Chapter 47 Part 17: Connivance.

The guard slowly assessed the situation.

He had already expected significant losses, but the number of dead and injured exceeded even his expectations.

The employers usually didn’t care how many guards died.

With the added verbal abuse of, ‘We paid you, so shouldn’t you take care of it?’

It was inevitable that people like him, who did the dirty work on the ground, had to suffer like this.

‘The company’s going to be on my case for a while.’

The guard sighed, thinking this.

Unlike regular guards, those who could handle such illegal tasks were even rarer.

Especially those who were professionally trained in firearms and could point their guns at heroes.

“Damn it.”

The guard grumbled, lifting his radio.

The incident had already happened, so he needed to finish his report.

He needed to report how many were dead and how many were barely alive to claim the insurance money.

After taking care of the aftermath, he thought it would be good to take a vacation for a while.

There were many places to visit near Busan, and going to the beach wouldn’t be a bad idea.

The guard, imagining various beaches in his head, suddenly looked down.

It was unlikely, yes.

A hole was blown through her heart, so it was unlikely, but it seemed like she had twitched her fingers.

“…No way.”

With the thought that something was wrong, the guard readjusted his grip on his gun, and just then.

Lee Yeji, who had been lying on the ground, slowly raised herself.

She saw the guard’s terrified expression.

His eyes, filled with fear at the impossible sight, scanned her body up and down.

Lee Yeji grinned, blood flowing from her mouth, instead of answering.

And as she slowly walked forward, she stood defenselessly in front of the gun barrel.

However, the guard couldn’t even think about pulling the trigger.

He had never heard of anyone surviving after being shot with a shotgun and having a hole blown through them.

He even wondered if it was biologically possible.

“It’s a simple story.”

Lee Yeji spoke.

“Snakes can still move their heads for a while even after they’re cut off.”

“That’s… a snake thing!”

“It’s just… that kind of principle. And I am a snake.”

Lee Yeji flicked her tongue out, making a ‘beh’ sound.

The guard looked at her with trembling eyes and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.

Scales appeared.

The shotgun pellets couldn’t penetrate her body and fell to the ground.

Lee Yeji lightly waved her hand, and the guard fell, bleeding from his head.

She silently looked at the fallen guards and then began to move inward.

She descended the empty stairs for an unknown amount of time.

In the factory’s basement, a narrow corridor stretched out as if it would go on forever.

Lee Yeji walked silently into it, assessing the atmosphere.

As expected, the inside was already a mess.

The emergency lights on the ceiling flashed incessantly, signaling the appearance of an intruder.

At the same time, she saw more guards appearing from beyond.

Lee Yeji slowly assessed the armament level of the guards.

Unlike the guards above, they weren’t carrying guns.

And not carrying guns meant they were ability users.

Hunters? Heroes? Maybe both.

Whatever they were, it wasn’t particularly important to her.

“Intruder! Intercept!”

The guard at the front narrowed the distance, holding a dagger in a reverse grip.

She briefly assessed how many guards there were and then created a scale on the back of her hand.

With a sizzling sound, the scale was torn off.

Lee Yeji used the resulting excellent throwing weapon for its intended purpose.

As she lightly swung her hand, the scale flew into the air and neatly cut the electrical wiring.

The facility’s lights, starting with the emergency lights on the ceiling, began to go out.

“Activate emergency power!”

A guard shouted, but Lee Yeji inwardly scoffed.

They seemed to think they could hold out until the emergency power was activated and the lights came back on.

She began to slowly manifest her abilities to show them that their thinking was nothing but arrogance.

This time, it wasn’t just about bringing out physical characteristics.

To a level impossible for a normal beastman.

She, no. A monster, began to crawl along the corridor, pulling out its characteristics to the point of completely transforming its body.

The upper body was that of a human, but the lower body was now that of a snake.

A guard, who hadn’t yet realized this fact, raised his voice.

It seemed like he was saying to form a formation to block the intruder.

Actually, the details weren’t important anymore.

Lee Yeji thought it was a bit inconvenient to be deaf in times like this, but she increased her speed.

“…!”

“…!!!”

The forms of the guards appeared beyond the darkness.

She slowly made her fingernails grow sharper.

And, moving forward with all her might, she swung her arms wildly.

At the point of completing her manifestation, she was a mass of muscle.

A snake’s lower body, over 3 meters long, surged forward furiously.

Not only that. There was no one here who could stop someone rushing in with the physical abilities unique to a beastman.

Soon, a one-sided slaughter began.

Within seconds, most of the guards were either cut or impaled somewhere, lying under Lee Yeji’s body.

It wasn’t that there was no one trying to resist, but Lee Yeji neatly solved that by making scales sprout all over her body.

Her scales could block shotgun blasts at close range.

Naturally, blades wielded in a last-ditch effort couldn’t possibly inflict any wounds.

After some time.

The emergency power was activated, and the lights came back on, but no one was able to move.

Lee Yeji slowly moved her lower body and came down from the mountain of living guards.

And she moved forward to find out what they had been so diligently protecting.

This damn group seemed to have tried hard, sealing it off with a steel door, but, well.

There were things that could and couldn’t be blocked by locking them with a steel door.

She belonged to the side that couldn’t be blocked, to be more precise.

The snake’s lower body began to disappear.

Lee Yeji, stepping on her human legs again, focused her muscles on both arms.

The muscles, larger than when she took the entrance exam, slowly began to tear the steel door apart.

Soon, Lee Yeji threw the steel door behind her and headed inside.

“…Tsk.”

It was as expected, but she couldn’t see anyone like a researcher.

They had probably fled the moment they heard that an intruder had appeared.

Maybe they had destroyed the data, so she couldn’t track them, but that wasn’t important.

She knew from long experience how situations like this usually turned out.

Researchers in situations like this were usually very quick to escape.

It was also a rule to remove only the top-secret data that should never be revealed and escape.

In the process, hostages and test subjects were usually abandoned.

It hadn’t even been a few minutes since she entered the factory and reached this point, so there wouldn’t have been time to deal with them.

And that was indeed the case.

Lee Yeji realized through the vibrations that people were evacuating in droves.

And if she moved in that direction now, she could take down this damn organization.

But her purpose wasn’t to take down the organization.

Lee Yeji moved quickly, as she had come all this way to rescue her friend.

After some time.

“…Thank goodness.”

Murmuring this, Lee Yeji stared at the experimental capsule in front of her.

Inside the capsule, Kim Aram was sound asleep, fixed in place, wearing a patient gown.

Looking at the device’s screen, it didn’t seem like she was injured or had any major problems.

Lee Yeji slowly reached out her fingers and manipulated the device.

It was a somewhat complicated method, but she had already learned how to do these things during her time as a test subject.

Even if the device had been changed to a new one after a few years, the fundamentals hadn’t changed.

Soon, the glass of the experimental capsule opened.

And Kim Aram’s fixed body slowly fell forward.

Lee Yeji immediately hugged Kim Aram’s body.

She felt a warm body temperature and a throbbing heartbeat through her chest.

She was relieved by this fact, but at the same time, she wore a hollow smile.

It was good that she had cut the knot she had made herself, but the question was what to do now.

“Yeji, are you really satisfied?”

The Trickster’s voice was heard from right behind.

Lee Yeji nodded instead of answering.

She was satisfied.

She had rescued her friend, so she had no choice but to be satisfied.

She was especially satisfied because she was enough to be in such a state.

“Well, if Yeji is satisfied, that’s fine.”

The Trickster said this and disappeared.

Thanks to him starting the cleanup, there wasn’t much for Lee Yeji to do.

Kim Aram was secretly returned to her family.

Lee Yeji slowly returned home.

She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but it was clear that something had happened.

And that was indeed the case.

Lee Yeji looked blankly at the calls coming from her teachers and then lowered her head.

It was time to pay the price for her choice.