Sleep did not last long.
I woke up to a cold shower of water.
“Well, since it’s come to this, why don’t we share some information?”
The water streamed down my burning forehead. Watching the droplets fall from my hair, I spoke.
The twins who had come in earlier carrying something like a whip were looking down at me.
“It’s a deal where nobody loses, right? I get to die with my curiosity answered, and you get intel on the Badgers.”
“Still got some fight left in you.”
The woman smiled faintly.
I thought she was pleased, but apparently not. The masked kidnappers burst out angrily.
“Still mouthing off without knowing your place! You’re just a lab rat!”
“Fine, fine. My bad. Go ahead and get back to killing me properly.”
“What are you so curious about?”
The curly-haired man folded the whip neatly and knelt beside me on one knee.
The hem of his dark suit brushed the dust-covered floor.
“If you tell us something useful, we’ll show you one last bit of mercy.”
He brushed my bangs aside again, admiring the mark he’d burned into my forehead.
I stayed still for a moment, feeling the pain there, and asked quietly,
“I’ve been asking since earlier — who’s the bastard who kidnapped me?”
Maybe tired of the question, the masked ones let out frustrated sighs.
Only the twins smiled.
“You must really want to know.”
“Of course. If I’m going to die, I at least want to know who sent me there.”
The curly-haired pair exchanged glances.
While they silently debated, I let my gaze wander, bored. What’s the point of choosing your words so carefully in front of someone you’re about to kill anyway?
Anyway, just answer before Colton gets here, kids.
It was the woman who finally spoke.
“Six months ago, a new recruit joined our organization. It was his doing.”
“Huh?”
My voice rose.
“A civilian?”
“You’re so arrogant.”
She mocked my surprise, her eyes filled with the contempt one gives a clueless pup.
“You really think a civilian couldn’t kidnap you?”
To be honest — yes, that’s exactly what I thought.
I didn’t say it aloud, but it must have shown on my face.
The kidnappers burst into laughter.
“Look at his face!”
“Poor thing just realized he’s as ordinary as dirt — aside from that enhanced body of his!”
“Hey, maybe it’s time you threw away that arrogance, huh?”
“Even if your boss branded him, it’s useless!”
“These things never learn!”
The mocking went on and on — laughter echoing through the cold room, boots stamping in delight.
The man, grinning as his subordinates jeered, brushed back my white hair.
“From the gutter to a Black Badger — you must’ve thought the world was yours, didn’t you?”
What the hell was he talking about?
Becoming a Black Badger doesn’t make the world yours. And I hadn’t exactly lived a miserable life.
But I could see why they’d think so. On paper, I was an orphan — no school records, no background, no achievements before enlistment.
To them, I was just a stray who’d never been educated.
“Did you even finish elementary school?”
“I thought your people at least picked recruits with some brains, but you? You grabbed a guy who never even went to school.”
“Shot up the ranks in one go, and now you don’t know your place.”
“A rookie who can’t even run a mission alone — shocked that a civilian managed to kidnap you?”
“What kind of person is that rookie of yours?”
I kept questioning them through the flood of class-soaked ridicule.
The woman’s eyes glittered with mockery and amusement.
“Oh. You still can’t accept that the one who kidnapped you was an ordinary person.”
Yeah.
“But he really is an ordinary human. Quiet kid, always looking at the ground, chews his nails when he’s nervous. Small and timid.”
Jaeyeon?
Could Jaeyeon have disguised himself as a civilian and helped abduct me? Otherwise it didn’t make sense. There’s no way I wouldn’t notice a normal person approaching me.
It sounded arrogant — but it was true.
Something’s off here.
I tried to find a reasonable explanation but couldn’t. The kidnappers, seeing my confusion, laughed harder.
“Hurts your pride, huh?”
Not really.
“You still can’t face reality. You know, just because you’ve got an enhanced body doesn’t make you invincible.”
“Then why’d the rookie do it himself? You dump the job on a newcomer?”
“No. He insisted on doing it personally.”
The male twin ran his hand down the length of the whip.
“He said to trust him with it.”
So, after throwing water on me to wake me up, now they were going to use the whip.
Lucky me for being the one they chose to kidnap. I’d lived long enough that I could take this kind of thing without losing my mind.
If it had been Tom or Hesh, they would’ve been traumatized.
A small relief spread through my chest.
“Why did he insist on doing it?”
“You talk too much.”
Crack!
The whip struck my wet body.
It burned, but less than I’d expected.
I shook my head slightly to get the hair out of my eyes.
Might as well finish the question.
“What’s the name of the guy who kidnapped me?”
“What good will that do? You’re going to die anyway.”
“I want to die shouting the name of the one who took me.”
“He still can’t face it.”
“How many times do we have to tell you, huh?! You got kidnapped by a pathetic loser!”
They laughed at my supposed denial, their laughter echoing off the walls as they pointed at me.
“You couldn’t lift a finger against some stuttering, hunch-backed nerd!”
“Damn, I wish I could show you what he looks like. You’d be even more shocked.”
“Still defending him? You’re unbelievable.”
“Still denying reality.”
Apparently, mocking a “rookie Badger too proud to admit a civilian captured him” was their favorite pastime.
But it wasn’t about pride...
Ugh. No matter how I explain it, it’s going to sound arrogant.
At some point, I gave up on trying to get a real answer. They didn’t seem to know much about whoever had done it — just kept repeating how pathetic he looked: stuttered, hunched, chewed his nails, never exercised.
When that stopped amusing them, the male twin grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head up with a grin.
“Our arrogant Taleb.”
His eyes gleamed with madness and superiority.
“Time to teach you some humility.”
What a terrible line.
In that black suit with a whip in hand, the image was almost comically absurd.
I sighed as he raised the whip.
“Even if you cry and beg, no one’s coming to save you.”
Maybe he took that sigh as provocation, because he said,
“Even if Yehyeon saw the email, there’s no way he could find this place in time.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“And he wouldn’t bother to save some worthless rookie anyway.”
His grin widened, pure pleasure flickering in his eyes — not conviction, just sadistic joy at crushing a Badger. He swung the whip.
“Your arrogance killed you, Taleb!”
Bang!
His hand exploded.
Bang!
The other twin’s hand went flying too.
The kidnappers froze as if a bomb had gone off.
The man and woman stared blankly at where their hands had been.
I blinked, watching them forget even how to scream.
Ah.
This time I really hadn’t noticed the presence because my skills had dulled.
“Aaaargh!”
A sharp scream pierced my ears.
“AAAAAAH! My hand! My hand!”
“Ugh! Aaaah!”
“It’s a gun!”
“Help me!”
“Since when have you been standing there?”
I let out a dry laugh, staring at the man standing like a ghost in the dark corner of the room.
“I didn’t even hear you come in.”
Lee Seunghyun didn’t # Nоvеlight # answer.
He replied instead by stepping out of the corner’s darkness, his footsteps echoing softly. The kidnappers, frozen in shock at the blood soaking the floor and the scattered bits of flesh, finally noticed him.
Their cries grew louder, filled with terror.
Lee Seunghyun walked toward me as though he couldn’t even hear them.
“Thanks.”
“Lab rat?”
He flicked his arm once, and the restraints binding me snapped apart. Then, noticing my forehead, he raised an eyebrow.
“Did they brand you with this?”
“They pumped me full of sedatives. I didn’t trust myself to control my strength.”
I let out a small groan as I pushed against the floor and lifted my upper body. My hands had turned bluish from being tied too long.
“They were recording the whole time, too. If I’d lost control and they edited that part out, the footage spreading online would’ve been a disaster.”
No matter how powerful the Elders were, they couldn’t erase every video that made it onto the internet.
I really didn’t want to cause trouble for Yehyeon.
As he watched me rise slowly, Lee Seunghyun gave a short, wordless snort. Even without words, his thoughts were clear — being kidnapped in the first place was pathetic.
Not that he was wrong.
The burn marks on my forehead and stomach still hurt.
I exhaled heavily and met his gaze.
“Didn’t expect you to be the one showing up. I was waiting for Colton.”
The kidnappers were still screaming, the twins writhing pale and panicked as they tried to stop the bleeding from their wrists, but my disciple didn’t spare them a glance.
Yekaterina’s hound.
A man who looked exactly like Yehyeon, yet lacked his frail, restless air. His voice came out low.
“You still haven’t figured it out, have you?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You really can’t guess what’s happening outside, can you?”
My hearing caught the distant sound of engines approaching.
Several cars coming to a stop. Doors opening. People stepping out.
Lee Seunghyun took a step back from me.
“It would be best if you realized it now.”
The door burst open.
Light stabbed into my eyes, too bright for vision used to darkness. Amid the kidnappers’ panicked screams, I sensed multiple presences entering.
People came inside calmly. Familiar faces. Erich looked delighted, while the blond one beside him looked irritated — and Shashinsky looked just as irritated as the blond.
As they crossed the threshold, Jaeyeon crashed through the wall — this time in a male body.
“What the hell?!”
The kidnappers screamed in panic, but no one paid them any attention.
“Who the hell are you! What are you people?!”
This wasn’t a council meeting. There was no reason for them all to show up here.
I’d only been waiting for Colton. This was almost... excessive hospitality.
The population density shot up in an instant. This cheap dump of a place had turned into a gathering of Elders.
Shashinsky and the blond knocked out the remaining kidnappers one by one.
“My, what a sight you are.”
Erich, stopping at a comfortable distance, looked at me and smirked.
“I should take a picture.”
“You’ve already seen the footage.”
“Of course. That’s exactly why I rushed over here.”
“Ah, fuck.”
Jaeyeon’s eyes swept over Lee Seunghyun, Erich, and the rest before he swore loudly.
“I came here all hyped up, but seeing Yehyeon’s old man and these cult freaks killed the mood.”
The foxlike man raked a hand through his hair, annoyed.
Lee Seunghyun didn’t react to his rolling eyes, and Erich only winked smoothly in return.
I watched as Jaeyeon flipped Erich off with both hands.
Then I asked,
“What took you so long?”
“Showing up at all, and that’s what I get?”
Jaeyeon turned his head from Erich to me.
He arched an eyebrow, glanced at my forehead, and burst out laughing.
“Ha! Seeing it up close is even worse!”
“Yeah. Thanks for the concern.”
“Shame. If it weren’t for the test, I’d have let them rough you up longer.”
His sharp eyes curved like claws.
“Would’ve made for a much better video.”
So they’d all seen it.
That meant Yehyeon and Ska had too. Both the first and second videos — all of them.
Realization hit, and a rush of embarrassment followed. Being seen like that by the people in this room didn’t bother me, but the thought of Yehyeon or Ska watching it was unbearable.
I shut my eyes for a moment to steady myself.
While my vision was blocked, I could hear Shashinsky and the blond efficiently cleaning up the kidnappers. They seemed to be keeping the twins alive, tending to their wounds for transport.
Well, the Elders would handle them now.
I drew in a slow breath.
“Hey, hurry up.”
Jaeyeon’s irritated voice made me open my eyes again.
“Aren’t you supposed to be taking the test?”
Yeah, I was.
I turned my head toward the tall figure standing by the collapsed wall — the one I’d briefly suspected and still hadn’t entirely cleared from suspicion.
I took a step toward him.
“Ugh.”
My body lurched forward.
Lee Seunghyun caught me, his arm firm as steel. If he hadn’t, I would’ve crashed straight to the ground.
Ah, damn...
Smelling the blood on my disciple, I gave a wry smile.
“Sorry.”
This really was embarrassing.
“Thanks.”
“Hildebert.”
Then came a voice — the one I’d expected to hear, yet the one I least wanted to hear right now.
Elegant. Commanding. A voice that could alter the air of a room just by speaking.
“Get in the car.”
Colton Wiseman.
Standing beyond the broken wall, flawless as ever.
His bright blue eyes burned cold as they locked onto me.
