Convict Unit: Black Parade

[VIDEO LOG #1]

(The screen fills with static and electronic whining.)

(The noise eventually clears to a stable picture, accompanied by the sound of a man’s harsh, ragged breathing.)

(A subtitle appears at the top of the screen.)

(The wearer, Hunter Hong, is running through a dark subway tunnel. The camera shakes violently with his movements.)

“Haah, haah, fuck…!”

(The view steadies, revealing a subway platform.)

(The overhead lights flicker erratically, each flash illuminating a hideously destroyed platform, splattered blood, and the mutilated bodies of soldiers.)

(All the corpses have been torn apart, as if shredded by something sharp.)

(The camera pans frantically from side to side. Hunter Hong appears to be searching for something.)

“The exit… the exit, where’s the fucking exit!”

(The shaking camera freezes. On a blood-smeared wall, the station name ‘Gangnam Station’ is visible, along with an arrow pointing to ‘Exit ■’.)

(Hunter Hong sprints, following the arrow. A flight of stairs leading to an exit soon appears.)

(He climbs the stairs. Bloody handprints mark the steps, growing more numerous the higher he goes, until the top landing looks like it’s been covered with a red carpet.)

“I can do it, I can make it, almost there…”

(At the top of the stairs is a closed steel door. Hunter Hong throws his weight against it, and the camera staggers forward before righting itself.)

(But the door doesn’t lead outside Gangnam Station. The scene on-screen is the same subway platform from the beginning of the video.)

“Huh?”

(Bewildered, Hunter Hong whips around. The staircase is still there.)

“No, that’s not possible… I’m sure I went up. So why am I back here…?”

(Just then, the camera’s microphone picks up another sound.)

(The sound of light, bare feet on the floor.)

(The sound grows closer, coming from the bottom of the stairs.)

(Hunter Hong seems to have heard it too. He swallows hard, then frantically scans the platform.)

“Hide… gotta hide…!”

(The camera finally settles on one spot: a subway information booth with all its glass shattered.)

(Hunter Hong runs, ducking inside the ruined booth and taking cover behind a concrete wall.)

(His trembling hands are shown trying to load a rifle. He’s shaking so badly that the magazine won’t seat properly.)

“Dammit, fuck, why is this—goddammit!”

(His stream of breathless curses abruptly stops. His hands, still fumbling with the magazine, freeze.)

(The sound of bare feet echoes clearly across the platform.)

(Hunter Hong gulps and slowly turns, cautiously peeking out from behind his cover.)

(The camera, mounted on his chest, is aimed too low to capture what he sees.)

“Haah, haah, haah!”

(The hunter’s breathing turns ragged and frantic. His body begins to tremble, causing the camera to vibrate violently.)

“Shit, shit, shit…! Why me, why me, why the fuck is it me…!”

(Hunter Hong whimpers, curling into a ball. Just then, a sharp beep signals an incoming transmission.)

«Hunter Hong, do you read? What is happening? Report your status.»

(Sucking in a sharp breath, Hunter Hong violently slaps the communicator on his chest to accept the call.)

“This is Gwan-ui Hong, commander of Strike Team Spring Thunder! Requesting backup! Requesting backup!”

(After a moment of silence, the transmission responds, the voice full of confusion.)

«What do you mean? Weren’t you the commander of the support team?»

“Wiped out!”

«What?»

“There was a Dungeon Break! Gangnam Station is completely devastated! The Hunters who went into the dungeon first, and my team… they’re all dead!”

«What are you—»

They’re all dead, all of them! Shit! A Gate Lord has appeared! The Realm Erosion has already begun!

«…»

“This is what I kept saying! If you leave a major district in the hands of some unvetted guild, something’s gonna go wrong…”

(Hunter Hong cut himself off mid-shout.)

(The screen begins to shake as if in an earthquake. The sound of bending steel and cracking concrete screeches through the body cam’s microphone.)

(As Hunter Hong slowly turns, the information booth he was hiding in is torn apart by an invisible force and scattered into pieces.)

(His cover is completely gone. The body cam captures the image of a being approaching him from a distance.)

(It is a woman with long pink hair, wearing a blood-red dress and a blood-red cape. Above her head, a red crown floats like an angel’s halo. Her unnaturally white, translucent feet are caked in blood.)

(With every step she takes, a bloody footprint is left on the ground, creating a path that looks as if it’s strewn with rose petals.)

(The video pauses. A subtitle appears at the bottom.)

(The subtitle was added in post-production for future viewers.)

(The Rose Princess’s eyes are obscured by a black mosaic.)

(After a ten-second pause, the video resumes.)

“Aah… aah-aah-aah…”

(Hunter Hong lets out a low moan, as if he’s lost all reason.)

(The Rose Princess approaches the paralyzed hunter. The comms crackle to life again.)

«Hunter Hong, we are dispatching reinforcements immediately. Maintain stealth and proceed to the extraction point. Exit 4. All other exits are compromised. I repeat, proceed to Exit 4…»

“Ugh, uh-aah-aah…”

«Hunter Hong? Respond. Hunter Hong? What is—»

(The transmission cuts out with a burst of static.)

(Up close, the Rose Princess waves at the camera.)

(She isn’t looking at Hunter Hong. She is clearly communicating with the body cam on his chest.)

(The Rose Princess smiles. Her mouth splits wide, stretching to just below her ears. Inside the gaping maw are rows upon rows of needle-sharp fangs.)

(She draws closer and extends her arms, embracing Hunter Hong. A wet, tearing sound is heard as her jaw unhinges.)

“Aaaaaah! Aaaaaahhh-Aaaack!”

(The sound of something breaking and being pulped is followed by a cascade of blood and flesh across the camera lens.)

“Aah-aah…? Aaaaaah?”

(Hunter Hong’s long scream continues, then weakens, finally stopping.)

(A completely different voice is heard—Hunter Hong’s, but filled with a rapturous joy.)

“Thank you, Princess.”

(The sounds of tearing and dripping grow more intense.)

(The screen goes black.)

***

Click. The video log ended.

“…That was the situation at Gangnam Station, where the Dungeon Break occurred one hour ago.”

The aide turned off the monitor, switched on the lights, and spoke cautiously as he glanced around the room.

A heavy silence had fallen over the Hunter Association’s situation room.

As if on cue, the middle-aged men in expensive suits all pressed their hands to their foreheads.

“Well, we’re fucked.”

The murmur came from a fat, bald man seated at the head of the table. His thick face was a tapestry of scars left by monsters, worn like proud medals.

In front of him stood a nameplate engraved with his name and title.

Eun-seok Choi, Chairman of the Hunter Association.

He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and gestured toward the blank screen.

“How did you recover the video log?”

“That monster tore the body cam off Hunter Hong and threw it outside the erosion zone.”

“She’s toying with us.”

The aide stepped forward and lit his cigarette. Chairman Choi took a drag and asked, “Which Hunter Guild is responsible for Gangnam Station?”

“A guild called Gangnam Invincible, sir.”

“Who the hell gave Gangnam to some no-name guild? Who approved them?”

“Well, sir… during the bidding process, you recommended them most strongly…”

“I did? Well fuck…”

The men gathered here were the highest-ranking officials in the Hunter Association, to begin with. This meant they had all happily taken bribes together.

It was a common story.

A guild with no real ability wanted a taste of the prime real estate that was Gangnam, so they slipped some money to the higher-ups.

Through lobbying, they secured the rights to the Gates in the Gangnam area, but then had to recoup the money spent on bribes. They did so by maintaining Gate security with minimal manpower and the cheapest equipment they could find.

But when greed outpaces ability and is compounded by cost-cutting, a price must eventually be paid.

And now, the bill had come due.

“Are you in contact with the guild?”

“Their combat unit was annihilated, and the guild master is unreachable.”

“Probably ran off with his tail between his legs. Hmph…”

As Chairman Choi took a deep drag from his cigarette, another middle-aged man next to him spoke up cautiously.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour grace period after a Dungeon Break before full-scale Realm Erosion begins. One hour has passed, so if we can resolve this within the next twenty-three hours, we can cover it up.”

“Cover it up?”

“Are you suggesting we publicize this? You want us all to stand trial?”

If the investigation went as far as the guild selection process, everyone in this room would be implicated. Turning a blind eye to minor infractions was one thing, but Gangnam Station—the heart of Seoul—had just been obliterated.

Their enemies would have a field day tearing them apart.

“We’re already sweating bullets trying to block that damned Awakened Protection Act. If it comes out that Gangnam Station was lost because of our incompetence, things won’t just get ‘complicated.’”

The bill would pass without opposition.

And President San Kim, who was already chomping at the bit to regulate Hunters and their guilds, would use this opportunity to put a knife to the Hunter Association’s throat.

“We’ve issued a Gate alert, and the area is sealed off to civilians, let alone reporters. No one outside this room knows what’s happened inside Gangnam Station. We can just say the situation took a little longer to resolve than expected.”

Chairman Choi stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray and gave a slight nod. “Fine. But how are we going to resolve it?”

“Well… we all have connections to Hunter Guilds, don’t we? If we offer them enough money and a few concessions, and ask them to handle it quietly…”

“You want someone to close a Gate after a Dungeon Break? Who the hell would take that job? That’s like asking someone to walk into a nuclear meltdown and pull out the fuel rods.”

Chairman Choi wiped his gleaming forehead, clearly stressed. “A Lord-class has appeared, and a Dungeon Break has already occurred. To handle this, we’d need to call in a Hunter on the level of the esteemed ‘Five Heroes.’ Or maybe the 666th Special Operations Unit, currently deployed on the front lines.”

“…”

“And calling either of them would be like taking out a full-page ad that says, ‘Please, everyone, notice what a colossal fuckup we’ve made!’”

The Five Heroes, the pinnacle of private Awakened mercenaries—Hunters, so to speak.

And the 666th Special Operations Unit, the strongest of the military’s special forces.

Only a force of that caliber could defeat a Lord-class entity without sustaining massive casualties, but both were too high-profile to use for a cover-up.

“We can’t call the Five Heroes, we can’t mobilize the special ops team, no other guild will take the job, and our own association has no more forces to deploy. So how the hell… are we supposed to solve this?”

It was then that someone else spoke up.

“There is a way, you know.”

It was the leisurely voice of a young man.

The middle-aged men turned to see a blond young man in a neat blue suit standing at the entrance to the situation room.

Adjusting the white scarf around his neck, the blond man offered a handsome smile. “The cleaner who takes care of these messy jobs for all of us.”

Seeing him, Chairman Choi frowned and, for the first time in the meeting, used formal language.

“Are you suggesting, Congressman, that we owe that witch another favor?”

The young man, addressed as Congressman, smiled serenely. “A cheap price to pay for saving the world, isn’t it?”

The other men’s faces lit up as they looked at each other and nodded.

“Indeed…”

“That’s right, if it’s them!”

“They might just be able to fix this…!”

“…Tsk.”

Chairman Choi clicked his tongue in distaste, but he knew it was the only option they had left.

He gestured to his aide and gave the order. “Get those sons of bitchfucks on the line.”

But unlike the others in the room, the aide hadn’t been able to follow the conversation.

Blinking, he asked tentatively, “Sir. By… ‘sons of bitchfucks,’ you mean…?”

“The Convict Unit.”

Seeing the aide still didn’t understand, Chairman Choi roared in frustration.

“The Black Parade! Get those criminal scumfuckers on the line, now—!”