AAGULT Ch 106

Chapter 106

“It’s a bit strange, not feeling any pain.”

Taegun muttered as he tapped his wrist. Even though there was a wound that should have been throbbing, he felt nothing at all.

“…It’ll take some time to adjust.”

“Yeah? Guess so.”

Taegun scratched his head briefly, then leaned back comfortably into the chair. He reached out and took Ido’s hand—seeking a guiding session. Though he extended his hand out of obligation, his body no longer registered pain, making the necessity of guiding feel somewhat ambiguous.

Half a day had passed since they received the mission order titled <Galgamaegi Unit 58N – Black Ops Directive>. It was the kind of order that reeked heavily of dirty political agendas, instructing them to “eliminate” an Esper and Guide affiliated with the Association.

Immediately after the order was issued, the higher-ups selected several unit members and placed them in front of Baek Beomwoo. That was it. From that point, those members—including Taegun—completely lost the sensation of pain.

And yet, no one questioned it. Taegun didn’t either. He felt a vague sense of rejection for a moment, but it faded quickly.

“…Can you actually feel the guiding?”

Kwon Ido asked slowly, sensing something odd during the session.

“Huh? Oh, I didn’t notice. Even the pain from the resonance is gone now. Oh, that part’s nice.”

“……”

Usually, Taegun would ask for a longer guiding session or toss in a provocative comment, just to be annoying. But now, with no reaction at all, Ido felt a gnawing sense of discomfort. Just like most of the other members who had lost their senses recently, Taegun acted as though absolutely nothing had happened. Even though they had been stripped of the crucial sensation of pain, there was no resistance. It was unexplainably strange.

The fact that Ido—who typically kept silent like a recluse even during guiding—had spoken first was proof enough of how abnormal the current atmosphere in the unit was. It was a definite sign that something was wrong.

But the words that rose to his lips felt blurred and lifeless. Ido lost the will to speak. After all, even if he said something, there was a crushing certainty in his chest that nothing would change. So Ido refocused on the guiding.

Soon after, the session ended. Taegun let go without hesitation, and that in itself felt unusually troubling to Ido.

“…Take care.”

But that was all that came out of Ido’s mouth. The thoughts that something felt off, that it was uncomfortable, and all the inexplicable unease—none of it was resolved.

“Yeah. I’ll be back.”

Taegun waved his hand lightly without turning around. Ido stared silently at his retreating back, unable to reach out and stop him.

Eliminating the Esper–Guide couple was, to be frank, so easy it bordered on boring. They broke into the couple’s home. Whatever they had been expecting, the couple had been packing what appeared to be their escape belongings when they encountered Beomwoo and Taegun. Taegun had thought there might be a bit of a fight, but Beomwoo immediately used his ability, and the couple, stripped of the will to resist, simply sat on the living room sofa.

“The woman’s the Esper and the man’s the Guide, right?”

Taegun faced them as they trembled, beginning to grasp a pistol with shaking hands under Beomwoo’s control.

Kim Daeun. A-rank Esper affiliated with the Association. Her ability was a telepathic type—not one that could deeply interfere with others’ minds but more akin to a transmitter that disseminated information. It wasn’t the kind of power that allowed for mental domination or coordination in one-on-one situations, so against a precision brainwashing-type Esper like Baek Beomwoo, it was useless. From the moment she faced him, Kim Daeun had begun to waver.

Song Juhyuk. A-rank Guide with the Association. Well, all Guides are pretty much the same—Taegun consciously looked down on Guides.

In the end, Taegun had nothing to do, even though he had been deployed for the mission. At first, he considered killing the Guide himself, but the mission’s intent was to stage the scene as a “double suicide,” so his role was merely to monitor for any unpredictable variables. The central figure of this operation was Baek Beomwoo. Assigning such a task to a thirteen-year-old boy might seem cruel, but what could you do? That was the order from the top.

“You…”

“……”

Kim Daeun opened her mouth briefly and looked at Baek Beomwoo. Her voice, facing imminent death, held neither anger nor fear—only a bit of resignation, concern, and resolve. Perhaps she had already sensed this would happen. That the government or the Association would eventually try to eliminate them. Even Song Juhyuk sitting beside her didn’t look particularly surprised.

“You two know each other?”

What felt slightly odd to Taegun in this situation was Baek Beomwoo. It was unusual for him not to carry out the mission immediately and to allow the woman a chance to speak. With his usual careless demeanor, Taegun shoved his hands into his pockets and asked again.

“……”

Baek Beomwoo rolled his eyes toward Taegun. But he didn’t respond. He simply turned his gaze back to Esper Kim Daeun. Taegun vaguely thought once again that Beomwoo had no manners, as always, but said nothing. He merely speculated.

“Maybe you met before joining the unit?”

“……”

“……”

“Hey, am I being left out here?”

Neither Beomwoo nor the couple answered. Beomwoo remained expressionless and calm, and the couple wore rigid faces. Had they crossed paths before joining the unit, perhaps at the Association?

Taegun twisted one corner of his mouth and slung an arm over Beomwoo’s shoulder. It was a gesture meant to seem casual, but the atmosphere was anything but light.

In the thick silence that filled the living room, the couple sat hand in hand. They were under Beomwoo’s brainwashing, which suppressed their physical actions, but their consciousness remained intact. Their lips trembled slightly, revealing their struggle.

Taegun idly stared at their clasped hands and then recalled the mention of their child in the mission order. He felt a sudden urge to shatter the resolve etched into their faces. It had been a while since he’d felt something like a “compulsion.” It felt awkward, but the emotion sank before it could deepen.

“Where’s the kid? Hey, ask.”

The living room was tidy. The order had clearly stated, “Eliminate if child is uncontrollable,” but the child was nowhere in sight—as if hidden away. Curiosity was natural. Where had they hidden the child?

“……”

At Taegun’s directive, Baek Beomwoo silently stared at Esper Kim Daeun. It seemed he used his ability. At that moment, Kim Daeun’s body trembled slightly, and her eyes began to glaze over.

“Ugh…”

“Honey…!”

As if suddenly stricken by pain, she groaned. Song Juhyuk turned toward her in horror and tried to calm her with words, but it seemed ineffective. She clenched her jaw and tightly sealed her lips, as if resisting.

Only then did Baek Beomwoo quietly turn his head. His gaze swept toward one of the rooms. In a flat tone, he reported as if merely making a statement.

“She hid the child. Inside the wardrobe.”

“No…!”

“What? How’d you know?”

“……”

Taegun whistled in admiration and asked, but Beomwoo didn’t answer. As always, he offered no explanations.

Still, Taegun had figured it out. Beomwoo had drawn out the information Kim Daeun had instinctively tried to hide by using his ability. Her power was like a transmitter. Though she resisted, there was a limit. Blood trickled from her nostrils as her eyes grew bloodshot, possibly from overexertion. Perhaps sensing something through his guiding connection, Song Juhyuk’s face turned pale.

“Damn it, honey! Please, stop!”

Groaning in pain, Song Juhyuk, supporting his wife, turned and looked toward them. He raised the pistol Beomwoo had made him hold as part of the suicide setup and pointed it at Taegun. There was no way he’d overcome the brainwashing with willpower—Beomwoo must have loosened his hold. Didn’t like me putting my arm around him, huh? Taegun scoffed, guessing based on what he’d come to know of Beomwoo’s personality over the past two years.

The way his hand trembled showed a lack of resolve, and the muzzle wavered too much to aim properly. Taegun found the whole thing a little laughable. Both Baek Beomwoo—who had just entered middle school—and himself, who still looked like a teenager in his late teens, clearly caused enough emotional conflict to make aiming a gun at them painful.

Taegun smirked. With one hand in his pocket and his head tilted, he opened his mouth.

“So why try to expose what the Association tried to bury?”

It was his honest opinion.

“Young… children, why… why would you…”

“You should’ve just shut your eyes and let it go. Everyone else does.”

Was there really any need to drag everything out, go against Hanra and the entire Association, and reveal the truth? That kid survived and would walk a promising path as an S-rank Guide. Wasn’t that enough? They could’ve just buried it instead of digging their own graves.

“…I’m a father too.”

After a long silence, Song Juhyuk finally spoke softly. He looked pained. Even in that moment, he kept glancing sideways to check on his wife, and that irked Taegun. His insides twisted. It reminded him of the feeling he had when facing Kwon Ido, who had lost his pregnant wife and become a wreck.

“Ahaha. Is that it?”

So, you didn’t like that a seven-year-old was endangered by adult politics? You think you’re some noble saint?

“Sigh… whatever.”

Taegun let out a half-hearted laugh and then wiped the smile from his face. He just wanted to finish the job and leave. Why am I even wasting emotions on this? He ignored the tangled feeling that had begun to stir inside him.

“Baek Beomwoo, you want to do it? Or should I?”

“…I’ll do it.”

“Okay. Then I’ll go check on the kid.”

Using Beomwoo’s power would’ve made things cleaner, but Taegun could’ve done it too—he could have used telekinesis to force their hands to pull the trigger against their temples. Taegun waved his hand casually in the air, using invisible force to shut the couple’s mouths. He didn’t want to hear another word from them.

“Mmff… mm-mm!”

He ignored their agonized groans and started walking toward the room where the child was supposedly hiding.

Around then, Beomwoo must have activated his power. A gunshot rang out. The groaning ceased, followed by the splatter of blood.

Regardless, Taegun turned away and let out a loud yawn as he grabbed the doorknob of the room where the child was hidden.

…And that was the end.

Like a TV glitching into an error screen due to signal loss, his vision scattered into fragments.

The memory he had read ended there.

What Taegun did after opening that wardrobe where I was hiding, what words were exchanged, what happened, and how I ended up in an orphanage—I didn’t know any of it.

But I knew one thing for certain.

I could no longer view the boss standing before me as my savior or benefactor.

Jaeha tightened his grip on the gun.

Tears streamed down his face.