Chapter 5
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: Time to Go Kill Some People
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‘That orphan bastard.’
That was what he thought of Ju Gonghyeok, the man who had taken all the Minotaur rewards for himself.
Four kilometers from Saerom Orphanage, at Gonghyeok’s hideout.
Late at night, five masked and heavily armed hunters made their way toward Saerom Orphanage.
“Bro, that punk actually soloed a Minotaur like it was nothing. You sure we can take him?”
“No matter how strong he is, nobody’s immune to an ambush. Rankings don’t mean shit when you’re asleep and someone cracks your skull with a pickaxe from behind. Besides...”
The hunter who seemed to be their leader glanced at one of his subordinates.
“We’ve got an ace up our sleeve that can take him down in one shot.”
“Leave it to me, boss. Even a professional hunter wouldn’t be able to handle this.”
The subordinate confidently patted the weapon at his waist, drawing the leader’s attention.
“Man, that Ha Yeonsi chick? She looked damn tasty.”
“Heh. We can tie her up and have some fun with her.”
“Whoa, I looked her up. Better than ginseng—prime high school tail. Though she’s graduated now. Heh.”
“Wanna bet how many toes I’ll have to cut off before she bites her tongue? Puhahaha!”
As the vulgar banter behind them grew louder, one of the leader’s trusted subordinates sidled up to him and whispered.
“If we devour that girl’s avatar too, yours will jump another rank, right, boss? Can I have that Ju-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is shepherd’s avatar?”
“Heh, no can do. Not just any avatar will work. It has to be a beast or monster type, like mine or Taehun’s.”
They were the hunter killers whose name had recently begun circulating throughout Seoul.
Their goal was simple.
‘Avatar predation.’
The urban legend of ‘avatar predation’ referred to absorbing another hunter’s avatar. But there were certain conditions.
First, avatars with the ability to prey on others were mostly beast- or monster-type avatars.
Second, the target had to willingly hand over their avatar before dying.
There were rumors that someone in America had managed to amass three avatars this way, but that was irrelevant to them.
What mattered was devouring the avatar of the hunter standing right in front of them and becoming just a little stronger.
Hunters were sent to the final dungeon, Babel, based on their overall stats and strength rankings.
Five months had passed since the 6th Great Summoning.
The 7th Great Summoning was approaching.
They had to grow stronger before Babel, by whatever means necessary.
For that reason, they had ambushed and kidnapped high-ranking avatar hunters, stealing their avatars.
The process involved brutal torture and the indulgence of their twisted hobbies—enough to make death seem like a blessing.
Of course, only after all that suffering would someone finally give up their life and avatar.
The killer leader felt a thrill of anticipation.
‘Both of those siblings have S-rank avatars at the very least. One can heal shattered legs, while the other earns titles by killing boss monsters.’
‘If I devour both of them, my avatar will definitely reach B-rank.’
His avatar became darker and more grotesque with every feast, but who cared?
Strength mattered. Appearance didn’t.
He had to be strong if he wanted to survive Babel.
Grinning at the thought of obtaining two S-rank avatars, the leader suddenly heard a chilling sound from behind him.
Pffft.
“Huh? Wh-what?”
A kitchen knife.
It was buried deep in his subordinate’s gut.
The hunter, a gleaming blade lodged in his abdomen, panicked and flailed helplessly.
Gonghyeok had been lying in wait in the roadside bushes.
===
The sharpened kitchen knife slipped neatly between the plates of armor.
It tore through the thin dress shirt, twisting soft human flesh around the blade as it sank deeper.
‘Monsters feel better. All that muscle makes them much easier to handle. Humans? Their flesh is a complete disappointment.’
Gonghyeok twisted the knife and ripped it sideways, tearing through the man’s insides.
“Gaaaargh!”
The hunter screamed and convulsed.
Gonghyeok yanked a knife and several tools from the hunter’s belt just as an axe came swinging toward him.
He raised the stolen weapon and blocked it.
“You fucking bug! Where the hell did you come from?!”
The knife collided with the axe.
The axe wielder pushed forward, trying to overpower Gonghyeok in a contest of raw strength.
‘Damn. He’s strong.’
Gonghyeok’s strength was a pitiful 16[F], while the axe-wielding hunter had at least 20[F].
His legs, which had been shattered earlier that afternoon, still hadn’t fully recovered.
In a straightforward contest of strength, Gonghyeok would lose.
But fighting head-on wasn’t his only option.
“You. Do I look like a monster to you?”
Charging straight into a contest of strength was something tutorial orcs did.
Gonghyeok slid the blade down the shaft of the axe, guiding it straight toward the fingers gripping the weapon.
“Guk! Graaah!”
The axe hunter’s index and middle fingers snapped off.
As Gonghyeok considered finishing him off, two more hunters attacked from either side.
A steel bat, shaped like a baseball bat, and a sharp Japanese sword came hurtling toward him.
But Gonghyeok simply crouched, letting both weapons cut through empty air above him.
Then he rose and spun, unleashing a vicious rotational strike.
All three hunters, including the axe wielder, staggered backward, clutching their knees and stomachs.
“Shit! This fucker’s insanely strong! Watch out!”
“What the hell is this monster?! He dodges every attack and lands every hit on us!”
Four hunters, excluding their leader, had been wounded in an instant.
The leader dragged the subordinate with the knife wound back and glared at Gonghyeok.
Gonghyeok, still awkward on his injured legs, assumed a counter stance with the stolen knife.
Then he smiled.
Seeing Gonghyeok grinning as he casually cut down his men, the leader became certain that something was terribly wrong.
“What are you? Why are you here?”
“And what are you lot doing here? Sneaking around like stray dogs digging through garbage.”
“Fuck! Sungjae! What are you waiting for?! Pull it out and kill him!”
The leader shouted at the first hunter Gonghyeok had stabbed.
But that hunter had been pale for some time already.
“I-it’s gone! It’s not here!”
“What?! What the hell are you talking about, you retard?! Find it! Now!”
The leader roared furiously.
Ignoring the blood pouring from his own gut, he frantically patted himself down.
But it was gone.
Their trump card, the weapon they had brought with such confidence, had vanished without a trace.
“Mister. Looking for something?”
Ju Gonghyeok pulled out a black object about the size of his palm.
The masked hunters froze.
It was the item Gonghyeok had snatched along with the weapons when he stabbed the first hunter.
A jet-black pistol.
“Hm? What does this thing do? Useless junk in dungeons, right?”
Modern weapons didn’t work against monsters.
But they worked perfectly well against hunters.
With average stats ranging from 2 to 30, hunters were at best comparable to elite athletes or special forces soldiers.
Against people like that, the threat of a gun far surpassed the crude, primitive weapons used by monsters.
“Why do you guys look so serious?”
“Damn it! Scatter!”
At the leader’s desperate command, the killers either dove for cover or turned and ran the moment they saw the gun.
Gonghyeok raised the pistol and aimed with practiced precision.
[Master of All Martial Arts (S++) activates.]
Skill correction and combat experience took over.
His aim was instantaneous.
The muzzle flashed in the darkness.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Hahahahahaha!”
Fifteen shots tore through the silence of the road.
“Cough, cough.”
“Ugh... mercy...”
When the barrage finally ended, the road was littered with pitiful victims bleeding from their wounds.
Gonghyeok shouted in exhilaration.
“Good, good. You’ve got some fight in you. Anyone else want to charge me? Hunters who go around playing ghost stories are whining like this? Keep it up and I’ll have your licenses revoked.”
The axe-wielding hunter, now missing two fingers, gritted his teeth and struggled to his feet.
“A-avatar, Wungolriant! Kill this psycho...”
A massive spider from ancient mythology charged forward on eight legs as thick as steel pillars.
‘Yeah. Come at me like that. Maybe I’ll pick up a few new tricks.’
As its razor-sharp legs surged toward him, the Observer floated behind Gonghyeok.
[2nd Ability <Prediction> activates.]
The Observer’s calculations began spinning at full speed.
Attack speed, power, movement patterns—numerical data flooded Gonghyeok’s vision.
His techniques and accumulated combat experience were fed into the Observer, which used them to calculate the enemy’s possible trajectories.
The Observer’s calculations merged with Gonghyeok’s experience, giving birth to a new skill.
[Prediction Path (Unique S) discovered.]
All predictable information appeared before his eyes in its most useful form.
Circles appeared along the paths of the incoming legs, indicating where they would strike.
Timing and additional information followed.
[Left Leg 1: 2 seconds until impact with right arm. Expected result: arm severed.]
[Left Leg 2: 4 seconds. Passes along the left side of the head.]
[Left Leg 3: 1 second until impact with left thigh. Expected result: severe bleeding and loss of mobility.]
[...]
Following the predicted trajectories, Gonghyeok slipped forward and evaded the attacks.
Scraaaape.
Eight razor-sharp spider legs gouged into nothing but the innocent asphalt.
Foaming at the mouth, the axe-wielding hunter raised his weapon, preparing to deliver the finishing blow while Gonghyeok was distracted by the avatar.
Gonghyeok turned and drove his fist straight into the hunter’s stunned face.
COUNTER ATTACK!
The Observer had already predicted the incoming strike.
The axe-wielding hunter crumpled to the ground, his face caved in.
Gonghyeok glanced at the hunters still charging toward him, then walked over to the leader, who was now groveling and trembling.
“You wanted me dead, didn’t you? You should’ve done it when you had the chance. What was it? Too many eyes watching? Maybe you were hoping they’d help you out once you got greedy over the reward money?”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I went too far. Please, forgive me just this once!”
The groveling leader had several bullet wounds in his back.
Not a single one had penetrated deeply enough to kill him.
Bronze Giant Assault, Park Juntae.
That afternoon, when Sangmin had flown into a rage over the skill coin and threatened violence, Park Juntae had acted as the raid leader and mediated fairly, dividing the coins among everyone.
But at night, he led a group that kidnapped and murdered hunters.
“Classic Bronze Giant Park Juntae. ‘Bronze-ification’ makes bullets useless, huh?”
There was just one problem.
His body might harden like bronze, but the ability also restricted his movements.
A Minotaur could crush him flat without much effort.
“You were planning to pin this on that rampaging Park Sangmin from this afternoon, weren’t you? After killing me and Yeonsi.”
“Heh, no way, sir. We were just heading to the dungeons in Seongnam. We never meant you any harm, elder...”
“Bullshit.”
Bang!
“Gaaaaah!”
A bullet struck Park Juntae directly in the eye, then ricocheted off his bronze skull and buried itself in the dirt.
“Grah! Argh! Guuuuuh!”
His eyeball burst from the impact.
The bullet ricocheted inside his skull, sending waves of agony through him as he thrashed wildly.
Gonghyeok calmly pulled a Camel cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
The haze of gunpowder mingled with the smoke, creating a strange scent in the night air.
Puffing with one hand, he grabbed Park Juntae by the hair with the other and repeatedly slammed and scraped his head against the asphalt.
“I know who you are. A serial hunter killer. One of the lowest-ranking members of the secret society known as the ‘Giants.’ Bronze Giant Colossus, Park Juntae.”
“‘Giants’... How...?”
“Eh, don’t worry about how I know. Let’s move on to the important part—your avatar’s ability.”
Gonghyeok pressed the lit cigarette against Park Juntae’s remaining good eye.
Then he paused.
No.
He pressed it against the eye that had already burst.
“Gaaaah! Nooo! Please, don’t! I was wrong! Teacher! I’ll do anything! I’ll change! Please!”
“Yeah. ‘I’ll change.’ My ass. What a load of bullshit.”
Gonghyeok calmly ground the burning ember into the ruined eye socket.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“Juntae. Tell me who the ‘Giants’ are that climbed Babel first.”
“Y-yes! I’ll tell you! I will!”
“Devils can use villains however they please. That’s fine. But small fry who sell their souls for pocket change? They die pathetic deaths.
“Most saviors despise small fry and petty scum.”
“Huh?”
“What? You questioning me?”
Bang! Bang!
Two bullets tore into the unbronzed hollows of his knees.
“Gruuuuh!”
“Say it again. Two bullets. How’s that sound?”
“Th-the devils can use villains however they please, but...”
“Good. Perfect.”
Gonghyeok straightened from his crouch and raised the gun.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Click. Click.
“Hm. Empty.”
[The infamous killer hunter gang has been exterminated.]
[Hunters ‘Park Juntae,’ ‘Yang Hyeongin,’ ‘Park Sungjae,’ ‘Jang Taehun,’ and ‘Min Jeongyeong’ have been hunted.]
[Achievement ‘Soul’s Match Dye (1)’: 6/3 exceeded by double.]
[50 purple coins granted.]
[Excess achievement bonus: 1 indigo coin granted.]
[Title ‘Duelist on the Edge of Death’ acquired.]
After finishing off the remaining four, Gonghyeok tossed aside the empty pistol and looted the dead hunters’ belongings.
A Brave Orc’s steel bat, a Maigaru Type 4 Japanese sword, a root-splitting axe, and various defensive and support items.
They would be useful until the upcoming 7th Great Summoning.
“The 7th Great Summoning is in three days. But they’ll find you a day early. Spend all your coins on treatment. Put these bodies in your inventory. If they’re still here when I come back later, you die.”
“Elder, how do you know the date of the 7th Great Summoning?”
“Ask again and you die.”
“...”
“See you in Babel, Juntae. Until then, make sure you put your organization buddies through hell.”
Leaving the broken Park Juntae behind, Gonghyeok smoked his way back to the orphanage.
===
Despite the gunfire that had erupted during the night, the orphanage remained peaceful.
No one had woken up.
Gonghyeok quietly slipped inside with a wry smile.
He tossed his bloodstained clothes into the incinerator.
After taking a cold shower, he emerged wearing only light clothes and headed into the kitchen.
Ha Yeonsi, whom he had tucked in with a blanket before leaving, was drooling onto the ledger as she muttered in her sleep.
“Choco muffin, yummy. Tiramisu, yummy. Choco Land, love it.”
Gonghyeok sat down beside her and quietly looked over her neat, peaceful face.
He calmly recalled the times Ha Yeonsi had died.
‘Two by my hand. Five more left to die.’
‘Yeah.’
The other six had met gruesome deaths that could not be avoided.
Ju Gonghyeok remembered the countless ordeals he had endured while climbing Babel Tower thirteen times.
Demon King Bel Marduk and his ‘Law Annihilation,’ which could erase avatars.
His mighty Four Heavenly Kings and the Thousand Knights under his command.
Blazing heroes who burned through their lives fighting against them.
Ugly traitors who had sold their souls to devils in their madness.
‘So tiring. I’m sick of this.’
How much longer would these hands have to endure this bullshit?
Gonghyeok sank into the exhaustion of his Soul Worn to the Bottom and fell into a deep reverie.