Chapter 1352. Escaping (2)

On a ship, far off the coast of China...

Wiggins anxiously stared into the distance, somewhere far beyond the horizon.

Bloody hell...!

Lee Hyeon-Su was still unreachable. That proved that this situation was more dangerous than anyone had initially expected. The phone call with Lee Hyeon-Su abruptly ending could only indicate something untoward had happened to him, after all.

Could it be a simple accident? No, that was not likely.

No matter how much Wiggins tried to stay optimistic, he simply couldn’t ignore his hunch that screamed at him about how horrifying this situation actually was.

Just what was going on in China?

Wiggins had never felt this frustrated by being unable to contact someone.

We shouldn’t have sent my lord to China.

Several nations and their future depended on this operation. As an outsider, Wiggins shouldn’t even butt in. He might be a member of the Korean Martial Assembly, but he was still a British national, not a Korean.

However, this matter wasn’t created by the negotiation between the Martial Assembly and the current administration. No, it was the outcome of the negotiation between the

Korean

Martial Assembly and the

Korean

government.

It didn’t matter what Wiggins said, things still wouldn’t have changed. An outsider’s perspective usually didn’t carry much significance in such a situation, after all.

Even so, should I have said something?

Now that the situation had reached this point, Wiggins just couldn’t figure when and where things had started going wrong. Even so, maybe he should have...

Bang Jin-Hun grunted. “Excuse me, Mister Wiggins? Please calm down for a minute, okay?”

“...”

Wiggins turned his head to stare at Bang Jin-Hun and found his Korean colleague frowning deeply while chewing on a cigarette.

“You’re making everyone jittery with all of your fidgeting, Mister Wiggins. You know that better than anyone, so why are you still doing it?”

“Yes, indeed. You’re right.”

Wiggins sighed deeply. To think he’d get told off by none other than Bang Jin-Hun! It seemed he had lost his composure for real this time.

Bang Jin-Hun asked, “Didn’t you say the Round Table folks detected strange movements in China?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And then, we can’t contact Lee Hyeon-Su.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“...What a f*cked up situation this is,” Bang Jin-Hun helplessly chuckled. “Then again, life always plays tricks like this, doesn’t it? Things that look tough at the beginning can end unexpectedly easily. Or problems that look simple on the surface keep ballooning in scale the more you try to solve it. Isn’t this one of those situations?”

“...”

“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about here. I mean, our boss has survived all kinds of crap in his life, right? He can handle whatever comes his way. Our job is to secure a suitable escape path, that is all.”

Despite saying all that, Bang Jin-Hun had been chain smoking for several hours now. Considering he had quit smoking well before Kang Jin-Ho had entered his life... It seemed he had fully embraced the smoker’s life once more.

“An escape path, is it...?” Wiggins muttered, his eyes withdrawn.

Kang Jin-Ho only had to reach the seaside, and that would be all.

Didn’t they already experience it before? Wiggins could teleport in and rescue Kang Jin-Ho if the latter had reached the seaside. Since a large-scale teleport requiring many mages was currently not feasible, this was the only option they had right now.

I can at least try to rescue Lee Hyeon-Su as well, but...

There was currently no way to rescue the other Assembly members that had accompanied Kang Jin-Ho to China. They

could

swim to this ship, like the last time, but...

“Mister Wiggins, when you said strange movements, what did you mean?”

Wiggins shook his head. “I’m not sure, either. The Round Table hadn’t given me a detailed report yet. All they said was that they detected suspicious movements of troops stationed in Beijing.”

Wiggins wasn’t sure what the “troops stationed in Beijing” even meant. After all, he didn’t wait for more info before alerting others. More detailed information should arrive from the Round Table soon enough. But the problem with that was that they could very well be running out of time while waiting around for more news.

“Mister Wiggins,” Bang Jin-Hun quietly called out.

“Mister Bang, let’s chat another time, shall we? Right now, we...”

“We need to decide, Mister Wiggins.”

“...What do you mean?”

Wiggins turned around to look. Bang Jin-Hun, his eyes narrowed, exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke before grimly muttering.

“If the situation looks too dicey... I’m going in.”

“Going in? Where?”

Wiggins furrowed his brow. Did Bang Jin-Hun mean China?

He turned around to look at the undulating surface of the ocean in the distance, then looked back at Bang Jin-Hun again. Wiggins’ eyes subtly quaked just then. Did this guy lose his mind?

Bang Jin-Hun should know the implication behind that move, so why?

“Mister Bang, you know how much that would exacerbate the situation.”

“No, Mister Wiggins. It’s you who needs to wake up.”

“...Excuse me?”

Bang Jin-Hun’s voice remained calm but cold. “What do you think is the absolute worst crisis our Assembly can experience?”

“Well, that is...” Wiggins abruptly stopped talking and clamped his mouth shut.

“It’s not war, Mister Wiggins. And it’s not the Assembly getting disintegrated after we fail the operation, and the government blames us for it. Nope. It’s the death of the Assembly Master. Without him, the Assembly is done for. Finished. Destroyed for good. Doesn’t matter if it’s instantaneous or agonizingly slow.”

Bang Jin-Hun was right. The Crimson King’s faction would charge right into South Korea like a starving beast, after all. Vator or Wiggins wouldn’t be strong enough to stop them.

No, wait. Before all that...

Did Wiggins and Vator have any obligations to risk their lives for the Kang Jin-Ho-less Martial Assembly?

Wiggins suddenly had an epiphany that his loyalty, or for that matter, other directors’ loyalty, wasn’t toward the Assembly but Kang Jin-Ho the individual.

If Kang Jin-Ho was dead, the Martial Assembly would most likely fail to maintain itself even without the outside factors closing in.

First of all, Chang Min would lead the demon cult away and leave the Assembly. Worse still, he could start a war against the Assembly as a punishment for sending his liege into a deadly trap.

Chang Min was unpredictable enough to do that, wasn’t he?

It was easy to predict the behavioral patterns of loyal people, since one only had to look at who or what they were loyal to. However, Chang Min’s loyalty verged on sheer madness at this point. That made it almost impossible for ordinary people to predict his behavior.

Bang Jin-Hun continued to speak while Wiggins stewed in his thoughts.

“We need to try everything to rescue the Assembly Master. Whether our methods cross the line or not isn’t important right now. I hope you understand what I’m talking about here, Mister Wiggins.”

“...”

Wiggins stared at Bang Jin-Hun for a while before sighing under his breath.

Bang Jin-Hun used to be the Assembly Master. And before that, he created a faction within the organization to oppose Lee Jung-Geol, too.

Wiggins was getting a stark demonstration on what separated a leader from an advisor. The Master of the Round Table and Bang Jin-Hun had that quality. Even Kang Jin-Ho, too. But Wiggins, he... He didn’t.

That quality was the

will

to see things through, no matter what losses they might take on, even when no one wanted to take responsibility.

Unfortunately, Wiggins desperately lacked that quality.

“Mister Bang, from this moment on, you’re in charge of this operation.”

Bang Jin-Hun tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be mistaken, however. This is not a protest nor a sign of me finally not giving a damn anymore.”

Wiggins furrowed his brow.

“It’s just that I believe this is the best option for us. I’m not good at making judgment calls, Mister Bang. Staying a bit away from the frontline and giving people advice or criticism is when I shine the most. So, I’m merely reverting to what I’m good at.”

Bang Jin-Hun wordlessly nodded. He might have all acted humble and the like while refusing the role if this had been any other day, but not now. Even one second of delay while making decisions could alter the Assembly’s fate irrevocably.

“Understood. Mister Wiggins, please stay in touch with the Round Table.”

Wiggins nodded. “Got it. Leave it to me.”

“Also, let’s have someone to keep calling Lee Hyeon-Su and the Assembly Master until one of them answers. We simply don’t have enough information right now.”

“I’ve already arranged for someone to do that,” said Wiggins.

Bang Jin-Ho sighed. “In the worst-case scenario, we will enter China. Please find a suitable landing spot for us. Swimming toward China from here will take too long, so we gotta get as close to the land as possible with this ship.”

“That... will be risky.”

“And that’s the risk we must take on.”

Wiggins nodded. “Got it. I’ll do as you say.”

Talking to Bang Jin-Hun had cleared up his thoughts.

Finding out what was going on, who was targeting Kang Jin-Ho, and whether he could handle the threat or not... were all problems they could deal with later.

Indeed, the current priority was finding the best way to help Kang Jin-Ho. Bang Jin-Hun might be crude in his ways, but he still had found that best way.

Bang Jin-Hun rubbed his chin. “Also...”

“Yes, Mister Bang?”

“

Mm

... Please alert Sir Vator as well. It’ll be too late if he sets off from the border at the same time as us. Tell him to enter China right now.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. He can always get out of there once we confirm there’s no problem, right?”

Talk about being impatient. While thinking that some people in this world should never wear the captain’s armband, Wiggins pulled out his phone to call Vator. However, before he could do that...!

“Sir! Mister Wiggins!”

An Assembly member suddenly rushed up to the deck.

Wiggins looked at him in alarm. “What is it?”

“We spotted unidentified vessels rapidly approaching us!”

“Say what?” Wiggins grew urgent, his voice rising higher. “Vessels? As in multiple?”

“Yes, sir! We spotted at least a dozen plus!”

“W-what...?!”

They were in the international waters. Meaning, it was basically a lawless zone. No patrol boats would travel this far to inspect suspicious vessels. Yet a dozen or so unidentified ships were headed here?

“Any chance that they are fishing vessels? A large fishing operation can have a dozen or so ships, doesn’t it?”

The messenger hurriedly shook his head. “We don’t know yet, sir. But they are closing in with all their lights turned off!”

“...Damn it.”

Fishing vessels wouldn’t travel in groups with their lights turned off at night. After considering several possibilities, Wiggins tightly clenched his fists.

Could it be the Chinese? Could it be that the information about their presence here had leaked?

If Wiggins was in their shoes, he’d have attacked this place first. Cutting off the escape route was the first rule of a hunt, after all.

What about resisting, then?

No, that won’t be possible.

The Assembly members could have fought back had this been on land. Even if soldiers were specifically targeting them, all the Assembly members here had been hand-picked for their ability to extricate themselves from sticky situations. But that story would change when the terrain was water.

Although the chances were low, what if the Chinese navy fired a torpedo? That would sink the Assembly’s ship, and the surviving Assembly members would be left floating on the water, helplessly exposed to a hail of bullets.

In other words, it’d be a massacre.

A few might survive somehow, but would anyone call that a successful escape?

There could be another one-sided massacre similar to the Battle of Myeongnyang on the cards tonight, this time unfolding on the Yellow Sea![1]

Bang Jin-Hun growled out a new order. “Tell everyone to wait.”

The messenger gasped. “Sir? But...!”

“I said, tell everyone to wait!”

When Bang Jin-Hun yelled, the messenger hurriedly lowered his head.

“Those f*ckers won’t just try to sink us out of the blue, okay? We’re worried about creating international problems, so the Chinese must be in the same boat, right?”

“But, they... They are Chinese, sir. They might not care enough to...”

“Fine, fine! I hear you, so just go and tell everyone to freaking wait!”

“Director Bang, sir! If we want to leave, we must get moving now to—”

Bang Jin-Hun grabbed the collar of the messenger and yanked him close. Then, he growled like a predator ready to rip his victim’s throat out.

“Now listen here, you dipsh*t! We ain’t going nowhere without the Assembly Master. Dying here or dying in Korea, it’s all the same, isn’t it? Do you get my drift?”

“I... Sir. Yes, I do.”

The messenger realized that any further resistance from him might prompt Bang Jin-Hun to murder him right here.

Bang Jin-Hun let go of the messenger’s collars, then searched for another cigarette, his hands a little more frantic than before.

“Bloody hell, just what is up with this goddamn situation?”

Things kept getting weirder and weirder here. Something like this had never happened before; unexpected events continued to unfold, as if...

As if they were ensnared in a trap.

Bang Jin-Hun noticed Wiggins whispering a chant, one of his hands reaching forward.

Mm? What is Mister Wiggins doing?

After focusing his magical energy for a while, Wiggins finally lowered his hand while looking a little drained.

“Mister Bang, we need to go back.”

“...What are you talking about?”

“If you’re right about those vessels being Chinese in origin, they won’t just attack us out of the blue. Because of the potential diplomatic row that might create. The Korean government could take issue with the Chinese navy sinking a Korean civilian vessel and demand a hefty compensation, you see?”

“Well,

uh

... Sure? I haven’t thought that far ahead, though?”

“However, what if those ships didn’t come from China?”

“Not from China? If not the Chinese, who would come this far to attack us? Is there... anyone...

Oh

.”

Bang Jin-Hun clamped his mouth shut after the realization dawned on him, too.

“Indeed, Mister Bang. There is one. Another country that’s very close to us, has a robust navy, and also can be seen as our mortal enemy.”

Bang Jin-Hun’s cheeks twitched ominously. “Seriously?!”

Wiggins chuckled hollowly. “It seems we’ve fallen for one hell of a trap, Mister Bang. They hit us in the spot that not even the Crimson King’s faction has thought of. We’ve been too lackadaisical.”

Wiggins began gritting his teeth as the unidentified vessels got close enough for his naked eyes to see.

1. The Battle of Myeongnyang took place on October 26, 1597. Joseon Kingdom’s navy, led by the legendary Admiral Yi Sun-Shin, massacred the invading Japanese forces near Jindo Island off the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. ☜