Black Badger

Hitting Colton was never going to be simple.

Even so, I tried to think about it as simply as possible.

Operations tended to go better the simpler they were.

That wasn’t an easy thing to do, though.

“Natural causes? Or not?”

“I couldn’t find anything strange.”

Yun answered.

We were in the executive lounge. A room Yehyeon used to frequent. Since it was a resting space for the top brass, the soundproofing was thorough, and regular checks for cameras and listening devices were carried out.

Lately, it had apparently been used quite often as a meeting place.

It was a space I’d been making good use of every time I stopped by headquarters recently. Leonard had left just a few minutes ago. He’d returned after killing a deserter Badger that had appeared in Core 7, and told us that he’d even rummaged through the deserter’s organs, but hadn’t found anything noteworthy.

So now, only Yun and I remained in the room.

Yun sat with his legs crossed on the chair in front of the desk.

My mentor spoke.

“Choi Jeseok had been half-dead for a long time, but recently he got even closer to being an actual corpse. That’s why I’ve been summoned to the main house so often lately. So even if it was a natural death, it wouldn’t be strange. That said, there was no CCTV, so we can’t know the truth. Does the truth matter?”

“No. Not particularly. What matters is how Aitek’s succession plays out....”

“There won’t be any surprises.”

I see.

So Choi Hyunjun keeps the chairman’s seat. It seemed ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) there was nothing in the will that would change the situation.

I nodded in satisfaction, and Yun asked,

“I have to leave for the main house in thirty minutes. What are you going to do. Are you coming?”

I didn’t hesitate.

The answer wasn’t mine to decide anyway.

“Which option does Chairman Choi prefer?”

“He’d prefer you not to come.”

Yun answered immediately.

“Choi Hyunjun wants to climb into the elder seat, but he doesn’t have what it takes to get involved in their vicious power struggles. He wants to quietly pick a side and sit himself in the elder position once the winner of the current struggle becomes clear. So he won’t want to face you in a public setting right now.”

If he kept acting that ambiguously, he might be the first to get his head chopped off.

I gave a small laugh.

“But now that former Chairman Choi Jeseok has passed away, it’ll be hard to keep claiming neutrality using the former chairman as an excuse.”

“That’s true.”

“If he dislikes outside pressure, tell him not to covet the elder seat. If he wants to live a long life.”

“He won’t listen.”

Yun replied flatly.

“Is that all you want me to pass along?”

“Please also tell him that I’m still interested in purchasing a Core device.”

If not for this, I wouldn’t have paid any attention to Choi Hyunjun at all.

Unfortunately, I absolutely needed Core devices in order to kill Colton.

I’d been moving diligently to obtain them lately. It was a mid-to-long-term goal shared by me and my kin: siphoning off three or four Core devices in a way that didn’t break the law.

To bring down Colton, the owner of Center Core, I needed them.

We’d concluded that isolating him was the only way. Unless we dragged Colton and Jaeyeon out of Center Core, or created a small Core inside Center Core and shoved them into it, clean revenge was impossible.

If the space wasn’t sealed off, I’d be arrested before I could take Colton’s head—or arrested at the same time as I did.

And then, one by one, the people I cared about would be slapped with charges of being accomplices to murder.

There were simply too many people Colton had planted everywhere.

The current military, the police, intelligence agencies, the judiciary, financial organizations, the heads of major media outlets—all of them were Colton’s people.

Burying a single person was nothing to them.

Didn’t the accounts frozen under absurd charges—mine and my kin’s—show just one facet of the sanctions they were currently imposing?

Colton had even frozen Yoow’s account at a private bank, flaunting his overwhelming influence within Center Core.

In the past, I would have cut down everyone involved in the sanctions, one by one.

In fact, I was already preparing to infiltrate a few mansions.

But this time, things were different from before.

“Your fame is making it hard to move, I take it.”

Yun said dryly.

I smiled faintly.

“Yes. Probably.... Thank you for letting me know so quickly, Yun.”

“Do you even have the money to buy a device?”

“I’m collecting gold.”

“A single device costs close to ten billion.”

“Paying in full upfront is obviously impossible.”

I answered with a smile, and Yun raised one eyebrow.

I replied calmly.

“I’m planning to put down only part of the contract deposit.”

Yun stared at me.

“So you’re saying you’ll extort it.”

“No, I really will pay the rest later. Seriously.”

“And where will you get the money.”

“Once revenge is finished, Falcon’s assets will come rolling in in a lump sum.”

Yun let out a small whistle.

“That’s some impressive arithmetic.”

Hey.

I really do intend to pay properly.

So stop looking at me like that.

Naturally, my mentor ignored my sullen glare.

Instead, he kept silent for a moment, scanned me with dry eyes, and asked,

“Want more help than just catching deserter Badgers and digging up informant traces.”

“No.”

I answered immediately.

Yun’s eyebrow rose.

“You said the simpler, the better.”

“Yes.”

“If I lend a hand, there are plenty of things that would get much simpler.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“Guess you’re not that desperate.”

Yun tossed the words out.

On purpose.

Knowing it would hit.

But I’d built up a decent resistance by now. The first time I’d heard that, it had genuinely shaken me. Now, I could even laugh and push back.

“If I get truly desperate, I’ll contact you. It’s not like I’ve completely withdrawn from society. I even had dinner with my classmates today, and I’ll be attending the promotion exam....”

“Living like a normal person on the surface while hiding the dirty work underneath? Sounds like a politician bragging about having a clean public life.”

“I know it’s dirty. But I think I need to keep it up for a while. Being exposed as not human has put even more constraints on my movements. If I were just an odd Badger who liked Lexic noodles, it wouldn’t be this hard to act.”

Colton was a master of political warfare.

He’d publicly announced that I was a ‘yellow-eyed tenth-class Creature,’ which was an extremely efficient counterattack.

Erhart had adjusted things so public opinion didn’t spiral into the worst possible direction, but the revealed truth couldn’t be hidden.

In short, the public gaze had made assassination difficult.

Even a game’s hell mode would be easier than this.

“So bring me in.”

“I said no.”

No matter what, I didn’t want to drag my seniors in too deeply.

I knew exactly what happened to people who got tangled up in this.

Colton was ruthless.

The moment he started losing ground, he would take my seniors hostage without hesitation.

“And anyway, even if you don’t want to get involved, you eventually will.”

I replied curtly.

“You’re not completely uninvolved even now. That’s why my stomach hurts from anxiety as it is.... Why are you so eager to step in even deeper? You saw Yehyeon and Ska getting beaten by Jaeyeon, didn’t you?”

“Like you said, we’ll end up involved eventually. You’re a soft-hearted idiot, so if hostages are taken, you won’t be able to ignore it.”

“That may be true, but if you stay like this for now, they won’t touch you for a while.”

“That’s true.”

“Yes. So I won’t ask for help.”

“But it looks fun.”

Yun said it in a perfectly pure voice.

A chill ran down my spine.

I stared at my mentor in shock.

“What part of this looks fun to you?”

“Deserters these days are pathetically weak.”

Yun explained casually.

In the tone of someone explaining how to tune a radio.

“When there were truckloads of guys going off the rails because enhanced bodies were injected without any consideration for character, it was entertaining.”

“No.... Lately, they’ve been sweeping through the Badgers in each Core pretty thoroughly, so there are quite a few deserters, aren’t there.”

Ska Owen had launched a large-scale informant purge.

Externally, it was known as ‘irregular inspections of each Core.’ With the Supreme Commander seat vacant, the acting commander was combing through the service records of Badgers in other Cores—far from headquarters and prone to corruption—like a tax audit.

In the process, quite a few deserters had emerged.

I’d heard that many deserters came from among Badgers who’d gone on long-term leave.

And since the service inspections weren’t over yet, there was a good chance more deserters would appear.

But it seemed those small fry didn’t satisfy Yun.

He must have been keenly aware of the under-the-surface power struggle, and the knife-edge atmosphere probably excited him.

I couldn’t hold back a sigh.

“Just look after Tig from time to time.”

“Who’s Tig?”

“The robot vacuum cleaner left in the cabin.”

Yun stared at me.

“You didn’t sell it?”

“How could you say that? Tig can’t climb stairs, but his cleaning is immaculate.”

“I’ll put it up for sale.”

Saying that, Yun pulled out his phone.

“No!”

I panicked.

“Don’t sell Tig! The reason that cabin doesn’t collect dust is all thanks to Tig!”

“You said it can’t climb stairs. That cabin’s a duplex.”

“But it keeps the first floor spotless! He’s a good kid!”

We wrestled over it for a moment.

Only after teasing me to his heart’s content did my mentor give up on selling Tig.

Unchanging as ever....

I let out a weary sigh.

“If I really need help, I’ll send an SOS.”

Yun gave a slight nod.

“...Aren’t you going to the funeral?”

Yun fell silent for a moment.

After quietly looking at me, the man stood up.

“Late birthday present.”

Ah.

Walking toward the door, he tossed a vial at me as I sat on the bed.

I caught it, recognized it, and smiled.

An Eternal Chaser neutralizer.

It was one of the things I’d been desperately trying to obtain lately, and every time I got my hands on one, I immediately downed it. Recently, I’d been assuming that every liquid I drank outside had Eternal Chaser mixed into it.

Eternal Chaser was far too easy to slip into drinks.

With a bitter smile, I thanked Yun.

After confirming that my mentor had left without responding, I opened the vial and swallowed the liquid in one go.

“Ugh.”

Every time, it felt like swallowing fire.

I groaned through the pain alone, and only after the burning liquid had scorched everything inside did I straighten up.

Wiping the cold sweat from my forehead, I quietly slipped out of the room.

***

I’d intended to go straight home, but it seemed word had gotten out that I’d come to headquarters for the first time in a while.

As I stood next to the restaurant on the first floor, asking Kairos whether his secondhand transaction had succeeded, people approached.

Familiar faces.

“Rick!”

Seeing the senior I hadn’t seen in two months, my expression lit up.

“Carl! It’s been a while. Have you been well?”

“You’re selling a game console?”

Carl said that without even responding to my greeting.

Ricardo looked me over from head to toe and let out a long breath.

Then, before I could even answer, the seniors who’d stopped beside me started rummaging through their pockets.

Ricardo pulled out his wallet from inside his jacket. Carl took his wallet from his back pocket.

I stared blankly at the cash being held out toward me.

“Uh....”

I murmured while looking at the sudden stack of bills.

“I... don’t need it.”

“You won’t take it~?”

Ricardo asked lazily.

He didn’t say anything else. He just held out the bills while looking me in the eye.

Carl didn’t speak at all.

“...I’m really fine....”

No reaction.

“I’m not starving....”

If only they’d react....

In the end, I caved.

Looking cowed, I accepted the cash from them. My promise to pay it back later was ignored. When I said the amount was too much, I was told to shut up before they dragged me to an ATM. They even cut me off while I was thanking them, asked how I’d been, and when I answered that I’d be attending the promotion exam, they told me they’d see me that day and disappeared.

I went in, exhausted, and slept.

The next day, the news carried Choi Jeseok’s obituary.

It was plastered everywhere.

The funeral was broadcast live.

On the clear screen, members of the Choi family—including Ami and Yun—were shown. Yun stood there in a pitch-black suit, expressionless. Ami pressed her lips together, repeatedly holding back her sobs.

In front of them stood Choi Hyunjun, Choi Hyunyoung, and Choi Hyunseok.

Beside Yehyeon, who was listening to the eulogy, were Ska and Gilbert. They stood with their heads slightly bowed, maintaining silence.

Seeing the three of them standing side by side reminded me of the year-end party.

It wasn’t a situation to be happy about.

Still, it was nice to see their faces again after a long time.

But I didn’t contact them. I simply watched the live broadcast carefully, then left the safe house on schedule.

I wasn’t going to the funeral hall.

As Yun had said, I had no intention of showing my face there.

Instead, I prepared to go to Erich Erhart’s party.

「Lin.」

I called out to the subordinate who’d been spending far too long in front of the mirror.

「If you’re any later, I’m making you drive.」

「I’m coming!」

Lin came running in a hurry.

「All done, Captain! Whew, you’re dazzling today too.」