Chapter 89
“It’s here.”
The place Han Jin-hwan drove us to was Yangjae, in Gangnam.
Judging by the direction, it looked like he was heading for the Gyeongbu Expressway.
He probably had Busan marked as the big prize.
And while he was on his way down, he likely planned to wipe out any other guilds he ran into along the route, too.
After all, the goal of this quest was to eliminate every drug-distribution guild in the country.
I got out of the passenger seat and looked back.
For a man who held the title of Korea’s number one hunter, he drove a little car that was almost offensively cute.
It was a compact with an EV sticker slapped on the side.
“What are you staring at?”
“This.”
I pointed at the EV label.
He snickered when he saw it.
Ridiculous.
“Do you have any conscience at all?”
A man who possessed lightning mana was driving a car powered by electricity.
Where, exactly, did he think that electricity came from?
I didn’t even need to think to get the answer.
Han Jin-hwan grinned and shrugged.
Right. If he had any conscience, he wouldn’t be doing something like this.
“Funny, right?”
“It is funny. But isn’t this the sort of thing that gets you in trouble with the law?”
“All right, enough nonsense.”
He dodged the question and changed the subject.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
Yeah. Definitely a problem.
Still, even if it was illegal, there probably wasn’t anyone willing to call him out on it.
No one wanted to piss off the number one hunter over something like this.
“You handled everything in Gangnam before, so...”
As he spoke, he turned his head and looked at the building.
The four-story structure looked like an ordinary pharmaceutical company at first glance.
Of course, it wasn’t a normal pharmaceutical company.
What they made in that building was drugs.
Not just any drugs, either, but a stimulant for awakened beings with a hallucinogenic kick so strong it couldn’t even be compared to ordinary narcotics.
“So this time, it’s my turn?”
Han Jin-hwan looked back at me.
His face was full of mischief.
“You want to see what I can do, huh... That’s the first time I’ve heard that line since some old bastard I met in China eight years ago.”
“Old bastard?”
“Yeah. A slippery old bastard pretending to be a sage.”
A slippery old bastard pretending to be a sage...
I knew exactly who he meant.
Li Lianzhe.
There was no doubt he was talking about the Chinese S-class hunter.
As expected of an A+ class hunter, even the way he talked about people was different.
“If you can verify it, go ahead.”
“......!”
The moment he turned away, Han Jin-hwan’s body flashed white.
Mana burst out of him all at once.
Just like when I used Photosynthesis Mode.
Just like if he’d used Heart Break.
Because of that, he looked like a weapon wrapped in sword qi.
And then Han Jin-hwan vanished from in front of my eyes.
“Huh...”
Instead,
Crash—boom!
Lightning struck from a clear sky.
Only the sound of thunder kept rolling in after it, one after another.
Only belatedly did I realize the noise was coming from the four-story building in front of me.
In other words, Han Jin-hwan was moving at a speed I couldn’t see with my eyes.
Speed the eye couldn’t catch...
That kind of speed translated directly into force.
He was the fastest man in the world.
No wonder he had such a flashy nickname as the Thunder Emperor.
“So that’s why the system changed...”
Originally, hunter ranks only went from A-class to S-class.
Han Jin-hwan was too strong to simply call him A-class, but he still fell short of what people would accept as S-class.
For that reason, the system had to be changed.
For one hunter, the world’s first A+ rank had been created.
“Baek Do-woon!”
Han Jin-hwan called to me.
He was perched on the rooftop, looking down at me.
Less than a minute had passed, and a whole guild had already been wiped out.
“Well? With those eyes of yours, did you verify my skill?”
He asked that, then flashed a grin.
Just as he had before he started using his power, his face was full of mischief.
Had I verified it?
Of course I had.
“Thanks to you.”
I couldn’t see his actual movements, but I’d confirmed enough.
I’d confirmed beyond doubt that, as things stood, he moved faster than my eyes could follow.
That man was the hunter who had ruled as number one in a single country for fifteen years.
My heart was pounding.
“Good. Then let’s head out right away.”
Han Jin-hwan jumped down from the rooftop.
Thud...
Crackle!
Suddenly, lightning burst out from his body.
He clearly hadn’t fully mastered his own power yet.
One of the streaks of lightning that erupted around him struck my cheek.
“......!”
“Oops. You all right?”
That was enough to trigger World Tree Bark.
Fsssh...!
Unfortunately, the bark couldn’t withstand all of it.
It shattered helplessly under mana that World Tree Bark could barely even keep up with.
“...I’m fine.”
I answered him, even though he’d asked with concern.
The pain I felt after so long was, strangely enough, kind of refreshing.
Maybe because it hadn’t come from Pruning.
“It’ll recover anyway.”
“Oh. That’s almost like a tree... Does it have something to do with your ability?”
Suppressing the pain, I opened my eyes.
“Why are you staring so openly at me like tha—huh?”
“......?”
A hologram window was floating in my field of vision.
Photosynthesis Energy 12%
Why was this suddenly showing up?
And why the percentage, of all things?
Wasn’t this something that barely went up by 1% a day?
Could it be... because it had touched Han Jin-hwan’s lightning?
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Han Jin-hwan grabbed my shoulder.
Crackle!
He’d only put his hand on me, but the fabric around my shoulder burned black.
Of course World Tree Bark activated at once.
This time, it didn’t break.
Instead, it sent out a white glow.
What was this light?
“This... is it static electricity?”
“What am I supposed to do? It’s always like this after I use my power.”
“It’s fine. It’s not like this is expensive clothing or anything. Though, that must be pretty inconvenient?”
“It is. There’s a reason I go around alone.”
“Well, at this rate, you really can’t do anything but go alone... Hm?”
“Why do you keep reacting like that?”
Photosynthesis Energy 13%
Was it because of that static just now?
My energy had gone up another 1%.
That was it. Whenever lightning mana touched my body, the energy filled up.
Why?
I could understand if it were light mana.
What did lightning mana have to do with photosynthesis?
My curiosity made my index finger move on its own.
When I clicked the hologram window, another one opened.
Photosynthesis Energy (Lichtenberg)
Lichtenberg?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Yoo Hye-joo stared at the flask.
Inside it, a violet liquid was bubbling away.
Maybe because there were no impurities left in it?
Even though she was conducting the experiment the same way as before, the liquid hadn’t lost its color at all.
She had been right.
“So the problem really was impurities...”
Creak.
At the sound of the door opening, Yoo Hye-joo frowned.
“You were here four days ago. What do you want now?”
“Good to see you too.”
“I told you not to set foot in here for at least a few months.”
She snapped irritably.
Gong Woo-jae ignored her and sat down on the sofa.
He leaned back and even put both feet on the table, lounging around with infuriating ease.
At the sight of him, Yoo Hye-joo muttered, “You bastard...” and went to sit down on the sofa too.
She glared at him and said, “The more you do this, the more you delay the results of my research. I hope you understand that clearly...”
“...Seoul.”
“What?”
“Daejeon, Daegu, Busan.”
“......Huh?”
Hearing that, Gong Woo-jae frowned and looked at Yoo Hye-joo.
His relaxed posture remained the same, back against the sofa and one leg crossed over the other, but for the first time since entering the room, the laziness vanished from his face.
In its place, dumbfounded confusion appeared.
“What. Weren’t you about to start singing that song?”
“As if.”
“Then what is it?”
Yoo Hye-joo leaned back against the sofa just like he had.
Four feet went up onto the table between the sofas.
She tilted her head and stared at the ceiling.
She was asking a question, but there was no real curiosity in it.
Even knowing that, Gong Woo-jae continued.
“Then next comes Gyeongsang-do and Jeolla-do.”
“......? Why are you suddenly talking about regions? Do you need me to bring out a map or something?”
“The people distributing VP and Baba in those places have all been wiped out.”
The head that had been tilted back came down.
Surprise filled her face.
“Busan got hit? By who? Busan’s got those Giver bastards in it, doesn’t it?”
“The government.”
“The governmen-t?”
“Yeah. From the way they’re moving, it looks like they’re trying to purge every drug-related organization in the country.”
“Hah. That’s overkill. If they could do that, they’d have arrested them all by now. More than anything, here...”
“Here?”
Yoo Hye-joo looked at Gong Woo-jae.
He met her stare with a slight tilt of his head.
“You’re here.”
“Oh. That’s unexpected. You actually rate me pretty highly?”
“You’re the strongest piece of trash I’ve ever seen.”
“Trash, huh...”
“Why else do you think I chose this place out of all the trash I could’ve worked with?”
At that question, Gong Woo-jae raised a finger.
Then he twirled it in the air.
“Because you let me make a place this cramped?”
“...Because you were here. I thought I’d be protected.”
“Pity I couldn’t live up to that trust. This situation is beyond me, too.”
“Beyond you, too?”
“To get out of this situation... yeah. It’d have to be someone like Seo Ji-hyeok.”
“Seo Ji-hyeok... The Balance Guild?”
Yoo Hye-joo frowned.
Seo Ji-hyeok of the Balance Guild was a man who had become famous for taking down three A-class hunters in an instant.
The key wasn’t that he had taken down three A-class hunters.
The key was that he had taken down three A-class hunters in an instant.
That alone meant the current situation was so grim that only a monster of that caliber could get out of it.
“Han Jin-hwan made his move.”
“You’re insane...!”
Yoo Hye-joo’s mouth fell open.
Seeing that reaction, Gong Woo-jae chuckled.
“Crazy bastards! Using a butcher’s knife to kill a chicken?”
“Because a bull walked into a chicken coop.”
“A bull?”
He turned his head and looked toward the middle of the room.
On one side of the desk, where experiments were still underway, Violet Powder was sitting there.
“Ah...”
“Violet Powder. The drug made by those Crowd bastards. But... its true nature isn’t just some stimulant for awakened beings.”
“It turns humans into monsters...”
“Exactly. You really think the government would just sit still and let something like that spread?”
Yoo Hye-joo nodded.
She agreed completely with Gong Woo-jae’s opinion.
There was no way the government would tolerate a drug that turned humans into monsters circulating freely.
The two of them had expected that, sooner or later, the government would move to control it.
They just hadn’t expected Han Jin-hwan himself to step in.
“...Wait. Then why are you acting so relaxed?”
“Relaxed? No, this isn’t relaxation. It’s resignation.”
“Resignation...”
For someone claiming that, his face was smiling.
His hands and feet moved at their usual languid pace, too.
That was why Yoo Hye-joo thought he wasn’t resigned at all, but calm.
Like someone who had a way out of this dead end.
“Han Jin-hwan made his move. This isn’t a matter of whether we can run or not. It’s a matter of life and death. So.”
“So?”
“I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“The new drug you’re going to make. I’ve decided to stake everything on that.”
“......”
Crash!
“Eek!”
“Thunder...”
The sound of lightning striking rang out.
Gong Woo-jae understood immediately what it meant.
Han Jin-hwan had arrived here.
“You went from Gyeongsang-do to Jeolla-do, so I thought you’d head for Chungcheong-do. But now you’re in Gangwon-do instead...? I see.”
“......?”
“The target was you.”
“Me?”
“He probably thinks you made the VP.”
“Being a genius is exhausting...”
Yoo Hye-joo rose from the sofa.
Gong Woo-jae did the same.
If they were under attack, there were things he had to do as the leader of the organization.
He walked toward the door, then looked back at Yoo Hye-joo, who was gathering the VP and various experimental tools before opening it.
She took one scroll from the desk drawer.
Then she glanced at Gong Woo-jae.
Their eyes met in midair.
“Why are you just standing there staring? That’s supposed to be for one person.”
“You’re buying time for me? Even villains have loyalty, huh?”
“Loyalty... That’s a strange word. I said it before, didn’t I? I’ve decided to stake everything on the drug you’re making.”
“You did.”
“Don’t forget our deal, Yoo Hye-joo.”
“...Don’t worry. I’ll keep my promise.”
“That’s enough. Ah.”
“......?”
“I almost forgot to ask you one thing.”
“What-”
Crash!
Thunder roared again.
He looked up and muttered, “You’re running wild on your own terms...”
“Gong Woo-jae.”
“Oh. Sorry. My question isn’t anything special. I’m just curious. Am I recyclable trash?”
“You’re insane.”
Yoo Hye-joo frowned.
Seeing her face twist so severely it was almost ugly, Gong Woo-jae gave a snort of laughter.
She shook her head.
At any rate, that bastard really wasn’t right in the head either.
“I hope there’s a next time.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Bye-bye.”
With that gentle farewell, she tore the scroll in half.
White light burst from it, and as the light vanished, Yoo Hye-joo disappeared with it.
He stared blankly at the spot where she had been.
“......”
Creeeak.
The door opened.
The one who opened it wasn’t Gong Woo-jae, but someone outside.
Gong Woo-jae decided it was Han Jin-hwan and darted deeper into the room.
As he turned back, he began, “Welcome to this pla—”
Then he stopped.
The person who had entered wasn’t Han Jin-hwan.
An innocent face full of curiosity.
A long ponytail tied back carelessly.
“...The Moonlight Swordmaster.”
“Oh. You know me?”
“Welcome, Baek Do-woon.”
“Hm... You’re the one in charge here?”
Do-woon stepped into the room and looked around as he asked.
Gong Woo-jae answered in a calm voice.
“Yes. I am the master of this place.”
“......”
At that answer, Do-woon stopped looking around.
His eyes settled on Gong Woo-jae.
Then his head turned toward him as well.
Looking straight at him, Do-woon smiled.
Like he’d just found a toy he liked.