Season 3 chapter 48
The Coward's Bullet
He was only a few feet away when a sudden, deafening sound erupted from the back of the crowd.
BANG!
A bright flash of muzzle flare illuminated the faces of the villagers. One of the paranoid men in the crowd, holding a rusted hunting rifle, had just pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck the mother directly in the chest.
She violently jerked backward. Her eyes went completely glassy. With a final, shallow gasp, she fell completely still in the dirt. Dead.
The thirteen-year-old boy froze. The entire world around him went completely numb. He collapsed over her lifeless body, letting out a hollow, shattered wail of absolute, soul-destroying grief.
At the edge of the town square, the two government guards were still leaning against the wooden fence.
"Oh, shit!" the first guard laughed, slapping his knee in pure entertainment. "Did you see that?! I didn't see the gun coming at all! What a plot twist!"
"Right?!" the second guard chuckled, popping another chip into his mouth. "This is way better than the theater. Five stars."
They continued to laugh and eat, completely indifferent, while in the center of the square, the white-haired boy—the future President Kywon Hadous—held his murdered, handless mother, swearing an oath of vengeance that would one day burn the entire Republic to the ground.
The deafening echo of the gunshot rang through the dusty town square, leaving behind an absolute, paralyzing silence.
The thirteen-year-old boy clung to his mother's lifeless, handless body, his cries tearing through the thick, apathetic air of the village. He looked around wildly, trying to find the man who had pulled the trigger, but the shooter had already seamlessly melted back into the crowd of fanatical, stone-faced villagers.
High up on the temple steps, the Main Priest looked down at the dead woman and her weeping son. He didn't look remorseful. In fact, a slow, deeply satisfied smirk crept across his face.
This had absolutely nothing to do with religion, demons, or curses. It was a hostile real estate acquisition.
The boy's family owned a highly valuable, fertile plot of land right on the edge of the village. With the father long gone and the mother now publicly executed for "harboring a devil," the deed to the land would legally, automatically transfer directly to the temple. The Priest had orchestrated a brutal public execution just to expand his property lines.
"Remove the demon from our holy soil," the Priest commanded, waving his hand dismissively.
Two burly warriors grabbed the sobbing boy by the arms, violently ripping him away from his mother's corpse, and dragged him kicking and screaming out of the village boundaries, banishing him into the unforgiving wastelands of the Republic.
The Collateral
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Cold drops of water splashed directly onto Kywon Hadous's face.
Kywon violently gasped, his eyes snapping open as he was aggressively ripped out of the paralyzing, Years-old trauma. He was back in his luxurious political office. He was covered in a thick, cold sweat, hyperventilating as he stared up at Clist.
The royal analyst was calmly standing over him, emptying a crystal glass of water onto Kywon's forehead to break the hypnotic PTSD trance.
"Are you back with us, Mr. Hadous?" Clist asked, his voice a perfect, deadpan monotone.
Kywon looked over at Rhuifa, who was still trembling with the barrel of the suppressed pistol pressed against her head.
"Okay!" Kywon gasped, his spirit completely and utterly broken. "Okay, I'm going to help you! I will do the redevelopment plan! I will become President! Just leave her now! Please, just let her go!"
Clist slowly lowered his gun, but he didn't put it away.
"No. I am really sorry to say this, my friend," Clist stated smoothly, adjusting his pristine tie. "But to ensure that you execute our work flawlessly, we need to hold her as collateral. It is a standard operational insurance policy. It is really, really important. In this way, we can absolutely guarantee you will follow our orders sincerely."
"But... but don't do anything to her!" Kywon begged, grabbing the edge of his desk to pull himself up. "I will help you! I swear!"
"Then it is a great arrangement," Clist nodded, slipping the gun back into his tailored coat. "As long as you follow our orders, she will be living in an incredibly luxurious private villa, surrounded by our elite security personnel. You can meet her whenever you want, but strictly under our supervision."
Clist picked up his leather briefcase and extended his free hand toward the traumatized politician.
"My task here is complete," Clist announced, a chillingly polite smile forming on his face. "Now, you and I can leave this mess behind. We are friends from now on."
Kywon stared at the extended hand. His heart was filled with absolute hatred and terror, but he had no other choice. Hesitantly, with a trembling arm, Kywon reached out and shook Clist's hand.
Without another word, Clist, the shadow-guards, and the terrified Rhuifa turned and walked out of the office, disappearing down the dark corridor.
Kywon was left standing completely alone in the center of the room. The silence was suffocating, broken only by his own ragged breathing and the slow, heavy drip of blood soaking into his expensive carpet. He looked down at the mangled, crushed bodies of his most loyal political cronies.
The sheer psychological horror of the last ten minutes—and the realization of the apocalyptic bloodbath he had just agreed to—completely overwhelmed him. His stomach violently churned. He couldn't stay in this slaughterhouse for another second.
Stumbling forward, Kywon grabbed his coat off the coat rack. He completely abandoned his own political headquarters, sprinting out the double doors and fleeing into the night, desperate to escape the nightmare he was now chained to.
The Underwear Espionage
With Kywon gone, the ruined office was entirely, deathly silent for exactly three minutes.
Then, the dead guard lying facedown near the doorway—the one who had supposedly been shot in the back of the head—suddenly groaned.
He slowly pushed himself off the blood-stained carpet, rubbing the back of his neck with a deeply annoyed expression.
"Oh, fuck," the guard complained, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck. "This bullet was literal shit. It barely grazed the kinetic dampener in my collar. It didn't give me nearly enough damage to look realistic."
"You sold the performance perfectly," a flat, entirely emotionless voice echoed from the dark corner of the empty room.
Stepping out from the shadows behind a large bookshelf was Muntari. The number-one ranked assassin in the underground network was wearing his usual nondescript jacket, calmly chewing on a piece of gum.
"Well," Muntari mumbled, looking at the broken glass and the actual dead bodies on the floor. "I have to inform this to Mr. Asphalt right now. The Royal Family has officially secured their puppet President."
Muntari pulled a small, encrypted burner phone from his pocket, but then he paused, a look of profound, professional critique crossing his face.
"And yeah, there is one more thing I need to add to the intelligence report," Muntari stated deadpan. "Leon was wearing blue underwear. Given the serious, intimidating nature of this political coup, he absolutely should have worn a more casual, intimidating black underwear. Blue is a terrible stylistic choice for a villain."
The guard stared at the legendary assassin, completely baffled by the sheer absurdity of the observation.
"How the fuck did you even get to know about this thing?!" the guard asked, gesturing wildly. "He was wearing a heavy tailored coat and suit pants!"
"He does not have a proper sitting posture," Muntari replied flatly, popping his gum. "When he leaned over the desk to threaten the politician, his hemline rose. It is a severe tactical oversight. That is why I got this thing to know."
The guard let out a long, exhausted sigh, shaking his head.
"Yeah, you are always like that," the guard muttered, walking over to the broken window. "You always focus on that incredibly weird, specific shit, Ga—"
"No, no, no," Muntari interrupted sharply, raising his hand to completely cut off the name. "Let's leave. We have all the data we need. We need to inform Mr. Asphalt that the board is set."
The Entertainment Barracks
(Present Day)
The oppressive, suffocating heat of the burning religious city hung heavily in the air. The DI'an military had already swept through the sector, leaving behind nothing but shattered stained glass, pulverized cobblestones, and the thick, toxic stench of diesel exhaust.
Crouched deep inside a dense cluster of overgrown, ash-covered bushes at the edge of a ruined courtyard were Kniya and Malesh.
They were perfectly camouflaged in the shadows, their highly expensive tailored coats completely coated in grey dust. Malesh held the thick, manila assassination dossier in his left hand, his dark eyes scanning the perimeter.
Standing in the center of the ruined courtyard, completely oblivious to the two billionaires hiding in the brush, was a group of five men. They were not wearing military uniforms. They were dressed in opulent, highly expensive aristocratic clothing, heavily guarded by private security. These were the high-ranking members of the Royal Family's inner circle—the exact architects who were profiting off the military purge.
They were smoking premium cigars, casually chatting while kicking at the sacred rubble of the destroyed temples.
"I am telling you, the logistics of this operation are flawless," one of the royal aristocrats laughed, blowing a thick cloud of smoke into the air. "But we are completely wasting the civilian assets. We should establish some, you know, civilian entertainment barracks right here in the northern sector."
"Oh, absolutely," a second royal agreed, a sick, degenerate smirk spreading across his face. "It would be a really great experience for all of us. There are a huge bunch of displaced people out there wandering the wastelands. So many young, helpless women with absolutely nowhere to go. We can set up secure recreational holding zones."
"Exactly," the third aristocrat chimed in, leaning against a broken statue. "Why let them just starve in the desert? We can bring them into the barracks. We can enjoy whatever we want, whenever we want, and the federal military will actively guard the doors for us. It is the absolute perk of owning the government."
Deep in the bushes, Malesh's jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ground together. His deadpan expression darkened into pure, unfiltered disgust.
He leaned close to Kniya, keeping his voice to a barely audible whisper.
"See, Kniya?" Malesh whispered coldly, tapping the assassination dossier with his finger. "These are the fucking animals. These are the exact royal assholes who were printed on the list."
Kniya's eyes burned with lethal, chaotic fury. His grip tightened around the handle of his gold-plated handgun.
"Yeah," Kniya whispered back, his voice dripping with venom. "They are literally standing here talking about this degenerate shit like it is a completely legal, standard business operation. They are planning to objectify and exploit innocent refugees for their own entertainment."
"Their psychological parameters are entirely bankrupt," Malesh analyzed bluntly.
"Whatever it is, we need to kill them," Kniya growled, slowly sliding his gun out of his shoulder holster. "It is really, really required to kill these motherfuckers and completely erase them out of this country. They are a stain on the Republic."