He had been stuck in an anxious situation where he wasn’t sure if the Joongmae Gang had really boarded this ship or not.

Now that his anxiety was finally laid to rest, Team Leader’s mumbled what sounded like prayers.

-I’ll put in an emergency request for support with the Coast Guard. How many people are there?

“There were two people in a box. Since the trailer is packed full of them, I’m guessing around forty.

-Hah. These sons of bitches.

“What’s the situation with the cabins? Have you found out how many of the Joongmae Gang are on board?

-I can’t be sure, since everyone is wearing casual clothes. But that said… based on my gut instinct as a detective, somewhere between fifty to seventy?

“That sounds likely.”

Since the police had been stirred up, they might be planning to move to China until the heat died down.

It could also be to prevent people from escaping during transport.

In any case, if it’s between fifty to seventy, that means that more than one in ten passengers are members of the Joongmae Gang.

‘If that’s the case, things are going to get crazy.’

“About the Coast Guard. We should ask them to approach as quietly as possible so that we can extract the victims first. Since there are civilians on board the ship, we need to handle this matter discreetly.”

With crazy guys like them, I don’t have an idea how they would react to this kind of setback.

In the worst case scenario, they might even take the passengers hostage.

-Understood. For now, just stay on that deck. I’ll keep an eye on their movements from here.

“Yes. Roger that.”

Turning off my radio, I once again picked up my hammer.

There were still a lot of wooden boxes left inside the trailer.

We needed to crack open all of them to confirm if they contained the missing persons or just general items.

After looking around, Sae-Bom picked up the fallen latch and started banging away at a wooden box.

Bam, bam, bam-

“Ugh.”

Her desire to free them had to be because she knew just how much agony these people must be in, because she had been in the exact same situation.

Even though blood was dripping from her palms, she kept up her actions.

In order to grant Sae-Bom’s desire, I broke open the rest of the boxes.

“Waaaah-”

“Shh. Be quiet.”

People who had their hands freed comforted those remaining, while removing the tape and ropes binding them.

Beads of sweat were dripping down from my chin.

“Hah. It feels like my shoulders are going to fall off.”

The deck was covered in a mess of wooden planks.

After the call to Team Leader on the radio, the ferry slowly reduced its speed and finally came to a complete stop.

It seemed like the guys at the Coast Guard had sent the ship a signal.

“Huh? Over there, something is coming.”

This was said by a woman as she pointed out to the sea.

It was a small yacht.

It seemed that a private boat that had been fishing nearby had heard our request for assistance and sailed over.

And in the distance we could also see ten other ships waving the flags of the Coast Guard.

“Haaah.”

Out of relief, Sae-Bom released a small sigh.

Waving our hands, we signalled the yacht to come closer.

Once the boat pulled alongside the ferry, we lowered the emergency ladder.

It was at that moment.

Click, click-

-Newbie. There’s something up with the Joongmae Gang guys. After the ship stopped, they all headed up to the captain’s quarter like a pack of wild dogs. Huh? Oi, you!

At these urgent words, the radio cut off.

Shit. It was likely that only half of them ran over to the captain’s quarters, while the other half should be on their way here to check the truck.

We quickly hurried the women down the ladder.

Although everyone was moving at full speed, there were still so many people left on the ferry that it looked like those guys would get here first.

“Hyung-nims.”

I took a deep breath and lifted my hammer.

Mong-Doo held an iron pipe in each hand, having picked them up from somewhere.

Black was cracking his knuckles.

Smiling widely, Mong-Doo twirled the iron pipes in his hands.

“Since they seem to have split in half, let’s finish them up quickly.”

“Sounds good. These motherfuckers. Why don’t we just throw them into the sea?”

“Hey now. You can’t do that. Think about how hard it would be to find their bodies.

“They’ll be dead anyways, so who cares how they died. Apart from us, who else will know about it?”

Over by the corridor leading to this deck.

I could see a bunch of tough guys come running down.

Clang-!

“发生了什么事？”3

When the door opened, we finally got to see our targets.

With our teeth bared in fierce grins, we leapt at them.

While swinging my hammer at them, I shouted.

“They’ve all been freed! You motherfuckers!”

Footnote:

3 “What’s going on?”