In the past, the System’s identity was a hot topic because it sometimes acted like it cared for humanity, but often took actions contradictory to that. The Trial Test’s main purpose was to train the Awakened, but the System limited the number of survivors in each round and scrapped all the stragglers. They, of course, couldn’t go back to society and died on the spot. Therefore, we, the Awakened, had no choice but to group together and fight against each other. At some point, there were cases where we killed our fellows more than the monsters.
If I considered the System that forced us to commit atrocious murders as an Evil System, all the contradictions it displayed were now comprehensible. The problem was that there was only one notification window that could convey its intentions, so we couldn’t really tell whether there was only one or two Systems. I felt like I had suddenly opened Pandora’s box. If this assumption became fait accompli, there was a high possibility that later Awakened would be divided more arbitrarily than the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues.
I turned my head towards Woo Yeon-Hee. She was staring into the air as if she was looking at a nasty monster.
“Don’t give up on the quest yet,” I said mildly.
***
The quest item ‘Location Seeker’ was no different from a GPS. The error range was approximately three hundred feet, and one hundred Awakened’s locations were moving on the map window as round dots.
[Assasination 1 (Quest)
You have to protect yourself.
Mission: Kill Woo Yeon-Hee.
Time limit: 1 year.
Class: C]
Woo Yeon-Hee was the only one spotted in the plane on the search window. The round dots were scattered throughout the world. Among them, there were two areas where dots were concentrated. It was obvious that one of them was Revolucion in Germany, and the other one was in Japan. There were twelve Awakened there, which meant they had already formed a group.
Each Awakened was numbered based on their class. Therefore, Woo Yeon-Hee was number one, and numbers two and three were two women with the surname Suzuki. I expected them to be Michael or the Awakened in the Revolucion, but I was wrong. They were Suzuki Ririka and Suzuki Chiharu, and they were both E-class. I was 99.9 percent certain that they were my past life’s Seventh and Eighth Virtues as they were Japanese girls who had already raised their classes to E-class. One of them must have been the one who was second in upgrading their Agility by a class. I was planning to find and observe them.
Meanwhile, I was more concerned if any of the Awakened who were involved in U.S. politics had received the assassination quest. There was no dot in Washington D.C. for now, and four dots were spread out in New York. One dot was blinking in Mokpo, South Korea. For now, the Awakened didn’t know that this quest was double-sided. Whether it was out of curiosity or to complete the quest, I felt like I had to lure those who would approach me to one side.
Okay, I finally grasped the entire situation. The first thing I had to do was to ensure my family’s safety even if I had to reveal my identity to Jamie.
***
(POV has changed to third person.)
Jamie didn’t answer the call because she was having a luncheon with the FKI[1], and it came from an unknown number. However, she felt uneasy. When she asked the executive of OK Telecom, they said it was Korea Airlines’ satellite phone number. Then, there was only one person who would have called.
None of the FKI members understood why Jamie was clenching her phone and getting antsy. They wondered who exactly was making the major Jeon-il Group’s female president act like that.
Who called her? Does she have a hidden lover?
As always, everyone’s attention was on Jamie.
The President of Finance, Park Choong-Sik, was at the luncheon, and he had grasped a vague idea of the situation. He deliberately changed the topic to the Saemangeum resort business where trillions of won were involved. The project had begun, and the seawall construction had been finished recently.
“There are issues that require you, the chairmen’s, cooperation.”
When everyone’s attention had been dragged to Park Choong-Sik, Jamie quietly got up and looked for a place with no people. She peeked around the washroom and the emergency exit, and when she got to her car in the parking lot, her phone rang again.
<Seon-Hu: Jamie.>
Ethan’s voice was cold as always. Jamie held her phone between her shoulder and cheek, then got into the back seat. Since she had run around hastily, her breath was rough.
<Jamie: Sorry. I’m available to talk now.>
<Seon-Hu: There’s a serious problem.>
When Ethan had ordered her to make the Korean government launder the money after placing billions of dollars into the group accounts, he had never used the term ‘serious.’ Therefore, Jamie held her breath.
<Seon-Hu: There’s an employee named Na Jeon-il in your company. Make him stay in the group’s hotel with his wife by making up any excuse. Keep them distracted and place the highest level security personnel around them. Focus on that from now on, Jamie.>
Na Jeon-il?
She had heard of his name during meetings about the progress of the Saemangeum reclamation project, and it was memorable as it was the same name as their group.
<Seon-Hu: What did I just say?>
<Jamie: To place the highest level security personnel on the employee named Na Jeon-il and his wife, but they shouldn’t be aware it.>
<Seon-Hu: I won’t say anything else. Take this as the most urgent and critical issue in the group. You will have to tell the security guards to have guns equipped at all times.>
<Jamie: Guns?>
<Seon-Hu: If you are going to say no, let me talk to the Director Park Choong-Sik.>
<Jamie: …>
A few years ago, when the Korean government’s surveillance on them went to the point that it intimidated people in the group, Jamie had formed a security team with former members of the Korean special forces. She had provided guns to them through Russian smugglers, so it wasn’t a problem to equip these security guards. What was more shocking was that there were Koreans who the real owners of the group needed to break laws in order to protect them. Furthermore, it was Na Jeon-il’s family.
Wait…
There had been multiple weird orders from the group’s owners. During the IMF crisis, they ordered Jamie to purchase useless lands in Korea. Some of them were expensive as they were favorable for development, but most were hilly rural areas where the market price didn’t move much. It was an unusual task for an investment firm.
The Korean economy had normalized now, so the corporate stakes that they had purchased before had soared in price, but normal investment companies would have withdrawn from the Korean market when they reached their targeted profit.
Then, they should have looked for the right time to come back in. That’s the standard procedure.
That was why Jamie had been constantly asking Ethan if the group’s owners had no plans to withdraw from the Korean market before the Saemangeum project. There was only one answer.
Jeon-il provided financial capital to this country. If Mr. Na of the Jeon-il group is… Mr. Na was the Jeon-il Group’s Jeon-il. So far, I’ve been…
Jamie thought that Na Jeon-il was the father who controlled the Korean economy. Nevertheless, she couldn’t understand why he had proceeded with everything through Ethan instead of stepping up by himself. If he, a Korean, had led the way from the beginning, the group wouldn’t have been criticized for being funded by foreigners.
Where did he get the billions of dollars of foreign exchange in the first place? And why… do I have to guard him without him being aware of it?
<Seon-Hu: Jamie, you are a smart person, so you must have figured out why our group is named ‘Jeon-il.’>
Jamie couldn’t hear Ethan well over the phone. She was trying to remember how she first met him. Her most vivid memory was of that eerie day. On that day, the draft had been created about the time when Korea’s top twenty conglomerates would dominate the controlling stakes, and it was on that day that Jamie saw Ethan in a suit for the first time.
Also, that was the day she had witnessed Ethan’s true colors. The trash can in his office had been filled with blood-stained bandages, and there were many traces of him training with long and short knives as well as crossbows. Ethan even had a dagger in his suit, so Jamie had thought that Ethan was the real owners’ elite professional fixer who was willing to do anything.
However, she also recalled that… Ethan’s authority went beyond a fixer’s since all investment decisions were made by him. In other words, he was the real decision maker. It was the truth, but she had previously ignored his dangerous vibe.
Ethan, it was you… You were the real owner of the group!
The words Jamie wanted to say were bubbling up to her throat, but she felt like she shouldn’t say it out loud either. She felt like no matter what the relationship was between Mr. Na and the group, Ethan’s dagger would point at her at the moment she revealed his secret. She suspected she would end up in the trash can like the bandages…
Ethan’s gaze sometimes resembled that of the murderer. On top of that, his wealth allowed him to do anything, such as eliminating a sane man from the world and making personnel who didn’t exist in reality to be present.
Gulp.
Jamie’s hand, which held the phone, began to tremble. Her voice was shaking too.
<Jamie: I… I don’t know what you are talking about. If Mr. Na is getting lots of attention from the group’s owners, I should protect him for sure. If he’s one of us, I should take better care of him. So, what kind of danger are you in?>
<Seon-Hu: Let’s just say that I have been exposed to a number of unspecified threats.>
<Jamie: Okay. I’ll protect the couple with the highest level of security.>
<Seon-Hu: Couple…>
<Jamie: Pardon me?>
<Seon-Hu: You’ll figure it out soon. Bye.>
Whatever the danger was, Jamie didn’t want to know about it. Sometimes, it was better to not know about the problems and restrain her curiosity. However, she heard an unexpected story when forming the security team.
“Mr. Na has a son,” the security team leader said.
“He has a son?” Jamie asked.
If the couple was at risk, their child should’ve been protected as well. The security team leader handed her Na Jeon-il’s personnel card. As he had mentioned, Na Jeon-il had a wife named Mi-Hee and a son named Seon-Hu.
“I’ve searched a bit, and the son is abroad. He is quite well-known to the people close to Mr. Na,” he added.
Seon-Hu had just become an adult this year.
“Where abroad?” Jamie questioned.
He responded, “North America. I heard that he’s working at the Front Office of the Jonathan Investment Group.”
At Jonathan Investment Group at that age? Jamie idly thought that it was unusual. Then, her face stiffened.
The security leader asked, “Should we send security guards to the son?”
Jamie closed her eyes tightly and opened them. Then, she forced herself to say in a tense voice, “…No, just focus on Mr. Na and his wife.”
1. Federation of the Korean Industries. ☜