Chapter : 02
“Are you ill?”
It was a very dry question. As if, having witnessed someone bleeding right in front of him, he was merely asking out of courtesy.
Haran hurriedly nodded, hoping the redness in his face would go unnoticed.
“Yes. I have a chronic illness. If you leave, I’ll come to work tomorrow.”
“That’s going to be a little difficult. You need to come with me right now.”
Kim Hyun stepped right up to Haran. Standing this close, the overwhelming difference in their physiques became even more apparent. Wasn’t he over 190 centimeters tall?
Haran instinctively tried to step backward, but Kim Hyun’s hand was faster, grabbing him by the shoulder.
“It’s the chairman’s order. He’s very interested in you, Lee Haran.”
Kim Hyun pulled a business card from inside his clothes and slipped it between Haran’s fingers.
Feeling a mixture of embarrassment and displeasure, Haran lifted the business card, which now had his nosebleed smeared across it.
Eton Company
New Business TFT Team Leader, Kim Hyun
Before Haran could even frown at the ambiguous team name, Kim Hyun grabbed him by the shoulder again and pulled.
“He specifically told me to bring you to him personally. He said he wanted to see you with his own eyes, no matter what condition you were in.”
A faint glimmer of curiosity appeared in Kim Hyun’s eyes as he looked down at Haran. But it lasted only a moment. Something else appeared in his gaze—a kind of hunger, like the look a monster might give when it spots a person with strong spiritual energy.
Haran instinctively recoiled, shrinking his neck, but that look disappeared like a mirage.
“You smell delicious, Lee Haran.”
“…What?”
“So that’s why the chairman was looking for you.”
The moment the almost-muttered words left his mouth, Kim Hyun tightened his grip on Haran’s shoulder and lifted his chin.
Haran was startled by the utterly rude gesture and tried to shout, but when Kim Hyun’s long, smooth thumb brushed across his bloodstained lips, his voice seemed to freeze in his throat.
Bright red blood stained Kim Hyun’s pale finger.
“Is it the smell of blood?”
His voice was low and quiet, almost like he was talking to himself.
Kim Hyun stared intently at the blood on his thumb. Under the dim, old-fashioned light, the red liquid glittered like a jewel.
Then, in an action Haran found utterly incomprehensible, Kim Hyun brought his thumb to his mouth and licked Haran’s blood from it with his tongue.
“……!”
Haran’s pupils trembled as though his mind had been struck by an earthquake.
Wh-what is he doing? Is this guy insane?
Kim Hyun smacked his lips as if savoring the taste of the blood.
“Mmm. It tastes like blood.”
Despite his dry assessment, he continued licking his lips as he looked down at Haran.
There was a strange satisfaction in his expression—something Haran found difficult to understand.
It was the satisfaction of a predator that had just caught prey to its liking.
“Let’s go. The car is waiting downstairs.”
“Right now… looking like this?”
“Yes. Right now.”
Kim Hyun gave him no chance to refuse. He grabbed Haran by the wrist and dragged him out the door.
The warmth encircling his wrist was far too hot.
It felt as though his skin might burn.
Haran’s instincts, honed through years of surviving in harsh environments, screamed at him in that instant.
The man in front of me, Kim Hyun, is a dangerous variable I should avoid whenever possible.
“Let go. I can walk on my own.”
Haran resisted, but Kim Hyun didn’t even pretend to hear him.
As Haran was dragged along in disbelief, his tiny rented room gradually disappeared from view behind him.
If he were just a monster, I could at least use a talisman to drive him away.
But since his opponent was apparently human just like him, Haran could do nothing but helplessly let himself be dragged away, biting his lip tightly.
Being dragged to Eton Company in this miserable condition was, quite frankly, the worst possible situation.
Haran thought only a few hours had passed.
But as he looked around in confusion and happened to notice the time displayed on the car’s dashboard, he was startled.
An entire day had passed.
In other words, a new employee had simply failed to show up for work on his very first day, and Kim Hyun had personally come to drag him in.
Though Haran had no idea why they were taking it so seriously.
In any case, the ride in the black sedan crossing Gwanghwamun was so smooth that it felt as though they were floating on clouds.
The scenery of Seoul outside the car window was peaceful as well.
Office workers pouring out into the streets during their lunch break, and tourists wearing hanbok as they wandered around Gyeongbokgung Palace, all wore faces filled with excitement.
By contrast, Haran sat inside the car with a miserable expression, quietly scrubbing his face over and over with wet wipes.
For a moment, however, his attention was drawn to the peaceful scenery of Gwanghwamun.
But only for a moment.
In the middle of Gwanghwamun Intersection stood an enormous black building, planted like a stake at the very center of a spiritual vein where the energy of Bugaksan flowed.
The moment Haran saw it, his entire body stiffened.
Eton Tower.
Its overwhelming grandeur, towering above all the surrounding buildings, was enough to inspire awe.
But to Haran, it was nothing more than a horrifying monstrosity.
……They used the building to suppress the qi of the land and make its energy pool here.
It seemed to have earned praise as the “birthplace of the new aristocracy” by greedily devouring the energy that should have flowed elsewhere.
“We’ve arrived.”
Kim Hyun stopped the car and got out.
He opened the rear door and politely extended a hand toward Haran.
“Please get out, Mr. Lee.”
His manner was almost as though he were escorting a date.
Haran’s expression naturally twisted in distaste.
And this coming from the perverted psycho who was licking my blood.
Haran climbed out of the car awkwardly.
The thought of smelling that foul stench again already made his stomach churn.
With stiff, rigid steps, Haran followed Kim Hyun into Eton Company.
Then, when he finally had no choice but to inhale the breath he had been holding—
“……Huh?”
A pleasant fragrance greeted him.
Haran instinctively sniffed the air.
The rotten stench that had knocked him unconscious when he first entered this place was nowhere to be found.
And that wasn’t all.
The black haze was nowhere to be seen either.
“Are you nervous?”
Kim Hyun asked gently as he looked at Haran, who had stiffened in confusion.
“Ah… yes. A little, I suppose.”
“You’ll get used to it. Soon, you’ll feel as comfortable here as you do in your own home.”
Isn’t a workplace supposed to feel like a workplace?
What the hell is he talking about?
Unable to hide his suspicion, Haran followed behind Kim Hyun.
When Kim Hyun placed his employee ID against the elevator reader, the doors opened with the words displayed above them.
The inside of the elevator was entirely covered with mirrors, endlessly reflecting the images of the two men.
Kim Hyun pressed the button for the 55th floor.
How strange.
Haran deliberately ignored the endless rows of their reflected silhouettes and tried to focus on Kim Hyun instead.
“Is the chairman personally meeting a new employee?”
It was something Haran had never heard or seen before—a conglomerate chairman summoning a low-ranking new employee, especially one who had skipped work without notice on his very first day.
Unless it was to fire him.
“My father is rather curious by nature. He likes people with unusual backgrounds.”
“Your father, you say…?”
So casually and naturally, Kim Hyun had just revealed that he was the chairman’s son.
Haran had wanted to avoid standing out as much as possible and keep his secrets tightly sealed.
I’ve already screwed that up spectacularly from the very first step.
“I’m pretty… ordinary.”
“Are you? An orphanage graduate whose whereabouts over the past seven years are strangely blank—a young man who hasn’t worked. And yet you passed a special recruitment process for new employees.”
Kim Hyun met Haran’s eyes through the mirror.
“Perhaps there’s something special about you that impressed the interviewers?”
“……”
“Perhaps you have a talent for smelling things other people can’t.”
Haran’s heart dropped at the completely random remark that made absolutely no sense in context.
Does he know? Does he know I’m a Baektaek?
But Kim Hyun’s expression in the mirror remained perfectly calm.
He looked like nothing more than a man who had just made an ordinary joke.
THUD!
At that moment, the elevator, which had been steadily ascending, suddenly stopped with a heavy vibration.
At the same time, the interior lights flickered once and went out.
“Huh?”
What enveloped the two men next was pitch-black darkness.
Not even the emergency lights came on.
“Grrrr…….”
Before Haran’s eyes could even adjust to the darkness, an unpleasant growl reached his ears like tinnitus.
Something was crawling upward from the very bottom of the elevator shaft, from the distant depths of the underground, scraping its way along the walls.
At the same time, the faintest trace of a disgusting, fishy odor seeped into the elevator.
It’s a rift.
Is there a rift connected to somewhere beneath this elevator?
Haran instinctively held his breath.
He had been dragged out in such a hurry by Kim Hyun that he hadn’t had time to bring his talismans.
If something appears now, anything evil that catches the scent of a Baektaek will chew me up all the way to the bone.
And what if I have another seizure like yesterday?
That would be no different from confessing that I’m an undercover agent for the Baektaek.
If the chairman’s son was involved, then he was undoubtedly deeply connected to this suspicious company.
And if they already suspected that Haran was a Baektaek, there was even more reason he absolutely could not let himself be exposed.
In that case, it would be better to look a little stupid.
“T-Team Leader……”
Haran reached out with a trembling hand and grabbed the area around Kim Hyun’s elbow.
In response, Kim Hyun’s hot, firm hand wrapped around Haran’s shoulder.
“It’s just a power outage. It’s okay.”
His voice in the darkness was strangely calm.
“This building consumes an enormous amount of electricity, so we occasionally have blackouts. The power will be back soon.”
“How soon is—”
Instead of answering, Kim Hyun pulled Haran toward himself.
