The Question (3)
Beep beep!
Numerous patterns and information appeared continuously on the monitor.
Illegal organizations’ names, scale, area of activity, disposition, and all other data flashed constantly.
Suddenly, the screen focused on a photo and zoomed in.
It was a photo of the man Il-hyun caught.
The neck tattoo identified on the screen matched perfectly.
Shin Jae-ha, the vice-captain of the analysis team, pointed to the screen and discussed it. He was wearing neat eyeglasses and had a prominently ugly face.
“Del Lohas, a cartel located in northern Mexico. About 350 members. They are mainly devoted to drug distribution, but after a while, they expanded to doing business with gates to increase their income.
“Hmm…” Lee Soo-yeon, sitting across from him, knocked on the desk in front of her.
They were alone in a small conference room.
“Ah, they are still there?” she remarked.
The cartels in Central and South America remained notorious even after the changes around the world due to the occurrence of gates.
These cartels are deeply involved in the politics and economy of countries with corrupt policies and poor security.
“How high is their level of Awakeners?” Lee Soo-yeon asked.
“It’s not very high. The guy you caught had a decent ability, but his fighting ability was amateur.”
This caused Lee Soo-yeon to slap her chair loudly.
“So, you’re saying it’s a small group, and with low-level Awakeners. How then did they have a disturbance device of that scale?”
The disturbance device was not something that could be easily produced.
It required a fairly high level of technical skills, and it was difficult to obtain the raw materials required to make it because they are strictly watched in every country.
Even for large organizations, it was impossible to procure a single device.
What more for a group with only 350 people?
“Any other information?”
Shin Jae-ha shook his head.
“That’s all we have so far. You’ll have to figure out more by yourself. With what happened, and your personality, I know you’ll be going directly to their headquarters.”
He knew that Jeong Jin-seong was seriously injured.
Lee Soo-yeon nodded.
As long as they knew the identity of the guys and their home base, it would be easy to disable them entirely.
She was already sending a signal to the other team members. They will fly to South America and destroy the Del Lohas.
“What about the other clues, has the disturbance device been analyzed yet?”
“What? Of course, it’s still being analyzed. I had to find out the identity of the culprit all night, I dropped everything and focused on it, and now…”
“Yes, yes. Thank you.” Lee Soo-yeon suddenly grabbed his hand and shook as she noticed he began to nag. “Please inform us as soon as possible.”
Shin Jae-ha stared at her and continued muttering. “Of course, we have to be fast. This device has caused us big trouble.”
Suddenly, the door opened, and someone came in.
The two stood up, reflexively upon seeing who it was.
“CEO?”
President Ryu Jin-tae stood at the doorway.
“Can you leave us alone?” He asked Shin Jae-ha.
“Ah yes. Okay.” With a little bow, Shin Jae-ha left the room quickly.
Then, Ryu Jin-tae turned to Lee Soo-yeon.
“You don’t have to.”
“Sorry? I don’t have to what?”
“Another team will handle the Mexican mission.”
Lee Soo-yeon did not expect this. It was Jeong Jin-seong who was injured – of course, it should be their team who would go out there.
Ryu Jin-tae simply smiled nicely as he pulled out the chair opposite her.
“Can you tell me why?” she asked.
“You’re a powerful team, but a battle against Awakeners is full of variables. We have a combat team to handle it. I don’t need to top monster team to go.”
Aegis had a special team with abilities to subdue other Awakeners, not monsters. It was the team that was usually sent to deal with international crime organizations.
But Lee Soo-yeon doubted his words.
“Please tell me the real reason, not just those reasons.”
“That’s the real reason. We’re facing an enemy that is different from all others.”
She remembered the explosion that popped out of the man’s head.
It was an absolutely dangerous ability. With that trap, it would not be strange if someone died or gets seriously injured facing them.
Lee Soo-yeon is still not convinced. “Me and Ghost can deal with it. It’s impossible for that explosion to be planted on several people. Unless the one who did it is an S-rank Awakener.”
She was strong enough to endure the explosion, while Ghost could ignore the explosion altogether.
Ryu Jin-tae continued smiling.
“I believe you… but I don’t want to take risks right now with your team, especially with Kang Il-hyun, who…”
Lee Soo-yeon was shocked to hear Il-hyun’s name out of Ryu Jin-tae’s mouth.
“…?”
As Ryu Jin-tae continued to tell her the story about Kang Il-hyun, she could not hide her surprise.
* * *
The team members of Team A, without their team leaders, were gathered around three helicopters.
Il-hyun wanted to check up on Jeong Jin-seong, but he heard that the team leader had been moved somewhere.
He thought about the way Jin-seong stared at him all the way back to the headquarters earlier.
It was a look of extreme curiosity. I don’t know if it’s because he’s injured, or if he had gotten insane, he thought.
“What’s going on?” he asked aloud. “The schedule was suddenly cancelled?”
He heard they were going to smash a cartel, but suddenly, they received a message that it was cancelled when they arrived at the helicopters.
The mission was assigned to another team, and now they are on hold.
Seok Pil-jun rebelled at the news. “How did it get cancelled? The captain won’t turn the mission over to anyone else.”
“I don’t understand…” Ghost muttered.
“Let’s go!” Il-hyun motioned to Ghost. He was planning to look for Lee Soo-yeon to find out why it was passed to a different team.
As the two went walking in the hallway, however, they heard an employee call them.
“Mr. Kang Il-hyun, Mr. Ghost! You’re needed by the research team!”
Ghost sighed, then looked at Il-hyun.
“Oh, I’m not going. Go first.”
‘What’s going on?’