Chapter 136
Chapter 136
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 136
Chapter Title: Hunters (6)
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[You have acquired a bounty of 2000 Coins.]
A smile formed on my face as I saw the coins that had piled up in an instant.
I had plenty of places to spend them, so they'd be gone soon enough, but money was always like that.
Isn't it always a good feeling to see a lot of it piled up?
“Are you getting used to it now?”
Lee Do-hyeon, his face pale, managed a difficult nod.
“A little...”
Too bad.
I smiled wryly.
This was the fourth time I'd made Lee Do-hyeon look like a player to lure in a bounty.
My pockets had grown heavier, but in proportion, Lee Do-hyeon's condition seemed to have worsened considerably.
“If you had at least told me what you were going to do from the start, I could have prepared myself mentally... The, the part about being attacked, and hiding in that place.”
“But that would have ruined the realism. It was because you didn't know that the enemies were fooled without suspicion.”
“Is that how it works...?”
Lee Do-hyeon tilted his head.
If a weak opponent isn't tense when attacked, it's suspicious.
Even I would raise my guard.
I had just decided I couldn't use this trick anymore, as Lee Do-hyeon had grown accustomed to it.
“Still, I won't be doing it anymore.”
“Really!?”
Lee Do-hyeon, who had been slumped over just a moment ago, shot to his feet.
Even his tone had changed.
I was momentarily dumbfounded before handing the cloak back to Lee Do-hyeon.
“From now on, we need to be more stealthy. And we need to pick up the pace.”
“Is that so?”
“We've almost reached the enemy's main base.”
I turned my gaze to a building visible in the distance.
The bounty hunters' main hideout.
Now that we were close to where the players of Paradise were stationed, I couldn't afford to be as leisurely as before.
Lee Do-hyeon's face stiffened.
“...So it's going to get much more dangerous.”
“That's right. Staying completely inside would be the surest way to guarantee your safety.”
“...”
Lee Do-hyeon stared blankly for a long moment, his focus lost, before stepping into the darkness of his own accord with a crestfallen expression.
A good choice.
I smiled lightly and gestured.
At that, the soldiers who had been following me in the darkness revealed themselves all at once.
“Spread out. Deal with the enemies swiftly and move forward.”
Upon receiving the command, the soldiers vanished in unison.
The guys here have killed a lot of people.
There was no reason to hold back.
I checked the number of summoned soldiers and licked my lips.
‘I need to raise my mana stat more, and soon.’
The stat limit removal was only for the ‘chapter limit’; it didn't solve this kind of issue.
I had what I needed to break through the stat cap, but it wasn't the right time yet.
To break through the stat cap of 70 and go higher, I needed two B-rank elixirs that raised that specific stat.
Among the elixirs I received from Yurgan, there were exactly two mana elixirs.
I could break through whenever I wanted.
‘But I can't.’
My negotiations with Gabriel were still pending.
If he found out I'd already completed the first stat breakthrough at this point, it would only heighten his vigilance and likely lower the value of my reward.
As long as he couldn't know what I had gained from the other world, I had to delay revealing this information as much as possible.
“Ugh!”
A hunter roaming inside the hideout collapsed with a final scream.
I'd gotten quite used to hiding my body in the darkness.
‘As expected.’
I saw a pile of bombs stacked in one place and the corners of my mouth lifted.
As expected, Paradise had intended to use this place as a trap from the very beginning.
Their plan was probably to detonate the bombs at the most climactic moment, inflicting damage on hunters and guilds alike, then slip away.
As I reached out, the darkness flowing from me seeped into the bombs.
I activated the power of annihilation, erasing everything inside the bombs.
They still looked like bombs on the outside, but inside, they were empty, nothing at all.
After neutralizing all the bombs inside the hideout like that, I leisurely turned and left.
***
A narrow path leading to a residential area, one that commuters would have frequented.
Similar paths could be found all over the country.
Normally, she would have thought so, but right now, that thought didn't cross Jeong Ha-yeon's mind at all.
It wasn't because the buildings and walls along the path were smashed as if they were being demolished.
It was the numerous bloodstains, dried and hardened, that remained despite attempts to clean them.
The traps that seemed to have been used for it.
How many players must have been murdered here.
Thinking about it, Jeong Ha-yeon couldn't help but take a deep breath.
Disarming the traps one by one, she slowly stepped forward.
Before long, she could see people busily moving about, preparing something.
The men, who had been whispering amongst themselves, also spotted Jeong Ha-yeon and fell silent.
“Someone's coming.”
“Hey, check it out. Did you hear anything from the guys up front?”
A path like this never existed before.
And it should never exist again.
Jeong Ha-yeon slowly closed the distance.
“Wait, I got a message. A small elite force is heading this way, so they're sending support...”
“Elite? Hey, so that woman is the elite force? She's already here! When is the support coming!?”
“Damn it, the bigger problem is how she got here so fast! We made it like a maze with barricades and makeshift walls so newcomers couldn't find their way easily! And what happened to the guys up front!?”
“I broke them all.”
At Jeong Ha-yeon's single statement, everyone gathered there fell silent.
Not even thirty minutes had passed since Choi Nam-hoon's speech in the middle of the residential area.
Even if the subjugation operation had started immediately after, it meant she had arrived in about twenty minutes.
To pinpoint their location and arrive after destroying all the barricades and walls in such a short time?
It could only mean one thing.
She was a very high-rank player.
“Where is Choi Nam-hoon?”
Jeong Ha-yeon asked, her gaze sweeping over the men's faces.
“They said elite, so at least A-rank, maybe even S...”
“If it's true all the traps were destroyed, that means we have to fight her on our own?”
“We're fucked.”
“Can we even take her on by ourselves?”
“How the hell would we know where he is, fuck.”
The newly awakened men with low stats were busy exchanging nervous glances.
From among them, someone stepped forward with a smirk.
“Calm down. We need to think about how we can win.”
A smile formed beneath his light khaki-colored hair, which looked bleached.
He seemed to be the leader of the group, as the others naturally made way for him.
Jeong Ha-yeon recalled that this man had been a player for a while.
She had seen him back when the Ruler trait was causing a stir.
“That woman is a high-rank player, that's true. But she doesn't have any particularly amazing abilities.”
“Th-then...”
“Besides, we've also been deliberately hiding our true strength.”
The young man grinned and snapped his fingers, and many hunters appeared on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings.
“I received the report a while ago. I had them get ready without telling you all, so we could turn the tables at a critical moment.”
At that, the men's morale instantly rose.
An opponent who didn't shoot fire or lightning like other players, but simply swung a sword.
And on top of that, they had dozens of fighters.
This was doable.
That's what they thought.
However, that thought was short-lived.
“Gah!”
“Keuk!”
A total of fourteen men.
That many people charged at her all at once, but with a few light swings of her sword, Jeong Ha-yeon sent them all groaning and tumbling to the ground.
No one died, as they were all struck with the flat of her blade.
They could only writhe and scream internally from the pain that wouldn't easily subside.
The twins, who had appeared at some point, were also attacking the people on the rooftops.
The power gap was so clear that receiving a report had been meaningless.
The face of the man who had been so triumphant just moments ago stiffened.
“Do you know how many people you've killed?”
Looking at the men trembling on the ground, Jeong Ha-yeon slowly began to speak.
“Seventy-seven people. Excluding the virus, that's the most people who have died in such a short time since the residential area stabilized. It's three times the number killed by demonic beasts.”
Contempt filled Jeong Ha-yeon's eyes.
In her eyes, the figures before her weren't even human.
“So are you telling us to just do nothing and die!”
At Jeong Ha-yeon's words, someone shouted shrilly.
“That's right! We only did it to survive!”
“Who do you think you are, some apostle of justice!?”
“Go on, answer me! Telling us to do nothing and just wait for death, isn't that indirect murder? Is that really what justice is!?”
Once one person spoke, the floodgates opened, and others began to speak as well.
Jeong Ha-yeon's lips twisted, and she gritted her teeth.
“Then what about the other ordinary people who didn't act like you!”
At Jeong Ha-yeon's roar, the men who had been vehemently arguing their case flinched and fell silent.
“Those people, did they just wait and do nothing because they're idiots!? Don't make me laugh! It's because they know that harming someone else just to save themselves goes against basic decency! It's because they know that no matter how desperate their situation, it doesn't justify hurting others!”
As if pouring out everything she had held back.
Jeong Ha-yeon, having spoken in a breathless torrent, gasped for air.
Before her were the very type of people Jeong Ha-yeon detested most.
“There was someone.”
In the silence where no one dared to speak, Jeong Ha-yeon continued, her voice now low.
“Someone who believed there had to be a way for everyone to live, without anyone having to kill another. Someone who, despite having no power himself, tried tirelessly to save everyone.”
A few of the men lowered their gazes to the ground.
The ordinary people who had joined the organization late knew exactly who Jeong Ha-yeon was talking about.
And they also understood what she was implying about what had happened to him.
“But he died.”
Jeong Ha-yeon's words stopped there.
But even without her continuing, the people could clearly understand what would have come next.
You killed him.
That could be the only reason for Jeong Ha-yeon to tell this story.
Of course, Jeong Ha-yeon actually knew that Lee Do-hyeon wasn't dead.
Nevertheless, due to her earlier anger, her acting came out so naturally it seemed real.
“How very arrogant and irresponsible of you to say.”
The solemn silence lasted only for a moment.
The masked Choi Nam-hoon appeared without a sound.
“It was uncertain whether that method could even be found, yet he asked people to just trust and wait. When their own lives are on the line, is it right to believe words with no evidence to back them up?”
“He put his own life on the line too.”
“It seems you're not getting the point. That's a completely separate issue. That so-called method...”
“And in the end, he found it.”
Choi Nam-hoon's words faltered.
At the same time, the people nearby began to murmur in confusion.
“I-is that true?”
“Then does that mean we threw away our own chance...?”
“I-I didn't kill him!”
They could have lived, but because of them, the method was lost.
When the story went that way, it was natural for doubts to arise.
Knowing this could lead to dissent, Choi Nam-hoon shook his head and spoke.
“That is unfortunate. If we had known that sooner, such a tragedy would not have occurred... But I have to wonder. If something like that was in progress, shouldn't we have been the ones to be informed first? We haven't heard a single word about the progress until now. And it's also true that it's doubtful whether a method was really found at all.”
“Th-that's true.”
“I think he made a declaration like that, but I haven't heard anything since.”
“So was that woman trying to trick us?”
The atmosphere shifted.
Once you seize the momentum, you must not let go and keep pushing.
Therefore, before Jeong Ha-yeon could say anything in rebuttal, Choi Nam-hoon shouted first.
“That is...!”
“That's right, everyone! This is all a scheme by those wicked players to break our spirits! You mustn't be deceived!”
The corners of Choi Nam-hoon's mouth lifted.
At this point, they wouldn't easily believe anything Jeong Ha-yeon said. It was a smile confident of victory.
But that, too, was short-lived.
Behind Choi Nam-hoon.
Because someone appeared on the roof of the main hideout and changed the tide of battle with a single sentence.
“That's because you blocked all the information, isn't it?”