The Life of the No. 1 Hunter
The Lone Demon King had hidden his identity with terrifying thoroughness. No traces of him had ever been found in any auction house or black market. He had barely ever been caught on camera in the footage of frontline raids. Only very occasionally did people speculate that items traded on the Tower’s internal exchange might have come from him.
He was a man about whom nothing was known, other than the fact that he used a sword. No one knew what items he used, how he utilized them, or what kind of equipment and consumables he favored. For a long time, he had etched his existence into everyone’s minds solely through the aftermath of his battles and his absurdly high clear scores.
Sometimes, there were people who claimed to have seen beyond the veil, but their descriptions and accounts were so preposterous that they were always dismissed or treated as tall tales. Therefore, the day the miraculously recorded footage of the Lone Demon King’s raid first spread, the sheer, terrifying level of his skill sent shivers down some people’s spines, while others felt the crushing gap in ability, and some felt a strange sense of relief. Those intense emotions heated up Korean society for quite some time. It was the birth of what became known as the Solo Syndrome.
“So… you’re saying this is a D-class item?”
“Yes.”
The pawnshop owner accepted the gold ring with a bewildered expression.
“...”
‘No… is she actually an idiot?’
Yeon Eun-ah squeezed her eyes shut and pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead. A D-class item was worth at least ten million won. To think she’d been kicked out of an auction house for trying to sell such a precious object without any identification, only to end up at a pawnshop! She felt embarrassed for having followed her, thinking the Lone Demon King had some secret method for handling such things.
“So, uh, the items? Do they come from the Tower?”
“No, how many times do I have to ask?”
The pawnshop owner was flustered, and she was asking questions as if she had no idea what she’d done wrong.
“...”
Yeon Eun-ah was falling into a state of confusion. ‘That Lone Demon King doesn’t even have a fake ID for identity laundering?’ Was it because I followed her? No, the Lone Demon King of today was supposedly in a desperate situation without a single penny to her name. That meant…
Yeon Eun-ah gasped.
The reason it had been so hard to track the Lone Demon King all this time wasn’t because she was using multiple identities to confuse her trail. ‘She couldn’t be found simply because she was living like some idiot refugee?!’ No, does that even make sense?
Yeon Eun-ah rubbed her temples. Let’s say the item was hard to sell at an auction. Then she should have used the black market, so why a pawnshop? Yeon Eun-ah’s eyes widened.
“Don’t tell me… she doesn’t know the black market exists?”
‘No way…’ Even as she thought that, she recalled how the girl seemed unable to even use a simple map application. She had found this place by asking around, just like a quest inside the Tower. Yeon Eun-ah let out a deep sigh.
“Please wait a moment.”
“Okay.”
“...”
‘Wait a moment,’ my foot. It was obvious the police would be storming in soon. Who in their right mind would try to sell an item at a pawnshop? Especially looking like a middle-school girl. There were too many suspicious things about it; they would have called the police immediately.
How long had she waited? The police burst into the pawnshop, and the Lone Demon King was shoved into a police car and disappeared.
“...What? Is she actually getting arrested by the police right now?”
No, she really got caught? She didn’t run away, she got caught? Am I dreaming? Well, if it’s a dream, it makes sense. If it’s a dream.
Yeon Eun-ah pinched her cheek and muttered, “Yeah, right…”
Confused, she made a phone call. Park Jungsoo answered, his voice sounding as if he were asking why she was only calling now.
"Oh, do you have a rough idea now?"
“What is this? Is this a hidden camera show? It’s not funny.”
"How did it go? She had no money, so she must have tried to sell an item. And since the fake ID and mana signature I made for her have changed, she couldn’t have sold it there, right?"
“...She tried to sell a D-class item at a pawnshop and got arrested by the police.”
At Yeon Eun-ah’s words, Park Jungsoo let out a cackling laugh.
"Kwahahaha! Hihik, really? Wow, how is it exactly as I imagined?"
“Is this person really the Lone Demon King?”
"Yeah."
“...You’re telling me that moron is the Lone Demon King?”
"Yeah."
‘Damn it.’ Yeon Eun-ah cursed under her breath and said, “What do I do? She didn’t contact me at all, even after realizing I was there.”
"Kwah, what do you mean what do you do? Just keep watching her. If she can’t handle it herself, she’ll call you."
“She’s actually been taken to the police station.”
"Tsk tsk tsk, really? Well, what are you going to do if you go there? Maybe give some money to a poor kid who doesn’t know anything and connect her to an orphanage?"
Yeon Eun-ah frowned at Park Jungsoo’s nonchalant words. Watching the behavior of the woman presumed to be the Lone Demon King, she had felt a sticky, unsettling sensation since earlier. And as those feelings crystallized into a single hypothesis, Yeon Eun-ah felt as if she’d had a bucket of ice water dumped on her.
“In my memory, the Lone Demon King has never sold an item at an auction. Is that correct?”
"That’s right."
“And she doesn’t seem to know about the black market either.”
"Yeah. That’s right."
“Then what kind of life has she been living until now?”
"You’ll regret it if you find out."
At Park Jungsoo’s words, Yeon Eun-ah dropped her head. So her guess was right. Her behavior and speech weren’t just clumsy. She had seen her fight in the Tower, after all. With that monstrous skill, it wasn’t possible if there was a problem with her intelligence. Even now, just thinking about it made her tingle with respect and awe. But if that was the feeling she gave off… it was just a lack of education and a lack of socialization. It was like a kindergartner who had only grown older.
“Did you all leave her like that on purpose?”
"Well… let me tell you about when I first met her."