Protection (3)
Yeouido District 2.
The beating heart of Korea’s hunter industry.
Even at dawn, the place was ablaze with life.
Hunters crowded into cafes, restaurants, even the streets, all of them chattering about the vanishing of Abyss Floor 1.
Then it happened.
“3 billion?!”
The young hunter’s shout rang through the cafe.
Every gaze turned toward him.
A holographic notice projected from his wrist floated in midair.
The bright blue letters burned themselves into everyone’s eyes.
Changcheon Clan Emergency Notice
If the identity of “Ghost” is confirmed: 3 billion coins
For information on “Ghost”: 300 million coins
※ Rewards will be paid after verification of the report
The cafe went silent.
Creeeeak—.
And then the silence shattered as one hunter shoved back his chair and sprang to his feet.
“Three billion if it’s the real guy? I could live off that for years!”
“They’re throwing around that much money?!”
“Three hundred million just for information? They’re insane!”
The cafe dissolved into chaos.
Everyone called up the notice on their own devices, each of them visibly excited.
Then, from a corner where he’d been sipping coffee, a middle-aged hunter shook his head.
Gray leather jacket. Old scars.
The marks of countless battles were etched across his face.
He said brusquely, “I think three billion is downright pitiful.”
Every eye in the room swung toward him.
It was the sort of look that said, Has this old man finally lost his mind?
The middle-aged hunter curved one corner of his mouth in a sneer.
“Think about it. Ghost erased Floors 1 and 2. How much time did that buy us? Three months. And that’s not all—those high-and-mighty bastards in the Changcheon Clan still haven’t cleared the floor.”
If a few people clamped their mouths shut at that, others chimed in.
…Well, when you put it that way.
“Honestly, I had already packed my bags.”
“Me too. I was thinking of leaving Seoul the moment things got bad.”
Just as everyone was growing solemn at his words.
The young hunter who had shouted first manipulated his smartwatch again.
A new holographic window appeared in the air.
Silence.
And the air froze.
This was…
“It’s just like the Queen’s Ratkin incident a month ago.”
“Then… you’re saying it was the same person?”
At that moment, the name Ghost dug into people’s minds like the shape of a monster made flesh.
“Why doesn’t he go through the official entry and exit process?”
“That’s why he’s a ghost. Nobody’s ever seen him.”
“Why hide after doing something like this?”
In the middle of the uproar, a young man who looked as though he’d only just become a hunter asked a senior beside him hesitantly, “Um… senior. Is the Black Dragon really that impressive?”
The older hunter stared at the newcomer.
Another idiot who doesn’t know how the world works.
That was the expression on his face.
“Why? Do dragons look like lizards to you?”
After taking a sip of his drink, the senior hunter continued.
“A dozen-odd years ago, a dragon showed up unusually deep in the early seventies of the British Abyss….”
“And then?”
“The British A-rank guild Island launched a raid. They even led thirty elite members.”
The commotion around them eased for a moment.
Something in the story had caught everyone’s attention.
The senior hunter paused.
Then he said in a low, decisive voice, “They were wiped out. The dragon vanished without a trace.”
Another silence fell over the cafe.
Only the sound of someone swallowing dryly carried in the air, loud enough to stand out.
“An A-rank guild’s elite… all thirty of them?”
The newcomer’s voice trembled.
He asked in disbelief, “And… Ghost faced that alone…?”
That was the spark.
And it spread across Yeouido faster than fire.
“Did you hear? Thirty S-rank hunters were wiped out by a dragon?”
“Hey, that’s nothing. I heard even a baby dragon showing up was disaster-class.”
The rumor kept swallowing its own tail and racing onward.
By the time it reached Yeouido District 3, the incident of Floor 1’s destruction had become a legend.
Truth meant nothing.
“My friend in intel says fifty S-rank hunters fought the dragon and got deleted in one shot.”
“No, you’ve got it wrong. I heard a joint elite force from French and British clans was wiped out by a baby dragon.”
“That’s impossible…. Then between the dragon and Ghost, who the hell is the bigger monster?!”
The Yeouido Abyss was strictly forbidden from being filmed.
No footage, no evidence, nothing remained there.
And yet Ghost was rising past legend, straight into the territory of myth.
* * *
Yeouido District 1.
Unlike District 2, which overflowed with hunter shouts and feverish excitement, this place was an iron fortress ruled by cold silence and authority.
At its center, on the top floor of Changcheon Clan headquarters, was the main conference room.
At a massive obsidian table sat the heads of the hunter families and representatives of the large guilds, all of whom practically controlled South Korea.
The air in the conference room was ice-cold, and the silence weighed like lead.
Every gaze was fixed on a single man.
The old man at the head of the table.
Han Hyeon-cheol.
The patriarch of the Han family and the living legend who had united the medium and large guilds to found the Changcheon Clan.
Though he was eighty, his back was as straight as steel, and his eyes were like a sword that had never rusted.
His white hair was not a sign of decline; if anything, it only made him seem more kingly.
“Report.”
At the weight of that voice, the man giving the report straightened without even realizing it.
“We’ve just assembled a task force to track down Ghost. Two A-rank pursuit hunters, an intelligence analyst, and a high-performance AI….”
“That’s perfunctory.”
Han Hyeon-cheol cut him off like a blade.
The reporter swallowed his embarrassment and asked, “Then, Chairman, who would you say is the proper choice?”
Tap. Tap.
Han Hyeon-cheol’s fingers drummed on the obsidian table. The steady sound tightened the nerves of everyone in the room.
“If you want to find someone who lives outside common sense, then you’ll need a perspective that lives outside common sense as well.”
His gaze drifted into the air.
“Make contact with Vlad Su.”
“…!”
For a moment, everyone wondered if they’d misheard.
“V-Vlad Su?!”
“You mean an Interpol Red Notice fugitive… no, you’re saying you want to hire an assassin?”
Murmurs surged through the room like waves.
With a simple lift of Han Hyeon-cheol’s hand, the conference room fell quiet again.
He said, “Vlad Su is better than anyone at erasing traces and staying hidden. Then wouldn’t he also be the perfect man to find a ‘ghost’ who moves without leaving any traces?”
No one could refute the logic.
Then one of the guild representatives cautiously raised another issue.
“Still, Chairman, even if he deserves credit for clearing the floor, isn’t thirty billion a bit much?”
“Too much?”
His voice was low, but the frostbitten rage inside it chilled everyone’s spine.
He slowly swept the room with his eyes.
He measured the faces of everyone seated at the table, as though weighing even their breaths.
“In the original timeline,” he said, “this Seoul would be swallowed by the Abyss in one month. Have you forgotten that?”
No one answered.
His gaze stopped on the man who had asked the question a moment ago.
“I hear you’ve already finished moving your assets to the United States?”
“…!!!”
The guild representative’s face froze as if carved from stone.
Han Hyeon-cheol let out a deep sigh and turned his eyes toward the floor-to-ceiling window.
The Abyss shimmered in the early light.
Its bottomless depths seemed to breathe like a living creature.
“When Floor 1 first vanished, I thought it was an accident. But for Floor 1 to disappear again means it wasn’t a simple phenomenon. Which means….”
The hypothesis that left his mouth went beyond anything they had imagined.
“Ghost may be holding the key to destroying the Abyss.”
“But Chairman! What do you mean a dragon on the Abyss’s top floor?”
When another guild representative cautiously objected, a cold smile formed at the corner of Han Hyeon-cheol’s mouth.
He’s questioning me about a Black Dragon that was announced in a system-wide notice.
The man was pathetic, but Han Hyeon-cheol remained calm.
“That makes it all the more remarkable, doesn’t it?”
“Pardon…?”
Han Hyeon-cheol leaned forward.
“Think about it. He found a Black Dragon on Floor 1, and in the end the dragon fled from humans?”
He threw the question back at everyone in the room.
“Is there anyone among you who has surveyed Floor 1 thoroughly enough to find a dragon, or who can say with confidence they’d survive a face-off with one alone? Then stand up.”
“…!!”
When no one moved, he continued with a mocking edge to his voice.
“He is the man who bought us three months when everything was on the verge of collapse. And if he’s carrying the Abyss’s secret… then even if you offered him thirty billion, no—one hundred billion, it still wouldn’t be too much.”
The truth was, he didn’t know why the dragon had left.
But if the Black Dragon had fled because of Ghost…
Then it must have run after a brutal battle!
Han Hyeon-cheol slowly rose from his seat.
His shadow seemed to swallow the entire conference room.
“Use whatever means you must. Mobilize every resource in the clan and find Ghost.”
His eyes deepened like a bottomless abyss.
“And… you will make him one of our people.”
He strode toward the window.
The morning sunlight spilled across the Abyss.
But the Abyss swallowed even that fierce light whole.
Han Hyeon-cheol stared at it for a moment, then closed his eyes.
If…
they could bring Ghost into the clan.
At the very least, Seoul…
No.
We might be protected.
* * *
Hunter Management Bureau.
Machine Upcycling Department.
Du-ho had arrived early and was replacing the arm of a broken android.
He’d brought up the holographic news on his smartwatch.
Du-ho frowned.
Honestly, he was a little thrown off.
He’d rested comfortably in the Garage and come to work, only to find the world in an uproar.
I didn’t know Floor 1 would vanish again.
-It was all thanks to Du-ho nim!
Isto’s bright voice rang in his head.
Too bright. Way too bright.
“There was nothing in the quest about a floor disappearing, so why do you keep acting like this?”
-Huh! I don’t know that either. Ehehe.
Phew….
Just as a long sigh escaped him, Assistant Manager Park came in.
“Im Du-ho.”
The way he addressed him had grown oddly polite lately.
If this had been before, he’d have started with “Hey!” and ended with “You bastard!”
Assistant Manager Park pointed at the holographic news.
“I was watching that. Three billion! Three billion, I’m telling you!”
“Yes, that’s a lot of money.”
A lot of money?
The excited Park spoke with a rough mouth.
“Damn right it is, you idiot! Three billion is enough to buy one of those full-dive neural bodies that only the upper crust can afford! Back up your brain and you’re immortal!”
Whirr, clunk.
Park waved around his bargain-bin implant arm as if showing it off.
“Ahhh, if only I’d awakened too, I’d be sprinting straight into the Abyss and turning my life around!!”
Then he looked at Du-ho with a pitying expression and said, “Well, whatever. You’re just a plain natural, aren’t you? No awakening, spending your whole life tinkering with parts….”
Ah, there it is. His old habit’s back.
Without a word, Du-ho sent his nanobots out.
A wrench on the workbench quietly lifted into the air.
Park blinked and muttered, “Am I imagining things?”
Then—
Whiiiir—.
This time, a wrench slowly began turning on its own and tightening a bolt.
Park’s jaw started to tremble.
Then.
Click, click.
A screwdriver moved by itself and began loosening a screw!
What entered his sight was—
Tools floating in midair and moving of their own accord.
As if several invisible hands had rushed in and started working at once.
“U, uwaaaahhh!!!”
Assistant Manager Park let out a shriek and stumbled backward.
“Assistant Manager Park?”
“B-behind you!”
“Behind me?”
Du-ho turned around, only to find the tools settling down onto the worktable at once.
Park’s chin trembled uncontrollably.
“What about behind me?”
“A second ago, the tools were floating behind you….”
“Come on. Why scare me so early in the morning?”
Du-ho smiled at him, and behind him the tools floated up again.
At that instant, Park’s memory of the day he’d made eye contact with the android came roaring back.
“I-I’m going to the roof! Don’t call me for anything urgent! Absolutely not!”
Bang!
The door slammed shut with a thunderous sound.
Du-ho snatched up the wrench the nanobots had lifted and tightened the final bolt.
A laugh slipped out of him.
-Du-ho nim. That was an excellent whip.
I think so too.
Then he activated the android.
A moment later, watching it open its eyes smoothly, he stretched once.
Then he remembered the quest reward.
It said something about a convenience facility.
Could it be a shower room?
Or maybe… a kitchen?
He didn’t really need one, though.
Hmm.
Since the morning’s work was done…
I should go see what changed in the Garage.
Du-ho stirred the air, stepped into the ripple, and let himself be drawn inside.
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