I Became a Scoundrel of a Chaebol Family-Chapter 460
Unaware that her personal information had already fallen into the hands of Koryo Group’s scoundrel young master, Rachel landed at Gimpo Airport and met the agent dispatched from Deep Abyss.
“Miss Rachel, my name is Han Chaehui. Please come with us.”
“Oh.”
Lowering her black sunglasses, Rachel examined Han Chaehui from head to toe.
For someone supposedly belonging to Deep Abyss, the woman was absurdly beautiful—so much so that Rachel found herself staring without meaning to. Wouldn’t someone like this draw far too much attention? Hardly ideal for moving in secrecy.
“Really?”
Not that Rachel was any less attractive herself. But since she lived buried in work, she rarely had the chance to notice.
Han Chaehui presented the identification she had been briefed to show.
Han Chaehui, Director of External Security at the NIS.
Not the person Rachel had been expecting.
“Hm... I thought at the very least a researcher would come.”
“The lab director had urgent business. For now, please accompany us.”
Sliding the ID back into her jacket, she guided Rachel along.
Rachel glanced at her attendant. When the woman silently nodded, Rachel finally followed Han Chaehui’s lead.
“Please, get me something to eat. The in-flight meal was disgusting. Total trash!”
“...Very well.”
“Originally, Research Director Han Chaeyoung was supposed to receive you. But due to an emergency, I was assigned instead.”
“Ah, I know her. She was such a rude bitch.”
“...She’s my younger sister.”
“Oh... Sisters both in the same place? Now that I look, you do resemble each other.”
Awkward, Han Chaehui cleared her throat unnecessarily.
“Kh-hm. Then we’ll be going to where she is now? Rude as she was, she was quite skilled.”
“As I said, she had urgent matters. For now, you’ll be working with the acting director. If you need anything, you may call on me.”
“Hm... For me to come all this way for joint research, and yet there’s something more urgent? What could possibly outrank this? CSA hasn’t been informed of any such matter.”
Han Chaehui hesitated for a moment, but ultimately chose to tell her the truth.
An agent had defected, ripping out an entire intelligence pipeline. Several bases may have been compromised in the process. One of those bases contained S-Type facilities, and Han Chaeyoung herself had been dispatched to dismantle them safely.
She didn’t tell everything, but she explained enough to justify it.
“Wait—so you’re saying things have already been exposed? Are you serious?”
“...Where we’re heading now has never been exposed. You can be at ease.”
“No, what the—”
Rachel was stunned. But there was no way to turn the car around now. They had already driven deep into the mountains.
“This is the largest base on the Korean Peninsula. It has no link to the compromised sites. There is nowhere safer for you than here. At least, nowhere on the peninsula. Even if something were to happen, Miss Rachel, I swear on my life I will protect you.”
“Mm... Fine. But CSA will lodge a formal complaint about this.”
“Yes, please do.”
They drove in silence for a while.
Rachel, irritated, ate nothing but kimbap in silence, while Han Chaehui focused on the road, glancing at her from time to time.
“...I was thinking,” Rachel spoke suddenly.
“Your sister. If she goes into an exposed base to dismantle facilities, won’t she be in grave danger? If those bugs—or worse—attack...?”
“...Yes. It’s dangerous.”
“....”
“....”
“Having both sisters in Deep Abyss must be... difficult for you.”
“I’m used to it. By now.”
Their conversation ended as quickly as it had begun.
Hours later, they finally passed a checkpoint at the base of a massive mountain—only for the scenery to shift unexpectedly.
They had been climbing a winding mountain road when, suddenly, the convoy entered a dark tunnel.
And when they emerged—
“...A mountain base?”
Before them sprawled a vast military installation on flat ground hidden within the mountains.
Soldiers training everywhere, weapons under test, and convoys of military trucks hauling supplies.
“Yes. Korea has many mountains.”
The view seemed endless. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Though they were supposedly inside a mountain, there was open sky and drifting clouds overhead.
“Wow.”
Knowing the target’s identity, there was no difficulty in marking her.
True, relations between Incheon and the mainland were at their worst—just days ago, the National Assembly had even discussed deploying the military to forcibly arrest Mayor Jung Mina—but even that wasn’t enough to stop my movements.
“Korea’s landmass is seriously fucking huge.”
Trailing Rachel after her arrival, I learned something new: the Korean Peninsula was a hell of a lot bigger than I thought....
Seventy percent of it was mountains. Endless ridges stretched on and on, making the usable surface far larger than its map territory suggested.
Well, in an age when Incheon alone housed thirty million people, technology was more than advanced enough to exploit rugged terrain like this.
The point was: Deep Abyss had built more bases than expected—and monumental ones at that. There was more unused land than I thought, even in cramped Korea.
And if you factored in continental territory? Who knew how far their network spread.
Of course, the same was true for our Group. Biotech alone... well.
“Rachel D. Mond’s vehicle disappeared after entering a mountain checkpoint.”
Eunmi pulled up the footage.
The military vehicle carrying Rachel, along with her escort convoy, had passed a checkpoint at the mountain’s base.
They were tracked as they climbed the slopes—until they suddenly vanished.
No doubt cloaked from conventional optics.
According to Park Hyejeong, Deep Abyss branches concealed themselves under massive domes.
“Looks like they built a base inside the mountain.”
“Yes. Given the size of the range, we couldn’t estimate its scale, but satellite multilayer scans suggest a force of about 13,000 to 14,000 troops.”
“Thirteen, fourteen thousand? Where the fuck are they pulling all those bodies from?”
One Deep Abyss base, 13,000 troops?
Even with Korea’s population over 400 million now, it made no sense.
“Did they kidnap people from the continent and conscript them?”
“They’re definitely the kind of organization that would.”
“....”
“Or... they might be cultivating humans.”
“Tch. These bastards really have gone all the way.”
How much longer were they going to excuse everything with the word ‘chaebol’?
“If they have over 10,000 troops, that means a huge number of Grand Demons too, right?”
“At least a hundred, maybe more. On the peninsula, this would be the largest-scale base, so their combat power will be formidable.”
“...Bigger fish than expected.”
“But, Master, if the base is that large, sending only twenty-five Knights to both fight and secure Rachel seems unrealistic. Even Knights can only do so much.”
“Mm...”
It wasn’t a question of combat strength.
Just a matter of hands.
No matter how strong a Knight, he couldn’t find a needle in a desert.
By that standard, this Deep Abyss base was too damn big.
But abandoning Rachel isn’t an option.
That face, that figure—no, the fact she was the lead on Super Serum research—how could I let her go?
Besides, her disappearance was Tasha’s request. To drive a wedge between CSA and Deep Abyss.
“Rachel cannot be given up.”
“Of course, Master.”
“No helping it. Call Minji-ah.”
“Yes.”
Fortunately, I had my beloved Aunt Jia.
Biotech had always been Deep Abyss’s natural enemy.
Minji-ah arrived within an hour of being summoned.
“Y-you called for me....”
I kindly explained the situation to her.
The CSA–Deep Abyss cooperation, the dispatch of Rachel, and how following her had led us to this massive base.
“CSA... I see. Yes, it’s beyond what Deep Abyss could achieve alone. I had suspected covert state-level collaboration. There’s circumstantial evidence too.”
“You need to find this Rachel bitch.”
“...That does match your tastes—”
“She’s the one directing CSA’s Super Serum research. She must be secured, no matter what.”
“Ah, so what’s important is her brain...?”
“Exactly.”
“In that case, it’ll be simple. Spread a virus, let the hunting beasts track her bio-data, and—”
“That won’t do.”
“...Sir?”
“She has to be alive. Intact. Limbs and all.”
“...Why?”
“...Why? Are you talking back to me right now?”
“N-no, forgive me.... So you mean we have to ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) find her alive and unharmed?”
“That’s right.”
“...Hm.”
Minji-ah thought for a moment.
“Couldn’t we just deploy monsters and demons? Or—are the monsters lacking cognition or something?”
“Most of them, yes. But demons could solve that. The problem is, if we launch an operation that large... the mainland will detect it.”
“What about Titan? That invisible aerial warship. Doesn’t Biotech have something like that?”
“Well, of course we do. But it’s not completely undetectable. And if we launched from Incheon during such a tense time, we’d be spotted immediately.”
Ah, right.
Incheon and the mainland were at war right now.
Hmph.
“Whatever. Not my problem. They’re supposed to split anyway. Just no-brakes drop it.”
“...Understood.”
“You bring the vessel here, then load me and the Knights. We’ll head to the target site.”
“W-what? Wait—you’re going personally?”
“I’m entering the base myself.”
“W-what madness—! I-I’ll die if we do that!!!”
Minji-ah screamed in disbelief.
