Chapter 75
Chapter 75
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 75
Chapter Title: The Game I Prepared for You (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Thump thump!
Shin Jong-oh could feel his heart pounding fiercely.
‘Impossible.’
He stared down at his own two hands with eyes full of disbelief.
‘I’m a C-rank hunter... Why...?’
Why was he rolling on the ground after getting slapped by Joo Dong-hoon?
Why couldn’t he handle even one of that guy’s skeletons?
Had his money vanished, turning him into a beggar?
Had his power disappeared or something?
It was absurd.
Joo Dong-hoon.
That guy was definitely a production-class hunter.
Just a few months ago, he’d been an E-rank hunter.
And now it turned out he was some absurdly skilled master?
‘What the hell...!’
Could a millstone just up and lose its handle or something?!
Ouch!
His cheek, burst with broken capillaries, burned red, and pain surged into his abdomen from that single blow.
‘This won’t do.’
There was no chance of winning.
He’d felt it clearly in that one clash.
It was a speed and precision he couldn’t possibly handle.
‘I need to bide my time.’
Shin Jong-oh quickly sorted his thoughts.
And soon decided to turn tail and run.
‘Anyway, I’ve got plenty of hidden cash.’
His official assets had all been seized by his grandfather.
But he had secret accounts under false names, and his own private sunflower fields.
If they dug through all the scattered pieces, they’d probably find at least 5 billion won, right?
‘Hire some mercenaries with that and take him on again.’
Not just Joo Dong-hoon.
This was a chance to clean up all the trash who harbored grudges against him.
In a world where money solved everything.
That was the world Shin Jong-oh knew.
“Huff, huff! Hah!”
He bolted.
Pushing his pride aside for the moment to flee.
Tadadak!
He ran with all his might, darting between buildings.
But.
“Wh-what?”
He had no choice but to stop in his tracks.
At the end of the alley, two skeletons with swords and one with a shield were waiting.
Rrrrr...
Just from the aura they exuded, he could tell he had no chance of breaking through.
“Ugh, damn it!”
Shin Jong-oh immediately turned around.
He ran the opposite way, searching for another escape route.
However.
“Wha-what? Huh?”
Shin Jong-oh panicked.
Skeletons were popping up one by one in this alley too, and that one over there.
“Sh-shit. What’s with all these skeletons?”
It wasn’t just the alleys.
Squeak! Screeech!
Skeleton archers on rooftops everywhere were looking down at him, drawing their bowstrings.
“Cr-crazy...”
If hell or the underworld existed, would it look like this?
The skeletons covering every direction were utterly terrifying.
“U-ugh... Stay back! Stay away, you bastards!”
As he backed away shouting.
He’d somehow returned to the starting point.
Scattered cigarette butts, torn trash bags.
And there, hands in his pockets, staring at him: Joo Dong-hoon.
“Sh...it.”
A curse slipped from Shin Jong-oh’s mouth.
* * *
“Hmm.”
I looked at Shin Jong-oh.
Was that really the Shin Jong-oh I knew, trembling in fear and backing away?
The chaebol third-gen soaked in chosen-one syndrome.
The true face of the hunter who’d committed all sorts of evils acting like the protagonist of the world was, as expected, hideous.
No trace of manliness, no spirit.
“Why’d you run off, only to crawl back again?”
“You damned...!”
“Damned what?”
“What do you want from me!”
“What I want?”
I grinned.
“Less ‘want’ and more... hmm, just think of it as entering a dungeon. This is... my Skeleton Dungeon that I’ve opened up?”
“......”
“Clear it and I’ll give you a prize. For real. If you want, I can even make you an S-rank weapon. Sound good?”
“Quit screwing around! How the hell am I supposed to clear this...!”
He cursed, but his voice grew quieter.
Like a herbivore trembling before a predator, he was completely devoured by my presence.
Honestly, disappointing.
Back then.
Where was that spirit from when he terrorized my house and picked fights left and right?
Step step.
For the first time, I lifted my feet off the ground.
I approached him and looked down.
“Feeling wronged?”
“......”
He couldn’t even answer a simple question, just cast his eyes down.
Totally cowed, as they say.
Weak against the strong, strong against the weak—was that a trait unique to his family?
“Hmm, no answer?”
“I-it’s unfair!”
Oh boy, what a sight.
All pride tossed away, and now even using polite speech?
“Yeah? But why’d you do what you did?”
“P-pardon...?”
“What you did to them is fine, but what I’m doing to you is unfair?”
Only caring about his own pain.
Not understanding the other’s suffering at all.
We call people like that ‘psychopaths.’
And from experience.
Psychopaths are society’s cancer.
Better off without them than with—pure waste.
“A guy like you...”
Yeah, a psychopath like you.
“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t get what you did wrong.”
The kind who smashes houses, sabotages businesses at every turn, even hires assassins, just because it didn’t suit his mood.
I had no intention of letting him live.
Setting everything else aside.
He’d targeted my life.
If Gi So-yul hadn’t been there, I could’ve been the one to die.
I wasn’t merciful or stupid enough to spare someone who came for my life.
“So... don’t pretend to be the same kind of person.”
“Y-yes?”
“In my eyes, you’re just a beast faithful to its desires... no, a devil worse than any beast.”
Thwack!
My foot shoved his chest.
“Gahk!”
Even a light kick, and he clutched his chest, breathing in agony.
“Urk, urk!”
Dry heaving.
Classic weakling cosplay.
Playing pitiful.
As if I’d fall for that.
“......”
With a cold expression, I nodded my chin.
Then, the victims who’d been watching from behind began approaching one by one.
Their faces were filled with venom and rage.
“How’s it feel, you trash? Get a taste of your own medicine...”
“Payback for turning my little sister into a vegetable. Time you paid up.”
“My parents died because of you. I’ll kill you... kill you just the same!”
Compared to my grudge.
Theirs seemed even stronger.
So, generous me decided to yield.
Anyway, as long as the result was the same, I didn’t care.
“Stomp him!”
“Kill him! Kill the bastard!”
“Sniff, you dog bastard! No, worse than a dog!”
A dozen or so victims charged like starving wolves.
“Wh-what...!”
Shin Jong-oh hastily backed away, but.
“Gaaahhh!”
He couldn’t withstand their fury.
Rip! Riiiip!
Nails filled with resentment tore his shirt and pants.
Thud! Thud!
Countless hands and feet battered his abdomen and face.
It didn’t take long.
Shin Jong-oh’s resisting body gradually lost strength.
“......”
I watched for a brief moment, then turned my head bitterly.
What I’d caught today wasn’t a person.
“Farewell, Shin Jong-oh. Live a kinder life in your next one.”
Just a monster who treated human lives like flies.
* * *
Demir Workshop, second floor.
“Heh heh, master. Everything settled now?”
Demir grinned as he picked up his hammer.
Meaning, let’s finish the forging interrupted by all that mess.
“Yeah, let’s get right to it. I’m in a hurry too.”
Training was urgent, but I had to make the Berserker’s weapon.
No matter how much capacity I’d built up lately.
I didn’t have the guts to mooch off a lunatic’s weapon just because the pretext was flimsy, after he’d smashed buildings mercilessly.
“Still, lucky break, master.”
“Hm?”
“I’d only seen that Jang Dae-woong guy in the image you showed, but now I’ve seen the real thing... I can make it even more detailed.”
“Oh, really?”
“Not just a slightly crazy weapon—a completely insane one.”
“......”
Well, whatever.
Let’s do it.
Forge it with vigor!
Clang! Clang!
[Completion: 32%]
The blacksmithing I’d started before resumed once more.
* * *
The Republic of Korea, called the world’s second-strongest hunter nation.
If you had to name the strongest guild in that Korea?
A hundred out of a hundred.
One name rings out.
“Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.”
A guild founded by Ha Sera, the domestic ranking 1 hunter.
A group joined by countless rankers from home and abroad.
With so many rankers, it was divided into numerous teams.
Rank 509 ranker Lee Seon-ah was the captain leading one of them, the Black Sword Squad.
“Captain!”
A male hunter entered the Black Sword Squad office.
Lee Seon-ah, seated, furrowed her brow.
“Ahem, calling me captain again? Our vice-captain?”
She rubbed her arms as if embarrassed.
Goosebumps prickled her forearms.
“I told you to call me team leader!”
“Haha, that’s just the vibe for wuxia nerds...”
“Mm, I’m not a wuxia nerd, though?”
Truth be told, she wasn’t thrilled with the parent organization’s name ‘Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’ either.
If not for her respect for Ha Sera, she never would’ve joined.
“But isn’t it time you got used to it?”
“You’re right. Haha! As your team leader, I guess I’m the one who needs to adapt? Oh dear. Looks like our lovely team members will have to adapt to night training for a week! Up for it?”
Lee Seon-ah smiled brightly, and the vice-captain broke out in sweat.
“Haha, team leader! Just kidding! But what’s ‘captain’?”
“......”
“Has the word ‘captain’ even existed in this world? First I’ve heard of it.”
“Siiiigh, so what’s up?”
Lee Seon-ah shook her head at the vice-captain’s antics.
He sat in the seat across from her.
“Oh, about that dungeon request we got.”
“Yes.”
Requests weren’t just for mercenaries.
Large guilds got all sorts of offers too.
Those offers went through internal meetings and trickled down to teams.
Since the Black Sword Squad’s dungeon success rate was 100% so far.
They tended to get some pretty tough dungeons.
“Think we need to withdraw from that one.”
“Really?”
Lee Seon-ah tilted her head.
The vice-captain was usually lighthearted but pretty aggressive.
They’d synced up a lot, but a withdrawal request from him was a first.
“It’s an A-rank dungeon, but it has a special gimmick.”
Gimmick.
A term for devices in dungeons more complexly intertwined than typical traps.
“A gimmick?”
“Yeah... apparently it needs a necromancer. We don’t have one on the team, right? And necromancer’s not some common unique ability you can just find. Won’t even be able to hire one as a mercenary.”
“Hoo, a necromancer?”
Lee Seon-ah rested her chin, eyes sparkling with interest.
She knew exactly two necromancers.
First.
Seoul’s Five Stars’ top-recommended rank 948 ranker, Dark Lord Kim Hyeok-seon.
Next.
Not a ranker, but Seoul’s Five Stars’ second-recommended hunter.
Skeleton Lord Joo Dong-hoon.
“Wow, this dungeon’s gonna be fun!”
Lee Seon-ah straightened in her chair.
She didn’t know why, but she was more drawn to Joo Dong-hoon than Kim Hyeok-seon.
She was curious why her friend Gi So-yul was so smitten with him.
And that growth rate, getting stronger every time they met.
“No, cap... team leader? We can’t go without a necromancer.”
“It’s fine! That necromancer... I might be able to snag him if I play it right.”
“Huh? For real?”
“Yeah, not certain, but let’s see.”
The corner of Lee Seon-ah’s mouth curved up.