118 – Bangdaengi 2 #2
“Mr. Bada, it seems that the ‘Witch’ has disappeared from the lab!”
“Disappeared? What do you mean, how? Did the thing locked inside the tank suddenly teleport away?”
In the president’s office of Seonam Group, Nam Bada was receiving a report.
As he casually wiped the bl**d off his 7-iron, the director of planning, Kim Mi-ro, urgently added to her explanation.
“There was an unexplained large-scale explosion that completely destroyed the lab. Survivors inhaled poisonous gas and lost consciousness. The CCTV records were also lost in the explosion…”
Whoosh!
Director Kim Mi-ro flinched as Nam Bada swung his golf club.
As she was breaking out in a cold sweat, Nam Bada swung his golf club again with a “Whoosh.”
“I love how spacious this president’s office is. I can swing my golf club without any hindrance. Mi-ro, do you know why I like golf clubs so much? Because when I hit people with it, they rarely d*e.”
Every item has a purpose.
A golf club is meant for playing golf and is not suitable as a weapon to hit people.
Nam Bada knew this very well from personal experience.
“No matter how many times you hit someone with this, they won’t d*e. Because this is a golf club. Objects have appropriate uses. Mine used to be picking up pennies on the subway. If you failed, you got hit with a golf club.”
Nam Bada grinned.
Shaking with fear, Kim Mi-ro straightened her skirt.
“What do you…?”
“Everyone has a role. Your role is to find out what happened there. Useless items that don’t perform their roles get discarded. That’s how the world works.”
Whoosh!
Nam Bada swung his golf club again with a smile.
It grazed Kim Mi-ro’s nose, causing her to sustain a major injury to her silicon-enhanced nose and start bleeding.
“Kyaa!”
Collapsing with a thud, Kim Mi-ro sat on the floor.
“Oh, did I hit you? Sorry.”
Despite apologizing in words, Nam Bada forcefully grabbed Kim Mi-ro’s hair to pull her up.
“KWAAK!”
Unrestrained in his violence even against a young and beautiful woman.
“What was your salary again? I know it was at least a couple of large figures. Do you think we pay you that much just so you can get plastic surgery and go on overseas trips?”
“Eh…uh…”
“Do you not know? You should have found out. If you say ‘I don’t know the cause,’ does that mean the matter is settled? You seem to think earning money is so easy. It makes me so sad.”
“Uh…someone…someone saw someone taking the ‘Witch.’ It might be a calculated act of terror. Last year, North Korea tried to kidnap an Awakened One, remember? It could be something like that!”
A kidnapping.
Nam Bada recalled the time when Seugal and Yu Yeo-reum were kidnapped.
That kidnapper turned out to be Nam San-ho, but Nam Bada didn’t think that incompetent man could have pulled off something so major.
‘The person most likely to be the kidnapper is Hanamjin.’
Nam Bada wondered what Hanamjin intended to do by kidnapping Seugal and Yu Yeo-reum.
He didn’t know how they were to be questioned or threatened into making Nam San-ho the fall guy.
However, since Hanamjin’s kidnapping ultimately helped the Nan Tae-geon regime and Nam Bada’s power, he decided to keep an eye on it for now.
‘What if Hanamjin is involved in this kidnapping too?’
Nam Bada thought that Hanamjin was a capable man who could do anything and his eyes were similar to his own.
Because they both wouldn’t hesitate with means or methods for their goals.
‘Yu Yeo-reum who was kidnapped returned alive, Hanamjin supposedly released her. This is evidence that Hanamjin is still alive. But he hasn’t shown himself because he knows I’m watching him.’
If Hanamjin went to the underground lab to avoid my sight by pretending to be missing, what could be the reason?
Nam Bada pondered for a while.
Two things came to mind.
To steal the ‘Witch,’ who is the core of this administration.
The ‘Witch’ is Nam Bada’s Achilles’ heel.
–Or to access the Great Labyrinth.
Entry to the Great Labyrinth is strictly prohibited and monitored under Nam Bada’s orders. The only way to avoid that is the ‘closed door’ in the underground lab.
Of course, this is all Nam Bada’s hypothesis.
Until proven, it remains in the realm of delusion.
“Tae-sung, are you there?”
“Yes, hyung.”
Geum Tae-sung, a high school student from Yeongsa High waiting outside the president’s office, entered. The young man frowned upon seeing the woman, Kim Mi-ro, bleeding from her nose.
Here we go again–
Such was the expression on his face.
“The ‘Witch’ has disappeared. If she’s gone, the treatment of your friend will be delayed, you know? Her name was Kim Mori, right? You’ll have to retrieve her then. I’ll leave the method to you.”
“Yes.”
—
“Sunshine so bright that it’s glaring…! This weather is summer…! Summer in Chinese characters is Ha (夏)…!”
Little Baek Yeo-ul.
Mini Bangdaengi.
Shortened to Mibang.
Mibang, who had come out of the lab, was hopping around here and there with the dazzling summer sun in her eyes.
She looked well-suited to her small stature.
If I had a younger sister in elementary school, she would look just like that, wouldn’t she?
“Isn’t she just like Baek Yeo-ul? When Baek Yeo-ul was in elementary school, she would act like this studying the Thousand Character Classic and Chinese with her mom. She used to say ‘Hyeok’ whenever she did anything and ‘Seagul is heavy due to weight’.”
“…When did I ever do that!”
Baek Yeo-ul blushed red upon seeing her doppelgänger.
Is she embarrassed?
“…I did do that, but it wasn’t to that extent.”
At the end of Baek Yeo-ul’s gaze, Mibang wearing a white lab coat that hung loose like rags was quite carefree as she hopped around.
“Watch me tumble, Ha Nam-jjin!”
Who would have imagined that this girl caused the underground lab to explode and fled?
“The problem is that we’ve become the kidnappers of this girl.”
Code name ‘Witch’ is a national-level secret and strategic asset.
The concept stone of ‘Life’ which contains the origin of birth, aging, sickness, and d*ath.
That was Mibang’s identity, and by taking her out of the underground arbitrarily, we had practically committed a national crime.
“Ha Nam-jjin, you, aren’t you…the president’s grandson? Is that true? If that’s true, then we might be forgiven for blowing up the lab, right?”
It seems Baek Yeo-ul remembered what I had said earlier.
About revealing myself as Nan Tae-geon’s grandson.
I simply replied.
“It’s not a lie, but it won’t really help. Nan Tae-geon is a ruthless man who would burn down a supermarket where his own sons were for the sake of maintaining power. He wouldn’t hesitate even if I was his real grandson.”
In short, claiming to be Nan Tae-geon’s grandson down in the underground lab earlier was just bravado and bluffing.
Lucky that it worked.
“Ha Nam-jjin, you’re the president’s grandson…! That means you’re a prince…! I like Ha Nam-jjin…! In Chinese characters, like is Ho (好)…!”
WOOSH!
Mibang embraced my waist and rubbed her face against me.
A girl with a very high affection towards me, indeed.
“So, Mibang, you’re saying that you were telepathically receiving everything that Baek Yeo-ul saw, heard, and ate while inside that tank?”
“Yup! Ha Nam-jjin helped me! I also want to help!”
Amazing.
The one I helped was not this girl but her larger counterpart, Bangdaengi.
Actually, to be precise, I didn’t help the larger Bangdaengi much.
I just did my part, and accidentally, it ended up helping Bangdaengi as well.
“Flower! Butterfly! Dragonfly!”
Mibang was like a newborn baby just arriving in the world.
A young girl born in elementary school. That’s a good way to describe her.
Even though she learned about the world through Bangdaengi’s perspective while imprisoned in the tank her entire life, it seemed like directly seeing and hearing everything herself was new, and she was interested and curious about everything in the world.
“You’re growling like a spider, Kangkang! Spider in Chinese characters is… .”
–KANGKANG…
“Urggh!”
Suddenly, Mibang grabbed her chest in pain.
Mibang, who had taken the medication stuffed in the pocket of her white gown and was now breathing heavily,
Since escaping from the tank, Mibang has been suffering from agonizing pain that comes unpredictably.
Perhaps because she is the imperfect form of ‘Life’.
Or maybe ‘Life’ and living are inherently painful.
“Ha Nam-jin, isn’t it time we take her back to a facility like before? She keeps suffering like this. How long can she endure on medication?”
Seugal was more concerned about Mibang than Baek Yeo-ul. Perhaps associating this little girl with her mother who suffered continuously.
Of course, Mibang disliked Seugal.
“I don’t like you! You tormented me and excluded me! I really liked you! I truly liked you, but you betrayed me!”
In reality, Seugal never tormented Mibang.
Seugal only tormented Baek Yeo-ul.
But because Mibang was linked to Baek Yeo-ul, it seemed like she disliked Seugal.
The previously angry Mibang, who resembled an annoyed lemur, quickly scampered and caught a dragonfly from the blooming field.
“Ha Nam-jjin, look! I caught a dragonfly!”
Earlier, the girl Mibang who had wielded terrifying violence against the guards seemed like a lie now as she innocently cavorted around.
I was deep in thought.
If we keep this girl with us, it was clear that we would come under the scrutiny of the high ranks.
Experiments on awakened ones have been carried out regardless of political parties.
The evidence is the heavy involvement of Yoo Dogwan from the opposition party and Nam Bada, the successor of the current president, Nan Tae-geon.
The desire for immortality is a fundamental wish of those in power regardless of the era or faction.
To make my position and power thicker and longer-lasting—
Or if that’s not possible, the wish to pass wealth and power to descendants who have inherited my genes—that’s the dream of political figures, isn’t it?
A treasure to be hidden completely from such greedy hands, possessing the concept of ‘Life’—the ‘Witch’ was exactly that kind of gem meant to be used only by themselves.
In other words, if we keep the Witch with us, it would mean increasing our enemies regardless of the ruling party or the opposition.
My thoughts deepened.
Knowing well how foolish it is to increase enemies on the verge of the encounter with the ‘Red King’.
Yet, it was also questionable whether it’s right to put a girl who had just barely escaped from a lifetime imprisonment in a tank back into it.
A child who enjoyed memories shared from Baek Yeo-ul throughout her lifetime and has only just now started to step on the ground with her own feet.
Her situation was quite similar to my own when I encountered Seugal in the tin-roofed house and returned miraculously to the past.
Back then, I was in that state too.
“Mi-bang, you make the choice. If you want to go back to the adults, you can go back. If you want to stay with us, you can stay.”
“I’ll show you the entrance to the Great Labyrinth…! Let’s hurry, Ha Nam-jjin…!”
Despite her pain, Mi-bang chose to stay with us.
Displeased, but not further complaining, Seugal stuck out her lips.
And so, we followed Mi-bang away from Eden Farm on the ground into the forest.
A place where Witch’s Herb and bl**d Rose bloom profusely.
A stone gateway emerging amidst the sharp brambles.
An entrance to the Great Labyrinth, appearing like a weathered and abandoned ruin.
Soon, Mi-bang spoke.
“A deserted entrance…! However, I’ve heard I need to be cautious… Because this gateway leads to the realm of the ‘terrifying Demon Beast’ that even the fairies feared when their lands fell into ruin…!”
So entering through this gateway leads to a bad place, huh.
Now I understand why it’s abandoned.
Thanks to it, we could approach without much trouble.
“The ‘Red King’ and I are to meet tonight.”
“About that story. Is it really okay?”
Seugal stepped in.
What else does she want to say?
“I’ve heard that the ‘Red King’ is the remnants of the fairy king who fell into disarray. That’s what those Nymphs said. So that means…”
She was moving her lips but couldn’t find the words to say, though she had something she wanted to say.
That’s unlike her.
