WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Newbie Civil Servant Hunts Villains Before Going Home ◈
Chapter 83: What a Ruckus (3)
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* * *
“There aren’t many, but they do show up now and then. Come to think of it, why are you pretending to be Black Eagle? I almost killed you.”
The Villain frowned, holding a vape in one hand.
Those words proved that someone had been posing as Black Eagle.
‘Whoever it is, this just made things worse.’
A group called the former Black Eagles had emerged, but there was no proof they were responsible.
Hyeonyul pointed at the Black Eagle emblem.
“Yeah, that. It looks disgustingly real. I almost attacked you.”
The Villain glanced around, then took several items from a pocket and held them out.
“For now, take one of each and either try them or administer them. The effects are fucking great, so how much do you need?”
“How much can you produce?”
Hyeonyul accepted the drugs.
“Not much. Getting the ingredients is a pain. The next location is here?”
“So you produce them here.”
Hyeonyul was certain now.
This was the place.
‘It must only be one part of their operation.’
The real operation would have no reason to act like this.
Still, catching even people like this would bring him closer to the real thing.
“What?”
“I was wondering how much the other places charge.”
“You don’t need to know. This place is the cheapest. If you don’t believe me, get lost.”
“So there are other places.”
Hyeonyul raised his dagger and approached.
“Hey. Put that down. I’ll knock another ten percent off. Seven of my subordinates died because of you.”
The Villain pointed at the dagger and crooked their fingers.
A smile lingered on their lips.
“I believe you are misunderstanding something, so let me correct you.”
The blade of Hyeonyul’s dagger swung toward the Villain’s wrist.
Slice.
As he cut straight through it, he kindly explained,
“I’m Black Eagle.”
“...!”
The Villain took so long to grasp what had happened that their gaze remained fixed on Hyeonyul for a moment.
Then they saw their missing hand and screamed.
“You crazy bastard! I said I’d give you a discount...! Why the fuck did you do that? It costs a damn fortune to get a wrist reattached!”
“Let me say it again. I’m Black Eagle.”
Despite Hyeonyul’s words, the Villain did not believe him at all.
Sharp, blade-like things shot out from their body.
They looked like a hedgehog.
“You crazy bastard! Quit your bullshit! Do you think I’ll give you drugs because of this?”
The Villain charged at him.
Those sharp blades looked hard, too. Their very existence made them weapons.
‘If they touch me, they’ll be weapons.’
Hyeonyul smoothly avoided the Villain’s swinging fist.
Whenever they thought they had stabbed him, Hyeonyul was no longer there.
He simply dodged cunningly toward the side with the severed hand.
It was much easier to evade over the shorter distance.
‘Good thing I cut it off.’
Hyeonyul spotted a brief opening.
As the Villain swung their intact arm, black power covered his dagger, and he drove it upward.
“Aaaagh!”
The Villain’s arm rose along Hyeonyul’s dagger.
Hyeonyul conspicuously took out another dagger and aimed it at their shoulder.
“Can’t you see the eagle emblem? You’re a Villain. Should you really be blabbing about everything like that?”
“...Fuck! How can you be Black Eagle? Stop spouting bullshit, you crazy bastard! I can’t give you any drugs!”
“Would you believe me if I cut off more? I suppose I have no choice.”
As Hyeonyul moved his hand, the Villain spoke.
“I, I believe you! I believe you, you bastard...!”
Their eyes said otherwise.
They still doubted him.
“What organization are you with? Where is it located?”
Hyeonyul kept watching them as he questioned them.
They were looking for a chance to escape.
Then he should help them.
Hyeonyul deliberately lowered the dagger he had aimed at them and took out his phone-like radio.
“Please wait a moment.”
When Hyeonyul lowered his gaze, the Villain raised a hand.
Blood splattered as they swung their other fist at him.
Thud!
Hyeonyul deliberately lowered himself, letting the fist strike his helmet as he moved backward.
“Puhahaha! Did you think I’d tell you? Die! Die, you bastard!”
The Villain fled, and Hyeonyul waited.
They would go there on their own.
After watching them leave, Hyeonyul removed his helmet.
No wonder they had said that. Their punch had pierced right through it.
He wiped away the blood running down his face.
‘I thought the helmet would stop it, but their power was harder than I expected.’
Thinking Doctor Jeongmin would give him an earful, Hyeonyul took out a syringe and injected himself near the shoulder.
He took a bandage from the emergency kit and applied it to his head.
Hyeonyul used the phone-radio.
“Hello.”
<Yes. Go ahead.>
“I captured two people, and one escaped.”
Hyeonyul gave a brief report.
<...Pardon?>
“I’ll tell you the location.”
Hyeonyul rose from his spot.
“Ah, where I am is... Can you see my location by any chance?”
<No. We cannot.>
Relieved by those words, Hyeonyul looked around.
“Please wait a moment. I’ll let you know shortly.”
He began to melt into darkness from his legs, then froze.
His fingers were melting away on their own.
‘...The doctor is really going to scold me.’
* * *
Smack.
When Jeongmin struck Hyeonyul’s back, Haeryeon jumped in surprise.
He had really hit him.
“...Doctor?”
“How long has it been since you hurt your palm, and you’re already coming back injured again? When I changed your medication, didn’t I tell you to take it easy?”
“I had no choice.”
Hyeonyul answered as if it were nothing, and Haeryeon glanced at Jeongmin.
His expression was exactly like someone whose blood pressure had shot up.
“No choice, my ass. Do you think I don’t know you? What happened this time? What was it?”
“I thought the helmet would be sturdy.”
“With a helmet? You blocked it with a helmet...? How sturdy do you think it is?”
“...It is made of sturdy material.”
Haeryeon muttered that under her breath.
Still, looking at the helmet Hyeonyul had brought, it seemed to have barely held by a hair.
“Why don’t you just say helmets can block every attack in the world?”
As Jeongmin sneered while fuming, Hyeonyul stared at him.
“Doctor. Helmets cannot block every attack in the world. Don’t you know that?”
“Do you think I don’t know that? I’m asking why you did it.”
“I did not know the attack would pierce the helmet. After considering various factors, I had no choice but to block the impact, because a penetrating wound to my body would have prevented me from carrying out the mission.”
“What about this?”
When Jeongmin pointed at Hyeonyul’s face, Hyeonyul looked at Haeryeon.
“It is not a penetrating wound. It is only a scrape.”
“...What?”
Haeryeon widened her eyes, then took a deep breath.
She had been had.
That was all she could think.
<I’ll understand as much as I can, up to getting scraped. But you cannot get pierced.>
She had said that, but only now did she understand why he had agreed so easily.
‘He actually used the wording itself.’
The back of Haeryeon’s head throbbed.
“See, Team Lead Haeryeon? Do you understand why I hit Hyeonyul? Doesn’t he turn your insides upside down?”
“I suppose he’s better at it than I expected.”
Haeryeon watched him in fascination.
“Insides cannot be turned upside down... Ah, they can be.”
At Hyeonyul’s answer, Jeongmin took off his glasses and rubbed his face.
He had heard countless times about people whose insides had actually been turned upside down.
“Enough. Lie down now. Didn’t I tell you not to overdo it today?”
“I did not overdo it. I merely used my power a few times, and my hand began to melt.”
“That is my fault.”
When Haeryeon cut in, Jeongmin shook his head.
“Do you think I don’t know Hyeonyul? Team Lead Haeryeon, you did nothing wrong. I simply could not firmly insist that he take leave on the recommendation of his attending physician.”
“Leave...”
As Hyeonyul opened his mouth, Jeongmin smacked his mouth shut.
Hyeonyul’s brow twitched slightly.
Still, he did not open his mouth again.
He had expected Jeongmin to scold him.
He simply had not expected Haeryeon to be there.
“You have it hard, Team Lead Haeryeon. Hyeonyul seems to listen very well, but he doesn’t, does he?”
“He has a bit of a contrary streak. He looked like such a model student, too.”
“Did he look that way? I’m glad he at least appears that way.”
Jeongmin seemed pleased, as though he had never been angry.
If nothing else, he felt he had raised Hyeonyul well.
As Haeryeon smiled, Jeongmin suddenly realized this was not the point.
There was another reason he had been urgently called here.
“Things like this sometimes happen when we change the medication. Still, it does not interfere with his work, so you do not need to worry too much.”
Jeongmin spoke as if offering an explanation.
Haeryeon had come here because of Hyeonyul’s injuries, but that did not seem to be what she wanted to hear.
Perhaps she had come regarding the side effects that occurred after his medication was changed, which he had reported to her earlier that day.
“That is not what I mean. I mean the medication Hyeonyul takes. May I see it? I am a licensed pharmacist, so you can rest assured.”
“...Please wait a moment. Let me set up his IV first.”
With a troubled expression, Jeongmin set up Hyeonyul’s IV, then stood and walked toward the office inside the room.
His steps were strangely slow.
“Team Lead.”
Hyeonyul whispered quietly.
‘The doctor told you not to speak just now. Is that why you are doing this?’
Haeryeon covered her mouth, feeling as though she might laugh, and nodded.
“I received drugs from the Villain who escaped. May I inspect them before giving them to you?”
Hyeonyul took the drugs from his clothes and showed them to her.
“This... Where did you get this?”
“I was given it.”
“You were given it? By whom? A Villain...?”
Surely not.
That was how she felt as she asked.
“Yes. A Villain gave it to me.”
“...?”
Haeryeon stared at Hyeonyul in shock and doubted her ears.
Why would a Villain give Hyeonyul drugs?
The idea itself made no sense.
“They gave them to me because they believed I was not Black Eagle.”
“You were wearing a uniform...?”
The growing number of question marks left Haeryeon dumbfounded as well.
What could make someone think he was not Black Eagle even while he wore a Black Eagle uniform?
Haeryeon’s expression hardened rapidly as she thought it over.
“...Someone impersonated Black Eagle?”
“Yes. They took me for one.”
“What a ridiculous bunch.”
Haeryeon suppressed the anger rising within her.
This had happened before.
When Black Eagle had first appeared, there had been many impersonators.
She had thought they had already dealt with it once, but this sort of thing was spreading again.
‘...The former Black Eagles.’
Haeryeon immediately thought of the culprits.
Only people who had worn the uniforms could imitate them better than anyone else.
“Something... seems to be in motion.”
Hyeonyul spoke based on an uncertain assumption.
He did not know what it was, but he could see the place he had once belonged to gradually changing.
It was a method they would never have used before.
They had even hated the character “black” in Black Eagle’s name.
After learning that someone stood behind the Poison King, he seemed to see it more clearly.
“Would it be easier if we thought of it as a last-ditch struggle?”
“Perhaps.”
“For now, I can predict what sort of attack might come.”
“They may deliberately lure Black Eagle in, then approach while pretending to be Black Eagle themselves...”
Hyeonyul stopped speaking.
He heard the door open.
“Hyeonyul.”
At Jeongmin’s voice, Hyeonyul closed both eyes.
It was absurd.
Their whispering had clearly all been heard.
“Whatever Hyeonyul asked of you, you do not have to agree to it.”
Hyeonyul opened the eyes he had closed at Jeongmin’s words.
They were full of indignation.
“That is not it. He only told me what happened today.”
When Haeryeon whispered that, Jeongmin finally said, “Ah,” with an embarrassed smile.
He had thought Hyeonyul was sweet-talking Haeryeon into doing something again.
“Here it is. It would be difficult if it leaked, so... could you look at it here, then return it to me?”
What Jeongmin handed Haeryeon was a sheet of paper.
“I need to dispose of it quickly.”
He tried to hide it, but his anxious gaze lingered.
This was data as vital as Hyeonyul’s heart.
Hyeonyul had developed resistance to countless drugs.
It was a combination they had barely found after ruling out, then ruling out again, all the medications he had been given.
They kept changing the medication, but it was still information someone could learn.
What would happen if someone learned the ingredients of the medication he prescribed, then administered a drug capable of neutralizing it?
Would Hyeonyul endure it again?
That was only conjecture.
Jeongmin’s hand, stretched toward Haeryeon, trembled.
“Doctor.”
Haeryeon reached out, placed a hand over Jeongmin’s arm, and gently patted it.
“I understand what it means. That is why I could not carelessly bring it up either.”
Trust me.
It was not something that could be settled with only those words.
Lives were at stake.
“I have lost countless team members. I have felt helpless countless times. There has only ever been one thing I wanted to protect, then and now.”
Her team members.
As a Team Lead, she wanted to protect her team members.
That feeling would never change.
“I have already put my neck in Hyeonyul’s hands.”
If she could not uphold her end of the contract, he was to cut it.
Haeryeon had told Hyeonyul that.
“Actually, this was work we should have done. We were late, and because we failed to do it, you had to bear it all, Doctor.”
Haeryeon lowered her head.
“First, I will apologize.”
It had been decided that all the Team Leads would soon apologize to Jeongmin.
It would not be only the Team Leads who came.
Even officials above them, including Department Heads, were planning to come.
That was only right.
“...”
Jeongmin was speechless for a moment.
It was hard to believe what he had heard.
Was this right?
Even when he had worked at a major hospital, he had always lived under pressure to meet performance targets.
He had also been criticized countless times for clinging to meaningless work.
Hyeonyul was the only living experimental subject, and he could not officially report it because an attack could come at any time.
“This is also my personal opinion, but it is for those who may still be alive after being subjected to experiments. May I join you?”
Haeryeon asked cautiously.
It was indeed something that needed to be rushed, but Jeongmin needed time as well.
Time to adapt.
Time to learn what sort of place this was.
Time to observe what kind of person she was.
Jeongmin, who had fought alone all this time, needed all of it.
Jeongmin looked at Hyeonyul.
“...Hyeonyul. What do you think?”
All of this depended on Hyeonyul’s choice.
Hyeonyul looked at Haeryeon.
She looked incredibly desperate and earnest.
Enough that he thought it was right to see her that way.
‘She really means it.’
That part of it was strange to Hyeonyul as well.
What benefit could she possibly gain?
Did she simply want to make better use of him?
Even if she explained her reasons, he was not sure he would understand.
“Team Lead.”
Rather than answering Hyeonyul’s call, Haeryeon nodded.
“Honestly, the disappointment and despair will be immense. It would be better to abandon hope as well. We do not know how long the miracle will continue to work. I would not recommend it.”
No matter how capable Haeryeon was, Hyeonyul had seen Jeongmin’s disappointment and despair more closely than anyone.
It was suffering.
He understood what that feeling was like.
“Will you still do it?”
Hyeonyul asked as though it were someone else’s affair.
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