“You mean Father Lee Manbok?”
“Who else would it be? The one who gathered people like me and kids like Choi Miyeon out there.”
At those words, the furious pounding on the door gradually subsided. The voice had been so rough I hadn’t realized it, but it seemed Choi Miyeon was one of the people outside pounding on the door. Calling it a mentor–mentee relationship sounded nice, but in truth, it had probably been a form of surveillance.
“…Hey, Lee Arin. Get a grip. Before we call everyone else over.” In a low voice utterly unlike the lively tone she’d used earlier while talking about idols, Choi Miyeon muttered from outside, “We’ve known each other since we were kids. If you stop here, I’ll let it slide. Open the door and come out.”
“You’re the one who needs to get a grip, Choi Miyeon,” Lee Arin snapped back in a sharp voice. “You think your situation is all that different from mine? No, you’ve got it worse. You’re completely clueless, not even knowing what kind of life your dad is being forced to live.”
Silence fell outside the door.
“…What? What does my dad have to do with this?”
“You’re the only one who doesn’t know that your dad’s been getting beaten by the executive as a substitute punching bag, you idiot.”
She’d said she’d do everything she wanted; true to her word, she was brutally direct.
“What… what did you say?”
“The ‘good people’ around you all know. Why don’t you ask them?”
“That’s nonsense. You think saying something like that will make me—…what’s wrong with everyone?” At first, Choi Miyeon had scoffed, but her words abruptly trailed off.
Even with the door between us, I could feel the heavy, uncomfortable silence outside.
“…What’s going on? Why isn’t anyone saying anything?”
A moment ago, people had been crowding around noisily outside the door, but now no one said a word. And sometimes, silence is an answer. It seemed that the fact Choi Miyeon’s father, Choi Seonghun, was being subjected to violence by the executive was an open secret.
As Choi Miyeon fell quiet in shock, I looked at the bloodline writhing like a living snake near the doorknob, sealing the door shut. She could control her blood until it dried.
A kind of telekinesis… but limited to controlling parts of her own body.
Telekinesis, in the end, is a transcendent power that moves mana unconsciously. But a unique skill is, by definition, something innate, and without sufficient capability, its scope is severely limited. Cases like Lee Arin’s, where it only affected herself, were common. The idea of deliberately drawing her own blood to use it like that, however, was anything but common. In any case, she could only keep the door sealed with that skill for a very short time.
Right now, things were quiet only because Choi Miyeon was in shock and the others were unsettled. If they seriously tried to force their way in, it wouldn’t last long, maybe a few minutes at most.
“There’s no time, so I’ll get straight to the point. Is it true that Truelight Sect brought in a smoke item developed in the United States?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was the one used as a test subject for that item.”
As she said that, Lee Arin’s eyes gleamed with murderous intent. This time, another woman’s angry voice rang out, “Hey, watch what you’re saying, calling it an experiment! As members of Truelight Church, we made our rightful contributions—”
“Where is the lab?”
“The prayer hall. It’s called a prayer hall, but in reality it’s an illegal structure expanded down to six underground levels. The entire building is practically a research facility.”
As expected. No matter how cult-like it was, it had seemed strange that you’d need to sign a blood register just to enter an ordinary prayer hall. But if human experimentation was taking place, the existence of a barrier centered around that prayer hall made perfect sense.
“They said they needed to confirm whether even unique skills would completely disappear. So after making me inhale the smoke, they forced me to use my abilities even as every blood vessel in my body burst.”
“Is that why you don’t have much time left to live?”
"Yes." Lee Arin rolled up the sleeve on her arm. Her forearm was covered in countless bruises from injection needles. “Hunters in a water-balloon state are far more fragile than ordinary people. Forcing someone like that to use their abilities leads to an inevitable outcome.”
“But then why were you chosen for the experiment, Lee Arin? The targets in the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break were S-rank Hunters like Yu Hanul and Han Jaeyeong. If Truelight Sect was really behind it, wouldn’t there have been no need to choose someone in a water-balloon state like you as a test subject?”
“…You really do live up to the rumors, Hunter Jeong Daon.” Lee Arin let out a brief, humorless laugh at my question, but she answered without hesitation, “Does that really matter? All I know is that the smoke item was smuggled in and then taken back out again, supposedly to be used somewhere. And as you know, that item appeared during the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break. Isn’t that enough to make Truelight Sect the most suspicious party?”
“How do you know that item was used in the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break? It hasn’t even been reported in the media yet.”
“That’s the media for you. Among prosecutors, the story is already an open secret—and Truelight Sect has connections on that side as well. And no one is careful with their words in front of lab rats.”
“…I see.”
This information didn’t seem like a lie. If Lee Arin had confidently asserted that Truelight Sect had caused the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break, I would’ve doubted its credibility. I might have suspected that the sect had deliberately sent an agent to target me. But judging by the hatred and hostility in her eyes as she spoke, it was safe to assume that Truelight Sect really had smuggled in the smoke item.
And that they were conducting extremely inhumane human experiments.
Which meant the remaining question was whether Truelight Sect had truly caused the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break.
The prayer hall… no, the lab. There should be traces of the research there.
Any traces of the item’s use would have long since been erased, but research advanced enough to forcibly open a Dungeon Break would surely leave something behind. While I was at it, I could analyze the barrier spread around the prayer hall and check whether the magic circle really bore traces of an “Enemy of Humanity.”
“Then right now—”
As I pulled out my phone, Lee Arin shook her head. “Calling the police would be useless. There are plenty of Truelight Sect believers in the local police. With nothing but circumstantial suspicion, they won’t do anything.”
“I wasn’t planning on calling the police.”
I already knew well how much influence Truelight Sect wielded over public authority. Even if I reported it, there was no telling how long it would take to obtain a warrant—if one could even be obtained at all. And in the meantime, Truelight Sect could simply erase the evidence and disappear.
“I was going to call Yu Hanul.”
In that case, the simplest solution was to storm the lab directly and secure the evidence. Sure, it would technically be illegal—but when comparing a cult and Yu Hanul, in terms of public image and standing, the winner was obvious. With Lee Arin’s testimony, even more so. And Han Jaeyeong was there too. That was precisely why I’d had them waiting nearby in the first place.
“Then let’s contact them right now—”
But that was when the problem arose. No matter how many times I pressed the call button, the call wouldn’t connect.
“…What the—did my phone suddenly break?”
Bang! Bang!
“Hey, open up! Open it right now!”
Hearing the shouts demanding the door be opened, Lee Arin let out a bitter smile. “Did Choi Miyeon handle your phone, saying she wanted to show you idol videos?”
“…Don’t tell me…”
“Normally, during initiation training, they confiscate phones. But since you’re a Hunter, they probably couldn’t do that—so they must’ve planted a backdoor that disables calls.”
“But I was just talking to my family earlier.”
“They were probably listening from the next room. If they noticed anything suspicious then, they’d have activated the backdoor immediately.”
For a moment, I was left speechless. Cults usually cut off outside communication, that was standard practice. I’d even found it odd that they hadn’t taken my phone when I came in… but to think they’d planted a backdoor instead.
A hollow laugh escaped me. “Even so… going as far as lying about liking idols…”
“That part was true. It’s the idol she’s followed since middle school.”
“…Unbelievable.”
Using her favorite idol as an excuse to plant a backdoor in my phone, didn’t that disqualify her as a fan?
I turned to look at Lee Arin. “What do you think would happen if I said I’d forget all of Truelight Sect’s dirty secrets and asked them to let me go?”
“Oh, come on. Do you really think that would work? You’ve already contacted me and even heard the claim that the Truelight Sect might be behind the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break.”
“I suppose not…”
Once I’d heard Truelight Sect’s secrets in front of its believers, I’d inevitably become their enemy. From the cult’s perspective, they’d have to silence me no matter what.
Lee Arin shrugged. “Sorry, but this was intentional. From my point of view, if I’d tried to secretly approach you and ask for help, I figured you wouldn’t listen.”
“…You’re not wrong.”
If Lee Arin had secretly come to me with this information and asked me to help kill Lee Manbok, I would’ve refused outright, analyzed the magic circle, and left.
The quest "Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿" is in progress.
User “Jeong Daon” will have her abilities restricted if she performs actions that do not meet social standards.
With this quest in place, my actions were restricted to begin with. No matter how cult-like the target, in modern society, killing someone privately is unlikely to gain majority approval or be considered just.
“Still, this situation feels pretty…screwed, doesn’t it?”
Outside the door, at least five cultists were pounding on it like lunatics. Even if we got out of this room, escaping a building packed with over a thousand people didn’t seem easy. And I couldn’t call Yu Hanul or Han Jaeyeong right now. More than anything, the real problem was that I couldn’t contact Jeong Dajeong until I escaped from here. Declaring I’d stay out overnight without notice and then going completely unreachable—no matter how saintly Jeong Dajeong was, that was crossing a line.
I’d underestimated things, thinking there was no need to be so tense over mere small fry. Why did I keep forgetting that, right now, I was one of that small fry too?
In the middle of that brief self-reflection, the head of a hammer suddenly punched through the thick wooden door. Crunch! It seemed they’d decided to stop persuading and just smash the door down instead. They were definitely faster.
“We can’t hold out any longer. Follow me.”
Clatter! Lee Arin opened the window in the room.
“Even if you’re only a prospective Hunter, you’re S-rank. You’ve enhanced your body, right?”
She really had nothing left to lose. Sure, climbing down the exterior wall sounded more feasible than forcing our way through the crowd inside the building—but still.
“That doesn’t mean I can fall from eight stories up.”
“You’re not falling. It’s the opposite.”
With a chilling creak, Lee Arin opened the old window wider and scattered something like powder outside. The powder dispersed into the air, turning hazy and completely obscuring our view. She was probably trying to conceal where we were going from prying eyes. Though even so, if we were climbing the outside windows, it wouldn’t make much difference.
“Follow me.”
Whoosh!
Lee Arin leapt out the window, grabbed a drainage pipe jutting out from the building, and began climbing upward. It looked like she planned to escape by scaling the outer wall.
“Ugh.”
I opened the window and looked down. It was dizzyingly far. If I fell, this fragile body would be shattered instantly. But—
Crunch!
The door began to break apart even more violently.
Compared to facing several hammer-wielding cultists at close range, clinging to the exterior wall and getting out of the building seemed like the better option.
With a sigh, I set Leo, whom I’d been holding the whole time, down from my arms.
Leo looked up at me with wide, excited pupils.
“Go wild as much as you can, then follow after me.”
"Meow."
“Hunt!”
Judging by how he licked his front paw with relish, Leo seemed to be enjoying this situation. After all, no matter how much his size had shrunk, Leo wasn’t the type to be frightened of ordinary humans.
After giving Leo his orders, I immediately rummaged through my inventory and pulled out some items. No matter how positively inclined I was toward physical training for a mage, climbing a building barehanded was pushing it.
Equipping item “Spider’s Hand”.
Equipping item “Sylphid’s Boots”.
Effects applied immediately.
Mana will be continuously consumed while equipped. Be mindful of the rate of mana consumption.
Good thing I’d looted Han Jaeyeong’s inventory. Sticky gloves and translucent, silvery boots wrapped around my hands and feet. I took a deep breath, then extended my foot out the window. At this rate, I might really end up becoming an S-rank swordsman, just like Han Jaeyeong had mockingly suggested.