Chapter 5- I’m Back

"Where is he."


The General felt the heavy pressure lifted from his shoulders.


Steadying his raged breath he looked at Young-soo and said, "This isn't the place to talk."


The General pointed his thumb in the direction of the building.


Young-soo frown slightly and said, "If you're lying your dead."


Saying that he started walking back to the building's entrance.


The General didn't say anything and lead the way through the corridors, back to the same interrogation room with the missing wall.


Sitting down on the chair, the General gestured for Young-soo to take a seat.


As Young-soo sat down, the General glanced towards the damaged camera, before he turned to Young-soo and started speaking.


"Back when the portals first started to appear around the world, there was a one year period before the evolved beast started to attack humanity. Between that one year, the UN had a hard time controlling the evolved humans that started to appear. Criminals within their cells were gaining abilities, gangs and criminal organizations started to get ideas to recruit evolved humans. Within that one year, the crime rate and death rate soar to impossible numbers. That's when the UN decided to gather up the evolved humans with the guise of helping them, but they were just doing experiments on them to find a 'cure'.


When the General said the word 'cure' he raised his arms and made quotation marks with his fingers.


"Humans can become greedy creatures that thirst after power they can't control. The UN searching for a cure was the last thing on their bucket list, they were actually searching for a way to control and weaponize the evolved humans. For a whole year, they were constantly gathering up the people and experimenting on them."


The General looked at Young-soo that had the same cold expression on his face, as he slowly said.


"Back when the fire occurred in Gangnam, it was reported that before the investigation team arrived, there were already Chinese government officials there. I don't know if they were involved with the UN or not, or if they actually had anything to do with your brother. But, looking at the reports, the fire was said to have started in front of the portal, and to cause a fire of that magnitude in snowy weather, an evolved human must have been involved. What caused you to enter the portal, were you the only one there?"


When the General asked that question, a look of pain and regret flashed past Young-soo's eyes before it disappeared.


"My brother was there."


"That's what I thought, your brother must have evolved right there and than, and gained some kind of fire ability that went out of control. The government officials were probably acting on the UN's orders to find evolved humans, and your brother was probably taken by them."


"Where's my brother?"


The General looked at Young-soo and said cautiously, "I don't specifically know where he is, but when the evolved beasts attacked several of their experimental labs were abandon."


"If your brother was taken by China's government officials then he might have been in one of those labs."


Young-soo's eyes released a flash.


"So he might be dead already."


The General hurriedly said, "We don't know that for sure, if we want to find out we would have to travel to the labs to investigate."


Young-soo stood and got ready to leave.


The General had a slight smile on his face as he said, "To leave or enter a country's stronghold you either have to be registered to a guild or become a contracted mercenary for a stronghold. The labs are within one of China's strongholds, even if you have significant strength you can't just barge in."


"Use your ability," Young-soo said.


The General shook his head, "My ability doesn't allow me to teleport with someone, if I try I'll just get a painful migraine that lasts for a month."


Hearing that Young-soo looked at the General with a somewhat annoyed expression.


---


Seoul Stronghold.


Stein Hotel.


May 27, 2048. 20:03 pm


The General opened the hotel room's door and said, "Your contract to become a mercenary would lead to a background check that could take up to several months, but I'll pull some strings to have it done in a week or two."


Young-soo walked past the General and entered through the door.


"For now just stay out of trouble, I'll have to talk to those slave-driving higher-ups."


When the General was about to close the door Young-soo's voice echoed, "Complete it in one week."


The General sigh and thought to himself, 'What's up with this kid's short sentences, can't he speak like a regular person?'


'Wait, is he kid?' The General rubbed his beard in thought as he walked away from the door.


The hotel room was large and luxurious.


It had a king-size bed with a large chandelier hung over it.


Passing through a door on the side, you could find a bathroom that had a bathtub that could fit four people.


There was also a sliding glass door leading to a balcony, that overlooked Gangnam's high rising buildings.


Young-soo looked around the room before he walked up to the large bed and sat down.


On his shoulder, the snake-like creature leaped off and landed on the bed. With curiosity in its eyes, it began looking around at the different furniture and decorations in the room.


Focusing downward, it started to sniff the bed sheets made of silk and as if it was entranced by its smoothness, it started rolling around on the bed.


Young-soo who was watching by the side had a slight smile on his face, different from his usual cold expression.


"What are you doing Soo-min?"


As he said that Young-soo stretched out his arm and patted the creature on its head.


Snapping out of its trance the creature name Soo-min, stood up on his four legs and started walking towards Young-soo. With each step it took, its body would increase in size, and by the time it laid itself in Young-soo's lap it was already about a foot long.


Young-soo continued to pat its head as he looked through the balcony's glass door at the buildings that were illuminating the night with its many lights.


"I'm back," Young-soo said in a soft voice while an expression of reminiscent covered his face.


"What are we going to do now that we came here?"


A voice that sounded like it came from a young boy suddenly echoed in the room.


Young-soo looked down at Soo-min, who was looking up at him.


"That old man said that my brother might have been taken by someone. If that's true then I'll kill whoever who did it, before I find earth's ruler."


As Young-soo spoke his voice started to tremble after a couple of words, but the cold tone and killing intent it carried would make anyone shiver.


"What if that human was just lying to keep you here?"


The mouth of Soo-min moved indicating he was the speaker.


After Young-soo heard the question, he turned his head back towards the balcony door before he spoke.


"Then I'll just take away his ability as punishment."


Soo-min didn't ask any further questions, he just sat there in Young-soo's lap, while the both of them remain silent.


It wasn't until an hour or so passed that Young-soo placed the sleeping Soo-min on the bed, before getting up to take a shower.


In front of a body-length mirror in the bathroom, stood Young-soo that had all of his clothes taken off.


He was staring at the long scar that started from his left shoulder and extended all the way to stop above his right knee.


The scar wasn't straight but was jigged, and it seemed as if it was cut by a blunt object.


Tracing his finger above the scar, Young-soo stood there with a blank expression on his face as if he was remembering something.


'Drip… drip… drip'


The sound of the water dripping from the overflowing tub made Young-soo came to his senses.


He walked up to the bathtub and turned off the pipe, before climbing in.


Splashing sounds could be heard as he slowly lay inside.


---


HQ building.


Meeting room #3.


In the meeting room, there was a large table with several chairs around it, that was currently empty, except for the one at the front.


Sat in the chair was South Korea's Minister of Defense Hwang Seojun, and by his side stood the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admiral Nam.


Standing on the other end of the table with his arms behind his back was the bearded General.


He currently sported a nervous expression as he looked at the two men that could decide his fate.


"So let me get this straight, a thirty-something-year-old male that looked like a nineteen-year-old kid came out of Gangnam's portal. Thinking to ask him some questions you brought him here, where he would go on to steal top secret information from our database and walked out the front door. Not before destroying the Alevium interrogation room's walls and single handily takedown squad A with relative ease?"


The General nodded and said, "I convinced him to stay and become one of our contracted mercenaries."


The man in the chair had his head down while he pinched his nose-bridge with his thumb and index finger. The man standing next to him was also shaking his head.


Tapping the desk with his five fingers the Minister of Defense sitting in the chair said, "You're going to keep this under wraps, we don't want unnecessary people finding out that there's someone who can destroy Alveium metal."


The General expression didn't change when he heard that, but he was cursing in his head that this man in front of him only wanted to monopolize Young-soo's ability.


Well, not like he could blame him, he had similar thoughts as well.


"As for the President, he's currently out of South Korea, so when he gets back, I'll inform him of the situation."


After saying that, Minister Hwang looked up at the General and said, "Where is he now?"


"He staying in a hotel nearby."


"Good, keep an eye on him for the time being, make sure he doesn't reveal his ability in public."


The General bowed and turned to walk out of the room, before he left he looked back and asked, "Sir, what about that professor Kim, he's.."


Minister Hwang cuts him off by saying, "There's not only one guild behind him, with that much backing, not even the President would handle him carelessly. As long as he doesn't find out the specifics about that young man's power, then the guilds he works for won't make a move."


As Minister Hwang said his last words, he held up the clump of dust that the General had gather from the destroyed Alevium wall.


The General took his leave and close the door behind.


Walking down the corridor, the General sigh and said to himself, "I didn't tell them that the reason he stayed was because of his missing brother. If I did, they would have probably kept their distance from him, since he might have a grudge against the UN for using his brother for experiments. If that was the case and they got involved, South Korea would have to face some disasters."


The General instinctively started rubbing his beard as he continued speaking.


"This is a really tricky situation I got myself into. I should just go with the flow and see what happens, something tells me that this Young-soo is anything but normal. For the portal to have expanded to a hundred meters is definitely not an accident."


The General thought back to the recent incident, and that snake-like creature on Young-soo's shoulder.


He suddenly shook his head to clear those crazy thoughts.


"If my thoughts are correct though, then my gamble to get him on South Korea's side is definitely worth it."



The General rubbed his beard some more, as he continued to walk through the corridor.