Chapter 2232 – 2232. Gyeongseong 2033
With tears welling up, Takehara Takeshi spoke to the superintendent behind him.
“Su, Superintendent. I, I can’t do this.”
“…Aren’t you an expert? How can you say you can’t? You handled the previous hostage situations well.”
Takehara Takeshi was quite skilled as a negotiator. He had resolved more than a dozen hostage situations. Of course, there were also many failures.
“Hostage-takers shouldn’t treat hostages carelessly. The hostage is their own lifeline. But look at that madman! He killed a hostage just because he didn’t like them! And then he ate food so calmly! Now he’s forcing me to choose who to kill! That’s not a criminal’s way of thinking. No, it’s not a human’s way of thinking! He’s a psychopath! I don’t know how to negotiate with a psychopath!”
The superintendent was at a loss.
If he gave up here? Who else would try to negotiate with that mad hostage-taker?
‘If only the hostages weren’t from the nobility…!’
If ordinary imperial citizens had been taken hostage, they would have deployed the counter-terrorism unit and killed the perpetrator.
But the hostages were nobles?
And there were over 100 of them?
Four had already died?
More than half of the remaining hostages were friends of the minister?
The chairman of a major corporation in the Japanese Empire was also there?
There was a report that even a relative of the Japanese Prime Minister was among them?
“You and I cannot escape responsibility. The nobles have already died, and they will blame me for my incompetence. The first noble to die was Nora Ichiro, the chairman of Nora Railways. Nora’s family will hold us accountable. If we want to survive… we must save the remaining nobles. You and I have families to feed. Think of your family.”
Takehara Takeshi bit his lip and said,
“…We don’t even have any information about that madman! How can I negotiate without any information about the target?! At least give me some information!”
“Korean Independence Banzai. That’s what he said. According to recent reports… there’s only one terrorist who spouts nonsense combining Korean and Japanese. The hunting dog of the Righteous Army. Seong Yujin. The crazy independence activist warned about by the Gyeongseong Governor-General.”
“The Prime Minister was called…”
“To kill him, probably. He firmly believes that if he kills the Prime Minister, Korea will become independent. Even though neither Japan nor Korea wants independence. It’s not a lie that the Prime Minister is heading to the sports center. Just hold out until the Prime Minister arrives. One hour. One hour is all we need. Then the Prime Minister will take all the responsibility.”
“……Who among them should I save?”
Takeshi looked at the live broadcast screen. Three hostages were pleading for their lives.
-I, I’ll give you anything! Please save me!
-Money, women, power! Just name it! I can give it to you!
-My daughter hasn’t even gotten married yet! I’ll give you my daughter! Please save us! Please!
There was none of the elegance and grace of the nobles who lived such lavish lives. Faced with death, they begged pathetically for their lives.
Perhaps because they had so much, their attachment to life was even stronger.
“……Who should I kill?”
Takeshi gritted his teeth.
Three versus one.
The trolley dilemma came to mind.
If one of them was his family, he would choose the one without hesitation, but they were not his family. It was better for one to die than three.
“Kamura. He’s the weakest among the nobles there. He has no backing. The minister will understand if Kamura dies.”
Takeshi spoke into the microphone.
“I have made my choice. Kamura. He is my choice.”
-Oh, really?
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The three who had been begging for their lives were dead. Kamura, whom he had named, survived.
Takeshi’s body trembled.
“Why, why did you kill them?”
-Time’s up.
“Three, three minutes haven’t passed yet! There are still about 20 seconds left!”
-2 minutes and 40 seconds. If you round it up, it’s 3 minutes. Who’s going to be so frustratingly precise? Ah, it’s almost the promised 15 minutes. I’m going to kill them anyway. I might as well kill them early.
Bang.
108 hostages remaining.
Takeshi’s legs had already given out.
• • •
The negotiator suddenly fell silent.
Weren’t negotiators usually the type to constantly haggle? Feeling a bit bored, I looked around.
‘That Prime Minister bastard is taking forever to get here.’
My dick was getting bored, so I took a young woman from among the hostages, stripped her, and raped her. Resistance? I had a gun in my hand, how dare they?
The video of the noble’s daughter being violated was broadcast live throughout the Japanese Empire.
-Mr. Murakano. There is a hacking attempt on the main system.
“Oh, really? I clearly warned them. Since they’re being so impudent, I’ll kill ten.”
I roughly pointed at ten hostages. The turrets killed them.
“Is the hacking attempt still ongoing?”
-It has stopped.
“Who did it?”
-It is impossible to know. Due to the main system’s functions, reverse tracking is impossible.
I warned the camera.
“Try hacking again, just once more. Then I’ll kill thirty.”
While having sex, I forced the hostages with similar builds to fight each other in the arena.
“Fight until one of you dies. If the match isn’t satisfactory… I’ll kill both of you.”
The nobles’ combat matches were pathetic. They knew how to enjoy watching fights, but most of them couldn’t even throw a proper punch.
Two hours had passed since I started the hostage situation. The hacking cooldown was over. And there were 60 hostages left. Killing them for various reasons, half of them were already dead.
Negotiator? He had fainted, they said. They asked me to wait until another negotiator arrived… but an hour had passed, and no one came forward. When a high-ranking police officer came instead of a negotiator, I gave him the right to kill a hostage as a souvenir. After he killed about three for me, the police officer fell silent.
It was more dangerous to provoke me than to negotiate. That seemed to be their judgment.
‘Why isn’t the Prime Minister who was supposed to come here coming? Was it a deception? To deceive me, how impressive?’
Since the hacking cooldown was over, should I kill all the hostages and turn the city into a mess?
That’s when it happened.
There was a change on the monitor screen. The police armored car blocking the entrance moved, clearing a path. A black luxury sedan slid in and stopped. An old man with a strong physique and presence got out of the car.
Ito Hisaburi. The de facto ruler of the Japanese Empire had appeared. He opened his mouth. As if he was wearing a small microphone, his voice was transmitted through the communication system.
“Citizens! I am too late! It is not right to negotiate with terrorists. However, I can do anything for all of you. To save my imperial citizens…! I am willing to bear this disgrace!”
The Prime Minister walked over with a gleam in his eyes.
The Japanese Empire. Although it was called an empire, they couldn’t ignore the Japanese citizens. Unlike in the past, the level of Japanese citizens had risen, and they realized that it was easier to govern by pretending to care about the citizens rather than openly oppressing them.
“Murakano Katsuna! I hope you will keep your word and release the remaining hostages!”
The Prime Minister of the Japanese Empire performed a dogeza. It was a perfect dogeza befitting a Prime Minister. He must have practiced the dogeza at least thousands of times.
“Artificial intelligence. Can you snipe the Prime Minister?”
-He is within the turret’s firing range.
“Kill him.”
-Yes.
With the artificial intelligence’s short reply, the Prime Minister’s head was shot and exploded. The hostages who were watching gasped and screamed.
“A, a madman. He actually killed the Prime Minister!”
“He’s going to kill us all too….”
“Ah, ah… Mother….”
The quest completion message did not appear.
‘It’s a double, as expected.’
Well, it was something I had predicted since the beginning of the hostage situation. In the original story, the Japanese Prime Minister was famous for using doubles. There was no way that shadowy power figure would come to such a dangerous place.
‘The double died openly. Is he revealing himself as a fake? Or is he going to put forward another person and maintain power as a hidden figure?’
The former would be criticized, and the latter could shake his power.
“What! What is your purpose?!”
Kamura stepped forward and shouted. There was a guy like this too. I aimed my rifle at his head.
“I told you not to step forward without permission.”
“Aren’t you going to kill us all anyway? So let’s at least ask why! Why are you killing us, the Prime Minister?!”
“For the independence of Korea. If you, the core of the Japanese Empire, die, the possibility of independence will increase.”
“Do you really think Korea wants independence?!”
“Yeah.”
This is so annoying.
I’ve invested in hacking, and I can’t give up now since it seems like the quest will be completed soon.
“Even if you achieve independence like this, the Koreans won’t be happy!”
Independence?
That’s right. The victory condition wasn’t just killing the Prime Minister. Realizing what I had forgotten, I smirked at Kamura.
“There are only two choices in this world. Either the Prime Minister of the Japanese Empire dies, or Korea becomes independent. Even if Koreans don’t want independence… even if all Koreans die… Korea must become independent.”
“……For whom is it?”
“You’re asking the obvious. For me, of course.”
It was the moment I shot a bullet into the annoying guy.
Bang!
There was a loud explosion and the place shook.
-Mr. Murakano. The sports center is under attack….
Bang.
Another explosion.
‘Not a bomb… is it a shell? Did they target the main system room first?’
The automatic turrets were neutralized. The video being broadcast throughout the Japanese Empire was also cut off.
Crash! The ceiling began to collapse. The hostages were crushed to death while trying to escape. It seemed the Prime Minister had decided to get rid of me along with the nobles.
I dodged the collapsing debris and glared at the ceiling. Through the gaps in the broken ceiling, I saw moving shadows. The shadows soon jumped down through the broken ceiling. Special forces wearing masks and armed with pistols and swords. Seeing the ten of them who resembled ninjas, I immediately knew their identities.
‘The Prime Minister’s direct secret unit. Human weapons who have been trained since childhood. The guys who appeared at the end of the original story and killed Widow.’
I fired my rifle at the guys who had landed. Their bodies seemed to vibrate rapidly, narrowly dodging the bullets. At the same time, they counterattacked me with their pistols. I used acceleration to dodge the bullets.
The guys landed on the floor and stood up. They showed no signs of pain despite jumping from a height of over 10 meters. They were thoroughly trained, top-tier enhanced humans.
“Are you guys also using Sandevistan?”
I asked with certainty. Dodging bullets while falling from the air? It was impossible unless they were skilled acceleration users.
“…….”
Instead of silence, they drew their swords and charged at me.
