“Park Jihoon, you fucking bastard.”
“……”
The voice on the other end cut off mid-sentence.
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.”
After a moment, he replied.
“Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, you bastard.”
My voice came out heated. Blood raced through my veins, and my heart hammered in my chest.
But my head was as cold as if I’d been doused with ice water.
Maybe some part of me had already seen this coming.
I kept thinking, surely not. Surely not.
But the number twenty-eight falling from his lips had been 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 nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of—drew a hollow laugh from me.
“Who told you? Im Yeongjun? Of course. He’s the only one it could’ve been. I thought he knew how to keep his mouth shut…but I misjudged him.”
Park Jihoon clicked his tongue and continued.
“Fucking idiot. I never should’ve left it to him.”
“What did the shit do wrong? The asshole who dropped his pants and started straining in public is the one to blame. But you…”
Crack.
The Team 1 Leader, still struggling with his neck trapped in my grip, turned blue.
“Did you think about how you were going to clean up after taking that dump?”
“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. That’s exactly what it looks like.”
“What?”
“Can you handle me?”
Silence followed.
One second. Two. Three.
Then, at the end of that brief silence, came a cold, razor-edged voice unlike any I had ever heard from him.
“Take one more step, and both you and the Peace Guild are finished.”
“So?”
“It’s not too late. Don’t make this any bigger. Come out. Let’s end it here.”
Hearing that, it suddenly occurred to me that the way the world worked wasn’t so different from a fight.
The one who seized the advantage pressed forward without mercy. The one who was afraid took the first step back.
And I knew exactly what Park Jihoon feared.
Black Hunters.
The existence of the Black Hunters—the illegal private armies maintained by major Guilds.
The thought that they were holding Park Jihoon back made the corners of my mouth curl upward.
“End it?”
“Yes.”
“Who says?”
“……!”
“You people started this. I’ll decide where it ends.”
On the other end of the phone, Park Jihoon’s breathing grew ragged.
“Well, this is something. I knew you were stupid, but you’re even worse than I thought.”
“The result will be beyond anything you imagined, too. Please fucking look forward to it, 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 broad hallway with a high ceiling came into view. Dozens of people moved through it.
Several naturally glanced in our direction. A moment later, their mouths dropped open.
“T-Team Leader?”
“You there! Who the hell are you…?”
Instead of answering, I hurled the Team 1 Leader at them. A Hunter approaching with an accusing finger outstretched went crashing into the wall along with him.
At the same time, an employee sitting at the desk screamed and pressed the emergency button.
WEEEEEE!
“Emergency! Emergency!”
“Intruder! Team 1, arm yourselves!”
Amid the piercing alarm, Park Jihoon’s final words reached 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 my hand emerged again, it held two daggers instead.
Let’s see me try?
I’d been planning to.
“Who are you?!”
“Drop your weapons! Now, unless you want to die!”
Myeongdong Guild’s elite Hunters armed themselves with astonishing speed and surrounded me in a semicircle.
The elevator was behind me. The only other person there stood frozen like a plaster statue, muttering to himself.
“This is a dream. It has to be.”
I glanced at him, half out of his mind, and asked,
“What phone do you use?”
“Gasp!”
“Your phone. What kind?”
“I-I use an AdultPhone 25.1”
“Ah. The apple you bit into and spat out.”
“Y-Yes, yes. That’s right.”
“Take it out and start recording.”
“Yes, sir!”
He answered at the top of his lungs, then froze halfway through pulling out his phone.
“Y-Yes, sir? I’m sorry, but what did you just say?”
“You said you have an AdultPhone 25.1 Its camera’s much better than mine, so I figured you should do the filming.”
“F-Film what?”
“Everything.”
Just then, the fallen Team 1 Leader sprang to his feet and roared.
“What are you waiting for, you bastards? Beat the shit out of him!”
“Team Leader, isn’t that Hunter Jin Taekyung? What is going on all of a sudden…?”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
In any Guild, Team 1 was both its symbol and its elite force.
For Myeongdong Guild, consistently ranked among Korea’s top ten, that went without saying. Its Team 1 members were consummate professionals—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 in perfect unison.
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 assigned to Myeongdong Guild’s Security Team, blinked.
The scene unfolding before him was simply too 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.
For the briefest instant, a gap opened—barely wide enough for one person.
A pale figure slipped through it.
And then—
Shriiiik! Slash! Slash!
“Gaaah!”
“Gasp!”
The shield wall collapsed in a flash of light.
The tanks pitched forward in an undignified heap, the tendons in their calves cleanly severed.
How did he…?
He couldn’t even see the strikes properly.
Blink once, and two people fell. Blink twice, and three or four went down.
Every time the young man in the gray hoodie, Jin Taekyung, took a step, blood spurted and screams overflowed.
“S-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-whoosh!
Both shoulders. His chest. Both legs.
Three attacks targeted his upper body, while two went for his lower body. There was no way to evade them without retreating.
“We got him!”
At the instant someone cried out in delight, the dagger in Jin Taekyung’s hand blurred like mist.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
All five blades, which everyone had been certain would connect, shot into the air.
The Hunters who had wielded them stared at Jin Taekyung in shock. The force of the deflection had torn their palms open, leaving them drenched in blood.
“W-What the…?”
“That’s impossible!”
Jin Taekyung answered their cries in a flat voice.
“Looks possible to me.”
Slash!
A single line swept horizontally through the air.
An attack that could neither be seen nor avoided.
Directly in its path stood the five Hunters who had just attacked him.
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.
An A-rank Hunter had fired it with perfect accuracy, mana coursing through the shaft.
But what stopped it was neither a shield coated in various magics nor a sharp weapon.
Crack.
Jin Taekyung snapped 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!”
“Fire one more arrow, and I’ll make sure you end up with an odd number of balls.”
“……!”
“The rest of you, back off unless you want your balls lopsided too. It’s annoying having to hold back.”
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?
The same thought flashed through every mind.
What kind of monster is this?
Who were they?
They were Myeongdong Guild’s elite, battle-hardened veteran Hunters. Even the least experienced had eight years under their belt, while the most senior had been Hunters for more than twenty.
They had earned their positions through skills far surpassing those of other Hunters at the same rank, and they had taken immense 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.”
Loose track pants and a gray hoodie. He looked as if he had stepped out to visit the café down the street.
Yet no one dared dismiss his words.
He had already displayed his strength and seared it into their minds.
“So clear a path.”
An overwhelming aura crushed the corridor, leaving even veterans of countless brutal battles inside Gates struggling to breathe.
It awakened a primal terror unlike anything they had ever felt from a monster.
Monster. That bastard is a real monster.
Step. Step.
The monster walked straight toward them.
The Hunters unconsciously moved aside to let him pass.
That was when—
“Burning Hands!”
Whoosh!
A hand wreathed in flame came crashing down on Jin Taekyung amid fierce heat.
The fire spell could melt solid rock, but the enormous hand of mana vanished without a trace the instant it struck 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 his palm engulfed in blue flame.
Jin Taekyung stared at him and ran his tongue over his dry lips.
He looked like a predator that had just discovered prey it had forgotten about.
“Ah. You’re the one exception to what I said earlier.”
“Gasp.”
Whoosh!
Jin Taekyung’s form scattered like a ghost.
But the Team 1 Leader was an exceptional battle mage in his own right, accomplished enough to command 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,2 provided he could see the destination.
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.
For an instant, it felt as though 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 practically advertised where you were going with your eyes.”
Had he predicted the direction from the movement of his gaze?
No. That wasn’t all.
The Team 1 Leader’s body trembled as though he had been struck by lightning.
His movement was faster than my Blink.
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 cloud of green poisonous fog burst forth and enveloped Jin Taekyung’s face.
But just as the Team 1 Leader’s instincts had warned him, the monster proved once again that he truly was a monster.
“Ugh. Smells like a fart.”
His handsome brow furrowed.
That was his entire 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 him by the nape as the paralyzing poison stiffened his entire body, then looked around and asked,
“Where’s that bastard Park Jihoon’s office?”
Ssssk!
Ten fingers pointed toward a single door.
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