Chapter 57. Cheetahman, the Hero of Justice (1)
“What are you doing? The kid’s waiting. Hurry up and give it to him. They’re about to leave.”
Unable to watch any longer, Yukgap urged Subin forward.
But Subin only stood there clutching the lunchbox, hesitating.
“B-But...”
While she stalled, one of the teachers guiding the children noticed her.
“Oh my. Are you Seongryeol’s biological mother?”
The teacher apparently knew about Subin.
Subin stammered like someone caught doing something wrong.
“Uh, well, that’s...”
“Seongryeol’s father told us that if his biological mother ever appeared, we were to report it to the police immediately. I heard there’s even a restraining order against you.”
The teacher’s voice was cold enough to be cruel.
Subin hurriedly explained herself.
“I-I only came to bring him a lunchbox! I promised him! I’ll just give him the lunchbox and leave!”
“Seongryeol’s stepmother already prepared one for him.”
The teacher cut her off at once.
Then she glared at Subin as though she were some kind of criminal.
“I’m sorry, but please leave. I don’t want to cause a scene in front of the children.”
It was a clear warning.
If Subin came any closer, the teacher would not let it slide.
“...I’m sorry.”
Overwhelmed by the pressure, Subin lowered her head and slowly stepped back.
The lunchbox in her hands swayed pitifully.
Yukgap looked at her in surprise.
“You’re just going to leave?”
“What else can I do? I didn’t know he’d even told the kindergarten about me.”
Subin’s voice trembled.
“I just wanted to give him the lunchbox. Just the lunchbox... That’s all...”
There was a depthless sadness in her expression.
Yukgap watched her for a moment.
Then something hardened in his face.
He turned to Victoria.
“Victoria. Draw their attention.”
“What are you planning?”
Yukgap glanced toward the bus Seongryeol had boarded.
“I’m making a delivery.”
Victoria immediately understood and nodded.
“Leave it to me.”
She confidently walked toward the kindergarten bus.
After taking a short breath, she suddenly collapsed to the ground and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Aaaaaaah! Somebody help me! Aaaaaaah!”
Victoria rolled her eyes back and twisted wildly.
Anyone watching would have thought she was having a seizure.
“What’s going on?”
The kindergarten teacher heard the screaming and looked around.
Victoria threw everything she had into the performance.
“G-Ghk! Cough! S-Somebody help me! I can’t... I can’t breathe!”
The teacher spotted her and hurried over.
She supported Victoria and asked,
“Are you all right?”
“Ugh! My chronic Sunlight Emergency Ratupella Virus Seizure Syndrome is acting up!”
“Sunlight Emergency... what?”
The teacher looked completely confused.
Victoria grabbed onto her and gasped desperately.
“Call an ambulance! Hurry!”
“O-Okay!”
Thanks to Victoria’s wholehearted acting, the teacher’s attention was completely focused on her.
This was their chance.
Yukgap quickly held out his hand to Subin.
“Give me the lunchbox.”
“What are you going to do?”
Subin asked suspiciously.
Yukgap answered immediately.
“I’m the fastest deliveryman in the world. This is nothing.”
Still confused, Subin handed it over.
The moment Yukgap received the lunchbox, he shot toward the kindergarten bus at incredible speed.
He moved so fast that only an afterimage marked his path.
He slipped straight inside the bus.
“Hi.”
Then he stopped in front of Seongryeol.
The boy jumped when a strange adult suddenly appeared before him.
“Who are you, mister?”
Yukgap answered casually,
“I’m your mom’s friend. I came to deliver your lunchbox.”
Seongryeol looked wary.
“They told me not to take things from adults I don’t know.”
“Normally, that’s good advice. But just this once, make an exception.”
Yukgap smiled awkwardly.
At that moment, Subin waved from beyond the bus window and called out to Seongryeol.
“Seongryeol! It’s the lunchbox Mom made! Eat it and have fun!”
She stayed far away, afraid someone might notice her.
The moment Seongryeol saw her, his face lit up.
“Mom!”
Yukgap pointed toward Subin.
“See? I’m not a bad guy. Your mom prepared this lunchbox. I’m just the deliveryman.”
“Okay.”
Seongryeol cautiously accepted it.
Delivery complete.
“Well then, I should get going.”
With those words, Yukgap accelerated again and vanished from the bus.
Once more, only a brief whoosh and an afterimage remained.
“Ghk! Cough, cough!”
“Just hold on! I’m calling an ambulance!”
While Yukgap was making the delivery, Victoria desperately kept the teacher occupied.
The teacher had even pulled out her smartphone.
Then Victoria caught sight of Yukgap’s afterimage flashing nearby.
Apparently, the delivery had gone perfectly.
“Ahem. Ahem. I’m fine now. You don’t need to call anyone.”
Victoria cleared her throat a few times and sprang to her feet as if nothing had happened.
The teacher stared at her blankly.
“What?”
“Thanks to you, the seizure passed. Thank you very much. You’ve done a good deed, so I’m sure blessings will come your way. Goodbye!”
With that, Victoria turned and ran away without looking back.
Yukgap had already returned to her side.
Victoria glanced at him.
“Delivery?”
“Perfectly done. By the way, your acting was pretty good.”
Victoria snorted proudly.
“I’m naturally talented at everything. If I hadn’t become an alchemist, I might have been a great actress.”
As usual, she praised herself without hesitation.
Once the rather noisy lunchbox delivery was over, Subin awkwardly approached them.
“Thank you. Both of you.”
Yukgap and Victoria looked at each other and smiled.
“What are you thanking us for? It was just a lunch delivery.”
“We worked hard making it. Throwing it away would’ve been a bigger waste.”
Just then, the kindergarten bus began to pull away.
Subin stared at it as it disappeared into the distance.
“Have fun, my son.”
“Everyone on board?”
The driver asked carefully as he drove the bus toward the outskirts.
The kindergarten teacher sitting beside him gestured casually.
“Don’t worry. Not a single one is missing.”
“What was all that commotion earlier?”
“No idea. Some foreign woman suddenly had a seizure, but after I left her alone for a bit, she recovered and ran off.”
As they talked, the bus gradually moved into a more secluded area.
One child noticed something felt wrong and whined,
“Teacher, where are we going?”
The teacher grinned and pulled a gas mask from the overhead shelf.
“Where do you think? Somewhere nice.”
She put on the gas mask.
The driver did the same.
A cloudy gas soon began pouring from the bus’s air-conditioning vents.
Hssssss.
“Yaaaawn...”
“I’m sleepy...”
“Mmm...”
The children inhaled the gas, yawned one by one, then quickly fell asleep.
The teacher snorted as she looked at them.
“Works well.”
“Don’t take your mask off. That’s powerful sleeping gas. You’ll knock yourself out too.”
The driver warned her as he continued toward the outskirts.
The teacher scoffed.
“Relax. I’m not that stupid.”
They had prepared and prepared for this exact moment.
She was not foolish enough to ruin everything with some ridiculous mistake.
“Do you really think these kids’ parents will pay?”
The driver still sounded worried.
The teacher snorted.
“Pfft. That’s not our problem. All we have to do is deliver the children quietly. The broker will handle the rest. We take our cut and walk away.”
She looked at the sleeping children, her future fortune laid out before her.
“You have no idea how hard it was pretending to be a teacher for this.”
“You were pretty good at it.”
The driver joked.
The teacher immediately scowled.
“What are you talking about? I hate children more than anything in the world. I only endured it by thinking of them as little bundles of cash with legs.”
“What if the parents refuse to pay?”
“That’s the broker’s problem.”
The teacher answered without hesitation.
“There are perverts everywhere who want children. If the ransom doesn’t come, they’ll probably just sell them off somewhere.”
“I wonder if he liked the lunchbox.”
Back at the restaurant, Yukgap muttered while preparing ingredients.
Victoria, who was watching television nearby, glanced at him.
“Are you still thinking about that?”
“I just had a thought while making it.”
Yukgap smiled faintly as he remembered preparing the lunchbox.
“Maybe my mother used to pack lunches for me like that too.”
Victoria answered without hesitation.
“Of course she did. What kind of parent sends their child on a field trip empty-handed?”
“Maybe that’s why I felt weirdly excited the whole time I was preparing it. It almost felt like I was the one going on the field trip.”
Yukgap even began humming as he remembered it.
Victoria watched him for a moment, then cautiously asked,
“Are you really okay with what happened? Subin was your only lead to Kevin, the Mercenary King.”
Yukgap’s hands briefly stopped.
Then he answered with a resolved expression.
“Honestly, I thought about using force. Maybe threatening her into helping me.”
He paused.
“But... I couldn’t.”
Yukgap knew better than anyone how persistent Abraxas could be.
That was precisely why he could not act recklessly.
“If I did that, I’d be taking that boy’s mother away from him.”
His expression hardened.
“I don’t want to hurt someone else’s family just because I’m trying to get mine back.”
Victoria summed up his behavior in one word.
“You’re kind.”
“This is just what anyone should do.”
While they were casually talking, someone suddenly burst into the restaurant with a loud crash.
It was Subin.
Her face was covered in tears.
And she brought news like a bomb.
“Help me! My son was kidnapped!”
