Chapter 94
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 94
Chapter Title: Joo Seong-tak
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Ryu Min stared at the item listed in the sales post.
[Piece of Immortal Skin]
[Category: Belonging]
[Description: A piece of skin carved from a creature known as an immortal.]
[Seller: dontgo95]
[Price: 1,000,000 Won]
[Haggling: Possible]
[Chat: Possible]
[Trade Method: In-person only]
[Trade Location: Suwon]
'I'm sure of it. This is an item needed for a Legendary combination.'
After Unique was the Legendary grade.
Legendary items could also be crafted through combination, but Ryu Min had ruled it out from the start.
The reason was simple.
'At this point in time, obtaining Legendary materials is next to impossible.'
It wasn't completely impossible.
Just incredibly difficult to acquire.
'Right now, there's only one place a Piece of Immortal Skin could have come from.'
The 5th round boss, the High Orc.
The Piece of Immortal Skin was an item that dropped at an extremely low rate upon defeating it.
As everyone knew, the High Orc was not an easy boss to take down.
It was even stronger than the 6th round boss, the Minotaur.
'And yet, not only did someone manage to kill that powerful beast, but they were also lucky enough to get this material?'
It was an impossible feat without both luck and the skill to back it up.
'Luck aside, who could it be? Who has the skill to take down a High Orc?'
A few well-known names came to mind.
The thought that it might be one of them crossed his mind.
'Don't tell me, is it him?'
Someone with the skill to kill orcs, and who possessed the [Rune of Drop].
If his guess was correct, this was very likely a trap.
And a rather dangerous one at that.
'The fact that it's in-person only seems to confirm it... I should at least try talking to him.'
He sent a chat message before making the purchase.
[Buyer: Hello. You're the one selling the Piece of Immortal Skin, right?]
[Seller: Yes.]
[Buyer: You have it listed for 1 million won, but it says haggling is possible?]
[Seller: Hmm, I don't normally, but I'll make a special exception for you. What price did you have in mind?]
[Buyer: 900,000 won. Is that possible?]
[Seller: Hmm, that's a bit steep, but fine. That much is... whatever.]
[Buyer: Oh! No, wait. I misspoke. Can you knock off another 100,000? 800,000 won.]
[Seller: -- Are you messing with me?]
[Buyer: Why? It's not like there's a set market price for it anyway. And honestly, I don't even know what it's used for.]
[Seller: Then why are you trying to buy something if you don't know what it's for?]
[Buyer: I'm just trying to combine a few things. Isn't that why everyone buys material items?]
[Buyer: But I'm a little short on cash right now. Can't you give me a discount?]
[Buyer: Hello?]
[Buyer: Hello?]
[Buyer: Why aren't you responding?]
[Seller: Haa, fine. I feel sorry for you, so I'll sell it for 800,000. But the deal is in cash. You can come to Suwon, right?]
[Buyer: Of course.]
[Seller: The address you need to come to is.]
As the address appeared in the chat, Ryu Min let out a smirk.
"This guy... it seems he's exactly who I thought he was."
The fact that he was still willing to sell after a 200,000 won discount made it almost certain.
The item was nothing more than bait to lure someone in.
'That psychopathic bastard would do something like this.'
Still, he felt it was best to check it out.
If he didn't step in, the number of victims would only increase.
And he needed to secure the Legendary material, too.
'Shall we go see his face?'
It was a little early for their encounter, but they were bound to meet eventually.
'I should prepare for any unexpected situations.'
He felt a sense of relief, thankful that he had the Rainbow Effect buff active.
'Well, not that I would've gone down easily even without it.'
With a smirk twisting one side of his mouth, Ryu Min calmly left his house.
***
"Ha, this son of a bitch is fucking ridiculous, isn't he? Haha."
Joo Seong-tak, who had been chatting with the buyer, let out a disbelieving laugh.
"What kind of person haggles for a 20% discount on a one-million-won item?"
His character aside, what kind of item was this?
It was an item that dropped from the 5th round boss, the High Orc.
That same High Orc he had to use twenty orc corpses to barely defeat.
'I really thought I was going to die back then. I had no idea High Orcs were that strong.'
And now this guy was trying to snatch the item he'd worked so hard to get for a mere 800,000 won?
'This bastard really wants to die.'
Then again, was he ever planning on letting him live?
He was going to kill him anyway, but this guy was a special case.
"When I meet you, I swear I won't let you die peacefully. You son of a bitch."
Gritting his teeth, Joo Seong-tak put down his phone and flinched.
He heard the sound of dying breaths coming from beneath his feet.
"S-save, meeee..."
"Ha, you scared me. This guy, what the hell? You're not dead yet?"
The middle-aged man in his forties, who had been lying face down, barely managed to lift his head.
It was the most he could do with his limbs cut off.
"P-please... save..."
"That's informal."
"Me... I'm begging you..."
*Stab-!*
Joo Seong-tak's dagger pierced the man's neck.
"Spouting such nonsense. Tsk. Scaring me for no reason."
He hadn't expected the man to still be alive with his arms and legs severed.
"Anyway, that bastard is dead when he gets here."
It wasn't just talk; he fully intended to kill the buyer on sight.
The item was just the bait for his trap.
That's why he had graciously accepted the 20% discount.
It wasn't like he was ever going to sell it anyway.
'Why would I sell it? Do you know how hard it was to get this? If I was actually going to sell it, I would have told him to fuck off without a second thought.'
He didn't know what the item was used for, but it was perfect for luring people.
Why lure them?
Because it was fun.
No, to be precise, it was because he was bored.
That's just how life is.
There comes a day when boredom sets in.
A day when you become so bored you want to give up on everything.
For Joo Seong-tak, that day had come when he was in the second grade.
'I thought I was going to die of boredom.'
Nothing was fun, everything was dull, and everything was utterly tedious.
Despite being in his prime, he felt as if he had lost the will to live.
Looking back now, it was like he was a broken part, with a screw loose.
It was the same when he got to middle school.
Thinking that focusing on something might help, he tried studying like everyone else.
'I never once lost the top spot in my class.'
But even with such good grades, nothing changed.
All that grew were his parents' insincere praises and their expectations.
He was so bored that he hoped the school bullies would torment him, but none of them did.
'Even those delinquent bastards didn't dare touch the top student.'
That's what he thought, but there was a truth Joo Seong-tak didn't know.
The bullies didn't mess with him because he was good at studying.
It was madness.
They saw an unexplainable madness in Joo Seong-tak's eyes.
That was the reason even the delinquents avoided him.
*Drip, drip-*
Wiping his blood-soaked dagger on the corpse's clothes, Joo Seong-tak once again reminisced about the past.
'Hehe, thinking about it now, that was the best time. The time I committed my first murder.'
The first people Joo Seong-tak killed were his parents.
When he gave up studying out of boredom, his grades naturally plummeted, and the nagging increased.
That's when the conflict with his parents began.
When his grades dropped from first place to near the bottom, his parents lost their temper and yelled at him.
Then, in a fit of rage, he killed them with a kitchen knife.
'It wasn't intentional. It was purely in the heat of the moment.'
But who would have thought that moment would become the turning point of his life?
'Ahh... I can still never forget that experience.'
His heart pounding with tension.
The living room floor stained with blood.
The feeling of plunging a knife into a human body.
His first murder taught him many things.
It helped him, a person who was bored to death, find meaning in life.
'A little more... I want to savor this thrill a little more.'
With that thought, he voluntarily reported himself to the police.
He knew there was no use trying to run in a country filled with CCTVs.
'If I'm going to get caught anyway, it's better to turn myself in early.'
He instinctively knew that would be advantageous for getting a reduced sentence.
He wanted to get out of prison quickly and try killing someone again, this time with a proper plan.
He wanted to feel the thrill of murder once more.
So he showed remorse and spun a tale about it being an unpremeditated act of passion.
Fortunately, Joo Seong-tak had a talent for acting.
The police believed wholeheartedly that it wasn't his fault.
'Dumb idiots. It was obvious I killed them, but they said it wasn't my fault.'
He wanted to scoff, but he held it back.
His plan was to get a reduced sentence and go to prison as planned.
But there was something Joo Seong-tak hadn't anticipated.
'What? I'm a juvenile offender?'
At the time, he was under 14 and classified as a juvenile offender, exempt from criminal prosecution.
He was sent to a juvenile detention center, ordered to complete community service, and released under supervision.
For Joo Seong-tak, who had been certain he was going to prison for killing his parents, it was an unexpected stroke of luck.
'Isn't this a sweet deal?'
His luck continued.
Even after graduating from school, becoming an adult, and reaching the age of 27.
Despite committing numerous murders, Joo Seong-tak was never caught.
Was it because he meticulously planned each murder for a year?
Or was it because he only chose to kill homeless people, who wouldn't be missed?
In any case, he was able to live as a normal person despite killing people, and he was still doing it now.
'Stupid police. They still haven't caught me.'
However, his luck seemed to run out this year.
When he was told he had to participate in a survival game where his life was on the line for 20 rounds.
Joo Seong-tak felt it was unfair.
'If I had known this would happen, I would have killed as many people as I wanted and just gone to prison.'
He felt resentful and frustrated about all the years he had spent carefully avoiding the police's eyes.
But.
It didn't take long for him to realize that life in the other world suited him perfectly.
'Is killing a measly goblin supposed to be this hard?'
Watching countless people die in the 1st round, Joo Seong-tak couldn't understand it.
Stabbing goblins that were barely bigger than middle schoolers was easier than killing people.
It also happened to align with his hobbies.
'Though it's not as fun as killing people.'
Then, in the 2nd round, he was lucky enough to obtain the Shaman class while hunting.
'It might have been thanks to the [Rune of Drop] I got at the beginning.'
The Rune of Drop was a rune that drastically increased the drop rate of special items.
The fact that the Shaman class-change item had dropped was likely due to the rune's influence.
'After that, well, there was nothing difficult about it.'
He seemed to have a talent for it, never dropping below 2nd or 3rd place in the entire zone as he cleared the 3rd round without issue.
The 4th round, which required killing people, was even easier.
For a serial killer like him, it was hardly a difficult task.
'In fact, it was so stimulating, I loved it. Hehe.'
Joo Seong-tak enjoyed these games that brought excitement to his ordinary life.
Beyond mere survival, he wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible.
'If I clear all 20 rounds, I'll wish for them to add more rounds. It's just that much fun.'
Now, his daily life felt boring by comparison.
He didn't think he could go back to how things were before he became a player.
'And watching the world crumble like this is pretty entertaining, too. Keke.'
Perhaps because he had killed so many people, the focus was no longer on *who* to kill, but on *how* to kill them in an entertaining way.
The scheme he was currently concocting was part of that.
'After hiding the body I just killed in the clothing donation bin next to the alley, what happens when the buyer shows up?'
He would make it go *boom* with his [Corpse Explosion] skill.
Once the target was in a near-death state, he would subdue them with a skill called [Curse of Fear], then chop off their limbs piece by piece like killing a bug. That was Joo Seong-tak's plan.
'No hard feelings. I'm just killing you for fun, so I hope you understand.'
Turning his gaze from the corpse, Joo Seong-tak looked at his phone.
There were three hours left until his appointment with the buyer.
'Hurry up and get here, you son of a bitch. I've prepared a gift just for you. Keukkeuk.'
For a new thrill, he stuffed the corpse into the clothing donation bin and used a skill to erase the traces on the ground.
The scattered limbs and bloodstains vanished cleanly.
He waited for three hours, hoping his prey would walk into the trap.
Finally.
*Step, step-*
A person entered the alley where the trap was set.
A smile formed on Joo Seong-tak's lips.
'Bingo.'