Chapter 118: Camila Agatha
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 118: Camila Agatha
Pain shot up from her thigh, and Yu U-jeong swallowed a scream as she slammed into the building's outer wall and collapsed to the ground.
Her trembling leg refused to move properly, as if the bone and muscle within had been completely shredded.
That last attack.
If she had reacted a moment later, it would have pierced her heart.
And she knew exactly who used that method of attack.
An S-rank hunter from South America, known as Beam Sniper.
Two S-rank hunters? Unbelievable.
There weren't even a thousand of them in the entire world, so why were so many gathered here? She grit her teeth, forcing down the pain radiating from her leg.
Just as she tried to flee on her one good leg, people appeared in front of and behind her.
“Camila Agatha. A fitting state for a gutter whore.”
In front of her stood Baeksa, an old man with white hair, wearing a white martial arts uniform embroidered with a snake.
Behind him were his four A-rank hunter disciples.
Staring at the five people completely blocking her escape route, Yu U-jeong felt a cold sweat trickle down her back.
“…Baeksa, do you have some kind of grudge against me? I thought we were on decent terms.”
“唔好讲. (Don't talk nonsense.) I've never been friendly with a whore.”
“Still a fucking asshole, I see. No wonder women don't like you, acting like such a prick.”
Yu U-jeong said with a sneering smile.
“And ‘whore’? What would you people, raised in cities with actual law and order, know about anything?”
Yu U-jeong's mind drifted to the past.
The constant casualties from dimensional gates.
Hunters who cared more about seizing power than fighting dimensional entities.
A world where public authority had long since crumbled, where even the police could be bought.
To survive against hunters and monsters, ordinary people took up guns and formed gangs.
Cartels emerged to sell those guns. It was a living hell.
An ordinary-looking woman would be targeted, raped, and killed, or sold off.
And they expected me to survive in that world with this face? Back when I hadn't even awakened as a hunter?
Even my home life was a nightmare. My drug-addict father was always swinging a bottle around, and I lived day-to-day on the money my prostitute mother earned selling her body.
On top of that, my family was drowning in debt, and it wasn't just once or twice that gang members kicked down our door.
With no peace at home or outside, I had to rely on my face and my grit. In that hellish life, I seduced men, made them mine, and climbed my way up, one step at a time.
‘My looks were a double-edged sword. They would either get me killed or keep me alive—it was always one or the other.’
A fierce light burned in Yu U-jeong's eyes.
After awakening as a hunter, I clawed my way here, earning the name 'Gutter Empress.' That's why I never trusted anyone but myself.
I embraced my situation and used everything I had.
My looks, my abilities, my personality, groups, people—I used whatever I could to survive.
So people like them, who've never had to worry about tomorrow, have no right to mock me.
I am Camila Agatha.
The empress who crawled her way out of a living hell.
“Come on. I'll show you just how terrifying the 'whore' you look down on can be.”
The Gutter Empress flashed a viciously deep smile.
Even as she smiled, Yu U-jeong's eyes darted around.
She knew the situation was bad, but she had no intention of dying here.
Like hell I'll die in a place like this.
“There is a flow to things. With your death today, the hunter world will change. Accept it.”
Hearing that, Yu U-jeong scoffed.
The idea that Ha-chan was connected to the Korean hunter scene was based on circumstantial evidence, not certainty.
The reason Alterz sent me to Ha-chan was to confirm if it was true.
Alterz wasn't entirely foolish.
But these Reformists in front of me were.
They'd taken the circumstantial rumors circulating within Alterz as fact and stormed into Korea without even trying to verify them.
They couldn't seize the initiative, so they used the dream of 'reform' as an excuse to act rashly, without thinking about the long-term consequences.
‘That's why they're stupid enough to pull a stunt like this without thinking it through.’
The Ha-chan she'd seen for herself was a far more difficult person than they imagined.
What if they brought him her head?
Based on the personality she'd observed over the past few days, they would be the ones to be ruined.
‘They must have thought they needed to make a preemptive strike before Alterz began to seriously check the provisional SS-rank hunter, Kang Ha-chan.’
In the end, she was about to die for nothing because of their impatience.
“So, become a sacrifice for our great cause.”
The moment he finished, Baeksa cupped his fist in a salute, kicked off the ground, and shot toward her.
The instant she saw him move, Yu U-jeong clasped her hands together and slammed them down.
CRASH!
The brick ground shattered, and the water pipe beneath burst, sending a geyser of water shooting into the air.
The water coiled around her body like a whip, as if under her command.
Yu U-jeong immediately fired streams of water at Baeksa and his disciples.
Baeksa skillfully parried her attack by drawing a circle with his hand, but the water cannons, packed with S-rank power, were too much for his disciples to block head-on.
“Kuhak!?”
“Ugh!”
While they were reeling from the blast, Yu U-jeong made her move.
She rode the water upward, grabbed one of the A-rank hunter's heads, and slammed it into the ground.
Then, she whipped her tail, smashing another one into a wall.
Having taken down two A-rank hunters in an instant, she ignored the rest and charged forward again.
Just then, she saw that the alleyway behind her was filled with hunters, all pointing their guns at her.
They were all guns made from Dimensional Entity materials.
And of course, guns made from such materials were lethal even to hunters.
They were none other than Beam Sniper's mercenaries.
“Damn it.”
Realizing that Baeksa wasn't the only one who had brought backup, she hastily formed a shield of water just as a hail of bullets rained down.
There must have been quite a few high-output hunters among them, as some bullets pierced her water shield and lodged in her body.
But even under the baptism of bullets, she tried to push forward.
But just as she thought she saw a flash of light through her water shield, a single bullet tore through her side.
“Kyaaah!”
She collapsed with a scream, desperately using her muscles to staunch the blood gushing from her side.
In the distance, a man with a scarf wrapped around his neck and a rifle slung over his shoulder was walking toward her.
Looking like someone out of a Western, he took the cigarillo from his mouth and smiled.
It was the other S-rank hunter, Beam Sniper.
“This is my first time hunting a whale.”
“You sons of bitches!”
Yu U-jeong cursed and was about to fire a jet of water when her tail was yanked.
Even though she should have been stronger, she couldn't even resist as her body was lifted into the air.
Baeksa, who had grabbed her tail, was already preparing to strike.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
A barrage of blows from Baeksa followed.
Her entire body was beaten to a pulp in an instant, and Yu U-jeong felt her consciousness start to fade.
But even then, she managed to smash one of his disciples who was rushing to help him with her tail.
However, in that brief opening, a bullet from Beam Sniper blew away her left shoulder.
“Hahh, huhh.”
Blood dripping to the ground, Yu U-jeong faintly opened her eyes.
Baeksa was already right in front of her.
Down but not out.
Determined to take him with her, Yu U-jeong threw her arm out toward him with all her strength.
But Baeksa skillfully dodged even that and aimed both his hands right at Yu U-jeong's abdomen.
Seeing this, Yu U-jeong's eyes widened.
Fajin (發勁).
His ability was optimized for delivering internal shock. Combined with his Hong Kong martial arts, its destructive power was enough to pierce steel.
THOOOM!
Yu U-jeong was sent flying.
Despite her tough beastkin body, the shockwave tore through her muscles, and she coughed up blood.
Her insides were instantly turned to mush. It felt like several of the bones protecting her organs had been shattered.
“Keoheuk, keuk.”
She crashed through a wall and rolled across the ground, unable to even wipe away the flowing blood as she let out a pained groan.
Before her stood Baeksa, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.
“Puta que pariote! (Son of a bitch!)”
She spat the Brazilian curse, trying to force herself up, but her body kept collapsing.
As she screamed and tried to raise a pillar of water, Baeksa's foot kicked her in the jaw.
Blood sprayed into the air once more.
As she lay sprawled on the ground, Baeksa mercilessly stomped on her head.
At the same time, the energy for another Fajin began to gather in his palm.
The sun beating down from above cast a shadow over Baeksa's face. He looked like the god of death.
“慢慢行. (Farewell.)”
The realization that her life, a life spent struggling just to survive, was about to end here filled her eyes with a deep sense of emptiness.
For a moment, the world seemed to slow down.
She could see Baeksa's hand slowly descending toward her.
I'm going to die.
The reality of it hit her.
For some reason, she remembered a little girl watching a movie on an old TV.
The movie on the TV she'd stared at blankly while her drug-addict father strangled her prostitute mother to death.
The movie playing then was, funnily enough, a B-grade American superhero film.
Remembering that, she faintly understood.
She had been hoping for someone, a hero, to appear and save her from the gutter.
That's what her younger self had wished for.
‘What kind of thought is this at the end...’
...after I clawed my way up, telling myself I didn't need a hero and would do it all myself.
Yu U-jeong closed her eyes.
Crackle!
And in that moment, the faint sound of a tiny spark echoed from the distance.
By the time she noticed it, a red flash erupted.
KRA-KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOM!
A high-output blast of red energy swept through the sky above the alley.
No one was hit directly by the red lightning, but the shockwave alone sent all the hunters below tumbling to the ground.
“What?”
The sheer power, on a completely different level, made even Beam Sniper drop his cigarillo, his eyes widening.
Baeksa, too, was caught off guard by the unexpected shock and failed to deliver the finishing blow, instead glaring in the direction of the attack.
Step—
The sound of someone walking echoed quietly through the alley.
A man, crackling with red sparks, was walking toward them.
A shadow cast by the building's wall conveniently obscured his face.
“是敌人! (It's an enemy!)”
As everyone held their breath at the extraordinary aura emanating from him, Baeksa shouted.
By the time Beam Sniper aimed his rifle, the man had vanished.
When he finally realized it, it was because the man, now erupting with lightning, was already holding his gun.
“Huh…?”
CRACK! KRA-KA-KA-KA!
In that instant, his rifle exploded into pieces.
The gun, made from an S-rank Dimensional Entity he had hunted long ago, had been destroyed in a single touch.
Beam Sniper's eyes shot wide open.
Losing his weapon caused his thoughts to freeze for a brief, but critical, moment.
And he realized that was his fatal mistake.
He immediately reached for the dagger at his waist, but in front of an enemy, a momentary lapse in thought was far too long.
As if to prove him right, the man's fist was already buried in his stomach.
THWACK!
Beam Sniper dropped his dagger and was sent flying, crashing through a wall and disappearing from sight.
Watching this, the man let out a light breath and, as the red sparks around him slowly faded, turned to look at Baeksa.
Seeing him take down the S-rank hunter Beam Sniper in a single moment, Baeksa's eyes widened.
The extraordinary aura flowing from him made even the battle-hardened veteran Baeksa tense up.
“…Kang Ha-chan? I'm sure we made our intentions clear to your side. What is the meaning of this?”
Finally recognizing his face, Baeksa's white eyebrows furrowed.
He couldn't understand why the man rumored to be the Korean hunters' hidden SS-rank hunter was attacking them now.
After all, their colleague, Caprina Orliz, should have already informed him that Yu U-jeong was a spy.
Hearing his question, Ha-chan stomped on a gun dropped by one of Beam Sniper's mercenaries.
CRUNCH!
As the gun shattered, a clear light shone in Ha-chan's eyes.
“What are you talking about? Who said I agreed to that?”
Making up your own minds and pulling this shit.