The Former Mercenary is a Chaebol Heir

Chapter 36: The Fear of Knowing

Where did things go wrong?

Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom each lived as orphans before meeting at CELLA.

After graduating from CELLA, they endured countless gruelling training sessions before they could finally join Unit 666.

Kill or be killed. If you don’t kill, you’ll die.

From a young age, they grew accustomed to killing and became desensitized, losing even the slightest hesitation.

They moved with the mindset that death was inevitable, no matter the circumstances.

But now, Baek Shin-woo, standing before them, was filling them with terror.

Eventually, Nam In-hwang spoke, his voice shaking as he looked at Shin-woo.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay, knowing exactly where we belong, and still doing this?”

“Of course, it’s not okay.”

“Then shouldn’t you be handling us differently?”

“I am concerned, which is why I’m dealing with this cleanly.”

Shin-woo stepped back from where they were hanging and pulled away the cloth covering the ground.

A large rectangular pit lay exposed.

Lillian, who had been shaking the glass jar containing two molars, pulled a rope to move the two men over the pit.

Creak, creak, creak―

The pulleys echoed eerily within the greenhouse.

“Wh-what are you planning to do?”

Without a word, Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom were lowered down into the pit.

Unable to understand the situation, their confusion grew.

“What do you think I’m doing? Handling this cleanly. Did you think I’d let you go? You’ve already seen our faces.”

From the start, even they had sensed it since neither Shin-woo nor Lillian wore masks.

But there were trackers implanted in their bodies by the organization.

Yet, several hours had passed with no sign of movement from the organization, and their fear grew even faster.

“Oh, I almost forgot to mention—your trackers? I copied the signal and sent it elsewhere. By now, they probably lost the signal somewhere off the East Coast.”

It was as if he was reading their thoughts, explaining, while their faces turned pale.

They had lost even the option of self-termination, and now their last hope had been crushed.

“The trackers too… you knew about them?”

“I know about CELLA and SHASS, so naturally, I’d know about the trackers. And from here on out, this lady here will explain the rest.”

Lillian stepped forward, taking over as if in a relay.

“Hey, guys, don’t worry too much. This won’t take long.”

“What are you planning to do to us?”

“Oh, come on—no need to stress. It’s not like you’d tell anyone, right?”

With that, Lillian slipped on thick welding gloves and picked up a metal container of bubbling brown liquid with tongs from a nearby table.

“If you’re with a mercenary unit, you must know what white phosphorus is, right?”

In an instant, their faces turned not just pale but blue with fear.

“Stop lying! There’s no way people like you could get your hands on that!”

White phosphorus is a banned weapon known as the devil’s weapon due to its indiscriminate harm; it clings to skin or objects and doesn’t go out easily.

Of course, it’s almost impossible to obtain it in South Korea.

“This isn’t white phosphorus. I made this with a few ingredients of my own. Handmade, you know? I went through a lot of trouble, but I’m pretty clever.”

Lillian poured the white liquid into the pit’s corner from the metal container.

Before it even touched the ground, it ignited and blazed as it spread, refusing to go out.

“It’s safe when it’s contained, but as soon as it gets plenty of air, it catches fire like that. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

Lillian’s cheerful smile made her seem more devilish in their eyes.

“What… what do you want from us?”

“Oh, it’s fine! There’s nothing we’re curious about, so you don’t need to tell us a thing. And you won’t have to worry about cleanup either. This will dissolve everything, down to your bones.”

As she explained, Lillian approached with a posture like she was about to pour water on them.

“W-we’ll talk! We’ll tell you everything! Isn’t that enough?”

“We said we’re not curious. Shin-woo, are you?”

Watching from the side, Shin-woo shrugged at her question.

“Not really.”

“We’ll tell you everything!”

“Everything, just please—!”

Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom were thoroughly indoctrinated by CELLA.

They were trained to the point where, in a dangerous moment, they would bite into fake molars implanted with poison to end their own lives.

Their resolve was not easily swayed by simple persuasion or threats.

It was nearly impossible to shake the beliefs of those who lived by their convictions, feeling embittered by their lives and this situation.

“What are you planning to say? Go on, keep chanting like it’s a mantra to bear the pain. This fire will burn slowly and last a while.”

“Our base! We’ll tell you where it is!”

“Gwangmyeong! 11 Ga-hak-dong, Gwangmyeong City, Gyeonggi Province!”

Despite their screams, Shin-woo and Lillian remained indifferent.

“Even if you told them, do you think your bosses would leave the base unchecked? They probably evacuated ages ago.”

At that moment, Moon Tae-beom, who was hanging next to Nam In-hwang, cried out.

“TSF Investment! They’re the ones who ordered us to take you out!”

Early on, Shin-woo had heard from Jang Man-soo that MH Group was absorbed by TSF Investment.

Hearing that name again matched the ominous feeling he’d had all along.

‘So it was them… though I didn’t expect a direct connection….’

In his past life, Unit 666 was backed by Brilliant Group, a large international corporation, raising children into mercenaries through CELLA.

But at the time, TSF Investment didn’t seem involved; instead, it was Brilliant Group that operated Unit 666.

It was a company that no longer existed. But based on recent developments, it seemed TSF Investment might be laying the foundation for what Brilliant Group once was.

“TSF? Aren’t they an investment firm? How do I know you were really ordered by them? Besides, your partner doesn’t seem aware.”

Pretending not to know, Shin-woo watched Nam In-hwang’s reaction.

The two shouldn’t have known who was backing them.

Unit 666 would never explain; they simply gave orders, and their subordinates carried them out, whether that meant killing or intimidating.

“I only found out by chance! That’s… that’s all.”

Moon Tae-beom’s gaze was fixed on the steaming metal container Lillian held.

“You’re asking to be killed gently?”

“…….”

It seemed to be his last shred of pride, as he offered no reply. Still, even in silence, his intentions were clear.

“Look at you, a mercenary who can’t even beg for his life.”

“… You’re going to kill me anyway. And that’s all I know. There’s nothing more.”

Shin-woo was convinced there was nothing more he could gain.

The fact that Moon Tae-beom had even mentioned TSF was already a significant gain.

With that, Shin-woo reached out to take the gun Lillian handed him.

They had found it in the car Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom had been using.

“Colt M1911A1. It’s the standard pistol adopted by the U.S. military and remains in use for its reliability. It’s also easy to acquire abroad if you know the right channels.”

Click― Click― Thud!

Baek Shin-woo checked the chamber, magazine, and bullet status of his pistol with smooth movements before loading it.

“…That’s the skill of someone very familiar with it.”

“I’ve handled it until my fingerprints wore off. Well, maybe not in this body.”

“It seems the organization severely miscalculated about you… Aren’t you going to ask who made the request?”

In situations like this, that was usually the most important thing.

“There’s no need to ask. And you only follow orders, so you don’t know those details, right?”

“…Exactly.”

He thought about deceiving Shin-woo with a lie, but even that wasn’t going to work.

Along with his answer, Shin-woo pulled the trigger of the gun.

Bang― Bang―

The bullets pierced the two men’s heads, leaving their bodies to slump down.

“Isn’t that a bit too merciful?”

“Well, we were fakes too.”

Lillian threw the metal container she was holding into the pit.

Just like before, the flames ignited before the liquid even hit the ground, merging with the fire that refused to go out since it was first poured.

It looked like it could melt anything on the surface, but in reality, it couldn’t actually dissolve anything.

“True, dragging it out wouldn’t have mattered much anyway.”

With that, she cut the knot at the end of the rope that had bound the two men.

Thud―

Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom’s bodies fell to the ground, engulfed in flames that began to consume them.

“It worked well. They knew about white phosphorus, so it scared them more.”

The true effect of white phosphorus is that once ignited, it sticks to flesh and burns down to the bone. That kind of threat tactic only works on those who know what white phosphorus can do.

Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom, as members of Unit 666, were very familiar with white phosphorus and thus felt the fear.

“But TSF, huh… Could it be that Brilliant Group, the original backer of Unit 666, started from there?”

“Considering the situation, it’s likely. Thanks to them appearing first, we got a bit of useful information.”

“So now the target is TSF?”

“Time to make a plan.”

They had moved on to the next step.

The two of them briefly looked down at the bodies burning in the pit.

“Not exactly a pleasant sight, huh? Right, Captain?”

“It’s not meant to be.”

Neither Shin-woo nor Lillian were psychopathic killers who enjoyed murder. From the beginning until now, they had only fought back for survival.

“This isn’t the first time you’re fighting in this body, is it, Captain?”

“…No, it’s not.”

Before returning, Lillian was simply a rather unique college student.

But Shin-woo had already sacrificed too much, performing dangerous missions in UAD.

While they were talking, Jang Man-soo emerged from the other entrance to the greenhouse.

“Their phones… Ack! What is that smell? Did you already finish them off?”

As he got closer, Jang Man-soo winced at the sight of the two burning bodies in the pit.

“There’s TSF behind them.”

“So, there’s a reason TSF took over MH Group in the future. President Myung In-chul, the favoured successor, is just a puppet.”

“He’s just being used for their goals. So, what about the phone?”

At Shin-woo’s question, Jang Man-soo handed him a tablet showing a blueprint of the phone.

“There are no call logs, only received messages. Everything’s encrypted. But the phone itself has been dead from the start.”

“Dead?”

“It was odd, so I checked and found it was fitted with an old chip from city phones.”

“…A city phone? What’s that?”

Jang Man-soo shook his head while glancing at Lillian, who merely shrugged.

“Don’t you know? It’s an old type of phone that only worked near public phones. It needed a repeater to function.”

“But didn’t you say it’s old? Wouldn’t the city phone chip be unusable now?”

“It means they have a repeater set up somewhere. They go to that place at a designated time to receive orders. Quite thorough. It’s not as solid as the old Unit 666 we knew, but… it’s evolved, I guess.”

“What about the encryption?”

“I’m working on remaking the decryption program I used in the future? Or is it the past? Anyway, without the base program, it’ll take a bit, but it’s not impossible.”

Shin-woo nodded at his words.

The three of them stared down at the two bodies, now reduced to nothing but charred bones amid the acrid smell of burning.

—