The Ecster Clan's True Colors

The Ecster Clan.

Go Yohan — Jisoo's older brother — had told his only sister to stay well clear of them. I'd known Yohan for less than a month, but even in that brief span it was obvious he was a sharp, intelligent Dungeon Hunter. He carried a gravity that matched his cold features and colder air, and he was not the sort of man who slandered people carelessly. When someone like that told you to be careful, you didn't brush it off.

After running into that bastard Jo Jinyong, I looked into the Ecster Clan on my own. There was only so much a private individual could dig up, but even that limited information made it painfully clear the place was rotten. Their withdrawal rate ranked third-highest among Korea's top one hundred clans, and the Dungeon Hunters who'd left were overflowing with complaints.

The consensus was this: the clan's capabilities were the real deal, but the clan master's autocracy ran extreme, and the organization had not a shred of ethical sense. In corporate terms, a textbook black company. They had enough scale and substance that you couldn't quite dismiss them as a shitty little outfit.

"We meet again. Jo Jinyong."

I hated wasting brain cells remembering men, but I remembered this one. The Ecster Clan scout Jisoo had turned down just a few days ago. He'd dressed himself in an expensive suit, but that delinquent face and the swagger rolling off him made him look like nothing more than a thug.

The two of us had parted as enemies, and now he sat down across from me wearing a salesman's smile. We were in the café on the hotel's first floor.

"Not a face I was particularly hoping to see."

"The feeling's mutual."

I'd thrown out a jab, and he'd actually returned it. Hot-tempered types usually spilled their real feelings the moment you pricked their pride — Jo Jinyong had been exactly that kind of man a few days ago. Today, though, there was a strange ease about him.

"How did you know our party was here?"

I wasn't expecting an honest answer, but I asked anyway. There were plenty of ways they could have tracked us down. A clan that ranked inside the nation's top hundred would have all kinds of informants.

"I found out by chance. Pure coincidence."

He lied without so much as a flicker. He'd lied to Jisoo just as freely the first time we met. I let it slide.

"The reason I came is Miss Jisoo. And Miss Lina as well, on top of that."

He didn't bother hiding his intentions from the start. I liked that. I preferred people who got to the point over the ones who circled around it.

"You want to recruit the two of them?"

"That's right. I'll skip the preamble. One billion won each. Two billion total."

Two billion won.

He opened with a heavy bid. For recruiting unproven Dungeon Hunters, it was an absurd amount of money.

To me, though, those two aren't worth a billion — they're worth ten billion or more. They're both beauties I'm going to devour, after all.

I smiled, unhurried.

"You're trying to recruit those two with that kind of pocket change? I'd heard the Ecster Clan was a fairly successful outfit. Seems that was just a rumor."

BANG.

Jo Jinyong slammed the table. He'd been pretending at composure since he sat down, but his breathing had been trembling, faintly, from the moment he laid eyes on me. Unmistakable proof he was hiding how rattled he was.

"You were like this last time, too. Not a shred of social sense. You think a billion won is a joke? Sure, it might be pocket change in the Dungeon Hunter world — but it's not the kind of money you throw at some greenhorn who just walked out of the training academy."

"That's your opinion. Why don't you take that pocket change and go buy yourself some candy."

"You arrogant little shit. You think you can survive in the Dungeon Hunter world after making an enemy of the Ecster Clan? You put together a party, slap on an armband, and suddenly the whole world looks like it belongs to you. This world is crawling with wet-behind-the-ears brats just like you."

He shoved his face in close, voice thick with threat. Physiologically repulsive.

"I don't have a hobby of looking at another man's face from this distance. Get that mug out of mine."

His fists trembled. Jo Jinyong glared at me the way a venomous snake glares when it's full of poison, then pulled himself back. That look didn't scare me in the slightest. I had a power no other Dungeon Hunter possessed.

"Should've known you were a waste of breath. I'll be watching closely to see just how long that lifespan of yours lasts."

That was his parting shot as he stood. I could read the look in his eyes well enough. That was a man who was one hundred percent about to do something. If he'd gone and schemed quietly behind my back, I might not have noticed — but coming out in the open like this to announce I'm going to do something shady was, frankly, a gift. What an idiot.

I stuck the Watching Eye on that bastard.

Jo Jinyong went back to the hotel suite they'd taken as lodgings and slammed the door hard enough to rattle it, his anger still unspent.

"How'd it go?"

Jang Jicheol, party leader of the Ecster Clan's 6th Party, asked for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the result of the negotiation without bothering to hide his irritation at the man who'd just stormed in. One look at Jo Jinyong's face and the answer was already obvious, but he waited for confirmation anyway.

"The guy's a lunatic. You know the type. The ones who get so high on becoming a Dungeon Hunter they act like they've got the whole world in their pocket. Ha. No matter how many of those bastards you bury, they just keep crawling out of the woodwork."

"That's a relief, then. From the clan's perspective, we don't have to throw real money down the drain. Once the party falls apart, Ahn Lina and Go Jisoo will come over to our side anyway."

"If they don't want to come, we drag them. That's our job."

The suite they were talking in was a viciously expensive special room that ran ten million won a night — the kind of place only Dungeon Hunters with serious money behind them ever used. The Ecster Clan was a prestigious organization ranked 52nd in Korea, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and its financial power rivaled that of a mid-sized corporation.

"We ought to have a little fun ourselves. Our clan's too much of a sausage fest."

The man sitting on the sofa, working a dumbbell, said it like it was nothing.

"Heh. Keep that dick of yours in check. The last girl ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who joined got completely wrecked because of you."

"I'd rather be burying it in a Dungeon Hunter's pussy than a civilian's. Civilian pussy gets ruined too fast. Tch."

Including Jo Jinyong, there were five of them in the room. Jang Jicheol clapped his hands and gathered their attention.

"All right. Let's confirm the operation one more time. You already know this, but keep your heads on straight when we PK. There's no telling when or what kind of variable might show up."

PK. Short for Player Kill — slang used among Demonic hunters. It meant murdering other Hunters.

It was common knowledge that killing people in Korea was not easy. Killing a Hunter was incomparably harder than harming an ordinary civilian, because Hunters could resist with their abilities. That was why Demonic PK almost always took place inside dungeons. A dungeon was the place most intimate with death — no matter who died, or how, it looked natural.

"This dungeon, Devil's Basement, is an easy one for us. Clear difficulty sits around Rank 9 to Rank 8."

"Our party's average is Rank 7, so it's like swimming with our feet on the ground."

"Even so, variables exist in everything. Especially in a dungeon, where things can change without warning. Like that incident at the training academy."

"The one where the dungeon difficulty suddenly shifted and a trainee died? Ah — come to think of it, the one who died in that incident was Go Jisoo's older brother, wasn't it?"

The man reading a magazine on the sofa said it, and the one working the dumbbell across from him dragged his tongue across his lips. He looked exactly like a cunning viper that had put on a human face.

"Suddenly I'm getting hard all over again. A tragic little sister who lost her big brother. Pussy from a girl with a story like that always hits different."

"You filthy bastard. Is pussy all you ever talk about?"

"What's wrong with women? That's what we got together to do in the first place. You get a raging hard-on the second we actually do it, you hypocritical fuck."

"All right, all right. Cut the chatter and listen. The place we're hitting is the weapon storage on the third basement floor. The monster that shows up there is the Armor Knight. Even a Rank 9 Dungeon Hunter can hunt it without much trouble. It's worth less than the other monsters that spawn in Devil's Basement, so not many parties bother hunting it."

"Meaning fewer eyes watching."

"We go in first and lie in wait. Wearing these."

Jang Jicheol pointed to a crate beside him, then opened it. Inside were several suits of armor that looked like something a medieval knight would wear — heavy enough that anyone who wasn't a Hunter probably couldn't even put one on.

"Oho. That's Armor Knight plate. Don't tell me — we're putting those on and pretending to be monsters?"

"One of the classics of PK. They'll let their guard down against a bunch of pathetic Armor Knights, and we use that opening to cut them down. Kill the men, and the women will run on their own. Rookies like that were never going to handle their party leader dying in the first place."

"Haha! That's a good plan. So far we've only ever carved up monsters and people. Playing dress-up as monsters ought to be fun."

Jo Jinyong looked at the armor and smiled, mean and thin.

It was a moronic plan.

So these bastards were a Demonic clan. Figures. The ones with something rotten behind them always ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have something going on.

I tailed Jo Jinyong through the Watching Eye. He'd taken a room in the same hotel as us. His was far nicer than ours.

They briefed the operation in their own room. Thanks to that, I was able to grasp every last detail of their plan. It was a scheme riddled with more holes than I could count — and yet, precisely because of those holes, it was the kind of operation that might actually work.

Their goal wasn't to wipe out my entire party. It was to kill me. And then to absorb the rest of my party members.

They couldn't let their identities be exposed. I had to die. The other party members had to live. Those constraints had produced an operation that was somewhat absurd — and, to be fair, genuinely hard to anticipate.

But if you already know about it, there's no way a stupid plan like that is going to land.

That operation only held together if the other side didn't know what they were planning. I was almost grateful to Jo Jinyong. Because he'd come looking for me, I'd read every filthy card they were holding.

You, I'll do the special favor of sending off without pain.

I called Sujin and Yeonji in, and showed them the footage the Watching Eye had recorded. Both of them watched it with a mix of disbelief and dawning horror.

"What is this? These people… don't tell me they're Demonic?"

"Oh my god. The Ecster Clan was a Demonic clan? They're ranked inside the top hundred!"

If I leaked this footage, the Ecster Clan would be finished.

"No. They'd try to bury it with money and connections somehow. If it came down to it, they'd even cut off the tail. 'This was an individual's deviation,' and so on. We've all seen that kind of scum slip the law on the news more than once."

My evidence hadn't been collected legally. Even so, I could land a serious blow on the Ecster Clan — but whether that alone would be enough to sink them completely was another question. If they managed to survive it, the aftermath would be a considerable headache.

That didn't mean I had any intention of sitting back and watching a pack of jackals who'd bared their teeth at me. As the first step in bringing a Demonic clan to justice, I was going to grind one of their parties into dust.

These bastards sharpened their knives for me. I'll be the one to settle the score.