The anonymous office rental had become the nerve center of a war no one else in the city knew was being fought. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting long, grey shadows across the floor, but no one in the room had slept. It was a new kind of war room, stripped of Aura's sleek corporate branding, smelling of stale coffee and rising tension.
Han Yoo-jin stood before a large monitor, the harsh blue light illuminating his tired, grim face. On the screen was a live video feed from the Incheon warehouse, showing the pathetic, slumped figure of Jo Min-su, now unbound but watched by one of Kang's stony-faced men. On a second monitor, patched in via a heavily encrypted video link, was the smirking, unshaven face of Nam Gyu-ri, broadcasting from his billiards hall hideout. Kang himself stood near the door, a silent, imposing statue. Oh Min-ji sat at her bank of laptops, her focus absolute. The Unholy Alliance was having its first official war council.
"Let's begin," Yoo-jin said, his voice cutting through the quiet hum of the electronics. He laid out the situation with brutal efficiency. "Ryu is planning an assassination attempt on you, Gyu-ri. He's using a dead-drop at Samseong Station at noon today to acquire the necessary equipment. The phrase he used was 'deleting files.' The target is the 'serpent's new ally.' That's you."
Gyu-ri let out a dry chuckle from the monitor. "Flattering. He always was theatrical."
"He knows about our alliance," Yoo-jin continued, ignoring the interruption. "Which means this dead-drop is almost certainly a trap. It's designed to test his new operative, or to draw us out into the open. The question is how we approach it."
The two diametrically opposed minds he had forced into this alliance immediately clashed.
Nam Gyu-ri spoke first, his voice dripping with condescending confidence. "The answer is obvious, Yoo-jin. Don't overthink it. It's a trap, so we spring it on our terms. We don't send the degenerate gambler," he said, gesturing dismissively at the monitor showing Jo Min-su. "He's a weak link, a liability. We send one of your thugs, one of Kang's hard men, disguised to look like him from a distance. When Ryu's operative makes the exchange at the locker, we grab them. We take them somewhere quiet and we beat a name out of them. Simple. Direct. Violence is the only language these people truly understand."
Before Yoo-jin could even process the blunt brutality of the suggestion, Min-ji spoke up from her station, her voice sharp with disapproval, refusing to even look at Gyu-ri's image on the screen.
"That's reckless and strategically foolish," she countered, her tone clinical. "Ryu will have counter-surveillance. He'll have observers watching for exactly that kind of direct assault. The moment we make a move, he'll know we're onto him, and his operative will vanish. The entire network will go dark. A direct confrontation gives us one shot, and if we miss, we get nothing."
She turned to Yoo-jin. "The smarter play is to use the trap against him. We let Jo Min-su make the pickup exactly as planned. We saturate the entire station with a web of digital and human surveillance. We use facial recognition on every person who comes within twenty feet of that locker bank for an hour before the drop. We identify the operative, and then we do nothing. We let them think they've succeeded. We track them digitally after they leave the station. We follow them back to their nest. No direct confrontation. We sacrifice the soldier to find the general."
Yoo-jin found himself caught between the two extremes: Gyu-ri's brute force, which promised immediate results at high risk, and Min-ji's subtle, digital patience, which was safer but could allow the enemy to slip away. Both were right, and both were wrong. He was the commander, and it was his job to forge a single, viable strategy from their conflicting philosophies.
He stepped up to a large whiteboard, erasing the remnants of a previous brainstorming session. "We're not choosing one plan," he declared, his voice taking on the familiar tone of command that had been absent for the past twenty-four hours. "We're doing both."
He began to sketch out a diagram of the station, his movements sharp and decisive. "Min-ji, you are in command of all digital surveillance. You are 'Overwatch.' I want every public and private camera in that station and the surrounding block under our control. I want facial recognition running constantly. Your job is to find the target. Gyu-ri is right about one thing: Ryu will have observers. Your priority is to identify them."
He then turned his attention to Kang. "Kang, you are in command of all ground assets. Your men will be plainclothes, blended into the crowd. I want three teams. Team Alpha will be a two-man shadow detail on Jo Min-su. Their only job is to ensure he gets to the locker and makes the pickup. Team Bravo will be our primary tail. Once Min-ji identifies a target, Bravo will follow them. I don't care where they go; you do not lose them. Team Charlie will be our 'hammer.' Four of your best men, positioned in a van nearby, on standby for extraction or intervention if, and only if, I give the order."
Finally, he looked at Nam Gyu-ri's smirking face on the monitor. "And you, Gyu-ri… you will be my eyes. You're not a strategist; you're a profiler. You know how Ryu thinks. You will be on this secure comms link with me and Min-ji for the entire operation. You will watch all the feeds alongside us. Your job is to look for the feint within the feint, the piece on the board that doesn't make sense. You're not looking for their plan; you're looking for Ryu's artistic signature."
He had done it. He had forced his warring generals into a single, cohesive operational structure, giving each a role that played to their strengths while mitigating their weaknesses. The tension was still thick enough to cut with a knife. Gyu-ri scoffed audibly at the idea of being a mere 'profiler,' while Min-ji's expression made it clear she was disgusted by the very idea of a 'hammer' team. But they were united by a common objective. For now.
As Yoo-jin was about to run through the contingency plans, there was a sharp knock on the office door.
Everyone froze. The atmosphere turned instantly electric. Kang, who was closest to the door, moved with silent speed, his right hand disappearing inside his jacket. He looked at Yoo-jin, who gave a single, curt nod.
Kang pulled the door open.
Standing in the hallway was Ahn Da-eun.
She was dressed down in jeans and a hoodie, her face pale under the harsh office lights, but her eyes were filled with a cold, hard resolve that Yoo-jin recognized all too well. Standing just behind her, looking anxious and apologetic, was Go Min-young.
Da-eun's gaze swept across the room, taking in the scene with a chilling calmness. She saw the screens filled with maps of the subway station, the live video feed of the bound and pathetic Jo Min-su, the glowering face of Nam Gyu-ri on the monitor. Her eyes narrowed.
"Go Min-young told me what you did last night," she said, her voice quiet but carrying the weight of an accusation. "She told me about this place. I didn't believe her until I saw it myself."
She stepped into the room, her presence immediately shifting the dynamics. She looked directly at Yoo-jin, her gaze bypassing everyone else.
"Whatever you're planning," she stated, her voice unwavering, "whatever dirty war you're fighting now… I'm a part of it. Ryu made me a part of it when he put my face on that screen. So I'm not hiding in a studio anymore. I'm not going to be your protected asset locked away in a safe house."
She walked over to the small sofa in the corner and sat down, crossing her arms. "I'm going to be right here. To watch."
Her presence was a silent, powerful judgment. The moral compass of his company, the very artist he was trying to protect, was now here to bear witness to his sins, refusing to let him fight his dirty war in the dark. The pressure in the room ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level.