NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 43: The Whisperers
Chapter 43: The Whisperers
“You’re awfully quiet today.”
Imp, reeking of alcohol, plopped down next to Jin Beom-Min.
Jin Beom-Min smiled awkwardly, accepting the glass Imp offered and taking a sip.
“Something wrong?”
“No… Well, nothing much.”
“Hmm, it’s a rare non-combat mission, try to enjoy it.”
“Haha, I will.”
Jin Beom-Min clinked glasses with Imp and looked around the transport plane.
It hadn’t even been two hours since they departed, but the Ghost Squad members were already drunk.
Drinking at high altitudes made one get drunk faster than usual. In fact, this was the main reason why Ghost Squad held drinking parties on the plane.
Ghost Squad and Jin Beom-Min were on their way to the UN headquarters in New York for the announcement of the ‘Joint Resolution on the Emergence of Extraterrestrial Creatures.’
There was no reason for them to be involved in the announcement of the resolution, which was mainly led by diplomats. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to strengthen South Korea’s position within the UN through this announcement.
And the best card South Korea had in this matter was Jin Beom-Min and Ghost Squad.
In other words, they wanted them to be the face of the operation.
Even if that face was completely hidden behind a mask and helmet.
Anyway, New York was a long way away, and since this wasn’t a combat mission, Ghost Squad started the party as soon as the plane took off.
But Jin Beom-Min couldn’t easily join them.
After talking with Kuen a few days ago, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jindar.
Not only that, his children… no, the Samhwa cult fanatics who were following Su-Yeon were also a concern.
If he were in Korea, he could respond immediately if anything happened, but being more than 10 hours away by plane, he couldn’t help but worry.
As Jin Beom-Min and Imp sat awkwardly to one side, Reaper, who had been glancing at them, got up and approached.
“Why are you guys sitting here like this?”
“Just one of those days.”
“Hmm, is that so?”
Reaper plopped down in front of Jin Beom-Min and asked boldly,
“Can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
Reaper pointed at Jin Beom-Min’s left ear with his glass in hand and asked,
“I’ve been curious for a while, what’s that earring?”
“Oh, this?”
Jin Beom-Min asked back, fiddling with the earring unconsciously. He felt a faint vibration within the cool touch.
“It doesn’t look like you bought it anywhere… Is it a magic item too?”
“Well, yes. I made it myself, though…”
“You made it yourself?”
“Yes. I’m terrible with magic, but… it just happened that way.”
“What kind of ability does it have?”
Jin Beom-Min fiddled with the earring for a moment. The crude brass ring, clumsily crafted, swayed from his earlobe.
“…I can’t tell you that.”
“Aw, come on, that’s not fair.”
“It’s a personal item. It has nothing to do with combat…”
As Jin Beom-Min answered with an embarrassed look, the atmosphere became slightly awkward.
Reaper looked like he wanted to pry more, but he kept his mouth shut and just stared at his glass.
Imp tried to break the awkward silence, speaking in a deliberately cheerful voice.
“Speaking of which, magic items are quite amazing.”
Imp gestured exaggeratedly, pointing to the spot where he had been shot in Paris.
“Last time, I really thought I was going to die, but thanks to that, I survived. Wow, really.”
“Everyone went through a lot back then.”
Jin Beom-Min nodded, recalling the memory.
It hadn’t even been a fortnight since they fought the Necromancer in France. But perhaps because of all the recent events, it felt like it had happened a long time ago.
“It would be great if we had a few more of those things for people like us.”
“That’s true. But it’s not a cure-all. It consumes stamina as much as it heals wounds. After regenerating an arm or leg, you’re practically unable to move.”
Then Reaper asked,
“Does that happen often?”
“I’ve only heard about it. I haven’t been injured that badly yet.”
In fact, even in Jindar, there weren’t many monsters powerful enough to sever Jin Beom-Min’s limbs.
“Well, it’s not a cure-all. Even if the wound heals, the hair doesn’t grow back.”
Imp chimed in with a chuckle, but Reaper and Jin Beom-Min were startled and couldn’t answer easily.
“Uh…”
One should always be careful about talking about someone else’s hair loss.
Jin Beom-Min glanced at the burn scar covering half of Imp’s head and carefully spoke,
“This armor doesn’t heal already healed wounds. There’s nothing I can do about old wounds.”
Imp answered unexpectedly, pointing to his own head,
“Oh, this? I didn’t lose my hair because of the burn.”
“What? It wasn’t because of the burn?”
“No. My hair just fell out. The burn happened for a different reason.”
Reaper’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Wow, seriously? I really thought it was because of the burn all this time. Then how did you get burned? Napalm? Flamethrower?”
Considering that all the Ghost Squad members were elite soldiers with excellent combat skills, it must have been an injury sustained during battle.
Perhaps it was a glorious wound received while saving a comrade, Jin Beom-Min thought.
Imp scratched the back of his head awkwardly and answered nonchalantly,
“Oh, it’s nothing much.”
“What is it? I’m actually more curious about that than the earring, but I haven’t asked because I thought it might be rude.”
“Judging by what you usually do, you don’t seem to think much about being rude…”
Jin Beom-Min cautiously interjected, but Reaper waved his hand dismissively.
“Well, the truth is…”
Imp fiddled with his glass, embarrassed for a moment, then confessed in a timid voice,
“I was trying to drink 98-proof vodka after setting it on fire… and I spilled it.”
“Huh?”
“…You got burned… while drinking?”
“Oh, I thought I was going to die. The guy next to me was slapping my head trying to put out the fire… the blanket caught fire… it was a complete mess.”
“Oh, well…”
Reaper replied in a lifeless voice.
“I don’t drink lying down anymore after that. Ugh…”
“…The intelligence to drink flaming alcohol while lying down… How did you even get into Ghost Squad? I’ve been working with this kind of person?”
Imp replied dejectedly to Reaper’s scathing criticism,
“Well, you know, things happen when you’re drunk…”
Jin Beom-Min shook his head and then spoke as if he had suddenly remembered something.
“Oh, but… if that’s the case, your hair might grow back.”
“What are you talking about? Even modern medicine can’t cure hair loss.”
Imp argued seriously, but Jin Beom-Min was serious as well.
“In Jindar… there’s actual hair growth tonic.”
“What? Hair growth tonic?”
“They sell it commonly in magic shops. It’s not even expensive. Of course, you have to be careful when handling it. If you’re not careful when applying it, hair might grow on your fingertips.”
Imp asked again in a disbelieving voice,
“No, no. You’re saying there’s really hair growth tonic?”
“Yes.”
“And is there medicine to enlarge breasts too?”
“Yes. But that’s a bit expensive.”
“Damn, let’s go. Right now. We could become millionaires just by buying and selling that.”
However, Jin Beom-Min shook his head skeptically and replied,
“Well, if you can deal with the swarming monsters and find a magic shop, that is.”
“Come on, man. Why give a guy hope and then do that? I thought you were a better person than that. You’re cruel.”
Imp grumbled and held out his glass. Reaper and Jin Beom-Min chuckled and clinked their glasses cheerfully.
Jin Beom-Min felt much better than before. He was grateful that the Ghost Squad members were all good people.
Colleagues who were fun to be around.
It was another reason why he had to defeat the monsters invading Earth.
***
Inside a dark room filled with servers.
A dark-skinned young man with tattoos all over his body pointed at the monitor and spoke.
“This is the picture taken at the UN resolution announcement.”
“So?”
The old man with a cold expression stood still, staring at the monitor.
“If you look here, you’ll see the person we’re trying to find.”
The young man zoomed in on the picture, focusing on Jin Beom-Min standing in the center of the group photo.
His face was hidden by a mask and helmet, but it wasn’t difficult to recognize him as he was wearing armor and carrying a sword, unlike the soldiers next to him.
“In other data, he always wore a headset, but in this picture, his ears are exposed.”
“Indeed.”
“The shape of ears is actually different for everyone. Thanks to that, we were able to narrow down the candidates significantly.”
The young man typed on the keyboard, and six pictures appeared on the right monitor.
They were all faces of Asian men who looked to be in their 40s.
“These are our final candidates. One of them is our knight.”
The old man stared intently at the six pictures for a while. Then, he pointed at one of the pictures and said,
“…There he is.”
“What?”
“It’s him. We finally found him…!”
A dramatic emotion appeared on the old man’s previously cold face. It was a strange expression, a mixture of joy and sorrow.
The young man was flustered by the old man’s sudden change in attitude and asked,
“But, Director, how do you know? Do you know him?”
But the old man ignored his question and spoke in an emotional tone,
“Jack…”
“Yes.”
“…Good work…”
“Hey, don’t mention it. Just make sure I get paid handsomely.”
“…And I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?”
The next moment, the old man swiftly punched the tattooed young man, Jack, in the stomach.
“Ugh…!”
As Jack doubled over from the sudden attack, the old man grabbed him from behind and twisted his body and head in opposite directions.
Crack!
With a gruesome cracking sound, Jack collapsed onto the floor.
The old man stood still for a moment and then pressed the keyboard again to enlarge the picture of the man he had pointed at.
Now, only Jin Beom-Min’s face and various personal information were displayed prominently on the monitor.
“Jin Beom-Min… Jin…”
The old man uttered in a voice filled with emotion.
“Soon… I will come to find you…”
Jack’s last breath escaped from his throat as he lay sprawled on the floor.
The old man, staring intently at the monitor, finally found a small switch attached under the desk and pressed it.
Beep—
The monitor screen turned red in an instant, and the computers that filled the room started operating simultaneously.
The valuable information stored on the vast servers began to be deleted one by one, overwritten with meaningless data.
The old man hurried out of the room and soon returned with several small box-like objects.
He then attached the boxes to the central console as well as the computers that were blinking and deleting data.
After looking around the room and making a final confirmation, the old man manipulated his smartphone and entered a few commands.
Beep—
The attached boxes all made a small sound and lit up with a red light. The timer for the napalm bombs, which emitted intense heat through a powerful chemical reaction, had started.
Having finished all the preparations, the old man looked down at Jack’s corpse on the floor with cold eyes.
Then he shook his head slightly and turned around.
He didn’t look back.
Not even when the core server room of the international criminal organization ‘Whisperer,’ which handled confidential information, was engulfed in flames and exploded 5 minutes later.