A few hours earlier, Won Myunghoon’s shout brought the dozen or so Star Guild members racing back toward the Gate entrance to a halt.
“Wait. Everyone, stop!”
Every eye turned toward him.
The terrifying Named Monster could appear behind them at any moment, yet Won Myunghoon had been lost in thought. At last, he opened his mouth.
“Scout.”
“Yes, Guild Master.”
The Guild member assigned to scouting answered immediately.
He was fast on his feet and skilled with a bow. Thanks to the good luck of drawing lots, he had barely escaped death, unlike his other comrades.
“Report our current location.”
“According to the coordinates, we’re at 175, 37, 990.”
“Fuck the coordinates. How far are we from the Gate entrance?”
“At our current pace, approximately seven minutes.”
“Not far, then. This is the only route to the Gate entrance, right?”
“……Yes. It is, but…”
The scout trailed off with an uneasy expression.
The other Guild members sensed something was wrong and exchanged glances. Then a single sentence turned their unease into reality.
“We’ll set up a cordon here.”
“What?”
“You mean a cordon? In this situation?”
“Guild Master, that’s—”
Normally, the Guild members would have obeyed without complaint, but this time they protested. Won Myunghoon’s eyes turned cold.
“Shut up and follow my orders. I have my reasons.”
“Even so, this isn’t right! We’re dealing with a Named Monster—urk!”
Won Myunghoon seized the throat of the Guild member who had raised his voice the loudest and growled.
“You’re disobeying the Guild Master’s orders inside a Gate? Are you that desperate to die, you son of a bitch…?”
It happened in the blink of an eye.
The atmosphere froze. Everyone present knew Won Myunghoon’s words weren’t aimed at just one man.
They had watched him for years. They knew he was more than capable of carrying out his threat.
“I—I’m sorry.”
“This is your last chance. There won’t be another.”
Thud.
Won Myunghoon turned away from the Guild member, who collapsed to the ground with a white face, and swept his sharp gaze across the area.
“Fucking idiots.”
Even in the face of his unfiltered abuse, a dozen pairs of eyes remained fixed on the ground.
They had spent years dealing with Won Myunghoon. This was nothing new.
They had to be even more careful around him inside a Gate. He was an A-Rank Hunter—a powerhouse none of them could defeat even if they attacked him together.
“Do your brains not work? Do I look stupid enough to take on a Named Monster?”
The bowed heads slowly began to rise.
“Then…”
“We’ll deal with those losers.”
“You mean the Peace Guild?”
“By now, they should all be dead.”
While fleeing in a panic, they had heard the monster’s roar. Just hearing it had weakened their knees and sent chills down their spines. It was terror itself.
They hadn’t even seen what the creature looked like, and that was precisely why they were still alive.
How could five people possibly fight something like that? They must all be dead by now.
Every one of them shared that opinion.
Everyone except Won Myunghoon.
“What if even one of them survives and escapes?”
“Th—that…”
“No way.”
They hadn’t considered that possibility.
Under normal circumstances, they might have. But fear of the Named Monster and their desperate will to survive had paralyzed their minds.
Won Myunghoon addressed the hesitant Guild members in a firm voice.
“If even one of those losers gets out of the Gate alive, every last one of us is finished.”
“…….”
“An A-Rank Hunter who’s been soaking up the media spotlight dies, and then one of the surviving Peace Guild members starts talking about us? I don’t need to explain what happens next, do I?”
The media’s attention—no, the entire country’s—would turn toward them.
Investigators would get involved. The press and broadcast media would treat it as a major story, churning out new reports day after day.
Even if the survivor couldn’t provide definitive testimony or physical evidence, the contempt and condemnation directed at them would never disappear.
They might even have to leave the country. They would be reduced to people who needed a visa just to visit their parents’ graves.
The thought alone was horrifying.
“Sometimes, what people believe matters more than the truth. You all learned that eight years ago, didn’t you?”
“Guild Master!”
“That’s—!”
The Star Guild members erupted in agitation.
It was an unspoken taboo, yet Won Myunghoon himself had brought it up.
Wasn’t he the one who had planned everything and recruited them in the first place?
At the Guild members’ hardened gazes, Won Myunghoon let out a quiet laugh.
“Eyes down, you fucking bastards. Before I rip them all out.”
“……!”
“You joined because you wanted to. Is there a single bastard here who didn’t take my money? You used it to buy houses and cars, drink and chase women, then got married and had kids. Now you’re all living comfortably, pretending to be good fathers and devoted husbands. Aren’t you?”
Won Myunghoon irritably ran a hand through his hair. Whenever his gleaming eyes swept over them, they trembled.
They wanted to deny it, but every word out of his mouth was true.
They had already crossed a river from which there was no return, and Won Myunghoon was the one who had ferried them to the other side.
The ferryman had already hidden the boat. Without his permission, they could never return to the opposite bank.
Not while they still drew breath.
“I won’t waste any more time talking. Hide and form a cordon. When I give the signal, be ready to kill anyone.”
Won Myunghoon’s voice, thick with killing intent, might as well have been a verdict handed down by the Supreme Court.
Realizing there would be no appeal, the Guild members scattered and began forming the cordon.
“Fucking idiots. It’s already been eight years…”
As Won Myunghoon spat the words through clenched teeth, one of the Guild members cautiously approached him.
“Guild Master.”
“What?”
“Team Leader 1, sir—I mean, what should we do with Team Leader 1?”
“Kim Jonghun? Where the hell is that bastard?”
“We moved him over there for now.”
Won Myunghoon turned his head in the direction the Guild member pointed and let out a hollow laugh.
Only a few meters1 away, Kim Jonghun was pale and clacking his teeth together. He looked like a man possessed.
“Pathetic bastard. I was the idiot for keeping something like that around and calling him an A-Rank Hunter.”
Won Myunghoon clicked his tongue softly and waved a hand.
“Handle it quietly.”
“What? I—I can’t!”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I mean I won’t commit murder.”
“What? What the hell is going through that lunatic head of yours—wait.”
Won Myunghoon had been about to smack the Guild member when he suddenly stopped.
He had only meant for them to keep Jonghun quiet with Silence magic or whatever else was necessary.
But did they really need to?
Come to think of it, no one knows more about my secrets than he does.
He had used Jonghun as his right-hand man for a full ten years. The man had a certain low cunning, and his skills as a Hunter were excellent.
Even when that incident had occurred eight years ago, Won Myunghoon had believed that Team Leader 1, if no one else, would never betray him.
If he opened his mouth, he wouldn’t have gotten off unscathed either.
It wasn’t a matter of trust, but mutual interests.
The scale of their greed might differ, but in a sense, the two of them were cut from the same cloth.
But…
He’s useless now.
Won Myunghoon had seen plenty of people exposed to the Fear of high-level monsters.
Their symptoms varied, but they all had one thing in common.
Junk.
Once fear had been branded into their souls, they could never return to the way they had been.
Some went mad and were locked away in special wards. Even those who managed to recover could consider their lives as Hunters over.
He knows more about my secrets than anyone, and he’s the one who personally acquired Yeti’s Necklace.
On top of that, his credentials as an A-Rank Hunter were now worth no more than the paper they were printed on.
Won Myunghoon deliberated only briefly, then reached his decision even faster.
“Tie him up. I have a use for him.”
“What?”
“When that Named Monster comes, don’t you think we’ll need at least one piece of prey to throw to it?”
“……!”
“It works out well in more ways than one. Since Jin Taekyung is dead, we need to throw in an A-Rank Hunter from our side to make the story convincing.”
Won Myunghoon patted the frozen Guild member on the shoulder as he passed, then concealed himself in the nearby undergrowth.
Come on. Anyone. Come.
He didn’t have to wait long.
When he saw two people emerge through the undergrowth several dozen meters2 away, the corners of his mouth lifted.
The old Guild Master and Jin Taekyung. Are the others all dead?
Jin Taekyung was covered in blood from head to toe, with an old mage carried on his back.
No matter how Won Myunghoon looked at them, they resembled nothing so much as wounded survivors of a lost battle.
This should be easy.
Jin Taekyung in particular—Won Myunghoon wanted to kill that bastard with his own hands.
He had just finished preparing to signal the Guild members when—
“Come out, you fucking bastards.”
Jin Taekyung crooked a finger directly toward the undergrowth where Won Myunghoon was hiding.
The smile at Won Myunghoon’s lips vanished without a trace.
“Would you look at this insolent bastard.”
Seeing Won Myunghoon’s twisted face, I couldn’t help but laugh under my breath.
How should I put it? I felt like I’d just seen how low a human being could sink.
“You’re laughing?”
Apparently, my reaction made him even angrier. He licked his dry lips and exhaled a hot breath.
“You bastard…do you not understand what kind of situation you’re in?”
“I understand perfectly.”
“And someone who understands the situation is grinning?”
“Choose your words carefully. Hearing you say that makes me want to split your head open.”
“……What?”
“You should’ve stopped when I called you Mr. Won Myunghoon. Won Myunghoon, you fucking bastard.”
The hyenas’ faces went blank.
Won Myunghoon’s lips remained tightly sealed for a long moment before finally opening.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I’m as sane as ever. Aren’t I, Butler Kim?”
Still on my back and watching the situation unfold, Butler Kim answered.
“Entirely normal. Never losing one’s composure, no matter the situation, is one of the basic qualities a Hunter should possess.”
“What about that bastard?”
“If this had happened during the Great Cataclysm, we wouldn’t have found so much as his corpse. Those were somewhat rougher times.”
“That’s what he says.”
Bang!
A single punch shattered a tree thick enough for a man to wrap both arms around.
Won Myunghoon’s face flushed bright red as he glared at Butler Kim and me.
“You fucking bastards!”
“What a rude bastard. There’s nothing he won’t say to an elder, is there? Right?”
Butler Kim answered calmly.
“The young man does seem somewhat lacking in manners. But isn’t this a good world we live in? We should give him a chance.”
“Is that so?”
“Life is a series of choices. And from what I can see, you appear to have already made yours.”
“You’re a ghost.”
“I don’t particularly care for that word. I am somewhat advanced in age, after all.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I’ll get down first. One, two, three.”
Crack.
As Butler Kim hopped down from my back, the sound of a bone slipping out of place came from his knee.
“Oh dear, are you all right?”
“My knee has been troubling me. Heal.”
When the glow faded, he tapped his knee a few times and smiled.
“I’m fine now.”
“Wow.”
Magic really was incredibly convenient.
After letting out that exclamation, I turned my head toward the knife-like gazes stabbing in from every direction.
A dozen or so Star Guild members, including Won Myunghoon, were glaring at us as if they wanted to tear us apart and kill us.
“What the fuck are you trying to do?”
“What else? I helped him down. I thought he might get shaken around too much during the fight.”
“Fight?”
“What? Didn’t you come here to fight me?”
“Of course not.”
Won Myunghoon added with a savage laugh,
“We came to kill every last one of you.”
“Oh… You sound exactly like a villain in a web novel.”
I was fairly impressed.
At the same time, the last of my hesitation faded, and my mind became clear.
Right. I just had to do it.
“Thanks for saying that. My headache’s completely gone. Maybe you’re not a son of a bitch after all—maybe you’re Dogvorin.”3
“You bastard!”
“Maybe not. Then let’s go?”
“……What?”
Whoosh!
I suddenly found myself wondering what expression Won Myunghoon was wearing.
But then I realized it didn’t matter.
Whatever expression he had worn until now, the one he was about to make had already been decided.
“Bear with the pain. No crying.”
Crack!
As he hurriedly turned and swung his arm, I caught it and twisted it.
The bone snapped in an instant. His grip went limp, and the spear slipped from his hand.
His smooth, unlined face twisted like a demon’s as a scream burst from his throat.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
I continued in a calm voice.
“Never bare your teeth at me again.”
At the same time, I drove my tightly clenched fist into his maw.
Crunch!
Comments
Comments need a network connection.