Chapter 137
Chapter 137
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 137
Chapter Title: Daughter of the Abyss, Northern Lead Hunter (4)
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6.
───Boom!
Was she off guard?
Incredibly, that strike hit the Lead Hunter Hwang Ga-in dead on.
No, even if it wasn’t dead on.
Steel-body reinforcement, leg strength amplification at 100%.
Do Ye-jin kicked off the ground and leaped straight into the smoke.
Tch…… Blood surged back from forcing the power too hard in that instant, and her leg muscles screamed.
But this chance…… she absolutely couldn’t let it slip.
She couldn’t use 《Subordination》 right now.
Cough, cough, cough, cough.
Finding the Lead Hunter Hwang Ga-in was surprisingly easy.
“These guys…… every one of them…… uses such…… weird…… weapons……?”
She’d somehow blocked the shell, but she was covering her face with her sleeve, coughing laboriously.
In that moment.
Hwang Ga-in swung her fan wide.
A ferocious gust of wind pressure arose, clearing the smoke ahead.
Her opening was exposed……!
A perfect ambush.
The Lead Hunter’s shoulder entered the range of her descending Cannon Axe.
No way she could dodge.
If she could just sever one limb…… the rest would be easy!
Shwick────!
She brought the axe blade down on her shoulder.
The metallic edge tore into that pale flesh…… and dug straight into her abdomen.
────Splash!
And blood erupted.
No…… why was the blood…… blue crystals……?
No way.
This…… a clone? Like Ji-won’s 《Bloodline Clone》? Her mind went blank.
Isn’t that on a whole different level from 《Bloodline Clone》? No preliminary motions at all……?
In that instant, a whoosh cut through the air.
Where? Left, left! She swung the Cannon Axe immediately.
Whoooosh───!
The Cannon Axe was an oversized ultra-heavy weapon.
The momentary whirlwind of wind pressure.
The backlash cleared the smoke as the scythe-swallow attack bounced off.
“Hmm~ Not bad, better than I thought?”
Twenty-five meters to the left.
The Lead Hunter shook her folding fan as she spoke.
“And more disappointing than I thought.”
“You said not bad! Pick one!”
As Do Ye-jin charged again.
Hwang Ga-in seductively swung her fan, launching a scythe-swallow.
“I meant your personality, not your skill. You’re too emotional?”
Subordinate-system body reinforcement.
Do Ye-jin reinforced her entire front with Arishel’rap’s dragon scales for a moment.
Clang── clang── clang──!
“Your dad was always cool-headed, though.”
She ignored the incoming scythe-swallow and rushed at Hwang Ga-in.
“Impressively solidifying advantageous fights and dramatically turning hopeless ones. That stuck with me.”
“What did my dad ever do!”
“When you fired that shell earlier. It might’ve been fatal to me? If you’d been as cool-headed as your dad.”
Hwang Ga-in faltered for a second but barely dodged the attack and retreated again.
“My dad was cool-headed?”
What nonsense.
The cool-headed one was Do Su-jin. Do Ye-jin took after her dad’s wild, reckless personality.
“Who are you to act like you know him! You don’t even know his personality!”
In other words, Do Ji-woong was far more emotional than cool-headed.
“Why wouldn’t I? He showed me.”
Hwang Ga-in pointed at the stars in the night sky with her folding fan, flashing a sinister smile.
“How the [Nameless Demigod] fights, every single detail.”
[Nameless Demigod]?
The central figure of the nightmares, the culprit who destroyed this world?
“Why show me that? And why is that my dad?”
A scythe-swallow flew in, shattering the ground and sending debris flying. Do Ye-jin dodged it and charged again.
“Yeah. It’s complicated, but your dad humiliated the god I serve──”
The Lead Hunter yanked at the sash around her waist.
No, not a sash.
A sword hilt…… it was a chain sword.
“──So I have to lure your dad out by killing you.”
Shrieeeek!
At the same time, the blade coiled like a serpent and lunged for her throat.
Do Ye-jin didn’t dodge.
Instead, she grabbed the blade and headbutted her skull with it.
“Heng!”
Perfect.
A solid hit.
“Idiot!”
Do Ye-jin sneered.
The Abyss Hunter Roheiritz had made the same mistake.
“My dad’s name is Do Ji-woong! He’s human!”
Do Ye-jin proudly raised her left arm. To show the wristwatch on her wrist.
“He even gave me this birthday present? And…… he’s already gone! Not some evil bastard!”
“Who’s the real idiot?”
The form of Hwang Ga-in, staggering from the headbutt, scattered into a frosty wind for an instant.
Another…… another clone?
She whipped her head around.
This time, the Lead Hunter was fanning herself off to the right.
“Your dad’s name was Do Ji-woong? When did he die? When the world ended?”
“……….”
“Look at that honest face! That’s a yes!”
The Lead Hunter suddenly burst into laughter.
“Dad, dad, dad, says dad!”
At first, it was a suppressed laugh.
But soon it erupted into near-maniacal cackles.
“I, I thought I was the most, most pitiful person in the world, but no, no! Not anymore!”
Her tongue felt numb from the shock of that laugh.
“What? What the hell are you saying?”
“Heehee, heeheehee, heeheehehehehehehe!”
“Stop laughing and answer!”
Hwang Ga-in couldn’t hold it back, covering her mouth or clutching her stomach, but kept laughing.
“My, my life was a tragedy, but yours, yours is just, just third-rate…… comedy! Comedy!”
Song Chan-un, the bishop watching from afar, politely explained.
“In Korean, we call it a farce.”
“Yeah, a farce, a farce! Ahahahahaha!”
“What’s so funny!”
Hwang Ga-in snapped her fan shut. Still laughing.
“Doesn’t it look hilarious?”
“It’s not! I don’t get it!”
“Fine, I’ll tell you. That dad you think is an evil bastard? That’s your real dad.”
Do Ye-jin’s mind went blank white in that instant.
“And that dad who gave you the watch? The one you thought was your real dad. That one’s fake.”
What the hell is this bullshit?
Real dad? Fake dad?
Her brain couldn’t process it all at once, either because she was dumb or something.
“Shall I explain simply?”
Song Chan-un tapped the ground with his staff as he spoke.
“You know cuckoos, right?”
“……Why wouldn’t I?”
“Cuckoos do brood parasitism. That means laying their eggs in other birds’ nests.”
“……And?”
“Probably too lazy to raise them. Anyway, the hatched chick mistakes the nest’s mother bird for its own. The mother bird does too.”
Song Chan-un flashed a truly cruel smile.
“How pitiful. That’s exactly your situation right now.”
Do Ye-jin tilted her head for a second, then snickered.
“My dad never cheated.”
“Swap mother bird for father bird.”
“My mom never cheated either. She died young, what affair?”
Song Chan-un shook his head in disbelief.
“Where do these punks get off!”
Do Ye-jin crossed her arms arrogantly and beckoned with her finger.
“Don’t try to scam me. I’m not great at studying, but I’m not a total idiot, you know?”
The Lead Hunter giggled.
“You think your mom actually gave birth to you?”
“Yeah. You must be uneducated, but that’s how babies are born.”
“Who doesn’t know that, you damn……! No, wait. Do you remember your childhood?”
Childhood…… childhood……?
Do Ye-jin groaned and clutched her forehead.
What? What is it?
She remembered the day her mom died, the funeral…… and getting the Soul Chain engraved. Nothing else.
“Your real dad’s a god, you know? A half-edge one without a name now, but still.”
“……?”
“You were…… yeah, puzzle-pieced into that family.”
“………?!”
“Your memories were tampered with. Made to think you were their biological daughter.”
What……?
“In other words, you were abandoned…… Too much to handle…… Hee, heeheehehehehehehe!”
- Sorry…….
She didn’t know why.
But that memory flashed, and her heart started pounding.
“Enough, you held up well!”
In that instant.
The ground between Hwang Ga-in and Do Ye-jin.
It swelled like a wave, then shot up like a barrier.
“Let’s escape while we can!”
Turning back, Seo Hwa-yun was shouting while carrying Do Su-jin on her back.
“《Form Memory》?”
Do Ye-jin started running, half-dragged by Seo Hwa-yun.
“You can do this too……?”
“Sister doesn’t fight much, so you wouldn’t know? Sister can do anything.”
As they rounded the corner, a massive roar erupted behind them.
Like the ground collapsing.
They’d already broken through the barrier, it seemed.
“Su-jin sister……?”
While running on the icy path.
Do Ye-jin was asking why. Even though it wasn’t the time.
“You…… heard all that earlier?”
She couldn’t bear it otherwise.
This inexplicable sense of wrongness.
Do Su-jin gasped in pain as she replied.
“Of course it’s all lies…… No idea what they’re after, though…….”
“Sister……?”
“……?”
“Besides when we got the Soul Chain…… Do you remember what I was like as a total baby?”
For some reason, the blizzard felt fiercer.
And the snow clinging to her face.
Felt like bugs gnawing at her skin.
“You…… don’t…… remember……?”
The dizziness surging up was halted by Seo Hwa-yun.
“Childhood memories are just a few vivid ones normally!”
“……Yeah?”
“It’s normal for you or Su-jin not to remember. The ones doing it are the weird ones.”
Her mind was numb with chaos; she couldn’t think straight.
“My guess…… They’re probably trying to stop you from using 《Subordination》. By confusing your mind.”
“………!”
“The mystery is how they know about Ye-jin…… But luckily, they don’t know you can’t become a subordinate yet.”
That was when.
Countless shadows appeared ahead, where the alley ended.
Monster rats.
They charged with grotesque squeaks.
Shell, shell, shell……?
Do Ye-jin fumbled for a shell at her belt…… but none?
“Ye-jin…… Sister…… Sword…… give me…… the sword…….”
Do Su-jin rasped, her eyes stern.
“Yeah, here, here!”
The moment she half-drew the curved sword from its sheath and handed it over.
Turbid water began swirling fiercely along the blade.
“……《Black River Cascade》.”
The curved sword’s short blade was perfect for quick draws.
The instant the draw-cut was executed.
A black river formed in the air ahead—no, in the very dimension.
No, space itself was rent black.
Dozens of monster rats in that torrent were mercilessly shredded.
As expected…… Su-jin sister is strong.
How did they reduce a Su-jin sister like this…… That was when.
“Ye-jin…… Remember our childhood? Of course…… I do…….”
“……?”
“That day…… Mom kept disappearing for some reason…… Asked Dad, and he suddenly put me in the car, said he had a present…….”
A present?
Grotesque magic circles formed on both sides of the street.
“I caught on right away…… Sister’s sharp like that, right? I’d said I wanted a puppy last Christmas…….”
The magic circles absorbed blood from all sides…… and began bubbling.
“That looks ominous…… Risky, but let’s go over the roofs!”
Seo Hwa-yun stomped the ground, and it rose like stairs, letting them easily reach the roof.
“But that day…… Dad took me not to a pet shop, but a hospital…….”
Somehow.
On Do Su-jin’s grotesque face, left with only muscle and bone.
“And what he carefully placed in my hands…….”
From that face sparkling with ‘Healing of the Stars’…… She glimpsed a radiant smile.
“Wasn’t some puppy…… It was you, Ye-jin.”
“Me……?”
“So tiny, so cute…… I was staring blankly, and Dad said…….”
Su-jin.
This is the one and only gift Mom could give you.
And in this vast world.
The one-of-a-kind treasure named little sister.
“From that day, my life shone so brightly…… And I resolved then.”
“……?”
“To become a sister worthy…… of my treasure, my one precious treasure…….”
Sister…….
Do Ye-jin barely swallowed the hot tears welling in her eyes.
What the hell had she doubted?
She had a sister and dad who loved her this much…….
“What…… is this?”
Seo Hwa-yun, running ahead, stopped abruptly. Do Ye-jin braked behind her.
“Fog……? No…… How is this……?”
Do Ye-jin gaped blankly.
A curtain hung before them.
Not Paradise’s ashen fog, but pure white frost fog…….
“Wait! Don’t get close!”
After having Do Ye-jin carry Do Su-jin.
Seo Hwa-yun pulled a fountain pen from her breast pocket…… and cautiously touched it to the fog.
────Sizzle!
It froze instantly, then snapped off like a lie.
Insane cutting power.
Seo Hwa-yun tossed the pen away with a sigh.
“We’re screwed…… Looks like they’ve isolated Cheonun Hyoja-dong itself.”
“What……? What do you mean? We just have to get out of here to Sajik-dong──”
Hope was right there.
Hope to save Do Su-jin was right in front of her.
─────Kwaaang!
Then a bizarre axe blade flew in and shattered that hope to pieces.