Cleaning House
Knock, knock.
"Come in."
Creak.
Someone opened the door and stepped into the guild master's office.
"Did you look into it?"
"Yeah."
Kim Da-woon, vice guild master of the Hode Guild, nodded as he faced guild master Choi Jae-seok.
Some time earlier, contact with the guild members who had entered a gate had gone completely dead.
"And the gate?"
"It's gone. Dissolved."
"Then why hasn't anyone called in? Don't tell me…"
Choi Jae-seok narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.
"Something expensive drop inside the gate?"
"…They wouldn't go dark over something that small."
Kim Da-woon let out a sigh at the guild master's suggestion.
No matter how valuable the loot from an A-Rank gate might be, it was never enough to justify vanishing without a word. Even the rarest finds out of an A-Rank gate rarely cracked the billion-won mark.
"Then why the hell aren't they answering?!"
"Because I killed them all."
"Huh?"
"?"
Choi Jae-seok slammed his desk and shouted — and a voice answered from outside the door.
Bang!
Whoooosh!
Crunch.
Do-ha, who had crossed over into Hode Guild territory, kicked the office door clean off its hinges. The massive slab of wood shot across the room at terrifying speed and punched straight through the far wall.
"Damn. Living like thugs must pay well — this place is huge."
The building looked nearly twice the size of the Meteor Guild headquarters where Kang Ji-hwan was registered, and far more luxurious. All for a mid-tier guild.
"Ha… Is this guy completely insane?"
Choi Jae-seok let out a hollow laugh as Do-ha walked in.
He had made plenty of enemies since founding the guild, but no one had ever barged in like this.
"Do you have any idea where you are, pulling a stunt like that?"
"Wow. That line is so cliché it hurts."
Thud.
Do-ha clicked his tongue, shook his head, dragged a chair over, and sat down.
"Hey. Empty your pockets. Everything you've got."
Legs crossed, looking every bit the street thug, Do-ha flicked his fingers in a casual demand.
"Pwahahahaha. Hey, Da-woon. You hear that? He wants us to hand over everything we own."
Choi Jae-seok burst out laughing and clapped the silent Kim Da-woon on the shoulder.
Some punk here to shake them down? Or just a genuine lunatic?
The force that had blown the door clean through the wall suggested an Awakened, but maybe the kid had only just Awakened and thought he was invincible.
"Listen, kid. Just because we're a mid-tier guild doesn't mean you can—"
"Man, you talk way too damn much. Shut your mouth and empty that vault."
"…"
The smile froze on Choi Jae-seok's face.
And for good reason — the vault was hidden, and it was sealed with magic. No one except a magic user should have been able to detect it. Yet this stranger had found it instantly.
"Who the hell are you?"
"You're only asking that now?"
Do-ha smirked as he looked at Choi Jae-seok.
So the man had written him off as a madman, and only now was something starting to feel wrong.
"Who do you think I am?"
"…"
"Hey. You."
When Choi Jae-seok fell silent, Do-ha turned his gaze on the still-quiet Kim Da-woon.
"You look like you already know who I am."
"…Yes."
Kim Da-woon nodded.
At first he had thought the same as Choi Jae-seok — just some crazy bastard. But the more he looked, the more familiar those eyes became.
The man wasn't wearing a mask now, but if you covered the lower half of his face in your mind, only one person came to mind.
"Cheon-oe-cheon A."
"Correct."
"?!!!"
Choi Jae-seok's eyes bulged so wide they looked ready to pop from their sockets.
Some maniac had kicked in the door and demanded everything they owned — and he was a Cheon-oe-cheon?
"Your friend answered for you, so now you know who I am."
"…"
Scrape.
"Looks like you've got a lot on your mind."
Choi Jae-seok's eyes darted around as he bit down on his lip. Do-ha smiled and rose from his seat.
Of course the man was wondering. Why would a Cheon-oe-cheon with no connection to them show up out of nowhere? And why demand everything they owned?
"I'll give you a chance."
"Uh… what kind of chance…"
"Empty the vault. Everything in it."
Do-ha stepped closer to the desk, his expression ice-cold as he stared Choi Jae-seok down.
This was truly the last chance he was offering.
"Could you at least tell me why—"
"Tsk tsk. Kicking the chance away."
Szzzzzt.
Do-ha shook his head and clicked his tongue lightly. An opaque heart-sword took shape at his side.
Then—
Whoooosh!
Thunk!
It punched clean through the center of Choi Jae-seok's forehead as he stood there half-risen and awkward.
Thud.
"You…"
"I-I'll give it all to you."
The moment Do-ha's eyes turned on him, Kim Da-woon spoke first.
It wasn't a sudden change of heart after watching the guild master die in a single blow. He had intended to cooperate from the start.
Click.
Rumble.
Expressionless, Kim Da-woon opened the vault the guild master had kept hidden and brought out everything inside, offering it up.
"See? Things go so much smoother when people know how to talk."
Do-ha smiled as Kim Da-woon laid out the treasures without a single question.
Action first, no questions asked.
"Any idea why I showed up out of nowhere and did this?"
"…I assume there was trouble with the guild members who lost contact."
The members sent to clear the gate had gone silent. And at the same time, a Cheon-oe-cheon had walked through the front door.
Run the numbers, and it was obvious there had been a clash with those guild members.
"You're sharp. That's right. Your people pulled some real garbage on my grandfather. Especially Choi Tae-min and Kim Hoon."
"…"
Kim Da-woon clenched his teeth hard.
Those absolute idiots.
Of all the people in the world they could have messed with, they had to go after a Cheon-oe-cheon's family.
This wasn't just rubbing someone the wrong way. It was the equivalent of walking up and begging to be slaughtered.
One wrong move here and we're all dead.
Kim Da-woon kept his face carefully blank and swallowed hard.
"I heard it from Choi Tae-min. Your guild grew by bleeding lower-ranked Hunters dry, right?"
"Yes. That's correct."
Kim Da-woon admitted it without a second of hesitation.
Lie or make excuses here, and he would die.
"Nitpicking contracts to cut their pay. Throwing your weight around."
"Yes."
"And you did the same thing to my grandfather."
"…"
Damn it.
Everything they had done over the years was coming back as karma in the ugliest way possible.
"These treasures are the settlement fee."
"I'll give you all of it."
"Man, you're easy to work with. If that guy had just handed over the treasure without talking back the way you did, he wouldn't be dead right now. From now on, you're the guild master."
Do-ha opened a subspace and swept every last treasure inside.
"Oh, right. One more thing."
"Just say the word. If you spare my life, I'll do anything."
"From the day the guild was founded until now, you've kept records on every Hunter you partied with, right?"
"Yes. Names, phone numbers, and ranks are all on file."
It wasn't illegal — Awakened Law required them to keep simplified records. Not full personal data, but a separate file with the essentials.
"And how much of the pay you actually split is written down too, right?"
"Yes."
"Find every Hunter you ripped off and pay them the full amount you withheld."
"…Yes."
"You don't sound happy about that."
For the first time, Kim Da-woon's voice trailed off. Do-ha tilted his head.
The man who had answered so quickly when told to hand over the treasure was suddenly hesitating.
"No, sir. I was just thinking about how to make the payments."
"Ahh~ So what you're saying is, I took all the treasure and now you're broke?"
"…"
Kim Da-woon said nothing.
But silence was its own kind of yes.
"Liquidate this building and the rest of the assets and you should come out about even. Right?"
"…Yes. I'll do that."
In the end, Kim Da-woon's face went dark.
In other words: dissolve the guild.
Not that it would have been worth keeping around — a guild that existed only to bleed Hunters dry.
"See? We understand each other perfectly. You've got one week. Get it all done by then."
Pat. Pat.
Do-ha turned and gave Kim Da-woon a couple of firm pats on the shoulder.
Originally, he had planned to wipe the entire guild off the map.
Everyone here had spent years doing nothing but evil. Even if the guild master and vice master were the ones pulling the dirty work, the rest had looked the other way because it wasn't their problem.
He had considered erasing them all — and then decided to stop here.
"Don't make me come back."
A cold killing intent washed through the room.
"Yes. Not a week — I'll have it finished within two days."
Feeling that murderous aura, Kim Da-woon nodded hard enough to rattle his neck.
Crash.
"What the—?"
"?"
Do-ha's house.
Han Jeong-soo, face drained white, came sprinting in so fast he tripped and went sprawling.
"Oh my, are you all right?"
Selenia helped the fallen Han Jeong-soo back to his feet.
Was something wrong? Why did he look so frantic?
"Thank you, Lady Selenia."
"What's going on?"
Do-ha, who had been reviewing the Demon God Cult's activity logs, walked over to Han Jeong-soo.
Anyone who ran hard enough to lose control of their own body was clearly carrying bad news.
"Do-ha-nim, we have a serious problem!"
"What is it?"
"Um… do you happen to know which cities in Korea are ghost towns?"
"There were four of them."
Paju, Sokcho, Yangyang, and Gangneung.
Four cities in total had been abandoned after failing to hold back the monsters pouring down from North Korea.
"In the three cities other than Paju… reports just came in that a pack of dragons has appeared."
"A pack of dragons??"
What kind of nonsense was that?
Dragons did not travel in packs.
A pack?
Dragons were born arrogant and loved to show off. They strutted around with their necks held high, insisting they were fine on their own.
"Are you sure that intel isn't wrong? If a pack of dragons had actually shown up, those cities would already be burning."
Canteas walked over.
If real dragons had appeared in a pack, he and Do-ha would have sensed it long before Han Jeong-soo came running to report it.
"Please take a look at this."
Swoosh.
Han Jeong-soo pulled up a photo on the tablet he was carrying and held it out.
"The witness was so shocked that the shot came out pretty shaky, but the silhouettes are clear enough."
Thud.
Do-ha took the tablet and studied the image.
"Uh… what is this?"
Canteas, looking over his shoulder, went pale with confusion.
The photo really did show more than ten massive creatures that looked like dragons, clustered together in a group. The image was dark and blurred from camera shake, but the dragon-like outlines were unmistakable.
"We checked multiple times to see if it was a fabricated image. It isn't."
"When was this taken?"
"Around eleven last night."
"Hmm."
Around eleven at night…
It was currently two in the afternoon.
That meant more than twelve hours had already passed since they appeared.
And yet everything was far too quiet.
If the ten creatures in that photo were genuine dragons, Korea — and Japan and China right along with it — should already have been reduced to a sea of fire.
"Hm?"
Do-ha frowned as he studied the photo more carefully.
Zoomed in, something looked off.
"Canteas, look at this."
Ssshk.
Do-ha enlarged the image.
"The wings and the size look dragon enough, but the necks are different, aren't they?"
"Huh? You're right."
Canteas nodded as he examined the shot.
The torsos, wings, legs, and tails were close enough to a dragon's — but the neck length was wrong.
Put simply, a true dragon's long neck gave it a proud, majestic bearing. The creatures in the photo had short necks that jutted straight forward.
"They look like wyverns."
That particular trait belonged to wyverns, not dragons.
"Don't tell me…"
"Variants."
At Do-ha's word, Canteas's expression hardened.
Variant wyverns.
Creatures as massive as dragons. They couldn't use magic, but their breath attacks hit with dragon-class force.
"We need to deal with this fast."
A pack of variant wyverns gathering like this was a signal — they were about to start attacking.