After capturing the magician, Min-jun began the interrogation in an empty hospital room. Originally, he had planned to first read Choi Seon-ah's mind, but the order of operations had changed. Choi Seon-ah, who had fainted from poisoning by magical substances, had not yet woken up. Whether waiting for Yumtus's strength to recover or for her to naturally regain consciousness, the time seemed to be roughly the same.
"...Kill me."
The magician said in a hoarse voice. The poison in his mouth had been removed. His eyes were filled with a sinister look, as if he had given up everything.
As expected, the happy bug was ineffective. He had taken measures to prevent mind reading.
Min-jun asked.
"Who are you? Where were you sent from?"
"..."
"Why did you target Choi Seon-ah?"
"..."
The magician, who had been responding to the agent's questions with silence, soon felt something strange.
He instinctively knew. Min-jun was someone who was not afraid of getting his hands dirty. He was clearly a man hardened enough to use the screams from a torture chamber as lullabies.
Despite this, Min-jun was conducting the interrogation too calmly. If it were him, he would have started by cutting off a few fingers or pulling out some teeth to assert dominance.
But Min-jun remained standing silently, showing no signs of moving.
Moreover,
'Why does he keep holding that frying pan?'
As he pondered this, Min-jun continued asking questions.
The magician, listening to him, thought.
'...!"
He soon came up with a possible explanation.
'Could it be!'
Immediately after realizing, he began to fill his mind with all sorts of useless thoughts. Random, illogical, and incoherent musings flooded his mind. The magician pushed important information out of his conscious mind in this manner.
Min-jun clicked his tongue.
"Quick-witted, isn't he?"
Those who trained him knew about rare and threatening abilities like mind reading. Min-jun realized he had been too hasty. If he had even pretended to torture, the magician might not have noticed.
The agent inquired about the frying pan.
'How is it? Is it not working?'
=Hmm... Sorry, agent. It's like looking for a grain of sand in muddy water.=
"Really?"
=There is too much clutter, making it difficult to extract only the desired information.=
'What should we do then?'
=To increase the chances of success, it would be better to contact the author directly.=
'Should I bind him?'
=If possible, attach it as close to the brain as you can. And... the current mental defenses and barriers are thick. It would be great if we could break through those.=
A psychological barrier.
Min-jun toyed with the dagger and said.
'Will torture help?'
=It would be better to combine the two methods.=
Min-jun picked up the frying pan and approached. The magician was tightly focusing on distracting thoughts, his eyes tightly shut.
Swoosh!
The shadow spread out and coiled around the man's neck.
"Ugh!"
The black wave grabbed his hair and twisted his head back. He ended up lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
Roll!
The shadow penetrated between his lips.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
The magician resisted, but he couldn't overcome the force. The writhing shadow forced his mouth open. There was a loud crack as his jaw was dislocated.
At that moment, despair appeared in the man's eyes. Those who seek information do not pull out jaws or cut tongues. It is only natural that making statements becomes more difficult.
Thus, the opponent clearly had the ability to read minds.
While desperately scrambling his thoughts to avoid having his inner self read, Min-jun lifted the frying pan. He was holding the metal rim instead of the handle.
And the magician witnessed an unbelievable sight.
Whoosh!
"Ugh!"
Min-jun shoved the long handle of the frying pan, held in one hand, into the magician's mouth.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
The magician writhed in horror and disbelief, but the frying pan remained wedged in his mouth, pressing down on his vocal cords. The magical tool marveled.
=Oh! Quite a bold move...=
Without moving an eyebrow, Min-jun replied.
"Shut up."
It was a twofold measure, both to bring the frying pan close to the magician's brain and to muffle any screams that might arise during the torture. Additionally, it prevented the tortured from biting off his own tongue in the face of suffering.
With the frying pan handle blocking the mouth of the one who was to give a statement, the dark magician drew out the dagger.
"Well then, let's begin."
Without hesitation, he thrust the blade into the magician's thigh. The magician screamed like a beast. The noise was muffled by the handle.
The tedious process began.
Vroom! Vroom!
After several minutes, the frying pan vibrated.
Min-jun removed the magical tool from the magician's mouth. The magician was half-conscious.
"Ugh... Ughhh...!"
Flick!
Min-jun burned off all the blood on his hands and disinfected the handle. He cleaned away the broken teeth, gum fragments, blood, and saliva. Only then did he speak.
"Have we gotten everything out?"
=It seems like there's nothing more to be found.=
Upon receiving confirmation, Min-jun knocked the magician unconscious.
"This bastard, what is he?"
=First, his affiliation.=
Min-jun received the anticipated answer.
"Abrams Helper Service?"
A notorious assassination agency known for its intimidation.
It wasn't impressive, given that Min-jun had never heard of them before.
"Why would they kidnap the daughter of a congressman? It's not even an assassination."
=Ah... Actually, they are famous for providing excellent services in both assassination and kidnapping. However, this case was not commissioned by anyone external.=
"If it wasn't an external commission, was there an internal directive?"
=Yes, there was motivation for that.=
The frying pan explained in a tone that still retained its liveliness.
=There is another service the company offers besides assassination and kidnapping, which is quite unusual. When a seemingly insignificant client requests the company to kill or kidnap a high-profile target, they counter-offer to the target instead.=
In other words, they ask, "A request has come in to kill you, so what do you want to do about it?"
The goal is to negotiate with the target to extract a larger amount of money than the original client could offer.
Min-jun snorted.
"That's predictable."
=This was also such a case. The starting point was Kwak Do-chul placing the request. He asked for his wife to be killed.=
"No, wait a minute. Isn't something off here?"
Although Kwak Do-chul was the one who ended up dead, he was killed by his wife, not an assassin.
Another puzzling thing is...
"Wasn't he the one having an affair?"
According to Jeong-pal's explanation, the cause of the catastrophe came from the husband's side.
So why would the husband make the request, not the wife?
=It's speculated to be a property issue.=
"..."
Min-jun could finally understand.
Choi Seon-ah's father is a four-term congressman and a wealthy tycoon. If Kwak Do-chul had separated from his wife, he would end up penniless.
But what if the wife dies before the divorce?
"What a despicable bastard."
=So, the company made a counter-offer to Congressman Choi. They said a request had come in to kill one of his family members. They offered to kill the requester instead if he paid them. No matter how you calculate it, there seemed to be more to gain from the congressman than from Kwak Do-chul.=
However, they didn't disclose who made the request or who the specific target was.
"If they had revealed that, Congressman Choi would have probably paid the company to counteract. He would have likely taken matters into his own hands. They anticipated this and kept quiet?"
=That's correct. With Congressman Choi's power, eliminating Kwak Do-chul would be a trivial task. And... It seems they never imagined that the son-in-law would be the one to request the killing of his daughter. They were used to receiving many threats of murder, so they just assumed this was one of them.=
In his anguish, Congressman Choi accepted the helper service's offer after paying a huge sum.
The congressman confirmed their reputation and credibility through his own information network.
=He judged that it wasn't a scam.=
In such cases, they claim to disclose everything, including the identity of the initial client, after the task is completed, which made him trust them.
After sending the payment, the helper service's "headquarters" intended to send a suitable killer. Kwak Do-chul, who was not a super-powered individual, was an easy target.
But then, a variable emerged.
=The killers employed there are divided into various ranks based on their skills and performance, and it seems a Partner-level killer showed interest in this mission.=
This killer was unusual in many ways.
=In that world, he's considered a legendary assassin.=
Min-jun snorted again. It seemed absurdly trivial to him.
=He worked alone for a long time before recently joining the company, and even among other killers, his identity was never properly known. More importantly, he has never failed a mission. He is said to be an assassin with a thousand faces, skilled in transformation and leaving no traces of himself. Even Interpol is unable to confirm if he is a real person and hasn't issued a wanted notice. What is known is that he primarily uses a sword...=
At that moment, Min-jun's eyes widened.
"A sword?"
=Yes. In that world, his nickname is Blade. It's a bit childish, but...=
"Keep going."
=The headquarters apparently cannot control him properly. Since there was already another mission for him in Korea, they just sent him to handle both. But then, he suddenly went rogue.=
"What do you mean by that?"
The killer, who was notorious for his erratic behavior but had never caused problems in his work, made a serious blunder.
In fact, he made two.
The first mistake was...
=Originally, Choi Seon-ah shouldn't have been found at the crime scene in that manner.=
Despite there being far better methods to kill Kwak Do-chul, the killer "manipulated" Choi Seon-ah to behead him, even though she was the daughter of the counter-client and the original target.
It was a foolish choice. He could have picked any nearby orc to do the job instead.
The more critical mistake was leaving evidence at the scene.
=Normally, the killer's specialty was to completely hide all evidence, including the weapon, at the scene... but he failed this time.=
Having heard this, Min-jun was beginning to confirm what the "legendary assassin's" true identity might be.
And why Interpol had not yet apprehended him.
"What was the second mistake?"
=The task the headquarters originally assigned to the killer was to handle a Korean congressman.=
Min-jun's eyes sharpened.
"Could it be?"
=Yes, the congressman who was found dead today.=
A congressman killed by an unregistered weapon master.
He was also a target of the helper service.
"So from their perspective, the mission was a success? Since he was killed. So why is it a mistake?"
=The method of handling the task was the problem. It was actually a very difficult mission. The congressman, for reasons unknown, had hired several superpowered individuals to maintain 24-hour security.=
Therefore, it was not easy for an assassin to infiltrate and complete the mission discreetly.
=However... it appears that Blade manipulated a killer from the Korean branch who should not have been exposed. This individual had acted as the intermediary between Blade and the headquarters. Although the target was killed, the Korean branch killer was also killed.=
The frying pan showed Min-jun a familiar troll's face from the thoughts of the deceased magician.
The troll who ran a cigarette shop.
'That troll was the contact for the hiring company in Korea?'
Min-jun recalled the memory of the deceased. The two of them exchanging money and cigarettes.
'It would make sense that by the time of contact with that man, Choi Seon-ah was already being manipulated. He must have gone to find that troll to communicate with the headquarters.'
Min-jun now understood why Blade used Choi Seon-ah as a front instead of acting directly.
'The remaining question is this: Why did he suddenly engage in such bizarre actions? Exposing his "sword" to the police, using the client's daughter as a tool, and manipulating his colleagues to kill them... it's almost madness.'
It seemed like a sudden descent into madness.
=So, the headquarters is tracking Blade without understanding the situation. He suddenly committed team-killing. And the attempt to kidnap Choi Seon-ah was due to timing. Just before he started showing abnormal behavior, he happened to show interest in this mission.=
They judged it was not a coincidence and, like Min-jun, tried to dig up any small clues from her.
However, since she was in a critical condition, they waited without taking action, postponing the report to the counter-client, Congressman Choi.
When she miraculously recovered today, they planned the kidnapping.
After a brief contemplation, Min-jun made a decision.
"I need to check out that hiring company."
But there was something he had to do first.
"First, I need to read Choi Seon-ah's inner thoughts. I need to determine whether she was truly manipulated for no reason or if there is something more hidden."
Of course, he couldn't stuff a frying pan handle into the girl's mouth in front of the congressman, so he planned to proceed as secretly as possible.
However, when Min-jun returned to Choi Seon-ah's hospital room, he had to revise his plans.
< 110. Shock and Terror (8) > End