Chapter 800

Hunters lived close to death.

It made no difference whether they were S-rank Hunters known around the world or F-rank Hunters as common as stones in the street. No one was exempt.

The misfortune of death came equally to everyone, and Hunters were more accustomed to that fact than anyone.

But…

“Holy shit.”

The quiet curse spoke for everyone.

Reflected in dozens of pairs of eyes, trembling slightly in that moment, were around two hundred corpses, shriveled nearly to nothing.

“Damn it. Has anyone here ever seen anything this insane, even once?”

No one answered the Team Leader. More accurately, they’d forgotten how.

What the hell is this?

They might have been assigned to recover the dead in the rear, but they were Hunters all the same. They’d had more than their share of brushes with death and seen more corpses than they cared to remember.

Especially after the series of events that had unfolded one after another over the past few months. How many deaths had they witnessed?

And yet, even they couldn’t help feeling a chill run down their spines at that moment.

“…Didn’t you say they’d been dead for less than two hours?”

The Team Leader bit his lip at the question that broke the long silence.

“It’s hard to believe, but yes. That’s exactly what I was told.”

“Then it’s one of two things. Either you’re deaf, Team Leader, or whoever told you is insane.”

“Could be. But neither is true.”

“Maybe not. But looking at these bodies, I’d say they’ve been dead for at least a couple of centuries. What kind of lunatic told you they’d been dead for less than two hours?”

“What, you planning to go argue with them?”

“We ought to check whether it’s true. And if they were talking nonsense, I’ll punch them right in the face.”

“Fine.”

The Team Leader had taken out a cigarette and put it between his lips. He went on calmly.

“If you really want to, head to the command tent right now. Punch Magic Johnson in the face as soon as you see him. Don’t worry about what happens afterward—I’ll recover your bodies and take them home to your families.”

“What?”

“Still here? You said you were going to find that lunatic and punch him.”

“…”

The Hunters were speechless.

It wasn’t so much that the lunatic they’d just been cursing was Magic Johnson. The greater shock came from the realization that the order itself wasn’t wrong.

So it’s all true?

Damn it. What’s going on?

Becoming a veteran Hunter meant knowing the smell of blood better than the smell of pancakes cooking. It meant seeing enough horrors to qualify as an undertaker if you ever quit.

Limbs severed, torsos torn apart, heads crushed…

They’d seen it all more times than they could count. Most of the corpses they’d encountered belonged to monsters, but plenty had belonged to comrades they’d shared meals with, too.

Even so, they’d never seen bodies like these.

Around two hundred corpses, dried out without a drop of blood left in them.

If they hadn’t known what had happened, every last one of them would have thought they’d been sent to excavate ruins.

These weren’t just corpses. They looked like mummies that had been buried deep underground for centuries.

Damn it. Have we been bewitched?

They’ve been like this for less than two hours? How is that possible?

They weren’t gruesome so much as bizarre.

Every moment sent goose bumps crawling over their bodies. They couldn’t take even one step toward those corpses, with not a trace of life left in them.

And the same question filled every mind.

What did this to them?

Not who. What.

As everyone swallowed hard at the thought of an unknown enemy they couldn’t even begin to predict, the Team Leader took a deep drag on his cigarette and shouted,

“Fuck! How long are you going to stand there staring? Stop wasting time thinking about it and get moving! Now!”

The Hunters jolted as if they’d just woken up. At last, they began to move, though their steps were slow.

As he watched his subordinates force themselves toward the corpses, the Team Leader suddenly realized he hadn’t lit his cigarette.

…Damn it.

He cursed under his breath and threw it to the ground.

But his hand, now brushing over his parched lips, was trembling slightly.

“Rumors are spreading.”

Team Leader Choi’s face was grave.

“Everyone’s afraid. Word about the fallen Hunters’ bodies is circulating quietly.”

“…”

“We need to do something before it gets any worse. If this continues…”

His voice trailed off, but I knew what he meant.

I finished the sentence Team Leader Choi couldn’t.

We’ll fall apart from the inside before we even get moving.

He wasn’t talking about another traitor like Michael Silbert emerging.

He meant the force an army depended on to function: morale.

Fear’s eating away at them. Fast.

Some things couldn’t be stopped, no matter how hard you tried.

Like this.

“There were too many witnesses. We ordered them not to talk, but there’s only so much we can do to contain the rumors.”

Even an order to keep quiet had its limits.

The J1 team Yamamoto Genji belonged to had been wiped out in a bizarre fashion. Hundreds of people had reached the scene before I did.

Even the authority my name carried couldn’t seal every one of their mouths.

People’s emotions.

Human emotions—especially fear—were beyond anyone’s control.

But the bigger problem was that the rumors frightening even veteran Hunters who’d been through hell and back weren’t baseless nonsense.

“And although these stories haven’t gained much traction yet…”

Team Leader Choi hesitated, then continued with a sigh.

“Some people have started embellishing what happened. They’re spreading all kinds of nonsense.”

“Like what?”

“That The Prophet really is God’s chosen representative. Or a transcendent being like the Demon King Asmodeus…”

Bang!

“Bullshit!”

Magic Johnson shot to his feet with a shout, his eyes blazing.

“Tell me, Choi. Who the hell is spreading this deranged crap?”

“Like I said, it hasn’t gained much traction. It’s one of several stories going around, so we can’t point to anyone in particular. The problem is that a tiny number of people genuinely believe it.”

“What kind of world do they think we live in, believing superstitious crap like that… Damn it.”

Magic Johnson started to say something, then shut his mouth with a rough curse.

The hulking Grand Mage had clearly remembered something he’d forgotten for a moment.

That Hunters were more obsessed with superstition than anyone else in the world.

In a way, it was only natural. Whatever their reasons for becoming Hunters, they were human. They wanted to survive.

They might gain wealth beyond an ordinary person’s dreams and the honor of being humanity’s sword and shield. But survival came first.

Even athletes kept strange routines no one else understood and clung to childish superstitions. How could Hunters, who fought with their lives on the line, be any different?

Athletes might believe a superstition would save their careers. For Hunters, it was their lives at stake.

Especially when they faced an unknown phenomenon that no one had ever encountered before.

“A Demon King, of all things. What a bunch of idiots.”

I looked at the Skeleton King, who muttered in disbelief.

He’d already gotten a similar look from me several times, so he immediately understood what it meant and furrowed his brow.

“I told you. I don’t know either.”

That wasn’t the answer I’d wanted.

I tried to hide my disappointment. “Right. That’s why I gave you time to think.”

“……Damn it. I’m genuinely curious, too. What the hell is that guy called The Prophet?”

The Skeleton King sighed and went on.

“But what am I supposed to do if I don’t know? I first became conscious in that place you call a Gate. Everything before that is blurry. No, I can’t even call it a memory.”

“Not even fragments?”

“A dark, ominous place. That’s all I can recall. Perhaps it was the Demon Realm. Another world beyond the Gate. Isn’t that right?”

No one could answer him. Not me, not Magic Johnson—not anyone in humanity.

Ever since the Demon King Asmodeus descended into this world, humanity had known of the land of death beyond the dimensions. Yet from the moment we learned it existed, the place itself had remained shrouded in mystery.

No one knew what was there or what calamities lived within it.

Not even the Skeleton King, who had come through a Gate from the Demon Realm.

“What I know is only a tiny fraction. Do you know what surprised me most after I set foot in this world?”

I answered without thinking. “Clubs?”

“…What exactly do you think of me?”

“Illegal immigrant. Dumbass. Eunuch.”

The Skeleton King gave me a look that had gone completely cold, then sighed deeply.

“Damn it. Yes, clubs were a hell of a surprise too. But what amazed me most was the Monster Encyclopedia you humans made.”

“What?”

“That was when I first realized there were so many different kinds of monsters. Until then, what I knew about monsters amounted to a scrap of flesh on a pile of bones.”

“…!”

“But even you humans, who’ve spent so long researching monsters, haven’t uncovered everything. Isn’t that right?”

Magic Johnson answered, his face set. “That’s true. There were limits to what we could learn by studying monsters.”

These days, it was the kind of story you only read in history textbooks.

Even after the Great Cataclysm, humanity wanted more data. In the period immediately after the war ended, Hunters weren’t hunting monsters so much as capturing them.

Then came all kinds of experiments, including dissections.

But that wasn’t enough. Not every monster in the world was a low-level one like a goblin.

“The more powerful the monsters we tried to capture, the greater our losses. Plenty of S-rank Hunters joined the effort, myself included, but we didn’t always succeed.”

“Which means…”

“Among the highest-level monsters we most wanted to target, some Named monsters like Leviathan and the Arch Lich had disappeared completely. And there were monsters like Dragons, with very few individuals. We weren’t able to learn much about those.”

I murmured, “The Prophet could be one of them.”

“Right. If he really is a monster, as we suspect… he must be one of the top-level Named monsters we never identified.”

Magic Johnson’s voice sank.

“And I can say this for certain: from the Great Cataclysm until now, I’ve never seen anything with an ability like his.”

He was a complete unknown.

We knew neither what he was nor what he could do.

And fighting an enemy whose nature you hadn’t uncovered was the stupidest, craziest thing you could do.

Of course, I’d done that crazy thing countless times.

“Then there’s only one option left.”

At my offhand remark, I saw everyone’s expression grow heavy. Before anyone could try to stop me, I continued.

“We set out immediately. I have to see that bastard’s face.”

One message.

I would use those words The Prophet had sent me through Yamamoto Genji as a signpost and track the bastard down.

Before an irreversible catastrophe struck.

Even if… it was a trap.