Chapter 52
Chapter 52
8. Hunter Alliance -4
Hell Path (地獄道).
One of the five paths (道) of martial arts I'd heard about from the monk in the second tutorial. He'd explained the Heaven Path and the Asura Path in detail, but he'd only briefly touched on the other three before moving on.
Hell Path was sin, Hungry Ghost Path was mass slaughter, Beast Path was predation.
At the time, I'd just let it go in one ear and out the other. But now, having picked up bits and pieces about the Hungry Ghost Path, I knew exactly what "mass slaughter" meant.
Sweeping up the weak at the bottom and letting the strong take from them—that was the Hungry Ghost Path. Not far off from the word the monk had used.
As for the Beast Path, I didn't know the details, but I could get a feel for it from the word "predation." It probably wasn't too far off from what I'd sensed.
The Hell Path, on the other hand.
The monk had described that path only as "sin." And that explanation⋯⋯ compared to the other paths, it came across as rather out of nowhere. Not intuitively understandable either.
If it was about doing bad things, weren't these [Hunter Alliance] bastards walking the Hungry Ghost Path already doing plenty of that right now? I asked Hori, who was reacting as if I'd just brought up some horrifying possibility she didn't even want to think about.
"What's the Hell Path ritual like, that you're reacting like that?"
"⋯⋯You don't know? No, right. Now that I think about it, Noah Won, you're a rookie hunter who hasn't even made it past his first year. It'd be weirder if you did know⋯⋯ Most people can't even stand to mention it, so you wouldn't have had many chances to hear about it."
"So explain it."
"The Hell Path ritual⋯⋯ for the sake of efficiency, it wrings the target out in the most horrific, brutal way imaginable. So the bastards who walk that path—none of them are right in the head, their methods are unspeakably cruel, and they're all evil scum you can't trust or cooperate with."
Hori explained with a disgusted look on her face, but just hearing that didn't quite land for me. I had a group right in front of me that stole from the weak for the sake of efficient growth.
So I asked again.
"Honestly, I don't get the difference between the Hungry Ghost Path and the Hell Path. You people squeeze your new recruits half to death, and you put me on a kill order."
"That's only for bastards like you who get in the way. You keep muddying the waters in someone else's territory—you think we'd let you live and expect you to stop?"
Fair enough.
"And the Hungry Ghost Path is clearly different from the Hell Path. I'll explain it to you. It's the difference between hunting a beast and killing it for food, versus catching one, torturing it for a whole week, and then dumping it at the foot of a mountain. Killing out of necessity, versus becoming horrific out of necessity. Got it?!"
"⋯⋯Necessity, huh."
"Yes. That's why the Hell Path is an unspoken taboo even among hunters within the System."
So they're insane psychopath bastards, is what this is.
With that framing, I could understand it to some degree. They're so monstrous that even among hunters who kill people like it's eating a meal, they get looked at with contempt.
But still. Cruelty wasn't exactly news. This world had become cruel in all sorts of ways ever since the plant bastards invaded.
How many worlds were there where law and order had been shoved aside and only survival remained? Other hunters must have felt what I'd seen and been through. So being treated as taboo just for cruelty seemed off-center to me.
Maybe the important point wasn't that they killed people cruelly.
"They're people who'll do anything for their goal⋯⋯ so they can't be trusted, right? That's why System hunters avoid anyone connected to the Hell Path."
At the words I tossed out, Hori stared at me as if she'd been pricked by a needle. Then, after a long silence, she chewed over my words and slowly nodded.
"⋯⋯⋯⋯Yes. They're the kind who'd devour their own parents to get stronger. In their eyes, a comrade probably just looks like a spare pill. Maybe that's why Hell Path walkers are despised across countless worlds."
"Now I'd like to hear why you brought up the Hell Path in the first place."
"You, you're, haa⋯⋯ Fine. I'll explain step by step. In your opinion, why do you think the ones who did this kidnapped young beastmen alive and dragged them off? Aside from holding a ritual. If you have a plausible guess, let's hear it."
"⋯⋯Selling them off as slaves, maybe."
Hori clicked her tongue.
"Young beastmen are weak and useless. On top of that, transfer tickets for moving people from one stage to another are more expensive than you'd think. There's no reason to put in that much effort."
Right. Even though my debt kept me from using the Shop, I had skimmed through the sale listings once. Transfer tickets were definitely priced too steeply to throw around carelessly.
Relocating young beastmen to a better civilization out of goodwill? If that were the case, this village wouldn't be soaked in blood like this. Once you eliminated everything else, there was only one answer left.
"Exactly! The reason to keep useless little beastmen alive and take them away—especially ones who haven't received the System—can only be as sacrifices. And a ritual you'd hide like this could only be the Hell Path."
"Then was Elijah taken by them too?"
"I don't know that far, but there's some connection. For one thing, covering up information to this extent means someone at the very top deliberately set this in motion. The radical faction's president is behind it, or at the very least connected. Heh⋯⋯ fuck, they're really doing it."
We'd established who did it and what they did. Now it was time to act.
If Elijah had been taken along with the beastmen⋯⋯ she'd be at the location where the ritual was taking place. It had been a few days, but considering I could still chat with Elijah, the ritual apparently wasn't complete yet.
According to Hori, the sacrifices seemed to have been moved to another stage via transfer tickets, so we needed to get our hands on the coordinates of the stage where the ritual was happening.
If we beat down every [Hunter Alliance] radical faction bastard, at least one of them would know the coordinates, wouldn't they? Just as that thought hit me, Hori shouted.
"I've got a good idea, Noah Won! Let's go to the Hunter Alliance D-rank branch. We'll go to the branch and ransack the radical faction president's office! He'd have left coordinates or records properly stored there!"
"⋯⋯Branch?"
"Yes! If I infiltrated alone and got caught, it'd cause trouble for Muyeon too, so I can't move recklessly. But you, Noah Won, you've already made enemies of us anyway, so it doesn't matter! With my help, you should be more than capable of handling it alone!"
Well, that part didn't matter, just as Hori said.
But a branch⋯⋯ Was she saying the [Hunter Alliance] had some kind of base or guild house?
[Dungeon | 2 Days | Designated Target Hunt | 5 Credits]
It existed.
An entire stage was even being managed as a [Hunter Alliance] base.
On flat ground with not a single plant in sight, concrete buildings stood packed tightly together. Matching the scale, there were plenty of people coming and going.
The peculiar thing was that the buildings were arranged by size. At the outermost edge stood small buildings of barely a pyeong or so, and as you moved your gaze inward, the buildings grew larger in order.
So naturally⋯⋯ the largest building stood at the very center of this city. Hori pointed to it.
You could call it a temple reimagined in a modern style. The basic exterior itself was a massive shopping mall complex, but the platform (基壇) supporting the building looked like something out of the Parthenon. Seen together it was unfamiliar, but seen separately it was quite familiar.
"This way. We just need to go to that building."
"Is that the radical faction's building?"
"No, the radical faction and the traditional faction share one building. They've split it in half and divided it between them, but⋯⋯ at this point I've submitted proposals to separate, and they never pass."
Hori strode toward the building that looked like a massive government office. I pulled the hood she'd given me down low to hide my face and followed her.
This sniper carried around two spare hoods, apparently. The size was a bit small, but it was wearable enough.
The Hunter Alliance's main base, huh.
That meant most of the people walking around here were Alliance members, and if things went wrong, there was a risk of being attacked by all these people at once. But if I backed out now, Elijah might die.
Besides, a cramped space would be one thing. In a wide-open area like this, there was plenty of room to buy time for an escape. It was a risk worth taking. Let's keep moving.
Anyway, how was this place⋯⋯ made? Was this stage someone's world among the Hunter Alliance members? But it was classified as a dungeon, which meant it was a world without an owner.
And the stage rewards were extremely low, just like the previous world where the beastmen had been kidnapped.
Once could be written off as coincidence, but seeing these peculiar dungeon stages twice in a row gave me an odd sense of unease. And the fact that the Alliance managed the coordinates was strange too.
I moved up beside Hori and asked quietly.
"⋯⋯How did you find a stage like this and start using it as a base?"
"Stages this convenient come on the market more often than you'd think. Think about it. You happened to know the world coordinates of a friend living in a world where, coincidentally, the plant attacks weren't severe—and then, also coincidentally, that friend died. If they sold off the coordinates, sure, that'd be a rare chance."
Hori smirked and sneered.
"But if you track down someone bragging on the boards that their world is safe, get the coordinates out of them, and slit them open—then it's not so rare after all."
"⋯⋯You're saying there are cases where they deliberately kill a hunter from that planet, turn it into a dungeon stage, and use it as a base?"
"Yeah, well⋯⋯ what's with that look? Kyah, stop nagging me from pointless angles, Noah Won! This is exactly why your name ended up on the kill order!"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Chatting like that, we arrived at the entrance to the large building. There, alongside a warning sign reading "Gold Rank or Higher Entry Only," two gatekeepers stood guard.
The building was modern, but the gatekeepers' equipment themes were all over the place, which told you they were hunters.
The Viking-looking gatekeeper asked with suspicious eyes. Two hooded people approaching side by side would make anyone suspicious.
"Who are you? State your identity."
"Diamond-rank Alliance member Hori. Don't mind this one. I'm busy, so move!"
"Ah, understood. Right away, make way!"
We didn't get stopped from the start. When Hori pulled a jade-colored badge from inside her coat, the gatekeepers didn't even dare to look at it directly. She seemed to hold a fairly high rank. Well, with strength like hers, she'd be near the top even among D-ranks.
The building's interior was quieter than I'd expected. Almost no one was walking around, and only one receptionist in the lobby stood at attention, wearing a mechanical smile like an NPC.
I lowered my voice and asked.
"Where's that president bastard's office?"
"Fourth floor, far left end of the hallway. The lobby has no guards, but they'll have posted a couple of people in front of an important facility like that. And of course they'll have set up security measures like magic traps. We'll have to break through somehow."
"Let's get as close as we can first. We need to know exactly how much security they've set up before we can make an estimate."
"I'll say it again—I can't step out front."
I know.
That said, I had no intention of letting Hori sit idle. I'd have to read the situation and squeeze out as much support as possible. We started climbing the stairs to the upper floors. Second floor, third floor⋯⋯
When we reached the third floor, the stairs ended. I glanced at Hori, wondering if there was a hidden staircase that would reveal itself if you chanted a spell at an invisible wall.
"To get from the third floor to the fourth, you have to take a dedicated staircase."
They'd physically separated it to prepare against intruders. That meant security would be tight from here on. If anything happened, I'd have to move immediately.
I paused for a moment and listened to the surrounding sounds, then stepped out from the landing and walked down the hallway at a moment when no presence could be felt from the third-floor lobby. At the end of the hallway, I could see another staircase.
And in front of that staircase stood a single guard. The moment the guard's gaze turned toward us, I immediately wrapped my arm around Hori's waist and pulled her close.
"Wh-what are you⋯⋯?!"
"You're the type who always goes around with a hood on, so you could pass alone with some excuse. But if the person next to you is also wearing a hood, it looks suspicious no matter how you slice it. We need at least one cover story."
The concept was "the Hunter Alliance's diamond-rank assassin Hori got herself a lover." If we claimed she'd put a hood on her lover to protect his identity, we could buy some time at least once.
"Th-this⋯⋯!!"
Conveniently, Hori's trembling with rage actually made her look flustered and embarrassed. At this distance, it made for a pretty decent disguise.
"For now, let's duck into any room you can use. We'll take a short breather, then start the office breach operation."
"⋯⋯This room is assigned to the traditional faction. At this hour, no one should be using it, so it's fine to go in⋯⋯"
The moment Hori said that.
BANG—!
A woman burst out of that very room. Gray hair and a pointed hat. The [Hunter Alliance] mage who'd picked a fight with me in the second tutorial, but whose business I'd wrapped up cleanly in the end.
"⋯⋯Wearing a hood inside the Alliance building—you must be the Hori I've only heard about. Nice to meet you. I heard you don't visit the branch often. Then this person is⋯⋯ wait, Noah Won?"
"⋯⋯No."
"It is you!"
"Let's go inside first. Let's not cause a commotion."
"A non-Alliance member being inside the branch building is already a commotion⋯⋯?! St-stop pushing!"
I shoved the mage, who'd been trying to come out, straight back into the room and went in.