Chapter 34
He really was the kind of guy who stands up like he's just woken up.
Writhing all over the floor, he pulled the belt tight around his waist and spoke.
“I got here about fifteen minutes ago. I was thinking. Should I just grab this belt and sneak away quietly? Or wait here and slaughter every bad guy who’s after this belt?”
“Hah, this crazy….”
“But after thinking about it, slaughtering them all is better. If I just take the belt, that stalker bastard will keep bothering the owner forever.”
When the Tower Scavenger said “that stalker bastard,” he pointed at Go Jutae with his shovel.
Right then, D-class hunter Junpal stepped forward and yelled, “Did that Tower Scavenger get drunk on soju again? What? Are you gonna kill all eight of us alone?”
“Heh. Because I’m kind, I keep feeling guilty about my conscience. So I’m giving you one last chance. …All of you, disappear in five seconds. If you do, I’ll spare you.”
The Gwichuk Guild members stared at each other in disbelief.
“Who the hell is this crazy bastard? A 1st-floor Tower Scavenger?”
“He’s gone completely insane.”
“Guild Master, I’ll skin this bastard alive while he’s still breathing.”
That’s when Go Jutae screamed, “Hey! Don’t get cocky! That guy is not to be underestimated! Surround him! Now!”
Go Jutae backed away slowly.
He had already been humiliated twice by this Tower Scavenger, so he couldn’t afford to relax.
The Tower Scavenger smirked and said, “Do I really have to drink blood?”
“Shut up and get ready to die!”
The Guild members pulled out their weapons and formed a line around the Tower Scavenger.
Junpal and Gaesang spread their distance, and the others naturally moved into a formation like a hedgehog, tightly encircling the Tower Scavenger.
The strange thing was the Tower Scavenger’s reaction.
Normally, when so many enemies surround him, the lone person retreats to defend his back.
But this guy walked calmly straight into the encirclement.
Junpal and Gaesang felt uneasy because his arrogance was too much.
“What the hell is he thinking?”
But there was nothing to fear.
The guy was clearly F-class, and the highest floor was only 1.
Plus, no one else was around.
He wasn’t even holding a weapon—just a shovel.
Junpal thought they were over-tensing, so he shouted, “Fuck, stop worrying! This guy’s nothing! Just rush in and crush him!”
Gaesang immediately agreed. “Yeah, let’s go!”
That moment, the Tower Scavenger jammed the shovel into the ground, spun 360 degrees, and flung dirt everywhere.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
Even if you were E-class, dodging flying dirt from every direction was almost impossible.
Junpal and Gaesang, who had already backed up, were spared, but the rest of the Guild members were buried head to toe in dirt.
“Ahhh!”
“Ah! What is this….”
“Ahhh! My eyes!”
The Tower Scavenger laughed and said, “As expected, these are all prey. What kind of stuff were you doing to look like this at your age?”
Junpal roared, “Fuck, stop panicking! Protect your face and attack!”
The Guild members, helmet and mask on, weapons raised, charged forward.
With eight people attacking at once, the Tower Scavenger should have been minced meat in two or three seconds.
But suddenly he leaped into the air.
5 meters….
10 meters….
15 meters….
Junpal yelled, “It’s an area-effect skill! Everyone, stay alert and jump when he falls!”
“Yes, Deputy Guild Master!”
Haha. Was that all it was?
He came in here alone with one card and walked right into the heart of the Gwichuk Guild?
The Tower Scavenger began falling from his peak.
Junpal and Gaesang suddenly realized something was wrong.
Behind the falling Tower Scavenger, huge monsters were clinging to pillars.
One… two… three….
What the—!
Why are these giant things here on the 1st floor?
Soon the Tower Scavenger dropped to the ground.
The Guild members used their own jump skills and leaped up.
But it was weird.
The Tower Scavenger didn’t land on both feet.
He fell in a strange pose with two shovels pointed at the ground.
Then, as soon as he slammed the shovels down, he bounced up and fled dozens of meters away.
“What the hell? That wasn’t an area-effect skill!”
“The bastard’s running! Catch him!”
Just before all the Guild members landed back on the ground, a small earthquake hit the 1st basement level.
With a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—
A 3-meter giant monster fell from above.
The Guild members helplessly fell into the circular waves of the quake.
“Ahhh!”
“Gah!”
They screamed, clutching their heads and writhing. Some even vomited.
But Junpal and Gaesang were different.
Junpal used his skill to jump again mid-fall.
Gaesang grabbed a pillar and used momentum to dodge the quake wave.
After they landed, their eyes widened at orange portals opening from the ground.
They were doomed.
What the hell was happening?
When they tried to stand again, another quake hit.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
A 3.5-meter monster fell, causing a stronger quake.
This time even the D-class duo couldn’t dodge.
They bounced once, but bouncing three times was impossible.
Junpal saw the outline of an impossible giant monster in the dust as he fell.
Ogre!
Whoosh-whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
Then the final earthquake struck.
Junpal felt the same dizzying nausea as in a fighter jet’s vertical loop.
Earthquake….
He couldn’t steady himself.
Like a drunk man, he wobbled but finally stood.
Then a terrible stench hit his nose.
And….
Multiple rotting human-shaped monsters surged toward him.
“Kill me, you bastard~! Kill me~!”
“Aah~ It hurts so much~ Kill me~!”
Rotters!
Junpal instantly drew his katana and swung it wildly.
The sword of a drunk swordsman hacked through the rotting flesh.
But he felt something slithering on his ankle.
One Rotter had crawled into the gap between his pants and boots and was rubbing its dirty hands there.
“Ah, fuck!”
The Rotters suddenly stopped, as if they had made a deal.
And from their mouths came a voice they couldn’t believe.
“Cut it~”
“We don’t want to suffer like you~~ So cut us already~~”
“Cut ourselves~ Cut ourselves~”
Fuck.
Junpal sat against a pillar, back to it.
A dog-like Rotter had touched his ankle.
They had to be cut now!
He yanked out his leather sheath, bit it hard, and aimed his katana at his own ankle.
His eyes filled with tears.
But he had to decide fast.
The ankle was dangerous.
The calf… even the calf was dangerous.
The knee.
Above the knee.
Junpal brought down his skill One Cut, Two Slices right above his knee.
“Aaaaaaargh!”
Yet even in the agony of losing his entire leg, he didn’t lose consciousness.
He channeled all his mana to heal his leg.
Basic Heal.
The bleeding stopped.
The wound was closing.
The fight wasn’t over.
He turned his head outside the pillar and saw the battlefield.
In the distance, a medium-sized Ogre was smashing the ground with its club.
Blood and guts sprayed everywhere.
The guy under it was definitely dead.
But he didn’t know who it was.
The body was already mutilated.
On the opposite side, Gaesang was cutting off his own shoulder and screaming.
And in the center, a teammate’s back was pierced by something spinning at high speed.
When the teammate staggered and fell with his belly torn open, Junpal finally realized the spinning thing was a shovel.
And the guy standing there, wiping blood off his shovel!
The 1st-floor Tower Scavenger!
How the hell did this happen?
How did the 1st-floor guy summon all these monsters?
To summon monsters through portals, you need at least B-class Necromancer.
Insane mana required!
Above Junpal’s head, an arm, leg, and torso flew off.
This time he could identify them.
“Aaaaaah! Bro! Spare meee!”
Sangyu.
He was screaming while attached to his severed body.
It looked like the Ogre’s Cruelty skill.
“Khehek! Ugh! Hyung Jutae!”
The Guild Master had disappeared since the start.
He was probably gone.
Annihilation! Actual annihilation!
That moment, a cold voice answered.
“When I offered to spare you earlier, why didn’t you both just disappear?”
“Ugh… We didn’t recognize you even with our eyes open. P-please, just spare our lives!”
“I watched a Japanese movie once. The yakuza boss said something like, ‘I want to spare you, but the decision isn’t mine—it’s the tattoo on my back.’”
“…”
“I don’t have a tattoo. Instead I have a shovel. Now I’ll ask my shovel. Whether I spare you or not.”
The Tower Scavenger scooped up dirt with his shovel and threw it.
The dirt flew straight toward the heads of Gaesang and Junpal, who were still on their knees.
They could have dodged, but they didn’t.
Now they had to wait for their judgment.
And….
Chiiik—
Chiiik—
“Aaaah!”
Both of them collapsed, clutching their faces.
“What? You guys really are bad people, aren’t you?”
“Ahhh… No, we’re not bad people!”
“Please spare us! We were only following the Guild Master’s orders!”
“No. I once went looking around bored. I was curious what ‘evil tendency’ in the Holy Power actually means for a human.”
“…”
“The conclusion is simple. Murder, rape, and similar crimes….”
Junpal objected. “…Murder happens every day in the Tower. Look right now! If you kill us, you become a murderer too, right?”
The Tower Scavenger walked out between the Rotters.
He had stepped out of the Rotter barricade himself.
Junpal and Gaesang exchanged glances.
“But according to the Holy Power, one difference exists in ‘evil.’ ‘Evil’ meant to avoid evil and ‘evil’ meant to punish evil are not evil.”
When the Tower Scavenger finished, Gaesang sprang up like a spring and swung his bastard sword downward.
Junpal leaped on his remaining knee and thrust his katana upward.
Hawk’s Claw and Lightning Thrust.
Both were their most heavily invested, ultimate skills.
Then something unbelievable happened.
Clang—
Clang—
Two powerful D-class attacks were caught in the hands of a single Tower Scavenger.
His right hand caught the falling bastard sword….
His left hand caught the upward-swinging Japanese sword.
Even though his hands were gripping the blades, the Tower Scavenger looked fine.
Because he wore brutal gauntlets made of chains on his hands.
And with insane strength, he bent the two blades and snapped them.
Clang—
Thud—
One second later, the Tower Scavenger began impossible movements.
He swung six different blunt weapons at once—flail, morning star, club, war hammer, mace, maul—wildly.
Junpal and Gaesang, not even knowing how they died, were completely crushed.