Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Do-jae and Young-jin stood at the cave entrance.

The cave looked just big enough for one person to come and go.

It looked like a good place for small animals like rabbits or foxes, or birds, to make their home.

Swish-.

But when Dojae reached out his hand, it was blocked by a transparent barrier.

No matter where he touched the entrance, a glass-like transparent barrier blocked him.

“I smell something?”

Young-jin peered inside the cave, pushing his face close.

But the cave was too deep to see inside.

Swish- swish-.

Do-jae rubbed the barrier a few times, then carefully struck it down.

Thud.

“Hmm…”

He didn’t strike with all his might, afraid a loud noise might echo, but he still put considerable force into breaking the barrier.

However, the transparent barrier only developed faint cracks before quickly regenerating and restoring itself to its original state.

“It’s tough, huh?”

“It feels like a wall made of mana.”

Dojae stepped back slightly, crossed his arms, and watched.

Then he stepped back in front of it, placed both hands on the barrier, and closed his eyes tightly.

“What are you doing?”

“Be quiet.”

Dojae extended the golem’s senses to check how far this transparent barrier extended.

If the membrane only blocked the entrance, he planned to dig a tunnel through elsewhere.

But.

“It seems to be surrounding the entire area…”

After some time passed, Dojae opened his eyes and spoke in a bitter tone.

Currently, the range Dojae could detect using the golem’s nerves was a radius of 15 meters.

Even if he squeezed out every last bit of power to extend it, 20 meters was the absolute limit.

Yet the transparent barrier ahead stretched beyond Dojae’s detectable range, extending deep into the cave.

“What should we do? It feels like it’s right here.”

“Hmm… Let’s look around first.”

Dojae began slowly circling the cave with Youngjin.

With the golem’s nerves deployed and focused.

A single magic stone is woefully insufficient to continuously supply mana to such a vast area.

Even the highest-grade magic stones would require at least several.

But top-grade magic stones aren’t something you can just get anywhere.

It was clear he had likely established a dense network of supply points using lower-grade or mid-grade magic stones.

And what Dojae is targeting is precisely the gaps between these magic stones.

Coordinating different magic stones to supply identical mana is no easy feat.

He planned to find that gap, break through the weak points in the mana supply, and infiltrate.

“Is this the place?”

After walking along the ridge for about ten minutes, Dojae stopped in his tracks.

“Huh? What is it?”

Dojae immediately summoned the golems and ordered them to dig.

Since they had climbed to a position slightly higher than the cave entrance, he had them dig a tunnel at a 30-degree angle downward.

The golems’ hands had transformed into scoop-like shapes, like excavator buckets, so their digging speed was incredible.

Shak shak shak shak-.

Scratch-scratch-.

Thud-.

After digging down for a while, the golems stopped as if blocked by something.

The gap Dojae had been searching for.

They had reached a spot where the flow of mana was unstable and weak.

“If it’s here, the sound shouldn’t leak out, right?”

Thud-.

Dojae slammed his fist against the barrier.

Thud-thud-.

Clumps of dirt fell from the roughly dug tunnel ceiling.

It was the result of absorbing the sound and vibration from the impact.

Startled, Young-jin clutched his head and shivered violently.

“Brother, we’re going to get buried alive like this!”

Do-jae gave Young-jin a wry smile before slamming the transparent barrier down once more.

Thud-.

Crack-.

Unlike before, a much larger crack appeared.

Without pausing, Dojae drove his fist down one last time.

Bang!

A large hole appeared in the transparent barrier, big enough for a person to pass through.

“It didn’t collapse… Whew.”

Young-jin exhaled a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, the tunnel hadn’t collapsed.

It wasn’t intentional, but even if it had collapsed, they wouldn’t have been trapped and killed under a pile of dirt.

Do-jae and Young-jin weren’t ordinary people.

Even if trapped, Dojae had his golem armor and could summon golems, so Yeongjin’s fussing was just cute.

“You wait outside.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t go far. Just stay right here.”

“Wait, you want me to just stand here? Now that things are finally getting interesting?”

“If I tell you to stay, stay.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

Leaving a disappointed Young-jin behind, Do-jae walked into the slowly regenerating curtain.

***

“Wang Fei! It’s time to switch shifts.”

“Whew! Finally over.”

“What am I supposed to do with my time today? This is such a pain.”

“Don’t complain so much. It’s way better than fighting monsters, isn’t it?”

Wang Fei and Liu Yang.

The two are hunters patrolling this research facility.

A mana accelerator research facility that hollowed out an entire mountain and filled its interior with various installations.

“But didn’t you hear something?”

“What sound?”

“More importantly, you seem unusually excited today?”

“Heh heh, we got a whole bunch of corpses today.”

Bodies.

That word is slang they use among themselves.

Every day at a set time, people arrive at this research facility.

They’re brought in, asleep inside large boxes, to be used for experiments.

That’s why the lab people called them ‘corpses’.

Because they lay completely still inside the rough, square boxes, looking just like dead people brought in coffins.

Well, some of them did end up becoming actual corpses later on.

“Why? Corpses come in every day.”

“I peeked inside one of the boxes while on patrol. There was a woman mixed in there, and she was pretty decent-looking. Her eyes, nose, and mouth were all perfectly proportioned, and especially that pelvis… How should I describe it?”

“Huh… Really? Looks like we’ll finally get a proper meal?”

Ryu Yang and Wang Fei exchanged sly grins.

The research facility brought in anyone with even a trace of mana, regardless of age or gender.

Of course, most were homeless or family-less individuals whose disappearances would go unnoticed for a long time.

“This one! This body shall sample it first, so wait quietly.”

“Geez! And listen. Could you handle it gently when you do it? Think about the people behind you, will you?”

“Hehehe… Got it, got it. I took some pictures too. Want to see?”

Wang Fei let out a sly chuckle and pulled out his smartphone.

Liu Yang looked at the photo Wang Fei had taken and licked his lips.

“Huh!”

“Gasp!”

Suddenly, a snow-white palm shot out, covering Wang Fei and Liu Yang’s noses and mouths.

Flapping, flapping.

Both struggled, faces flushed, trying to pry the hands away, but the grip was so strong it wouldn’t budge.

A moment later.

Drip, drip-.

Unable to breathe, Wang Fei and Liu Yang collapsed unconscious onto the floor.

***

Squelch, squelch, squelch-.

Do-jae dragged the two Chinese men into the shadowed interior.

Grrgrrgrr-.

Then he summoned a golem to dig a deep pit in the floor, large enough for the two men to be lowered vertically into it.

Whoosh-.

Dojae pulled clear tape from his sub-space and wrapped it tightly around both men’s bodies, binding them.

He then tossed the men into the pit and dismissed the summoned golem.

He then covered the men with the remaining dirt, pressing down firmly with his feet to compact it tightly.

For the unconscious men, it was tantamount to being buried alive.

But since I left my head protruding above the dirt, even if I wake up unable to move my body, I should still be able to breathe.

Finally, to avoid being discovered quickly even if he did wake up, he left only his nose exposed and wrapped the remaining blue tape around his eyes and mouth.

‘This is a huge facility.’

After disposing of the Chinese men, Dojae stood up and surveyed the interior.

The facility was so long and wide it was hard to believe it was in the mountains.

Hundreds of wooden crates were stacked on both sides, and pathways branched off in multiple directions.

‘Where should I start checking?’

Unfortunately, the information MID had provided only stated that a research facility existed somewhere in this mountain; it didn’t include internal blueprints.

It seemed they had sent Dojae without completing a full investigation.

Finding MID’s actions infuriating, Dojae pulled out his hat and mask and put them on.

‘There were no CCTV cameras on the way here, but there might be inside.’

MID’s secret mission: retrieve samples and research data.

The reason he’d stored all of Young-jin’s belongings and his own in the sub-space, using only cash and the smartphone MID provided, was precisely for this moment.

‘Grab it fast and get out.’

Do-jae began walking toward the nearest passageway.

****

Swish-.

His hand rose of its own accord.

Do-jae pinched his nose shut.

Because a terrible stench wafted over.

‘What a horrible smell.’

Stepping into the passageway, stairs leading downward appeared.

Descending by the light of a bulb flickering on the verge of going out, a pungent, acrid smell rose up, stinging his nose.

‘This place…’

Dojae frowned and scanned both sides of the passageway.

Countless people were crammed together inside the iron bars.

Each room, barely 5 to 6 pyeong in size, held nearly twenty people, by rough estimate.

This continued all the way to the far end of the passageway.

Hundreds of people were trapped in a narrow space where it was difficult to even move.

‘The smell is bad enough…’

What made Dojae frown even more than the smell were the people inside.

Most were young children.

The rest were adult women, and men were so few they could be counted on one hand.

They all stared blankly into space or stood frozen with their bodies contorted into grotesque positions, their entire bodies covered in feces and urine.

‘Looks like they’re drugged.’

None seemed to possess a sound mind.

Clear injection marks on their arms or necks revealed they had been injected with some kind of drug.

Dojae suppressed his revulsion and walked along the passageway.

About halfway through,

He heard someone rattling the bars.

“Sir?”

A child’s voice reached him, and when he turned his head, a young boy stared at Dojae with glazed eyes.

The child pleaded for help in a faint, weak voice, barely audible.

“Please… save me…”

Do-jae scanned both sides of the passageway and slowly approached the child.

Then, he put a finger to his lips.

“Shh.”

Understanding Dojae’s intent, the child slid their hand, which had been gripping the bars, down.

Do-jae examined the child’s appearance.

Greasy hair and dirt smeared here and there.

Yet compared to the others, it was relatively clean.

Judging by the single needle mark, it seemed the child hadn’t been here long.

“Help… me…”

The child spoke in a voice that barely escaped.

Tear stains were dried on both cheeks, and his body was trembling violently.

How terrified he must be.

‘Doyoung….’

The image of his younger brother, Do-young, flickered in Do-jae’s mind.

This Chinese child overlapped with Do-young in his mind.

What crime could such a small child have committed?

No, what crime?

They’re ignoring human rights for the sake of experiments, exploiting even children like this.

‘This is the worst.’

Do-jae spoke softly to the child.

“Can you wait just a little longer?”

The child stared blankly at Dojae, then nodded slightly after a moment.

Though they couldn’t communicate, Dojae’s calm smile and soothing voice had reassured the child.

Thud.

Dojae rose from his seat.

He wanted to summon the golems right now, smash the bars, and rescue the child and the people, but completing his mission came first.

Squeeze-.

Dojae clenched his fist tightly.

Then, with a stern expression, he began walking down the corridor.