I Became a Scoundrel of a Chaebol Family-Chapter 500
+++
“At the target coordinate, a magnitude 9.1 ultraquake has occurred. The substructures propping up the city all caved in, water rushed in, and the city is for all intents and purposes unsalvageable. Reported losses so far—”
Horrific numbers rolled on and on, but Go Min-young didn’t pay them much mind.
Even if you could say it mattered as a trial run for next-gen weaponry, all they’d done was pull forward a quake that had to happen someday. It didn’t satisfy her. More than that, she needed time to cool her tangled head.
“—therefore, the underground installations have almost perfectly collapsed.”
“Survivors?”
“Since it wasn’t a precision strike, there are many. However, conditions topside are barely survivable, so we estimate most will die shortly.”
“Estimate...”
“Other bases on the continent have likewise been destroyed on a sufficient scale. Rising again as an organization will be impossible.”
“There’s nothing as sinful as optimism. Make it more certain.”
“...”
Despite the order, Kang Hye-young, unusually, voiced an opinion.
“Do we really... make it certain?”
“I already gave them their chance.”
Though they likely never noticed they’d been /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ given one.
“And if they still hit us in the back, we finish the job properly.”
“...”
“Hye-young, there’s nothing more unpleasant than uncertainty in this world.”
At the firmness in her voice, Kang Hye-young straightened and bowed.
“Yes. Then I’ll proceed as instructed.”
“Good. Come tell me if anything important comes up. Ah, and... once you’re done, you head to Incheon. Make sure that kid doesn’t go sniffing after useless information. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. I’ve already notified Medical.”
“Good. About a month... no, just come back next year. Go powder your face there.”
“...Understood.”
Bowing once more, Kang Hye-young left the chair’s office.
Per Go Min-young’s order, she would make the cleanup certain—and then head straight for Muyeol Land.
“...”
Go Min-young hesitated, then picked up her phone.
On a day like this, with nerves unsettled, you need communion that actually soothes you.
She didn’t have anything in particular to say; nothing seemed fitting. Even so, she opened a chat.
—Muyeol
—I sent Hye-young to the island on vacation.
—Use her however you want.
—You can be rough.
As chief of staff and a kind of avatar linking all of Min-young’s neural circuits, Kang Hye-young could be borrowed whenever Min-young wished—to share senses.
“Borrowed,” in truth, was closer to neural hijacking; regardless, Hye-young felt everything as-is while transmitting identical stimuli back to Min-young, so the arrangement ran on a “what’s good is good, right?” logic.
And unlike the early days, when it had bordered on a dangerous experiment, the technology had matured. Customization was now trivial.
Pick and choose only the sensations you wanted in real time. Tweak intensity and magnification at will.
Sure, every time they did that the actual owner of the body—Kang Hye-young—shouldered the burden. But since when had Go Min-young been the type to care about that?
She had shipped her avatar to Muyeol Land, and if it worked out, she meant to stash her there.
In the middle of a busy day, whenever the thought struck... she could feel his touch.
And sometimes—
“He could handle her rough...?”
She could be held with the sensations he used when he took a woman who wasn’t Go Min-young.
Whether Min-young had toggled sense-sharing on or not... even Kang Hye-young might not know.
It would be discreet, and the pleasure would be intense.
“That kid’s more cautious than he looks.”
She let herself drift back through the countless times she and he had played with fire.
Everything that hurt shot clean out of her head, leaving only memories that heated the body.
Especially when she pictured that blazing-hot thing pushing in like a lump of fire—her body trembled even now, with nothing in front of her.
“Ha...” 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
She breathed hot for a while, savoring the fantasy.
What lay before her was nothing more than a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass and, beyond it, a sprawling cityscape—but she was too immersed to see any of it.
Only for a moment, though.
She realized the silence had stretched, and picked up her phone again.
“...”
No reply from Go Muyeol.
What was this bastard doing? Not even a quick response, for this long?
Jealousy flared hot; she almost called—but she barely held herself back.
At her age, clinging too hard was unbecoming.
“Right... a little more poise—”
Bzzz—
“!”
Whatever her resolve, the second it buzzed she snatched it up like lightning.
“...”
Disappointment.
Irritation, too.
“Hoo.”
She raised her head, sighed, and looked again.
—What are you up to these days, sis?
—No idea why things are so noisy~
—Why is it all so hectic?
—Lots of chatter coming in~
—You’re not pulling something weird, are you?
—From behind, hehe
“...”
The soft, warm look she’d worn while imagining heat with Go Muyeol vanished without a trace, replaced by something cold and glacial.
—Not your business
—So cold, sis
—I’m the Group’s vice chair, you know
—I should at least know that much, shouldn’t I~?
—I heard you even went to Pyongyang
—What’s going on~~~~
—I said it’s not your business
—It’s nothing, so mind your own
—With Biotech and Militaris kicking up so much dust
—It’s “nothing”?
—Do you think, hehe, I don’t know a thing?
—You can read most of it just from the capital flows
—Then do that
She left the chat on the spot and, for good measure, slapped on a block as a petty offense.
But dragging that heat back up again wasn’t so easy.
“Ha... damn bitch...”
++++
The Twenty States of China, Wuhan
In a city laid waste by a calamity no human could resist, the screams never stopped.
Not even a full day had passed, and the suffocating dread had already set in.
The city looked like a war had been fought across it—ruined, sunk to its knees, water standing on the ground.
Rescues and the aftermath were all the harder for it; the experts’ forecasts came out uniformly bleak.
—This sector’s too deep under water! We can’t continue the search!
—Sector 11’s the same. Entry impossible.
—Sector 3-1: survivor located, requesting support!
If there was any small mercy, it was that the flood-drowned citywide grid was out. Fewer rescuers would get electrocuted.
Not long after the event, all manner of humanitarian aid and personnel arrived from other countries and regions to help search for survivors, and volunteer groups, global human-rights outfits, and corporations poured in significant support.
And of course, Koryo Group—including Militaris—sent a massive amount of money and manpower.
—We have a single mission. Upon locating the target, kill on sight.
Thousands of troops spread through Wuhan on an assignment completely unlike any other support force.
In heavy power suits with belts sagging under ammo, they prowled the drowned city, especially the underground.
—Precision scan complete. Found a conduit leading below. Nearby units—
“Sa—save—!”
—Crack!
—Nearby units, enter immediately.
They had no interest in rescuing survivors.
All they wanted was to erase records, information, and existence.
Even the troops weren’t told what that existence was.
All they knew was that the target was a man whose half-body was monstrous.
Sssss—
“Looks like there’s nothing here.”
Ten troopers in thick power suits that had to weigh over a hundred kilos each walked a passage where water seeped.
They advanced cautiously, sweeping in real time.
K-WHAM!
“?!!”
A hand punched up through the floor.
Before the troopers could react, the deck under them collapsed wholesale and dropped them through.
“U—uwaaah?!”
Death-rattle screams, and the wet crunch of bodies. The troopers died without ceremony.
But the event gave away the aberrant presence’s position to all units—and to Militaris.
—Target position confirmed.
—All units, enter!
—Hold. Units will encircle only. The knights are en—
Crunch!
A flaming foot came down and pulped the chest of the dead trooper who’d been on comms.
“Knights are coming? You’re serious.”
Half of him looked like a blood-soaked ordinary man, but the other half blazed, wreathed in fire.
The pain should have been unspeakable, yet the man was calm.
It wasn’t a fire that had caught from somewhere; it was a fire he himself had raised.
He had taken a monstrosity into half his body and gained power no implant could grant—the primordial Great Demon.
Even Han Chae-young’s much-sung S-type was only a degraded imitation that clumsily aped him.
“...”
He recalled the report he’d heard right before the great quake.
It seemed the Koryo Group’s high ones had, at last, set their minds.
Maybe... those women, or the old man, had moved in person.
No—if not, you couldn’t pull off something on this scale.
Blowing every base across an entire continent, and dropping an entire city as the keystone.
The capability, and the execution—unless it was those lunatics, it couldn’t be done.
He clicked his tongue softly and looked around.
A district completely destroyed. Nothing intact, only death and ruin.
In the midst of it, the enormous capsule he’d guarded like his life stood incongruously pristine.
Its exterior, and its inside.
It even had ample power for operation.
How long that would last was anyone’s guess.
Creak,
Creak...
He was laying out what to do next when he heard a sound like joints twisting.
The Militaris trooper he’d crushed to death twitched up like a zombie, and began to stand.
“...?”
What now—
Haven’t seen you in a while, and you’ve made something grotesque again—he was wasting a little admiration when the corpse’s mouth opened.
“Koryo... Group’s... vice... chair... and also Chair of... Militaris... Vice Chair Go Min-young’s... chief of staff, Kang Hye-young, speaking. Mr. Go Mujin.”
“!”
“The vice chair has sent a final message.”
“...”
“I will take good care of your son. So make no further fuss, and die without regrets.”
“Ha—”
“The knight corps is scheduled to arrive shortly. We will make arrangements so that you can end your life with as little pain as poss—”
He drove a fist through the corpse’s head, bursting it.
Merciless, as ever, Go Min-young.
Same as the old days.
With things this far gone, getting out was impossible.
If they’d already grasped the whole picture and dispatched the knight corps, not even he could break their encirclement.
Not while carrying a massive piece of cargo.
“...”
He looked at the capsule with a tender gaze.
A little further—just a few more steps—and he could have brought a life back whole.
That stung.
“Time to gamble, is it. Fine... at least you...”
He scanned swiftly, then stowed the capsule where it seemed least bad.
Once the power it carried ran dry, it would force-open... but after that, there was nothing to be done. Leave it to luck.
If this part worked... the rest could all go to hell.
