Chapter 61. Judgment
Chapter 61. Judgment
I had never felt such disgust in my entire life.
It wasn't anger that surged up—it was revulsion.
'When have I ever felt this before...?'
When the bandits burned an entire village to the ground?
When nobles committed atrocities against commoners?
When demons killed their fellow humans?
'Even the demons never stooped to this filth.'
Was it because they were human that they could commit such cruelty without hesitation?
I finished reviewing all the files and closed the laptop.
— Crrrrrack...!
The disgust crawling up my throat put strength into my hand.
— Kwajijik!!!
I shut my eyes for a moment and steadied myself.
Those who once taught me said that anger ruins everything.
"Hoo... I'm sorry I broke your laptop."
"Not at all. It was meant to be provided to you anyway, Hunter."
When I rose from my seat, Laila followed me without a word.
"Are you going now?"
"Yes."
"...We'll quickly summarize the information on their key strongholds and send it to you."
I nodded and walked out.
I wasn't going to head straight for the safe house where their boss was likely hiding.
I was going to choke them out—very slowly, but very surely.
And the first target was the factories and warehouses where they manufactured their drugs.
My plan was to sever their funding first.
---
"This is the place, right?"
"Yes, Hero. This is it."
The factory was disguised as a logistics center for a relief organization.
If anything, the complete lack of people made it look even more suspicious.
The perimeter was surrounded by a concrete wall about three meters high, and heavily armed men stood guard—hardly what you'd expect from a relief group.
"Laila, do you mind if I go first?"
"No, I'll join you shortly."
Before that, I posted a brief notice on my phone saying the stream was canceled.
This scene was too brutal to broadcast.
"Hey, stop right there!"
As I headed toward the logistics center's main gate, they fixed me with menacing glares and leveled their guns.
Even so, I didn't stop. I kept walking toward them, step by step.
"Wh-what the...! Get any closer and we'll open fire!"
"Then shoot."
"Wh-what?"
"I said shoot."
I closed in on them while they panicked, not knowing what to do, and swung my fist.
Two sentries. Straight for the heart.
— Crunch...!!! Crush!
The ribcage enclosing the heart shattered and the heart burst.
They coughed up blood mixed with foam and collapsed on the spot without even managing a scream.
I looked down at their cold corpses.
Then I stepped into the guard post where they'd been stationed.
A button labeled 'EMERGENCY' was visible inside.
— Click. Wooooooooop!!!
The moment I pressed the button, a siren began blaring throughout the area.
Laila and I sat down there, closed our eyes, and waited.
— Vrrrrm...
Countless jeeps and trucks swarmed in, and heavily armed troops dismounted one after another.
"Two of them? You mean just two?"
The cartel members who had been on edge let out smirks as if all the tension had drained away.
They slung their rifles over their shoulders and swaggered closer.
"The hell's this? Who are you with?"
"Keuh-huh... Can't we have a little taste of the bitch next to you before we sell her off?"
"Where'd the guys on sentry duty go?"
The man at the very front approached.
Slightly shorter than me, he looked up and jabbed his fist against my chest—thump, thump.
"Whoa, why the hell is this bastard so huge?"
I ignored their stares and turned toward a car parked beside us.
Then I tore the car door clean off and hurled it at them.
"Wh-wha...? What the hell is that bastard doing!!!"
The door flew like a missile, ripping them to shreds before smashing into the wall and stopping.
Confronted with a sight beyond their comprehension, they could only stare, speechless.
"What organization paid you to come here?!"
There was no point in talking to them.
No point in negotiation either.
Negotiation and dialogue were what you do with humans—not with beasts.
"What are you idiots doing?! Fire!!!"
I seized the two closest by the throat and held them up in front of the incoming bullets.
— Thwack-thwack-thwack! Thwack-thwack!!
Bullets punched into their bodies and blood burst everywhere.
— Fwoosh...! Boom!!!
Without a care for their comrades' lives, they launched a rocket.
Thick smoke billowed up and they let out sighs of relief.
"Fuck, no matter how much of a hunter he is, an anti-tank rocket will...!"
"Ah, the dust..."
"H-how...?"
"Laila, can you just rough them up for now?"
Laila nodded and began chanting.
Behind her, spheres of light materialized.
The moment her finger precisely indicated her targets, the spheres shot out like arrows and began melting their limbs at random.
"Kheuuugh...!!!"
"Kyaaaaaaaah!!!"
"...!!!"
Some collapsed foaming at the mouth, their eyes gone bloodshot from the agony of their flesh melting while they were still alive.
I left them behind and entered the factory.
It wasn't just a simple drug den.
It was an efficiently designed production line.
"They've really got a hand in everything..."
I smashed open a door in the corner that had been locked with multiple deadbolts, and inside, there was a staggering amount of drugs.
In Korean won, the quantity was an astronomical 410 billion.
I went up to the second floor and found the space where they took their breaks.
"This is unreal."
On countless beds lay dead women who had been brutalized, still bound in handcuffs.
Judging by their necks and forearms, they'd been injected with drugs against their will.
— Bang! Bang! Bang!
Reinforcements must have arrived—they were clearing away the collapsed debris to force entry.
"Hero, what do you want to do?"
"Are there any civilians around here?"
Laila shook her head at my question.
"No. They're all just trash radiating a dark aura."
"Alright. Let's head outside."
Laila and I walked out.
Beside the drug factory disguised as a logistics center was a weapons warehouse they'd also camouflaged.
"Huh... This time it's a warehouse registered as a legitimate corporation?"
Something impossible unless the government was involved.
Because it was a government-certified business, no outside investigative agency could touch it.
I opened the iron door and stepped outside. Several times more personnel than before had their weapons aimed at us.
Helicopters hovered overhead, and several tanks were visible.
"Halt! This is Santiago's territory."
"Either they still haven't grasped the situation, or they believe in their boss..."
At the vile energy they radiated, Laila's eyelids trembled.
She let out a breath and spread both arms.
"Surrender, and I'll spare your lives!"
Perhaps misinterpreting Laila's gesture as a sign of surrender, they approached slowly, still on guard.
"Laila, are you about to do that?"
"Yes. These are trash unworthy even of the Goddess's salvation."
With her arms outstretched, she closed her eyes and began to chant.
The golden spheres behind her back rose into the sky.
"I said stop!!!"
They must have been briefed about the golden spheres, because their wariness sharpened.
Despite their frantic resistance, Laila finished the chant.
And then all the spheres vanished above the clouds.
"...?"
"Wh-what...?"
Nothing happened.
The tension in those watching the situation gradually began to ease.
"She's clearly exhausted!"
"We have to capture her now!"
"Don't give her time to recover!"
— Plink... plink... pit-pat...
After a brief moment, droplets began falling from the sky.
But it wasn't ordinary rain—it was golden rain, a glittering, ornament-like illusion.
"Pff-hah...!"
"Bwahahaha!!!"
"Are you playing games?"
No one feared the rain.
To them, Laila's actions were nothing but a joke.
They shouted curses and jeered at her.
"With an ability like that, you'd never run short of water!!!"
"Keuh-heuh... Want me to make you all wet too?"
But—
The rain soaked their shoulders, touched the backs of their hands, and fell upon their foreheads.
— Fwoosh...
The sound of something igniting.
Wherever the golden rain touched, pure white flames—Holy Fire—bloomed.
It was neither hot nor cold.
But it was a fire that burned the soul—impossible to evade, impossible to extinguish.
"Kheuuuugh...!"
"Gyaaaaaah!!! What is this?!"
"S-someone put this out!!!"
One by one, the screaming men collapsed.
The pure white flames engulfed their bodies.
Their flesh didn't burn at all and remained intact, but the pain burrowed into the marrow of their bones.
'It's been a very long time since I've seen Laila this angry...'
— Fwoosh...
The flames vanished, but what remained in their wake was death.
Silently, coldly, soullessly, they lay there.
Their bodies were so unmarked that anyone who saw them might mistake them for sleeping.
"..."
— Crrrunch...
I tore the armor off a tank.
Inside, I saw a cartel member cowering and trembling.
The moment our eyes met, he burst into tears and begged.
"Begging for your life? Did you ever spare anyone who begged you like that?"
"...I-I'll tell you where the boss's safe house is...!"
"Not needed."
— Kwajik!!!
I crushed the bastard along with the tank's armor.
I already knew the safe house's location—the ones who were burning and screaming had blurted it out while begging for their lives.
"Hero, I don't think a place like this should be allowed to remain."
"Agreed."
Laila spread both arms once more.
And she began chanting a spell different from before.
This wasn't a chant—it was almost like a 'song.'
— Wooooooong...
Above the clouds, from beyond the heavens, the sky answered.
A pillar of majestic light descended, and divine judgment fell upon this land.
— Kwaaaaaah...!
Like paper erased with a rubber eraser, everything was expunged into silence.
"Judgment."
Where Laila's song ended—
no debris, no smoke, not even the skeleton of the building remained. Only a desolate, barren plain was left behind.