Chapter 96: Phantom Company (5)

 

Yoo Hajin was not exactly the brightest bulb.

 

Back in school, his grades were average at best. If anything, calling him a “physical type” was much more fitting.

 

Even so, Yoo Hajin could tell there was something fishy about Nesone.

 

Then why had he ended up coming to Nesone?

 

To understand that, one first needed to know what had been troubling him lately.

 

Lately, Yoo Hajin had been racking his brain over how to get closer to the Great Demon Gate.

 

Raising his level, venturing into the tiger’s den—it was all for that purpose.

 

And he had failed at both.

 

His level remained stagnant, and he hadn’t made any progress with the tiger either.

 

Frustrated, Yoo Hajin muttered to himself.

 

“Why not just get stronger, dammit?”

 

Up on the rooftop, he was deep in training.

 

With an intensity that could practically shoot lasers from his eyes, he was honing his Negation Eye.

 

But no amount of glaring was going to raise his level.

 

In fact, Negation Eye failed more often than it succeeded.

He positioned his hands in the stance of the Inverse Heaven Practitioner.

 

Then, he focused his life energy on his eyes.

 

To put it in layman’s terms, he concentrated his blood into his eyes.

 

“Heavenly  Descent! Negation Eye…!”

 

His head throbbed as though it were on fire, and his concentration wavered.

 

The success rate of Negation Eye was a mere 50%. It wasn’t practical at all.

 

Collapsing on the rooftop in frustration, Yoo Hajin groaned.

 

“This is way too cringe!!!”

 

The name Inverse Heaven Practitioner? Cringe.

 

The name Heavenly Descent? Even cringier.

 

And Negation Eye? The cringiest of all.

 

Using all three techniques together? That went beyond cringe—it felt like the kind of supernatural nonsense he’d mocked before.

 

“I’m not some edgy middle schooler!!!”

 

Despite shouting this, Yoo Hajin writhed on the ground like a dramatic teenager.

 

Suddenly, a bright idea struck him.

 

Why was he trying to raise his level anyway?

 

Wasn’t the point to get stronger?

 

If he could find another way to get stronger, wouldn’t leveling up be unnecessary?

 

Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he mused to himself.

 

“Blood is life energy, isn’t it?”

 

Maybe… just maybe, this idea could work.

 

Straightening up, Yoo Hajin made up his mind.

 

“Now that I think about it, Omegatech has something like that.”

 

And so, Yoo Hajin ended up at Omegatech.

 

Of course, he was greeted with complaints about how the bulletproof umbrella he borrowed last time had been torn to shreds.

 

“I get it, Hyung. Fine. I’ll visit your company’s HQ for that experiment later. Just get me the stuff I asked for, okay?”

 

Reluctantly, they prepared the items he requested.

 

Now, it was time for Yoo Hajin to test these items in battle.

 

That was when he came across a peculiar advertisement.

 

“Are you poor? Then you’re an idiot.”

 

It was, of course, an ad for Nesone.

 

Nesone seemed like the perfect target.

 

If they paid him, great—profit.

 

If they tried to scam him, even better—he could use them for his experiments.

 

Besides, Nesone wasn’t exactly a powerful organization. They were just a fledgling company.

 

And yet, the director of the Anomaly Response Headquarters was here.

 

Seeing that, Yoo Hajin was convinced.

 

“These bastards are definitely bad news.”

 

He smirked and made his decision.

 

“If my points are zero, how much can I cash out?”

 

“Zero won, of course, sir.”

 

Now, here he was, facing the worst-case scenario. But Yoo Hajin knew exactly what he had to do.

 

“Time to flip this table, you sons of bitches!!!”

 

With that, he swung his Black Sheath Blade, smashing the heads of the guards.

 

“Argh!”

 

“Ugh!”

 

Two guards collapsed with pained groans.

 

As the Nesone researchers and the remaining guards hesitated in confusion, Yoo Hajin unzipped his duffel bag. Inside were a bulletproof umbrella and a peculiar water gun.

 

The umbrella could block even anti-material sniper rounds.

 

But the water gun?

 

At first glance, it looked like a toy, painted in primary colors—red, blue, and green.

 

“Is that a rifle? No, it’s too crude. Maybe a trick weapon?” one guard speculated.

 

The guards were clearly wary, but Yoo Hajin was happy to demonstrate.

 

Without a word, he attached a small hose dangling from the water gun to a needle.

 

Taking a deep breath, he jabbed the needle into his arm vein.

 

As blood was siphoned into the water gun’s reservoir, he aimed it at the guards.

 

“Is that… a blood rifle?”

 

“You idiot, there’s no aura! It can’t be a spirit weapon. Just take him down from a distance—”

 

At that moment, Yoo Hajin recalled something that Jongri Hyung, the Omegatech manager, had told him:

 

“If the pressure’s strong enough, water can cut through rock. It’s called a water jet cutter.”

 

And this water gun? It worked on a similar principle.

 

Standing 30 meters from his target, Yoo Hajin pulled the trigger.

 

A crimson beam of compressed liquid shot out, like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.

 

“Gyaaah!”

 

The guard, who could normally withstand bullets, crumpled to the ground as though struck by a hammer.

 

Yoo Hajin grinned mischievously.

 

“Well, that’s one way to handle it.”

 

Another guard, panicking, met the same fate moments later.

 

With his improvised arsenal—close combat skills (Black Sheath), a ranged weapon (the water gun), and defense (bulletproof umbrella)—Yoo Hajin was like a one-man party.

 

‘The ultimate raid team: Party Leader Yoo Hajin,’ he thought with a smirk.

 

With a playful glint in his eye, he muttered:

 

“FPS games are all about managing ammo, aren’t they?”

 

And then he stormed the next floor, water gun blazing.

 

“Skrrrt! Genocide!!!”

 

Suppressing his laughter was impossible—chaos had never been so much fun.

 

****

 

Nesone CEO’s Office

 

The CEO’s office at Nesone was in chaos.

 

It was clear there was an intruder.

 

But the Director of the Anomaly Response Headquarters couldn’t focus on the commotion around them.

 

“A human as a first-class paranormal phenomenon...”

 

The CEO’s statement was irrefutable.

 

“Objection… impossible…”

 

The Director had been created to protect humanity from paranormal phenomena.

 

Yet, the ones who had killed her creator—a young girl—and her family were humans.

 

Not paranormal phenomena.

 

So why, then, was she fighting against the paranormal?

 

“Hypothesis… initiated…”

 

Before she became the Director of the Anomaly Response Headquarters, what kind of existence was she?

 

She was an avenger.

 

An entity bent on destroying those who had killed her creator.

 

And those perpetrators had been humans.

 

The Director had originally been a being that existed to annihilate humans.

 

That was why she harbored such deep hatred for psychics.

 

“Hypothesis… confirmed…”

 

This realization defined her fundamental purpose.

 

So why, then, had she been protecting humanity?

 

In a world where everyone could now see ghosts and paranormal awakenings had become as commonplace as those of ancient shamans, why had she deemed it her essence to protect humans from paranormal phenomena?

 

She couldn’t recall the moment when she had changed.

 

“Recall… impossible. Current state deemed an error. Initiating reset…”

 

Just as she was about to revert to their original form, the image of a man appeared on the office’s massive screen.

 

That man’s name was Yoo Hajin.

 

“Hey! You’re telling me you couldn’t stop one lousy guy, and he made it all the way here? What the hell are we even paying you for? Get moving, NOW!”

 

The CEO’s shouting was irrelevant.

 

To the Director, the man on the screen was all that mattered.

 

At that moment, Yoo Hajin had stowed his blood-fed water gun back in his duffel bag, clearly too drained to continue using it.

 

His face was pale—deathly pale.

 

It was obvious he had lost a significant amount of blood during the battle.

 

Even though his wounds had been healed, the life energy—his blood—wasn’t something that could be easily restored.

 

“Confirmed. Yoo Hajin’s blood loss is at critical levels.”

 

The Director analyzed his condition.

 

It was undeniable: Yoo Hajin was risking his life in this fight.

 

Of course, she couldn’t know the real reason Yoo Hajin was so pale was that he had been recklessly spamming his water gun techniques—Scud Genocide, Barbecue, and mindless random spraying.

 

“Yoo Hajin only learned about Nesone this week. So why is he fighting so desperately?”

 

The Director already knew the answer.

 

To protect people from Nesone, of course.

 

Naturally, Yoo Hajin had initially come here with the sole intent of causing mayhem with his water gun. But that detail was lost on the Director.

 

Selflessly risking his life,

 

Fighting tooth and nail to protect others,

 

That sight sparked something within them.

 

“…Ah. I see now. I…”

 

The Director did something uncharacteristic of a machine.

 

She raised her hand to cover her face.

 

The terminal containing their consciousness began to tremble slightly.

 

And then, she muttered,

 

“I remember now. I’ve been… overturned.”

 

Memories came flooding back—the moment she became the Director of the Anomaly Response Headquarters.

– – – The End of The Chapter – – –

 

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