Chapter 71
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: The Boy Dreams (5)
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‘He's smiling? Why…’
Eun-young reached out, fully intending to break Ji-han's neck.
There was no way Ji-han hadn't noticed her killing intent.
Eun-young followed Ji-han's gaze and turned her head.
And there.
“You…”
Stood Jeong Hyun-seong, holding Eun-young's wallet.
“Oh, Ms. Eun-young?”
“If you're going to kill someone, you shouldn't hesitate for a second.”
Ji-han, who had wedged his foot between Eun-young's thighs, spun around in an instant.
Eun-young instinctively protected her neck.
Ji-han's hand grabbed Eun-young's wrist, which was near her neck.
*Crack.*
Ji-han casually twisted Eun-young's wrist.
The pain was maddening. Eun-young bit her lip hard and screamed.
“Agh! Anyone, just get someone! Quick!”
“But, Ms. Eun-young…”
“Just go!”
“Yes! I-I'll go get… get someone right away!”
Hyun-seong turned and hurried downstairs.
The places Ji-han had hit her, along with her wrist and ankle, throbbed with pain.
He hadn't shown the slightest hesitation in breaking her wrist.
This guy was a monster in human skin.
She felt an unfathomable terror from Ji-han.
Ji-han lifted Eun-young's broken wrist.
“Do you know the one hundred ways to torture a human?”
“What are you talking about?”
Asking if I know how to torture someone?
How the hell would I know something like that! And I don't want to know.
“Fucking psycho.”
“Well, it might be interesting to see how long you can keep talking like that.”
“I told you, Han-gyeol is in a dungeon!”
“I know.”
Ji-han's reply left Eun-young speechless.
He asks first, and now he says he already knew. She'd never met someone so damn arbitrary.
As Eun-young tried to lift her foot, Ji-han grabbed one of her fingers.
“If you don't want to use this hand for the rest of your life, I won't stop you.”
Eun-young quickly put her foot down.
Ji-han treated her like a child.
The more she resisted, the more forcefully he crushed her.
She didn't know how much of it was real, but it was clear he was no ordinary vicious bastard.
As Eun-young half-gave up, the pressure from Ji-han's grip lessened.
Maybe stalling for time like this wasn't such a bad idea.
As if reading her thoughts, Ji-han spoke nonchalantly.
“Bringing Choi Soo-hyun here won't change a thing.”
“What did I ever do to you?”
“That bastard, Kang Han-gyeol, said the exact same thing. Just like a follower of Soter, making the same excuses.”
Ji-han scoffed, looking down at Eun-young.
Eun-young's mind raced.
She hadn't sent Hyun-seong away with the intention of calling Choi Soo-hyun.
But Ji-han had mentioned him.
In a situation where she didn't even know if Choi Soo-hyun was in the amusement park, Ji-han's words had just given her a piece of information.
Whether things would change if Choi Soo-hyun came or not was something she could figure out when it happened.
“You want me to stop being a follower of Soter, don't you?”
“Yes. Do that, and I'll at least spare your life. There are plenty of gods. You don't need that one. Pick any other.”
Easier said than done.
For Eun-young, who had been unaffiliated for six years, choosing another god wasn't an option.
“Fine. I'll quit.”
“Don't lie.”
“I'm serious! I'll quit, okay?! I value my life too! I'm not about to die just to stay a follower of Soter!”
“I believe I told you not to lie.”
“How… ugh, how would you know if I'm lying or not? Huh?”
“You are lying right now.”
“Hey! What are you, Maitreya? Huh! You got some kind of mind-reading power?!”
Feeling like she was talking to a brick wall, Eun-young raised her voice.
Ji-han's hand touched her neck.
He merely rested his hand on her throat, but it was enough to inspire an indescribable terror.
Ji-han stared down at Eun-young's face, his gaze blatant.
To lie to Ji-han, she needed to be more convincing.
As she claimed she would renounce Soter, Eun-young's eyes were shining more brightly than ever.
“Those aren't the eyes of someone giving up. I don't need any mind-reading ability to see that.”
Huh?
For a brief moment, Eun-young doubted her own ears.
It didn't look like he was joking at all.
Not knowing what to say, she just gaped.
“You asked if I could read minds, so I answered. What would you do if I really could? Well, it's not like I'm Maitreya or Gung Ye.”
He really has it!
No wonder he acted so arbitrarily, asking questions but never waiting for an answer. It had been suspicious.
Eun-young burst out laughing.
Because of her internal injuries, the more she laughed, the more breathless she became.
It wasn't genuine laughter, but the crazed cackle of someone who had lost their mind.
“If I kill you, that bastard Kang Han-gyeol will come looking for me.”
“Oh? What was that?”
“…”
“You can't beat him.”
“I'll take that as your last words.”
Ji-han began to tighten his grip on Eun-young's neck.
A sword flew toward Ji-han.
*Clang.*
Ji-han blocked Hyun-seong's sword with a dagger.
“A-a dagger?”
Hyun-seong flinched slightly at the weapon that had appeared out of nowhere.
“You…”
“I'm sorry! I couldn't reach the team leader, and I don't know where Director Choi is. I-I was worried!”
“Get lost. This has nothing to do with you.”
“It might have nothing to do with you, but it has everything to do with me. G-get away from Ms. Eun-young!”
“Then you can die too.”
Ji-han used the dagger to bat away Hyun-seong's sword and then kicked him.
Jeong Hyun-seong's body flew back and slammed into a wall.
“Keuk.”
Hyun-seong fell to his knees, coughing up blood.
His hands and feet trembled, and his mind went blank.
Gripping his sword tightly, Hyun-seong charged at Ji-han.
“Aaaaargh!”
Ji-han took a stance, aiming to throw his dagger at the charging Hyun-seong's chest.
“This one. That one.”
Why did things have to get so complicated?
Eun-young, realizing Ji-han's intent, tried to stop him, but it was too late.
“Don't—”
The dagger left Ji-han's hand and flew past Hyun-seong.
Sensing something graze past him, Hyun-seong shuddered to a halt.
The dagger Ji-han had thrown was floating strangely in mid-air.
It was more accurate to say it was embedded in the air itself.
A massive eyeball slowly emerged, piercing through space.
It wasn't just the one eyeball behind Hyun-seong.
From the darkness, other eyes were watching the three of them.
“That's…”
“And what are you?”
Ji-han calmly glared at the eyeball.
The dagger embedded in the eyeball fell to the floor.
“Heuk!”
As Ji-han tried to get up, he stomped on the back of Eun-young, who was trying to flee.
“You… ugh… have you no decency toward women?”
“Shut up.”
“You son of a bitch.”
Eun-young spat the blood pooled in her mouth toward Ji-han's foot.
[Finally. Found. You. Why? Two? Which? One? Who?]
*Ruuuumble.*
The entire amusement park shook, and alarms blared.
The eyes, multiplying as if through cell division, moved restlessly.
Outside, space suddenly split open, and monsters began to fall through the cracks.
From over the railing, a winged monster with a sharp beak lunged at Ji-han.
Ji-han sidestepped the attack, grabbed the monster's head, and slammed it into the ground.
*Splat.*
After crushing the monster's head with his bare hands, Ji-han flicked the blood from his fingers.
“Hey, eyeball. What do you mean, two?”
[Looking for, one? You? Interfere?]
Hearing the eyeball's voice, like nails on a chalkboard, Ji-han's expression twisted.
There were currently three Hunters here.
Looking for one.
But there are two.
An intruder.
“Hey, woman! Weren't you a follower of Soter? What's with that eyeball bastard?”
Eun-young grabbed Ji-han's ankle.
“I don't know! You look pretty young… but you keep calling me 'hey,' 'hey,' 'woman'… and you're talking down to me…”
Ji-han was distracted by the eyeballs and the monsters emerging from the spatial rifts.
“Wait…!”
“Stop talking down to me!!”
Pushing herself up, Eun-young grabbed Ji-han's foot and hurled him toward the eyeball.
The eyeball's eyebrow sharpened into a point and aimed at Ji-han.
Ji-han pulled another dagger from his item window, sliced through the elongated eyebrows aiming for his neck, and landed below.
“Damn woman! You dare throw me? I knew I should have just killed you…”
Ji-han realized the eyeballs that had been around him were gone.
It wasn't just the eyeballs that had vanished.
“Damn it!”
After sheathing his dagger, Ji-han summoned a sword and ran in the direction Eun-young and Hyun-seong had disappeared.
Eun-young, carrying Hyun-seong on her back, made it down to the first floor.
“Hey! Does your phone work? Quickly, contact Choi Soo-hyun… What is this…”
Eun-young was startled by the sight of the bizarrely distorted space and the monsters roaming within it.
Hyun-seong, still on Eun-young's back, fumbled with his phone.
“The phone… it's not working!”
The foul air with every breath. The grotesquely twisted Lotte World.
This could hardly be called a normal space.
It was like a dungeon, but the feeling was distinctly different.
“Is this a dungeon?”
Is it possible to enter a dungeon without ever passing through a gate?
“It's an Innate Barrier. To jump in without even knowing that, you're a fool.”
“What's that… Aaargh!”
Eun-young shrieked and picked up her pace when Ji-han appeared beside her.
Ji-han instantly caught up to her.
“You're a pretty fast runner, huh?”
“Get lost!”
Putting Jeong Hyun-seong down, Eun-young charged at Ji-han.
Eun-young, who had looked ready to attack, suddenly backed away.
“I don't dislike perceptive people.”
“Isn't this guy a total psychopath?”
“I don't think I need to hear that from you, of all people.”
When he had blocked Hyun-seong's attack with a dagger, Ji-han's hands had been empty.
The dagger had literally appeared from nowhere.
If he could pull out a dagger through some unknown means, there was no guarantee he couldn't pull out other weapons too.
Eun-young's specialty was martial arts.
Most Hunters would have a hard time beating her in a hand-to-hand fight.
But not only did Ji-han possess superior fighting skills, that wasn't even his main strength.
In Ji-han's hand was a sword wrapped in bandages instead of a scabbard, its shape difficult to discern.
“Hey! What are you, huh? A grim reaper's proxy? You chuunibyou bastard!”
Ji-han swung the bandaged sword once, and the floor collapsed.
It was as if he'd swung a hammer, not a sword.
*Craaaash.*
*Booooom.*
From another direction, a huge explosion erupted, sending a pillar of fire into the air.
Ji-han clicked his tongue as he glanced toward the pillar of fire.
It seemed Ji-han wasn't the only intruder.
—I, so… today… don't… I… said… not to!
Ji-han touched his ear, and the communication device there vanished.
“You're still trying to kill me, even in this situation?”
“What about this situation?”
Even without unsheathing the sword, his attacks were incredibly sharp.
Ji-han spun around and kicked Eun-young.
Eun-young slammed into the wall of a building, barely stopping her momentum, and quickly regained her footing.
“Nothing has changed.”
Eun-young used her Blessing of Wings skill to fly upward.
“If you can't fly.”
“Crazy bastard!”
“You just use the surrounding terrain. I guess it never occurred to you that flying in a place with so many buildings is a stupid move.”
Ji-han, having climbed up at some point by stepping on the debris of broken buildings and floating black masses, appeared above Eun-young.
Too late, Eun-young realized her mistake.
Other than being able to fly, she wasn't accustomed to aerial combat, and it was hard to dodge properly in the air.
The tip of Ji-han's bandaged sword flashed with a purple light.
Hyun-seong looked up at where Ji-han and Eun-young were.
“Why…”
He couldn't understand what was happening.
Ji-han, the Hunter who had appeared out of nowhere, was trying to kill Eun-young.
Eun-young was by no means a weak Hunter, but Ji-han, the one trying to kill her, was, even to Hyun-seong's eyes, absurdly skilled.
He had wanted to become a Hunter.
But all he got was the label of an unaffiliated dropout.
When everyone else had pointed fingers, she was the first person to tell him he would do well.
He didn't want her to die.
But right now, Jeong Hyun-seong was powerless.
Behind Hyun-seong, a giant eyeball appeared.
Red lips formed beneath the eyeball.
The lips began to speak.
[Power? Need? Me. Can help? You. Found?]
Hyun-seong turned around.
The eyebrows above the eyeball shot out, piercing through Hyun-seong's body.
“What… Keuk!”
Beneath Hyun-seong, another eyeball opened.
Dozens of black whips bound Hyun-seong's body.
Hyun-seong reached out a hand toward Eun-young, who was descending.
“Hey! Woman! What are you doing… Damn it!”
The creature was after either Jeong Hyun-seong or Song Eun-young.
Ji-han couldn't care less what happened to Jeong Hyun-seong.
If the eyeball ghost's target was Song Eun-young, he just had to kill her before they could take her.
The creatures were after Hyun-seong, not Eun-young.
But Eun-young was diving right into it!
Eun-young grabbed the unconscious Jeong Hyun-seong.
Ji-han, sword in hand, moved to kill Eun-young.
Eun-young, her body half-sucked in, turned her head.
Just then.
“Hey, Song Eun-young!!”
“You're late, you idiot.”
If she could, Eun-young wanted to give Soo-hyun the middle finger.
As Choi Soo-hyun reached out and tried to run toward the dome where Eun-young was, Cho-ah held him back.
“Soo-hyun! You can't go!”
A large dome formed around the eyeball, swallowing the three of them.