NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 31 - Sudden Choice!
Chapter 31 – Sudden Choice!
Help Natasha (Choice) / Rescue the Hostage (Choice)
XP 2,500
Jin skimmed through the text like speed-reading, picking up only the keywords.
“Hey. Don’t tell me the ‘cargo’ is…”
“Yeah. A person.”
The reply was casual.
Natasha held the steering wheel with just her right hand.
Even with one of the side mirrors missing, her left hand leisurely flicked away cigarette ash.
It wasn’t the typical reaction of an ordinary trucker, prompting Jin to fidget with Gravis at his waist.
Still, since she had fed him earlier, he didn’t draw his weapon right away.
Instead, he tried to keep calm and start a conversation.
“My hostage sensitivity is at max right now for a bunch of reasons. Before I start making biased judgments, can you summarize in three sentences? Two would be even better.”
The sound of approaching engines grew closer.
Curses filled the air—
“That bitch! That whore!”
And then, gunfire.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out, followed by the metallic ping of a bullet scraping against metal.
It was close.
So close that, if it had been a face, it would have grazed his ear.
Total chaos.
Jin gripped the handle near the window and checked the side mirror again.
Since the truck’s rearview mirror was useless, it had multiple auxiliary side mirrors instead.
Ignoring the smashed rectangular one, he glanced at the smaller mirror below it, which reflected the road.
Vrooooom!
Two black muscle cars were tailing the truck closely.
As for the source of the gunfire?
No need to guess.
A guy was hanging out of a car window, torso fully extended, firing his weapon.
His mouth spewed another round of curses.
“Bitch! Whore!”
Damn.
That guy’s got a set of lungs.
Jin turned his head.
Natasha spoke up.
“I got scammed. Not once or twice, not for just a day or two. I knew it, but I let it slide. And I guess that made them think I was an easy mark. When I saw them crossing the line, I gave them a polite warning.”
That should’ve been the end of it.
She exhaled a plume of smoke, her dimples sinking deep.
“And guess what the scammer did next?”
“You’re seriously asking questions right now? We’re being shot at.”
Bang! Ping! Bang! Ping!
Bullets struck the truck in a rhythmic beat.
Jin’s protest was valid, but Natasha simply stepped on the gas and answered.
“He must’ve panicked or something—he tried to kill me. Completely crossed the line. So, as a result, he’s tied up in the cargo hold right now.”
Jin glanced at the side mirror and nodded.
Ignoring the sudden, random question in the middle—
This was pretty much a three-sentence summary.
To simplify it further—
“…So, the scammer crossed the line and you kidnapped him, and now his underlings are chasing us? All while yelling ‘bitch, whore, crazy bitch’ at the top of their lungs?”
“Exactly.”
Jin turned to Natasha and asked, “Did you expect them to chase you?”
“Nope. I wiped the scammer’s cyber-brain completely clean. Didn’t think they’d be able to track us. Guess they had a backup plan. Who knows? Maybe he swallowed a tracking device in advance.”
Muttering to herself, Natasha suddenly let out a small, dry laugh.
“Believe me or don’t, but I wasn’t planning to drag you into this. Maybe you should’ve kept a lower profile, huh?”
“Can I get off now?”
“I mean, you could. But you’ll definitely be seen as an accomplice.”
Jin had a general grasp of the situation.
But he couldn’t fully trust Natasha’s version of events.
He needed to hear the hostage’s side of the story too.
In any conflict, you should always hear both sides—
…Well, in a normal situation, that is.
Right now?
Bullets were flying.
Flying!
Jin stopped overthinking.
If he had to choose between the two—
The gun-toting lunatics screaming insults, or the person who gave him a ride and a burger—
Simple choice.
“Simple is best.”
“Gotta earn my meal.”
Having made up his mind, Jin rolled down the window.
Then, he leaned out, aimed, and pulled the trigger on Gravis.
BANG!
A thunderous gunshot rang out.
The left headlight of one of the muscle cars shattered into pieces.
“Sh-shit!”
The guy hanging out of the backseat with his gun let out a startled yelp, instinctively ducking his head.
He wasn’t the only one shocked.
The sharp wind stung Jin’s ears, carrying Natasha’s surprised voice.
“What the hell was that, a cannon?!”
Jin didn’t answer.
He just pulled the trigger again—
And in that moment, he realized something.
It wasn’t going as well as I had hoped.
The first shot and the most recent one were both like that.
I had aimed at the driver, but only the headlights and the hood were destroyed in turn.
It couldn’t be helped.
A moving car, an unstable posture, the tremendous recoil of the Gravis, and one-handed shooting on top of that.
When you add up all those penalties, no matter how skilled Jin is, a clean hit is hard to expect.
But he was starting to get the hang of it and was sure he’d land the next shot.
The moment he pulled the trigger again…
“Get your head down!”
With Natasha’s voice, the car shook.
Immediately, the truck swerved in and out of lanes, overtaking the car ahead, and Jin quickly took refuge in the passenger seat to avoid the metal mass that had become a sidecar.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I didn’t hit anything.”
What bothered him more than anything was that his final shot, which he had fired with certainty, missed.
It was even worse since the slide of the Gravis had just moved back after emptying the magazine.
“Damn it. Of all times.”
The spare magazine he had prepared from Brof was neatly stored in Manticore’s trunk, and the Manticore was parked in the motel parking lot.
So, he had sent a text to Khalifa to pick it up before leaving the factory.
Ignoring a reply asking if there had been an accident was an unspoken truth.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand.
“This is getting annoying.”
Jin muttered as he holstered the Gravis.
He cracked his neck with a loud snap.
“First, I’ll…”
Not even listening to Natasha’s following words, he pulled his body out of the window, this time not just his upper body but his entire frame.
With a swift motion, he landed on the roof of the truck, feeling a push in the back as he jumped toward the cargo section.
Now, the view from the side mirrors was gone, and the scenery from the rear was clear in his eyes.
VROOM!!
The muscle cars, having already cut through the maze of traffic, roared as they closed the distance between them.
At that moment, the vulgar driver, who had found no fun with his pistol, noticed Jin standing on the trailer and froze.
“Shit! When did he get up there?!”
In the midst of his panic, as he aimed the rifle…
Jin focused.
According to classical mechanics,
If you know where an object was initially and can figure out which direction and how fast it’s moving next, you can predict exactly where it will be and when.
It was the same now.
He knew the direction, speed, and initial position of the muscle cars, so if he predicted where it would be in 0.1 seconds…
Only an exceptional person could do this.
The next moment.
Jin appeared in the air, landing precisely on the roof of the muscle car that passed underneath him.
Naturally, there was no time for style.
With that speed, Jin flattened out like a frog, barely avoiding falling off.
He crawled forward, his hair fluttering in the wind.
Once in position, he swung his clenched fist wide.
CRASH!!
His punch shattered the windshield and struck the driver’s face hard.
BANG!!
The thud of the car horn sounded as the driver’s fallen companion was finally noticed by the others.
“Oh! Shit!”
“What the hell!”
Ignoring the usual screams, Jin grabbed the steering wheel.
Since the unconscious driver had already floored the accelerator, he simply adjusted the direction and switched lanes.
BANG!
The car slammed into the side of another muscle car driving parallel, shaking violently.
“Ugh!”
“Ugh!”
The impact rocked all the passengers’ upper bodies as they swayed front and back.
Meanwhile, the vulgar passenger in the back seat raised his rifle.
“Die! You bastard!”
However, before the rifle could fire, Jin, blinking beside him, swiftly grabbed the barrel.
Moments later, the delayed gunshot fired randomly inside the confined space, the bullets scattering everywhere.
BANG BANG BANG!!
The blood splattered like fireworks, staining both the front and rear windshields of the vehicle.
“Damn it!”
The vulgar man, who had belatedly loosened his grip on the trigger, widened his eyes at the aftermath of his own actions.
Crack!
Jin, who had punched the man in the face, looked up.
And what he saw was the guardrail.
Bang!!
With a deafening noise, the muscle car was launched into the air, flying for dozens of meters in an arc before crashing to the ground.
Crash! Bang! Crash!!
The massive car rolled multiple times on the ground, eventually coming to a halt, engulfed in flames.
Jin, hanging from a streetlight pole like a cicada, looked down.
“Ugh.”
Of all the things that caught his eye at the end, it had to be this guy.
He had approached with the mindset of a gambler, and somehow, he had succeeded.
Sliding down the pole, Jin wiped the blood on his face with the back of his hand as he muttered.
“…I missed one.”
Originally, the plan was to blink into the other car’s interior once the muscle cars collided.
However, the situation went awry due to the madman trying to shoot with a rifle.
“Tch. What a waste.”
As Jin wrinkled his nose in slight frustration, a distant sound of gunshots echoed.
Were they caught up with Natasha?
Still, she seemed to have done all she could.
Jin thought this as he started walking toward the source of the noise.
At some point, the gunfire abruptly stopped.
How much time passed?
Soon, the familiar cargo truck appeared in the opposite lane, honking its horn.
Beep! Beep!
“Hello.”
Jin greeted the truck as it slowed down beside him.
A friendly greeting came back.
“Hello, what the hell. Are you crazy?”
Was it a rest stop, or was something under construction?
Either way, Natasha parked the truck in a small, seemingly purposeless open space.
After a moment of gripping the wheel, she glanced back at Jin.
“You. What the hell…”
Her words trailed off.
Unable to finish the sentence, her lips twitched before letting out a deep sigh.
“Let’s get out first. We’ll talk about it later.”
The two of them, Jin and Natasha, stood side by side in front of the cargo compartment.
While Jin casually crossed his arms, Natasha, after unlocking the latch, swung open the door of the compartment.
Inside, a man with his hands and feet bound was visible.
The man, squinting at the sudden light, soon noticed Natasha and began struggling fiercely.
To Jin, he resembled a fish out of water.
“Quite the strength you’ve got.”
“Thank you.”
Natasha replied as she climbed into the compartment.
She then tore the black tape off the man’s mouth, and immediately, a stream of curses followed.
“Fuck you, bitch! You think you’re gonna get away with this?”
“Kevin, calm down.”
“Calm down? You still don’t get it, do you? Soon, my men will…!”
The man, Kevin, was grabbed by the cheek with a strong hand.
Natasha stared at him coldly.
“Kevin. This is why you’ll never escape the fate of a third-rate linker. Where’s your sense? What’s the use of keeping your ears if you don’t hear? Didn’t you hear the gunshots? Why do you think I opened the door?”
Jin tilted his head.
Was this scammer a linker?
He then glanced back and forth between Kevin and Natasha, processing the situation in his mind.
As he digested the three-line summary and applied it to the roles of linkers and solos, Natasha issued a quiet warning.
“If you’re so confident, keep yelling. It’ll be fun.”
With that, she released her grip on the man’s jaw.
Kevin, whose jaw was aching from the force, muttered weakly.
“Fuck… How could this happen…”
His bitter words were followed by Natasha slowly opening her mouth.
“Listen, Kevin. I could sell you off to District 48 right now. But that wouldn’t be worth it for me either. So, I’ll give you a chance. Give me all the money you’ve been hiding from me, and I’ll spare you from becoming a slave.”
“Why would I bother? I don’t have any money. If you don’t believe me, stop doing this here and check my office or something.”
“Sigh. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.”
Natasha shook her head in frustration.
“I don’t get why you make me repeat the obvious. Let’s just make this easy. Tell me the location and the password where you’ve hidden the cash.”
Kevin scoffed.
“Bullshit. Did you get shot in the head or something? Why would I tell you that? Huh? What do I have left then?”
“Your life.”
“Fuck off. Just kill me.”
“Always the third-rate type, huh? You really want to see it through to the end?”
As Natasha reached into her pocket, Kevin bared his teeth.
“Gonna torture me? Go ahead. It won’t matter since I’ve turned off my pain sensors.”
What?
The shocking revelation hit Jin.
He couldn’t believe it.
Then—
Throb!
Suddenly, Jin felt a sharp pain near his heart.
Crack!
Crack!
Sparks flew as the electric surge conveyed an unspoken intent.
“What’s wrong?”
Natasha turned her head toward the hand resting on her shoulder.
She saw Jin’s finger, surrounded by sparks, extending as he revealed his intentions.
“Move aside. I’ll handle this.”