Convict Unit: Black Parade-Chapter 124 : Intermission: Turning Heel

December 10, 2050.
3:00 AM.
Seoul, Cheongnyangni Gate.
***
The Cheongnyangni Gate—East Asia’s largest permanent Gate and a constant source of monster invasions—was under strict control. The defensive installations blanketing the area were a fortress, built to ensure no invading monster ever escaped.
Inside this fortified facility, in the corridor leading to the central control room, a dozen heavily armed soldiers waited behind a hastily erected barricade of desks and chairs, their bodies taut with tension.
Their rifles were aimed down the far end of the hall.
“If they break through here… Seoul—no, all of Korea—is finished.”
Lieutenant Colonel Tae-hoon Baek, commander of the Cheongnyangni Gate defense force, spat the words, his face slick with sweat.
“We have to hold the line, no matter what.”
The soldiers didn’t answer. They simply braced for battle, waiting for the enemy to appear at any moment.
Just then, heavy footsteps echoed from the far end of the hall.
The enemy was here.
The soldiers gritted their teeth, fingers tightening on their triggers.
The instant a man appeared at the other end of the corridor…
“Fire!” Lieutenant Colonel Baek roared, his voice raw.
As one, the soldiers squeezed their triggers.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
A deafening roar tore through the corridor as brilliant flashes erupted from their muzzles.
These weren’t standard-issue weapons. They were Gate Gear, stamped with the official seal of the Gate Defense Bureau. Even the bullets were enchanted rounds, imbued with at least two different enchantments.
This was top-of-the-line equipment, issued to the 11th Special Operations Unit for one reason: they guarded Seoul’s largest Gate and might one day have to face
him
.
A volley like this should have been enough to obliterate even a large monster without a trace.
But every single shot sparked and ricocheted just inches from the man’s body, as if he were protected by an invisible shield. Hundreds of rounds failed to find their mark, deflecting in a brilliant, firework-like display.
Watching the impossible sight, Lieutenant Colonel Baek muttered in despair.
“How can this be…?”
The man standing calmly amidst the hail of bullets was no monster.
He was, without a doubt, human.
A middle-aged man with ash-brown hair slicked neatly back. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit under a matching black coat. A brown scarf, draped over his shoulders, fluttered in the gale of gunfire before settling.
Ting, tink…
The last shell casing clattered to the floor, rolling across the now-silent corridor.
They had emptied their magazines without so much as leaving a scorch mark on his collar.
The man, watching from the end of the hall, offered a faint smile that deepened the lines around his mouth.
“Are you finished?”
Gritting his teeth, Lieutenant Colonel Baek felt cold sweat stream down his face. The soldiers’ hands trembled slightly as they swapped magazines with lightning speed.
They knew all too well that none of their attacks would ever work on the man before them.
“Then why don’t you step aside, Lieutenant Colonel? And you, my dear comrades.”
The middle-aged man stepped forward, his voice unnervingly gentle.
“I don’t want to kill you with my own hands. We’ve been through life and death together.”
“Hngh…!”
Shaking with rage, Baek desperately searched his mind for a way to stop him.
But there was none.
His opponent was an S-Rank Hunter, one of only ten in the entire Republic of Korea.
A member of the Old Five Heroes who had saved the world in the Gate War thirty years ago—and their leader.
He was the Iron Knight, Shin-woo Jo.
“What are you waiting for? Keep firing! Fire!”
But even if it was hopeless, they couldn’t stop fighting.
Behind this barricade was the central control room. It was the heart of the Cheongnyangni Gate, the one place from which the connection to the other world could be directly controlled.
Anyone but him… Shin-woo Jo is the one man who can’t have this!
He would never surrender this place.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
Tae-hoon resumed firing, and the soldiers followed his lead.
“You know this resistance is futile…” Shin-woo muttered to himself as he walked forward.
He strolled through the storm of bullets as if on a leisurely walk, and in moments, he had reached the barricade.
He offered a bitter smile to the soldiers still firing at point-blank range.
“Still, at this point, I suppose I should show you the proper courtesy.”
Shin-woo gripped the hilt of the greatsword on his back and slowly lifted the weapon, still in its scabbard.
The sword was so massive that its scabbard looked like a great coffin.
And then…
WHUMP! CRACK! CRUNCH!
The attack was invisible to the naked eye.
His coat flared, the scabbard swung.
And that was it.
The barricade shattered. Crushed beyond recognition, the soldiers’ bodies sprayed blood as they were flung down the hall, slamming into the walls.
Lieutenant Colonel Baek stood frozen, his finger still pulling the trigger of his empty rifle.
He’d blinked, and his comrades had been turned into pulverized meat.
Before him, one of the world’s strongest Hunters smiled gently.
“Don’t make me kill you, Lieutenant Colonel.”
Sheathing the greatsword on his back once more, Shin-woo murmured, “We were quite close, weren’t we? Protecting this place together…”
Lieutenant Colonel Baek’s mouth twisted.
It was true. They had been comrades.
Just a few hours ago, they had been defending the Cheongnyangni Gate side by side.
***
The Cheongnyangni Gate. One of the first Gates to ever open, and the largest permanent Gate in East Asia.
Almost from the moment the age of Hunters began, Shin-woo Jo and his Hunter Guild, The Knights, had spent their lives defending this place.
Thirty years had passed.
Since the Gate War, large-scale monster invasions had dwindled, replaced by sporadic, fragmented attacks. The world gradually stabilized, and the era of the old heroes began to fade.
As guardian of the Cheongnyangni Gate and the man responsible for Seoul's security, Shin-woo saw his numerous authorities reclaimed, one by one, by the government and the military.
He accepted it.
He believed it was the natural course of things as the world found peace.
Faced with a growing tangle of laws and regulations, Shin-woo and his Hunters were stripped of their positions, their prey, and finally, their authority over the Gate itself.
A year ago, Shin-woo received a government notice ordering him to relinquish control of the Cheongnyangni Gate. At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Baek and the 11th Special Operations Unit were stationed there.
Despite concerns about potential friction, Shin-woo and The Knights were cooperative in the transfer of power. For all his fame, Shin-woo was a remarkably humble and unpretentious man, always the first to charge into battle whenever the Gate opened.
Over the year-long handover process, Lieutenant Colonel Baek had come to respect him, looking up to him as a father figure.
That all changed with the introduction of the Awakened Protection Act.
This bill didn’t just restrict a Hunter’s livelihood; it sought to slap cuffs on every last Awakened.
He had lobbied, begged, and pulled every string he had, both publicly and behind the scenes. But when the bill finally passed, Shin-woo stopped accepting.
As the godfather of all Hunters in Korea, he decided to resist on their behalf.
Today, with the handover just one week from completion—the day he and The Knights were scheduled to depart—the hunter had finally bared his fangs at his own.
***
“I’m sure you know what you’re doing, Godfather.”
Lieutenant Colonel Baek called him Godfather—partly because he had been a Hunter before joining the military, but mostly out of genuine respect and the slimmest hope of talking the man down.
“This is treason.”
“…”
“It’s treason against the nation, against our people… No. It’s treason against all of humanity!”
His face spattered with his soldiers’ blood, Shin-woo could only offer a bitter smile.
“I am simply trying to bring about the age of the Hunter once more, for the future of humanity.”
“What nonsense are you—!”
“I have no intention of asking for your understanding.”
Shin-woo took another heavy step forward. Baek quickly drew the pistol from his hip.
“Step aside. I will do what I must.”
“And I am simply doing what
I
must.”
“Resistance is meaningless. You know that.”
“Is your resistance not just as meaningless, Godfather?” Lieutenant Colonel Baek was practically screaming now. “You can still turn back. You can still remain a hero! Don’t become a monster, Godfather! Stop! Right now!”
Shin-woo did not stop.
BANG!
The lieutenant colonel fired his pistol.
But the bullet was already in Shin-woo’s hand.
Having casually plucked the bullet from the air, Shin-woo surged forward, closing the distance in an instant.
“Gahk?!”
A fist like steel slammed into the lieutenant colonel’s solar plexus. He coughed up blood and tumbled to the floor.
When the colonel managed to lift his head, he was staring down the barrel of a pistol.
Click.
Shin-woo had snatched the gun Baek had dropped and turned it on him.
The two men’s eyes met for a brief moment.
Shin-woo knew well from their year together that the colonel was not a man who would yield to injustice.
BANG!
The gunshot echoed down the hall.
Lieutenant Colonel Baek’s body crumpled to the floor.
Shin-woo stood still for a moment, finger still on the trigger, before slowly placing the pistol down beside the fallen man.
“…Occupy the control room, and take complete control of the rest of the Gate facility.”
The armored Hunters who had followed him inside bowed their heads in unison.
“Yes, sir!”
“I’ll give you thirty minutes. Go.”
The Hunters scattered, some heading for the control room, others to secure the rest of the facility.
“…The age of the Hunter is not over.”
Shin-woo surveyed the corpses of the loyal soldiers, his voice weary.
“Because I… will not let it end.”
Stepping over the bodies, Shin-woo began to walk slowly toward the control room. Each time his dress shoes met the floor, they left a long, bloody footprint in their wake.
Beside the vacant-eyed corpse of Lieutenant Colonel Baek, the pistol’s barrel trailed a thin wisp of smoke.
***
A hero of the Gate War. The godfather of all Korean Hunters. Leader of the Old Five Heroes. The ultimate vanguard S-Ranker.
The Iron Knight, Shin-woo Jo.
From Hunter to Villain—he’d turned heel.