OMH Chapter 53

Oh My Hero – Episode 53

53. Hooligan (17)

Thinking about it, it’s been quite a while since I last saw Woojin.

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since receiving the Lesser Bug Stage 2 alert. Where did he go? He definitely should have received the radio call to gather at the control center.

“Come to think of it, why hasn’t he come?”

“What do you mean?”

“Woojin. There’s no way he wouldn’t come if he received the call.”

“That Guide is a bit self-centered, right? I guess he didn’t want to come.”

Jang Hana sneered about Woojin.

“Even if Woojin has a self-righteous side, he’s not reckless. He knows what’s important and what he needs to protect. Do you think Woojin is like you guys?”

Besides, Woojin is training to become a specialized field Guide. He knows that Lesser Bug Stage 2 means there are external intruders. He memorized it so diligently.

There’s no way Woojin would be uncooperative. I’ve been watching him for about a month, and he’s not the type to act recklessly. It’s probably more accurate to say that he can’t come.

For example, maybe he didn’t receive the radio call.

‘But could that kind of situation happen here?’

Suddenly, a chill went down my spine.

Woojin’s disappearance, the Hooligan’s thoughts fading, and Woojin being a Guide. These fragments were coming together to paint an ominous picture.

“Guys, turn on your radios. We need to find Woojin’s radio.”

I urgently started searching for Woojin with the others. I had a bad feeling.

Besides, something similar happened last time. He suddenly disappeared, and when we found him…

“Here, I found the radio!”

Ham Soyoung shouted, saying she found the radio behind the control center.

“What about Woojin?”

“Just the radio…”

At the feet of the dejected Ham Soyoung were a broken radio, a finely crushed Smartwatch, and a fist-sized cobblestone.

‘This cobblestone, there’s dried blood on it?’

My vague premonition turned into a certainty. He was definitely attacked and kidnapped by the Hooligan. I checked Woojin’s GPS location on my Smartwatch.

“What is it? GPS tracking? You have the Guide’s watch? We don’t even have that.”

“Woojin doesn’t have his Smartwatch either. It’s crushed to powder over there, rolling around with the radio.”

I was busy, but curious teenagers kept talking to me.

“Then how are you finding him? Does a Guide have a unique personal frequency like an Esper?”

“Maybe! Isn’t the matching rate all about the Esper’s and Guide’s personal frequencies resonating?”

“Ah, right? So you’re finding him with a registered frequency, just like the research center finds us.”

I didn’t bother to answer, and Jang Hana and Ham Soyoung took it upon themselves to speculate.

It was a plausible guess, but it was wrong.

It’s true that each Esper and Guide has a unique frequency. How much they resonate with that frequency determines the matching rate.

Most people don’t know this, but since they live at the research center, they probably easily come across this kind of knowledge. Come to think of it, I also learned about it at the research center.

However, it’s not true that you can pinpoint someone’s location with this frequency.

Maybe an S-grade could, but the lower grades don’t have frequencies strong enough to be tracked from afar. If they could catch Espers and Guides with their unique frequencies, the EGA Association would have already rounded up all the Espers and Guides in this land.

That’s why there’s nothing better than GPS for location tracking.

A signal directly captured by satellite is more convenient than running around with a frequency measuring device.

Most Association members have GPS chips implanted in their bodies, so they can be found immediately if something happens.

People who know, know, but it’s a secret, so it’s best not to tell them. It’s nice and convenient for me if they misunderstand like that.

Of course, since it’s a secret, you need to go through the permission process and track it unless you’re a director-level. You also need to write and submit a separate report on the tracking.

‘But I got permission before, and this is an emergency, so it’s okay to use it.’

Whether it had captured all the signals, the Smartwatch beeped and sounded an alarm.

I immediately found Woojin’s location with the GPS.

*

Cha Woojin was tied hand and foot, stuffed in a sack like luggage, and being dragged along.

“Ah, it’s so damn heavy! I told you to throw this away, right? What a pain in the ass. We have so much luggage to carry.”

“Use your psychokinesis. You’re overflowing with power because of him, so why are you complaining? Use your ability.”

“If I lift something over 30kg, we’ll get caught. Do you want to get caught with us because of this bastard? We can’t even take the fast route and have to go the long way because of him.”

“Either way, we have to go back today even without him. We’ll get caught if we go above ground.”

The Hooligans argued with each other endlessly.

Because they were moving through the underground passage, the sounds of the Hooligans arguing echoed loudly, making my head hurt.

Being stuffed in a sack and dragged along, I was crouching in an uncomfortable position, and the impact of the friction on the ground added to the pain, making my back ache terribly. Of course, the aftereffects of the forced Stage 3 Guiding would also contribute to this pain.

Those hiding in the control center’s storage room had temporarily enhanced their abilities using Guiding.

As soon as the Guiding was over, the Hooligans covered Cha Woojin’s head with a large sack and crumpled him inside.

However, because Cha Woojin was tall, his ankles protruded from the sack. The Hooligans cursed that they couldn’t tightly seal the sack, but thanks to not being able to seal it tightly, I could roughly see the situation outside through a slightly open gap.

It was fortunate for Cha Woojin.

Cha Woojin, crumpled into the sack, was briefly stuck in a small hole, but he safely came out thanks to the Hooligan’s rough handling.

Of course, they were rough not only with their hands but also with their mouths.

While pulling Cha Woojin out of the hole, the Hooligans relentlessly cursed.

Cha Woojin listened to their voices and hoped that someone would find him, but no one appeared.

Even though he used the ability to become transparent, three adult men squeezed through a narrow hole without anyone noticing. I couldn’t tell if the patrol team was incompetent or if they were skilled.

Cha Woojin saw the blue sky turn into black cement debris through the gap in the sack.

Soon, the Hooligans’ voices began to echo as if they were speaking in a cave, and he realized that they were using the underground passage.

Cha Woojin himself had used the underground passage often before joining the EGA Association, so he knew.

The echo added to the Hooligans’ voices, making my head throb.

I didn’t know if it was because of the noise or because I was hit in the head earlier.

My whole body ached from being dragged on the bumpy floor in an uncomfortable position, and the aftereffects of the Guiding. It also felt like I was having trouble breathing because I was gagged and in the sack.

Cha Woojin unknowingly lost consciousness.

*

“This should definitely be the place. Why isn’t he here?”

I led the kids to the location where Woojin’s GPS signal was being picked up.

But all that was visible were empty spaces with scattered cement debris.

‘Then…’

Did the Hooligans remove the part with the GPS implanted and throw it among the debris?

I grabbed the rebar stuck in the cement, intending to lift and overturn the surrounding cement chunks.

It was a large chunk with a lot of rebar, probably the remains of a building, but lifting it wasn’t difficult.

“Come to think of it, this used to be the section where Line 1 passed through. They might have gone into the underground passage.”

Kwak Seunghae, who had followed us, said. Is it okay for a director to leave the control center like this?

“…What’s Line 1?”

“He’s talking about the subway. Senior, sometimes you don’t know anything.”

“Then you should say subway. Why are you saying Line 1?”

I thought Line 1 was an EGA Association laboratory that had extended this far.

Anyway, Kwak Seunghae seems to know this area well, as befitting a director.

“So you’re saying there’s a space underneath here?”

“Yes. There are many places that have collapsed due to monsters, and we often check them because monsters sometimes nest there. I didn’t think Hooligans would hide there, though.”

‘Monsters can come in, so of course, Hooligans can come in too. Isn’t this guy too incompetent?’

Kwak Seunghae, who had briefly seemed trustworthy because of his knowledge of the terrain, looked pathetic again.

However, even the unreliable Kwak Seunghae knew the entrance to the underground passage. If he didn’t, I was just going to collapse the ground here and enter, but this worked out well.

The underground passage was extremely dark, as befitting its being underground.

Fluorescent substances were spread all over, faintly glowing, as if monster fluids had flowed out and hardened, and bright light leaked in from holes in the ceiling. Thanks to those lights, I could barely see inside.

The underground passage had something that looked like a railroad track on the floor, as if to prove that subways used to run here.

Collapsed cement debris and what appeared to be monster corpses were scattered everywhere.

‘Is Woojin in a place like this?’

I turned on the GPS tracking screen again. The mark showed the same location as before.

‘But I’m standing in that spot right now, and he’s not here. I turned over all the debris, and he’s not there. Is it because it’s underground? Is it lagging?’

I touched the Smartwatch screen and pressed refresh.

A message appeared in the middle of the refreshed Smartwatch screen.

[Access permission has expired.]

The GPS tracking permission period has expired. This is ridiculous.

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