The Price of Judgement

Su-hyuk lifted the Reaper’s Scythe in his right hand, keeping his distance.

The black energy of Judgement Punishment writhed across the blade, crawling over the edge in a nauseating shiver.

He hurled that force at Kim Tae-su, who was cowering on the floor in terror behind Cheol-gamen, the energy slicing through the air with all his strength.

Dead Man’s Slash.

Swish—!

“⋯⋯?!!”

Cheol-gamen’s keen senses caught the sticky, rancid reek of death as it flashed through the air.

Before he could even turn his head, a horrific tearing sound burst out from behind him.

Shhk. Thud.

Where Cheol-gamen looked, Kim Tae-su’s head was rolling across the floor, the same man who had just been screaming for his life a moment ago.

And before the severed head and body could even stain the floor with blood, they collapsed into pitch-black motes of light and crumbled away into the air.

Even Kim Tae-su, the younger brother, had been completely erased in exactly the same way as his older brother, Kim Kyung-su, without the slightest resistance.

Strength drained slowly from Cheol-gamen’s arm.

The tip of the longsword he had been gripping sank into the floor.

The moment his fighting spirit vanished completely.

No matter how wildly he swung his blade, he could not reach this enemy. No matter how far he tried to put distance between them, the monster would blink in and cut his throat before erasing him into black dust.

Lowering his sword, Cheol-gamen asked hoarsely toward the empty corridor, “You bastard⋯ So it was you who ruined our Cheolsu-pa’s business one by one. What kind of grudge do you have against us, anyway?”

In the back alleys of the underworld, running a business like this meant trampling other people’s lives. Of course they had made enemies.

But he had no memory of ever provoking a strong enough monster to bring the Cheolsu-pa to its knees with such overwhelming force.

This bastard isn’t A-class⋯

Kim Tae-su’s testimony, and what he had just seen and experienced with his own eyes, pointed to power at least on the level of A-class, perhaps even beyond.

The problem was that no Awaker he knew of had ever heard of an assassin-type fighter who could turn corpses to dust and attack from a distance while remaining completely invisible.

Sister⋯ Only Sister can do it. The only one who can kill this monster is Sister.

Cheol-gamen coughed blood in his heart, begging and begging for the woman to appear.

But the silent corridor gave him no answer at all.

From the beginning, Su-hyuk had never felt the slightest need to talk to these trash heaps.

He already knew, down to the bone, why they had tried to stab him and kill him.

Asking why he killed them now would be nothing but a waste of time.

To Su-hyuk, Cheol-gamen was nothing more than garbage that had to be sentenced to suffer forever in the hellfire, reduced to Hell Points.

There was no reason to bother telling some doomed piece of filth the details of how it had ended up here.

In silence, Su-hyuk simply tightened his grip on the Reaper’s Scythe and drew a long, cold line through the air with the blade, where the chill of killing intent flowed from it.

Another merciless arc marked the end of slaughter as it cut through the darkness once more.

Shhk.

The slash of Dead Man’s Slash tore through the dark and drove straight through Cheol-gamen’s neck without mercy.

“⋯⋯!”

He couldn’t even scream.

Cheol-gamen’s head dropped to the floor with a dull thud.

A heartbeat later, blood gushing from the stump, the body that had lost its head sank to its knees and then collapsed completely.

A B-class Awaker. A former powerhouse who had once cleared countless gates and made a name for himself, the one who ruled from the top of Cheolsu-pa.

But before the cheating authority of the Judge’s Robe, which erased even the faintest trace of presence, even he could do nothing but fall helplessly.

Cheol-gamen’s body rolled once on the floor, then turned into black motes of light and scattered into the air, disappearing completely.

What remained in the cramped corridor was the crescent-shaped blade aura that Cheol-gamen had unleashed with everything he had—the Moonlight that had ravaged the hall—along with the gruesome wreckage it had left behind, and the corpse of Cho Tae-jun, the vice-boss of the Black Moon Pa.

Su-hyuk looked down at Cho Tae-jun sprawled on the floor with cold eyes.

Judgement Punishment.

At his dry verdict, black energy surged from the floor and greedily devoured Cho Tae-jun’s corpse ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as well.

The corridor, stripped of everything, was chillingly silent.

If not for the ruin Cheol-gamen had wrought—the walls caving in, the marble floor gouged deep—it would have been impossible to tell there had been a battle here only moments ago.

This is Cho Tae-jun.

This is Kim Tae-su.

“⋯⋯?!”

Su-hyuk’s eyes widened.

The reward for sending Cheol-gamen to hell was a full 1,000 Hell Points.

It was a far greater amount than what he had earned by killing the boss or vice-boss of the Yacha Pa.

So the higher an Awaker’s rank, the more the judgement reward scales up exponentially.

The moment his hypothesis—that Hell Points were calculated differently depending on rank—solidified into certainty.

Without delay, Su-hyuk called up the status window.

He had judged only three Awakers, yet the Hell Points he had earned were astronomical.

Added to what he already had, the total had swelled to 1,650 Hell Points before he knew it.

At this rate, I can buy both Reincarnation of Karma and Shackles of Sin from the shop and still have plenty left over.

Su-hyuk called up the Hell Shop in his mind.

A holographic window, as if splattered with red and black blood, unfolded in the air.

The items still sealed shut with padlock icons, still unreadable, kept catching his eye.

Those will probably unlock when I level up more, or if I accomplish some special feat.

Su-hyuk clicked his tongue.

Still, judging a B-class Awaker and not getting any achievement message is a little disappointing.

Setting his regret aside, he purchased Reincarnation of Karma for 600 Hell Points and Shackles of Sin for 1,000 Hell Points without hesitation.

Black light wrapped around his body in successive flashes, then quietly faded away.

At this point, he had bought every unlocked item in the Hell Shop.

Only Enhancement Stone (Judgement) remained.

Just then, from the first floor below Changho Building, a shrill siren began to tear through the air.

Someone nearby had clearly reported the explosion-like blast caused by the Moonlight blade aura Cheol-gamen had unleashed in his death throes as it shattered the corridor.

“I should probably get out of here for now.”

Su-hyuk descended the stairs at an unhurried pace.

The police rushed in and passed him in the opposite direction, but thanks to the Judge’s Robe, which erased the gaze of the living completely, none of them noticed his presence.

Leaving Changho Building with the red-and-blue flashes of police lights behind him, Su-hyuk swallowed a brief trace of regret.

It’s late, so I couldn’t send every sinner in the other floors of Changho Building to hell. That’s a shame, but there’s nothing to be done.

The illegal macro gaming rooms, the coin chart manipulation office, and the other money-laundering offices spread across the third through the tenth floors.

It was a pity he couldn’t clean out every rotten employee in those places, but once the head of the snake was cut off, it was bound to die eventually.

Now that all the leadership of the Cheolsu-pa has fallen into hell, the organization should naturally fall apart and disappear.

The small fry, robbed of their center, would scatter to find their own way to survive, so even if he came ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back later, there was a good chance he’d be wasting his time.

Su-hyuk decided to let go of the lingering attachment coldly.

He climbed onto the old scooter hidden at the mouth of the alley and looked quietly up at the night sky.

A cool wind brushed his cheek as it passed.

My revenge⋯ is over.

The men who had butchered him in a cold back alley while he was just an ordinary job seeker.

It had been a short journey, one he’d taken to repay that terrible pain and injustice.

The feeling of the blade sinking into his stomach. Kim Tae-su’s voice, sneering at him as though he were a bug.

He had thrown them all into the fires of hell.

The rage knotted in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his chest melted away as if it had been washed clean.

It felt refreshing.

Even if he died tomorrow and was dragged off by the Brand of Hell, it seemed as though he would no longer have any regrets.

But as Su-hyuk gently twisted the throttle, the corner of his mouth curled coldly.

No. There’s still too much trash left in the world.

Even the Cheolsu-pa that had stabbed him was only a tiny scrap of garbage in this vast, rotten world.

The Yacha Pa, the Black Moon Pa, and countless other huge organizations and vicious criminals whose names he didn’t even know yet were still roaming the streets openly.

Su-hyuk, whose instinct was to clean up any garbage that caught his eye, felt that the real work of cleaning had only just begun.

The scooter’s engine roared softly as it sliced through the still predawn air and faded into the distance.

But there was one thing Su-hyuk did not yet know.

His revenge was not completely over yet.

“What the hell happened here? Did a tornado come through?”

Twelfth floor of Changho Building.

Detective Chief Lee Gil-jung of the violent crimes unit clicked his tongue and shook his head as he examined the corridor sealed off with police tape.

Deep gouges in the walls and the marble floor split wide open.

Violent clashes between Awakers over turf wars or profit disputes weren’t exactly rare in this line of work.

Lee Gil-jung was a veteran detective who had seen it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all, so before the Abyss Investigation Team, the special unit for Awaker crimes, arrived, he intended to preserve the scene and gather whatever initial clues he could.

But after combing through the area thoroughly, the scene had turned out to be completely beyond the bounds of common sense.

Forget shell casings or fragments of broken weapons—there wasn’t a single drop of blood that could identify whose it was, not even a scrap of torn clothing.

Even the bare minimum clues needed to tell who had been the victim and who had been the attacker had vanished without a trace.

“Did ghosts just beat each other up and leave? Tsk.”