Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 024
Chapter Title: Mad Hunter: ??? (8)
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12.
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From time immemorial, the lords of the True Iron Star have been renowned for their authority over True Iron, which can even sever steel itself.
Bartferot.
That brutal hunter was said to have been chosen by the lord of the True Iron Star.
And survived the downfall of the world axis "Soltenr."
Where might that trap hunter be now?
Is he wandering other world axes, continuing his hunter's trade?
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I... I couldn't believe it.
“Kim Baek-jun!”
A familiar voice rang out.
When I turned toward the exit, Jeong Ha-kyeong was staring at me with trembling eyes.
She had Park Ji-won slung over her back.
Beside her stood Baek Hyun-jong's assault team.
They must have finished clearing the otherworlders from the World Cup Stadium Station plaza. They'd even carried Yang Je-gyeom on their back to join up.
Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any additional casualties.
“Are you okay? Are you really okay?”
Jeong Ha-kyeong came rushing over in a panic.
I'd tried to shout for her to watch out for the traps... but strangely, even the traps near the uncollapsed ceiling entrance had all vanished.
No... I think I get it.
Those traps must have been his unique skill.
It made sense now why he'd been leaping around that trap field like it was his own front yard.
“As you can see... no major problems here.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong scanned me from head to toe, then let out a relieved breath.
“What the hell happened? Where'd that son of a bitch go?”
To that question, I had no choice but to hold out the soul stone.
“Don't mess around.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong's eyes narrowed.
“No, Ha-kyeong... I can't believe the current situation myself.”
“...For real?”
“Yes. This guy... wasn't human.”
To be precise, he wasn't from Earth.
His speech and behavior as the trap hunter.
And the system notifications.
I gave a brief explanation of it all. Baek Hyun-jong, who had joined us by then, furrowed his brow.
“I can't believe that bastard was an otherworlder either... but is speaking Korean really that big a deal?”
“Isn't it a problem?”
“The Guiders, the Star Messengers—they all spoke Korean better than us, didn't they? Accent, vocabulary, everything...”
Wait, that's right.
Now that I thought about it, my doubts were fading. I'd even sort of conversed with Cha-Ratevil.
“And come to think of it... he used weird terms like 'pathetic world axis' and 'your world.' I just let it slide at the time.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong let out a disbelieving scoff.
“What? So you're saying the Holy Apostles fucked up more worlds besides Earth?”
“Hang on. If that's the case, then the otherworlders... used humans from destroyed worlds... to fight for them?”
At Yang Je-gyeom's deduction, we all fell silent in a daze.
A chilling thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Otherworlders and the trap hunter... Could this be... hinting at humanity's future...? That someday we might become otherworlder hunters...?
That's when Park Ji-won groaned and woke up.
“Sis... Sis...”
Slipping down from Jeong Ha-kyeong's back, Park Ji-won looked around wildly, rambling incoherently.
“That evil bastard... where is he? Ji-yeon sis... we gotta fuck him up... Cut my wrist or something... quick...”
Park Ji-yeon.
That name snapped me back to reality.
This wasn't the time to get lost in thought.
“Ji-won, calm down. I took him down.”
The rest of the group gradually regained their composure one by one. Baek Hyun-jong gave Yang Je-gyeom an order.
“Je-gyeom, tail that bastard's corpse.”
“Tail it?”
“It's Je-gyeom's unique skill. Think of it as roughly backtracking footprints.”
Yang Je-gyeom's eyes flashed with insight.
Then, from the direction of the collapsed debris, a white thread rose up.
That must be where the trap hunter's body was.
The thread shimmered like starlight.
As soon as it unraveled toward the exit, Baek Hyun-jong dashed after it.
“Just follow it!”
The thread wove a complex pattern throughout the entire theater.
It went out the cinema exit, then back in, repeating. It must have traced the guy's repeated entries and exits here.
But there was a problem.
The thread's tracking... was too broad spatially and indiscriminate temporally.
It didn't seem all that precise.
So we had to split into four teams to search.
I was teamed with Park Ji-won.
How long did we search?
I found the spot the trap hunter always stopped by on his returns (where the thread overlapped dozens of times).
The cinema's fast-food joint.
More precisely, the back door in the shop's wall. I gently patted Park Ji-won's shoulder.
“Ji-won. Looks like it's over there.”
“Sis!”
Park Ji-won staggered forward as if he might trip.
I hurried after him... but halted for a moment in front of the back door.
It led to a freezer.
The freezer interior was dark and silent, thick with the stench of rotting human flesh and blood.
Park Ji-yeon was in there...?
Park Ji-won looked up at me with a face full of terror.
“Let's... go in for now.”
Steeling myself, I stepped inside. And confronted a horror that blanked my mind.
What the hell.
Corpses hanging upside down from the ceiling.
All of them impaled through the shinbones on iron hooks. Beneath each, pools of blackened, dried blood.
You bastard...
Did you drain the blood first before dismembering them?
“Ji-yeon?”
I scrutinized each body closely with the Dawn Sword.
No.
Not this one.
Not this one either.
After checking them all, I mourned their meaningless deaths and ventured deeper.
Park Ji-yeon still wasn't there. But in a situation like this...
“Sis!”
Park Ji-won shouted fiercely, as if denying reality.
“It's me, I came! Park Ji-won is here!”
No reply came back.
I... was starting to get scared.
This world was so brutally realistic. I didn't want to accept it, but the chance we'd find Park Ji-yeon dead here... was high.
Oh, God.
What kind of comfort could I possibly offer him then?
“Sis... please answer... please...”
Park Ji-won's voice was breaking.
My heart ached like it might burst. That's when a faint voice reached us.
“...Park... Ji... Won?”
My heart nearly stopped.
It was a voice I recognized instantly.
Park Ji-yeon?
It's Park Ji-yeon.
In that instant, Park Ji-won bolted ahead of me.
“Sis, sis, sis.”
Park Ji-yeon hung from the hook at the very back of the freezer.
She looked dead at a glance.
Her whole body was splattered in blood... but her chest was rising and falling ever so faintly.
She's alive.
How... is Park Ji-yeon still alive?
I immediately swung the Dawn Sword to shatter the hook.
Park Ji-yeon fell straight down.
Park Ji-won braced underneath and caught her right away.
But there was a problem.
Had she been exposed to the terror of death for too long?
“Don't come... don't come...”
Park Ji-yeon wasn't in her right mind.
She pushed Park Ji-won away with her hands and began flailing weakly.
“Sis, it's me.
Park Ji-won grabbed her hand and cried out through choked sobs.
“Ji-won. Sis doesn't know her brother Park Ji-won. That stubborn idiot Park Ji-won.”
“Go... away...”
“Park Ji-won, first-year at Sunhwa High School. The Park Ji-won who whined for a game console back in kindergarten... Don't you remember when I was in elementary school? You were studying for the college entrance exam, but you worked part-time to buy it for me...”
That's when Park Ji-yeon's unfocused eyes began to fix straight on Park Ji-won.
“Let's go home... We promised to bury Mom in a nice place once the world goes back to normal... What are you doing here...”
And then... her trembling lips.
Those lips finally parted after a long while.
“Ji-won... my brother Ji-won...?”
“Yeah. It's me. I told you.”
As if confirming it was real, Park Ji-yeon touched Park Ji-won's face, then burst into sobs.
“How did you...”
I felt my throat tighten.
This... was truly a tear-jerking miracle.
In this destroyed world.
A brother and sister on the verge of eternal separation had miraculously reunited and were holding each other, crying.
A moment later, having come to her senses, Park Ji-yeon scolded Park Ji-won.
“You idiot... why... do you never listen...? This place is so dangerous. Before that guy comes back... run away quick.”
“No, sis. That evil bastard's dead. It's not dangerous at all.”
“It is dangerous!”
“No. Kim Baek-jun hyung here took him out!”
At that, Park Ji-yeon froze for a moment.
“...Kim Baek-jun?”
Then, little by little, she raised her eyes to look at me.
“Ah...”
With a sigh, tears welled up in her fragile eyes.
“...Baek-jun?”
“We came to rescue you, Ji-yeon.”
We came to save you.
For the first time since the apocalypse, the moment I returned those glorious words to someone.
“Thank you for staying alive.”
“Ah... I told you not to come...”
“I came to keep the promise we made: to meet again if we survived.”
At my smile.
A single tear trailed down Park Ji-yeon's cheek.
“Really... Baek-jun, you're really...”
“Stories later. Let's get out now. It's cold, so... at least put this on.”
I took off my [Shadow Exoskeleton Cloak] and draped it over Park Ji-yeon.
As I carried her out piggyback-style, Park Ji-won chattered excitedly beside her, wiping blood off her.
“I filed a kidnapping report with 112.”
“...What's 112?”
“You said it, sis. Baek-jun hyung is a righteous cop.”
“...?”
“It was true. He came right after I filed the report. Man. He was hundreds, no, thousands of times cooler than you said.”
...This kid.
I shook my head with a wistful smile.
“This rescue op succeeded thanks to you, not me.”
Park Ji-won.
You came to me in tears and pleaded. You bravely chased after her into danger. You broke through the crisis at the cost of your own life.
“Not for your own gain, but solely to save your family.”
“Isn't that... just obvious? She's family.”
“Being able to treat the obvious as obvious—that's what's amazing.”
Right and obvious.
In this world now, the right and the obvious were crumbling, no longer seen as right or obvious.
In such a world,
You clung fiercely to your humanity, and with that very humanity, you overcame the world's cruelty.
With my limited words, I paid tribute to that humanity.
“Ji-won. Thanks for running to find me back then.”
13.
“Ji-yeon unnie!”
“...Su-young? Ah, Hyun-jong too...”
At the cinema entrance.
The assault team and Park Ji-yeon shared a tearful reunion.
“Alright, everyone.”
But we couldn't linger.
“Let's head back for now. We can talk after returning to DMC Station.”
We had to hurry.
The trap hunter was dead, and all his traps had vanished.
Because of that, footsteps and cries of otherworlders were closing in from all directions.
......Grrr...... ЖЧЮ...... Кж......
In short, the situation was different from when the trap hunter was alive.
This place was no longer a safe zone.
“The real rescue mission starts after extracting the target.”
Tension returned to the faces of the assault team members who had been optimistic.
“Su-young, can you carry Ji-yeon?”
“Yes!”
I quickly formed the marching formation.
“I'll take point. Ha-kyeong on rear guard. Hyun-jong and Min-su on the flanks.”
Our formation was precarious.
Park Ji-yeon and Yang Je-gyeom—two injured, and those two had to be carried by the stalkers.
Our combat forces were down to just four. And not only that.
[Warning: Huangzo Fog Stage 4 is blanketing the area.]
- Until stage easing: (3) hours.
Even the afterglow of the Dawn Sword had faded, leaving the outdoors pitch black.
It could have been the worst, but fortunately, we reached the World Cup Stadium Station platform without any attacks.
“That's it. Let's rest for about 15 minutes.”
In the concourse, as I called off the alert, the assault team collapsed to the floor.
The stalkers, who had worn gas masks the whole time, were even worse off—completely exhausted.
This is bad.
The real trouble starts here.
“I'll stand watch for now. Rest easy.”
Leaning against the door, I pondered the escape plan.
Damn... it's looking bleak.
That's when Jeong Ha-kyeong sat down beside me.
“Hey, prince charming.”
“Ha-kyeong.”
“You're basically a full prince now. Rescued the kidnapped princess and all. Bet you got a kiss as thanks, huh?”
Jeong Ha-kyeong's tone felt less like a question and more like an interrogation—subtly off.
“Sadly, Ji-yeon doesn't smoke.”
I shrugged.
“Unlike you, Ha-kyeong.”
“Smoke? What smo—!”
She burst out laughing at my pun.
It was a shame I couldn't see her face in the dark. Jeong Ha-kyeong looked prettier smiling than frowning.
A moment later.
Jeong Ha-kyeong stopped laughing and cut to the core of our situation.
“So, what now?”