The Fiery Thermite

Cheetah Express was a small logistics company with several offices spread across low-cost residential areas in various economic zones. Most of their offices were rented rooms beneath other business buildings to cut costs. If you checked their app, you'd find that Cheetah Express had some of the worst reviews among logistics companies.

"Slow delivery, damaged goods without compensation, overpriced for the service," were common complaints. Despite that, Cheetah Express had been in operation for over six years, with branches in almost every city. It wasn't just staying afloat—it was actually making a profit. The company's motto was to cut costs as much as possible, completely disregarding customer feedback. It had become an inside joke that the company was a money-laundering front for criminals because it never seemed to lose money, even with so few customers.

The fact that a company like this could still operate in the New World was a miracle of the business world. Despite being a small company with low profits, it had managed to survive for six years. One of the Cheetah Express offices was filled with various packages.

The location of this office was odd—it was near a garbage dump, meaning there were barely any residential houses nearby. The building had no windows, with a single five-meter-wide sliding door as its only entrance. Inside, the employees of Cheetah Express sorted materials, a boring and unchallenging job. The atmosphere felt like a graveyard of animated dolls—quiet, desolate, and dark. But it wouldn't be long before this place would come to life.

Asic entered the office carrying a cardboard box in his arms. Nearby, a large cargo truck was parked, and employees were loading parcels onto it. Asic noticed two robotic guard dogs lying near the counter.

"Hello, I'm here to drop off a package," Asic said, placing the box on the weighing scale. An employee approached to open the parcel, finding a red T-shirt inside, sealed in a stiff paper bag. The shirt reeked with a strong odor, causing the employee to roll their eyes.

"Sir, this smells awful."

"Sorry about that. I had to send it today and didn't have time to wash it," Asic replied with an apologetic smile.

"Alright, alright, where do you want it sent?"

"Send it to…" Asic gave the address, paid, and stepped back from the counter. He watched as his package was loaded onto the truck nearby. He walked away, only to return in a different disguise—now a middle-aged man with thick glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. The same employee came to assist him, not recognizing that this was the same man who had just dropped off the smelly package.

[Master, it's time,] OC reminded Asic in his head. Suddenly, a fire erupted in the pile of parcels on the truck, catching everyone off guard. Chaos ensued throughout the Cheetah Express office. If all the cargo for delivery burned, everyone would be in serious trouble.

All the employees scrambled to put out the fire. One man poured a bucket of water over the flames, but instead of extinguishing them, it caused an explosion, scattering embers everywhere. Sparks landed on clothing, skin, and other materials, spreading the fire further.

"Aaahh! It's burning!"

"Why isn't the fire going out?! Pouring water only makes it explode! What the hell is happening?!"

"This is bad! The fire's spreading to the rest of the packages in the office! What do we do?!" The entire office descended into chaos. The cargo truck was almost entirely engulfed in flames, and now the fire had spread throughout the building.

'Good, it's working,' Asic thought, using the commotion to slip inside the office unnoticed. He felt guilty about the other customers whose important packages would be destroyed, but to save Ejin and hundreds of other lives, it was a sacrifice worth making.

What Asic had done was mix a large amount of aluminum powder with the red shirt, adding rust powder in a 3:1 ratio—essentially creating a thermite mixture. He used water and small bits of soil to clump it together, placing magnesium powder at the bottom of the paper bag and box.

He had observed that most of the employees at this branch were heavy smokers, even smoking while sorting items. The moment a spark from a cigarette fell onto the cardboard box, which was loosely sealed, the magnesium—an easily flammable element—caught fire. With just a tiny spark, it ignited and reached temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Celsius.

The employees, who were hired at minimum wage and had no chemistry knowledge, would never have imagined that a simple package could cause a truck to be engulfed in flames, resulting in catastrophic damage—and now the fire was consuming the entire office.

'Overclock Miner,' Asic channeled a massive amount of Asra power, splitting his life force in half. OC's translucent energy form appeared beside him. The two robotic guard dogs turned their heads toward Asic as soon as they detected the Asra power.

"Overclock!" Asic's thoughts accelerated, and his body moved beyond human limits.

"Time Compression: Three Seconds."

Suddenly, everything around Asic seemed to move in slow motion. Concentrated purple lightning gathered at his fingertips. Asic lunged at the guard dogs, touching their foreheads. High-voltage electricity shot through their systems, causing critical damage to their processors and temporarily shutting them down.

The robotic dogs were paralyzed without even standing up. By the time the time compression ended, it looked as though they were simply lying there. Taking advantage of the confusion, Asic sneaked further inside the office while everyone was preoccupied with the chaos.

[Master, are you sure you were a police officer before?] OC commented. It had seen firsthand how its master had created a flammable substance that incinerated a truckload of packages. Asic had gathered aluminum cans, rusty nails, old lightbulbs, and a broken bicycle frame from a nearby junkyard.

Asic used sandpaper to scrape rust off the nails, ground the aluminum cans and bicycle frame into powder, and dismantled fireworks worth just a dollar to extract the magnesium. That was all he needed to create thermite for sabotage.

Using a bomb or purchasing dangerous substances would have made it easier for his former colleagues to trace him. On the contrary, buying fireworks and detergent wouldn't raise any suspicion. The thermite formula could be made from easily accessible materials.

When he was a cop, Asic hated criminals who made explosives from convenience store items. Now, he was simply using the same tactics as those petty criminals—but in a more sophisticated way. Since he had the skills to investigate and understand criminals, he also knew how not to get caught.

'You're wondering why I know how to make thermite? Well, a petty criminal once used thermite to melt a bank vault. I interrogated him to find out how he did it, and my best friend and I decided to try it ourselves. Ended up burning down a friend's house,' Asic reminisced with a nostalgic smile. He was curious as to how criminals could destroy a hundred-million-dollar vault with cheap materials.

Why did the house burn down, you ask? Because thermite can't be extinguished! Asic only found out later that the only way to stop thermite was to smother it with sand. When his friend Gascon tried to put it out with water, not only did it flare up, but it also exploded.

Molten iron splattered everywhere, causing the fire to spread even faster. It didn't just destroy the house; Asic and Gascon ended up in the hospital for three days. It was a memory they'd never forget.

'You'll never find the cause, no matter how hard you look—there's no evidence left to find. The aluminum and rust are probably fused with the truck's metal by now. You could search for years and still find nothing.'

[....] OC couldn't believe that its master, once a highly skilled special agent, could be so terrifying when working outside the law. He had been an upstanding police officer, and now, turning to crime, he had become a master of sabotage.

Asic followed Ada's directions until he found the manager's office.

The branch manager oversaw human resource shipments. To prevent hacking, nearly all shipping routes and product information were kept as physical files and destroyed monthly. Since Ejin had been kidnapped less than a month ago, there was a high chance the information hadn't been destroyed yet.

Asic quickly made his way to the manager's door. Luckily, it was made of wood. He twisted the handle forcefully and barged in. Inside, the office was full of documents—everything from Cheetah Express's financial reports to human trafficking records.

"OC, scan everything I look at," Asic commanded. He didn't actually read the documents—he didn't have the time. He just glanced over them, letting OC scan the files. If he had to read line by line, it would take all day, and he still might not find what he needed. Having OC scan the documents saved him ten, maybe twenty times the time.

[Master, I've found information on Ejin.]

"Good job." Asic didn't just find out where Ejin was but also uncovered the entire human trafficking route. If he could somehow get this to the media and it got published, even with police backing, the department would be in serious trouble. Just then, his eyes caught a photo.

It was a small picture of a man in the company's uniform. He had a muscular build like an ex-soldier, dark skin, and a bowl-shaped haircut. Below the photo, it read: [Branch Manager Freddy Organ]. But Asic knew immediately it wasn't.

A memory flashed through his mind—the time when he was searching for clues about his brother's murder. All his leads had dried up, and the last clue was that just before Regis died, the last person he met was…

"Agaret Marr," Asic muttered, his heart turning cold. Regis and Agaret Marr had met only eight hours before Regis was killed. Asic had used his authority as an agent to track down Agaret Marr, but it was as if he had never existed.

"No wonder I couldn't find him. He changed his name and started working here… Onizuka Tiger has support from high-ranking police officials. There was no way I'd ever find you." Asic's eyes filled with disappointment and anger. The police department was protecting Agaret Marr, which meant it was highly likely that they weren't just covering up Regis's death—they were involved.

'Why? Why was my brother involved with someone like this before he died? And then there's my brother's assets—far beyond what a normal miner would have. Could it be… No, it can't be what I'm thinking, right?' Asic feared the worst—that his brother had been involved with a major criminal organization. Though he had no proof yet, it seemed highly possible.

'Don't waver. Right now, I need to focus on rescuing Ejin and the others.' Asic remained focused. He gathered as many documents related to Onizuka Tiger as he could from the manager's office. While the chaos outside continued, OC scanned everything in the room.

When Asic exited the office, no one had managed to control the situation outside. No one even noticed that someone had entered the manager's office. Using time compression, Asic slipped out of the office and quickly made his way out of the building.

'Agaret Marr! We'll meet again, I promise.' Whether Regis had truly been involved with a criminal organization or not, it was a police officer's duty to follow leads and uncover the truth. Asic was determined to find it.