Chapter 28. The Infiltrator, No. 7 (5)
“Anyway, this is an important food to me. Eating it made me remember my family.”
Yukgap spoke with a distant look as he stared at the kimchi in front of him.
No. 7 looked at him as though he were ridiculous.
“You really do have strange tastes.”
She pushed the kimchi far away as though it were something filthy.
Yukgap carefully asked,
“So what are you going to do now?”
The real question was whether she planned to report him to Abraxas.
No. 7 gave a faint smile and asked in return,
“That’s what I want to know. If I can just report you to Abraxas, why did you let me live?”
Yukgap slowly shook his head.
“I told you. I don’t want to kill anyone anymore. That includes you.”
“Why?”
No. 7 looked genuinely confused.
Seeing her expression made Yukgap wonder the same thing.
Why?
Why had he suddenly become unable to kill someone?
After thinking for a moment, he answered calmly.
“Because if I ever meet my family, I want to be able to face them with at least a little less shame.”
“That’s a stupid excuse.”
“Maybe. But I can’t help it. It’s true.”
Of course, Yukgap knew better than anyone how contradictory he was being.
Still, a fear had taken root inside him.
If he continued killing people just as he had in the past, perhaps he would never truly become human again.
That fear had stopped his hand earlier.
“Fine. I’ll understand. So could you move that thing away from me?”
No. 7 glanced to the side.
Victoria stood right beside her with cold eyes, aiming the end of the hose at her.
“No chance. You broke into our restaurant and even damaged our precious waiter. If you try anything, I’ll spray you with steak sauce again!”
Drops of the same steak sauce that had melted No. 7’s body earlier dripped from the hose.
No. 7 gave a short laugh.
“I only got hit because I was distracted. Do you really think the same trick will work twice?”
“You never know!”
The two women glared at each other and growled.
It looked like they might start fighting again at any moment.
Sensing how dangerous the mood was becoming, Yukgap hurriedly changed the subject.
“Anyway, how did you find me? Did Theta tell you?”
No. 7 sighed.
“If he had, I wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble. Theta refused to talk until the very end. So I made an excuse to Beta and acted on my own to find you.”
“Theta has detection abilities, so that makes sense. But how did you track me down?”
“I got help from someone.”
No. 7 handed him a business card.
Only a short line was printed on it.
[Dr. Mozg]
“What’s this?”
Yukgap accepted the card without much thought.
No. 7 asked,
“It’s somewhere I discovered by chance during a mission. Have you ever heard of the Crescent Moon Auction?”
“What’s that?”
Yukgap had never heard of it.
Victoria suddenly raised her hand.
“I know that place!”
Yukgap immediately looked doubtful.
“If you know it, then it definitely isn’t a normal place.”
Victoria calmly explained.
“It’s the largest black market in the world. When we first met you, Seryun suggested selling you there. Apparently Abraxas test subjects can fetch an enormous price.”
Come to think of it, Seryun really had muttered something like that when they first met.
No. 7 continued explaining.
“It’s called the Crescent Moon Auction because it only opens on nights when there’s a crescent moon. All kinds of stolen goods and underworld deals pass through there. And ‘information’ sells for an extremely high price too.”
Yukgap immediately understood.
“So you bought information about me there?”
“To be exact, I bought information about the underground roadway collapse that happened nearby.”
Apparently she had somehow traced the incident from his fight with No. 8.
Then again, an entire underground roadway had collapsed.
There was no way an event that large would remain completely unknown.
“That makes no sense! Robert should have erased all the records of that incident!”
Victoria looked confused.
No. 7 pointed out the problem immediately.
“That’s exactly what made it suspicious. A massive accident destroyed an underground roadway, yet none of the nearby CCTV cameras recorded anything. That’s far too unnatural.”
Something suspicious had happened.
And every piece of evidence connected to it had disappeared.
Someone had clearly erased it intentionally.
That was what caught No. 7’s attention.
“After that, I searched the area using the most accurate and scientific method in the world. And wouldn’t you know it? I found traces of someone familiar.”
“What method?”
Yukgap instinctively became tense.
A method capable of finding him?
Did No. 7 possess some unknown ability?
Or perhaps she had gathered some organization under her command?
“A woman’s intuition.”
The method that came from No. 7’s mouth was absurdly simple.
Yukgap stared at her.
“You’re joking, right?”
“To be exact, I tracked your scent. Let’s call it eighty percent woman’s intuition and twenty percent scent tracking. Either way, I found you. Isn’t the result what matters?”
In the end, she had found him.
Maybe that did count as scientific in her own way.
While Yukgap was thinking about it, No. 7 suddenly added,
“More importantly, I always thought you would leave Abraxas somehow.”
“Me?”
“You always looked unstable. Like you might disappear with the wind at any moment. I expected it would happen somehow. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”
A beast that looked as though it might vanish at any moment.
Something fragile despite its strength.
That was how No. 7 remembered him.
Even when he had been standing right beside her, it had always felt as though he were surrounded by afterimages.
Then, just as she had expected, he disappeared.
In a strange way, her instincts had been right.
“So are you going to tell Abraxas?”
Yukgap carefully asked.
“Hehehe. Even after coming this far, you’re still scared of Abraxas?”
She lightly mocked him before reassuring him.
“Don’t worry. Alpha hasn’t given any orders regarding you. Coming here was completely my own decision. Nobody knows. So I’ll keep my mouth shut for now.”
Then she pointed with her chin at the business card in Yukgap’s hand.
“Anyway, I only discovered it by accident myself, but the Crescent Moon Auction is far more impressive than you’d think. Go there. You might even find information about your family.”
Could this place really hold clues about his past?
Could he finally find information about his family?
Yukgap gripped the card tightly.
“Thanks.”
“No need to thank me. If Alpha gives the order, I’ll be the first one to come kill you.”
No. 7 said it in a tone that might have been a joke.
Victoria immediately swung the hose around angrily.
“As if I’d let you! Just try coming back! I’ll marinate every last one of you in steak sauce!”
She looked ready to start spraying again at any moment.
No. 7 stared at Victoria for a while.
Then she turned to Yukgap with a teasing expression.
“I never knew this was your type. Tall, stupid-looking blonde women with pale skin?”
Yukgap and Victoria answered at the exact same time.
“What the hell have you been talking about this whole time?”
“Are you saying Yukgap and I are dating?”
Both looked utterly baffled.
No. 7 studied their reactions for a moment before cautiously asking,
“...You aren’t?”
Apparently, she had seriously misunderstood.
Yukgap recoiled.
“Victoria is just my employer! There’s nothing between us! More importantly, what kind of idiot would fall in love with a crazy alchemist like her?”
Victoria immediately backed him up.
“Exactly! I have eyes too, you know. Why would I look at Yukgap that way? We’re just in a business relationship! What kind of ridiculous fantasy have you been imagining all by yourself?”
Both of them seemed genuinely offended by the very idea of being romantically involved.
No. 7 carefully watched their reactions.
Then she answered in an incredibly relieved voice.
“Really? Then that’s fine.”
Suddenly, she asked Yukgap an apparently unrelated question.
“Do you remember that mission we did in Argentina?”
The mission in Argentina.
Yukgap searched his memory.
They had entered the country under fake identities to assassinate a politician.
“That one? We pretended to be newlyweds to maintain our cover. Why?”
“Actually, just to be safe, I filed an official marriage registration too. Then you escaped before we ever canceled it. Which means...”
“Which means?”
Yukgap tilted his head.
Instead of answering, No. 7 slowly approached him.
Before he could react, she suddenly kissed him.
A few seconds.
Perhaps even less.
It happened so suddenly that Yukgap could not do anything.
No. 7 pressed her lips firmly against his.
Then she slowly pulled away.
She looked more serious than ever.
“It means we’re still legally married.”
Victoria, who had watched the entire scene from beside them, turned bright red.
“Oh my.”
Yukgap was so stunned he could not form proper words.
“W-Whaaaaa?”
No. 7 lightly patted the back of his neck.
“Listen carefully. I’m the one who gets to kill you. I won’t let anyone else kill you. So don’t start looking elsewhere. Stay here and wait quietly for me. Understand?”
It sounded less like a request and more like an order.
With those words, No. 7 slowly vanished into the empty air.
“Uhhhhh...?”
Yukgap stared at the empty space and babbled incoherently.
Even if No. 7 had suddenly driven a knife into his chest, he probably would not have been this shocked.
“I knew it! The way she looked at you wasn’t normal!”
Victoria made enough noise for both of them.
Yukgap stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“Women act mean to the person they like. Sometimes they even rip out their spine.”
So everything No. 7 had done to him until now had been affection?
Yukgap remembered every moment he had experienced with her and let out a quiet sigh.
“Women really are impossible to understand.”
