Chapter 554

The monster wave in Sichuan Province, dubbed the Small Cataclysm, had devoured so much.

Buildings, people, hope… More than four million people were dead or injured, and property damage ran into the hundreds of trillions of won.¹

But as someone once said, people leave their names behind when they die. Among the countless dead, a few names stood out.

[Search Efforts Exhausted, but the Hero’s Remains Were Never Found]

[Who Was the Late Lee Jungryong?]

[The Immortal Hero Cheon Taemin Always Had One Person at His Side]

[Wu Heixing and Lee Jungryong: Their Deaths Were the Same, but Their Nobility Was Not]

[Late Lee Jungryong to Receive National Funeral… Waves of Mourning Pour In from Around the World]

Every article occupying the top of the major forum sites contained the same person’s name.

Lee Jungryong. Another hero of the Great Cataclysm, who had wielded full authority over the Ares Guild in place of the vanished Cheon Taemin.

No. A hero of the past now, I suppose.

Lee Jungryong was dead.

The world had been told that the Lich killed him, but I was the one who had ended his life.

Yes. That day.

I had broken Wu Heixing’s neck while he begged me to spare him, then driven the blade of my spear into Lee Jungryong’s chest and reduced him to ash.

There had been no other choice. I’d gone with them all the way to the Lich’s stronghold despite suspecting they might stab me in the back. That was the last chance I’d given them.

Last meant there wouldn’t be another.

Even if it hadn’t happened then, I would have killed him eventually.

If Wu Heixing had been like a fish bone stuck in my throat, Lee Jungryong had been a blade digging into it.

He was as strong as a beast of prey and as cunning as a fox. When I first met him, he had seemed like a wall I could never overcome. I’d brought him down only because I’d grown far faster than he thought possible.

If Lee Jungryong had been a little bolder, things might have turned out differently…

But he had misjudged me, and here was the result: me, reading about his death on my smartphone on the first day of the new year.

His final words flashed through my mind.

“I… have no regrets. None.”

Lee Jungryong had been smiling when he said them.

His entire body was drenched in blood and battered beyond recognition, yet as he smiled brightly, his eyes burned with the obsession and fury he had refused to let go of until the very end.

As if this wasn’t over. As if he’d become a vengeful spirit and haunt me even after death.

Well, he couldn’t haunt me now that he was dead. But on one point, I agreed with him: it wasn’t over.

There was still someone in this world who was practically another Lee Jungryong.

Go Jun.

Lee Jungryong’s blindly devoted Head of Security. No—his Disciple.

I stared down at my smartphone and tapped an article.

Tap.

An image filled the screen at once. It showed Ares Guild members departing Sichuan Province, with Go Jun among them, his face set and rigid.

[Ares Guild Heads Home for the Funeral of the Late Lee Jungryong]

[Who Is Go Jun, Head of Security for the Late Vice Guild Master Lee Jungryong?]

I read the bold headlines and scrolled down to the long stream of comments.

└ May the deceased rest in peace.

└ Lee Jungryong is dead… Another great star has fallen.

└ I don’t know whether Jun Dragon² was a good person. I heard some pretty suspicious stories about him, too.

└ I agree, but those stories are still unverified rumors. And you think a dinosaur of a Guild like Ares could operate without getting a little dirty? Just shut up, press X, and pay your respects.³ Considering what Lee Jungryong did during the Great Cataclysm, it’s the least you can do.

└ But who’s Go Jun? They say he was Lee Jungryong’s Head of Security, but I’ve never seen him before.

└ People who know, know. You’re either not a Hunter or you’re still new.

└ How did you know? I spent all my time stuck in a study room, then awakened by accident. Now I don’t know anything. If you know something, tell me.

└ Actually, I don’t know either. This is my older brother’s account.

└ You fucking bastard.

└ Waaah. I’m a baby fucking bastard.

└ What a shitshow up there. Hunters with some standing or experience probably know him, though. Go Jun is famous as Jun Dragon’s² right-hand man. He appeared out of nowhere about ten years ago and caused quite a stir. After that, Jun Dragon² always brought him to official events.

└ Seriously. I just searched iTube,⁴ and he was standing behind Lee Jungryong at last year’s UN General Assembly. That was from a quick search. If someone really dug, they’d probably find tons more.

└ Think Lee Jungryong raised him as a Disciple?

└ King-sized possibility. Other communities are already digging into Go Jun’s background. Apparently, he came from a children’s home—orphanage?—that Lee Jungryong sponsored. He’s never taken the ranker test, but they say he’s stronger than the highest-ranked rankers.

└ So is he Ares Guild’s next Vice Guild Master?

└ No one knows, but he’s probably the front-runner. Unless Cheon Taemin shows up, Go Jun will likely take over without much trouble. Strength plus legitimacy. That’s a pure enough bloodline to make Voldemort shed a tear.

└ Agreed. He looks like a Death Eater, too. Probably a Slytherin.

└ Keep attacking his looks and Ares Guild might attack you.

└ Speaking of pure bloodlines, I heard something weird recently.

└ ?

└ ??

└ What?

└ I’m too scared to say exactly who, but you know. Someone in the P— Guild is Cheon Taemin’s—no, not Cheon Taemin. I’m deleting this myself. Please don’t bring it up.

└ Ah, fuck.

└ There are two ways to make someone angry. The first is to start saying something and then stop.

└ Ha… Some bastard just cost me a night’s sleep.

Clink.

The sudden noise drew my eyes from the phone.

Team Leader Choi had set the tableware down beside me. He looked faintly displeased.

“What are you reading so intently?”

“Something about you in the article comments, Team Leader Choi.”

“Pardon?”

“It’d be quicker to show you. Just a moment.”

I looked back at my phone and smacked my lips. The comment had been deleted in the brief time I’d looked away.

He said he was scared and would delete it. He really did delete it and run.

“What comment?”

“It’s gone now. But it was definitely about you.”

“If it was about me… was it related to my maternal grandfather?”

I gave a small nod.

I wasn’t the only one who’d drawn attention during the Small Cataclysm in Sichuan Province. While the world was in an uproar over the monster wave caused by the Lich, the media and the public had barely stopped talking about me. But at some point, word of Team Leader Choi had begun to spread as well.

A needle in a bag.⁵

That was Team Leader Choi. He’d learned martial arts from me and taken his skills to another level, then distinguished himself on the battlefield. He was also handsome enough to put a celebrity to shame. The attention from people who cared about looks alone was nothing to sneeze at.

And he was Cheon Taemin’s only living blood relative.

But Lee Jungryong had kept Team Leader Choi’s existence under wraps while he was alive. Team Leader Choi had done the same.

Until then, the two of them had been a dinosaur and an ant. Even if revealing his identity turned him into a golden ant, he would still be an ant.

Now Lee Jungryong was dead, and the truth they’d hidden—whether by choice or circumstance—was slowly coming to light.

What bothered me was how natural it all seemed. How perfectly timed.

I gazed steadily at Team Leader Choi.

“This was what you intended, wasn’t it, Team Leader Choi?”

“To be honest, yes. I judged that now was the right time.”

“Wow. I didn’t expect you to admit it. Have you always been this honest?”

“What else do I have to hide from you, Mr. Jin Taekyung? Of course, even if I’m honest with you, you still have plenty of secrets.”

“…You didn’t have to put it like that.”

A twinge of guilt caught me off guard.

I already knew Team Leader Choi suspected there was more to me than he’d been told. Since getting the System, I’d spent more time with him than with anyone else in the modern world, and I’d heard him say as much himself.

Still, when he came right out with it, I had no answer.

I scratched my chin awkwardly.

“Putting that aside, can I ask you a few things?”

“Go ahead. The seaweed soup⁶ will be out soon, so you’ll have to be quick.”

“If this was your plan, wouldn’t it have been better for me to tell everyone what Lee Jungryong was really like?”

Lee Jungryong’s and Wu Heixing’s deaths had been blamed on the Lich. The truth had been buried, which was why people were mourning them with some goodwill.

Wu Heixing had always been a rotten bastard, and the atrocities involving his family had come to light, so people were still cursing him after his death. Lee Jungryong, on the other hand, was being mourned as a fallen great star.

They were giving him a national funeral. That said it all.

If the truth had come out, things would have been different. I might not have had hard evidence, but I’d earned enough Fame as a new hero that people couldn’t simply dismiss my testimony as nonsense.

Lee Jungryong’s reputation would have been ruined, and Team Leader Choi’s plan would have gone smoothly.

“But you told me not to tell the media what Lee Jungryong had done.”

Team Leader Choi nodded calmly.

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

His answer came without a moment’s hesitation.

“Because I didn’t want to dirty what’s mine.”

“What?”

“Vice Guild Master Lee Jungryong was certainly a man with an ugly side. He helped my maternal grandfather and made major contributions during the Great Cataclysm, but he gradually became corrupted. He took full control of the Ares Guild and committed all kinds of crimes. The important thing is…”

Team Leader Choi went on in a dry voice.

“The blame wouldn’t fall on Lee Jungryong alone. It would fall on the entire Ares Guild.”

“…!”

“The Ares Guild’s influence is immense. My maternal grandfather has been out of sight for years, and Lee Jungryong is dead, but people still have absolute faith in its power.”

Clink.

“Mr. Jin Taekyung.”

Team Leader Choi ran his fingers over the perfectly clean tableware, his eyes sinking into deep stillness.

“I don’t want food splashed with filth. Even if there’s hair in it and it’s crawling with maggots, it must look better than anything else on the outside. I want it in my hands with all its influence intact.”

I’d overlooked the power of the Ares name. Its influence.

And Team Leader Choi wanted the Ares Guild whole, without a blemish on its surface. He wanted all that power and influence for himself.

Removing the hair Lee Jungryong had planted and picking out the vermin would come afterward.

“I’ve waited a long time for this.”

Team Leader Choi murmured the words, his eyes glinting coldly.