Chapter 3
Chapter 3
"What is this."
Lee Jeonseok stared fixedly at the window floating before his eyes.
Good karma increased?
Of course, it was true that he had killed the man partly aiming for that result. But even so, he never expected the system itself to appear directly, so even Lee Jeonseok could not help but feel greatly surprised.
Lv. 1
Strength - 10 Agility - 10
Stamina - 10 Mana - 10
Stat Points - 0
Good Karma - 5000
Evil Karma - @#%^@#TF
Traits Possessed
Cheonsalsung EX, Mark of Eternity, Ignition B
Something about the contents of the status window was a little strange.
Right above the section listing his possessed traits, a new stat had appeared.
Good karma. Evil karma.
"The five thousand good karma must be what just increased."
The evil karma text was completely broken, making it impossible to read.
Was the weight of the sins Lee Jeonseok had accumulated really that great?
"Hmm..."
Lee Jeonseok fell into thought as he looked at the status window.
Why had a stat like this suddenly appeared?
"..."
No matter how much he thought about it, he could not figure it out.
No proper guess came to mind.
To begin with, what exactly was the system?
Five centuries ago.
It had suddenly appeared in the world.
Together with monsters, it had completely overturned the values of humanity.
"Monsters..."
Lee Jeonseok recalled his memories from hell.
"Come to think of it, the torturers in Avici Hell looked similar to monsters."
Creatures that could not even speak and simply tortured sinners.
Their appearance had resembled monsters.
Of course, it might have been a mistake.
Lee Jeonseok’s memories were far too old.
"For now, should I go back."
Lee Jeonseok closed the status window and stepped out of the hollowed space.
Fortunately, there were no people around.
There were CCTV cameras, but they were not functioning.
The Dawn Society must have tampered with them beforehand.
"At least I won’t be suspected for nothing."
The department store terror attack was a major incident that even the Association had failed to detect.
And a mere civilian had handled it?
Naturally, the Association would suspect Lee Jeonseok of being connected to the Dawn Society.
Whether in a good way or a bad way.
Lee Jeonseok quickly left before anyone else could appear.
He stopped by a pharmacy to apply ointment to the burn on his right hand and wrapped it with a bandage.
Then, on the way home.
Lee Jeonseok checked the trait he had just obtained.
Ignition
Rank B
Effect: Ignites flames over the entire body. The flames contain mana and erase various types of curses and marks. Additionally, targets struck by attacks are left with burns that cannot be erased.
"I see."
It had exactly the same effect he had seen from the man earlier.
"No wonder the burn looked so severe for something that only touched me briefly."
Lee Jeonseok looked down at his right hand.
Pain throbbed beneath the bandage.
It seemed to be a curse-type trait.
A curse that did not disappear even after the user died.
Lee Jeonseok tried using Ignition as a test.
Whoosh.
Flames burst over his right palm.
But the pain did not disappear.
The burn remained exactly as it was.
It claimed to erase curses and marks, yet it seemed incapable of removing the curse caused by Ignition itself.
Or perhaps it was simply a type of trait that did not apply to its own user.
Of course, a curse at this level could easily be cured with potions sold on the market.
The only problem was that they were ridiculously expensive.
But then.
"Why is it so dark?"
The flames looked different from when the man had used them.
They carried a strangely dark crimson color.
There was only one reason that came to mind.
His life in hell.
That must have influenced it.
Traits often changed depending on the user’s mental or physical condition.
Mana has been depleted.
Soon his mana ran out, and the flames vanished as well.
"Well, as long as it works properly, I suppose it doesn’t matter."
No matter the reason, he had obtained a useful trait.
A curse-type offensive skill.
That would become a major advantage in combat.
Before he realized it, Lee Jeonseok had arrived in front of his home.
He looked up at the twenty-story apartment building.
"For now, the urgent problem has been dealt with."
The department store terror attack and collapse.
He had prevented the biggest disaster.
With that, his parents would not die in the terror attack.
The mana bombs would soon disappear as well.
The hollowed-out pit and the corpse.
The Association was not incompetent enough to bury that as a mere murder case.
More importantly.
"I confirmed that killing bad people increases good karma."
If that was the case, then what he needed to do was obvious.
Kill bad people.
In other words, villains.
"The first ones that come to mind are the Dawn Society."
There were countless villains in the world, but the ones Lee Jeonseok remembered best were the Dawn Society.
When and where they would appear.
What they planned and whom they would kill.
Even the members belonging to the Dawn Society.
Lee Jeonseok knew everything about them.
It was impossible not to.
In his previous life.
The one who destroyed the Dawn Society had been none other than Lee Jeonseok himself.
Driven mad by rage, he had desperately gathered every trace of them.
"I never thought that would end up helping me like this..."
It was quite an ironic situation.
Lee Jeonseok entered the password and stepped inside the apartment entrance.
The Dawn Society.
Other villains came to mind as well.
"I’ll deal with those bastards first."
It was not just for the sake of going to heaven.
This world was far too dangerous for powerless people to live in.
For the sake of his family, eliminating villains was the right thing to do.
Of course.
"If I want to act without drawing suspicion, I should become a hunter first."
Hunters were violence sanctioned by the state.
Killing permitted by law.
Only those with a hunter license could hunt villains without interference from the government.
"When was the hunter exam again..."
For now, Lee Jeonseok decided to go home and register for the hunter exam.
Kim Baekdong.
Team leader of the Villain Response Department at the Hunter Association.
"Is it here?"
He entered the underground parking lot under the guidance of a police officer.
They had responded to a report about a corpse in the parking lot.
"Yes. The scene has been left exactly as it was when it was discovered, so you may examine it slowly."
"Thank you."
Kim Baekdong bowed his head and stepped past the safety line into the scene.
An artificially dug-out pit.
A corpse lay sprawled on the dark floor.
"...Dawn Society."
Kim Baekdong immediately recognized the identity of the corpse.
There was no specific evidence.
But the face of the dead man matched someone he knew.
Yoo Unseong.
Leader of the Dawn Society’s Fourth Action Team.
"He was so elusive that even the Association had quite a hard time dealing with him..."
Yet now he had been found as a corpse.
And the wound on his neck.
"Was it a single strike?"
He had been killed almost instantly.
A villain known to be a B-rank hunter had been killed in a single moment.
"Whoever did this must be extremely skilled."
Someone strong enough to achieve an overwhelming victory against a B-rank hunter.
"Who could it be?"
Kim Baekdong pondered for a long time.
But in the end, no answer came.
The CCTV cameras were dead, and there were no noticeable traces.
Just then.
"Team leader!"
Someone called out to Kim Baekdong from behind.
It was a newcomer who had recently joined as an intern.
"As you predicted, mana bombs had been planted throughout the entire department store!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes. But there are too many. We’re not sure if we can handle them all..."
Kim Baekdong had been examining the corpse for quite a while.
He finally stood up.
"That won’t be a problem."
"Pardon?"
"Mana bombs won’t activate without a detonator."
"I... I see."
The intern let out a sigh of relief.
His back was soaked with sweat.
It seemed he had been quite nervous.
With hundreds of bombs that could explode at any moment, his anxiety was understandable.
"Well, you only recently joined this department, so it’s not strange that you didn’t know. Information about mana bombs is heavily restricted since it’s connected to the Dawn Society."
Perhaps he should have mentioned it earlier.
Kim Baekdong muttered softly and looked back at the intern.
"More importantly, what about the CCTV?"
"Ah, I checked as you asked, but..."
The intern suddenly remembered something and operated the tablet in his hand.
"All the CCTV inside the department store had their power turned off. The monitors connected to them were playing footage from exactly twenty-four hours earlier, so the security guards didn’t notice anything."
"Then we can’t expect any useful information."
Kim Baekdong said that and left the scene.
As he exited the underground parking lot, the evening sunset shone across the sky.
Not a single person could be seen nearby.
An evacuation order had been issued until all the bombs were removed, just in case.
"Still, this is really fortunate."
Standing under the evening glow, the intern spoke.
"If all those bombs had exploded..."
"The casualties would easily exceed a hundred."
"Ugh!"
The intern shuddered.
Meanwhile, Kim Baekdong quietly fell into thought.
"Something about this is suspicious..."
It was fortunate that the department store had not collapsed.
But the real issue was who had killed Yoo Unseong of the Dawn Society.
"I hope it wasn’t a villain."
If someone with that level of skill was a villain, it would become extremely troublesome.
On the other hand.
"If they became our ally, it would be incredibly reassuring."
Of course, the chances of that were extremely low.
Click.
Kim Baekdong lit his cigarette with a lighter.
Hoo.
The gray smoke scattered like ashes and disappeared.
On the way home.
Lee Jeonseok ran into his father, Lee Hanseok, in the elevator.
He seemed to be returning from work.
"What happened to your hand?"
He asked after noticing Lee Jeonseok’s bandaged hand.
With the bandage wrapped tightly around it...
Lee Jeonseok gave an awkward smile and replied.
"I accidentally burned it."
"It’s not serious, right?"
"No."
"Good."
Ding.
The elevator reached the upper floor and the doors opened.
Lee Hanseok stepped out of the elevator and clicked his tongue.
"A grown man playing with fire, honestly."
Despite his words, concern was evident in his tone and eyes.
Seeing that, Lee Jeonseok felt as if an old memory he had forgotten was resurfacing.
"Even though Father seemed cold, he was actually a warm person inside."
Yes. That was right.
And it wasn’t just Lee Hanseok.
Han Yuri and Lee Jihye too. Even though they argued and snapped at each other, they had never truly hated one another.
In the end, they were family.
Irreplaceable people.
Lee Jeonseok thought about it.
He did not want to lose that again.
But there were far too many bad people in the world.
Erase the Dawn Society?
As if that would be enough.
Other villains would simply take their place.
Even if villains disappeared, there were still monsters.
No one knew when or where a dungeon might suddenly appear and swallow Lee Jeonseok and his family.
Then would everything be fine if those disappeared too?
Well.
At least Lee Jeonseok could not be certain.
The world was always filled with uncertainty.
Nothing was definite.
Everything was unclear.
The future had always been like that.
But at the very least, if he eliminated every visible villain and dungeon, his family would be able to walk outside safely.
"There’s a lot of work to do."
There was a mountain of things he had to accomplish.
"First... I’ll become a hunter and destroy the Dawn Society."
Lee Jeonseok made that his top priority.
"I'm home."
"Honey, you’re back."
Lee Jeonseok and Lee Hanseok opened the front door and entered the apartment together.
Han Yuri was startled when she saw Lee Jeonseok’s injury, but after hearing it was nothing serious, she sighed in relief and told him to be careful.
Afterward, Lee Jeonseok returned to his room.
Inside the quiet room, he turned on the computer.
Hunter Exam.
An event held periodically every month by the Association.
"The next exam is in a week."
That meant there were many things he needed to prepare.
"First, stamina."
Lee Jeonseok opened a notebook and began writing with a pen.
"My body is too weak."
Perhaps it was because he had returned to the past.
His physical abilities were terrible.
Even just in terms of basic stamina.
A body that became breathless after only a little intense movement.
Even when he killed the Dawn Society member at the department store...
"If it had taken just a little longer, the one who would’ve died would have been me."
So Lee Jeonseok set his first priority before the hunter exam as improving his stamina.
But one week was a very short time.
It would be difficult to raise his stats through exercise alone.
And so Lee Jeonseok came up with another method.