WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Newbie Civil Servant Hunts Villains Before Going Home ◈
Chapter 77: Stab (2)
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* * *
Hyeonyul did not get swept up in the atmosphere. He quickly assessed the situation.
The wound was not that deep.
Looking down, he saw that three fingers had pierced through his glove.
The gloves had been enhanced enough to withstand a bomb blast.
The fact that they had been pierced showed just how strong those nails were.
‘About half a finger joint?’
It seemed to be an ability like sharpening one’s nails, but there was no smell of drugs.
How had they pierced the gloves?
He did not know why yet, but the fact that they had done so was what mattered.
Hyeonyul watched the student charge at him and slipped behind the wall.
‘Ah.’
Bang!
Watching the student wildly pound on the wall, Hyeonyul finally understood everything.
‘They were trying to use the students to kill Black Eagle agents.’
Students.
In other words, people who had to be protected.
Now that the students had been taken hostage, who would naturally think of them as Villains?
They must have thought that alone would make Black Eagle lower its guard.
It was an excellent method.
If not for the unsettling feeling he had sensed, even he might have let his guard down.
No, if he had not heard the sound of the wind, he might have already exposed his back.
There were limits to what he could do because they were students.
How was that any different from fighting with his hands tied?
“Should we just break the wall?”
The student was smiling.
“Hee hee hee.”
The laughter did not stop.
“Shall we?”
“Let’s!”
“Yeah, sounds good! Let’s do it!”
“Break it. Smash it. We’re going to break it!”
They looked as though they had gone mad.
Was it brainwashing?
But something was different.
It was neither drugs nor power.
If it was none of those things, then what in the world was this?
The emotion in their eyes was incredibly intense.
It looked like vengeance.
Watching them ruthlessly strike the wall, Hyeonyul headed for where Jihwan was.
This was something he had never experienced before.
Normally, he would have taken all of them into the darkness, but he was currently wearing a Black Eagle uniform.
* * *
Hyeonyul quietly appeared beside Jihwan.
Blood dripped from his hand.
Hyeonyul removed his glove, immediately pulled out a syringe, and injected himself.
It would not stop the bleeding right away, but it was better than doing nothing.
“There are no students. There are only Villains in there.”
“...”
Jihwan froze as he looked at Hyeonyul’s hand.
“I do not know whether to call it brainwashing. But they are clearly reacting to certain words. It is strange.”
“...Hyung.”
“Yes.”
“Are you... okay? What, what is all this?”
There was something wrong with Hyeonyul’s palm.
“A student stabbed me. If you look at this part...”
“Managers!”
Jihwan called for the White Sparrow agents.
Hyeonyul immediately spoke when he saw how pale Jihwan had become.
“I am fine.”
“...You’re clearly not fine.”
Jihwan desperately forced down his rising voice.
“Everyone, there’s something you need to hear. It’s about Hyeonyul’s physical condition.”
When Hyeonyul had been taking theory classes, Haeryeon had once gathered everyone and brought it up.
“As a side effect of the experiments, his blood does not clot well, so even minor injuries are dangerous. If Hyeonyul starts bleeding, I would like you to immediately remove him from the mission.”
How could that make sense?
Jihwan had thought so even then.
If someone had been experimented on, blood transfusions should have been essential.
Surely they would alter the body so wounds healed well. The fact that his blood would not stop was a major contradiction.
Hyeonyul’s body had many scars.
So many that there was no way to know how badly they had cut him apart.
“I administered first aid.”
Hyeonyul looked down at his own palm, drawing his brows together slightly.
“That’s not what matters, Hyung. Your blood is still dripping.”
Jihwan hurriedly took medicine from the emergency kit White Sparrow had given him, applied it, and quickly wrapped Hyeonyul’s hand in bandages.
“It is normally like this.”
Hyeonyul answered calmly.
The bleeding would not stop until the wound had healed completely.
His wounds did not heal continuously.
They simply healed all at once at random, so even he did not know when it would happen.
It was easiest to assume that most urgent wounds would heal almost completely within a day.
“Hyung. There is no such thing as normal.”
“This is not important right now...”
“It is important! It is very important!”
Jihwan’s voice finally rose.
His eyes hardened as well.
“Hyung. Your body is more important. Nothing is worth your life. So step away from the mission. Manager, please take Hyung back to the Nest.”
Hyeonyul’s expression quickly hardened.
Removed from the mission.
It was the thing he hated hearing more than anything.
How was it any different from being told he was useless?
“I cannot do that.”
“Hyung! I told you, you’re still bleeding!”
Not long after it had been wrapped, the entire bandage had already turned red.
Jihwan worried that he might go into shock at this rate.
“This is not a problem at all. Doing this is itself a waste of time. I clearly told you earlier that my body has no problems carrying out the mission.”
“That’s not it, Hyung. I’m trying to protect you and keep you safe.”
“There is no need.”
Hyeonyul looked coldly at Jihwan.
Once he was removed once, doing it a second time would become much easier.
He could not allow that.
“I will increase the pace to resolve the mission.”
At Hyeonyul’s firm words, Jihwan felt as though a deep sigh would escape him.
Why did he become so defensive whenever someone told him to take care of himself?
No matter what Jihwan said, Hyeonyul did not look like he would ever quit the mission.
As Jihwan wondered what to do, his displeasure slipped out.
“...Hyung, you’re unbelievably stubborn.”
“Am I?”
“Not ‘am I.’ You are.”
“While we argue like this, the situation inside may be changing. There is a very high chance that everyone we considered hostages has become a Villain.”
“Hyung. If you continue this mission, Doctor Jeongmin will scold you.”
“...He probably will.”
Hyeonyul hesitated before answering.
His palm had been pierced.
It was still bleeding.
When Jeongmin saw this, he might smack his own forehead.
“That may be so, but the mission must continue. That is why I am here.”
To keep receiving his salary and everything he currently enjoyed, he had to prove how useful he was.
Being removed from a mission over just one hand would be like announcing that he was useless.
“Isn’t that why everyone here is here?”
Even after he appealed like that, Jihwan’s face remained stiff.
What in the world was he imagining?
Hyeonyul could not read Jihwan’s thoughts.
Left with no choice, he removed the bandage.
When Jihwan saw the blood flowing, the crease between his brows deepened.
Hyeonyul took out his own first-aid kit.
He skillfully applied a large adhesive bandage, then wrapped it in a bandage.
“This is a bandage made especially for me. Can you see? Blood is no longer seeping through.”
Hyeonyul held out his bandaged hand and waved it around.
For as long as fifteen minutes, no more blood would seep out from a wound like this.
“Are you calm now?”
Hyeonyul asked Jihwan instead.
It was a major wound to him, but not to an ordinary person.
He should have seen it as the kind of wound that would heal after going to the hospital.
‘...Ah, it seems the Team Lead told them.’
Only then did Hyeonyul grasp the situation and look around.
Everyone was looking at him strangely.
To Hyeonyul, their expressions were so unfamiliar that he could not tell what they meant.
“I will explain the situation inside again.”
What Hyeonyul could do now was help them understand the situation as it developed.
“When we were about to free the students we believed to be hostages and escape, one of them stabbed my palm.”
“...Did you not notice?”
A White Sparrow agent carefully asked.
The opponent had been a student.
Abilities generally matured in adulthood, so students were relatively weaker than adults.
Exceptions existed, but since this man was Black Eagle, they could not help questioning it.
“That is correct. No drugs were used, nor was any power at work. They suddenly changed. It was a situation where anyone could have let their guard down, with someone smiling, approaching, and stabbing you.”
“Brainwashing?”
Jihwan’s expression was still not good.
Still, it was something he needed to hear, so he felt conflicted.
“I do not know. It felt different from ordinary brainwashing. Vengeance. I saw that emotion in the students’ eyes.”
“Vengeance...?”
Jihwan could not understand what this meant.
Why would they feel vengeance toward Black Eagle?
“The important thing is that the students are no longer hostages. They can suddenly change and attack at any time. However, it is also true that they are hostile toward the group that took them hostage.”
The police and White Sparrow were horrified by Hyeonyul’s words.
What kind of strange relationship was this?
“To summarize further, the students and Black Eagle are hostile toward each other. Those Villains and the students are also hostile toward each other. The Villains are hostile toward Black Eagle as well.”
Students versus Black Eagle.
Villains versus students.
Villains versus Black Eagle.
It had become a strange three-way conflict.
Hyeonyul looked at Jihwan.
“The Villains can kill the students as hostages whenever they wish. But Black Eagle must save the students. At the same time, we may be attacked by those students.”
“...That’s difficult.”
Jihwan barely managed to speak.
They had to save the students, but the students could attack them.
“Then should we regard students who attack Black Eagle as Villains?”
Hyeonyul raised the most important question.
Since they had attacked Black Eagle, the students could no longer be protected.
“It is too early to say that for certain. So we cannot kill them.”
Jihwan quickly assessed the situation and reached a conclusion.
“Understood. First, we will recover the bombs the students have, then deal with the Villains.”
Hyeonyul answered just as quickly.
The priorities had not changed.
Only the order had.
“Let’s go in together, Hyung.”
Jihwan thought speed was important.
For that, they needed close cooperation, not the way they had acted earlier.
“Good. We should first subdue the students on the first floor. Do you have a method?”
It was dangerous to put the students into his darkness.
Or should he knock them unconscious all at once?
“Don’t worry, Hyung. Just follow me.”
Jihwan smiled smugly and led Hyeonyul away.
Once they were gone, the White Sparrow agents looked at one another.
Black Eagle and White Sparrow existed for the sake of missions.
For some reason, Hyeonyul’s words from earlier had warmed their hearts.
Because of what White Sparrow had done, they could not have a good relationship with Team Three. Yet the fact that he had still said those things meant he had acknowledged them, did it not?
The way they looked at Team Three was changing.
* * *
Jihwan opened the door, and Hyeonyul entered.
As soon as the door closed, the doorway in the wall disappeared.
The place Jihwan had connected that door to was the floor.
“Is your mana all right?”
“...”
“Ye Jihwan?”
“...Yes?”
Jihwan had been staring blankly before jolting and opening his mouth.
“Is your mana all right?”
“It’s fine. Thank you for worrying about me.”
Jihwan smiled.
This much was fine.
“I heard that running out of mana is very painful.”
“It hurts, but I have a lot of mana. What scares me most is not running out of mana, but suddenly becoming dazed. It leaves an opening in an instant, you know?”
“Does that only happen when you use magic?”
“It happens most often then.”
“...Ah, just a moment.”
After checking the time, Hyeonyul took out a syringe and medicine.
“Take it slow, Hyung.”
Jihwan opened his palm and displayed a 3D map.
With his other hand, he drew a rectangular line around the place where the students were gathered.
“I learned this kind of magic for situations like this. No one will be able to get out.”
Jihwan did not stop there.
That space was now his space.
He took away the air.
People often faint when the oxygen suddenly grows scarce.
As Hyeonyul was injecting his abdomen, he heard the sound of people collapsing.
That sound was alarming.
“That’s right. It was me, Hyung.”
Jihwan’s smile widened.
“I did not lay a finger on them. This way, even if the parents complain, it will be fine.”
“Will they complain?”
“They will. We are civil servants, after all. We have to at least pretend to listen to citizens’ voices.”
“That is not what I meant. Will they complain even in a situation like this?”
They had effectively saved students who had almost died.
Put another way, they had saved their children’s lives.
“They do. But it does not reach us.”
“Why is that?”
“It was a long time ago, but there was a Black Eagle agent who committed suicide after receiving fierce complaints and criticism from citizens. So it does not come to us.”
“So you literally mean it is only pretending?”
“That’s right. Anyway, I hate people who complain. They are not complaining about things that should naturally be complained about. It is the kind of thing they could understand if they just thought once before complaining, but I do not know why they do not. Their own child is not the only child, is it?”
“Would they not usually be called unreasonable complainers? I have seen them in videos.”
“The people we deal with are worse. They genuinely try to kill us as though we were their sworn enemies. For example, if a company operated by Villains disappears, they blame us for it.”
“I do not understand.”
“I feel the same way sometimes. The ones they should really blame are the Villains.”
Jihwan giggled in agreement with Hyeonyul.
Perhaps it was because Black Eagle was an easy target, while they were afraid of the Villains.
“Then I will go to the second floor and recover the bombs first.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
Jihwan decided to remain on the first floor until Hyeonyul marked everyone.
Would it not be a disaster if he wandered around the second floor and got caught?
“Ah, I did talk to the Villains earlier, but they say they are not Villains. Looking only at the materials the Managers provided, anyone would call them Villains.”
Hyeonyul considered those words briefly, but no answer came to him.
“I will look into it.”
With those words, Hyeonyul sank into the wall.
‘...How is he going to look into it?’
Jihwan stared at the wall Hyeonyul had vanished into and thought.
* * *
Second floor.
Hyeonyul confirmed that the students there were carrying bombs just like those on the first floor.
He wondered what was different.
As soon as he told Jihwan the Villains’ locations, he felt magic being used.
A magical formula appeared on the wall, and the door suddenly opened.
“Everyone, freeze.”
Jihwan drew away the heat from the Villains Hyeonyul had marked.
Whoooosh.
The chill rapidly spread from the Villains’ feet through their entire bodies.
Just as Jihwan grinned at their bodies stiffening, he saw one of them charge toward him.
“...!”
Before Jihwan could use magic, a loud sound rang out.
Bang!
Hyeonyul grabbed the Villain by the back of the neck and slammed him into the wall.
“I deliberately did not mark him.”
“What?”
“Should we not question him? We needed one.”
After answering, Hyeonyul lifted the man and slammed his head into the wall again.
Bang!
Grabbing the back of the man’s neck as he slid down, Hyeonyul asked simply,
“Why do you claim that you are not Villains? Answer simply.”
“...!”
Jihwan’s eyes widened.
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