The Edge of Dawn
"Hey, breathe. Breathe, damn it!"
"Gkk… khh…."
"I said breathe!"
"Haaagh! Hah… hah…."
I slapped the muzzle-masked man's cheeks a couple of times, and it seemed to unclog whatever had been strangling his airway — he finally started breathing again.
Whew. Thank god.
One more second and I would've committed murder with all the flourish and theatrics still on display.
The power of my Muted Blade had simply run hotter than I'd expected.
Well, as long as he's confirmed alive, that's all that matters.
Leaving the fallen man where he lay, I scanned my surroundings.
"He took down Manabe in a single strike!"
"Is he an S-rank hunter?"
I ignored the masked figures muttering around me in a nervous ring.
The place that had looked like a grand ballroom was now wrecked as if a bomb had gone off inside it. The floor had split open in jagged cracks, and deep fissures webbed the walls, leaving the whole structure looking like it might come down at any moment.
This should be enough.
No one was going to be able to paper over this kind of disaster easily.
Except for exactly one man.
"Heh heh. Now here's an interesting guest."
The master of this place — save for him.
"So it was you. The owner of this establishment."
The turtle-masked man clapped slowly as he ambled out from the shadows. It was the attendant I'd run into when I first entered this place.
"You expected this?"
"Not from the very beginning, no."
At first I'd genuinely taken him for a simple attendant — right up until he vanished without a trace and the guests began flooding into this place.
"A man capable of weaving illusions that sophisticated wouldn't be playing doorman in a hole like this."
That magic had been far beyond the level of mere sensory dampening or spatial displacement. The attendant who'd greeted me from the moment I arrived had been a phantom all along.
And phantoms, as a rule, can only perform repetitive, pre-programmed tasks. Even 'Nightmare Dream', one of the most famous illusion enchantments, is nothing more than dredging up a victim's most horrifying memory and repeating it.
But this man's phantom had answered me. It had even given me advice.
When I told him I'd come to learn how Moon Fragments were manufactured —
'If that's what you're after, you'd best meet the master of this Deep Night. Every Moon Fragment that passes through here passes through his hands.'
'That is, unless it falls beyond our ability to handle. Though in most cases, nothing has ever escaped the scope of our management.'
That phantom had understood my words and responded to them. No mere illusion could ever do such a thing.
"Who are you?"
"I'm afraid this is hardly the right venue for that conversation."
The turtle-masked man bowed his head with practiced courtesy.
"This time, we will receive you properly, honored guest."
The room he led me to looked like something out of a private parlor. The turtle-masked man settled into a sofa and laughed, entirely at ease.
"I never dreamed you'd stir up all that in a single day. You truly put me in an awkward position."
Even with his business in shambles, his voice had climbed in pitch — not with anger, but with genuine amusement.
"What exactly is this place?"
"Exactly what you see. A place that makes possible what cannot be done in the real world. Like a dream."
"……."
A dream, huh. One built out of illegal item trafficking and an awakened colosseum.
Some dream. Gloomy as a funeral.
As if he'd read the thought straight out of my head, the turtle-masked man smiled.
"Even the wicked dream. For some, a blood-soaked murder scene is paradise; for others, watching someone else fall into the abyss makes for the finest of memories."
"Spare me the abstractions."
"I'm afraid that's simply the kind of man I am."
Still, that didn't mean I could look kindly on this place. If everyone just chased their own pleasures, what was the point of law? Of morality?
"In any case, your guess was correct. I am the master of this place."
The turtle-masked man squared his shoulders. His posture was no different from when he'd played the attendant, and yet the air around him had shifted entirely.
"Then you already know why I'm here."
"You came for the Moon Fragments."
Snap.
He flicked his fingers, and a black ring bloomed open above the table. Inside it sat the illegal elixir — the Moon Fragment.
"…I see. You're not here to take it yourself, after all."
He glanced at my face before speaking.
"What makes you say that?"
"Those who are addicted to this thing cannot look at it the way you do. Not with it sitting right in front of them."
"And how exactly do I look at it?"
"I see… that gaze of yours, it's like…"
He paused for a beat before spitting the rest out.
"Like a man staring at the most revolting filth the world has ever produced."
"……."
He wasn't wrong.
Sure, Moon Fragments raised your Exp.
But this is a poison that mutates human beings into monsters.
And somehow, staring at the thing kept dragging one particular face up out of my memory.
Leo.
I forced the surging rage back down and pressed on with the conversation.
"Doesn't change why I'm here. The manufacturing method for Moon Fragments. Is it in this place?"
If it was, then this place was the wellspring itself. And even if it wasn't — this place could produce them either way.
Which meant it had to be crushed.
"The manufacturing method, hm…"
The turtle-masked man fell silent for a moment.
"No. But also, yes."
"…What?"
"I know it. I know exactly how Moon Fragments are made."
The air in the room froze solid in an instant.
"You know how to make them?"
"Yes. Intimately."
He raised a hand to his own face.
"Because I'm the one who created them. Or rather… my family did."
He removed the turtle mask.
And his face was laid bare.
Blue hair, a hard angular jaw.
And —
A grotesque scar swallowing half of his face.
Scars aside, though, it was a face I'd seen somewhere before.
"Allow me to greet you once more."
He bowed — exactly as he had the first time we'd met.
"My name is Fujiwara Manato."
He was a man of the Fujiwara clan — the family famous, by all accounts, for having been wiped out to the last man. Except one.
Awakened Criminal Detention Facility.
One of the inmates glared at the restraints binding his body and vented his fury at them.
"Goddamn it all… to think I would be subjected to this humiliation!"
Fujiwara Manabu.
A criminal serving a temporary sentence for his involvement in the Cheongryong Sword Sect affair.
"When I get out of here, I won't make the same mistake twice… I'll use a stronger pill. Whatever it takes — I'll claw that power back!"
The power he'd wielded in the final match of the Guild War. Even now, the memory of it set his heart racing.
Yes, he'd lost to Baek Seo-ha. But that would never happen again.
Stronger pills. That's all it takes.
He'd already survived the side effects once. If he adapted to the power step by step while raising the concentration, there was no limit to how much stronger he could become.
Just you wait, woman.
He'd make it out of here, and he'd have his revenge — no matter what!
His jaw trembled as he ground his teeth. And at that moment, someone slipped quietly into Manabu's cell.
"Hey."
A deep, gravelly voice.
"How's prison life suiting you? Gotta say, it fits."
"…Who the hell are you?"
Manabu lifted his head and looked at the man standing in front of him.
Everything about the man's frame screamed tough. He looked to be on the older side, but that brutish, formidable body of his practically announced that this was the prime of his life — right now.
"Orders came down from above."
"From above… don't tell me you're one of them too?"
Without a word, the man fished a cigarette from his pocket and clamped it between his lips.
"See, this is why you don't go strutting around like that. Changing forms like that in front of everybody and his dog. You must've been out of your damn mind to advertise Moon Fragments like that."
"As if I'd know anything about that…! I only cooperated with you people to achieve my goal!"
"Cooperate? Don't make me laugh."
The man exhaled a plume of smoke and fixed Manabu with a contemptuous stare.
"Word from above is, a guy so full of himself that he can't think past his own nose is a liability. They said to remove you."
"…Remove me? Ha, hahaha! Did you say remove?"
Manabu's mind cracked, and a scream that was half laughter tore out of his throat.
"You dare claim you'll remove me?! Me, who did even those filthy deeds for your sake?!"
"Glad to hear you at least know the word 'filthy'. Apologize to your clan when you get to the other side."
"No — you can't! I can't die here!"
It was unjust. He'd made one mistake. Lost one fight. That was all.
And the price of that was death? After he'd gambled his entire life on this partnership, wasn't this punishment far too cruel?
"I'll speak with her directly! If she just hears me out, she'll change her mind — khhk!"
The man's hand clamped around Manabu's throat and wrenched it.
"Don't you dare speak of her so carelessly. The only reason your neck is still attached to your shoulders is her grace. Every single day of it."
"I… I understand…."
When the grip released, Manabu hacked and coughed, dragging air back into his lungs.
"…I gave my clan to you. All of them."
The Fujiwara family. A illustrious house of Japan that had produced hunter after exceptional hunter.
It was also a vault of accumulated knowledge — a treasure trove of intelligence on hunters and gates alike.
And among that hoard was everything relating to pharmaceuticals.
There were even rumors that the family possessed the technology to artificially craft elixirs.
Rumors, of course. Nothing more. Because if such a thing were truly possible, one could manufacture skilled hunters by the dozen, at will.
Force-feed the elixirs to a child with high potential, hour after hour.
Then set that child loose under the family's name as a hunter. And just like that, the family's glory would climb ever higher.
"I gave you everything you wanted! I handed over the elixir-making techniques, and I slaughtered every last clansman who stood against it!"
Manabu had exterminated his own clan with these very two hands.
The secret art of the Fujiwara house — the one technique that must never, ever leave the family.
It had all been to smuggle out the Elixir Crafting Arts.
Manabu had awakened with bottom-tier potential from birth. No matter how many elixirs he consumed, his body absorbed none of them.
His family had laughed at him. Sneered at him. Ground him underfoot.
Born into a house where anyone could become a powerful hunter — and he alone could do what anyone else could.
And then, to a man at the bottom of that pit, there had come a woman like a saint.
'I will grant you your heart's desire. In exchange, I require payment.'
She had bestowed on him immediate power.
Enough strength to slaughter his entire clan in a single night.
And after the clan was dead and the Elixir Crafting Arts were smuggled out, she sent him an elixir of a different kind.
One even Manabu's ruined body could absorb.
The instant he swallowed it, power flooded his veins — and he could stand as strong as any other hunter.
"I did everything for you people! And now, for me, you —"
"You're not worth another second of my ears."
The man, his cigarette burned to ash, gathered magic into his palm.
"S-stay back…!"
"You helped us? Give me a break."
"Stay back! Stay baaack!!"
"We used you, you half-witted fool."
Fwoom!
Blue flame erupted from the man's hand.
"AAAAAAAGH! No! Stop! It can't end like thiiiiiis!"
The fire gnawed into Manabu and devoured him. Flesh burned, bones charred, his eyeballs melted in their sockets.
"Ah… aaah… mo… mother…."
"Your dying words are a cry for Mommy? For a man who butchered his own clan, that's almost sentimental."
Before long, Manabu was nothing but ash, scattered on the wind.
"……"
The man stared at the ashes for a long moment. Then he pulled a phone from his hand and placed a call.
"Target removed. Yes. No traces left behind."
Something came through from the other end of the line, and he gave a small nod.
"Understood. It will be done that way."
The man nodded away, brisk and businesslike.
He'd just killed a man, and not a flicker of disturbance crossed his face.
"Understood, sir."
From his breast pocket, his name tag poked out just far enough to be read.
Hunter Bureau — Awakened Crime Investigation Team 1
Jin Seok-cheol