The Masked Man (1)
“Fujiwara…?”
No wonder the scarred face had felt strangely familiar.
I never imagined he'd come from the same clan as that Sword Demon.
“I heard the Fujiwara clan was wiped out—every last one of them, except a single survivor.”
Come to think of it, even that statement was darkly funny.
It wasn't that one had been spared. It was that the one survivor had annihilated the clan himself.
“That's correct. The Fujiwara were indeed destroyed back then. What stands before you now is nothing more than a ghost.”
Manato gave a bitter smile.
“Dear customer in the wolf mask. How much do you know about what happened that day?”
What he called "that day" could only mean the fall of the Fujiwara clan.
Japan's most illustrious family had collapsed in a single night and vanished into the back pages of history—one of the most notorious incidents in the entire annals of Japanese hunter history.
Officially, that was.
The public account held that horrific experiments had been conducted within the Fujiwara household, and that Fujiwara Manabu, unable to endure them any longer, had butchered everyone in his family.
But according to what surfaced later…
The truth that eventually came to light was that Manabu had monopolized the elixirs being researched inside his own clan, and used them to take revenge on the family members who had always scorned and belittled him.
The only reason an E-rank with such pitiful potential had been able to slaughter the awakened hunters of a great house was, in the end, those very elixirs.
Afterward, the incident was swept into Japan's hunter world as a black stain on its record, and the full truth was never uncovered.
And the Moon Fragment carried the Iron Blood Monarch's power inside it.
Which meant the Advent Church had been deeply involved in the fall of the Fujiwara clan as well.
When I laid out my conclusion in a few terse sentences, something flickered through Manato's eyes.
“…You know considerably more than I expected.”
He drew a slow breath before continuing.
“Then you are right to know it. Behind this incident stood that organization—the one called the Advent Church.”
Fujiwara Manabu.
The one pulling his strings had been the Advent Church.
“They approached us through Manabu, whom they considered a blemish on the family name. The scheme was only possible because he was both a member of the clan and a man who despised it.”
A congenitally low potential rank was reason enough to be ostracized in the Fujiwara household, a dynasty of hunters.
Low potential meant that no amount of effort could carry you past a certain ceiling.
No one understood that better than I did.
“What they demanded was the elixir-crafting arts, a technique unique to our family. That was why they went after Manabu.”
“I see.”
“…You don't seem surprised? I'd think the ability to manufacture elixirs artificially would sound like something out of a dream.”
Well, he wasn't wrong.
What was an elixir, after all?
The kind of item that sent people into ecstatic celebration when it dropped from a Gate—the thing you absolutely had to secure if you wanted to grow fast and far.
And he could brew and consume those at will.
Before my regression, no skill had been more desperately out of my reach. That was why I'd clawed my way through everything imaginable and eventually mastered a few of the elixir formulas the Fujiwara clan had left behind.
But they were dangerously unstable.
The elixirs produced that way were wildly unpredictable and hazardous.
Hazardous didn't cover it—some of them had side effects so severe you'd sooner call them poison than medicine.
They could inflate your strength in the short term, no question. But consume them over the long run and the body simply couldn't take it.
No wonder the Fujiwara kept that technique secret.
If word got out that people were growing stronger by ingesting things like that, the Japanese government would have come down on them like a hammer.
“In any case… the Advent Church used Manabu as a puppet to butcher our entire clan for the sake of our elixir arts. Then they fabricated evidence to pin a long list of crimes on the Fujiwara name, so as to justify Manabu's atrocity.”
“So it was some kind of transaction?”
“Closer to say they used Manabu than that they traded with him.”
If it had been a genuine bargain, the Church might have come to rescue Manabu the way Elpiros had swooped in to retrieve the Knight of Ruin.
But Manabu remained in custody to this day.
Not a single soul in the Advent Church had shown the slightest interest in moving for his sake.
“They discarded Manabu long ago. They simply judged he had no more use.”
“Then… what are you? How are you still alive, and what have you been doing here?”
“I told you, didn't I. I am a ghost.”
Mana surged across Manato's entire body.
His figure turned translucent, warping like a mirage.
“On the day it happened, Manabu slit my face open and left me to die. But they saw some use in me, and forced the breath back into my body.”
Manato's illusion skill was first-rate.
In terms of raw mastery of a single skill, it wouldn't have fallen short of a ranked hunter's.
That was almost certainly why the Church had noticed it and let him live.
“And so, with a leash fastened around my neck, I became the master of this Deep Night.”
“What is this place for?”
“Simple.”
His voice dropped low.
“Screening for those fit to become Knights. And spreading the Moon Fragment through Japan's underworld.”
“….”
“According to them, the thicker a man's desire and greed, the higher his likelihood of knighthood.”
So that was why he'd built a criminal underworld here. Why he'd filled it with offenders and predators.
Because the fouler the soul, the better the odds of successful knighthood.
“To be honest, I don't know them well myself. I'm nothing but a dying piece on the endgame board.”
Manato was a man of the Fujiwara house too.
Which meant he had grown strong by continuously dosing himself with those perilous elixirs.
He had even died once, mid-way through, and been dragged back.
Which means what little lifespan he has left is…
Less than a year, if that.
“Haha… Still, meeting a benefactor like you before I die—I count myself fortunate.”
“A benefactor? Me?”
“Yes. I know that you, dear customer, are preparing to stand against the Advent Church.”
“….”
“So I wish to help you in whatever way I can.”
“Help? You're a dead man walking.”
As if the real conversation were only now beginning, the corner of Manato's mouth twitched faintly.
“The Advent Church is not confined to Japan. They maintain branches in countries all over the world.”
“…Heh. For a cult of charlatans, they're awfully ambitious.”
“Do you know the purpose of the Japan branch among them?”
“Didn't you just say it? Spreading the Moon Fragment through the shadows—”
He shook his head.
“That is only the tiniest sliver of the Church's aims. It is not the ultimate goal of the Japan branch.”
The objective of the Advent Church's Japan branch.
It was this.
“They intend to dominate the boss of an S-rank Gate.”
To claim an S-rank Gate's boss as their thrall.
“There's an S-rank Gate in Japan right now?”
“There is. The Church has merely concealed its nature behind a barrier.”
S-rank Gates existed on a level of difficulty that defied every common-sense rule governing the others.
That was precisely why people called clearing one a Raid.
Going in alone was, of course, suicide.
Even full teams found them brutal, so the standard practice was to assemble an entire strike force to assault the Gate.
On top of that, there was no rank designation above S, which meant the difficulty gap between individual Gates was enormous.
Mana-wave measuring devices simply couldn't read anything beyond a certain threshold.
Two Gates could both register above 100 and be judged S-rank, and yet there was no telling whether one was a 120 or a 500.
“They've been working to identify that Gate for a long time, trying to seize the power of its boss monster.”
His gaze fell to the floor.
“That Gate's boss… that dragon must not fall into their hands.”
“…Hold on.”
A single thought shot through my head like lightning.
Before my regression, when the Iron Blood Monarch first appeared—
One nation had refused to cower before that army of annihilation and had challenged it head-on.
China.
They had boldly conscripted the continent's strongest and every hunter of B-rank or above to face the Iron Blood Monarch.
And then—
Every last one of them was erased without even a scream.
The monster that annihilated China.
The Demon Dragon of the Azure Heavens, which had swept across that vast landmass until several hundred million people simply ceased to exist, leaving no one alive.
Behemoth.
As far as my memory served, it had been among the mightiest of the Iron Blood Monarch's vassals.
In the end, it remained the last and strongest dragon I never managed to slay before I died.
Don't tell me that thing came out of a Japanese Gate.
If that was true, it had to be stopped.
If it could be done, I could cripple a major pillar of the Iron Blood Monarch's future war machine.
“Where is this S-rank Gate? I'll head there right now—”
“Unfortunately, even I don't know that much. I can, however, tell you how to get close to them.”
When Manato snapped his fingers, a cascade of emblems rose into the air.
Looking closer—
“These are guild crests.”
The logos of guilds based in Japan.
“Of the countless guilds in this country, one of them is the Advent Church's Japan branch in the flesh.”
“They went so far as to found an actual guild?”
“A guild is, after all, the most convenient vehicle for operating within the hunter industry.”
Well, I'd built Shinseong for much the same reasons.
Guilds came with all sorts of benefits where hunters and Gates were concerned, and their regulations were relatively forgiving.
“Even I can't tell which of them is the Church's Japan branch. But I do know one distinguishing trait.”
“Which is?”
“They will approach any strong hunter by any means necessary.”
“Every other guild does that too.”
“Other guilds promise hunters better treatment and prestige. The Advent Church offers something else entirely.”
Unlike the other great guilds, what the Church could promise was this.
“The Advent Church promises a hunter greater power.”
Strength beyond what they already had.
That was probably the same line they'd used to bait Yoo Sung-wook.
In fact, Yoo Sung-wook had grown measurably stronger after having an Otherworldly Fragment implanted in him.
The hunger to grow stronger was the most primal obsession a hunter possessed.
The higher you climbed, the stronger you became, the steeper your growth curve—and the more certain you were to hit a wall.
And at that moment, the Advent Church would appear and whisper:
We can make you stronger than you are now.
Of all those staring at an impassable wall, how many could resist that whisper?
“So there is no need for you to hunt them down, dear customer. You must make them come to you.”
“Wait—then that means….”
“Yes.”
Manato looked at me and smiled.
“You must become that strong hunter. One worth their attention.”
“Uh… sorry to break it to you, but the Advent Church already knows my face.”
“That is no concern at all.”
In that instant—
“After all, no one there will recognize you.”
Every illusion filling the room converged on a single point.
“Wait—you're saying he cleared an A-rank Gate alone?!”
A Hunter Bureau employee clapped a hand over his mouth as the news landed.
“And it wasn't even an S-rank?”
“That's what I'm telling you. A-rank.”
“Has anyone like that ever existed? And where did he suddenly crawl out of?”
His colleague pictured the hunter as he answered.
“His hunter registration is only two days old. Probably not long after his awakening, I'd guess.”
“A newly awakened hunter cleared an A-rank Gate? Say something that makes sense.”
“I know. That's what I thought too.”
On the surface, the man had looked like nothing special.
A hunter carrying a single battered spear.
Everyone had taken him for a fresh awakener with stats well below the B-rank average.
And yet he'd solo-cleared an A-rank Gate.
“That guy just won the lottery, huh~ So jealous.”
“No kidding. At that level, guilds from all over the world—not just Japan—would've been fighting to sign him.”
“But hey, you want to hear the funniest part?”
The man grinned and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“That guy's family name. It was Yamamoto.”