Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Heavy Rain (1)
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[Typhoon Noru, currently moving north past Japan, is expected to reach the central region around 8 PM today. Preparations are needed for sudden heavy rainfall….]
*Click.*
[Recent news indicates that several assassination attempts against Isabella Colagrande, known as the Saintess of Rome, have been foiled….]
*Click.*
[The Association has officially announced the discharge of the 'Lightning Wolf' from the hospital, stating that he will be declining all visitations and interviews for the time being….]
*Clack.*
I stopped flipping through the news channels and turned off the ignition.
‘No mention of the Valhalla Guild.’
An incident involving the Black Lion, Lee Woo-hyeok, was significant enough to warrant a breaking news report, but there was no mention of him anywhere.
That meant the Valhalla Guild was keeping the news under wraps.
“…Guess I’ll go see for myself.”
I entered the Valhalla Guild’s building, a place I had visited once before.
As I took a moment to look around the luxurious interior, which felt like a five-star hotel, Park Chang-hyun appeared.
“You’re here.”
“How is Mr. Woo-hyeok’s condition?”
“……”
Park Chang-hyun’s expression hardened.
He let out a deep sigh and shook his head.
“Fortunately, his life isn’t in danger… but I can’t say his condition is good, not by a long shot.”
“What exactly happened?”
“He has regained consciousness, though. It was the Guild Leader’s order to contact you, Mr. Oh-jin.”
He was conscious.
The worst-case scenario had been avoided, but could that really be called fortunate in this situation?
“It would be best for you to speak with him directly for the details.”
“Alright.”
I followed Park Chang-hyun.
*Bee-bee-bee-beep.*
He led me to an area I hadn’t been to before and held a card up to a blank wall.
*Whirrrr.*
‘So there was a hidden space like this.’
Like a secret treasure room in an ancient dungeon, the wall slid silently to the side.
But inside, instead of glittering gold coins, was the sight of a fading life desperately clinging to its last threads.
It was a treatment room filled with expensive medical equipment.
And light was leaking out from more than just one room.
“…Was Mr. Woo-hyeok not the only one who was attacked?”
“Yes.”
Park Chang-hyun nodded with a stiff expression.
“Everyone in the Valhalla Guild who wasn’t on the operation at the time, except for me… was taken down by the Black Star Cult.”
“……”
I walked down the corridor with a bewildered expression.
The distinct smell of hospital medication, one I had become nauseatingly familiar with over the past ten days, wafted from over a dozen treatment rooms spaced at regular intervals.
“Any fatalities…?”
“None. Not yet, at least.”
Park Chang-hyun lowered his head, his face a mask of misery.
His shoulders, which had seemed so reliable when facing down monsters, now slumped wretchedly.
‘The entire Valhalla Guild was defeated?’
They were a guild that had broken into Korea’s top ten, even if only at the bottom rank.
And they had done it with a small team of just over twenty members.
It was hard to believe that the Valhalla Guild, where every single member was as skilled as an executive from another guild, could have been so helplessly defeated.
‘Was this Ashad Khan’s doing?’
The question popped into my head, but I shook my head.
According to Yujin, Ashad Khan’s rank within the Black Star Cult was a mid-level official, one step above him.
If a single mid-level official could wipe out the Valhalla Guild, the Black Star Cult wouldn’t be operating so secretly.
With that kind of power, they could wage war against all of the Seven Stars. Why would they need to hide?
‘I’ll find out when I hear it directly.’
Setting my questions aside, I continued walking.
Park Chang-hyun carefully knocked on the door of the treatment room at the very end of the hall.
*Knock, knock.*
“Boss. I’ve brought Mr. Oh-jin.”
“…Come in.”
A weak voice came from beyond the door.
*Creeak.*
The door opened to reveal Lee Woo-hyeok lying in bed.
“……”
His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow.
His gaze seemed to wander, unfocused.
The ferocious, lion-like aura that had once radiated from him was gone.
All I could feel was a deep sense of defeat.
A profound sense of powerlessness emanated from Lee Woo-hyeok, like that of an old, toothless lion warily circling its kill, fearful of other predators.
‘What is this?’
What could have possibly happened to change a person this much?
“…Heh, *cough*! Forgive me for letting you see me in such a pathetic state.”
Lee Woo-hyeok smiled weakly, as if he had read the emotion in my eyes.
“What happened to you?”
“It’s… just as you see. Ugh! We fought them, and we lost disgracefully. *Cough! Cough!* And to… just one person.”
His voice was laced with self-mockery.
Lee Woo-hyeok bit his lip as he coughed up blood.
‘One person?’
My jaw dropped.
No way.
“…Was it Ashad Khan?”
“No. We did find him using the information you gave us, but… he wasn’t the one who fought us.”
I knew it.
It wasn’t Ashad Khan.
Then who in the world could it be?
“Cheon Do-yoon.”
Lee Woo-hyeok continued in a low, somber voice.
His eyes trembled as if recalling a terrible nightmare.
“That’s the name of the old man who fought us… *Ugh*! He called himself the ‘King of Owls.’”
“……”
*Clench.*
He continued speaking, his fists tightening.
“He was… overwhelming. We were beaten one-sidedly without even putting up a proper fight. Honestly, it was a miracle we managed to escape with our lives.”
He hung his head, his face shrouded in a thick veil of defeat.
—King of Owls.
My eyes narrowed slightly.
I etched the ominous title into my mind and recalled the Owl Constellation Stigma I had absorbed from Yujin.
‘The Stigma of Noctua, the Owl.’
If he called himself the King of Owls…
It wasn’t hard to guess his identity.
‘An Executor of the Black Star Cult.’
It was a case of chasing a wildcat only to run into a tiger.
I felt a chilling sensation run down my spine.
‘I knew they would be strong, but…’
To think one of them was powerful enough to single-handedly overwhelm the entire Valhalla Guild.
It was a stark reminder of just how immense the Black Star Cult’s power was.
‘Could it be that the Black Star Cult destroyed the world, not me?’
The thought naturally came to mind.
Of course, with no memories of the first timeline, I couldn’t know for sure what had happened.
But it seemed impossible that an organization of such a massive scale would have had no influence on the world’s destruction.
‘What if the Black Star Cult was the organization led by the Heavenly Demon… no, then that would mean I end up leading them.’
It was a future I couldn’t possibly imagine.
‘There are no clues to even begin speculating.’
This was like being told to guess a drawing from just a few dots on a blank canvas. How could I possibly know?
“Haa.”
I let out a deep sigh, cutting off my train of thought.
“First, could you tell me the details of what happened back then?”
“Yes.”
Lee Woo-hyeok nodded.
“*Cough! Cough! Hck! Ptoo!*”
He spat a wad of bloody phlegm into a paper cup and opened his mouth.
“Haa, haa… Hoo. We tracked them using the phone number you gave us. It took some time… but we managed to catch their trail.”
This much I already knew from Park Chang-hyun.
“The place they were hiding was a branch of the Pandinus Guild. On record, it was listed as a warehouse… but it was an agit for the Black Star Cult.”
The Pandinus Guild.
That name again.
“Was that the Black Star Cult’s headquarters?”
If Cheon Do-yoon was there, it was possible it was their main base.
“No. It wasn’t the headquarters. It was merely a branch office. Well… though it was on a much larger scale than the one on Mount Baekun.”
In any case.
“We couldn’t find any more leads from there, so we decided to attack. Ah, of course, we tried to contact you, Mr. Oh-jin.”
He must have heard I was lying in the ICU, poisoned.
They wouldn’t have had the luxury of waiting for me to recover.
“The plan went smoothly enough. The surprise attack was a success, and we managed to subdue most of them.”
“Was Ashad Khan there too?”
“No. He appeared later. And he… wasn’t alone.”
So that’s when he met Cheon Do-yoon.
“At first, I thought it was a great opportunity, a chance to capture a high-ranking member of the Black Star Cult… but that was an arrogant thought.”
Cheon Do-yoon wiped out the entire Valhalla Guild by himself.
Overwhelmingly, absolutely.
Without them even being able to lay a hand on him.
They lost.
“Haa.”
A deep sigh escaped his lips.
But the problem didn’t end there.
Although they miraculously escaped, they had lost the trail of the Black Star Cult they had worked so hard to find.
“So there are no more leads to track them down?”
Ashad Khan wasn’t an idiot. Now that their hideout had been discovered, he would have concealed any information that could lead back to them.
It was safe to assume that all the information they had gathered was now useless.
“No, that’s not the case.”
“…It’s not?”
What kind of lead could possibly remain in this situation?
“In the initial process of subduing them, I had a chance to speak with one of the Black Star Cult members. He… seemed to have quite detailed information about the cult.”
“But you ended up letting him go, didn’t you?”
Even if they had found a member with inside information, the appearance of Cheon Do-yoon meant the subjugation had failed.
It was hard to expect cooperation from a criminal whose handcuffs had just been removed.
“That’s true, but. This case is a bit different.”
Different?
“He approached us first, saying he wanted to cooperate.”
“……?”
He approached them first, not after being captured and interrogated?
‘Which means.’
My eyes glinted sharply.
Lee Woo-hyeok gave a small nod.
“Yes. He was an internal whistleblower. For some reason, he was part of the Black Star Cult… but he held a deep hatred for them.”
“……”
In a closed-off criminal organization like the Black Star Cult, such a thing was entirely possible.
Even companies that looked perfectly fine on the outside were often rotten to the core; it went without saying for a criminal organization that operated in the shadows.
“Is that why you called for me?”
Now that they knew there was a whistleblower, it was time to make contact with him discreetly and obtain information about the Black Star Cult.
But obviously…
A member of the Valhalla Guild couldn’t be the one to make contact.
After this incident, they would be under the watchful eye of the Black Star Cult.
More importantly, besides Park Chang-hyun, none of them could even move right now.
“…Yes. That’s right.”
Lee Woo-hyeok nodded, a slightly surprised look on his face.
He took a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to me.
“This is the whistleblower’s contact information.”
“……”
“Of course. I know I’m asking you to do something dangerous. But…”
*Grit.*
Lee Woo-hyeok ground his teeth fiercely.
“If we leave things as they are, we might lose our lead on them forever.”
The Black Star Cult was the organization that had kidnapped and killed his younger brother.
No matter how helplessly he had been defeated…
He couldn’t just give up the chase.
“I will make sure you are compensated handsomely.”
“Hmm.”
I narrowed my eyes, lost in thought.
Just as Lee Woo-hyeok said, it was a perilous task.
‘But I can’t let this opportunity slip by either.’
The reward was one thing.
But losing the trail to the Black Star Cult was something I didn’t want either.
‘I need information.’
A few dots on a blank canvas.
An opaque and unkind picture called the future.
In order to create the ‘lines’ that would connect the dots of that picture…
I needed to investigate the Black Star Cult.
To investigate their plans, to dig into them.
I needed to strip them down to their very foundations.
‘Because I…’
Was none other than…
—a ‘Regressor.’
“I understand.”
I took the piece of paper.
“I’ll take this job.”