Chapter 225

Crack!

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

He had taken such meticulous care of them that they gleamed even in the darkness. Not that it mattered anymore.

“Puh-haaaack!”

Thud!

Won Myunghoon flew several meters¹ before slamming his back into a tree and coughing.

The teeth left in his mouth tumbled out with the blood. When he finally raised his head, his face was twisted in shock.

“H-How could this…”

It had all happened in the blink of an eye.

And it wasn’t only Won Myunghoon. Every Star Guild member stared at me in disbelief.

“What do you mean, how? I’m stronger than you. That’s how.”

“T-That can’t be.”

“Yeah. It can.”

I gave him a breezy answer and took a single step forward. Won Myunghoon began to tremble.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“Did I come looking for you? 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 shrieked as if having a fit.

“What are you waiting for, you bastards?”

“G-Guild Master.”

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

The hesitant Star Guild members raised their weapons at his command. Won Myunghoon gritted the few teeth he had left.

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

I stopped.

“What did you just say?”

“Why? Did I hit a nerve?”

Won Myunghoon snorted and glared at me with blazing eyes.

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

“Bullshit trick?”

“Don’t play dumb. You obviously found some high-performance acceleration Equipment somewhere and put it on…”

“Oh, that’s what you meant?”

My eyes widened in surprise.

Won Myunghoon’s imagination was impressive. He had somehow managed to rationalize his defeat.

“That’s a pretty original theory. But isn’t the hostage routine a little cliché by comparison?”

“It may be cliché, but the important thing is that it always works.”

“I don’t know about that…”

I let my voice trail off.

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

“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 flowing from the tip 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 convulsed.

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—urk!”

“Gyaaaaaaah!”

Rooooar!

Once the waves had swept past, only scattered groans and screams drifted through the forest.

The Star Guild members lay crushed beneath an enormous weight of earth and rubble, barely managing to keep their heads exposed as they gasped for breath.

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

“Young men these days have no respect for their Senior. Stop struggling and close your eyes, all of you—unless you want to be buried alive.”

His voice was chilling, unlike anything I had ever heard from him before.

Only then did the Star Guild members realize the true extent of Butler Kim’s abilities. Their faces went pale, and 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 the trembling Won Myunghoon.

“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, as if his soul had left his body. At last, he managed to speak.

“What are you? What are all of you?”

“You already know. We’re the Peace Guild. We’d like to live up to our name, but no one around us seems willing to cooperate.”

Won Myunghoon bit his lip.

He could never have imagined that one bad decision would lead to this.

But it was already too late to turn back. A cornered hyena had only two choices 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 him. When I kicked the fallen spear far away, he lowered his head in resignation.

“Just like that?”

“……”

Even with me standing right in front of him, he didn’t move. I addressed him as he stood there silently with his head bowed.

“Once we get out, you’re looking at life in prison at the very least. You know how serious a crime this is inside a Gate, don’t you?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Won Myunghoon spoke.

“Because it’s better than dying.”

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

As long as he survived, there would still be a chance. Death, on the other hand, meant a complete end. Whatever lay beyond it was something he would only discover afterward.

People with a lot to lose tended to fear death. Won Myunghoon was no exception.

“Raise your head.”

“……All right.”

I stared into his eyes.

An unknowable light swirled within those twin pupils, dark as the abyss.

Fear of the future awaiting him. Anxiety over death.

And then…

Thump!

“Taekyung. Please.”

“……”

“Just once. Give me one last chance. Killing someone like me will only leave 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. That doesn’t change the fact that you’ll become a murderer.”

Murderer.

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

I looked down at Won Myunghoon, kneeling before me and begging for his life in a servile voice, then spoke.

“I’ll trust you.”

“Taekyung!”

“But do me a favor. Don’t betray that trust.”

I tossed him a rope and told him to bind himself. The moment I turned away—

“Ha-ha-ha! You stupid bastard!”

A triumphant shout rang out, and killing intent flared behind me.

I turned my head. Won Myunghoon was already right on top of me, an Aura-infused dagger clutched in his hand.

“Die!”

Whoosh! Slash!

A brief rush of displaced air—and a fountain of blood sprayed upward. The triumphant joy lighting Won Myunghoon’s face gave way to bewilderment.

“……Huh?”

Thud.

A moment later, something fell to the ground.

It was Won Myunghoon’s wrist, cleanly severed and still clutching the dagger whose Aura had vanished.

“You needed to be at least twice that fast.”

I flicked the blood from the dagger in my hand. In that split second, I had drawn a weapon from my Inventory, and the fight had ended just as quickly.

A brief silence followed, though it felt like an eternity.

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

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaah!”

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

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

Because…

“Thanks. You did exactly what I trusted you to do.”

I had never trusted Won Myunghoon in the first place.

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

“You were always exactly this kind of man.”

“Urgh, gyaaaaah!”

“If I leave you alive, you’ll bare your teeth at me again someday. Like a thorn stuck in my throat, you’ll find some way to come back as long as 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 throat—

“Hunter Jin Taekyung!”

Several dozen meters² away, Butler Kim was watching me with concern in his eyes.

“There is no need to go that far.”

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

“But killing a monster and murdering a person are different. I would rather do it myself—”

I answered calmly.

“I know.”

“……Pardon?”

“I know that perfectly 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.³ I was a Hunter and a martial artist with a family and people I had to protect. If surviving and becoming stronger meant getting blood on my hands, I would do it willingly.

To me, there was little difference between a monster and Won Myunghoon.

Because he’s an enemy.

Whoever the enemy might be, if they could someday bring harm to me or my people, the right thing to do was eliminate the threat at its source.

“So don’t stop me.”

“……!”

Butler Kim had fought his way through countless battlefields himself.

That brief exchange must have been enough for him to understand what kind of person I was—and what I had decided to do.

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

“Urgh. P-Please, spare me…”

“Spare you?”

I looked down at the groaning Won Myunghoon.

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

But now I would seal those old memories inside a time capsule and bury them deep underground.

I whispered quietly.

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

“Ta-Taekyung. Please…”

Slice!

The dagger cut deep into his throat. Won Myunghoon’s eyes bulged as he stared up at me pleadingly.

He tried to cover the wound with his one remaining hand, but he could stop neither the blood nor 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 beneath 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 my Qi Sense and found a gagged man.

For some reason, he had been bound tightly to a tree. And I recognized his face.

“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. One was a young man in thick, horn-rimmed glasses, eating ramen.⁴

“Being the youngest is miserable. Just miserable.”

His colleague snickered and picked up a piece of instant kimchi.⁵

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

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

“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 into his cup ramen,⁴ where beads of oil floated across the surface.

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

“Three days? We should count ourselves lucky 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 groups of other junior reporters in the same miserable situation eating nearby only made him feel worse.

“I wish they’d come out soon.”

“They definitely won’t be out today. Like you said, even if they’re quick, it’ll still take three days. Get some sleep. Want to hit 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…”

Tempted by his Senior’s offer, the young reporter had just begun to rise when—

Whoooooosh.

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

The mana that had lain as still as the surface of a lake began to swirl, and urgent shouts erupted from every direction.

“The Gate! The Gate is opening!”

“Already? What the hell?”

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

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 going on? 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 stared with their mouths hanging open.

“……W-What happened?”