Chapter 54
Chapter 54
8. Hunter Alliance -6
"Th-this way. He ran! He really did!"
Hori dashed off to chase the most awkwardly nonexistent imaginary thief in the world.
"⋯⋯Boss, isn't that way too suspicious? The way she talks is so awkward."
"Beastman brats are all like that. Sucking up to their master is beastman nature, so how flustered do you think she is after her master's vault got cleaned out?"
"Ahh."
The awkwardness was buried beneath the murky veil of species discrimination. And Noah Won used that opening to move. He muffled his footsteps, slipped out the door, and headed for the fourth-floor stairs along the empty corridor.
His ability, 『Download -2』, was a peculiar and powerful force in many ways, but its strength scaled with the user's adaptability. In other words, it was finicky to use.
If he had time to copy a skill in advance, he could come out ahead. The problem arose in urgent combat situations, when he had already used up every stored skill.
The enemy obviously wouldn't wait around while he copied a skill, so he'd have to download quickly—and to do that, he had to get close to the enemy's skill. Which meant he had to get hit.
That was the same as saying it was useless if he couldn't endure the opponent's attacks. And even if he did endure, accumulated damage was unavoidable.
Berserkers who grew stronger the more blood they lost only existed in games. Normally, when your stamina waned, your combat performance naturally dropped too. So 『Download -2』 was, in most situations, more trouble than it was worth.
That was why Noah Won generally fought as if he had no ability at all.
Then how should a hunter with no ability fight another hunter? The answer was simple. Don't fight head-on. Overwhelm the enemy before they even have a chance to use a skill, and end the fight.
In other words.
"⋯⋯Wh-who are you! Don't come any closer! Of all times, when everyone's away⋯⋯ Wait, don't tell me this is a trap?!"
"Huuuuh—"
Thud.
He used 『Quick-Flash Inner Core (快閃內丹)』 on both legs to shoot forward, but kept his posture extremely low to vanish from the enemy's sight, then kicked off not just the ground but the walls and ceiling to strike from an unexpected angle.
He opened his 『Eyes』 wide and watched the enemy's movements closely.
He discerned that the enemy was trying to send a message to his allies before even getting into a combat stance, and before the whistle he pulled out with his right hand could reach his lips—
『Glass Sword (琉璃劍): Light Split (分光)』.
Slash—!
He swung the invisible blade in a perfect arc, cutting the throat and wrist simultaneously.
The lone remaining guard collapsed to the floor with a gurgling sound. Noah Won pressed down his disheveled hood and headed toward the radical faction president Joero's office, muttering quietly.
"If you're bitter and resentful, blame yourself for getting mixed up in a place like this."
Noah Won had always been half an assassin. But still, cutting people rather than plants was something he never got used to. And he never would.
He entered the office.
There's a saying: to deceive the enemy, you must deceive your allies too.
It also means "don't tell your loose-lipped allies anything, because they'll blab and ruin everything," but it can also be interpreted as "if your allies aren't fooled, the enemy obviously won't be either."
Obviously, no one would be fooled by a mere claim that an unidentified thief had robbed the warehouse. Even if they were fooled for a moment, the lie would naturally be exposed once they checked the intact warehouse. And then Hori would suffer the consequences as well.
Hori was awkward with people and had a little trouble controlling her emotions, but she wasn't stupid. If she mindlessly played the role of a mouthpiece here, things would go badly.
So the warehouse genuinely needed to be robbed.
[Gold 32: Um, Hori⋯⋯ Are you saying we should rob the Alliance's shared warehouse and move everything to the traditional faction's warehouse?]
[Hori: Yeah. Do it.]
And since things had come to this, wouldn't it be nice to relocate everything to our warehouse?
[Hori: If anyone asks, the shared warehouse was robbed today by a phantom thief who broke in.]
She planned to pin all the blame on Noah Won once this was over, anyway. She would testify that he had lied about wanting to make peace with the Alliance and join, infiltrated the headquarters, then robbed the warehouse and fled. That would wrap everything up neatly.
Then, at worst, she'd be scolded for falling for such a lie—but she wouldn't be hit with the far graver charge of colluding with an outsider to shoot at her own people.
And this was the result. The troops guarding the radical faction president's office were horrified by the shared warehouse, which looked like a swarm of locusts had passed through.
"⋯⋯It really was robbed. They cleaned it out thoroughly, leaving only the D-rank random boxes."
"What did I tell you! I said it was robbed! Look! Robbed!"
"No one said anything⋯⋯"
That bought them the first chunk of time. What mattered was what came next. Once they confirmed the crime scene, the next step was obvious.
"Whoever was managing this is definitely getting demoted a rank. First, investigate the traces. We'll track them."
Tracking.
If they were tracked as-is, the truth—that the shared warehouse's goods had been "relocated" to the traditional faction's vault—would be exposed. So they had even brought in the gray-haired mage to cleanly erase all traces of the relocation itself.
After that, they needed to leave fake traces. If the trackers concluded that there were no traces and pursuit was impossible, wouldn't these bastards just go back to their original mission? The chase needed to continue a little longer.
So Hori had prepared a trap that anyone would fall for.
Scent.
'⋯⋯Take off your boots?'
'Yeah! Give them to me, and you figure out how to erase your own scent!'
She used one of Noah Won's shoes to plant his scent at the crime scene, then ordered a subordinate to flee far to the north while leaving a trail.
As for the scent left by Noah Won's actual body moving around—
'I do have a new bottle of perfume I bought. Want to use this?'
'Ah, thank you.'
They decided to cover it with the gray-haired mage's perfume. Truly, was this not a perfect plan?
With such clear and obvious evidence, anyone would think the thief had fled north. And that much time would be more than enough to rob the office dozens of times over!
But if Hori had miscalculated one thing—
"⋯⋯There are no traces?"
"Indeed, there's nothing."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯!!"
It was that humans' sense of smell wasn't nearly as developed as a beastman's.
"Not a single internal trap was triggered, either. It's as if someone who already knew where all the traps were inside robbed the place. That kind of knowledge should only be known to the Alliance's Diamond-rank upper echelon."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
"And here⋯⋯ what a coincidence. The shared warehouse gets robbed, and there's one person who came to request support from the opposite faction—not her own—of all things."
Trickle.
Cold sweat began running down Hori's spine. This chilling feeling—it was the sense of crisis.
She had already thought of an excuse for that suspicion. That the person she had been deceived into bringing had committed the crime, and she had feared she'd be punished if she didn't clean it up herself.
But if she used her own faction's people to track him, rumors would spread, so she had the shallow idea of borrowing the opposite faction's hands to cover up the incident first⋯⋯ Something like that. It was a flimsy excuse, since the plan had been hastily thrown together with no time.
She had thought it would at least buy enough time.
The gaze.
That suspicious gaze was far too sharp. The man leading the radical faction's forces looked at Hori and spoke in a low, flat voice.
"Hey, here's what I think. This whole thing was staged to pull us away from the president's office. What do you think, Hori?"
"⋯⋯You know me?!"
"Of course I do. You don't remember? We were in the same squad back when you were in the radical faction. Haven't seen you since you got sweet-talked by President Muyeon and scampered off to the traditional faction, though."
So he didn't just know her by reputation—they were actually acquainted.
"And I know damn well that a person like Hori isn't this spineless. So⋯⋯ a diversion, is it? Sorry, but the friend we left in front of President Joero's office—he's the strongest of us. Even if he only has two skills."
"Tch⋯⋯"
"Let's go up to the office together, Hori. We'll see together what kind of trick you were pulling. Judging by the fact that no emergency alert has gone off, it seems the guy you tried to sneak in has been captured."
Murderous intent flashed through her mind for an instant.
Couldn't she just kill them all and shut their mouths? No. If things went wrong, that would make everything far worse, and the numbers were too lopsided for her to guarantee victory in a fight.
For now, wait for an opening.
Hori glared at the man acting familiar with her and climbed back up toward the fourth floor with them.
Third-floor landing.
The man walking ahead spoke to Hori.
"President Joero misses you. Says you should come back even now."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
"You were really fierce back then. Much stronger than me. I'm sure you still are, but⋯⋯ thinking about the back I remember, it feels like you've lost your fangs."
"Shut up."
Hori growled, but he didn't so much as flinch. Because he trusted in their numbers. He intended to drag her up to the crime scene like this and extract a confession.
Because President Joero, who led the radical faction, wanted Hori back. There had been orders to casually sound her out if the opportunity arose, to coax her and make a place for her.
So. If he exposed Hori's scheming right in front of an unmistakable crime scene, couldn't he use that as leverage to create an opportunity?
And⋯⋯ he was also personally curious about something.
Hori, this beast brat, had been a favored Alliance member even in the radical faction. Because she had shown, time and again, that she would use any means necessary to grow stronger.
But one day, she changed after meeting the traditional faction's President Muyeon. He didn't like it. Everyone in the radical faction probably felt the same way.
The ones who had been prancing around pretending to be good, yapping about how you shouldn't kill people—they could afford to think that way. But for someone who had already crossed the line to turn back—
"What made you change like that?"
"⋯⋯"
"I never understood it. The way you traditional faction people operate⋯⋯ In the end, what your Muyeon does and what we do aren't all that different. The only difference is whether you finish them off or not. You're already bleeding the weak dry, so what reason is there to put on airs about sparing their lives?"
Credits are a lifeline.
If someone gets beaten down and robbed of their Credits, they won't even be able to grow stronger afterward. Like a person dropped on a deserted island without a single tool. Even if you leave them alone, they'll die on their own.
So in the end, sparing someone's life amounts to nothing more than "I'll kill you slowly." In that case, wouldn't it be better to scrape out even that dying life and put it to use?
Like cleaning your plate without leaving a single bite.
That was why the radical faction did what it did.
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Hori couldn't readily speak. Because no answer came to mind. First, she lacked the eloquence to put what she felt into concrete words, and second, even the feeling itself wasn't clear to her.
Why had she switched sides—
After a long silence, just as she was about to say something—a scream mixed with shouting came from up ahead.
"H-he's dead! Max is dead!"
"What?! No, the emergency alert didn't even go off! That bastard Max isn't the type to die without putting up any resistance⋯⋯ Wait, the office! There's no window to break out of in the office! If he's still inside, he's cornered! Battle stations!"
Clang—!
One by one they drew their weapons, and some of them activated the emergency contact network. Hori perked up her ears beneath her hood. Her transcendent hearing, beyond that of any human, picked up the sounds inside the office.
There was a presence. Noah Won was still inside the office. He hadn't gotten out yet.
Should she fight now? If she fought, who should she bare her claws at?
Join forces with Noah Won and kill the six radical faction members? No, there were too many. Killing them before they could message anyone they knew was impossible, and cleanly erasing the evidence of the killings in time was impossible too.
It might be better to turn the excuse she had prepared into reality. Since things had already gone sideways, she could claim she too had been deceived, then stab Noah Won in the back and kill him. The dead don't speak, so the incident would somehow be smoothed over.
But if that happened—
Noah Won⋯⋯ dying was one thing; she didn't particularly care. But the kidnapped young beastmen would be swallowed up by the Hell Path ritual and meet a horrific death. That alone weighed on her mind.
"Open the door?!"
"Idiot! What if someone's inside!"
"Then we hold position and wait for backup⋯⋯"
"No, if even one ledger inside the office gets damaged, we'll be in huge trouble. If no one's inside, we'll just be idiots who chickened out in front of an empty room! We have to open it and check. Six of us can do it. Open the door!"
The weak.
The weak don't deserve to live. The weak⋯⋯
"One, two—"
"Three!"
BANG—!!
The radical faction Alliance members kicked the office door open and swarmed inside. In that moment, Hori tried to draw her 『Nail』 and charge. It was an irrational judgment. But.
Once this moment passed, the opportunity would be gone. If she searched the office, found the coordinates of where the ritual would take place, and somehow escaped from the Alliance—
"⋯⋯No one."
"No one! There's no one here!"
"What the—did the president change his air freshener? Why does it smell so nice in here?"
"The ledger and the clock that was hanging here are gone too! Dammit, he already robbed the place and ran! Find him!"
Blink blink.
"⋯⋯⋯⋯No one?"
Hori blinked in confusion. She had definitely heard someone inside, but no one was there?
Those guys weren't morons—they wouldn't fail to spot someone crouching in a corner or hanging from the ceiling. Then what the hell had happened?
└ Glass Sword - Internal Core Conversion (D / C)
Progress: 100%
I was pushing the power of the Glass Sword to its absolute limit, wringing out the technique the Glass Sword Lord had demonstrated—the one that made even his surroundings transparent.
It was no different from invisibility magic cast through the sword.
It would be wonderful if I could just slip out like this⋯⋯ but I couldn't move a single step while maintaining the technique. It was originally meant to be used for a brief moment during an attack, and I was forcibly stretching it out and holding it!
"I keep smelling women's perfume."
"I'm dying here, quit talking nonsense! The ledger and the clock that was hanging here are gone too! Dammit, he already robbed the place and ran! Find him!"
I felt like I was going to die. It was like holding a plank with all my strength drained, my muscles being wrung out like a rag. Even with my body curled up as tightly as possible to use the technique frugally, it was still like this. This wasn't something to use while moving.
Get out.
Please get out.
There's no one here, so all of you get the hell out!