#27 The Ten Evils: Butcher (3)
Park Cheol-wan clutched his head at the latest report.
"Those crazy bastards."
This time, it was Beltsmets who had stepped up. The team dispatched to the scene struggled to even speak, horrified by the gruesome sight.
It was a one-sided massacre.
"But here's the thing. The more we looked at the scene, the more suspicious details popped up."
At first, when the news broke, Park Cheol-wan had just sighed over more innocent lives lost. The report had come in about a raid on what was registered as a small guild office.
People tended to picture flashy, successful guilds when they heard the word, but there were far more modest operations—little more than staffing agencies that brokered day laborers for gates and took a cut of the fees.
So when he heard Beltsmets had hit one of those, he'd figured they were just small-time villains picking on easy targets.
But this place? It was rotten to the core.
Do Chae-hee scanned the scattered documents and files, her face hardening.
"This was a villains' den."
It had the facade of a normal guild, but the papers, records... even a hidden underground warehouse meant to stay off the radar.
And Beltsmets had kindly exposed it all to the Gakbeombu, flinging open every secret compartment and laying out the loot these scum had stashed away.
Even more damning: a closer look at the bodies revealed they were all wanted villains the government had been hunting.
In an instant, the site became another crime scene entirely—one separate from the murders Beltsmets had committed. Now they had to dig into these guys' rap sheets.
Park Cheol-wan glanced at the victims' names and muttered under his breath.
"Still better than the Butcher, at least."
Do Chae-hee overheard and practically leaped out of her seat.
"That's even worse! They're acting like they're some kind of heroes. It's all the same—murder is murder."
"Come on, the targets make a difference here."
"And did you see the message they left?"
Park Cheol-wan fell silent at her words.
Just as the Butcher had left a taunt for Beltsmets at his scene, Beltsmets had returned the favor.
"Ten wolves are better than a hundred rabbits."
Unlike the Butcher, they hadn't named him outright, but everyone knew who it was aimed at.
And as if that wasn't enough, they'd carved their own name into the chest of the guild master.
"These people treat lives like jokes. You get it? There's no 'better' or 'worse' here."
Do Chae-hee had a point. There wasn't a shred of respect for life in any of it.
But Park Cheol-wan didn't see it quite so bleakly.
"If I were the Butcher, I'd be pissed. I'd think, 'Killing civilians won't touch these guys.'"
"Exactly. That's the problem—we have no idea what an enraged psycho like that will do next. What if he snaps and thinks, 'Fine, bring me a bigger prize!' and hits the National Assembly?"
"Yeah... that would be a nightmare."
Do Chae-hee sighed as Park Cheol-wan's expression finally turned grave.
"I just wish they'd duke it out themselves."
"That'd be ideal. Leave the innocents out of it."
Weariness settled over Do Chae-hee and Park Cheol-wan's faces.
"The media's gonna have a field day with this."
* * *
As the two predicted—and worse than they imagined—the incident blew up.
The shock of an entire village wiped out hadn't even faded when this murder spree hit the news. A killing carried out like some twisted game.
The government issued a fierce condemnation, as expected. Villains were running wild.
The Gakbeombu caught heat right alongside them.
What the hell was the Gakbeombu even doing, letting villains rampage like this?
Barely a month old, the department hadn't even solidified its structure before the backlash poured in.
As deputy chief, Park Cheol-wan got dragged to press conference after press conference.
Conferences? More like public beatings. All he could say was "We're sorry," "We're doing our best," "We'll look into it."
"This job's gonna kill me."
After hours in the hot seat, Park Cheol-wan looked wrecked, even to Do Chae-hee.
"The Butcher's one thing, but what the hell is up with Beltsmets? No info out of Australia, either."
Do Chae-hee clenched her fist without thinking. She'd been the one to bury those entry records. With Han Seohyun's photo in the mix, she wasn't ready to leak it yet.
She knew it, too.
Han Seohyun had crossed a line.
Traces of black magic had turned up at the murder scene. Every scrap of intel was painting a clearer picture of Beltsmets as villains.
The Gakbeombu wasn't incompetent, no matter what the government claimed. Dozens of villains nabbed daily, hundreds of cases processed.
The real issue? Too many Awakeners turned villain because they couldn't cut it as "proper" hunters. Better to be the wolf than the sheep, right?
The more they demonized Awakeners, the more villains cropped up. More villains fueled the hate, pushing more Awakeners to the dark side.
A vicious cycle. Could it ever break?
They were too swamped for big-picture worries.
This mess was a disaster beyond their control from the start.
Do Chae-hee and Park Cheol-wan were the highest-grade Awakeners in the department. Even she had been half-banned from fieldwork since becoming team leader—shortage of command staff.
So a department full of middling B-grades couldn't hope to rein in suspected A-grade-plus villains.
All they could do was pray the chaos stayed manageable.
Then one of the team members came sprinting up to Do Chae-hee and Park Cheol-wan.
"Team Leader!"
"What? If it's not good news, I'll kick your ass."
The young team member swallowed hard at Park Cheol-wan's gruff tone.
"Don't scare the poor kid. What's up, Yongwon?"
Kim Yongwon stammered as he spoke.
"Uh, well! Looks like Beltsmets sent a duel arena challenge to the Butcher."
Do Chae-hee's eyes widened.
"What?"
"A duel arena? What is this, the Middle Ages?"
"It's on the dark web."
The Gakbeombu knew about the dark web, of course.
They couldn't crack the high-security zones, but anything open to regular villains was fair game.
And now this had surfaced. A duel arena.
Beltsmets' message was blunt.
No need to dirty our hands with bystanders.
If you want to challenge us, we'll accept.
[Location and Date/Time Below]
The moment they saw the spot and time, disbelief hit.
First thought: Is this for real? No one had expected them to just throw down the gauntlet like this.
"This really Beltsmets?"
Kim Yongwon hesitated at Park Cheol-wan's question.
"Opinions are split... It was posted from an unverified basic account."
Dark web accounts came in two flavors: basic ones anyone could grab (what the Gakbeombu used) and verified ones requiring heavy credentials.
Verification wasn't easy.
And this was a basic account.
"Pfft, fake then."
"But it doesn't look entirely fake."
"Why?"
"They posted before-and-after photos from yesterday's scene. No one but the perp could have those."
Unverified account, sure—but those pics were proof enough.
"Then it's real!"
Do Chae-hee didn't waver at Park Cheol-wan's excitement. Time to stay sharp.
"We deploy there too."
"What if it's a trap?"
"Trap or not, doesn't matter. Any villains who show up flock to us instead."
Even if they missed Beltsmets and the Butcher, nabbing the small fry would still be a win.
Kim Yongwon got it and nodded eagerly.
"Yes, ma'am!"
Unfortunately, Do Chae-hee never got her criminal roundup there.
The Butcher had zero interest in playing someone else's game.
* * *
"Things are getting interesting."
Seol Rokjin rolled his eyes over the dark web feed.
These two villains rampaging played right into his hands. The crackdown on Awakeners was gearing up nicely, fueled by their atrocities.
Fanning distrust in the Gakbeombu worked wonders too. That's why he'd spun the old police squad into a full department.
Awakeners weren't self-policing.
Only iron-fisted oppression would do.
The Awakener Bureau had failed spectacularly.
That was the message.
And these incidents hammered it home.
One snag: Beltsmets. No matter how deep he dug, zilch on them.
That wasn't normal.
Villains usually had sloppy starts.
Not these guys. They dropped from the sky fully formed.
And their debut? Hijacking an auction.
No one starts that big. Small thefts snowball into grand larceny, villains are born and made.
But Beltsmets had no origin story. Like they'd been manufactured.
That's what Seol Rokjin suspected.
Someone had cooked them up for a reason.
Who? Not hard to guess: one of Korea's top five guilds had the resources.
The who mattered less than the why.
If it stopped at the auction, easy: Sirius's Jin Yeonhwa had tried swiping mana stones too. Other guilds pulling the same stunt.
But smashing a human experiment lab, smuggling out the kids, jetting to Australia for Teika Cooper? That screamed ulterior motives.
They dodged the spotlight to deal with Teika. Mana stones as a gesture. US government involved? Maybe. But a deal went down.
If this was all orchestrated, Seol Rokjin needed the puppeteer.
One chessboard flip was enough.
"If even the Tower doesn't know them, the answer's clear."
Seol Rokjin's web reached the Tower.
They weren't the pure evil the public imagined.
To live was to desire.
Villains desired most fiercely.
And no one resisted Seol Rokjin's temptations.