Call Lightning

This is the place?

Do-ha looked up at the towering building. For a pack of thugs living off gang work, they occupied a surprisingly fine place. Not some modest storefront — an actual building.

"The world really has changed. Gangsters living in buildings."

Then again, once an outfit reached this scale, of course they would start taking résumés for the privilege of being thugs.

The automatic doors slid open with a soft hum, and Do-ha stepped inside.

"How can I help you?"

In the first-floor lobby, a man who had been fiddling with his phone rose from his seat. The massive knife scar across his face alone put him well outside the category of ordinary civilian.

"Where's Choi Seok-bae?"

"…Who are you?"

At the sound of the Bulgompa boss's name, the gangster's brow twitched. Some nobody he had never seen before, casually dropping the boss's name like that?

Still, he could not simply throw a punch. What if the man turned out to be an acquaintance of the boss?

"What is your relationship with our boss… no — with our chairman?"

"Hahaha. You hear that, Canteas? Chairman. What kind of gangster trash goes around calling themselves chairman? You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lot watch too many movies."

"…"

Do-ha burst out laughing as he glanced at Canteas, and the gangster finally clenched his fists. Judging by the way this stranger talked, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the boss. The open hostility made him an enemy, plain and simple.

"Who the hell are you, you little shit?"

The gangster strode forward and seized Do-ha by the collar. Do-ha himself stood a hundred and eighty-one centimeters, but the man towered over him easily.

"Gonna talk? I said, who the hell are you?"

The gangster put force into his grip. Do-ha's shirt tore.

"My grandfather bought me this shirt…"

The day after Do-ha had announced he was becoming a Hunter, his grandfather had taken him out and bought him a simple T-shirt. It was nothing special — market-stall clothes — but to him it was more precious than anything else in the world.

Do-ha's expression went ice-cold. He set a hand against the gangster's stomach.

Blue mana detonated.

"GAAAAAH!"

The gangster collapsed screaming. It was not merely torn skin — bone had shattered and driven into his organs.

"Shame. If a rib had punched through his lung, he wouldn't even have managed that scream."

Do-ha set his foot on the man's jaw.

"You have any idea what this shirt means, you son of a bitch?"

"Mmmph!"

The gangster shook his head frantically under Do-ha's gaze. But a moment later—

Do-ha stamped down with a quaking foot-strike and crushed the man's windpipe.

"Do-ha."

"Hm?"

"Can I use this one?"

With no proper body of his own at the moment, Canteas needed materials if he wanted to raise undead.

"Do whatever you want."

"Oh yeah~ Ah, but the head's smashed, so I'll just have to use him as a ghoul."

While Do-ha and Canteas were chatting, the explosion brought gangsters pouring down to the first floor in a rush.

"Whoa… why are there so many of them?"

Canteas startled at the crowd filling the lobby. Even the organizations back in Belhart rarely mustered this many at once.

"It's a whole building. Of course there are a lot of people."

"Kid!"

"You son of a bitch! What the hell did you do?!"

At the sight of their dead comrade, the Bulgompa men all started shouting at once. They had come running at the thunderous noise — only to find this.

"Doesn't look like there are any Awakened among that lot."

"Well, yeah. Usually you burn through the meat shields first."

Do-ha drew a sashimi knife from the dead gangster's coat.

"Oh, so that's the famous knife I've only heard about."

"What era is this supposed to be, walking around with something like that?"

Awakened carried swords or magic blades. These idiots were stuck with kitchen knives. It was almost cute.

"Past old-fashioned. Just plain tired."

"Isn't that what people call classic?"

"No. This is just tired."

"Kill that bastard!"

The gangsters drew their blades and charged.

Do-ha adjusted his grip on the knife, and Canteas immediately started nagging.

"Do-ha, keep it clean this time!"

For higher-grade undead, the bodies needed to stay relatively intact.

"I'll try."

Do-ha's body blurred into motion, and the knife in his hand flushed pink with light.

"The Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword Art… performed with a sashimi knife. Now there's a rare sight."

Canteas shook his head at the spectacle. If the sect master of Mount Hua ever saw this, he would probably grab the back of his own neck in sheer agony. Being the Absolute Being, Baek Do-ha could use their martial arts without anyone daring to object — but even so, the master would have grumbled that performing it with a gangster's kitchen knife was taking things a little too far.

Having cleared every floor from the first to the tenth, Do-ha rode the elevator upward. This place was worse than an ant nest — they just kept pouring out.

"Hmm. The boys were going a little hard, I thought… so you're an Awakened?"

One of the Bulgompa men who had been reading a newspaper rose slowly from his seat. He had known there was an intruder. He had not known the intruder was Awakened.

"Just you up here?"

Do-ha wiped the blood from his face. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been so thoroughly soaked that he looked painted red from head to toe.

"Yeah. Just me."

"Awakened or not, you've got guts. Sitting alone while the rest of them aren't."

"I'm not just any Awakened."

The man rolled up his sleeves and clenched his fists. His arms began to turn to stone.

"I'm a B-Rank Awakened."

Even among Hunters, B-Rank was a rank that commanded real respect. From C-Rank upward, guilds came calling with fat contracts — because from C-Rank on, you were genuinely beyond human.

Footsteps hammered up the emergency stairs.

"Ah, you cheap bastard! Couldn't wait and ride up together, had to go alone?!"

Canteas stomped out of the stairwell, grumbling at Do-ha. Couldn't he have waited a little while Canteas collected the corpses? Cleaning the blood off every floor on the way up had been bad enough without this.

"Hmph. I cleaned every splatter of blood with Clean magic while I climbed…"

"You worked hard, so I'll give you the Awakened's corpse this time."

"Oh? For real?"

Canteas broke into a smile. Well. When you put it like that, how was he supposed to stay mad?

"…Don't tell me that corpse is supposed to be me."

"Who else would it be? Me?"

"Heh heh heh. Unbelievable. You really think you can laugh at me? Blades don't work on this body."

The fully stone-skinned gangster laughed. His flesh had never been cut. No one in the entire organization had ever managed to put a blade through him.

"Even if you'd brought a real sword instead of a kitchen knife, it wouldn't have done a thing."

"Ah. This?"

The knife shot forward like a bullet and struck home.

"Guh—?!"

The gangster clutched his stomach and drooled. What had just happened? The blade had not pierced him — but a crushing pain had torn straight through his body.

"Oh. You really are solid. Tanked even Tanji-gong."

"You… little…!"

"I'm curious how hard that body of yours actually is."

Watching the man charge, Do-ha clenched his fist. Golden light erupted from him as he drew up his power.

Fist after fist hammered home. The gangster's body began to crack apart under the blows. Then—

His stomach burst open. His eyes rolled back, and he toppled.

"Yacha's Hundred-Eight Strikes while coated head to toe in blood… if the abbot of Shaolin saw you, he'd ascend on the spot."

Or else spend days on end chanting sutras, trying to empty his mind. Of course, Baek Do-ha really did look like a yaksha right now.

"Ah?! Wait — you said that one was mine!"

"You're right. My bad…"

Do-ha scratched his head. The body had been so solid that he had gotten carried away beating it and simply forgotten.

"There are still plenty of Awakened left in this building. You can have all of them."

"Hmm. Fine."

Canteas nodded at last. After that, Do-ha and Canteas worked their way through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the remaining Awakened, one per floor, and killed them in turn.

The chairman's office door creaked open. As Do-ha stepped inside, the figure seated in the chair — Choi Seok-bae — fixed him with a hard stare.

"Wow, the view up here is great. Guess that's why people want to live on the high floors."

Do-ha dragged a chair from near the entrance, set it down with a scrape, and sat facing Choi Seok-bae.

"You from the Association? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I don't know who you are, but you think you can pull a stunt this insane and walk away clean?"

"Why? You think something changes if you step in?"

"Obviously. Unlike the trash downstairs, I'm an A-Rank Awakened."

Only one letter of difference — but the gulf was vast. There were piles of Awakened who never managed to cross even a single rank no matter what they did.

"Looking at you, I'd say you're A-Rank yourself."

Every subordinate below had been B-Rank. If even they had failed to stop this man, he had to be A-Rank at least.

"Never occurred to you I might be S-Rank?"

"Hahaha. What a moron. I already know most of the S-Ranks in Korea. And I've never seen your face, so how the hell would you be S-Rank—"

While Choi Seok-bae was still laughing, Do-ha set a gold Hunter ID on the desk.

"Well, you're right. I'm not S-Rank."

"…"

"I'm SSS-Rank."

Do-ha's smile turned thin and cold, and Choi Seok-bae's pupils began to shake as if an earthquake had hit them. How could they not? A Cheon-oe-cheon was sitting right in front of him. For a second he wondered if the card was fake — but what kind of lunatic would forge a gold one? Besides, an SSS-Rank Awakened really had appeared in Korea not long ago.

"Hey. Why'd you go quiet? Keep talking."

"…W-why… why are you doing this to me? I never did anything to you."

Now that he knew Do-ha was Cheon-oe-cheon, Choi Seok-bae's voice shook violently.

"You never did anything to me, sure. But you've racked up plenty of sins living the way you have."

"What are you—"

Do-ha flipped through a sheaf of papers.

"See this? Everything the Bulgompa has been up to. Organ trafficking, human trafficking, drug distribution, contract killings… damn, it's a full gift set. Makes sense, though. With the mayor of Goyang Special City covering for you, what was there to be afraid of?"

"…"

As Do-ha casually displayed the documents, Choi Seok-bae bit down on his lip. As an A-Rank Awakened, his dynamic vision far outstripped an ordinary person's. Every page that turned, he could read the contents clearly.

H-how the hell did he dig all of this up?

Evidence they had buried deep was written out in full. Details no one but insiders should have known were all there, every last one.

"Then you understand how stupid it is to touch me."

"Because of Assemblyman Park Seok-jun, mayor of Goyang Special City?"

"That's right."

As long as Assemblyman Park Seok-jun stood behind him, no one could touch him. And the man sitting across from him was an SSS-Rank Hunter, wasn't he? The moment word got out that someone like that had massacred people, he would fall straight into hell. Even the Cheon-oe-cheon of other countries, for all their free rein, never crossed that particular line.

"The second you touch me, Assemblyman Park Seok-jun will mobilize every scrap of public opinion and—"

Do-ha rose from his chair and set his index finger against the exact center of Choi Seok-bae's forehead.

He smiled.

Do-ha's thin smile sent a chill racing down Choi Seok-bae's spine.

"Th-this…!"

Something primal and cold hit him. Choi Seok-bae sensed it and tried to move at once — but Do-ha was faster.

Lightning tore through the room in a screaming cascade of white-blue arcs.

"GAAAAAAH!"

Choi Seok-bae screamed as the Fifth-Circle spell Call Lightning took him, then collapsed, blackened and burned through.

"This time I left the body intact."

"Nice."

At Do-ha's words, Canteas smiled and set about cleaning up.