January 1st, 2024, 05:15 (New China time: 04:15)

  Zone 15, Industrial Park, Beician District, Tianjin City, New China (inside the Hisan factory)

  As the time for retreat approached, Manager Namgoong-won, who was in a hurry, told himself to finish the mission fast and tapped the keyboard with lightning speed.

  He hit enter with a prayerful heart.

  <It, it’s unlocked!>

  Namgoong-won, who almost burst out shouting for joy, covered his mouth.

  Manager Namgoong-won turned his head to look around the office, took a long breath, put his hands together, and relaxed his wrists. He had been at his keyboard non-stop for nearly two hours and his wrists and fingers were numb.

  Then, the deletion process began. To discard data that could never be recovered by digital forensics, Namgoong-won ran a computer virus program that he had prepared in advance.

  After a few minutes passed, the running program began to delete the data that was in the folder one after another.

  At that moment, he heard someone enter the office.

  Manager Namgoong-won, who covered the running laptop with his body to make it transparent, took a breath and looked at the door.

  The door opened and two armed guards with flashlights appeared, illuminating the office with their lights.

  After shining their flashlights around the office for a while and seeing that there was nothing wrong, the two armed guards, who were about to leave, immediately turned to look again as the sound of the laptop’s fan grew louder. They walked toward Manager Namgoong-won.

  The program that was running had erased a large amount of data, which had put a lot of strain on the CPU, and caused the fan to become noisy.

  “Hey! Can you hear something?”


  “What do you hear?”


  “Hey, over there! It sounds like some sort of mechanical sound!”


  “You surely have very sharp ears!”


  The two soldiers shone their flashlights and slowly approached the place where Manager Namgoong-won was lying down.

  <Damn! I’ll get caught with this! I can’t help it! I need to attack them first!>

  As the two guards were less than five meters away, Manager Namgoong-won pulled the CS5A1 laser pistol from his waist and pulled the trigger.

  When the laser-firing sound rang out, the two guards collapsed to the floor, unable to scream. However, a security guard, who was pierced through the abdomen by the laser, instinctively pulled the trigger of his rifle.

  A roar of gunfire echoed outside the office.

  “This is f*cked up.”


  Manager Namgoong-won, who uttered a short swear word, quickly checked his laptop after aiming at the head of a security guard who shot at him just as he was about to collapse.

  About 50 percent of the data remained undeleted.

  <There isn’t enough time!>

  Namgoong-won was deeply worried. He couldn’t even bring his laptop out of the office when the deletion program was running. It was because it was connected by LAN.

  At this time, voiceless communication came from Manager Lee Ja-sung.

  “This is Alpha Zero! one! What the hell is going on? Have you been caught?”


  It seemed that he urgently sent a voiceless communication after hearing the gunfire. If Manager Lee Ja-sung had heard the gunfire, the guards patrolling the area would have heard it as well. Manager Namgoong-won bit his lips and calmly sent a silent communication.

  “This is Bravo Zero! I killed two guards but unfortunately, one guard returned fire.”


  “Then it can’t be helped. Won! Get out of there right now!”


  “No! There are still files left to delete!”


  “Hey! Armed soldiers are flocking to that area. And there’s not much battery left. If it’s too late, it’ll be hard to get out of there.”


  “Then there is nothing you can do! Get out of here before it’s too late for you guys!”


  “What b*llshit are you talking about?”


  “It’s not b*llshit. This is the only way for now. I have to finish the mission so I’ll be cutting off the communication.”


  “Hey! Namgoong-won!”


  Manager Namgoong-won, who turned off the silent communication, began running a new program. The program was a follow-up program created by Dr. Lee Hyun, which could track the code that Professor Woo Jin-gil planted in the plasma core technology. The disadvantage was that it was impossible to track it because it did not work unless it was connected to the Internet and now it was connected to the secret research institute’s internal network. In other words, even if it did not have Internet access, tracking was also possible if it was directly connected to the internal network.

  This was Namgoong-won’s intention – for the tracking program to track the files planted with encryption codes and completely discard them with deletion programs.

  When the two programs were running at the same time, the laptop made an even louder humming sound.

  “Dear computer! Let’s finish this without making any mistakes!”


  Namgoong-won, who kissed his laptop in a prone position, made a solemn face and headed toward the door with his CS5A1 laser pistol.

  Manager Namgoong-won seemed to be trying to maintain his position until the program was done running. Manager Namgoong-won, who lowered his posture taking cover at the drawers and desks toward the entrance door so he could be on the lookout, checked the X-K02 terminal.

  The remaining battery pack amount was 22 percent, which gave him about 15 minutes left. When he felt as if he only had 15 minutes left to live, manager Namgoong-won felt sad and suddenly remembered Lee Hye-jin.

  “If I knew this would happen, I would have been nicer to her.”


  A grateful woman who was supportive of him and his life when he had collapsed mentally and physically. The old memories from the first day they had met passed like a flashlight in his mind.

  While reminiscing about the old memories, he heard the sound of military boots from a distance and it grew louder and louder.

  “Where is it? Is it his way?”


  “I think it’s over there in the office.”


  When he slightly put his head out and checked the left hallway with his shield glasses, he could see that about ten armed guards were heading his way.

  “Good! I’m the one who’s killed the Scorpions, and those wieners are nothing.”


  Namgoong-won, who talked himself up to overcome the fear that was pouring in, put all his strength in his right hand that was holding the CS5A1 laser pistol and got into a shooting stance.

  If he was in TCS mode, he could have done it with a few people coming in. However, by the time the laptop’s program was expected to be completed, TCS mode would have been disabled.

  Manager Namgoong-won, who let out a long sigh, took a stable posture as he took aim and fired at the first guard that was running along the hallway.

  As several red rays flew at the speed of light, the security guard who was running ahead stumbled forward without even knowing what had happened.

  “Ahh!”


  “What, what is it?”


  Suddenly, when the guards stopped running and rolled on the floor. The guards that were behind scattered and ran for cover. They then instinctively fired toward the door where nothing could be seen.

  Manager Namgoong-won, who managed to avoid the bullets that were pouring into the wall, crossed the wall and using the inverter mode of his shield glasses, he scanned the positions of the guards and then began firing once again.

  A guard who had been hiding behind a wall fell with a groan.

  “What, what the hell, what is it? What is shooting at us?”


  A man who seemed to be the highest rank of the guards called for support troops when his subordinates collapsed without knowing what was going on.

  “This is Sector 3! Requesting troops for support in the 3rd sector is……”


  At this time, a pile of light was shot from the rear, not from the front, and seven people, including a senior guard who was requesting support through communication, collapsed with a laser beam hole in the back of their heads.

  “What, what is it? What? Ah, that b*stard…”


  The moment he was about to fire again when the guards collapsed, Manager Namgoong-won, who was bewildered not knowing what was going on, noticed immediately.

  “Hey! friend! What are you doing here?”


  Manager Lee Ja-sung, who shot down seven people at once, ran in a transparent state.

  “Are you laughing now? Why are you here?”


  Manager Lee Ja-sung, who ran next to Manager Namgoong-won, took a breath for a while and answered with a bright smile.

  “Why did I come here? I came to save my friend. Let’s go! I’ll cover you.”


  “What the heck! If I could’ve run away, I would’ve gone earlier!”


  “We don’t have time! TCS mode will be disabled in a few minutes!”


  “Who doesn’t know that?”


  Manager Namgoong-won took a moment to check his laptop. All of the plasma core technology data in the folder were deleted, but the data found through the tracking program were still being deleted.

  “There’s still time left.”


  “How long do we have left? If we don’t get out now, we will die here.”


  “I think there are about 10 minutes left.”


  “You can leave your laptop behind!”


  “What if they turn off the laptop or destroy it? Then it would have all been for nothing. What about the other agents?”


  “I ordered them to retreat earlier. I’m sure they’re all out by now. You and I are the only ones left here.”


  Manager Lee Ja-seong responded by exchanging the magazine battery pack of the CS5A1 laser pistol.

  “Hey, you should go before it’s too late.”


  “That’s funny. Do you think I’ll leave you alone? Do I just have to keep that laptop running for ten minutes?”


  “That’s true!”


  “Okay! Then I’ll protect it. Won! You get out of here.”


  “What? Computer illiterate who doesn’t even know about computers.”


  “You said I just have to protect it.”


  “Oh, that’s enough.”


  While they were bickering like children, a bunch of guards rushed in from both hallways and fired indiscriminately.

  “What is this?”


  “Hey! Our TCS mode has been disabled.”


  The two men, who did not know that the TCS mode had been disabled, had an exciting conversation and laughed as if the current situation was absurd.

  “It’s those guys. Shoot! Hey! Throw a grenade, too!”


  Lieutenant Colonel Duchun, who appeared during the malfunction of the fire alarm, gave instructions to its subordinates.

  As the TCS mode was disabled and revealed, the guards who had been shooting aimlessly had become more aggressive when they saw their targets.

  A huge number of bullets and a grenade flew from both sides and exploded.

  The debris of the grenade could be blocked with a protective suit, but the sound of an explosion that almost burst their eardrums was deafening.

  “Won! You take the left side! I’ll take it on the right side.”


  “Okay!”


  “Phew! There are so many guards. It’s going to be too much to take them down with a pistol alone.”


  Manager Lee Ja-sung, who once knocked down three guards with one shot, covered himself between the walls and sighed.

  “We just need to stop them for a while longer!”


  At this time, a small sound rang from the laptop. As a result, Namgoong-won ran to confirm that the program was completed. His face brightened.

  “Done, it’s done! It’s done! Mission completed.”


  Manager Lee Ja-sung also smiled at the appearance of Namgoong-won smiling at a time when he did not know when he could die.

  “Dude! Why are you being happy about that?”


  “Manager Lee!”


  “Why!”


  “Did you install all the bombs?”


  “Yes! What about a remote controller?”


  “I have it.”


  “Then explode it!”


  “What? Do you want us all to die?”


  Manager Lee Ja-sung answered with a surprising look at Namgoong-won’s casual tone.

  “Then what should I do? Can we get out of here?”


  “Hmm.”


  At this time, the heavy machine’s consecutive shots rang, and the hidden wall was riddled with bullet holes. Hazy smoke and debris poured out.

  “You punks! Did you use the heavy weapon just to catch two people?”


  Manager Lee Ja-sung, who confirmed the situation beyond the wall with the inverter mode, covered his mouth due to the smoke.

  “So, explode it.”


  “Won! Are you serious?”


  “Would I joke around in this kind of situation?”


  “Dude! That’s cool.”


  When Namgoong-won tapped his shoulder, Lee Ja-sung took the remote controller out of the inner pocket. The two men looked at each other’s faces for a while and smiled even though a lot of bullets were surrounding them.

  “Dude! It was nice to know you as a friend.”


  “Dude! Me too as well!”


  The two men, who joked with each other, shook hands firmly and manager Lee Ja-sung pressed the button of the remote controller he was holding in his left hand.

  A huge explosion rang simultaneously, and explosions continued everywhere. The entire underground building shook and debris poured from the ceiling. The explosions gradually reached the place where the two men were.

  After a while, the Hisan factory, which exploded dozens of times underground, disappeared without a trace as if it had been sucked into the ground. Instead, only dark smoke and flames were rising through the cracks……