Chapter 36
Chapter 36
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Unchanged Karma
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Even someone who thoroughly deserved death would make anyone hesitate when the moment came to kill them with their own hands. That was human psychology.
But there wasn’t the slightest trace of hesitation in Lucia’s actions.
Unlike Kang Jin-hyuk, who had only planned to rough the man up a bit, she moved with unmistakable murderous intent.
She ended her opponent in a single strike.
Kang Jin-hyuk didn’t believe Lucia’s ability to kill without hesitation was simply part of her nature.
Kang Jin-hyuk recalled what Lucia had lamented about her circumstances in the dungeon not long ago.
Her life might have been far rougher than he had imagined.
Suddenly feeling a pang of sympathy, Kang Jin-hyuk revealed one fact he had just witnessed.
“It didn’t go up at all.”
“What?”
“Your karma value.”
“You mean when I killed that human?”
“Yeah.”
Lucia muttered to herself in a much lighter tone, as if to say she had expected as much.
“Guess I’ll burn this place down to dispose of the body.”
“You sure it’s okay to just torch your house like that?”
“What house? It’s just a temporary spot I set up because I had nowhere else to crash.”
Even from the outside, it looked more like a tent than a proper house.
It was fine for a day or two, but ask anyone to stay here a month or longer, and they’d freak out.
After gathering what usable items she had, Lucia dragged Kang Jin-hyuk outside.
“So, where are you gonna stay now? It’s not like there are a ton of livable spots in this dungeon.”
“Hehe, are you actually worried about me?”
As she said, Kang Jin-hyuk had pretended otherwise on the surface, but deep down, he was concerned for Lucia.
No matter how strong she was, it didn’t look easy to rest comfortably in a place where monsters could pop up anytime.
“Want me to lend you a room or something?”
“Move into your place? That’s taking the joke too far.”
The option of living outside the dungeon had never even existed in Lucia’s mind.
“I’d probably die young breathing that crappy air anyway.”
She figured it was better to stick around with monsters.
Her second reason—one she didn’t voice—was that she had no intention of barging shamelessly into a single guy’s home.
“I’ve got a spot I’ve been eyeing. Planning to hole up there for a while.”
“What about daily necessities?”
“Huh? You can just bring them from outside.”
“So you’re fully committed to working me to the bone.”
“Of course. You’re starting to get it.”
“Get what? That I’m supposed to spend my life running your errands?”
Lucia shook her head lightly.
“That we’re not the kind of people who cut ties after a few days.”
Lucia’s original goal was to return to her own world.
Even if the urgency had faded, the goal itself hadn’t vanished entirely.
But she was also accounting for the worst-case scenario.
If she ended up stuck in Kang Jin-hyuk’s world, she’d need his help to adapt.
Kang Jin-hyuk, meanwhile, needed Lucia’s power to handle the messes unfolding in his world with ease.
“Come to think of it, this whole mess is nowhere near over.”
What had started as digging into his hidden skill had spiraled into investigating the depths of a massive organization.
The thought of how it had snowballed far beyond expectations, like a boulder tumbling from a mountaintop, drew a wry chuckle from him.
“I’ve got a rough idea now of what raises karma, so maybe I could bow out here…”
Lucia wrestled with the thought internally.
Truth be told, from her perspective, whatever happened outside didn’t really concern her.
But after hearing Choi Seo-hoon’s story, it felt like a fishbone lodged in her throat—unsettling and impossible to ignore.
Even if it was another world’s business, hearing about such atrocities firsthand made that reaction inevitable.
“You’re not thinking of just letting this slide, are you?”
“You serious?”
Kang Jin-hyuk couldn’t stand by and watch this play out.
Compared to this, the misdeeds of other major guilds up to now were nothing more than child’s play.
“Alraune, whatever it takes—I’ll track them all down and burn them to the ground.”
Flowers that fed and grew on human lives had no right to exist.
Just like monsters needed to be exterminated, those flowers deserved to be wiped from the world.
“You sure you’re okay with that? Sounds like they’re no pushovers.”
“It’ll be rough. But I’ll do everything I can.”
With that, Kang Jin-hyuk pulled out his phone from his pocket.
* * *
Titan Guild Master Seo Sang-ho.
His secretary, who had been by his side for years, always thought of him as remarkably carefree.
Uncharacteristic of a major guild leader, he wandered everywhere sticking his nose in other people’s business.
Unless a major crisis hit, his face was perpetually lit with a sly grin.
Put kindly, he was good-natured. Put harshly, he was flighty.
That was why seeing him wear such a savage scowl—like he could devour a crowd whole—was an extraordinarily rare sight.
Seo Sang-ho hung up the incoming call and stayed silent for a long stretch.
His secretary, fearing he’d crush the phone in his grip at any second, reached out and took it first.
Seo Sang-ho swept a hand over his face and heaved a deep sigh.
“This is driving me mad.”
The secretary didn’t ask what was wrong.
Prodding him now would only stoke the flames of the anger he was struggling to suppress.
Instead, she brewed some tea in warm water and brought it over.
Seo Sang-ho sat on the sofa and drank it down meekly.
As the rich aroma of the fine tea slid down his throat, his emotions settled somewhat.
Only once his tangled thoughts cleared did he finally speak.
“Ever heard of Alraune’s Return Pills?”
“No. First I’ve heard of them.”
“Yeah… They’re something the Association goes to great lengths to bury, so it’s normal not to know.”
The production method was so utterly inhumane that it was classified as top secret worldwide—known only to a handful of S-rank Hunters.
Seo Sang-ho couldn’t fathom how Kang Jin-hyuk, a mere C-rank Hunter, had learned of it.
At his level, he shouldn’t have had access to Association records.
Unless he’d encountered it directly or been personally involved, there’d be no reason for him to hear the name.
‘Which means it’s all true.’
Seo Sang-ho didn’t want to believe it.
He knew Tyrant Guild was overly fixated on Altron Guild and obsessed with power to an extreme degree.
But he’d trusted that, as one of Korea’s top guilds, they wouldn’t stoop to sullying their reputation.
Reality, however, proved otherwise.
Tyrant’s Guild Master was a lunatic using human sacrifices for his own growth.
‘Trash not even fit to be called a Hunter, lording over a top guild!’
The realization hit like bile rising in his throat.
Clutching his head in torment, he slowly raised it.
“No way we can head back to Korea right now, huh?”
“No. We haven’t finished the subjugation request yet.”
“Damn it all.”
Part of him wanted to storm Tyrant Guild and demand answers immediately.
But Titan’s forces lagged behind theirs.
And right now, Seo Sang-ho himself was abroad on a commission, beyond the border.
Aborting midway would mean massive penalties.
For the guild’s finances and credibility, it was absolutely off-limits.
As guild master, he couldn’t act so irresponsibly.
But sitting on his hands went against his very nature.
“From this moment on, Tyrant and us—we’re enemies.”
“Pardon?”
The secretary jumped at the abrupt declaration.
Declaring enmity meant trampling the unspoken territorial boundaries they’d all respected.
It meant no more deals or exchanges of any kind.
“That’ll rack up insane losses.”
“It’s fine. We’ll just ally with someone else.”
“You don’t mean…”
Her voice trembled as she guessed his intent, and Seo Sang-ho nodded.
“That’s right. Propose an alliance to Altron Guild immediately.”
It was the most shocking thing the secretary had ever heard from him.
For a heavyweight like Titan to declare war on Tyrant and side with Altron.
It was tantamount to shattering the fragile balance that had held until now.
The country might soon be swept by a storm of bloodshed.
“You’re serious?”
“When have you seen me spout nonsense?”
The secretary barely swallowed the instinctive ‘all the time’ on the tip of her tongue.
Sure, his grinning wanderings were full of idle chatter, but not when his face was this grave.
“Of course, I’m not saying announce it right away.”
“Then?”
“Send investigators to the location I specified. If they find anything suspicious, that’s when we go public.”
Seo Sang-ho took his phone back and pulled up a map app to search an address.
The spot he marked was a quiet outskirts on the map—utterly unremarkable.
The secretary couldn’t grasp his thinking but didn’t argue.
She saw a secretary’s duty as carrying out whatever the guild master ordered.
“How many investigators?”
In response, Seo Sang-ho held up three fingers.
“Three?”
“No, thirty. Fill at least half with A-rank Hunters.”
The secretary mentally shredded her notions of secretarial duty on the spot.
“Then why not just declare war outright?”
“We’re not gearing up for war. Why?”
“You’re sending thirty people into their turf—including fifteen A-rank Hunters—and claim it’s not an act of war?”
“If they’re really farming Alraune there, we’ll need that many.”
“What even is that thing?”
“Better off not knowing. Don’t dig.”
Even Seo Sang-ho—who’d probably keep yapping while drowning—shut it down so firmly that the secretary dropped the subject.
With a quiet sigh, she tapped at her tablet PC.
“Thirty total, minimum half A-rank Hunters. Correct?”
She phrased it as confirmation, secretly hoping he’d backpedal.
But he never took back an order once given.
“That’s right. Stay completely undetected and secure evidence within a week.”
“The demands keep escalating.”
“No choice. The opponent’s Tyrant.”
“You know how dangerous they are, and you’re still issuing these orders?”
“Because if not me, no one else will.”
Other guilds either lacked the guts to face Tyrant or the power to back it up.
Among the major guilds that could even match Tyrant, only Seo Sang-ho had the boldness to move like this.
‘Kang Jin-hyuk must’ve known that when he reached out to me.’
All Kang Jin-hyuk had asked was for verification of the facts after spilling everything.
But Seo Sang-ho had no intention of stopping at mere confirmation if Tyrant was truly farming Alraune.
They’d crossed a line that could not be uncrossed—they needed to be punished.
“I need to wrap up this commission as fast as humanly possible.”