“But are you aware that Team Leader Han Raon is currently suspended along with his pair Esper, who received disciplinary action?”
“Ah.”
At the reporter’s question, the man’s mouth rounded, and he let out a low groan.
A flash of difficulty crossed his face.
“Still, I think his suspension will be lifted if an Irregular Gate suddenly appears, don’t you?”
“You think so?”
“Of course.”
The man scratched the back of his head with one hand, as if he felt uncomfortable continuing the interview.
In fact, most people who had come to the multiplex must have thought the same as the man.
The prolonged peace had slackened the people who used to be anxious because of the Gates that suddenly appeared, and it even led to criticism about a lack of safety awareness.
That’s why the giant multiplex was flourishing today.
“How utterly shallow humans are.”
A man looking down at the interview between the reporter and the other man from the top floor of the multiplex clicked his tongue and muttered.
Surprisingly, he was floating in the air, but no one noticed his existence.
Even though he looked highly suspicious.
An entirely black mask covered his face.
It was a mask shaped like an animal’s face, and the one the man was wearing looked like a wolf.
And a faint alphabet was engraved on one cheek. It was the letter J.
“I shall give you, the humble, a trial.”
The man spoke seriously and raised his hand.
Soon, flames shot up from his hand.
“Hahaha!”
The man let out a crazed laugh and stretched his hands to both sides.
At once, a scarlet blaze covered the ceiling of the multiplex.
People only realized it when the ceiling began to shake from the heat of the flames.
“W-What is this?”
“Look up there, the ceiling!”
People looked up in horror.
The figure of J wearing the mask was not clearly visible, but the flames covering the ceiling were clearly visible even to their eyes.
“Hahahahaha!”
J laughed loudly again, satisfied.
He was immensely pleased to see the people, who had been relaxed and enjoying the peace, immediately panic.
He had longed to see this scene for a long time.
“This is it! This is how it should be!”
J, unable to conceal his excitement, shouted in a euphoric voice.
He spread his hands once more.
This was to completely collapse the ceiling with this attack.
But it was then.
“Stop!”
“…!”
Someone blocked J’s path.
They were Espers in combat uniforms.
J, recognizing that they were all state-affiliated Espers, raised his eyes in surprise.
“How are you bastards here?”
“Don’t try any tricks, J. You are already surrounded!”
“Keuk.”
The Esper shouted triumphantly, but J didn’t move.
Instead, he sneered as if they were laughable.
He didn’t know why Espers were at the place he appeared.
Given that they even knew his designation, they seemed to be part of the Intelligence Division that had been relentlessly chasing them.
But J, thoroughly excited by the terror attack he had been planning for a long time, didn’t care.
If anyone ruined this fun and wonderful masterpiece, he would just punish them.
“Shut up and die!”
J, an A-Class Esper, shouted loudly and stretched out his hand again.
But then, something flew toward him.
“Kueuk!”
A needle-like object was stuck in his left arm.
It was an ability suppressor made for Espers.
It was normally made to be worn inside a protective gear, but this one was used to subdue Espers who were rampaging or couldn’t control their abilities.
“With just this!”
J gritted his teeth and tried to pull out the ability suppressor.
But the needle, which had dug into the Esper’s tough flesh, did not come out easily.
In fact, a small hook was attached to the tip of the needle, so the more he tried to pull it out, the deeper it dug in.
Moreover, as the high-performance ability suppressor dominated his body, he couldn’t use his ability properly.
If J had been an S-Class Esper, he wouldn’t have been subdued easily, but he was an A-Class Esper, not S-Class. J’s body helplessly collapsed.
“This is B6, I have subdued J, who committed arson. I request the remaining teams to move quickly.”
The Intelligence Division Esper who radioed the agents scattered inside the multiplex looked down at the writhing J.
Hit by the ability suppressor, he was now no different from an ordinary civilian.
But since they didn’t know what kind of weapons he might have, they had to be careful for now.
“Don’t move. If you try any tricks, even slightly…”
The agent warned and approached J. Apophis’s alphabet members were the so-called ‘Named’ members.
Besides their skills, they were the ones closest to the leader of Apophis.
Therefore, capturing one of them without injury was a huge accomplishment.
Perhaps it was the excitement of capturing a Named member of Apophis, which they had longed for.
The agent failed to notice that someone else was approaching.
“Ugh!”
Something struck the agent’s neck.
He let out a choked sound, unable to resist.
The black shadow that had knocked down the agent quickly approached J.
Other agents, realizing the situation belatedly, shot their ability suppressors, but they couldn’t hit the figure moving so fast that only an afterimage was visible.
“Damn it!”
“They disappeared!”
As soon as the black shadow grabbed J’s shoulder, the two figures vanished instantly.
It must be a collaborator of Apophis or a Named Esper like J.
It was something that couldn’t be explained without an Esper’s ability.
“They couldn’t have gone far. Search everywhere!”
“Yes!”
The superior officer urgently gave the command and checked the fallen agent.
Fortunately, it was just a blow to the neck, so there were no major injuries.
The remaining agent glared at the spot where the two had disappeared and bit his lip.
*
“Looks good on you, showing off like that.”
“Damn it, shut up!”
The person who rescued J put him down carelessly and smiled sourly.
J bared his teeth and growled.
A much smaller stature than the man, and a voice that left no doubt: she was a woman.
The cute rabbit mask she wore suited her very well.
She was M, a terrorist and Named member of Apophis, just like J.
“Congrats. You almost became the first Named member to be captured by the military.”
“I told you to shut up!”
J yelled at M, who was mocking him.
His hand, which tightly gripped the ability suppressor that still hadn’t been pulled out, trembled.
“Do you want help?”
“I can do it myself!”
“Sure you can.”
M shook her head at the stubborn J.
She didn’t expect to hear any thanks even if she helped.
M knew J’s broken personality better than anyone.
She chuckled and casually crossed her arms.
“What are you going to do now? The terror attack seems to be a bust since the military got involved.”
M’s ability was teleportation.
But unlike J, her teleportation, which was only a B-Class Esper ability, couldn’t take her very far at once.
She clicked her tongue in a pitiful manner in a secluded park not far from the multiplex that was the target of the terror attack.
“Are you listening? What are you going to do?”
“Just shut… up!”
‘Eudeuk,’ with the sound of flesh tearing, the ability suppressor stuck in J’s forearm was pulled out.
J violently threw it to the ground.
“Phew, damn it.”
J, who muttered a curse, covered his bleeding forearm with his hand.
This kind of injury should heal instantly, but the recovery was slow, perhaps because his body was still under the influence of the ability suppressor.
‘Tsk, I can’t go back without any results like this.’
J muttered inwardly. His face twisted horribly under the black wolf mask.
‘How the hell did those bastards know?’
No matter how good the Intelligence Division Team Leader’s ability was, they couldn’t predict the schedule of a terror attack they carried out spontaneously.
Not unless there was a prophet who knew the future exactly.
‘I feel like I missed something.’
J’s eyes narrowed.
His eyes, staring into the darkness, turned yellow like the wolf on his mask, then turned black again.
“Something is suspicious.”
“What? What is?”
“Just something.”
J shook his head as if bothered and frowned, looking down at his forearm, which had healed in the meantime.
“They’re here!”
“Tch.”
The agents who had followed them surrounded the two people.
M pouted her lips as if she had expected this, and J scowled with displeasure.
“How annoying.”
“Let’s go quickly before they shoot the ability suppressor again.”
“Fine.”
The figures of the two people instantly disappeared.
The ability suppressors barely missed, embedding themselves in the spot where they vanished.
“Damn it!”
The Intelligence Division agent who lost the Named members cursed.
They had known in advance that a terror attack would occur at the multiplex, but they failed to catch the criminals in the end.
This was because the Named member M’s ability was optimized for escape.
“Should we continue the pursuit?”
“Yes.”
They estimated M’s Esper class was low, but her skill in using the ability was overwhelmingly better than other teleportation Espers.
That’s why she evaded the military’s pursuit every time.
This time, too, he had a bad feeling.
The Intelligence Division agent frowned and glared at the spot where the two had disappeared.
