Zero Point

#003

On the way home after leaving the cafe.

Lee Eunseok walked straight ahead without a single glance to the side. However, no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t stand the irritation of being secretly followed. Yet, he couldn’t shake off or half-kill the tail either. It was probably a government-assigned surveillance.

Inwardly cursing the tail with terrible shadowing skills and the superior who had trained them so poorly, Lee Eunseok turned into the alley where his newly rented studio apartment was located. After five years of service, all his carefully saved assets had gone into the lawyer’s pocket, leaving Lee Eunseok with just the deposit for his small studio and enough bank balance to live on for a few months.

It was after about fifteen steps into the alley. Lee Eunseok hesitated slightly before continuing to walk. By now, he couldn’t sense any presence of the tails who should have been following him around the corner.

Something was off.

Lee Eunseok thought as he walked calmly towards his apartment. His instincts, honed through training and real-world experience, were setting off alarm bells in his head.

There was no way the government would suddenly withdraw their protection-disguised stalking. This meant that the tails had likely all fallen into a state of incapacitation at once.

Lee Eunseok threw a brief glance at the man leaning against the apartment building wall about 6 meters ahead. The man of average build with his head covered by a gray hood was about 175 cm tall. Judging by the shape of his pockets with hands in them, he was unarmed. But instinct warned that the man was out of place.

Lee Eunseok maintained his walking speed as if he had never looked at the man. As if mocking this deliberate ignorance, the hooded man turned his head to face Lee Eunseok directly. As their eyes met, the man’s face, hidden by the hood, was fully revealed.

Chinese descent.

Lee Eunseok deduced the man’s nationality from his facial features.

“Hello, Mr. Lee Eunseok.”

The man greeted, peeling his back off the wall. His accent hinted at Yanbian dialect. Probably a Korean-Chinese or a Chinese who learned Korean from Korean-Chinese, Lee Eunseok thought to himself as he silently stared at the man.

A strange sensation emanated from the hooded man. It wasn’t just a simple feeling, but something more…

What is that?

Lee Eunseok wondered, observing the faint aura surrounding the man like a 3D hologram.

“Name your price. Any amount is fine. We’ll provide state guest-level protection and treatment. We’ll handle your exit from Korea.”

The man spoke, not bothering to hide his Yanbian dialect.

Lee Eunseok inwardly scoffed. Unless shot in the head, no sane person born and raised in a democratic country would go to a communist state.

Of course, he knew the man’s proposal was just a light greeting before kidnapping, but it was still ridiculous.

“Get lost.”

How could his words be polite during this forced unemployment? Lee Eunseok replied shortly with an indifferent face and glanced up to the left. Sure enough, he saw a thin, long gun barrel poking out of a small window in the second-floor corridor of the apartment.

There’s only one thing a sniper does when their position is discovered.

Phew-!

Lee Eunseok rolled to the side as the gun fired.

Phew-! Phew-! Phew-!

Tranquilizer darts hit the ground, barely missing Lee Eunseok as he moved. It was impossible to keep dodging bullets in the exposed alley. But the hooded man was skillfully blocking Lee Eunseok’s path to take cover inside the building with ghostly speed. His movements were so fast that only afterimages remained each time Lee Eunseok blinked.

Pak-!

A tranquilizer dart hit the laptop Lee Eunseok instinctively raised to protect his neck and chest.

“Shit.”

A curse he never used unless with his unit members slipped out involuntarily.

“Ain’t it better to come willingly than be dragged like a dog? The treatment will be different. You can just live comfortably and do some guiding, can’t you?”

The hooded man sneered. Lee Eunseok could tell the man’s movements were not normal. Without any muscle movement for rapid locomotion, the man moved like a ghost. And the strange something emanating from the man spread like afterimages.

“An Esper?”

As Lee Eunseok muttered softly, the hooded man grinned as if to confirm it.

Lee Eunseok kicked off the ground towards the man the moment he saw his lips curl.

He swung the laptop with the embedded dart hard at the man. Just as the thin edge of the laptop was about to smash into the man’s temple, he vanished again, leaving only an afterimage. Almost simultaneously, Lee Eunseok thrust the phone in his left hand forcefully into what seemed like empty air.

Thud-!

The corner of the phone, which had clearly stabbed at thin air, transmitted the sensation of crushing bone as it pierced through. What good is having an ability if your movement patterns are so predictable?

Lee Eunseok smiled faintly, feeling adrenaline rush through his veins for the first time in a long while. The phone screen that had precisely shattered the man’s Adam’s apple after his instant teleportation cracked.

“…!”

Lee Eunseok briefly savored the man’s shocked eyes as he clutched his throat, gasping, then turned and dashed into the apartment building. His body, surging with adrenaline, not only didn’t tire as he bounded up the stairs three or four at a time, but actually gained speed.

“Fuck!!”

The sniper kneeling in front of the second-floor corridor window cursed briefly and lunged with a military knife. Lee Eunseok forcefully knocked up the sniper’s arm with the edge of his hand while kicking the sniper’s shin bone with his toe.

Crack-!

The sound of Lee Eunseok’s foot, habitually wearing military boots, crushing the sniper’s shin bone echoed in the narrow apartment corridor. Lee Eunseok snatched the military knife the sniper was still clutching and drove it deep between the ribs of the collapsing man.

“…”

A metallic sound like air escaping came from between the sniper’s parted lips. It was natural that he couldn’t even scream, as his lung had been pierced. After confirming the look of despair and resignation in the sniper’s eyes instead of the will to counterattack, Lee Eunseok finally let go and quickly scanned his surroundings.

Is this really all?

The excitement and elation that had just begun to surge were hoping for another prey. But there was no sign or hint of another attack coming. Lee Eunseok clicked his tongue softly and firmly stepped on the sniper’s broken shin as he slumped against the wall, gasping for breath.

“Live comfortably and just do some guiding? Even curses should have their limits.”

The sniper trembled, expressing his pain. It was useless pain inflicted on an enemy already incapacitated, but Lee Eunseok felt no guilt.

‘Brutal training, merciless punishment.’

All the mottos of the Special Task Force were deeply ingrained in Lee Eunseok’s mind.

But what to do about this? It’s clearly self-defense, but it would be troublesome if this becomes an excuse to hold me back.

As Lee Eunseok was thinking to himself, he suddenly felt a gaze? No, it was an unfamiliar energy he had never felt before, causing him to whip his head to the side. His body was already in a defensive posture, tense and alert.

Through the narrow, long corridor window of the studio apartment, he saw a man in a suit standing tall like an illusion on top of a shabby, high wall.

Their eyes met through the glass clouded with foreign matter and dust. Lee Eunseok, who instinctively assessed height and weight class first when seeing an opponent, felt a sense of crisis from the man’s tall stature and solid, muscular build. And he… was emitting some kind of intense energy that Lee Eunseok had never seen before. It had a similar texture to the energy he had felt from the hooded man, though completely different in type and intensity.

It seemed that this was what Esper energy looked like. Moreover, even excluding the intense energy the man was emitting, he himself was a human weapon cleverly packaged in a fine suit.

Lee Eunseok’s instinct whispered in his ear.

Fortunately, he felt no hostility from the man.

After maintaining eye contact for about 3 seconds, the man suddenly narrowed his eyes slightly and gave a light smile.

The man whispered.

‘Impressive.’

Though his voice was inaudible through the glass and wall, Lee Eunseok could clearly read the shape of his lips.

The sound of police sirens began to be heard in the distance. Lee Eunseok briefly lowered his gaze to confirm that the hooded man he had completely incapacitated was still lying there. And the moment he raised his eyes again, the man who had been standing on the wall had vanished without a trace.

The siren sound grew closer, and the pain-filled breathing of the fallen sniper right beside him rasped loudly. Lee Eunseok exhaled a short, meaningless breath, feeling his heart pound strongly with the lingering adrenaline.