Under The Veil of Night

Time passed so slowly as the children stayed in that dirty room. Occasionally, there would be sobs sounded from one of the girls, but most of the time, they stayed quiet.

There was no food to help them keep their energy, so no one wanted to waste their energy by moving around without thinking. They have to stay quiet if they didn’t want to die because of the cold.

’I’m cold,’ Misae could feel strength slipping out of her body.

As someone who came from a good family background, she was already used with comfortable life. Staying in the cold for hours was clearly not listed in her daily activities.

Bang!

When the door opened again, their body tensed up terribly. Looking at the door, they were waiting for anyone who would come inside. Several men came inside with one man leading them. He was holding a large gun, with the point rested on his shoulder, looking as relaxed as possible.

"Now take the boys. We have to catch up on our schedule."

"Aye."

The men beside him started to move towards the boys, their hand ready to take them. Several boys struggled, kicking and punching with all of their power.

"You! Let me go!"

"B*stard! I won’t let you get me!"

Bang!

The man in the middle shot his gun to one of the boy’s direction. The bullet barely grazed the man’s cheek. "If you don’t quiet, the next one will go through your head."

"Just shoot me!" the boy yelled angrily, tears streamed down his face. He was afraid, but he didn’t want to show it here.

"Tsk," the man clicked his tongue.

Bang!

The boy fell down on the ground, blood oozed out from his forehead.

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

"Shut up," the man shouted. "Speed up the process. The boss is going to be angry if we’re not quick."

"Aye, aye, the clan’s matter is the most important," one of his men replied lazily as he picked up the dead boy. "I’ll throw him out first."

"Just go."

All these times, Misae was curling up her body like a ball. Seeing the man killed someone so suddenly and the boy died made her incredibly terrified. Tears stained her face as she stayed quietly at the corner, unwilling to move in the slightest.

Not long after taking them, the room turned peaceful again. However, the atmosphere became tenser as the children didn’t know who they were going to take the next time.

Soon, they fell into sleep, trying to make themselves comfortable and forgot everything that happened here.

"I can’t stand this anymore!" one of the boys stood up. "I want to get out from here."

He moved to the door and kicked it heavily. The sounds caused the others to wake up and stared at the boy. The door didn’t budge at all. Other than making heavy noise, there was no other reaction.

"Open up!" the boy kicked the door again.

The door suddenly opened, but before the boy could leap in joy, a gun was pointed straight to his forehead. A man was standing before the door with an irritated expression.

"It seems you don’t have enough lessons."

The man kicked the boy as the boy wailed in pain. The others wanted to help, but the man pointed a gun to them. His meaning was clear, if they dared to help, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them.

"Aaargh!"

The boy continued to wail until he stopped moving, Misae was curling up her body into a ball. Her hand was blocking her ear as she didn’t want to hear them anymore.

It was the second time she saw someone die in front of her. And this time, he was her friend. She couldn’t bear to listen to the voice of her friends yelling to death. It was simply too scary. She didn’t want to be here anymore.

Time passed without her knowing time. Her stomach was growling with hunger, but she didn’t move from her place. She was too afraid to move. Her body leaned to the side as she let her head rested. She was tired.

The help she has been hoping for never appeared.

She didn’t have the strength to fight by herself and forced her way out, so she could only stay quiet here.

"Hey, the others are taking too long today."

The voice of people from outside the building was transferred to her. It seemed that they were talking while leaning to the building. As solid items were better voice courier than air, she could hear their voice when she leaned on the wall like this.

"They should have taken in the next batch. Our clan depends on the sale of these youngsters to live."

The other man scoffed. "Our new leader is just too lazy to maintain a proper clan. Besides, who cares about it? It’s already normal for the underworld organization to do something like this. It’s illegal, that’s why we call it underworld."

"Well, I heard that we’re going to chase after the older students too."

"Really? They’re stronger, right?"

"Even if they’re stronger, there’s no way they can contend against people from the underworld. We live by fighting everyday."

Misae couldn’t hear the rest of their voice because they moved away. Her eyes were looking forward, but her mind was not there. She couldn’t think of anything else as all she hoped was to get out from here.

She already knew about the clan having bad people inside them, but why should they involve ordinary citizens? Killing other people without a second thought, treating children like items, beating up innocent people just because they wanted money.

Why did the clan exist in the first place?

Misae’s mind was filled with the teaching her teacher gave her. They told her that the clans existed for the better good, but she couldn’t see any of them from what she experienced. All the clan did was only making life worse for her and tortured the innocent.

Her mind was filled with regret. She should have just listened to the teacher before and stayed inside. That way, she would not get involved in this incident and experienced the dark side of the clans.

BANG! BANG!

The sound of rapid gunshots caused her to tremble in fear. She was afraid that those people already returned. They brought out the men out before, what if they came to take the women again. Would this time be her turn?

No! She didn’t want it.

Curling up her body tighter, she used her hand to block her ear. The others were already stood up or preparing to fight. They didn’t want to back down without any fight again.

She didn’t know how long the noise outside the place lasted when she felt a strong arm held her. She instinctively moved her hand to create a distance between her and that person.

"No!"

"Misae! It’s daddy," Kano was holding Misae carefully. He was glad when he saw her here. The thought of losing her already caused his mind to be hazy. He didn’t sleep at all as he thought about her and prepared the raid here. The horrible thought of what could possibly happen to her terrified him.

Thankfully, they didn’t hurt her physically.

"Dad..." Misae’s eyes reddened when she saw her father. Tears poured out as she clutched him tighter. She was terrified but now she felt safer.

"I’m here," Kano held his daughter gently. He tucked the girl into his embrace as he ordered his men to take care of the others. There were only a few girls left from this batch. He was lucky that he found out about her quick enough or he might not be able to bear with the consequences.

Feeling her trembled in his arm, he lightly patted her back to soothe her. His subordinates did their job and averted their eyes from him. They knew. Their leader was a different person in front of his family.