The Monster Committed Suicide?
“The monster... it killed itself?”
The hunters who had been about to attack the boss monster froze in their tracks.
Something unbelievable was unfolding right before their eyes. A monster strangling itself to death. Not once in all the years since the gates first appeared had anyone witnessed anything like it.
“The Judgment Seat... did he do this?”
The hunters stood dumbfounded. Meanwhile, the remaining monsters kept advancing.
“Think about it later—kill the monsters first!”
They snapped back to their senses and cut the creatures down. The monsters' numbers dwindled fast.
The comment windows on every platform scrolled upward at a blinding speed, spiraling out of control. Public opinion had made up its mind: this was the Judgment Seat's doing. Strangling his victims with their own hands had become his signature.
The fact that a gate had opened for the first time in three years, and the hunters' flashy skills carving through the horde, was pushed entirely into the background. Once again, every eye in the country turned to the Judgment Seat.
When news of the gate reached him, Choi Seongcheol sat with Sura Guild's executives and watched the footage together.
“Ten of them. And it seems there are no hunters inside. Dealing with them will take some effort.” One of the executives briefed him on the situation.
“A gate, after three years?”
Choi Seongcheol sat alone in his chair while the executives stood at his side. He might have been a king holding court.
“That's correct.”
“And public opinion?”
“Just as we predicted, they're blaming sd1234. If a few more gates open, every last voice will turn against him.”
“Pity it opened on the outskirts.”
Had it ruptured in the city center, casualties would have been immediate—and the pressure on sd1234 that much greater.
“The Bureau likely left it alone because this was the safest location. The opening itself is more than enough.”
They watched the broadcast in silence. And then that scene aired.
Choi Seongcheol shot to his feet.
“...”
His bulging eyes glared at the screen, and the executives held their breath before surprise could even register. Only a heavy, dead silence filled the room.
After a long moment, Choi Seongcheol turned his head toward Choi Seokhyeon, the man who had proposed this entire scheme.
“I... I'm sorry, sir.”
He bowed his head in a hurry. That one scene—sd1234 killing the monsters himself—had reduced every piece of their plan to ash.
“You couldn't foresee even this?”
“I apologize. Who could have imagined he'd be able to kill monsters...”
Choi Seongcheol lowered himself back into the chair.
“Sort out the situation.”
Choi Seokhyeon's mind raced.
“At this point we have no choice but to withdraw the plan. If another gate opens and sd1234 handles it, the backlash from public opinion will land on us instead.”
“How many guild members has he killed of ours?”
“Twenty. Fortunately, all of them were low-ranked hunters.”
Choi Seongcheol's eyes narrowed. For the sake of this scheme, he had handed that precious Divine Metal over to Cheongeom and Valkyrie. The losses from leaving gates uncleared had piled up, and his guild members had kept dying, one after another. Ten days—that was how long it had been since he'd requested their cooperation. With exactly two days left on the clock, sd1234 had landed a devastating counter.
“Find a way before the day is out.” His voice was low and heavy.
Lee Hocheon killed the remaining monsters and observed the reaction.
Just as expected.
He stepped outside. A walk was in order. It was while walking that his thoughts came most freely.
What options does Choi Seongcheol have left?
There was no chance this ended here. The most likely move was for him to wash his hands of the S-rank gate entirely—but Hocheon shook his head. Choi Seongcheol prized the guild over his own son, and the gate he'd left alone was the proof. If he abandoned even an S-rank gate, Sura would forfeit its worth as a guild altogether. Opposition would inevitably rise from within his own ranks, and the Bureau and the major guilds wouldn't sit idle either.
Of course, they had held back this time. He couldn't know why, but the odds were good that Sura had gotten to them behind the scenes.
He'll look for another way, most likely.
What that way might be, though, he couldn't picture.
This won't be easy.
He sat down on a nearby bench. The very bench where he had sat after first awakening. His original goal had been simple: kill those who deserved death, spare those who deserved life. Except the ones who deserved death turned out to be the very pillars holding the nation upright. Choi Seongcheol hadn't technically committed a crime yet, but judging by his conduct, there was a strong chance the rot ran deeper than anyone knew. He was a power broker of the most classic variety.
What if every S-rank turned out to deserve death?
He had to think about the practical problem. If it came to that—did he kill them all? Impossible. The economy, diplomacy, the gates themselves—everything would collapse. He had no intention of destroying the country. But sparing them? That wouldn't do either. If that were the answer, he might as well quit now. Killing the weak while shielding the strong would strip the whole enterprise of meaning.
So then what?
The structure itself has to change.
If the nation's dependence on S-rank hunters were lowered, killing them would no longer be a problem.
Is it possible?
Without ever revealing himself, the way he was now?
His mind spun at full speed. And the conclusion it reached:
Yes. It's possible.
The mana within his body had been growing steadily with every passing day.
Hunter Management Bureau Director Cheon Ilguk summoned Kim Woocheol for a private word.
“Did you see it?”
“See what... exactly?”
“The Judgment Seat.”
“Ah. The monster thing? Yeah, I saw it.”
Cheon Ilguk poured Kim Woocheol a cup of tea—barley tea, with its roasted, nutty scent.
“What's your read?”
“...Hmm.”
Kim Woocheol didn't know what to say. The Judgment Seat's ability had been genuinely staggering, and the Bureau had been buzzing about nothing else for days.
“Honestly, I don't know what to make of it.”
Kim Woocheol studied Cheon Ilguk's eyes, glinting sharp and bright. This man... He seemed to be thinking of going after the Judgment Seat—in a very different sense.
“Since that broadcast aired, over twenty countries have contacted us asking whether it was the work of a hunter.”
It wasn't only Korea reacting; the whole world was watching. The Judgment Seat, whose reputation had begun spreading quietly since the drunk-driving case, had earned the nickname K-Reaper after the Choi Jinwoo incident. Translated literally: the Korean Grim Reaper.
“His ability far exceeds anything we anticipated.”
“He's still a criminal, sir.”
“That's what the Special Hunter Act is for. The nation's survival comes before crime, so even murderers get reduced sentences and minor offenses get waved through. With the Judgment Seat's power, we could respond near-perfectly to virtually everything that happens in this country.”
Kim Woocheol knew exactly what he meant. The Bureau's hunters were already treating the Judgment Seat as an S-rank or higher.
“Can he be controlled?”
“Maybe? Nothing he's done suggests he's an evil man.”
“Maybe so, but... hm.”
That was a laughable thing to say too. The man's victims numbered over two hundred, and he was calling him not evil.
“Think about it honestly. How many people do you suppose there are, with that kind of power, who would behave the way the Judgment Seat does?”
“Practically none, I'd say.”
Put that way, it really was an extraordinary case. Most people would use such power for wealth and glory.
“Even so, public backlash will be fierce.”
“No. The real opposition will come from the government and the S-rank hunters.”
“You're confident you can persuade them?”
“If I were, I wouldn't be calling you in like this.”
“Hm...”
“Pretend you're investigating. Find a way to make contact. I'll back you with whatever support I can.”
“Ahem...”
Kim Woocheol wrestled with whether to accept. That man had cost him more stress than he could count.
“Let me get my thoughts in order first. I'll come back to you.”
He left the office.
NineLab.
A mid-sized internet security firm with annual revenue in the range of six billion won. On the stock exchange, it was treated as a neglected backwater—no special technology, no earnings growth.
And yet, starting roughly seven months ago, the share price had crept upward, climbing from 2,000 won to 6,000. A tripling. Naturally, retail investors began swarming to the rising price. A few experts warned people to steer clear of the stock, but even their voices were swallowed whole by the relentless upward trend.
The trouble began a month ago—the very moment the Judgment Seat appeared.
The forces manipulating the stock cheered his emergence. They seized on the fact that NineLab was a security company and lashed it to the Judgment Seat, flooding the market with articles and seeding paid shills across discussion boards and messenger rooms. Then they detonated trading volume and rocketed the price upward. From 6,000 won, the stock blew past 10,000 within a single week.
With the price drifting sideways, the manipulators rapidly offloaded their holdings onto private investors. Three weeks later, the Judgment Seat killed Choi Jinwoo. The stock collapsed instantly, slamming into the daily limit-down. NineLab recorded seven consecutive limit-downs in a single week and fell below 1,000 won. The retail investors couldn't unload; when the final restriction lifted, they had no choice but to dump their shares at rock bottom.
The worst stock manipulation scandal in South Korean history had just exploded—the so-called NineLab Incident.
The Financial Supervisory Service launched an investigation at once, but the case drew little attention. All because of the standoff between the Judgment Seat and Choi Seongcheol.
The victims were left hollow. Compensation was a fantasy, and they knew the manipulators would never be properly punished either—in the past, the ringleader of a price-rigging scheme that pocketed thirty billion won had received a mere five years.
Now only one recourse remained to them: appealing to the Judgment Seat. There was nothing else left to do.
Seo Gichan found it strange that the administrator of Judgment Day had shown up for questioning. By all appearances, the man should have stalled for as long as possible.
Seo Gichan studied him from the corner of his eye. Pomade-styled hair, a tailored suit, a solidly built physique. The real shock was his profession: a prosecutor of the Republic of Korea. Not a rank-and-file one, either—a deputy chief prosecutor of the Criminal Affairs Division.
“Is a prosecutor even allowed to operate a site like this?” Seo Gichan asked.
“Hard to say. I don't see anything legally problematic.”
“Even if the law permits it, it's an ethical problem.”
“That may well be.”
Kang Doyun conceded the point without argument, and in that easy acquiescence Seo Gichan sensed that this interrogation would be anything but simple. His opponent was a prosecutor who knew the law inside and out—and a devoted follower of the Judgment Seat.
“Our investigation confirmed that the post by victim Kim Jeongsu first appeared on that site. You're aware of this, of course?”
Kim Jeongsu was the student beaten to death by Choi Jinwoo.
“I can't say it was the first, but it was posted.”
“It was the first.”
Seo Gichan produced a document—a screenshot showing search results for Judgment Day alone.
“Isn't that a bit flimsy to present as evidence? Change a search term by a single word and the results change entirely.”
He was right, as far as it went. But Seo Gichan had already secured the victim mother's testimony. She had come to the Hunter Crime Investigation Division herself to request the case.
“You contacted the victim's mother directly. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“You told her to review the case the police had cleared without charges. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And then you told her to request an investigation from the Hunter Crime Investigation Division, on the grounds that Choi Jinwoo was an awakened. Am I right?”
“You are.”
Seo Gichan gathered his breath for a moment.
“How did you know Choi Jinwoo was awakened?”
“Anyone could infer it from the diary alone. He was clearly beaten—yet there were no wounds. Naturally, the odds favored an awakened assailant. I merely offered the victim advice, using my own knowledge.”
Then Kang Doyun pressed on.
“There is exactly one reason to suspect me: the possibility that the victim's mother's post first appeared on Judgment Day. But the Judgment Seat killed Choi Jinwoo after that exposé went public—meaning the entire nation already knew about the assault.”
Seo Gichan listened in silence. Point by point, it all checked out.
But the man had underestimated the Hunter Crime Investigation Division.
Seo Gichan handed across a single sheet bearing a list of names. The moment Kang Doyun's eyes fell on it, his pupils trembled—almost imperceptibly.
“This is the list of criminals whose personal records you looked up over the past month, using your position as a prosecutor. Nearly all of them were killed by the Judgment Seat.”