Chapter 954: Ghost (2)
"Your nails," I said.
Even with Everyday's help, the thing that truly convinced me of Ghost's identity was her nails.
The blonde foreign woman looked puzzled and asked back, "My nails? How did seeing that alone make you realize I was Ghost?"
"Those short nails that don't match your flashy outfit. You trimmed them neatly so you could type on a keyboard, didn't you?"
Unlike most women who grew out their nails, Ghost's nails had been cut unusually short. That was exactly what convinced me she was Ghost.
"I know a younger guy who's a programmer, and he manages his nails like a professional baseball player. Says nails get in the way if you want to type quickly. But if a woman dressed up as extravagantly as you doesn't have long nails, then what kind of work she does becomes pretty obvious. And if you're coming out right after Friday's market closes, then it's even more convincing. If you put this much effort into dressing up, you should've at least worn fake nails."
"Damn it! You figured it out from just that?"
Leaving her fuming behind, I checked the Everyday notification that had vibrated earlier.
[Everyday V13]
[Fortune of the Day: The most dangerous moment is when you think everything is over.]
[(Deleted Fortune: It's darkest beneath the lamp.)]
'The most dangerous moment? Is that right now?'
At that moment, while she was venting in frustration to herself, I noticed she had already pulled a black object halfway out of her handbag. The black object was nothing other than a stun gun.
'You dare to distract me with conversation and pull out a stun gun? You're dead.'
At that moment, Ghost noticed my gaze and quickly thrust the stun gun forward.
Crackle.
But in the blink of an eye, I slipped outside her range. Then I casually knocked aside the hand she was reaching toward me with.
That was when the stun gun in her right hand jammed straight into her own left forearm.
Crackle.
"Gggghhhhkk!"
Ghost's eyes rolled back as she accidentally electrocuted herself.
Clatter.
The stun gun fell from her right hand onto the floor. At the same time, her body toppled backward.
I quickly reached out and grabbed her around the waist to keep her from collapsing. Ghost flopped around like a cutlassfish thrown onto dry land before finally losing consciousness and going limp.
Supporting her body, I shouted toward Lee Soo-Chan in the distance. "Soo-Chan! Bring the other bastards to room 701 as soon as you catch them! This woman's Ghost, and those guys are her accomplices!"
Lee Soo-Chan, who had been opening the emergency door, answered with a dumbfounded expression. "Y-Yes! Understood!"
After picking up the stun gun and handbag from the floor, I took Ghost with me and headed to room 701, which I had reserved earlier.
***
The moment I entered room 701, I used the bathrobe and its belt from the room to tie her up before tossing her onto the bed. That was punishment for daring to point a stun gun at me.
Perhaps the impact of being thrown onto the bed woke her up, because Ghost looked around frantically and screamed.
"Untie me! I have to leave right now!"
I scoffed. "From now on, you're not taking a single step without my permission."
"What did I even do to deserve this? If you don't untie me, I'll sue you!"
"I came here already knowing all about your stock manipulation, so cut the act. I also know you stirred up Hoop Entertainment's shares today under HK's orders."
Ghost hurriedly put on an expression claiming she knew nothing. The speed at which her face shifted into an acting performance was honestly impressive.
"Fine. So I am Ghost, but I've never done anything like that."
"Your acting's pretty good. Don't worry, though. There are ways to find evidence."
Just then, the door opened and Kang Eun-Gi appeared. "Yoon-Ho. We caught both guys who tried to run."
"Where'd you hold them?"
"Room 1007. The room we reserved."
I pulled the key card out of Ghost's handbag and handed it to Kang Eun-Gi. "Got it. And search the room those guys came out of, along with room 713 where this woman was staying. Bring me any laptops or documents you find. Here's her room key."
"Alright." Kang Eun-Gi accepted the key card, but before leaving, he clicked his tongue at the sight of Ghost tied up on the bed. "No wonder nobody recognized her looking like that."
Ghost thrashed around on the bed and shouted, "Stop treating people like objects!"
Kang Eun-Gi cleanly ignored her and walked out to collect evidence.
Thunk.
As soon as the door closed, Ghost shouted at me. "You think you can handle the consequences of this? Do you even know who's behind me?"
"HK."
"H-how did you..."
"Obviously I knew, otherwise I wouldn't have caught you. And seriously, how old are you anyway? The more I listen to you, the more casually you speak. Don't you know how to use honorifics?"
"What does my age have to do with anything?!"
I raised my right fist and said, "Want to get punched, Ms. Ghost?"
Flinch.
Then, with my left hand, I lifted the stun gun she had dropped and shouted, "Or should I shock you instead, Ms. Ghost?"
Flinch. Flinch.
Ghost trembled and answered, "N-no, sir..."
"Good. If you cooperate properly, I'll try finding a peaceful way to resolve this too, so think carefully. I already know HK was the one giving you orders, so let's not make this more exhausting than it needs to be."
At that moment, Ghost pleaded desperately. "Can't we just negotiate instead... please? I swear I won't touch Hoop Entertainment's stock anymore, so please let me go...sir."
She hated using honorifics so much that the polite ending always came half a beat late, which only made me want to push her further.
"And why exactly should I trust you? You're some girl whose name I don't even know."
"But now you've seen my face, so finding me again would be easy... right? Nobody could find Ghost because they didn't know who I was, but if you're looking for a pretty woman like me in Korea, you'd find me immediately."
'Is she calling herself pretty with her own mouth? Is she insane? Or is it a side effect of the stun gun?'
With a sympathetic look, I held up the hotel's table mirror toward her face. "You realize your face is covered in snot and drool right now, and you look incredibly ugly?"
Ghost looked into the mirror and screamed. "What the hell? Why does my face look like this?!"
Looking like a silver cutlassfish, she was flopping around on the bed again.
'Wow, she's energetic.'
After thrashing around for quite a while, she finally calmed down enough to shout, "Ah, just let me go already! I have my reasons too! If I don't get to the rendezvous point by five o'clock, something terrible's going to happen!"
"What are you talking about? Explain properly."
"If I don't report in at the Songdo rendezvous point today after finishing the job, my younger brother's going to get hurt!"
"Your brother?"
"Yes. My younger brother is being held hostage."
"Then call them. Tell them everything's fine."
"Because of wiretapping, I can't contact them by phone. I have to report in person no matter what. So please let me go. Once I finish reporting in, I'll cooperate with whatever you want. Okay?"
Well, if it was HK Inc., there was no way they would leave a woman who knew all their dirty secrets wandering around without restrictions.
"Then what were those guys upstairs? Your subordinates?" I pressed further.
"They're watchdogs sent by HK Inc.."
"I heard those guys were carrying laptops."
"They don't know the first thing about computers. I work remotely while they just carry the equipment around for me."
"What? Then you people aren't a team?"
"I work alone. Those bastards just act as my watchers and HK's errand boys."
So she wasn't part of a team after all, but working alone. That was news to me too. Still, that was one thing and this was another. As long as I didn't know this woman's true identity, I couldn't recklessly let her go.
However, the part about her innocent younger sibling being in danger bothered me.
I asked, "Where's your younger brother?"
Ghost shook her head. "I can't tell you."
"You'll have to. That's the only way I can help you."
"Help me? Why would you do that?"
"Well, for starters, because I stopped things quickly enough that I didn't actually suffer any damage. And either way, thanks to you, Hoop Entertainment's stock hit the upper limit today too."
"That's..."
"But the real reason is because if I save your brother and pull you away from HK, I can screw HK over spectacularly."
If I could steal away Ghost that HK Inc. had strategically kept under their control, HK would suffer enormous losses from that fact alone. So I answered honestly that I wanted to screw HK over.
At that, she jerked upright again despite being tied up in the bathrobe. "You're talking about HK! If my brother gets hurt because of this, can you take responsibility?! Let me go! Untie me!"
I pressed the button on the stun gun in my left hand.
Crackle.
"Honorifics?"
"...Please, sir! I was trying to use them... please! There! Happy now?"
Even while frightened, she kept snapping back aggressively like a prickly procupine.
"You don't have a choice anyway. So talk. Your brother. Where is he? You said he needed saving."
Ghost glared and shouted, "Are you really going to save him?"
"Otherwise why would I go through all this trouble?"
Ghost clenched her teeth before finally answering as though she had no other option. "Hankyung International Middle School in Incheon. He goes there."
Hankyung International Middle School was an international middle school run by the Hankyung Foundation, which belonged to HK Inc.. And it was also a place with extremely tight security, surrounded by walls nearly three meters high.
"So if you don't arrive at the Songdo rendezvous point by five o'clock, your brother gets hurt. That's it?"
"Yes. Even the teachers at the school are all people connected to the HK Foundation, and there are gangsters working for HK outside too. So dragging my brother somewhere would be easy for them."
'Watchers both inside and outside the school? That won't make rescuing her brother easy...'
At that moment, a method to save Ghost's brother suddenly flashed through my mind—one of the scenarios from Negotiator, the project Ju Yung-In had starred in before the regression.
"Alright. I'll get your brother out safely, so once this is over, cooperate with me. Can you do that?"
Ghost looked at me like I was insane. "Weren't you listening? I said Hankyung International School."
"I have a way to get him out."
After hesitating for a long moment, Ghost finally nodded. "Alright. If you save my brother, I'll do whatever you ask."
"Good."
No one should ever be treated like a slave. So no matter how talented she was, I had no intention of using her the way HK Inc. did. Besides, what she was doing was seriously illegal anyway. I only intended to ask her for one thing.
At that moment, Kang Eun-Gi returned from room 713 carrying a single laptop. "There was only this."
It was the laptop Ghost had been using.
I nodded. "Leave that for now. Let's go save a kid."
"What are you planning?"
"I'll explain on the way."
Kang Eun-Gi nodded. "Then I'll call the guys over to clean things up here."
"Yeah. Send the laptop to BM Report so Doo-Oh can analyze it."
"Okay."
Kang Eun-Gi immediately started making calls. I also began preparing quickly.
We needed to extract her brother from Hankyung International School in Songdo, which was about forty minutes from here.
***
On the way toward Hankyung International School, I talked with Victoria.
Despite her appearance, Victoria was twenty-seven years old. The reason she spoke Korean so fluently was because she had spent her childhood in Korea under parents who were stationed there as U.S. military personnel.
But once she reached middle school age, she returned to America, and after her parents divorced and her single mother passed away, she ended up responsible for her younger brother alone.
Then, around the time her brother developed heart problems requiring surgery, the HK Inc.'s American branch had approached her with a recruitment offer as a stock management specialist. They told her that medical costs were cheaper in Korea and that they had use for her genius-level mathematical and programming abilities.
So she had come to Korea four years ago, gotten her brother's surgery done, and continued working for HK Inc. ever since.
Originally, she specialized in stock price defense, but starting a year ago, her main work had become consuming the shares of companies targeted by HK Inc.
"Alright then. So who in HK Inc. ordered the attack on Hoop Entertainment this time?" I asked.
Victoria answered, "I don't know things like that. Orders just come through the secretary's office, and I do the work."
Apparently instructions were relayed through the secretary's office so nobody would discover the royal family was backing everything.
"Got it. Let's save your brother first, then we'll talk."
"Okay."
Just then, Hankyung International Middle School finally came into view ahead of us. Several enormous state-of-the-art buildings stood clustered together, surrounded by three-meter-high walls. And parked in front of them was the private ambulance we had arranged in advance.
As soon as we stopped beside the ambulance, Victoria spoke with a worried expression. "They make every outsider sign the visitor log here. If an ambulance enters, we'll definitely get caught."
"Just trust me and follow along."
I told Kang Eun-Gi to stay behind and headed toward the private ambulance together with Victoria.
Slide.
The moment we opened the rear door and climbed inside, one of the employees in the driver's seat spoke to us. "Everyone, put on the protective suits first. Once you've got the goggles and everything on, nobody will recognize you."
"Understood."
After giving a quick bow, I put on the pure white protective suit that even covered my hair, then added a mask and goggles. Once Victoria finished putting hers on as well, there was no way to tell who was who from appearance alone.
Still, Victoria spoke nervously. "The guards are probably going to make us take these off. Security here is insanely strict."
"Wanna bet?"
"...No. Forget it. I feel like I'd lose."
That was when we heard a loud noise.
WEE-OOO WEE-OOO~
Two fire department vehicles and an emergency ambulance sped past our private ambulance toward the front gate.
At that moment, the private ambulance we were riding in quickly slipped in behind the emergency vehicles. As soon as we reached the security gate, the barrier lifted without anyone even questioning us, and our group was waved straight through.
Vroooom.
The moment we passed the guard station, Victoria threw both hands into the air. "Freedom!!"
After shouting loudly in celebration, Victoria looked at me. "This actually... worked?"
"Of course it did."
Very few people could properly distinguish a private ambulance from a real 119 emergency ambulance. Which also meant very few people would stop an ambulance moving urgently.
"This is insane. Seriously. How did you even think of this?"
I couldn't exactly tell her it was from a movie scenario before the regression.
"Ah, Mr. Jung. What excuse did you use to call 119?"
"We probably reported that a student was attempting suicide because of school bullying."
If we reported something like a gas leak or fire at the school, every ambulance in Incheon could be mobilized. That would have caused problems for ordinary citizens who genuinely needed emergency services, so Kang Eun-Gi had probably reported something that would only require minimal personnel.
I did feel sorry for using 119 for personal reasons, but there would have been no other way to save Victoria's brother.
Screeeech.
The ambulance stopped directly in front of the first-floor classroom entrance.
As I was about to open the door and step out, Victoria, completely hidden beneath the protective suit, grabbed my arm and asked, "What do we do now?"
"You stay quiet and stick beside me. When your brother Daniel comes out, show him your face for just a second. I'll give you the signal."
"Okay."
After giving Victoria her instructions, I opened the ambulance door and stepped out.
The 119 emergency responders who had gotten out first looked at us in confusion. "And you are...?"
"Oh, we're contracted with the school. We received a report that someone was injured."
Once their suspicion faded, one of the responders urgently asked, "Really? Did you hear any details?"
"We heard a second-year student went up to the rooftop."
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
The 119 responders sprinted up the stairs through the first-floor entrance. At that moment, I pretended to follow them upstairs before deliberately falling over.
Thud.
"I'll follow after you, so go on ahead first."
"Alright, we'll be going then."
The responders nodded professionally and continued rushing upstairs.
'Good. It's working.'
Now that the emergency responders were gone, it was our turn to carry out the operation. Daniel's classroom, Class 1-3, wasn't far away. However, extracting only Daniel would create problems. After all, the people monitoring the school could contact the security office at the entrance and block him from leaving.
"So what now?" asked Victoria.
I grinned and clenched my fist. "We do this!"
I immediately slammed my fist against the emergency alarm. The deafening metallic alarm echoed throughout the hallway. Immediately, classroom doors burst open and students came pouring out while covering their noses with their arms and hunching their bodies low.
In that instant, acting as though I were part of the 119 responders, I pointed down the hallway and shouted, "Alright, no running. Cover your noses, keep your heads down, and move in a line. Everything's okay. Just head outside and wait there."
The first-year middle school students on the first floor lowered their heads and streamed out in a line.
Then the trembling Victoria whispered beside me, "There... that's my brother."
A handsome first-year middle school boy with blond hair resembling Victoria kept his head lowered as he walked outside.
I nodded and said, "Let's head back out too for now. We'll take him once we're outside."
"Okay."
We immediately moved alongside Daniel and exited the building again through the entrance we'd come in through.
The moment the students poured outside in chaos, I grabbed Daniel's arm. "Daniel. Your sister's looking for you, so let's get in over there right away."
"My sister?"
At that moment, Victoria lowered her mask slightly and showed her face. "Daniel. I'm here. Stay quiet and follow me."
"N-noona?"
"Shh."
Daniel shut his mouth and cautiously followed us into the private ambulance.
Click.
The instant the door closed, I urgently shouted, "Go!"
Vroooom.
The private ambulance driver sped toward the main gate. Thankfully, the security office must have assumed we were transporting an emergency patient, because they immediately raised the barrier.
Vroooom.
We successfully escaped the school. At that moment, I saw Kang Eun-Gi's vehicle following behind us. Only then did Victoria finally relax.
She ripped off the mask she'd been wearing and shouted, "Daniel! Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
Daniel blinked in confusion. "Noona. What's going on?"
"I'll explain everything later." Victoria let out several shaky breaths before looking at me. "Mr. Jung. I'll keep my promise now too. What do you want me to do?"
I removed the suffocating protective suit myself and answered her. "First, let's make the two of you disappear quietly."
"You mean become Ghost again?"
"No. I'll make sure HK can't find either of you. That's the priority."
Victoria nodded as though it finally made sense. "Not in Korea, right? There's nowhere in Korea you can hide from HK's eyes."
I smiled and shook my head. "No. There is one place. And we're heading there right now."
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