NOVEL NEXT C26
#26. I’m Just Borrowing It
Inside an abandoned building on the outskirts of Nago Metropolitan City, about a dozen men were standing in a row.
The men were biting their lips tightly as if they were terrified of something. Like soldiers being disciplined, they stood still in one place without moving.
The reason they couldn’t move was because of a figure who stood with a furrowed brow against the backdrop of Nago City’s night view.
“Sigh…”
This somewhat androgynous-looking figure blew their red hair, which had fallen down to below their eyes, upward with a huff.
“Hey.”
Tapping a bat in hand, they glared at the men.
“What did I send you to Cheongang for?”
“Y-you told us to deliver the final blow to Cheongang as its stock price began to fall due to a series of incidents!”
“Right, I said it was a ve-ry easy job, just light the fire where the oil had already been poured. And?”
“Y-you told us to bring back a woman named Chae Yu-ha!”
“Yes, and among those things, what did you succeed in doing?”
The men all shut their mouths at once.
“Nothing, you idiots!!”
With a ‘boom!!’ The man standing at the far left was engulfed in flames.
A horrible scream rang out along with the smell of burning meat.
The remaining nine men became even tenser, gulping and beginning to sweat profusely.
“Hey, honestly, I didn’t even expect you to crash a train into the orbital elevator. Cheongang isn’t stupid enough to just sit back and watch that happen, right?”
“Th-that’s right…!!”
-Boom!!
The man who answered was engulfed in raging flames and collapsed.
“What did you do right to be answering like that?”
The red-haired figure let out a deep sigh that seemed to come from their core and rested the bat on their shoulder.
“Hey, let me ask you one thing. How exactly does an armed force of fifty people not only get completely wiped out but also fail to kidnap one woman?”
“……”
“Not going to answer?”
-Bang!!!
With a crisp sound, the head of the man standing in the middle spun three times and flew into a pillar.
“Th-there was o-one bodyguard with her and he was too strong…!! He could attack us, so he didn’t seem to be an enhanced human…”
“Even so!! Does it make sense that you all were annihilated by one person?!”
-Bang!!
Again, the neck of the man who made the presumptuous remark twisted and was torn off.
In the blink of an eye, four men were dead, leaving six remaining. The men wanted to live.
“Let me be generous and say that you could have been annihilated. Then you should have at least brought the woman back. Are you proud of coming back with nothing after smashing your heads in with that many people, you bastards? Huh?”
“…W-who is that woman anyway?”
“Huh?”
“She clearly wasn’t an ordinary woman. The strength of her bodyguard too…”
“Wow, shit. Do I even have to explain that to you?”
The red-haired figure carelessly threw away the blood-soaked bat.
They rolled up a cigarette that could no longer be obtained from inside their jacket and brought it to their lips.
The fire lit automatically without a lighter with a whoosh.
“She’s my sister, satisfied?”
“…What?”
“My sister whom I was separated from when I was young, you vermin.”
The red-haired figure, Kilke, muttered.
“Ah, shit. I wasn’t going to tell anyone about this.”
Kilke scratched their short red bob hair vigorously and threw the precious cigarette to the ground, stomping on it.
Then, gathering flames the size of a house in the palm of their hand.
“This won’t do. Just all of you, die.”
They shot it toward the six men.
“By the way, what should we name our organization?”
It was a question Seolhwa asked while drinking warm tea after waking up.
In response, Chae Yu-ha seemed to have thought about it beforehand and started listing ridiculous names like “VillainWay” or “MadNald.”
“Eww…that’s terrible.”
At Agio’s pure evaluation, Chae Yu-ha’s spirit was crushed, and she slumped onto the sofa like soft tofu.
Afterward, numerous ideas came from Seolhwa, Agio, and Seok-ho, but since all the names were ambiguous for consensus.
“How about ‘Maker’?”
Nazha, who had been silent all along, stepped in to mediate.
“Ooh! That’s simple and nice!”
“Hmm, a name that can encompass many meanings.”
“Argh…you should have said that earlier…”
And so, without any input from the leader, the organization’s name was formed.
Even Chae Yu-ha, who was lying on the sofa, seemed to like the name “Maker” as she laughed mischievously, so it was all good.
In Minos, there are numerous broadcasting stations and their subsidiary channels.
Among them, some broadcasting stations have channels directly connected to the Royal Road.
While others struggle just to broadcast to the outskirts of the city.
These are ranked from S to F tiers, which is called IBR.
And there are three channels beyond ranking in the IBR, another level entirely:
General channel Arc. Music channel MBN. Political channel UBS.
“Sigh…”
In the lounge of the general channel Arc’s Cheongang branch.
There, branch manager Park Seong-tae was sighing deeply.
It was because of the recent intensified pressure from the Cheongang Group’s joint venture.
A broadcasting station is obviously a group that lives on the attention of viewers.
Moreover, Arc was a platform with strong power and voice, so much so that it was called one of the three major channels of Minos.
Yet, a newly recognized company among the three major groups…
‘Ah, I’m the CEO of Cheongang Group! Delete the Arc CCTV footage that has over a million views as soon as this call ends!’
‘Ah, I’m the CEO of Cheongang Group! Delete the exposure video of this Agio or whatever Lexer Archer as soon as this call ends! What? It can’t be deleted? So it’s okay if I investigate this guy and sink him?’
‘Ah, I’m the CEO of Cheongang Group! Delete the train video being shared on Insta as soon as this call ends! What? You don’t have the authority to touch posts uploaded to Insta? There’s no such thing! Delete it quickly!’
How could he exert so much pressure on me, Park Seongtae, the branch manager of the general channel Arc?
Thinking about how he lost about a hundred strands of his newly implanted hair because of this.
“Argh!! Cheon Taewoo, you bastard!!”
He felt rage welling up from within.
“What’s wrong? Did you receive another call from the CEO of Cheongang Group?”
Producer Jin Tae-hyun, who had just come from the pantry with a handful of snacks, sat down next to Park Seong-tae, whose forehead was clearly visible, and asked.
“No, it’s not that. But the more I think about it, the more annoying it is. A new company that got lucky by digging up enhanced human technology and rose to power.”
“I don’t like the CEO of Cheongang either. The potential views of the Archers who died because of that bastard would have been astronomical.”
“Come to think of it, didn’t Agio recently get her personal information exposed and killed by that bastard? Wow, thinking about it makes me angry again.”
“Why did you accept the Vitaloid account in the first place?”
“Agio should have made better videos. If I don’t give her a chance, who will give opportunities to kids like that?”
Jin Tae-hyun sighed, seemingly tired of Park Seong-tae’s elitist behavior that had started again.
“It’s fortunate that you denied knowing anything, otherwise you would have crossed the River Jordan hand in hand with Agio.”
“Agio was worth that investment!”
“Branch manager, living like that will lead you to the abyss one day.”
Huh, how can a producer not understand the branch manager’s heart?
Park Seong-tae inwardly lamented while stealing one of the snacks Jin Tae-hyun had brought.
“Alright, alright. It’s already in the past, and dwelling on it will only make us bitter.”
After about five minutes of rest, Park Seong-tae and Jin Tae-hyun left the lounge and returned to the studio.
The corridor somehow felt empty.
Some people were slumped over in their chairs, sleeping as if they had eaten a heavy lunch.
“What’s this? Why is everyone collapsed and sleeping?”
“…Something seems strange.”
Feeling uneasy, Park Seong-tae and Jin Tae-hyun hurried their steps to the studio.
What they witnessed when they arrived at the studio was:
“You’re here?”
Five villains in matching costumes of ‘Nazha’s Special Visual Tracker Ver. Optical Camouflage’.
“Who are you people! How did you get in here!”
“Now, now~! Calm down! Let’s sit down and talk first!”
As Park Seong-tae, slow to grasp the situation, became agitated, Seolhwa brought chairs for Park Seong-tae and Jin Tae-hyun to sit on.
At this point, Park Seong-tae scanned the studio.
Employees sprawled disorderly.
Judging by their rising and falling chests, they weren’t dead but asleep.
They probably didn’t want to cause a big commotion.
Park Seong-tae inwardly snorted.
‘Amateur, so amateur.’
Despite appearances, Park Seong-tae was a professional among professionals who had endured all sorts of hardships to reach the position of Arc’s branch manager.
Currently, Park Seongtae’s body was equipped with an emergency protocol sensor that activates upon injury, a small camera for emergencies, and a constantly operating recorder.
Not only that, he had memorized the locations of all calling signals that could be activated in the studio during emergencies.
“Where should I start…?”
The woman in the blue hood, who seemed to be the leader of the group, hesitated.
That appearance, at a glance, was clearly that of a novice.
Having trampled on how many such youngsters to get here, he wasn’t about to fall now.
‘Hey, Jin Tae-hyun.’
Park Seong-tae discreetly signaled Jin Tae-hyun sitting next to him.
‘What?’
‘Take that out.’
Getting the hint, Jin Tae-hyun took out a long flash stick from his sleeve and gripped it firmly.
At the same time, he counted internally.
‘Now!’
-Flash!
The flash Tae-hyun unexpectedly set off momentarily engulfed the studio.
It was a flash of 1,000 lumens, a luminosity that would make even an enhanced human pause for a moment.
As the flash went off, Park Seong-tae rose from his chair.
He pressed three calling signals installed in the studio in the blink of an eye, one after another.
‘Got it!’
Success. Now, in less than a minute, special police who received the report would burst into the studio.
When they arrive, it’s game set, situation over.
Unless they’re the rumored 1st generation, the special police won’t lose in combat!
However,
-Click, click click.
No matter how much Park Seong-tae pressed, there was no feeling of current flowing in the calling signals.
“W-what’s wrong with this?”
Park Seong-tae muttered in confusion.
Seeing this, Jin Tae-hyun seemed to realize they were doomed and broke out in a cold sweat.
“Huh?”
The woman in the blue hood, who until just moments ago had been standing awkwardly like a novice.
“Sir, what are you doing right now?”
With a smirk, raising the corners of her mouth.
“Were you perhaps trying to report us?”
She shot a gaze with glowing red eyes.
“…We’re, we’re screwed.”
“…I, I told you that you would fall into the abyss someday.”
With that, Park Seong-tae and Jin Tae-hyun lost their will to resist and obediently sat in the chairs prepared by Seolhwa.
Maker, now on its 1st day since establishment, temporarily takes over the public channel Arc (Cheongang branch).