Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: The Captive's Confession
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The dwarf had the dazed look of someone who had just witnessed the most absurd thing in the world.
It was hardly surprising.
He had sent the guy off to find a new mine, and instead of bringing back minerals, he had dragged in some beggar-like bastard.
The man, whose face was covered with a bag, lay on the floor like a worm, his hands and feet tightly bound.
He wasn't moving, so at a glance he looked dead, but fortunately, he was still breathing.
"You lot ignore the mine I told you to find and pull off a kidnapping?"
And right in front of someone else's workshop, no less—the dwarf couldn't fathom the reason.
"No good spot came to mind for hiding someone. Haha..."
"You think that's an answer?"
As the dwarf raised the hammer in his hand as if to swing it any second, Kang Jin-hyuk quickly offered a sword.
It was the one he had taken from the bartender, Choi Seo-hoon.
"Take a look at this sword first."
"What's the point? I could forge three of these pieces of junk in a day!"
"Not that—look at the materials used in this sword."
Only then did the dwarf set down his hammer and take the sword from Kang Jin-hyuk.
With just a glance, he discerned all the materials and forging techniques used, then snorted derisively.
"The materials are decent iron. But who made this crap and put it out there?"
"You think so too, right? That's why I brought it—the materials are too good for this."
"Oh ho..."
The dwarf caught on to Kang Jin-hyuk's intent in showing him the sword.
"Brought this instead of finding a mine, eh?"
It was certainly better to bring refined iron than raw ore from a mine.
But the amount was ridiculously insufficient to satisfy the dwarf.
"What can I do with just this one sword? You should've hauled in at least a bundle."
"That's what I'm planning to do from now on."
This time, Kang Jin-hyuk pointed at Choi Seo-hoon sprawled on the floor.
"What's that guy got to do with it?"
"The organization backing the one who gave me this sword."
"Organization? You mean a crime syndicate?"
"Yeah. If they're handing out valuable items even to small fry, they must be pretty big."
"Damn. How'd you end up tangling with those kinds of guys?"
"They approached Lucia first, aiming for human trafficking."
Hearing Kang Jin-hyuk's explanation, the dwarf looked puzzled, as if it made no sense.
"They're good kids. How are they a crime group?"
"You damn shorty...!"
Lucia, who had been listening quietly from the side, was genuinely pissed.
As she pulled a dagger from her pouch and approached, the dwarf gripped his hammer tighter.
"Oh? Wanna go at it?"
Kang Jin-hyuk hurriedly stepped between them before things escalated.
"Let's not do this here—stick to the plan and interrogate him."
He meant it to calm Lucia, but the dwarf replied.
"If you're gonna do it, take it somewhere else. I don't wanna see some guy screaming."
He waved his hand dismissively, as if shooing away an annoying customer.
"Goblin screams are fine, but human ones aren't? You're so arbitrary."
"It's my workshop, so I make the rules, elf ears."
Kang Jin-hyuk thought the dwarf had a point.
But Lucia scoffed as if it was ridiculous.
"This dungeon isn't yours either, and you're making a fuss. Narrow-minded like your tiny height?"
"Breaking elf pots is plenty doable at my size. Wanna test it?"
With the dwarf and Lucia glaring daggers at each other as if sparks would fly, Kang Jin-hyuk rubbed his forehead.
The sigh he let out seemed deep enough to bore through the dungeon floor.
As he pondered what to say to calm them down,
A sound drew their attention away from each other, in place of Kang Jin-hyuk.
"Mmmph! Mmph!!"
Choi Seo-hoon, sprawled on the floor with the bag over his head, writhed and expressed his returning consciousness with his whole body.
Unable to see despite opening his eyes, and with limbs bound, it was natural for him to panic.
But even if his reasons were valid, Lucia had no intention of showing mercy.
"Shut your mouth."
When Lucia smacked the bagged head, Choi Seo-hoon immediately went limp.
To Kang Jin-hyuk's eyes, it looked for all the world like his skull had cracked open and he died.
"What if you kill the hostage we brought?"
"Don't worry. He won't die from that."
She said it with confidence, but no matter how he thought about it, that scene was straight-up murder.
Unable to shake his doubts, Kang Jin-hyuk cautiously approached Choi Seo-hoon and checked his breathing.
"...He's not breathing?"
"Huh?"
Lucia, who had been chuckling as if it were a joke, broke into a cold sweat at Kang Jin-hyuk's serious gaze.
* * *
Thanks to chugging a potion, Choi Seo-hoon had returned to the land of the living just before crossing the Styx.
Now, he was locked in some unidentified facility.
Something covered his face, so he couldn't confirm his surroundings.
But from the echoing voices, he could tell it was a sealed space.
'And there's a bit of a burning smell...'
Having learned his lesson that moving would get him hit again, Choi Seo-hoon kept quiet this time.
Pretending to be unconscious to buy time, he racked his brain for an escape from his current predicament.
'Damn! First, I need to deal with this rope!'
By testing slightly, he guessed the rope wouldn't yield to ordinary strength.
What material could produce a rope that even a hunter's grip couldn't break?
Suspecting it might be an item, Choi Seo-hoon gave up on brute force escape.
"Looks like he's faking sleep and scheming."
Choi Seo-hoon flinched at the familiar voice.
A slender, high-pitched timbre.
A beautiful voice that conjured an image of a beauty just from hearing it, but he remembered who it belonged to.
'The woman who dragged me here...!'
The woman his comrade had brought, boasting she was a good catch.
Recalling the events just minutes ago, Choi Seo-hoon felt insanely wronged.
'If it weren't for that hunter with her, I wouldn't be in this mess.'
Because he picked the wrong target, he—the human trafficker—had become the kidnapped one.
Even if life was unpredictable, this was way off course.
Why was someone who could take on eight C-rank hunters at once wandering the streets instead of hunting monsters? Choi Seo-hoon couldn't make sense of it.
'No way he was undercover?'
He refuted his own thought as soon as it arose.
'No, the local cops are in bed with Tyrant. No way they'd investigate now.'
After considering various possibilities, Choi Seo-hoon slowly spoke.
"You're from Altron, right?"
A hunter with exceptional skill. And attacking them, backed by Tyrant—that's what led him to conclude it was an Altron Guild raid.
"I don't know who told you, but you should stop messing with us."
"Oh? Why's that?"
"Because Altron Guild is about to get smashed soon!"
It was his attempt at a threat.
It might have worked if they really were from Altron.
In a head-on clash between Altron and Tyrant, Tyrant—with its reach into black markets and politics—would obviously dominate.
But contrary to his assumption, the opponent wasn't from Altron.
"You planning a war?"
"War? No! A massacre!"
Like a man possessed, Choi Seo-hoon cackled and rambled on.
Before the sight of a man going mad in real time, Kang Jin-hyuk quietly set down the sinister tools in his hands.
"Doesn't seem like we need torture—he's spilling everything on his own."
Lucia agreed with Kang Jin-hyuk.
"I burned some hallucinogenic herbs to loosen his tongue... but I didn't expect it to work this well."
Back at the bar, he had acted like he'd never talk.
Yet now, cheap herbs that only dazed the mind had him blabbing non-stop.
Kang Jin-hyuk adjusted his mask tightly, fearing he'd end up spilling everything too.
"So, to sum up the key points, the ones backing these guys are the 'Tyrant' Guild."
"What do they do?"
"One of the largest guilds in our country."
Tyrant boasted two S-rank hunters and wielded strong global influence.
Given their scale, they were no opponent for a lone individual.
"This seems way tougher than expected."
"So what? We wash our hands of it?"
"That feels like a waste."
Kang Jin-hyuk saw the current Altron-Tyrant standoff as the perfect window to act.
A frontal assault was impossible, but hitting a small branch might work.
Even if traces were found, they'd assume it was Altron.
"How do they plan this massacre? Their forces seem evenly matched."
At Kang Jin-hyuk's question, Choi Seo-hoon's mad laughter intensified.
Proof he had inhaled so much herb smoke that he'd lost his reason.
With judgment all but gone, he spilled even secrets meant for the grave.
"Why? Because the Return Pill is almost complete!"
"Return Pill?"
"Yeah. Alraune's Return Pill! Kee hee hee!"
Despite the bombshell, Kang Jin-hyuk had no idea what it was.
Contrary to expectations, it was Lucia who reacted strongly.
"Are you people insane!?"
Her face pale, she grabbed Choi Seo-hoon by the collar.
"Do you even know what that is?!"
"Kee hee! Of course! Just pop it, and your stats more than double—a miracle item!"
Unable to bear the laughter in her ears, Lucia finally swung her fist.
Choi Seo-hoon, bound to the chair and toppled to the floor, kept laughing.
Still fuming, as she raised her foot, Kang Jin-hyuk jumped in, horrified.
"Why the sudden violence!"
"You heard what these lunatics are making, right?!"
He had heard, but Kang Jin-hyuk couldn't relate to her rage.
Anyone would covet a pill that doubled stats on consumption.
It was natural to want it—no reason to get angry.
"What's wrong with the Return Pill? Side effects if you take it?"
"Side effects? Better if there were!"
If it killed you, no one would make it.
With that retort, Lucia glared at Kang Jin-hyuk.
"..."
As time passed and her boiling emotions cooled, Lucia opened her mouth with a short sigh.
"To draw out the effects from Alraune flowers, you need dozens of humans as fertilizer."
"What? Humans?"
"Yes, and Alraune is picky—only young women as fertilizer."
The bit about virgins being even more effective didn't reach Kang Jin-hyuk's ears.
The fact they used people as fertilizer for the pill swirled in his mind.
"You fucking bastards...!"
Kang Jin-hyuk hauled the fallen Choi Seo-hoon upright.
This time, he drove his fist into the bagged face with full force.
"And you call yourselves human?!"
Even with a broken nose and shattered teeth, Choi Seo-hoon didn't stop laughing.
Deep in the hallucinogen, he felt no pain.
"Why so mad? If you had a shot at that item, you'd be all over it too."
"Bullshit! You think I'm like you?!"
Even if getting stronger was every hunter's dream, there were lines to cross.
Alraune's Return Pill shamelessly trampled those lines.
"Big guilds have plenty of hunting grounds! Why resort to that shit?!"
"Leveling up takes forever and it's a hassle. A C-rank like you wouldn't know how slow growth gets after A-rank."
It was common knowledge: higher levels meant exponentially more EXP needed.
For the rare S-rank hunters worldwide, monster hunting alone barely cut it anymore.
"With Alraune's Return Pill, Tyrant's guild master will surpass S-rank!"
The world's sole top dog.
That was Tyrant's guild master's goal, answered Choi Seo-hoon with mad laughter.
"You think we'll let that happen?"
"Gonna try? The pill finishes in a week—maybe if you rush now."
Choi Seo-hoon openly mocked Kang Jin-hyuk to his face.
What could a mere C-rank do against Korea's top guild with two S-ranks?
Telling him the timeline was to rub in his helplessness.
"...You cultivating Alraune flowers right in the guild?"
"No way. Too risky—if busted, they'd cut losses. Obviously growing 'em secretly somewhere remote."
Choi Seo-hoon didn't realize he was spilling disadvantageous info.
He was still deluded into thinking he was mocking Kang Jin-hyuk.
So he volunteered even unasked details.
"Raid after midnight, and two-thirds of the guards slack off—might be easier."
Helpfully explaining guard shifts.
"But A-rank hunters rotate guard duty—breaking through is suicide!"
Even listing warnings so Kang Jin-hyuk wouldn't overreach.
Satisfied with the intel, Kang Jin-hyuk closed his notepad.
Now, pondering how to dispose of the useless Choi Seo-hoon, he asked one more question.
"How many women have you kidnapped so far?"
"Dunno? Around twenty?"
He spoke of using people as fertilizer like it was nothing.
Then burst into mad laughter again.
He kept at it without pause, even bringing up unasked topics.
"Ee hee hee! Such a shame. The girl we grabbed today was prime stuff."
"..."
"Non-virgins are less effective, but that quality—you don't just bury her!"
As the smoke thickened in the sealed space, his laughter grew louder.
With each burst, Kang Jin-hyuk's expression hardened further.
"Some girls stayed quiet thinking we'd let 'em live if they behaved? Fat chance! Haha ha ha!!"
Thinking himself clever, he shook with laughter.
The moment Kang Jin-hyuk, unable to endure, grabbed a tool—
Lucia struck first, smashing Choi Seo-hoon's head with a hammer.
Smaller than the dwarf's, but enough to crush a human skull.
A dull thud like a watermelon splitting, and the laughter vanished.
The bag over Choi Seo-hoon's head soaked red in an instant.
Seeing Kang Jin-hyuk's stunned face, Lucia shrugged.
"Anything left we needed to hear?"
Kang Jin-hyuk shook his head side to side in response.