Chapter 443: Lustful Search (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 443: Lustful Search (6)
My emotions were boiling.
As if in response, the mana around me began to churn.
[The Domain of the Ruler has been activated.]
My mana acted faster than any word or movement.
Fwoosh!
A small pebble lying on the ground shot forward.
Crash!
“Kyaaah!”
A sharp scream followed the sound of shattering glass.
I used my mana to levitate, passing through the window the pebble had just broken.
Crack! Crackle!
The sharp, thorn-like shards of glass were pulverized by my surging mana and vanished.
I was now inside the mother and daughter's home.
“Mmph… Hh… Mmmph!”
The first thing I saw was the mother, bound tightly with blue tape and screaming in despair, and the daughter, clutching a bleeding shoulder and glaring at me with an utterly venomous expression.
No… something wearing the daughter's skin.
“Hoo.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
Even from outside, I had sensed what was happening, but seeing it with my own eyes brought a greater sense of fatigue. I needed a moment to rein in the storm of emotions.
After taking one deep breath, I opened my eyes and approached Lee Yeon-suk, who was still bound by the tape.
“Mmph… Mmph!”
She was desperately trying to tell me something.
I placed my hand over her eyelids.
“I'm sorry, ma'am. Please rest for a moment.”
「Sleep.」
After forcing her to sleep with magic, I tore off all the tape binding her and gently laid her down in a comfortable spot farther away.
“……”
Every time something like this happened, I fell into the same pit of regret.
Was the order of my actions, the method I chose, wrong, even though it seemed like the best option at the time?
Was there a better way that I simply overlooked?
If only I had realized that thing was a fake sooner, things wouldn't have escalated this far.
Of course, even if I could go back in time, it would have been incredibly difficult to see through a transformation so perfect it could even pass a police identity check… but the regret still lingered.
And that regret piled up, transforming into another emotion.
None other than fury.
“I really hate things like you.”
Dealing with creatures like this always makes me feel like I'm being tested.
“Things that are just dying to see the limits of my patience… and just how cruel I can become.”
The moment I finished speaking, I closed the distance and seized the slender neck of the thing wearing Jo Yeon-hee's mask.
“Keuk…!”
Choking, it began to beat against the arm gripping its throat.
I tightened my grip, a silent command to stay still, and spoke casually.
“Isn't it about time you returned to your original form?”
In response, it forced its pain-twisted lips into a smirk and rasped.
“I… don't want to…? Keuk… Dying like this… wouldn't be so bad…!”
“Oh, is that so.”
A blatant lie. Those weren't the words of someone truly prepared for death.
It was acting this way because it knew I couldn't kill it right now.
“Then I'll just have to force you to change back.”
I didn't know the method behind its flawless transformation, but its essence was clear.
‘A Trait.’
Using a Trait inevitably consumes mana.
‘If I drain its mana completely, something is bound to change.’
With my thoughts organized, I roused the slumbering Gluttony within me.
As if it had been waiting, the entity revealed itself, dyeing my mana black.
I moved its whining, hungry maw to the hand gripping the creature's neck.
“Here. Eat your fill.”
The moment permission was granted, mana began to build up in my palm.
Belatedly sensing something was wrong, the creature began to struggle.
“W-what… Why is my mana…?!”
I assessed it coolly.
“The quality is garbage, but the quantity isn't half bad.”
“You…!”
“Let's see if you can maintain your transformation after I suck you dry of mana.”
I drained the mana from the thrashing creature even faster.
Before long, its reserves were empty.
It was then.
“Hah, hah…!”
As it began to gasp for breath, its back split open.
Crrrack!
“……?”
And from within, a completely naked woman began to struggle out.
It was like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis after finishing its metamorphosis.
Finally free, the woman collapsed to the floor, panting heavily.
“What in the…”
What did I just see?
Another woman just came out of Jo Yeon-hee's body.
Then what was in my hand?
“…A corpse.”
Its face was shriveled, making it hard to recognize, but this was undoubtedly Jo Yeon-hee's corpse.
Seeing this, I understood.
“So it was literally wearing a corpse…”
A Trait I'd never seen or heard of. It was utterly repulsive and bizarre. But at the same time, it was fantastically strange.
Who could have ever imagined a Trait that allowed for a perfect transformation by wearing a corpse?
I carefully laid Jo Yeon-hee's body on the floor and turned to the woman who was still gasping for air.
“Hah, keuk…!”
Thud!
As I approached, she lost consciousness and collapsed.
“Mana exhaustion…”
It seemed she couldn't handle the overload from having her mana completely depleted.
“This might be for the best.”
I immediately took out my smartphone and made a call.
“Ji-an, sorry to bother you, but could you give me a hand?”
I briefly explained the situation and requested her assistance.
-I'll be there right away.
And not long after, the loud wail of an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance.
*
Lee Yeon-suk was taken to the hospital in the ambulance Kim Do-jin had called. After a brief examination, she was moved to a room, where she naturally awoke a short time later.
As consciousness returned, so did the memories.
“Y-Yeon-hee, my Yeon-hee…!”
The daughter she had embraced and cried with after six days apart hadn't been real.
Then where in the world was her daughter?
Just as she was about to get up and leave the room.
“Please, stay where you are.”
Kim Do-jin, who had been waiting, knowing she would wake up soon, stopped her.
“H-Hunter.”
“…I'm sorry, ma'am.”
His lips trembled. After hesitating several times, Kim Do-jin finally spoke, confessing the horrific truth.
“Your daughter… Jo Yeon-hee… has passed away.”
“W-what did you say…?”
Kim Do-jin didn't stop there. He explained everything he knew about what had happened to her in detail.
He had agonized over this decision.
It was the death of her only daughter, her only family.
The truth alone would be agonizingly painful, but he had concluded that she had to be told.
‘Because if it were me, I would have wanted to know.’
It would have been the same even if it were his own daughter who had died.
Even if it meant ripping open a fresh wound and letting the blood flow until he was covered in it.
He would have needed to know why.
“…This is everything I've found out so far.”
Even after Kim Do-jin finished speaking, she showed no reaction.
No, it would be more accurate to say she was in a state where she couldn't show one.
When an emotion surpasses a certain threshold, the reaction to it changes.
This was especially true for anger.
Anger that goes beyond its limit doesn't boil over; instead, it turns cold.
“…Hunter.”
Just like now.
“So… you're saying the most likely person who killed my daughter is an S-rank Hunter.”
“…Yes.”
“Then I suppose I can't even hold him accountable. Because I'm just a fool with nothing to my name… who's now lost the only treasure she ever had.”
“……”
He couldn't think of any words to comfort her as she blamed herself.
He wanted to say it wasn't true, but her words about not being able to hold Kim Tae-yang accountable were, in fact, the truth.
Making an S-rank Hunter a criminal was no easy task.
The reality was that even if they committed a crime in another country, there were plenty of nations willing to grant them asylum.
A misstep could lead to them seeking asylum elsewhere, which would mean a loss of power for their home country while only benefiting another.
“Tell me, Hunter. How can I appease the spirit of my daughter… of my Yeon-hee?”
Her voice was devoid of all life.
To this, Kim Do-jin replied, “There is one way.”
“…What is it?”
A flicker of life returned to her dead eyes.
He continued, “Wait.”
“Wait…?”
“Yes. I intend to see this case through to the end myself. I will uncover exactly who committed what crime, and I will make them pay the price for all of it.”
This wasn't just for the sake of a mother who had lost her daughter.
‘There's something more.’
He had just heard from the coroner who examined Jo Yeon-hee's body.
The definitive cause of death was that all the moisture in her body had been sucked out in an instant.
In other words, Kim Tae-yang hadn't beaten Jo Yeon-hee to death but had used some other means to kill her.
He used the phrase ‘some other means’ because not even the coroner knew how the moisture had been instantly drained from her body.
That's why he had to find out.
What method was used to drain all her moisture? And what was done with that stolen moisture… with her blood?
Having calmed his emotions, he continued speaking to Lee Yeon-suk.
“So please, just wait until then. I won't let them get away this time.”
When he finished, Lee Yeon-suk struggled to her feet and bowed her head to Kim Do-jin.
“Please… I'm begging you, Hunter. Please help me make the bastard who killed my daughter pay for his crime.”
“I promise.”
“Th-thank, thank… Ugh…!”
Lee Yeon-suk finally broke down, the tears she had been holding back bursting forth.
After she cried for a long time until she fell asleep from exhaustion, he carefully laid her back on the bed.
Kim Do-jin left the room, his expression heavier than ever.
Drrrk—
As he opened the door, Yoon Ji-an, who had been sitting on a chair in front of the room, approached him.
“…Have you finished explaining everything?”
“Yes, barely.” Kim Do-jin nodded with a bitter smile.
Explaining the whole story to a mother who had lost her daughter hadn't been easy for him, either.
He let out a short breath and asked Yoon Ji-an.
“What about the woman we captured earlier?”
“We helped her recover the bare minimum of mana and have confined her in an interrogation room at the Association.”
The woman who had emerged from Jo Yeon-hee's corpse was the only lead Kim Do-jin currently had.
He had to get the information he wanted from her, no matter what.
“Let's go now.”
By any means necessary.