Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: The Phantom Guard
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Kang Jin-hyuk moved by pressing himself flat against the wall like a leech.
He gripped his baseball bat tightly in his right hand, preparing for the chance he might run into one of Tyrant Guild's patrolling members.
The moment they crossed paths, one solid hit to the back of the head.
He planned to take them out in a single blow to avoid detection.
"They're the kind of scum who traffic in human lives anyway. No need to go easy on them."
The first time is always the hardest, no matter what.
Kang Jin-hyuk steadied his wavering resolve, determined to cut down his opponent without hesitation if things went south.
"Alright."
Confident he wouldn't hesitate now, Kang Jin-hyuk took a deep breath and bolted straight for the entrance.
The instant he spotted a hunter right in front of him, he swung the bat with all his might.
Whoosh!
At the sight of the bat slicing emptily through the air, Kang Jin-hyuk couldn't hide his bewilderment.
It had been a precise strike aimed right at the opponent's head, with the distance perfectly measured.
Yet the bat passed straight through the target, as if swinging at a ghost.
Kang Jin-hyuk tensed up, assuming Tyrant Guild's member had used some special skill.
'This is bad.'
He'd squandered his hard-earned element of surprise, so the Tyrant Guild member would sound the alarm any second now.
That would mean mission failed.
Han Young-seok and Titan's hunters would abandon Kang Jin-hyuk on the spot, leaving him as good as dead.
Kang Jin-hyuk racked his brain for a way out of this crisis.
"If I can't hit him once, I'll just keep swinging until I do!"
Kang Jin-hyuk swung the bat repeatedly, but not a single blow landed on the opponent.
All he heard was the crisp whoosh of empty swings.
At least no one was around to witness his flailing embarrassment.
"What the hell is this?"
Before he could rack up ten more misses, Kang Jin-hyuk noticed something off.
No matter how ineffective his attacks were, the opponent wasn't countering at all.
No, he wasn't even looking in Kang Jin-hyuk's direction.
He was just staring straight ahead like a mannequin.
"I'm not a ghost or anything..."
When he reached out, his hand passed right through the opponent's body, like touching a hologram.
Just to check, he touched the wall, and it felt solid.
If there was nothing wrong with his own body, there was only one explanation.
Kang Jin-hyuk focused intently on the opponent and frowned.
"Damn it, it's a fake made with an illusion skill."
Since it was an illusion construct, no karma value was visible.
Unlike the triple barriers sealing off the building's perimeter, the entrance was guarded by nothing more than this single illusion.
Touching it didn't trigger any alarm, and no reinforcements came.
It was just a convincingly dressed-up decoy.
"What kind of security is this? It's not like they're the damn army."
He wondered if they might be monitoring via CCTV or something, even if the guard was an illusion.
Kang Jin-hyuk carefully scanned his surroundings.
"Nothing visible for now."
He couldn't rule out hidden cameras.
Kang Jin-hyuk pulled one of the miscellaneous items he'd grabbed from home out of his inventory.
The item in his hand was a small EMP device made from an electric-attribute monster's materials.
Using it would turn all electronic equipment within 10 meters into scrap metal.
The downside was that it didn't spare his own devices either.
It sucked to lose his smartphone on installments, but he couldn't worry about that now.
Kang Jin-hyuk placed the item on the ground, and it began emitting a blue glow like a lantern, spreading waves around it.
"Did it work properly?"
Kang Jin-hyuk pulled out his smartphone from his pocket and tried turning it on.
No response no matter how many times he pressed the button meant the EMP had succeeded.
"What the fuck? Why'd my phone suddenly die?!"
Kang Jin-hyuk jolted at the shout from inside the building.
He dropped flat to the ground against the wall, out of sight, just as a hunter emerged from the door.
"Standing watch in this backwater shithole is annoying enough, and now my damn phone craps out."
The hunter's shoulder bore Tyrant Guild's dinosaur silhouette emblem, embroidered in gold thread.
For him, losing his phone to kill time with was a life crisis.
The Tyrant Guild member wandered around, trying desperately to revive his dead phone.
He raised the hand holding it above his head, apparently thinking it was a signal issue.
'No one else visible inside... Is this guy the only one?'
Kang Jin-hyuk thought it couldn't be.
This was the site of an inhumane operation producing Alraune's Phantom Pills.
No matter how much they trusted their barriers, leaving just one person here made no sense.
"Goddamn it. The others are slacking off inside while I'm stuck out here doing what?"
Kang Jin-hyuk perked up his ears at the Tyrant hunter's grumbling.
Oblivious to anyone eavesdropping nearby, he vented his frustrations.
"No one's breaking through the barriers anyway. Just set up a few illusions and call it a day. Why the hell do I have to stand guard?"
From his words, Kang Jin-hyuk learned there was only one real person guarding the entrance.
No need to stick around here then.
While the Tyrant Guild member was looking away, Kang Jin-hyuk swiftly closed in.
The baseball bat reached his head before he could turn at the sound of footsteps.
A short, dull thud echoed, and the Tyrant Guild member crumpled to the ground.
He didn't so much as twitch—out cold from one hit.
"This should keep him down for the trip."
He might never wake up, but Kang Jin-hyuk decided not to dwell on it.
No need to wish blessings on a villain with a karma value in the 800s.
Kang Jin-hyuk slipped through the open door into the building.
The spacious interior, large enough for a thousand people, resembled a prison straight out of a movie.
Looking up, rows of sagging cells lined the upper levels.
From them came agonized groans like those of terminal patients.
In stark contrast, the first floor leaked with chatter and laughter.
Kang Jin-hyuk was certain the remaining hunters were in the lit room before him.
"Recon's gone far enough, I think..."
He'd mapped the interior layout and pinpointed the hunters' locations.
Turning back now would be more than enough—no one could fault him.
But Kang Jin-hyuk had no desire to retreat.
Han Young-seok wouldn't give him any spoils worthy of the risk anyway.
Hell, he'd be lucky if Han Young-seok didn't just rat him out to Tyrant without any reward.
"No matter how I slice it, I have to secure my own cut."
Kang Jin-hyuk headed up the stairs first.
Any hunters he encountered en route were all illusions with no visible karma values.
Kang Jin-hyuk circled around, noting the number and positions of the imprisoned.
Seven survivors so far.
All young women in their twenties.
Whether from lack of proper food or not, they lay listlessly on filthy beds, devoid of any vitality.
They didn't even turn their heads as he approached closely—their strength was that sapped.
"Guess this is fine since they're just fertilizer anyway."
A sigh escaped him; it felt like an excuse for not even bothering with the dying.
Did these people feel no guilt treating fellow humans this way?
With that uneasy feeling, Kang Jin-hyuk continued up and paused before one cell.
Unlike the others, the prisoner here was a man.
His tattered clothes and bloodied body marked him as a victim of beatings.
Chained up, he slowly lifted his head at the presence.
Meeting Kang Jin-hyuk's gaze, he showed confusion.
"You're... a new face... I think..."
Assuming Kang Jin-hyuk was a rookie, the man let out a deep sigh.
"Get out... before it's too late... Everyone here... is out of their minds..."
Kang Jin-hyuk observed the man with keen interest.
Hard to recognize at first glance due to the tears in his clothes, but the emblem on his shoulder was Tyrant's.
"Why's a Tyrant Guild hunter locked up in here?"
"..."
The man silently bowed his head, seeing no need to explain.
Kang Jin-hyuk drew closer to the bars and told him.
"I'm not with the guild. I came after hearing they're making something here."
The man's eyes widened at his words.
His gaze now burned with life, unlike the empty look before.
Like grasping a lifeline, he urgently spoke.
"Is that... true...?"
"Yeah. Why would I come all this way just to lie?"
At Kang Jin-hyuk's reply, the man bit his lip and shed tears.
Kang Jin-hyuk waited patiently until the man's surging emotions subsided.
Finally stopping his sobs, the man began his tale with wide eyes.
* * *
"It's been quite a while, and there's still no sign of him returning."
Han Young-seok checked his wristwatch and clicked his tongue.
If an alarm went off, they'd cut losses and bail.
It didn't seem like he'd been caught, so all they could do was wait.
Baek Jin-woong picked up on Han Young-seok's frustration and chimed in.
"Why not just ignore him and proceed?"
"Without even getting recon results?"
"We have enough from what we've gathered already. Use that punk Kang Jin-hyuk as bait and hit their rear."
"Hmm."
Baek Jin-woong's proposal was highly appealing to Han Young-seok.
"Alright, it's getting late anyway. Let's do that..."
Just as Han Young-seok pretended reluctance but moved to proceed.
An arrow struck his wristwatch.
Before he could react, the arrow pierced only the watch precisely, shattering it without a scratch on his wrist.
"What the hell kind of bastard?!"
Baek Jin-woong shouted in Han Young-seok's stead, now pale as a ghost, and another arrow landed at his feet in response.
Turning toward the arrow's origin, Baek Jin-woong finally spotted Lucia perched in a tree.
Remembering she was Kang Jin-hyuk's ally, he ground his teeth.
"Is this your way of saying you want to fight us?"
"No, it's a warning not to get any funny ideas."
As Lucia finished speaking, she loosed another arrow.
It shattered the glasses of a guild member secretly casting a skill.
With his glasses flying off right in front of him, the guild member freaked out, stumbling back and falling on his ass.
"You damn bitch...!"
As Baek Jin-woong moved to intervene, Han Young-seok stepped in to stop him.
"Stand down. Fighting among ourselves would be idiotic."
"But that bitch attacked us!"
"She's stepping in because we're ditching Kang Jin-hyuk. Not because she wants a fight with us."
Hearing Han Young-seok, Baek Jin-woong fumed alone to cool off.
Lucia watched the scene and remarked in surprise.
"Huh? Not charging in? I figured you'd come at me without a second thought."
"Haha. We were in the wrong first—how could we?"
Baek Jin-woong wasn't the only one simmering inwardly.
Han Young-seok wanted to order his guild to kill her too.
But he'd held back after witnessing her archery.
All three arrows had hit their marks without injuring anyone.
And not a single one of the thirty-odd guild members had reacted to them.
'She's showing she could pick us off anytime she wanted.'
Han Young-seok wondered where Kang Jin-hyuk had found such a monster.
He'd never heard of a hunter with archery skills like that.
'Damn it...'
All the guild members could overwhelm her, sure—but his heart would end up skewered first.
With his life on the line, Han Young-seok had no choice but to endure.