“Park Jihoon, you fucking bastard.”
— ……
The voice that had been about to continue on the other end of the phone abruptly cut off.
I couldn’t see him, but his confusion and agitation at that moment came through clearly enough.
“What’s the matter? If someone calls you, you should answer.”
Not long afterward, a reply came.
— Is that you?
“Yeah, it’s me, you bastard.”
An agitated voice spilled from between my lips. Blood raced through my body, and my heart hammered in my chest.
But my head was as cold as if someone had poured ice water over it.
Maybe some part of me had already anticipated a situation like this.
I kept thinking, surely not. Surely not.
The number twenty-eight that had slipped from his mouth was enough to turn a faint suspicion into certainty.
What I wanted to know was whose orders they were acting on—and how deeply he was involved.
“Did you send those bastards?”
A low, smooth baritone answered.
— Who knows? If that’s what happened, then I suppose I did.
“……”
— What? Did you think I’d deny it?
Well, look at this guy.
His attitude, as if he had not a trace of shame before heaven, drew a hollow laugh from me.
— Who told you? Im Yeongjun? Of course. He’s the only one it could be. I thought he was the one guy who knew how to keep his mouth shut…but I misjudged him.
Park Jihoon clicked his tongue and continued.
— What a fucking idiot. I shouldn’t have left it to him.
“What did the shit do wrong? The asshole who dropped his pants and strained in public is the one at fault. But you…”
Crack.
The Team 1 Leader, who had been struggling with his neck caught in my grip, turned pale.
“Did you think about how you were going to clean up after making this mess?”
— It’s unexpected that things turned out this way…but do you really think I’d have done my business without considering the cleanup?
“Yeah. I’m saying that because it looks like you did.”
— What?
“Do you think you can handle me?”
Silence descended.
One second. Two seconds. Three.
And at the end of that short silence came a cold, razor-sharp voice unlike anything I had heard from him before.
— If you take even one more step from there, you and the Peace Guild are finished.
“So?”
— It’s not too late. Don’t make this any bigger than it already is. Come out. Let’s finish this here.
Hearing that, I suddenly thought that the way the world worked wasn’t all that different from a battle.
The one who seized the advantage pressed forward without mercy, while the one who felt fear took a step back first.
And I knew exactly what Park Jihoon was afraid of.
Black Hunters.
The existence of Black Hunters—the illegal private armies of major Guilds.
The thought that they were holding Park Jihoon back made the corners of my mouth rise.
“Finish this?”
— Yes.
“Who decided that?”
— …!
“You were the ones who started it. I’ll decide where it ends.”
On the other end of the phone, Park Jihoon’s breathing grew ragged.
— Well, well. I knew you were stupid, but you’re even worse than I thought.
“The result will be more than you expect, too. You can fucking look forward to it, sir, you son of a bitch.”
That was when it happened.
Ding.
— Nineteenth floor.
With the mechanical announcement, the tightly closed elevator doors slowly slid open.
A high ceiling and a broad hallway came into view, with dozens of people moving through it.
Several of them naturally turned their eyes in this direction. Then their mouths fell open.
“T-Team Leader?”
“You there! Who the hell are you…?”
Instead of answering, I threw the Team 1 Leader. A Hunter who had been approaching while pointing at me slammed into the wall together with him.
At the same time, an employee sitting at the desk screamed and pressed the emergency button.
WEEEEEE!
“Emergency! Emergency!”
“It’s an intruder! Team 1, arm yourselves!”
Amid the shrill noise, Park Jihoon’s final words pierced my ears.
— Go ahead, then. Let’s see you try.
Beep. Beep. Beep……
I shoved the Team 1 Leader’s phone, now disconnected, into my inner pocket.
When I pulled my hand out again, there were two daggers in it instead of a phone.
“Let’s see you try?”
I was already planning to.
“Who are you?!”
“Drop your weapons! If you don’t want to die, do it now!”
Myeongdong Guild’s elite Hunters armed themselves at incredible speed and surrounded me in a half-circle.
Behind me was the elevator. The only other person there stood frozen like a plaster statue, muttering to himself.
“This is a dream. It has to be a dream.”
I glanced at him, half out of his mind, and asked,
“What phone do you use?”
“Huh?”
“Your phone. What kind?”
“I-I use an AdultPhone 25.”
“Ah. The apple you bit into and spat out.”
“Y-Yes, yes. That’s right.”
“Take it out and record a video.”
“Yes, sir!”
He answered loudly, then stopped halfway through pulling out his phone.
“Y-Yes, sir? I’m sorry, but what did you just say?”
“You said you use an AdultPhone 25. The image quality is much better than mine, so I thought it would be better to film with that one.”
“W-What do you want me to film?”
“Everything.”
Just then, the fallen Team 1 Leader sprang to his feet and shouted,
“What are you waiting for, you bastards? Beat the hell out of that bastard right now!”
“Team Leader, isn’t that Hunter Jin Taekyung? What is going on all of a sudden…?”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
No matter the Guild, Team 1 was its symbol and elite force.
And Team 1 of Myeongdong Guild, which was consistently ranked among the top ten in Korea, was a team of professionals among professionals. They were no different from living combat machines.
“This is an order from above. Don’t think of him as a person. Think of him as a monster and fight.”
The moment their Team Leader gave them a firm order, dozens of gazes sank into cold focus.
Five tower shields at the front slammed into the marble floor simultaneously, without a single inch of error.
Boom!
“Formation—!”
In the middle of their peaceful daily lives, the downtown building became a battlefield.
What am I looking at?
Lee Minsu, a C-rank Hunter belonging to Myeongdong Guild’s Security Team, blinked.
The scene unfolding before his eyes was simply that unreal.
Krrr-crack! Boom!
A tower shield as sturdy as an armored vehicle shattered, and a massive tank flew far away as if it had been struck by a giant’s hammer.
A gap barely wide enough for one person opened for the briefest moment.
A pale figure slipped through it.
And then—
Shriiiik! Slash! Slash!
“Gaaah!”
“Gasp!”
With a flash of light, the shield wall collapsed.
The tanks toppled forward in an undignified heap, their calf tendons cleanly severed.
How did he…?
The attacks were too fast to see properly.
Blink once, and two people fell. Blink twice, and three or four fell.
Every time the young man in the gray hoodie, Jin Taekyung, took a step, blood spurted and screams overflowed.
“Stop him! Stop him!”
“Damage dealer!”
The front line where the tanks had been holding had already collapsed the moment the battle began. Five blades swung powerfully toward Jin Taekyung as he advanced one step at a time.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Both shoulders and the chest. Both legs as well.
Three targeted his upper body, while two targeted his lower body. They were attacks he could not avoid without retreating.
“We got him!”
At the instant someone cried out in delight, the daggers in Jin Taekyung’s hands blurred like mist.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
The five blades everyone had been certain would hit shot into the air.
The Hunters holding their hilts stared at Jin Taekyung in disbelief. Their hands had burst open from the force of the deflection, dripping with blood.
“W-What is this…?”
“That’s impossible!”
Jin Taekyung answered their scream of disbelief in a flat voice.
“It seems possible to me.”
Slash!
A single line swept horizontally across the air.
An attack that could neither be seen nor avoided.
Five Hunters who had just attempted to attack stood directly in its path.
Fwoosh!
As the Hunters fell, spraying fountains of blood from their chests, a streak of light pierced between them.
Whooosh! Thunk!
The arrowhead stopped just short of Jin Taekyung’s chest.
It was an arrow shot with perfect accuracy by an A-rank Hunter, mana coursing through it.
But what stopped it was neither a shield coated in various magics nor a sharp weapon.
Crack.
Jin Taekyung broke the arrow shaft between two fingers and flicked his hand.
With a terrifying whistle, the arrow shot back along its original path, shattered three defensive spells, and buried itself in its owner’s shoulders.
Thud!
“Ghk!”
“If you fire one more arrow, I’ll make sure you have an odd number of balls.”
“……!”
“And the rest of you, step back if you don’t want to end up with lopsided balls. Adjusting my strength is annoying.”
He had been holding back?
The Hunters of Team 1 felt as if they had been possessed by ghosts. It was hard enough to believe that he had rendered more than a dozen people unable to fight in the time it took to drink a glass of cold water.
And he had been holding back while doing it?
For a moment, the same thought occurred to all of them.
What kind of monster is this?
Who were they?
They were Myeongdong Guild’s elite—the battle-hardened veterans of its Hunter force. The least experienced had eight years under their belts, while the most senior had been Hunters for more than twenty.
They had reached this position because they possessed exceptional skills compared to other Hunters of the same rank, and they took great pride in that fact.
At least, they had—until they faced Jin Taekyung here today.
“Please move aside while I’m still speaking politely, Seniors. I’d really like to smash every one of your faces in, but you don’t seem to be directly involved, so this is all I’m doing.”
He was dressed casually, in loose track pants and a gray hoodie, as if he had stopped by a café near his home. But not a single person ignored his words.
He had already shown them his strength and carved it into their minds.
“So clear a path.”
Even veterans who had fought countless fierce battles in Gates found it hard to breathe beneath the aura pressing down on the room.
It was a primal fear unlike anything they had ever felt from a monster.
Monster. That guy is a real monster.
Step. Step.
The monster walked straight toward them.
The Hunters moved their feet without realizing it and made way.
That was when—
“Burning Hands!”
Whoosh!
A hand wreathed in flame came crashing down on Jin Taekyung amid fierce heat.
It was a fire spell capable of melting even ordinary rock, but the huge hand made of mana vanished without a trace the moment it collided with Jin Taekyung’s palm.
“M-Magic?”
“It’s called the Flame Divine Palm. Pretty useful, right?”
The Team 1 Leader’s eyes widened at the sight of the palm wrapped in blue flame.
Jin Taekyung stared at him and licked his dry lips.
He looked like a predator that had just discovered prey it had forgotten about.
“Ah. You’re the exception to what I said earlier.”
“Gasp.”
Whoosh!
Jin Taekyung’s form scattered like a ghost.
But the Team 1 Leader was an outstanding battle mage in his own right, having led Myeongdong Guild’s elite team. Even in his panic, he reacted quickly.
“Blink!”
It was a teleportation spell that allowed him to move anywhere within ten meters, as long as the destination was within his field of vision.
If I move behind him and unleash my attack spells all at once, even someone as skilled as him…
The Team 1 Leader used Blink to move behind Jin Taekyung, but for an instant, he was overcome by the sensation that the world had stopped.
Jin Taekyung’s clear, deep black eyes were right in front of his face.
Thud. A palm still radiating heat pressed down on his shoulder.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“……!”
“You were rolling those eyes around so conspicuously.”
Had he predicted the direction from the movement of his eyes?
No. That wasn’t all.
The Team 1 Leader’s body trembled as if struck by lightning.
This guy’s movements are faster than my Blink spell.
What kind of monster was he?
And what kind of monster had Park Jihoon—and Myeongdong Guild—provoked?
With a trembling voice, the Team 1 Leader recited the final spell he had prepared.
“P-Poison.”
Whoosh.
A green poisonous fog poured out and coiled around Jin Taekyung’s face.
But just as the Team 1 Leader had ominously sensed, the monster proved once again that he was, in fact, a monster.
“Ugh. Smells like a fart.”
Jin Taekyung’s handsome brow furrowed.
That was the entirety of his reaction to the Poison spell.
Having reached Peak and attained the realm of Unaffected by a Hundred Poisons, Jin Taekyung blew on the frozen Team 1 Leader.
“Hoo.”
“Gasp.”
The Team 1 Leader inhaled the poisonous fog, and his face turned blue.
Jin Taekyung grabbed the Team 1 Leader—whose entire body had gone rigid from the paralyzing poison—by the nape, looked around, and asked,
“Where is that bastard Park Jihoon’s office?”
Ten fingers pointed toward a single door.
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