Honest Conversations
Over a hundred masked hunters lay dead or subdued.
Only eleven could still draw breath on their own. The rest sprawled amicably across the sandy beach, blood welling and spilling from their bodies.
"You can't just capture these types and let your guard down, Great Lord."
Zaug's hand plunged straight into the mouth of one of the restrained masked hunters.
"……!"
The hunter's eyes flew wide in shock as he thrashed. Against those brutal hands, though, it did him no good at all.
Crack!
A living tooth came free.
"Keheheh. Take a look, Great Lord."
"I don't particularly want to see your gruesome tastes."
Ugh. Look at that blood dripping. Pulling it clean in one go—this wasn't a man who'd only extracted a tooth once or twice.
"Barbaric."
"Thief. Gruesome."
"This here's a tooth packed with poison, sir!"
"Poison?"
"The kind where if things go south, you bite down hard and croak—that sort of drug, sir!"
Whoa. I thought that only showed up in martial arts novels.
"The smell gives it all away, sir. Fooling this archaeologist Zaug would take a hundred years at least."
I had no idea when the definition of archaeology had changed.
After that, with the help of our extraction specialist(?), every last poison tooth was pulled.
"……"
Eyes gleaming with pain and fury. Who told them to go around packing poison teeth in the first place? Thinking about it only made me angrier. They'd attacked first—what right did they have to look so wronged?
"Ease up those eyes, sir."
Smack!
One masked hunter's head slumped heavily forward.
"……!"
"Well done, you thief."
"Instill some manners into those bastards."
The two summons, rarely of one mind, cheered Zaug on.
"My lord. There are no further threats upon the island."
"Good work, Sir Isra."
I powered on my phone. Dead signal. The relay device we'd brought from Mir Guild had long since become scrap. I scanned the surroundings, but every means of contacting the outside world had been smashed to pieces. They'd thoroughly sealed off every possible variable.
"This has grown troublesome."
"We'll need to find a way back."
"Ah. That should be fine."
If the raid dragged on, Mir Guild would dispatch a follow-up team or take some other measure. Even without that, I'd told Manager Baek my destination, so a reaction would come one way or another. We could wait at our leisure.
"Then may I have an honest conversation with these friends, sir?"
"What conversation do you plan with kids who won't make a sound?"
"Hoho. I'll take care of that."
Sealing their voices was a type of restriction, she explained—a measure to stop information from leaking.
"You haven't learned any curse-breaking magic, have you?"
"Restrictions like these come undone surprisingly easily if you simply collapse the axis that forms them."
Ingrid rested a finger on the philtrum of a masked hunter sprawled with shattered limbs.
Spat!
A thin strand of mana stretched from her fingertip like thread and reached for the hunter's tongue.
Spirit Eye
Origin of Magic
I could see it. Mana interfering with the restriction woven into his tongue. The orderly structure unraveled, then crackled and collapsed.
"Ugh!"
The hunter who had not made a single sound until now screamed.
"How about that? Pretty easy, right?"
"Doesn't look easy at all."
"Master, you try it too! Once you get the knack, it's not hard."
Unable to refuse Ingrid's urging, I experimented on one of the captured hunters. Drawing mana lightly the way I would engrave a spirit circuit, I rubbed and prodded…
Pook!
"Oh my. He bit his tongue."
"Zaug!"
"This much won't kill him, so it's fine, sir."
Zaug clamped down hard on the retracting tongue. Wow. That had to hurt like hell. Blood gushed from the tongue, roughly a third of it severed. To keep the airway clear I had him hold it, then called Roan over.
"Force. Heal."
"……!"
An ability that inflicted pain in proportion to the healing. The masked hunter's eyes bulged; restrained as he was, he trembled violently.
"Well done."
"Huh?"
"If you'd moved the mana a little more slowly, you would have succeeded."
"Really?"
"Of course. Trust this maiden."
That only made me greedier for no good reason. Three more hunters bit their tongues, but—
Crackle! I succeeded in grasping the knack of interfering with restrictions.
"Oh. Amazing."
"It was only a basic-level restriction, so this much was possible."
"They sealed their mouths so they wouldn't give up information. Why do it so sloppily?"
The answer came from Sir Isra.
"They were confident of victory."
"Then there was no need to seal their mouths at all."
Just like when Chinese hunters had infiltrated a gate to target me.
"They prepared against the possibility of survivors."
That… made sense!
"Great Lord. Then I'll go have an honest conversation behind the rocks, sir."
"Will they talk willingly?"
"If you leave it to me, I'll make them confess even the number of rice grains back home, sir."
I nodded at his confident air. He must have a reliable method to act like that. An honest conversation, huh. Zaug couldn't use magic or anything of the sort. I was curious how he planned to interrogate them.
"May I borrow the Saint as well, sir?"
"Roan. Is that all right?"
Roan nodded. You two work hard.
"I'll move all these guys, sir."
Soon the broken-limbed masked hunters were hauled to the rear like so much luggage.
"Kyaaaaaaah!!"
A scream that sounded as if it were wringing out vocal cords tore through the air.
Ah. So "honest conversation" meant torture.
"Hmm. The thief possesses some useful skills."
"Looks like his technique is quite something."
Don't admire that kind of thing. Maybe it was because I was a modern man living in the twenty-first century, but the thought of torturing people didn't sit well with me.
No. Don't think like that. Those bastards had come to take my head. Mercy and compassion were luxuries.
"I'll go bring Yeondu."
"They may have prepared tricks inside as well."
"Then I'll go hidden."
Built-in Skill of the Stealthy Darkness Armor — Stealthy Footsteps
Cloaking my presence, I entered the gate. The Mir Guild hunters were clustered in small groups, trembling. The only one still composed was Yeondu. When I stepped up beside her and took her shoulder—
"Kyaaaaak!"
Whoosh!
A blade flashed toward my neck along with the scream. What was with that reaction speed? I transformed the Chaos Stone into a sword and blocked. Spec difference made it far easier than dealing with the masked hunters.
"Ah, Uncle?"
"How can you slash the moment you see me?"
"I was surprised! Why!"
Get surprised twice and I'll bury someone.
"If Uncle goes down, we're next. How am I supposed to not be tense?"
"Yeah. Good job."
"How's the outside?"
"Cleaning up."
"No injuries, I see."
"My heart was wounded by that attack just now."
"Bullshit."
You keep using language like that and I'll tell the madam.
"Gather the guild members and come out."
"Uncle. You're really okay, right?"
"I'm fine, see."
Kid. Worrying about me—while she herself was trembling from tension.
"Oh, right. You can't come out."
"Why?"
"There's blood everywhere."
I couldn't show a minor an R-rated scene.
"Hey!"
A fist drove toward my side. Heh. I read it with Heavenly Martial Body and lightly dodged.
"Aargh! Why dodge!"
"If I stay still it'll hurt—why would I take it?"
"I'm really—!"
Watching Yeondu hop around in frustration eased my heart a little.
Half a day had passed since Minho followed Yeondu onto the uninhabited island.
The first to sense something amiss was Baek Seonghyeon.
It's more than enough time for the raid to have finished.
A raid run by Mir Guild's new hunters among themselves. He had already investigated the records of every hunter in the attack force. As expected of a guild competing for the top among Korea's five strongest—each one's specs and skill were first-rate. They could even match C-class hunters. Real combat might differ a little, but their talent was outstanding either way. Especially Yeondu, the prospect of the group; under Minho's training her ability was literally exploding.
A raid that should have ended within five hours at most.
Even if they hit a snag and it dragged on, they would have come outside to rest. They had taken a portable relay, so phones should work normally outside the gate.
Hunter Park still isn't answering his calls.
It could simply be that he hadn't looked at his phone, or that the timing was off. But why did this ominous feeling keep rising?
"I need to check."
He placed an inquiry call to Mir Guild.
"The raid? They're proceeding on their own, I suppose."
"No news has come in?"
"We grant the attack force discretion, don't we. Why are you like this when you already know that?"
These guys. There was something. Buried in the annoyed replies was a subtle thread of puzzlement and fluster. As a non-awakened who had climbed all the way to the executive ranks, Baek Seonghyeon's instincts did not miss it.
"Let me say one thing."
Baek Seonghyeon steadied his breath, then continued.
"If anything happens to our hunter, I will not sit still."
"Yes?"
"I don't know what scheme you've pulled, but I will definitely pay it back. Look forward to it."
"Director Baek. No—CEO?"
"Tell Yong Cheonwoo or don't. As you please."
Click.
After ending the call, Baek Seonghyeon huffed for a good ten seconds. These sons of bitches. Pull a scheme, then pretend ignorance while trying to feed me shit on top of it? He immediately dialed another number.
"Hello."
"I didn't expect you to contact me first."
"You're busy with both public and private affairs, Director."
"We're both busy, so I'd like to hear the main point."
Director Jeong Seungil. Back when Baek had been a Chilseong director, he had snagged talents the Rift Bureau had their eyes on more than once, leaving the relationship awkward. But now was not the time to be choosy about methods.
There's the fixer as well, but borrowing the Rift Bureau's power will be faster than contacting that side.
He laid out everything—Minho visiting the Mir Guild raid site as an observer, and that the location was an uninhabited island.
"The West Sea, you said?"
"Yes. I'll send the coordinates by text."
"I'll scramble a helicopter. Please come up to the office rooftop."
"?"
Baek Seonghyeon's words stuck in his throat. They were sending a helicopter this way?
"I'll go personally. CEO Baek, please accompany me as well."
Going further still—the Executioner himself would step in. He had expected the Rift Bureau to move actively. Even so, this was a bit much. Baek Seonghyeon uncharacteristically stammered.
"Th-the Counter-Abnormal Bureau doesn't need to step in for this, does it?"
"It's fine."
The Rift Bureau was essentially a body of public officials. In an organization where justification and procedure mattered above all, they were simply cutting through every layer of red tape?
It's not something I have to handle, so maybe it's fine.
Baek Seonghyeon gave up thinking any further. Ah. What did it matter? They were going to rescue their hunter who had lost contact—he should be grateful and bow.
"I'll prepare right away."
"Yes. See you in ten minutes."
Jeong Seungil's voice carried a thick, chilling edge.