Uprooting (7)
Sticky blood was splattered across the park floor, and a damp, sickening stench saturated the air. They were tearing into flesh with ravenous hunger—a man, a woman, and a child.
Park Jeongho could not believe his eyes.
"Ji... Jinho...?"
His little brother was already dead, and that ruined body had become a meal. His family's mouths were smeared with blood, and they were making the sounds of beasts, as if their minds had gone entirely.
"H-Hyung... s-save me..."
Even in that state, Park Jinho was still conscious. For a moment Park Jeongho could not take in what he was seeing at all.
Jinho's dead. Then what is that? What are those monsters?
It was unmistakably his brother's face, his brother's voice. The whole body was already torn open and drenched in blood, but the face was Park Jinho's, no question.
"AAAAAH—!! Save me! Hyung! Please!! I'm gonna die!"
Park Jinho's scream ripped out of him. Scream or not, the family went on slowly devouring him, piece by piece, while the vengeful ghosts that had chased them here laughed a skin-crawling laugh, as if they had found a fine show.
"They say that one's his little brother!"
"Look at that pathetic bastard. Serves him right. Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh."
"Don't look so shocked. You'll be just like that soon enough."
"Unnie—! Not there, tear into that part! It'll hurt more!"
Blood jetted up like a fountain, and Park Jinho's screams only grew wilder.
"Cry louder! Louder! Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh! Mmm~ Beautiful!"
His eyes rolled back.
"Hyung! Please!! Save me!!"
Terror and rage began to knot together strangely inside Park Jeongho.
"All of you, get the hell away!!"
He hurled himself at them at once.
THUD—
As expected, he only cut through empty air. Nothing changed. They were already the dead, and there was nothing he could do.
"And what could a speck like you possibly do?"
His breath came short. He sank down where he stood and slowly backed away.
S-rank from the instant he awakened. From the day the hunter world began, Park Jeongho had lived like a king. This was the first humiliation he had ever tasted.
Worse than that—his thick legs were shaking, ugly and out of his control.
Why am I like this? How is this even possible?
He had seen no end of vicious monsters inside the gates, but his energy was already nothing like normal. An unplaceable cold seeped through his entire body.
Me? Feeling fear?
It was something that could not happen to him. He tried to deny it, but the body does not lie. His fingertips trembled like mad, and he ground his teeth until they ached.
From the moment he became a meal for thousands of vengeful ghosts, he could no longer be called a normal hunter. Yin energy now outweighed the mana that had once flowed through him, and he could not make himself accept it.
"Why the hell is this happening. Don't tell me I'm dreaming. Did that bastard from Nemesis Guild botch the spell? That's it. There's no other way this could be real. I'm asleep. All of this is a dream. An illusion."
He muttered it low. Just then, a figure whose entire face was hollow came flying at him, grotesque, and pressed a palm to the place where a mouth should have been.
"Not a dream, though? How could this be a dream?"
It spoke without a mouth. Park Jeongho could not believe it.
"Amazing, right? Watch closely."
Two black larvae writhed in the center of the palm. Pressed tight together, they squirmed apart to either side, and the words spilled out between them.
"Scary, isn't it? Keh-heh. Scary, right? And we haven't even started."
She pointed with one finger. A man with no lower body crawled out on his arms, and behind him came the young ones, groaning as they walked—one missing a piece here, another burst open there. Most of them wore armor-like gear. Some still gripped weapons.
"Wh-what are all of those?"
The man without a lower half, at the front of them, spoke through a sob.
"Master. Why did you abandon us..."
Park Jeongho's face hardened in an instant.
"Master. Why did you leave us behind in the gate..."
"We were loyal to you... Is this all we amounted to..."
"We waited a long time... Why have you only come now..."
Park Jeongho felt as if his heart would stop. The hollow-faced ghost wiggled her fingers, theatrical.
"The comrades you abandoned? No, no, no, no, no. They're the little slave bastards you killed, aren't they?"
His heart slammed as if it would burst.
On gate hunts, Park Jeongho had simply left them—low-ranking guild members hurt too badly, or anyone who ordinarily got on his nerves. The reason was vile enough: treatment would cost more than the compensation.
"Master. We respected you..."
"Why did you abandon us... Answer us..."
"Do you remember me... Why did you hate me...?"
The pitiful words cut off all at once.
"Why the fuck did you leave us, you son of a bitch!!!"
They charged, running grotesquely on bodies that were no longer whole. Park Jeongho wanted to flee that very second, but his feet felt bound. He could not move.
"Not a single day passed that we didn't wait for you. Park Jeongho, you bastard."
"Tell us why you abandoned us! If you've got a mouth, use it, you motherfucking piece of shit!"
"Why did you abandon us."
"Why?"
"Why."
"Why."
Park Jeongho was aghast. It was a spectacle he had never once seen.
In that instant his body burst into flame—a last rebellion, wringing out whatever mana remained. The world around him began to melt, and the onlookers broke and ran.
Just before the fire exploded—
"Master!"
Lee Jeongwoo was sprinting in at the head of the guild members. Park Jeongho's eyes had already rolled white; he heard nothing.
"Hey! Block it, now!! If that blows, we're all dead!"
At his shout the guild members threw themselves forward. Tank-type hunters took the front and raised massive shields and barriers. It was closer to restraining him than fighting him. No one wanted a fight with Park Jeongho.
"Hey! All of you, snap out of it!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Lee Jeongwoo planted himself in front of him, voice breaking.
"Master! It's Lee Jeongwoo! Please, stop!"
"J-Jeongwoo?"
Only at the cost of D.K Guild's blood did they barely manage to settle him.
Thirty guild members were casualties.
D.K Guild headquarters.
Park Jeongho had not come out of his room in days. Fear kept anyone from even stepping inside, and Lee Jeongwoo was no different—outside that door, talking was all he could do.
D.K, one of South Korea's Four Great Guilds, which had seemed as if it would last forever, was coming apart fast.
"How is the Master?"
Lee Jeongwoo asked it with worry plain on his face, but the guild member standing watch outside the door looked troubled.
"No particular change, sir. He still hasn't come out. Now and then he screams."
Lee Jeongwoo's brow tightened.
"How many days has it been. He isn't even eating, for God's sake... Anyway, good work. If anything changes—anything, no matter how small—you report it immediately."
The guild member bowed, impeccably polite.
"Understood."
Lee Jeongwoo left headquarters. His chest felt heavy, as if a stone sat on it.
"Don't tell me it really is the curse..."
It was a method that had not been in his intelligence. When he had mapped the Unnamed Awakened's patterns over the past stretch of time, several things had lined up, and among them the manner of death was nearly identical.
After waking from sleep, the seizure begins.
Death, not long after. That was why they had laid a sleeplessness spell on Park Jeongho, the most exposed of them, and the most at risk.
The spell had not failed. He had seen with his own eyes that the man had not slept in days.
"Don't tell me there's another pattern."
A chill crawled over him. To drive a person mad without even putting them to sleep—and with nothing but a scrap of simple information. If the whole of D.K Guild was the target, he could be next.
"Fuck. We're really screwed."
Lee Jeongwoo sat in his car, chain-smoking, and thought for a long while.
"What the hell am I supposed to do..."
As if his mind had settled, he pulled out his phone at once.
Without hesitating, he selected the earliest flight to the United States.
Park Jeongho knelt in a corner of the room, shaking. The shoulders that had once loomed so proud in front of others had collapsed long ago.
For days upon days, hundreds of thousands of vengeful ghosts had been gnawing at him. Every day he heard screams and wailing loud enough to split his ears.
It was no longer the presence of an S-rank hunter. Park Jeongho, the monster who used to spew flame the moment his temper rose—there was no majesty left to find. Now there was only a slumped body, and the feeling, every second, of his spirit draining out of him.
His breath grew short. His heart clenched, and the organs inside him seemed to twist.
So it was you. The Unnamed Awakened...
Park Jeongho nodded slowly, as if he had only just understood. All of it was because of that man.
"Your ability... just how far does it go."
A powerlessness crushed his whole body. An opponent he had no chance of beating. It would be more honest to call him a monster.
The murmuring around him did not stop. Hundreds of thousands of vengeful ghosts stared at him all at once and whispered, and there was nowhere left to run.
In the end Park Jeongho closed his eyes, as if he had given up. He only endured. He neither used his power nor resisted. He already knew it would be useless.
That was when the ruined Park Jinho appeared before him. His whole body was torn apart, his face badly crushed, and he staggered toward Park Jeongho.
"Ji... Jinho..."
He reached out to hold him. His arms only cut empty air. Nothing met them.
"Hyung, I missed you."
"Jinho!!!"
A howl like a scream filled the room.
"Hyung, it's hard, isn't it. I'll help you. I can't stand to watch my hyung suffer like this anymore."
Park Jeongho's heart gave a faint beat. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
"What do I have to do, Jinho..."
In that instant, Park Jinho's mouth tore open all the way to his ears. His jaw gaped wide enough to touch the floor, and a mouthful of rotten teeth was laid bare.
His eyes froze.
"What...?"
"I said just die. If you die, it's over. A proud S-rank hunter? That means nothing. Once you're dead, everyone's the same. So kill yourself. Let's do it together. Let's share the pain. Let's be at ease together."
The voice began to stack over itself, growing ever more grotesque, and following Park Jinho every vengeful ghost joined in.
"Yeah. Die, Park Jeongho."
"I'm telling you, it's easier if you die."
"Hurry up and kill yourself!"
"Hang yourself already!"
"Jump off the building!"
"Rip your heart out!"
"Let's die, quick!"
"Come with us!"
Die.
Die.
Die.
Die.
Die.
Screams and whispers burst out all at once, and the room seemed to warp and shake.
Park Jeongho squeezed his eyes shut. He no longer had the strength even to thrash. The single word—die—almost sounded like a sweet temptation.
"......"
He listened in silence for a long time. Then he nodded, slowly. He already knew it was too late to regret the days gone by. There was no other way.
"I... can never defeat the Unnamed Awakened."
A bitter smile slipped out of him. The power he had boasted of so much. Money, authority, honor. None of it worked.
"An ability... like a calamity itself."
Park Jeongho raised a trembling hand. He hesitated a moment. Then he gathered every scrap of strength he had left and drove it straight through the left side of his chest.
"Ghk!"
Hot blood burst from the corner of his mouth.
Hundreds of thousands of vengeful ghosts laughed as one, a roar loud enough to deafen. Some of them even danced. As if it were a celebration, a feast broke out inside Park Jeongho's room.
Damn. An S-rank is still an S-rank. He lasted days through that madness. Impressive—though of course it's all over now.
He'd been out doing even filthier things than I thought. These D.K bastards—the guild itself is just rotten through.
Then let's pull the rest of the small fry out by the roots, too.