Chapter 586

Some truths are cruel and cold.

When people face them, they sometimes turn away, unable—or unwilling—to believe what has happened.

Like me right now.

“…Human.”

Skeleton King’s voice broke the silence. I felt as though I had woken from a long, terrible dream.

And in the next moment, I realized that none of it had been a dream. It was reality.

He’s gone. He really is.

Kim Hwajong’s face was peaceful in death. Joy still lingered in the smile fixed upon his lips—the smile of a man who had fulfilled his final wish before he left.

But I kept sending Scorching Yang Qi through his body, along with questions that could no longer reach him.

Are you still cold? Is it still dark?

Perhaps the old butler I remembered was wandering an endless winter night even now. Shivering, unable to see an inch ahead, searching the darkness for one person.

I couldn’t stop. I had to keep putting warmth into his body as it slowly grew cold.

Thud.

A cold hand came to rest on my shoulder. Skeleton King spoke in a subdued voice.

“Human.”

“Let go.”

“That is enough. Stop.”

He was wrong. It wasn’t enough, so I couldn’t stop.

Just as I was about to roughly shake off the hand on my shoulder, Skeleton King continued.

“He will not be cold anymore, so let that human go…… Let that person rest.”

“…!”

Why did the strength leave my body when I heard that?

I didn’t know.

Perhaps it was because Skeleton King had spoken respectfully of a human for the first time. Perhaps it was because his voice sounded so unusually weak.

Or perhaps it was because of the people who had returned to this nameless mountainside after disaster had swept through it.

Crunch.

Careful footsteps pressed into the snow.

I turned toward the sound and saw five men and women emerge. I recognized their faces from the greetings we’d exchanged once or twice at the Guild House.

Peace Guild members.

They must have realized the situation had changed and come back.

They had already fought Behemoth desperately ahead of me, exhausting themselves and suffering injuries. With vacant eyes, they stared at the monster collapsed before them. Then they turned their heads and looked in this direction.

And—

“No!”

“Guild Master!”

Shouts and screams rang out together.

They hurried over Behemoth’s corpse and found Kim Hwajong in a deep sleep from which he would never wake.

“H-How could this happen?”

“…Damn it. I knew this would happen. I knew it!”

Their voices were filled with grief and tears.

I hadn’t been there, but I could picture what had happened.

He must have told them to go. Told them to run with Team Leader Choi because he was all right.

That was the kind of person Kim Hwajong was.

Someone mattered more to him than his own life: a young man he called Young Master and thought of as his grandson.

I had stood there as though nailed to the ground, watching everything. Then I suddenly opened my mouth.

“Team Leader Choi.”

“Y-Yes?”

My voice came out rough and hollow, so unfamiliar it might have belonged to someone else.

“Lay Team Leader Choi down beside him.”

“…!”

“Hurry.”

The Guild members stared at me for a moment, then understood and nodded. They carefully laid Team Leader Choi, unconscious after exhausting all his strength, on the ground.

The two men lay side by side. They looked nothing alike, yet somehow they resembled each other.

You finally met, the two of you.

Without a word, I placed their hands together.

Maybe it was my imagination, but for an instant Kim Hwajong’s smile seemed to brighten.

“Hunter Jin Taekyung. Wouldn’t it be better to wake the Team Leader…?”

I shook my head at the Guild member who had spoken.

“No.”

“B-But…”

“We can’t. Not right now.”

I cut him off firmly. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t considered it myself.

If Kim Hwajong had still been alive, I would have done whatever it took to wake Team Leader Choi and let them see each other.

But…

It’s too late.

Kim Hwajong was dead. Team Leader Choi’s body was battered, and accumulated fatigue had pushed it to its limit. Even if I forced him awake and gave him a potion, the backlash would come down on him several times harder.

So would the grief and rage.

The dead had found peace after their suffering. The living had to carry theirs on.

I’d learned that three years ago. I couldn’t wake Team Leader Choi in that condition just to tell him something so cruel.

But I could promise him one thing.

Before Team Leader Choi regained consciousness, I would bring him a gift that could soothe even a little of the rage and grief he would feel.

Whoosh! Slash!

The tip of the spear I swung without any preparation split the air, sending a crescent of Force through Behemoth’s enormous body. Skeleton King murmured, almost with a sigh.

“Stop.”

I swung again instead of answering.

Once. Twice. Three times…

Slash! Slash! Fwoosh!

The corpse fell into pieces, and the blood left inside it spurted up like a fountain.

The vast magical power Behemoth had once held was gone. Now it was only meat.

I cut through it without hesitation, like a butcher, until Skeleton King could stand it no longer.

“I said stop! What difference do you think this will—”

“It can make enough of a difference. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“What?”

He stared at me, puzzled.

“What in the world are you talking about?”

I didn’t answer. One step carried me several meters¹, bringing Behemoth’s corpse right before me.

I studied the remains, cut so thoroughly that nothing of the monster’s former majesty remained. At last, I found what I was looking for.

No—it had made itself known before I found it.

Vrrrr.

A faint vibration passed through the air. With it came a murky, powerful energy.

“……Found it.”

I had worried that it might have been erased by the One Annihilation I had fired earlier, but fortunately, it was unharmed.

I murmured in relief and reached out without hesitation.

Whoosh. Clack!

Seizing an Object Through Empty Space sent it flying into my hand. I stared at it with a solemn gaze.

Item Appraisal.

Ding.

System

Item Window

Behemoth’s Turbid Abyss

Type: Magic Gem
Grade: Supreme Peak
Restriction: None

Description: The abyss contained within Behemoth, a Named Monster and primordial beast, and the source of its magical power.

For some reason, it absorbed another source of magical power. Its once-pure darkness became turbid and even more powerful.

Using it requires an extremely demanding and difficult purification process.

My eyes grew hot as I read the System Window floating before me.

But my mind was colder and clearer than ever as it turned over the information.

Behemoth’s Turbid Abyss.

The System had never lied to me. Not once. Every word of that description had to be true.

It absorbed another source of magical power. For some reason. I see.

The questions that had been drifting through my head for the past several hours, ever since my conversation with Kraken, began to fall into place one after another.

Who had given Kraken a Magic Gem to cause a Monster Wave? Who had ordered him to do it?

Why had Team Leader Choi, busy as he was, left Seoul for Pyeongchang in Gangwon Province? Why had another Monster Wave happened here, of all places?

And what did the description of Behemoth’s Magic Gem mean?

Why? Why? Why?

I asked myself each question and found its answer.

Only a short time passed, though it felt like hours. At last, I had answers to everything.

Everything but the final piece of the puzzle.

Right. One last piece.

I didn’t hesitate. I already knew where to find it.

“Why did you come here today?”

I was speaking to the Peace Guild members. Their eyes turned toward a middle-aged Hunter who seemed to be the most senior among them. He answered grimly.

“Team Leader Choi had someone he needed to meet in secret. A man disguised with illusion magic. He looked very anxious.”

“Who was he?”

“I’m sorry, but none of us know. I don’t know who he was either.”

The middle-aged man was probably telling the truth. But I wasn’t disappointed.

I had heard the man’s identity directly from Team Leader Choi himself not long ago. Even the temporary Head of Security had not been informed.

Song Cheonwoo.

A hero of the Great Cataclysm and Ares Guild’s European regional Director.

And the political rival of both Lee Jungryong and his disciple, Go Jun—two generations of enemies.

But I knew Song Cheonwoo and Team Leader Choi had secretly agreed to work together for the time being. I wasn’t foolish enough to think Song was behind this.

He had no reason. Not one.

Song Cheonwoo was still ambitious after all these years. Whatever else was going on, the idea that he would try to kill Team Leader Choi—a valuable ally in his effort to bring down Go Jun—made no sense.

Someone else was behind everything that had happened today.

Someone who stood to gain more than anyone from the deaths of those two men.

Someone who could use an S-grade Magic Gem of astronomical value and rarity to cause a Monster Wave.

Go Jun.

The final piece fell into place. I knew what I had to do—and that the consequences of my choice could reach the people around me.

Then…

I slowly closed my eyes.

There was no turning back. Right or wrong, I had to do this.

When I opened my eyes again, neither my resolve nor my voice wavered.

“If Team Leader Choi wakes up while I’m gone, please make sure someone tells him.”

“Pardon? Tell him what…?”

“S-grade Hunter Jin Taekyung…”

The unfamiliar, dry voice that sounded as though it belonged to someone else continued.

“…is leaving the Peace Guild as of this moment.”

“…!”

“…!”

The frozen expressions of the people before me came into view, along with someone’s face twisted in anger.

“You bastard. Don’t tell me you’re—”

“You stay here. Protect the people and the Guild, just in case.”

The one who had to leave would leave. The one who had to stay would stay.

I shook my head at Skeleton King when he tried to stop me again, then asked the Guild members who had gone rigid like statues.

“Anyone here capable of Teleport? Hands up.”

“H-Hand.”

A mage raised his hand without thinking and asked with a dazed expression,

“B-But where to?”

“Jongno. No…”

I looked at the old butler, asleep forever, and finished.

“Let’s go to Ares Guild.”