Chapter 225

Crack!

With a grisly sound, white teeth shot into the air.

They had been maintained so meticulously that they gleamed even in the darkness. It had all become pointless now, though.

“Puh-haaaack!”

Thud!

Won Myunghoon flew several meters before slamming his back into a tree and coughing.

The teeth that had remained in his mouth fell out in little clumps, mixed with blood. When he finally raised his head, his face was twisted in shock.

“H-How could this…”

It had happened in the blink of an eye.

And it wasn’t only Won Myunghoon. Every Star Guild member stared at me with an expression of disbelief.

“How? Because I’m stronger than you.”

“T-That can’t be.”

“Yeah. It can.”

At my breezy answer and the single step I took forward, Won Myunghoon’s body began to tremble.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“Did I come here? You’re the ones who were waiting for me.”

It was already too late to turn back. I intended to make sure they understood exactly what happened when they bared their teeth at me.

Perhaps sensing the danger, Won Myunghoon shouted as if throwing a fit.

“What are you waiting for, you bastards?”

“G-Guild Master.”

“There are only two of them! If we back down here, every last one of us is going to die!”

The Star Guild members had hesitated, but at his command, they raised their weapons. Won Myunghoon gritted his teeth around the few that remained.

“I’ll handle this bastard. Get the old man first!”

I stopped walking.

“What did you just say?”

“Why? Did I hit a nerve?”

Won Myunghoon snorted and glared at me with burning eyes.

“Jin Taekyung, you bastard. I don’t know what kind of bullshit trick you pulled, but it ends here.”

“Bullshit trick?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. You obviously found some high-performance acceleration Equipment somewhere and put it on…”

“Oh, that’s what you mean?”

I widened my eyes in surprise.

Won Myunghoon’s imagination was astonishing. He was somehow rationalizing the reason he had lost.

“That’s a pretty original idea. But compared to that, isn’t this hostage situation a little too cliché?”

“Cliché or not, the important thing is that it always works.”

“Maybe…”

I let my voice trail off.

While I exchanged those few words with Won Myunghoon, the Star Guild members charged toward Butler Kim with their tanks at the front.

“I think things might be a little different this time.”

“What?”

The moment Won Myunghoon questioned me, Butler Kim—who had been massaging his lower back—drove his long staff into the ground.

It was a light movement. Yet the power that flowed from the end of his staff shook the earth.

Then his deep voice rang out, like the final switch on a bomb.

“Turn it upside down. Earthquake.”

Rumble!

The primeval forest trembled violently.

Cracks split the solid ground. Dirt and rocks shot into the air, exposing the trunks of trees that had sunk their roots deep into the earth. Flocks of nameless birds took flight.

—Screeeech!

They were the only ones able to escape the earthquake.

Unfortunately for the Star Guild members, they had no wings. The cracked and shattered ground surged up like triangular waves and swallowed them whole.

“Everyone, get out of the way—urk!”

“Gyaaaaaaah!”

Rooooar!

After the waves swept through, only groans and screams drifted sporadically through the forest.

The Star Guild members were crushed beneath an enormous weight of earth and rubble, barely able to keep their heads above the surface as they gasped for breath.

The man who had rendered around a dozen veteran B-Rank Hunters incapable of fighting with a single spell could not have looked more at ease.

“Young friends, you have no manners toward your Senior. Relax and close your eyes, all of you. Unless you want to be buried alive.”

It was a chilling voice, unlike anything I had heard from him before.

Only then did the Star Guild members realize Butler Kim’s true abilities. Their faces went pale as they lowered their heads.

Well, except for one person.

“An A-Rank mage…!”

A-Rank Hunters were rare, but A-Rank mages and healers were rarer still. The Star Guild members had probably never expected Butler Kim—who always kept his hands folded behind his back and laughed amiably—to be an A-Rank mage.

I grinned at Won Myunghoon, whose body was trembling.

“The hostage situation failed. What are you going to do now?”

“……”

“That’s why I told you not to bare your teeth.”

Won Myunghoon had been standing there blankly, like a man whose soul had left his body. At last, he managed to open his mouth.

“What are you? What are all of you?”

“You already know. The Peace Guild. We want to live up to our name, but the people around us won’t cooperate.”

Won Myunghoon bit his lip.

He could never have imagined that one wrong choice would lead to a result like this.

But it was already too late to turn back. A hyena cornered at the edge of a cliff had only two options left.

Run. Or submit.

Won Myunghoon chose the latter.

Clang!

The spear slipped from his hand and rolled across the ground.

“……I surrender.”

“You surrender?”

I walked toward Won Myunghoon. After kicking the fallen spear far away, I watched as he lowered his head in resignation.

“This suddenly?”

“……”

Even though I was standing right in front of him, he did not move. I asked the man who refused to answer with his head bowed.

“Once you get out, you’re looking at life imprisonment at minimum. You know how serious a crime what you did in a Gate is, don’t you?”

After hesitating, Won Myunghoon spoke.

“Because it’s better than dying.”

“Better than dying… Yeah, that’s true.”

If he survived, there would still be a chance. Death, on the other hand, was absolute. Whatever lay beyond it was something he would find out afterward.

People with a lot to lose were afraid of death. Won Myunghoon was one of them.

“Raise your head.”

“……All right.”

I stared into his eyes.

In those twin pupils, dark as an abyss, some unknowable light swirled.

Fear of the future that awaited him. Anxiety over death.

And then…

Thump!

“Taekyung. Please.”

“……”

“Just once. Give me one last chance. Killing a man like me will only leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.”

“It’ll leave a bad taste, but you won’t be punished. If you’re threatened with murder in a Gate, self-defense is recognized. You know that too.”

“B-But still.”

Won Myunghoon swallowed hard.

“If you kill me, it’s murder. The fact that you’ll become a murderer won’t change.”

Murderer.

The word rolling around on the tip of my tongue left a foul taste.

I looked down at Won Myunghoon, who was kneeling and begging for his life in a servile voice, then opened my mouth.

“I’ll trust you.”

“Taekyung!”

“One favor. Don’t betray my trust.”

I tossed him a rope with instructions to bind himself, then turned around.

That was when—

“Ha-ha-ha! You stupid bastard!”

A shout filled with joy rang out, followed by killing intent from behind me.

I turned my head and saw Won Myunghoon charging right up to me. Somehow, he was holding a dagger infused with Aura.

“Die!”

Whoosh! Slash!

Blood sprayed into the air with a short rush of displaced air. The joy that had brightly lit Won Myunghoon’s face gave way to puzzlement.

“……Huh?”

Thud.

A moment later, something fell to the ground.

It was a wrist, severed cleanly at the joint, still clutching the dagger whose Aura had vanished.

“That should’ve been twice as fast.”

I shook the blood from the dagger in my hand. In that brief instant, I had drawn a weapon from my Inventory, and the fight had ended in a heartbeat.

A short silence—but one that felt like an eternity.

Then Won Myunghoon’s mouth slowly fell open, and a horrific scream burst forth.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaah!”

As I watched him writhe in agony, my heart remained as calm and peaceful as a lake.

I felt no sense of betrayal at having trusted someone who should never have been trusted. Not even the slightest regret.

Because…

“Thanks. For doing exactly what I believed you would.”

I had never trusted Won Myunghoon in the first place.

Not since the moment I received Yeti’s Necklace. Not since the moment he ignored my warning and bared his teeth at me again.

“You were exactly that kind of person.”

“Urgh, gyaaaaah!”

“If I leave you alive, you’ll bare your teeth at me again someday. Like a thorn lodged in the throat, you’ll find some way to come back if you survive.”

Slice. Slice.

My dagger severed the tendons in his calf. Blood spattered, and his knee buckled. Just as I pressed the razor-sharp blade against his neck—

“Hunter Jin Taekyung!”

Several dozen meters away, Butler Kim was watching me with a look of concern.

“There is no need to go that far.”

“That’s right. That’s why I let him go once.”

“But killing a monster and murdering someone are different. I’d rather do it myself—”

I replied in a calm voice.

“I know.”

“……Pardon?”

“I already know that very well.”

How many people had I killed by now? Dozens? No, a hundred?

The world I had lived in had never been forgiving. In Gates, I had to kill monsters. In the Murim, I had to kill people.

I was no lofty junzi. I was a Hunter and a martial artist with a family and people I had to protect. If it was necessary to survive or become stronger, I was willing to get blood on my hands.

To me, there was no great difference between a monster and Won Myunghoon before me.

Because he’s an enemy.

Whoever that enemy was, if they were capable of harming me or my people someday, the right thing to do was to eliminate the source of the trouble.

“So don’t stop me.”

“……!”

Butler Kim had also fought his way through countless battlefields.

He must have understood from that brief conversation alone. What kind of person I was, and what decision I had made.

He regarded me with a grave look, then gave a small nod.

“Urgh. P-Please, spare me…”

“Spare you?”

I looked down at Won Myunghoon as he groaned.

He had once been the idol I looked up to as a child—the man who shone brighter than anyone among countless stars.

But I would put those old memories of him in a time capsule and bury them deep underground.

I whispered in a quiet voice.

“If you were going to try to kill someone, you should’ve been prepared to die, too.”

“Ta-Taekyung. Please…”

Slice!

The dagger cut deep through his throat. Won Myunghoon’s eyes bulged as he looked up at me with a desperate gaze.

He tried to cover his throat with his one remaining hand, but he could not stop the blood—or his life—from pouring out.

Grrrgh. Thud.

The moment his body collapsed with a wet, rattling gurgle—

System

• You have defeated Lv. 80 Won Myunghoon!

• You have acquired a considerable amount of EXP!

The System announced the enemy’s death.

“Let’s go.”

Butler Kim nodded as he watched me with a strange look in his eyes.

“We have more baggage to take with us now.”

He waved his staff, and the Star Guild members buried in the earth floated gently into the air.

As I watched magical ropes being summoned and binding them tightly together like strings of dried fish, I suddenly spoke.

“Wait a moment, Butler Kim.”

“……?”

“We need to add one more person.”

A short while later, I followed the direction indicated by my Qi Sense and found a man with a gag in his mouth.

For some reason, he was bound tightly to a tree. And he was someone I knew.

“The Star Guild’s Team One Leader?”

Most of the reporters who had flocked to cover the joint raid by the Peace Guild and the Star Guild—or rather, Jin Taekyung and Won Myunghoon’s raid—had left long ago.

But there were always exceptions. A young man wearing thick, horn-rimmed glasses and eating ramen was one of them.

“Being the youngest is so miserable. So miserable.”

At the young man’s lament, his colleague snickered as he picked up some instant kimchi.

“You’ve only been here two months, and you already have plenty to say.”

“Come on. You haven’t been here that long either, Senior.”

“Hey. Back in my day, I kept my mouth shut and worked. If they told me to stay, I stayed. If they told me to do something, I did it.”

“But isn’t this a bit much? How can they make us wait around for days just to cover one Hunter?”

“You haven’t changed since college. If you don’t like it, stick around long enough to build up some seniority.”

The young man stared glumly at the cup ramen, its surface shimmering with floating oil.

“It’s an A-Rank Gate. It’ll take at least three days for them to come out…”

“Three days? We should be grateful if they don’t stay the whole week.”

“A week?”

“It’s an A-Rank Gate. Once they’re inside, they might as well get everything they can out of it.”

“……Ugh.”

The young man shuddered as if the mere thought gave him goose bumps.

Seeing the other junior reporters in the same situation gathered around him and eating their meals only made him feel more depressed.

“I wish they’d come out soon.”

“They definitely won’t be out today. Like you said, even if they come out quickly, it’ll take three days. Get some sleep. Want to go to a sauna together? Maybe play some billiards?”

“Billiards?”

“Yeah. There’s plenty to do around here. The local businesses just rip you off.”

“Then maybe one game of billiards…”

The young reporter was tempted by his Senior’s offer. He had just started to lift himself from his seat when—

Whoooooosh.

The enormous door standing before them—the Gate—gave off a strange sound.

The mana that had been as still as the surface of a lake began to swirl, and urgent shouts erupted from all around them.

“The Gate! The Gate is opening!”

“Already? What the hell?”

“The cameras! Get them over here, quickly!”

The area fell into chaos in an instant. The reporters who had been idly passing the time shot to their feet and crowded in front of the Gate.

The young reporter and his Senior were no exception. They claimed a spot at the front faster than anyone else, their minds reeling.

“What’s happening? Why are they coming out already?”

“How should I know? Set up the equipment!”

Cameras began rolling, and flashes burst without pause.

The reporters had sensed that something had happened, and their prediction proved exactly right.

Whoosh!

Around a dozen people burst from the swirling vortex of mana.

Everyone who saw them stood with their mouths hanging open.

“……W-What happened?”