Chapter 67
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Special Target Zero (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sanchez. In the past, he had been the gatekeeper of the sovereign city known as the "Kingdom."
His job was to inspect cargo entering the city and swiftly suppress any disturbances that arose.
He was meticulous, handling his duties with ironclad precision thanks to his rigid personality.
But at some point, cargo began slipping through regardless of his will.
“We’ve made a deal to let some dimensional refugees in this time, and we’re getting something in return. I’ll make sure you get a nice cut too.”
It was cargo handled exclusively by his superior.
The common practice of taking bribes to let goods and people pass.
He wanted no part of it.
“No need.”
“You stubborn bastard.”
He had already submitted reports on the practice multiple times.
But each time, his authority dwindled, and his superior’s gaze grew only colder.
Eventually, Sanchez became a gatekeeper in name only, unable to lift a finger as he watched his superior’s abuses run rampant.
Once he washed his hands of it, the practice spiraled out of control.
Cargo that came once every two months became once a month, then every two weeks, and soon every week.
“Gatekeeper, sir. Is that really okay?”
“We’re not exactly scarecrows here.”
He heard his subordinates’ concerns but remained silent.
He had to protect his family.
The lord of a sovereign city held one key privilege.
The authority to exempt 65% of the city’s population from being drafted into missions.
But if his authority diminished any further...
His wife and their daughter, just two years old, might be excluded from that exemption.
In the end, like so many fathers in the world, he turned a blind eye.
Goods, people, drugs.
It all flowed through, filling his pockets and those of the guard unit.
The guards used the money to revel at gambling dens.
From the gambling dens, they called women from the brothels.
And the brothels brought in drugs.
In that way, they all became one big, rotten family.
But that wasn’t all.
Dimensional refugees and hunters sneaked in secretly.
The city’s residents quietly hired them to go on missions in their place.
To survive, those refugees and hunters used items that violated the city’s covenants.
More and more goods, people, and drugs poured in.
Before he knew it, Sanchez realized something.
The city had spiraled into madness beyond his control.
He no longer knew what was coming in or going out.
The underground economy had ballooned, and most dealings happened in the shadows.
Cursed items of unknown origin circulated freely, and criminal organizations sparked open conflicts.
Decisively, his superior had been replaced long ago.
By an outsider he’d never even heard of.
The city was being devoured from within.
“Honey, they say Cordelia from next door and Bilbo from across the street are gone.”
His wife spoke to him with worry in her voice.
Lately, missing persons and bodies with no known ties had surged.
He couldn’t tell if it was the mafia’s kidnappings or some necromancer’s experiments.
Maybe both.
Seeing his darkened expression, she left him with one phrase.
“I believe in you.”
Unable to respond, he drowned the night in alcohol. Then the city’s lord came to him.
“See what you can do about this.”
The man called the King, lord of the city.
The higher-ups, belatedly realizing the situation, dumped the task on him.
Wipe out the underground organizations hiding in the city.
‘Too late.’
Their influence had grown too vast to root out now.
But he had no choice.
The city’s fall was partly his fault, and he couldn’t betray his wife’s faith.
“All Kingdom Guard personnel, leave your families and loved ones in the royal castle and report.”
Issuing the order, Sanchez became the leader of the underground purge.
Families were entrusted to the castle, and full authority rested with him.
The senses of his avatar, the "Baskerville Hellhound," sniffed out criminals like ghosts.
Sanchez launched a ruthless roundup hunt.
In just a week, thousands of criminals were killed or captured.
The necro-mafia and demon contractors thought:
If they’re coming at us like that...
We need to make an example too.
One of the castle’s spires went up in flames.
Sanchez’s family vanished.
＊ ＊ ＊
The remains were found four days later, at the guard post entrance.
The remains were taken to the morgue.
Without the ring found alongside, identification would have been impossible.
“Captain, no! You can’t see it!”
“We’re sorry, but the remains are too badly damaged. It could be a severe shock, so we can’t...”
“It’s my fault.”
Sanchez shoved past the two blocking the morgue door.
“This happened because I closed my eyes. It’s what might have happened to all those who vanished from the city.”
“It’s not just your fault, Captain...”
“It’s not just mine. But I have to see.”
The morgue door slid open.
One of the coroners was vomiting into a bucket.
It wasn’t a corpse.
It was wreckage.
Not a person.
Meat.
“Sa-Sanchez?”
“You idiots! I told you not to let me in!”
Amid the chaos in the morgue, Sanchez spoke.
“Cause of death.”
His voice held no tremor.
“Cause of death and autopsy results. Leave nothing out.”
“...Baron read the traces with his avatar. Here’s what we found.”
The old coroner, reading his eyes, lifted the chart.
“Direct cause was asphyxiation, but it seems brutal torture was inflicted while keeping the victim alive. The liver and kidneys ruptured from beatings, and the abdomen was torn from massive internal bleeding—then healed again. Two iron rods were embedded inside the body, and 48 nails were found. Nineteen ribs were fractured. The face and head showed burns and oil traces. The eyes appear to have been gouged out beforehand, and fireworks were stuffed into the ears and genitals...”
It went on for a long while.
His explanation continued.
“I’ve worked as a coroner in society too, but this is the most horrific body I’ve ever seen.”
Silence.
No one could speak.
Some turned away and slipped out the open door.
Then Sanchez spoke.
“I see.”
A flat response.
He raised a hand to his face.
Flames from his avatar flickered in his palm.
Sizzle—
“Doesn’t hurt at all.”
His face melted under the fire.
His hand moved from face to head.
Just like the hair torn from the wreckage, his own scalp became a patchwork of burns, ugly and uneven.
“Wh-what are you doing!”
“Stop him, everyone!”
His subordinates, frozen until now, belatedly clung to him.
“Doesn’t hurt one bit.”
Amid the subordinates’ clamor, a strange whisper reached his ear.
‘Do you desire power?’
It mocked his misfortune.
‘If you do... I shall grant it.’
The next day.
The King’s head and the necromancer’s hung side by side from the plaza fountain.
The fountain brimmed not with water, but heads with faces scraped off.
＊ ＊ ＊
One sight lingered in his eyes.
“Doesn’t hurt at all.”
Piecing together his protruding femur, he rose.
“I’ll erase you all from the world.”
Isaac sneered at the sight.
“Foolish mortal. Then offer your corpse to the god.”
The Death Knight swung its blade to welcome its ninth comrade.
[Authority 'Gigantification' activated]
Crunch.
“Whoops, almost late there.”
A hearty laugh.
Four Death Knights crumpled like crushed cans onto the floor.
A massive hammer rested atop them.
[Ignition Booster (B+) 4-stage ignition]
Boom!
The remaining four Death Knights vanished.
Caw!
Screeech!
They hadn’t vanished.
The Death Knights, shattered like Lego bricks, embedded into the zombies’ bodies like grenade shrapnel.
Boom!
The back of the demon-slaying hammer, Hontar.
Flames burst from the lion statue’s mouth.
Zombies leaping from the armor shards disappeared.
Splat!
Splatter!
Hundreds of meters away, grotesque modern art painted the ceiling and walls.
Boom!
This time, the upper bodies of corpse giants.
Boom!
Next, the skeletons—archers and mages—were ground to bone dust from the platform up.
Ten thousand undead forces gathered in the underground sector.
A thousand of them vanished in four hammer strikes.
“You...”
Sanchez muttered, swallowing blood.
A massive hammer and angel’s wings.
The contractor crew who’d caused serial killings in the Company for achievements.
The young man who’d cooperated in wiping them out.
“Nice to see you, Mr. Sanchez.”
The young man flashed a bright smile.
Curses from the necromancer and skeleton mages surged toward him.
“Purify.”
[The Angel of Salvation, Nathaniel, descends upon his right hand.]
[Current Sephirot Stage 3: Hod
Holy attribute attack power greatly increased.
Archangel’s Purification (S) magic, which drives out the impure, is granted]
With one sweep of his hand, the curse waves vanished cleanly.
A fragrant scent even wafted in their wake.
“What the hell...”
Isaac spat curses and vanished into the undead ranks.
“I know exactly where you’re going.”
He crushed undead with his gigantified hammer and nullified incoming spells with purification.
- Hey, Master.
“Yeah?”
- Possessed Hontar’s tough and all, but it’s cracking, crumbling, and squishing in this avant-garde way?
“So?”
- Can’t you just purify the trash and block magic with the hammer?
“Nah. Makes my hands dirty.”
- You trash bastard...
“If you can’t dodge it, enjoy it. But I can dodge, so I will.”
- You human scum...
Isaac ground his teeth at the bright, casual banter filtering through.
“Damn spirit summoner bastard! Eat this!”
Fleeing desperately, his triple chant magic erupted.
“Dark Dragon’s Breath! Summon Frost Hell! Bone Prison of the Corpse Lord!”
As befitting a top-tier necromancer, S-rank+ high magic linked perfectly.
“Purify. Purify. Purify.”
Fizzle~
The dragon’s breath became harmless cigarette smoke, Frost Hell tiny icicles no bigger than a pinky, and the bone prison crumbled with a pathetic crack like severe osteoporosis.
“Ha.”
Flabbergasted, Isaac gathered the dry spit of his lich form.
“Ptoo. Life sucks...”
“What? Upset that decades of magic got casually nullified without effort?”
His eyes screamed utter injustice.
Gonghyeok shrugged and kicked the lich in the solar plexus.
“Gurk...”
“I was made to smash scum like you. What’s there to be upset about?”
- You seem to enjoy this every time... It’s disgustingly obvious, you know?
“Should I catch you crying? Oh, right. Hey, lich. Cry for me. Prove your innocence with tears.”
The lich rolled on the ground, clutching his midsection.
An evil human cackling, ‘Isn’t it totally cool?’
Transparent tears—no, impossible for a lich—streamed from its eyes.
“I’ll... drag you to hell! You bastard!”
A life vessel, source of life, appeared in his hand.
The life vessel’s blue glow turned black.
[Forbidden Magic 'Bronze Gate of the Demon Horde' activated!]
[Demonic beasts of hell emerge from the gate!]
A bronze gate crashed down behind Gonghyeok.
Creeeak.
As the bronze gate opened, feral demonic beasts poked their heads through.
“Raaargh!”
“Food! Food!”
Gonghyeok snapped his fingers.
“Holy water summons.”
[Hallowed black rock babadodon, hallowed sabertooth tiger king, and 48 others are summoned.]
Monsters beaten by Ju Gonghyeok and remade into holy beasts surrounded the bronze gate.
“Sephirot Stage 3 unlocked. Gigantification.”
[The vessel of Sephirot’s 3rd stage is opened.]
[All stats rise, special skill Spirit Barrier...]
[Summoned holy beasts’ levels rise by 20.]
[Summoned holy beasts grow 3x in size, all stats...]
The beasts watching with bulging eyes let out roars.
“Groooan.”
“No... food...”
Creeeak.
The beasts sullenly withdrew, and the bronze gate closed forlornly.
“Ha.”
Cracks spiderwebbed across Isaac’s life vessel.
“Fuck my life.”
Gonghyeok raised his hammer like an executioner’s block.
“Any last words, I’ll hear them.”
A final mercy, perhaps.
Isaac’s gaze dimmed.
How had it come to this?
Wait, we were doing fine until this guy showed up and ruined my lich life?
No. Not the time for that.
Time to leave a final mark, final words.
His past life unspooled in his mind like a panorama.
“Hoo... I...”
Crunch!
“Sorry. No time.”
- Stop doing this every time. It’s too sad, seriously.
Why hear it again after once?
Ignoring Nathaniel’s jab, he scanned the surroundings.
The undead army was gone, but demonic beasts remained.
“Feast.”
The holy beasts roared and charged.
Gonghyeok pulled a cigarette from his pocket.
But Nathaniel, hovering over his right shoulder, snatched it.
- Quitting’s best for your health.
At the palm-sized angel’s antics, Gonghyeok chuckled.
He gave up on the smoke and approached the half-ruined Sanchez.
Sanchez looked up at him.
“You... are strong.”
A massacre so overwhelming it was laughable.
Strong. Thoroughly strong.
If I’d had that power...
“Mr. Sanchez.”
Gonghyeok knelt on one knee, meeting his eyes.
“Wanna clean up some trash with me?”
Sovereign city Company.
The moment the strongest troubleshooter office was born.
[Chapter 67 - Special Target Zero (2)] End
ⓒ