Chapter 5 AUTHORITY IS MADE
The task force depot squatted at the edge of the Cheongdam luxury district like a bad tooth — all brutal angles and reinforced concrete, a constant reminder to everyone below exactly who controlled their lives. Searchlights swept the perimeter in slow, sweeping arcs, cutting through the hazy night air.
Minjun stood in the shadow of a ventilation shaft, his enhanced eyes tracking every guard movement with perfect clarity. Thanks to the [8K Resolution] now running smoothly through his neural bridge, the world had a cruel sharpness. He could see the tiny scratches on the officers’ ceramic armor and the steady pulse of the biometric scanners at the main gate.
“Twelve guards on the outer perimeter,” Minjun said, his voice steady and low, filtered through the quiet hum of the neural bridge at the base of his skull. “Two automated turrets on the north wall. Level 2 encryption on their comms. I can feel the signal buzzing in my teeth.”
Jiho crouched beside him, gripping a stolen stun baton so tightly his knuckles had gone white. “Minjun, this is suicide. Even with all your… edits. One alarm and the entire Sector 2 tactical team will be on us in under three minutes.”
“They’ll only react if they see an enemy,” Minjun replied calmly.
He focused on the nearest officer — a man leaning against a side entrance, lazily smoking a cigarette.
[INSPECT]
[Target: Task Force Unit 774 (Human)]
[Attributes:]
- [Gear: Level 2 Body Armor]
- [Status: Bored]
- [Authority: Low-Tier Officer]
- [Permission: Authorized Personnel (Depot Floor 1)]
Minjun reached into his mental clipboard. He still carried the [Resolution] and [High-Speed] attributes taken from Jaeho, and his recent Level 2 upgrade had opened a fresh slot.
He targeted the officer’s [Permission].
[Command: COPY]
[System Alert: Copying Conceptual Data. Stamina Drain: 15%.]
A familiar sharp pull tugged behind his eyes — the old brain burn — but it was manageable now. The neural bridge spread the heat evenly across his nervous system, preventing blood from pouring out of his nose. He held the [Permission] steady in his mind: a string of encrypted code that told the depot’s systems he belonged there.
“Follow me,” Minjun said. “Walk like you own the place. Look nervous and the sensors will notice.”
They stepped out of the shadows. Minjun walked straight toward the side entrance, boots clicking confidently on the polished pavement. No sneaking. No hesitation.
The officer looked up, his hand drifting toward his holster. “Hey! Restricted area. Civilians stay out. Move along before I—”
Minjun kept walking. He extended his hand, a faint amber glow visible only to him, and touched the control panel beside the door.
[Command: PASTE] → [Target: Access Panel]
The panel flashed green. The heavy steel door opened with a smooth hiss.
The officer’s mouth fell open. He stared at the green light, then at Minjun — a man who had clearly come from the slums, yet the system had just welcomed him like an old friend. The contradiction refused to resolve itself.
“Sir?” the officer stammered, straightening up awkwardly. “I… I’m sorry. The scanner must be malfunctioning. Your ID didn’t register on my HUD.”
“Your HUD is faulty,” Minjun said flatly. “Fix it. Or I’ll cut your job description entirely.”
He walked past the stunned guard and stepped into the sterile white interior of the depot. Jiho followed close behind, head lowered, struggling to hide the fear on his face.
Inside was a cold maze of steel and glass. Rows of laser-locked cells held seized goods — scooters, electronics, weapons, and augments taken from people who couldn’t pay their protection fees.
Minjun stopped in front of a massive vault door at the end of the corridor.
[INSPECT]
[Target: Evidence Vault 01]
[Attributes:]
- [Material: 10-inch Titanium Alloy]
- [Security: DNA-Lock / Neural-Key]
- [Contents: High-Tier Mana-Cores, Classified Files]
“This is it,” Minjun said. “The real power of the task force isn’t in their badges. It’s in what they steal and lock away.”
He examined the DNA-Lock. It was a Level 3 barrier. His current Level 2 permissions weren’t enough — he couldn’t copy a key that wasn’t already in his system.
“I need a donor,” he muttered.
“A donor for what?” Jiho asked nervously.
Minjun glanced down the hallway. Two more officers were approaching, their boots echoing off the walls. Sergeants — higher rank, stronger authority.
“Stay back.”
He activated the [Velocity] spike through his neural bridge. The world slowed around him. He could see the sweat on the sergeants’ brows and the faint tremor in their hands.
He moved between them like smoke.
Warden Sergeant (Authority):
[Attribute: Identity (Biometric)]
[CUT]
The first sergeant handed over his [Identity] without resistance. The man immediately stumbled, his head spinning as his digital persona was ripped away. As far as the depot was concerned, he no longer existed.
The second sergeant drew his stun baton, blue sparks crackling along the metal.
“Freak!” he shouted.
Minjun caught the baton in his bare hand.
[Target: Stun-Baton]
[Attribute: Electrical Charge]
[CUT]
The baton went dead. Minjun held the captured electricity in his mind for a split second, then discharged it straight into the sergeant’s chest armor.
A thousand volts surged through the man. He convulsed and collapsed, armor smoking.
Minjun crouched beside the first sergeant — the one whose identity he now carried — and pressed his palm against the DNA scanner on the vault door.
[Command: PASTE] → [Target: DNA-Scanner]
The vault groaned deeply. Titanium bolts retracted with a sound like distant thunder. The door swung open into a room bathed in soft blue light.
In the center, resting on a pedestal, sat a Class-S Mana-Core. It throbbed with liquid energy, giving the air a thick, electric weight.
“My god…” Jiho whispered as he stepped inside. “That thing could power half of Gangnam for a hundred years.”
“It’s not about power,” Minjun said, walking toward it. He read the attributes hovering above the core.
[Target: Class-S Mana-Core]
[Attributes:]
- [Energy: Infinite (Potential)]
- [Logic: Reality-Anchor]
- [Status: Locked by Administrator ‘Chairman Seojun Kang’]
Minjun went completely still. The name hit him like cold metal. Chairman Seojun Kang — the chief executive of the Collective. The architect who had written the very laws Minjun was now breaking.
[Level 2 Permission Insufficient to edit ‘Reality-Anchor’.]
[Caution: Administrator Seojun Kang has been notified of the violation.]
“We need to leave,” Minjun said urgently. “Now. He knows. The one who built this knows I’m here.”
“But the core!” Jiho reached out and touched the glass casing.
“Don’t!”
It was too late. The moment Jiho’s fingers made contact, a harsh red light exploded from the ceiling.
[SECURITY OVERRIDE INITIATED]
[DELETION PROTOCOL ACTIVE]
The walls of the vault began to vibrate with terrible white energy. It wasn’t a weapon — it was a Delete command aimed at the material space itself. Everything inside was being marked for erasure.
Minjun felt his own body starting to flicker. His skin and clothes were breaking apart into pixels.
“Jiho! Grab my hand!”
He looked down at the floor beneath them.
[Target: Floor (Material)]
[Attribute: Existence]
[CUT]
He sliced away the very existence of the solid matter under their feet.
They fell.
Not into the basement. They dropped through the null space of the building’s logic. For a brief moment, Minjun saw the world as it truly was — a skeleton of glowing white lines and flickering code. The luxury towers above revealed themselves as a vast, hungry machine with roots deep in the city below.
Then they hit the ground hard.
They landed outside Dr. Hyunwoo’s clinic in the Grey Zone. Cold, merciless rain poured down. It felt like the kind of gasp that could rip your lungs apart.
[Stamina: 2%]
Neural Bridge Status: Overheated.
“We didn’t get it,” Jiho coughed, his clothes torn and scorched. “We lost the core.”
Minjun looked down at his hand. A faint residual blue light still flickered in his palm.
“I didn’t lose everything,” he said, slowly opening his fingers.
A tiny, flickering blue flame danced there. It wasn’t the core itself — but he had managed to [COPY] one of its properties right before the vault erased everything around them.
Target: Attribute, Reality-Anchor (Fragment)
Status: Stored in Secret Buffer.
“I have the anchor,” Minjun said. His eyes glowed amber once more. “I can’t rewrite the world yet, Jiho. But I can stop the world from rewriting me.”
In the distance, the sirens of the Sector 2 task force began to wail. The luxury towers were no longer just buildings. They had finally opened their eyes and were looking straight at him.
Minjun pushed himself to his feet, legs unsteady but determined.
“The lights are getting closer,” Jiho said nervously. “The task force is coming.”
“Let them come,” Minjun replied. “I want to see how effective their Authority really is when I paste the ‘Criminal’ attribute onto their captain.”
