumor, public places like cafes aren’t suitable either.

A place where you can reasonably restrict and control outsiders while staying off the Bureau’s radar.

A noir staple, a hotbed of corruption and crime.

That place is—

“Clubs.”

Roy’s mouth curled into a crooked smile.

“So, anyone know the hottest club right now?”