Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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Translator: TrueDetective
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: 15. From Here On, It's Brutal (3)
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I held my breath, waiting for the door to open.
The reason I hadn't screamed and bolted right away was because of what Lion CEO had wagered.
—I bet that Sa CEO, no matter what happens, no matter the situation, will absolutely never kill Jeom So-ui.
I decided to trust the terms of that bet.
Lion CEO had wagered that, no matter what, no matter the situation, Sa wouldn't try to kill me.
Lion CEO was a gambling addict.
She wouldn't have agreed so readily if she thought the bet was stacked against her.
She was certain.
Certain that Sa could never kill me.
Our CEO had a reason for keeping me alive, and Lion CEO knew what it was.
That's why I chose to face it head-on instead of running.
Because I figured the CEO wouldn't kill me right then and there.
Half a year from now was another story, though.
By then, I'd have siphoned off funds from the Nine Great Clans and started my own agency.
Anyway, I planned to grill the CEO about what this space was if she stepped out of the elevator.
But the moment the elevator doors slid open and I saw the face that appeared...
All the tension drained out of me.
The Heavenly Demon raised one eyebrow, looking puzzled.
"What are you doing here?"
"...That's what I want to ask you."
Why was the Heavenly Demon here?
"I was heading to the dorm when I sensed your energy from downstairs, so I came down one more floor."
With that, the Heavenly Demon stepped out of the elevator.
I quickly hit the button for the first floor before the doors could close.
If she saw it stop on the sixth floor, she'd get suspicious.
As the elevator descended, the space—which had brightened a bit—plunged back into darkness.
"Why is it so dark in here?"
The Heavenly Demon flicked his sleeve once.
Flame orbs bloomed into existence, several of them floating around us and illuminating the surroundings.
...I'd been crawling around on this filthy floor just to find a light switch.
Once I had some breathing room, I needed to start building up my internal energy.
Now that it was lit up, the Heavenly Demon finally took in my appearance properly and furrowed his brow.
"Why are you holding that?"
He glanced back and forth between me and the sword in my hand, then clicked his tongue.
"You're not supposed to hold it like that."
"How, then?"
"Forget it. If you're just going to swing it like that, hand it over."
Martial artists, always like this.
It wasn't like I could actually wield it anyway.
Better if the Heavenly Demon held it.
I readily turned the hilt and offered it to him. He smirked.
"What makes you think you can trust me enough to hand it over so easily?"
"Are you teasing me? If you really wanted to kill me, a sword like this wouldn't make a difference anyway. Better to play along obediently."
"You're not exactly obedient, though??"
The Heavenly Demon grumbled but took the sword from me without protest.
It looked far more convincing in his hands.
By now, the flame orbs he'd conjured had spread out, finally letting me take in the full scene.
It was just as I'd expected.
The entire floor crammed with chaotic, tangled lines and characters.
Thinking they'd all been drawn in blood sent a chill down my spine.
The Heavenly Demon scanned them with a calm gaze, as if searching for something.
"A formation..."
He murmured softly, then pointed with a slender, elegant finger.
"You see that circle?"
Where he pointed was a circle drawn on the floor.
Unlike the lines and bizarre shapes crammed with text, this circle was empty.
There were five such circles scattered across the floor.
"I can't tell exactly what formation it is, but it needs at least five to activate."
"Five of them?"
"Besides the CEO and the masked guy, that means at least three more collaborators on this mess."
"......"
Three more?
I thought for a moment, then spoke up.
"I can guess two of the three. One's Teacher Namgung Ryeo. The other's probably Lion CEO."
"Why the lion?"
The Heavenly Demon looked baffled, like why bring up Lion CEO all of a sudden.
"Isn't Lion CEO involved? She seems plenty suspicious."
"Didn't you notice from her eyes?"
"Her eyes... They were red, right?"
The Heavenly Demon covered his mouth with his sleeve, chuckling as if it were amusing, then spoke gravely.
"What's the biggest tell of someone who's cultivated demonic arts?"
I knew this one.
"Demonic cult trait. No manners."
"...No."
"Demonic cult trait. Never admits when they're wrong."
"The biggest tell is red eyes! Your tone is seriously pissing me off??"
That's because I meant it to.
I straightened up and shot back.
"I know demonic arts turn your eyes red, but you're saying Lion CEO's red eyes are from that too?"
"...Yeah. And it seems like some pretty peculiar ones at that."
"Peculiar how?"
The Heavenly Demon stroked his chin with a hum, replying softly.
"Looks like Heavenly Demon Divine Art."
"Heavenly Demon Divine Art?!"
"Or maybe Mahasin Art. Either way, it's a demonic art I've personally refined."
So Lion CEO had a fifty-fifty shot at being the Heavenly Demon?
More importantly, Mahasin Art was an actual passed-down manual?
Anyway, the Heavenly Demon continued.
"The lion's internal energy is seriously impure. If he got mixed up in a formation like this, it'd disrupt everyone else's flow. So even if he's in cahoots with the CEO, he wouldn't have stood on the formation itself."
That meant at least two more people I didn't know.
I racked my brain for people around the CEO.
But based on their usual images, even Teacher Namgung Ryeo didn't seem the type to get involved in something like this.
Just guessing, I couldn't even begin to suspect anyone...
...Ah.
"You know, there are quite a few celebrities with the five great clans' surnames."
"The five great clans?"
"Yeah. Like Jeokgalryang or Hwangbo Yun. Maybe start by checking idols using their real names, like Teacher Namgung Ryeo."
"Hmm. Given everything that's happened so far, that does seem the most logical place to start."
In the old days, I wouldn't have bet on such a ridiculous possibility.
But since the CEO really did gather kids with wuxia-related names, and the Namgung Clan actually exists...
I couldn't dismiss names lightly.
"What about this formation?"
"I'm planning to destroy it before I go."
"Yeah?"
The Heavenly Demon pulled out his phone from his sleeve and started snapping photos of the floor.
"For the record?"
"It's probably the summoning formation that called me here... but just in case. I'll have to analyze it slowly."
"Got it..."
Having the summoning formation documented bothered me a little.
But no one could steal the Heavenly Demon's phone anyway.
"Why's only that spot glowing like that?"
The Heavenly Demon pointed to a faintly fluorescent area.
"Was it like that when you first found it?"
"Ah... Someone must've come in before I did. If I'm right, that's luminol for detecting bloodstains."
His expression turned subtly odd at that.
"Bloodstains..."
"Yeah. This all looks like it was drawn in blood."
"Correct. The scent of blood lingers thickly."
He already knew it was drawn in blood?
Then why react to "bloodstains"?
The Heavenly Demon said flatly.
"The only one who'd come all the way here is that Zhongnan Sect bastard."
My heart sank at his words.
As far as I knew, luminol glows brighter over time, peaks, then fades.
The lines here had been vivid at first, but I'd seen the color dying out bit by bit.
If Shin Tae-eul really came here and checked for bloodstains...
It wouldn't be hard to guess he'd been killed right after.
"For a place like this, I figured there'd be something crucial... but that Zhongnan Sect guy must've taken it."
So I wasn't imagining that searching gaze earlier.
"Was there supposed to be something?"
"A formation this size isn't one-and-done, so they'd have left all sorts of things here for the next round. But now it's all empty."
I swallowed dryly and spoke.
"The floor above... was empty too."
"Above?"
"The dorm opposite the CEO's."
"Then... maybe the Zhongnan Sect guy ransacked it, and they hurriedly cleaned up."
The CEO's dorm with nothing left behind.
The summoning site missing something crucial.
Shin Tae-eul, killed after witnessing this place...
Putting it together, there really had been something decisive here.
And the odds were high that Shin Tae-eul knew where it went.
'I need to find Shin Tae-eul.'
Ideally, a living Shin Tae-eul.
But even if he was really dead... I needed to uncover what led to his death.
"By the way, did you meet the CEO?"
"Ah."
At my question, the Heavenly Demon realized he'd left something out.
"The CEO was on the rooftop. The moment she saw me, she said she'd delete the photo, so I told her to do it."
The CEO initiated it?
That explained why he'd come down so quickly for someone who'd gone to meet her.
But the Heavenly Demon wasn't done.
"Thing is... she said something odd."
"Odd how?"
"That she didn't kill him."
"......"
She didn't kill him...?
I fell silent for a moment, then asked in a trembling voice.
"So... the CEO knows that's Shin Tae-eul too...?"
One corner of the Heavenly Demon's mouth quirked up at my words.
I knew that look by now—it meant he was impressed.
But every time, it reminded me this guy was the twisted Heavenly Demon.
"Yeah. Whether it's true or not, the CEO knew that pink tracksuit was Shin Tae-eul."
"And one more thing."
My voice was low as I said it, and the Heavenly Demon's eyes widened slightly.
Then, genuinely baffled, he asked.
"With that brilliant brain of yours, why are you managing idols?"
"...Not something I wanna hear from the Heavenly Demon who's doing idol work with that physique."
"What's wrong with being an idol."
"Managing's just as good."
He just smirked at my retort.
"Back to the point. Like you said, her words reveal one more thing."
I murmured softly, picking up from him.
"The CEO's convinced that corpse is Shin Tae-eul. Unlike us..."
The Heavenly Demon offered no reply to my mutter, just a dry smile.
Right then, the elevator—which had stopped at the first floor—began rising.
It shot up to the seventeenth floor.
"...The CEO?"
"Probably."
If she really was on the rooftop like the Heavenly Demon said, then whoever was coming down now was likely her.
"Let's go. Handle the cleanup."
"Got it."
With a wave of his hand, the floating flame orbs dropped to the floor, flowing along the bloodstains and beginning to erase the formation.
Since it covered the whole floor, it would take longer than I'd thought to wipe it all.
The elevator that had gone to the seventeenth reached the seventh floor.
Should I be relieved it didn't come straight to the sixth?
"Heavenly Demon."
"Don't whine. It's done."
He clenched his fist, snuffing out the remaining embers.
At that moment, a chilling voice drifted down from above.
"Hey, you there. Jeom So-ui?"
* * *
"......?"
Sa, who had come down from the rooftop and gotten off on the seventh floor like usual,
tilted his head at an inexplicable unease just before opening the door.
'The number pad's still warm...'
The air in the temp dorm, with the AC blasting nonstop, was frigid.
So the door lock should be cold too.
But specific number keys were subtly warmer.
Even stranger: those numbers tied directly to his passcode...
'The other keys weren't touched—meaning they pressed it without hesitation, in one go.'
Few people were that sharp.
Fewer still sharp enough to break into his place.
One was Shin Tae-eul from Zhongnan Sect.
The other was Jeom So-ui, manager for the Nine Great Clans.
But Shin Tae-eul was already dead...
'Then Jeom So-ui? ...No way he'd do something this reckless.'
The Jeom So-ui he knew wouldn't pull a stunt like this.
Plus, news of Shin Tae-eul's death had broken just an hour ago.
Too short a window to raid his dorm right after.
'Then... who?'
Concluding it was a third party, Sa slowly opened the door and stepped in.
Even if someone had broken in, there wouldn't be any useful info left to take.
He'd cleared everything out right after the Shin Tae-eul incident...
But that thought froze solid the moment he saw the state of the place.
Shoe prints messily scattered all the way to the living room.
The secret passage blatantly open.
And a faint burnt smell wafting up from below...
Sa called down calmly.
"Hey, you there. Jeom So-ui?"
Only Jeom So-ui would go this far.
He reached for the sword on the wall, only to notice one was already missing.
"...Ha."
Letting out an exasperated laugh, Sa gripped a sword tightly in one hand and descended the stairs.
Waiting to greet him at the bottom:
Were ashes scattered haphazardly across the floor.
And the elevator, just now rising upward.
* * *
That was close.
There were no windows on the sixth floor, so the only ways out were the secret passage I'd used to get down or the elevator.
If the Heavenly Demon hadn't used his energy to force the elevator away at the perfect moment, I'd have run right into the CEO.
I'd crossed paths with the murderously intent CEO during past martial world promo events, sure.
But I couldn't predict her reaction to me destroying her carefully drawn summoning formation, so I chose to bail.
The problems didn't end there, though.
After dodging the CEO by a hair and returning to the dorm,
Ja-ha looked at me with resolve in her eyes.
"I... I need to meet those expelled disciples."