Chapter 55 - Special Forces
The old man also saw Jin.
His chronic drinking had given him a bulbous, red nose that twitched slightly.
"…Hmm?"
His deeply wrinkled eyes narrowed.
One second, two seconds… three seconds passed.
Only after those three full seconds did his sluggish eyelids slowly lift.
"Oh?"
Pointing the tip of his bottle at Jin, he spoke.
"Which one was it again?"
"…What?"
Jin's face contorted as if he had just stepped into a pile of dung.
The saying goes that the one who gets hit remembers, but the one who hits forgets—he had never felt it so acutely before.
That blank, clueless expression—seriously?
Jin clutched the back of his neck.
"Old man, do you remember the traffic accident you caused?"
"Hmm."
"You hit a guy on a motorcycle on the highway. With a truck."
"Aah—?"
At that frustratingly slow response, the veins on Jin's forehead bulged.
Only then did the old man properly look at him.
"…You're that kid?"
"See? This is what happens when you drink so damn much—you can't even remember people's faces! Didn't I tell you to chant 'I am a murderer' three times before bed? Are you doing it? No, right? I can tell just by looking at your face. I knew it! They say people don't change, and damn, they were right."
Jin unleashed a verbal machine gun.
The old man, caught in the verbal crossfire, remained silent.
Fenrir withdrew his hand from his sword's hilt and scratched his cheek.
The others exchanged uncertain glances, slightly taken aback.
Thus, Jin alone remained confident—
He looked at the drunken old man and thought to himself.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't a hit-and-run.
After all, he had accepted the old man's apology and hush money.
Still, forgetting his face was pretty damn rude.
Was it just because he was drunk?
As he mulled over his thoughts, Jin's brow slowly furrowed.
It wasn't that he was suddenly overwhelmed with anger toward the old man.
It was just that a familiar yet foreign title had resurfaced in his memory.
Wait a minute… I'm pretty sure someone called him Colonel…
At that moment, with a pop! the old man uncorked a new bottle and took a swig.
His Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped, the liquor level in the inverted bottle dropping visibly.
He emptied the bottle in no time, wiped his wet lips, and spoke.
"So, did your mana circuit recover?"
Jin didn't answer.
Instead, he recalled an old conversation with the old man—
'You're all ragged up. You won't last long this way.'
'Who are you teasing? This is all your fault... Anyway, let's not meet again, alright?'
Back then, he had thought the old man was just talking out of his ass after running him over.
But apparently, that wasn't the case.
Only now did Jin realize that this alcoholic wasn't just some ordinary drunk.
And at the same time, his previously dormant intuition started whirring back to life—
A colonel who belonged to neither the Resistance nor TB?
Hold on a second.
Jin looked at the old man with a dawning sense of realization.
"Old man, were you with the City Government?"
The reply came with a chuckle.
"What? Is that a problem?"
The City Government's Special Forces Colonel, John Harrison.
That was the old man's true identity.
Jin was stunned.
Was he shocked because the old drunkard turned out to be someone important?
No.
Jin had built up an immunity to that kind of twist.
All thanks to the "Lokan Vaccine."
Ta-da!
Turns out he was someone impressive all along!
That kind of reveal was something he could take in stride.
So the reason Jin was truly shocked was something else entirely.
Wait… he's in his forties?!
That face?
"…No way."
"You think I'd lie about something like this? Colonel's in his forties, alright. So for the love of god, stop calling him 'old man.' I don't know how he feels about it, but the rest of us… we're struggling here."
The man let out a deep sigh.
He was the one who had led them here.
His name was Q, if Jin remembered correctly.
Very fitting for a special forces guy—just an initial.
Ironically, the colonel had no issue using his full name.
Whatever.
"…Damn, alcoholism is scary."
Just a single vice could make a man age that badly?
Jin muttered with a serious expression.
Meanwhile, Q motioned with his chin.
"Follow me. I'll take you to your comrades."
With that, he led the way, with Jin and Fenrir following behind.
"The Colonel kept it brief, but let's do a proper introduction. I'm Q."
"Jin."
"Fenrir."
After their quick introductions, they descended the stairs leading underground.
A motion sensor detected them, turning on a light above.
Q spoke naturally.
"You must have a lot of questions. Feel free to ask."
Fenrir immediately took the opportunity.
"Why did the City Government deploy special forces to Mute Town? Haven't you always ignored the 40s District?"
"You're starting with a false assumption. The City Government never deployed us here. We came on our own."
"…On your own? Why?"
At that, Q turned his head.
Then, in a calm voice, he answered.
"To hunt down the Face Collector."
Then, as if it were no big deal, he turned back and continued walking.
Jin hesitated.
Was this supposed to be a shocking moment?
It kind of felt like it was.
"The Face Collector?!"
Jin, who didn't even know what was going on, pretended to be surprised first.
Then, as he elbowed Fenrir in the side, the unspoken gesture seemed to say,
"You fill in the rest."
Fenrir furrowed his brow and spoke.
"If we're talking about the Face Collector, isn't that a high-risk criminal who was active over a decade ago? I heard he died a long time ago."
"If that were the case, we wouldn't be sitting here doing nothing."
Jin tilted his head in confusion.
"Wait a minute. So, the reason you guys are stationed in Mute Town isn't to end the civil war, but because you're after someone specifically?"
"That's right."
"Then why did we get saved? It has nothing to do with you."
It was a fair question.
But soon, Q shook his head.
"It's not unrelated. On a larger scale, the resistance couldn't just fall apart like this. I'm not the only one who saved you. Right now, my colleagues are probably running around the city to rescue other stranded resistance members."
As he spoke, Q opened the door to the basement.
Inside, there was a wide, well-lit space.
Along the grid-patterned corridor, rooms of different purposes stretched out on either side—
One of them had Albus lying inside.
Beep—beep—
He was wearing a respirator, hooked up to blood bags.
The heart rate monitor by his head showed erratic waves.
"We've passed the critical point, so just keep an eye on him."
Q, watching the scene through the glass wall, turned to face them.
"To answer your question, the reason we're concerned with the resistance is simple. We discovered that the Face Collector is behind TB. In order to approach him, the balance of power between TB and the resistance was more crucial than ever."
He sighed softly, which Jin could tell was a sigh tinged with the frustrations of an undercover operative.
"So, we've been supporting them covertly up until now, but suddenly the resistance launched a reckless operation."
"A reckless operation?"
"Ask them about that."
Following the direction Q was pointing, Jin and Fenrir turned their heads.
There stood Ocia and Den side by side, looking back at them.
Q's voice came from behind them.
"I know you two are solo operatives. I also know you've handled resistance assignments before. I don't know what brought you back into this mess, but just know that we're in this together now. Once you're done talking, come upstairs. I'll let you know what's next."
With that, he turned and left.
Naturally, Jin and Fenrir, who were left standing dumbfounded, slowly turned to look at each other.
"Let's first get a handle on the situation."
"Damn it… yeah."
***
In one corner of the basement was a small rest area.
Though calling it a rest area was a stretch—it was just a 'C'-shaped couch and a shelf that reminded them of a utility room.
Still, it was enough space for them to sit together, and so the group leaned back on the couch and looked at each other.
The first to speak up was Den, the bearded man.
"Thanks. You saved our lives."
Having been in a rush earlier, Jin hadn't noticed, but now that he saw him in the light, Den looked like he'd aged at least ten years.
Ocia seemed no different.
She roughly pushed her disheveled bangs aside and muttered bitterly.
"The government... When did they start watching us?"
Her grumbling ended, and a silence fell over the group.
As everyone took a moment to process their thoughts, Jin suddenly noticed something and froze.
_________________________
(Completed!)
_________________________
The quest was finished, and the flood of experience points hit his mind like a jolt of dopamine.
In that instant, the accumulated fatigue lifted slightly, and the experience points that had built up were ready to shine, signaling the arrival of a new milestone.
But Jin blinked.
The first priority now was to sort things out.
"What kind of operation went wrong that led to all this?"
Ocia's face visibly darkened, as if just recalling the situation made her stomach churn.
Suppressing her anger, she slowly parted her lips.
The next bit of information went like this.
As TB's influence grew day by day, the resistance concluded that continuing the civil war was not an option.
So, they hastily devised a strategy: the formation of a strike team solely for confronting Taha.
Naturally, the core members were involved.
Oren Palmer.
A Level 5 solo operative and superhuman psychic, known for his powerful force field that crushed TB's forces.
He took an awakening drug and faced off against Taha.
And his head was crushed.
On the battlefield, the lion roared, and that day, the resistance's base was obliterated.
So easily.
"Was the difference really that big?" Jin asked.
"I'm telling you! Even though Oren and Taha had fought before—three times in the last two years, to be exact—Oren had always been slightly behind, but the gap wasn't unbridgeable! We didn't move on a whim!" Ocia was worked up.
Den added his thoughts.
"Oren was the most active in this fight. He was sure that if he took the awakening drug, he'd win for sure."
Jin didn't know much about awakening drugs, but he did know they were a type of doping for psychics, temporarily boosting their abilities at the cost of their lifespan.
While Jin didn't know the exact effects, the name alone suggested something dangerous.
He figured it out roughly.
If the fight had been close before, Oren took the drug... and still had his head crushed?
That meant one of two things.
The opponent had been pretending to be weaker all this time.
The opponent had suddenly become much stronger.
It was then.
"How long has it been since they last fought?"
Fenrir, who had kept quiet until now, asked.
Ocia thought for a moment before answering.
"Five... no, six months."
"Half a year." Fenrir tapped the hilt of his sword and continued.
"Taha's throat was slit. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was enough to cause significant bleeding. But he was fine. In fact, it healed almost instantly."
The healing ability of beastkin was far superior to that of ordinary humans, but even so, a wound to the throat wouldn't close up in mere seconds.
He turned to Jin.
"Looks like that agent's story might be true."
"The Face Collector, right?" Jin asked.
The criminal that the government's special forces were chasing.
Wasn't it said that there was someone suspected to be behind TB?
What if that person did something to Taha?
Something smells off.
An ominous scent, one that seems to lead to another.
But Jin didn't dwell on it.
Since the moment he entered Mute Town to rescue Albus, he had been ready to accept whatever happened.
Why?
Because it was entirely his choice.
If you're over thirty, you have to take responsibility for your actions.
Yeah.
It just so happened that his goals aligned with the status screen.
For that reason, Jin didn't waste time overthinking it.
So what if the situation is shifting strangely?
As long as he can find the best answer and put in the effort, that's enough.
Yeah, that's the drifter style.
He let out a small laugh without realizing it, then slowly continued.
"First, let's go see that John Harrison or whatever his name is. We should at least hear what he has to say."