The Fall of Gu Mansik
While Park Jihun and his group were snickering over the internet, Gu Mansik clutched his phone with a look of extreme agitation on his face.
Tu-ru-ru... Tu-ru-ru... The default ringtone repeated over and over. But the person on the other end showed no sign of picking up.
The call could not be connected. After the beep...
“Goddamn it!!”
Crack! The call finally dropped. Gu Mansik spat out a furious curse and slammed his fist down on the desk. The desk couldn’t withstand the strength of an A-rank hunter; it split with a loud crack and collapsed completely.
He wanted to hurl his phone across the room right then and there, but he couldn’t. He still needed it to make calls.
‘Chen Mei… so this is how you’re playing it?’
The person he was trying to reach was Chen Mei—the secretary from the Black Society who had ordered him to bring in Park Jihun. But his mission had failed spectacularly. Kang Sigyeong, who had bragged that he could drag the guy in because they were “old classmates,” had instead taken a massive shit on the whole plan and then vanished without a trace.
Gu Mansik had tried to pin everything on him, claiming it was all that idiot’s doing. But the Association and the major guilds—who already saw him as a thorn in their side—had finally caught a real scandal. They had no intention of letting him off the hook.
So his last resort was to seek help from Chen Mei, the very person who had given him the order. Yet that woman was now refusing to answer his calls.
‘She’s obviously cutting off her tail and playing dumb.’
Having seen this kind of backstabbing behavior from his superiors since his gangster days, Gu Mansik knew exactly what was happening.
‘You bitch… let’s see if you can keep ignoring me after this.’
That was why he had taken out an insurance policy—one that would force her to help him.
[Voice recording]
[Photo]
“Hey, you damn chink bitch. Pick up the phone before I send this to your boss and ruin your life.”
Call logs with Chen Mei. A written contract stamped with the official seal of the Black Society. The boss of the Black Society, who viewed all non-Chinese races as inferior and considered receiving help from them a profound humiliation, would have no choice but to punish Chen Mei the moment he saw this evidence.
Those were the cards Gu Mansik had kept hidden.
“Heh heh. Whether you prepare a seat for me in the Black Society or help me flee overseas, just do something already.”
With the Association and major guilds on the move, there was no way Gu Mansik could leave Korea on his own. He would be caught without fail. But if the Black Society stepped in, things would be different. They were a guild with overwhelming power even within China. They would surely create a safe escape route for him out of Korea. That was what he believed.
But he didn’t know one crucial thing—that compared to Chen Mei, he was nothing more than a lowly pawn.
Vrrr—
“...A text?”
Instead of calling back, Chen Mei had sent a single message.
“What? What the hell is this?”
The moment he read the contents, Gu Mansik’s face twisted in confusion and anger.
I have already reported the matter to the Guild Master. Some insignificant Korean guild has dared to impersonate the name of the Black Society.
“...What the fuck is this?”
It was definitely Chen Mei’s voice on the call. The stamped seal on the contract had clearly been made by her. Yet she was claiming it was fabricated? Was that even possible?
Flustered, Gu Mansik hurriedly dialed her number again.
(Yes.)
This time she picked up.
“What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bitch? You did all of this!”
It was definitely Chen Mei who had done it. He hadn’t fabricated a single thing. But her calm demeanor began to fill him with unease. The moment he heard her voice, he started yelling without thinking.
However, unlike the panicked Gu Mansik, Chen Mei remained extremely composed.
(What are you talking about? If you listen carefully, that voice contains mechanical distortion. And if you look closely at the seal, there are slight differences from our Black Society’s official one. Upon closer inspection, it is clearly fabricated.)
“What… what are you…”
Gu Mansik had been about to shout that it was nonsense, but he froze. Could it be… from the very beginning?
She had planned to cut off her tail, anticipated he would gather evidence to blackmail her, and had fabricated both the call and the contract from the start?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Gu Mansik felt the last thread of hope he had been clinging to snap completely.
“Hey, you fucking chink bitch! I did everything you told me to! So you have to save me!”
At first he was furious.
“No, seriously. Please, just save me. One person won’t matter, right? I’m an A-rank hunter, you know? My track record is fucking great.”
As the realization that there was no hope left sank in, he began to grovel.
“Fuck, if I get caught I’m screwed… I don’t want to go to the prison guild, damn it…”
If the crimes he had secretly committed behind the scenes were exposed, he would rot in the prison guild for at least thirty to forty years. He was thirty-eight now. Even in the best-case scenario, he would be nearly seventy by the time he got out. Whether he could even survive until then was questionable.
The daily routine in the prison guild—where they locked up hunters—was horrific. Prisoners were often forced into high-risk gates that normal people avoided. In reality, surviving forty years of imprisonment and walking out alive was nearly impossible.
“This can’t happen… it can’t end like this!”
He had honestly believed he would never get caught in Korea. Even if he was, he thought he could just sacrifice one of his underlings. Of course, he had never even needed to do that. A few bribes to the right people had always been enough.
But this time the situation had grown far too big. Park Jihun’s name carried more weight than he had anticipated, and the media narrative that Gu Mansik had ordered the kidnapping had taken hold perfectly. Throwing one subordinate under the bus wouldn’t be enough to end it.
“Is there really no way? Fuck… if I abandon all the guys I paid off and all my underlings, maybe I can still—”
While Gu Mansik was muttering to himself like that—
“...What did you just say, Guild Master?”
“...!!”
The sudden voice from behind made Gu Mansik jump in shock and spin around. He had been so worked up that he hadn’t even noticed someone entering the room.
There stood the elite members of the Yongmun Guild. It seemed they had come to his office to discuss the current situation.
“...How could you do this to us?”
“What? You’re going to abandon us? Save yourself?”
They must have heard the entire phone call with Chen Mei. Their faces were filled with deep betrayal.
“N-no, this is—”
It was the final nail in the coffin. The moment he lost even the subordinates he had planned to use as disposable pawns, he truly had no means of escape left.
But once they had heard everything, there was no turning back.
......
Not long after, the hunters belonging to the Yongmun Guild came forward as a group and exposed all of Gu Mansik’s past misdeeds. Shortly afterward, a warrant was issued for his arrest as a hunter criminal.
#
“Hngh… ngh?!”
Kang Sigyeong slowly opened his eyes. But something was wrong.
He was certain he had been lying in a hospital bed. Yet his mouth was blocked by something, preventing him from speaking properly. He was sitting on what felt like a hard metal chair, and he could feel powerful restraints binding his arms and legs.
And even though he had opened his eyes, everything remained pitch black. Something was covering his head. The damp, musty smell of a basement. A low humming sound vibrating through the walls. This was definitely not a hospital room.
“Mngh?! Ngh!”
In a panic, he thrashed around, straining with all his might to break free from the restraints. But even with the strength of a C-rank hunter, they wouldn’t budge.
“Don’t waste your energy. It’s not a binding spell that a C-rank can break.”
“?!”
At that moment, a voice came from in front of him. A binding spell that even a C-rank couldn’t break? That would mean it was at least a B-rank binding spell cast by a magic-type hunter. Who the hell—?
Could it be someone from the Yongmun Guild sent by Gu Mansik? No, that voice… he had never heard it before. He knew the names, faces, and voices of every B-rank or higher hunter in the Yongmun Guild, yet this dry, middle-aged man’s voice didn’t match any of them.
“Ah, okay. I’ll take this off for now.”
Whoosh!
Whatever had been covering his head was removed. Finally, Kang Sigyeong could see where he was and the face of the man in front of him.
The location was exactly as he had feared—an old, shabby basement. It looked like a concrete-walled warehouse. And the man standing before him was…
“Hello? I’m Ju Hyun-jun, an A-rank hunter affiliated with the Association.”
He introduced himself that way.
An A-rank hunter. If he was a magic-type hunter and the one who had cast the binding spell, then there was no way a mere C-rank like Kang Sigyeong could break free.
‘Why?’
Kang Sigyeong stared at Ju Hyun-jun with that exact question written across his face. In response, Ju Hyun-jun summoned a sword made of pure mana and spoke.
“Let me make this clear from the start.”
Srrrng—
He pressed the mana blade against Kang Sigyeong’s throat and continued.
“If you don’t follow my instructions, you will die here.”
He added,
“Of course, you’ll simply be listed as missing. You messed with Hunter Park Jihun, got crushed by public opinion, and went into hiding. Even if your corpse turns up somewhere, no one will care. Right?”
“Hngh… hnghhh…”
The completely casual way Ju Hyun-jun spoke filled Kang Sigyeong with genuine terror. His body began to tremble violently. He was so scared that urine started streaming down from the chair he was tied to.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. The demand is simple.”
Ju Hyun-jun spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world, then opened his mouth to explain what the Association wanted.
“It wasn’t Hunter Park Jihun who broke your arm—it was B-rank Hunter Shin Jiyeon. Isn’t that a better story for you too? You won’t have to live with the shame of losing to an F-rank.”
The moment Park Jihun’s name came up, Kang Sigyeong realized the Association was trying to hide something about him. But he couldn’t ask questions or demand to know what they were hiding that was so important they would kidnap him like this. His mouth was still gagged, and he was terrified that showing any resistance might get him quietly disposed of.
“Don’t even think about running your mouth. If you just do what we tell you, we’ll let you continue working as a hunter in peace.”
That statement meant that the moment he talked, hell would open up for him. Either his hunter license would be revoked and he would be hunted by the prison guild, or he would live in constant fear that an assassin from the Association might come for him at any time. Either way, it was a living hell.
“Mngh! Mngh!”
For Kang Sigyeong, the only choice left was to nod his head up and down frantically.