Thud, thud! Lee Manbok’s subordinates were pounding on the wall as they closed in.
“This should be it, right?”
“It’s just a fake wall with wallpaper slapped on. Break it!”
Decisive, at least. Judging by the noise, there were about five of them.
Five people coming just to catch me, talk about a waste of manpower.
With a single kick from one of the subordinates, half of the door Lee Arin had set up was smashed apart. Crash! Then again, from Lee Arin’s perspective, there was no real reason to fortify it thoroughly. The moment the sniper shot at Lee Manbok failed from this position, there wouldn’t have been much reason left to live anyway.
The instant the door broke and a gap opened, pure white powder sprayed through the crack. It was the same kind of item used during the Gwanghwamun Dungeon Break.
Of course, this time there was no system message about overall stat suppression like back then.
This is pretty effective.
I’d worn it just in case, and the item Han Jaeyeong had given me was proving its worth. I couldn’t completely filter out the smoke, so it was still a bit unpleasant, but…
“All right, move in!”
“The opponent’s just a mage anyway! If she can’t cast spells—urk!”
The magic circle laid out in front of the door lit up. It’s true that mages are relatively weak in close combat, but that only applies when they don’t have time to prepare their spells. I’d been trapped in this small room for hours already, so I had plenty of time.
As the Hunters stepped onto the magic circle, blue flames ignited on their bodies and burned fiercely.
“Aaaagh!”
“Get out, get out! She set this place on fire!”
“Find the fire extinguisher first!”
Idiots. I can’t even escape this building myself, why would I recklessly start a real fire? How would this fragile body handle actual flames? What I’d set as a trap was illusion magic. The moment they stepped on the circle, it showed them the illusion of their bodies catching fire, and the instant they believed it, real pain followed. Of course, those with high mental resistance wouldn’t fall for something like this, but…
They’re not very high-level Hunters.
I’d expected at least one out of the five to escape the spell’s range, so I’d prepared additional magic. But all five went down.
I’d thought a cult leader would keep higher-grade Hunters as bodyguards, but according to Lee Arin, Truelight Church hadn’t been doing well financially lately. Apparently, the leader had been secretly siphoning off funds, though no one knew where they were going. In any case, the important thing was that they’d hastily recruited guards for this particular outing, so their overall level wasn’t very high.
The intelligence gathering had been fairly thorough, and the timing well chosen. Even if the preparations weren’t perfect, it showed that Lee Arin had been genuinely serious about this assassination.
I pulled a small communicator out of the ear of one Hunter who was writhing on the floor like an earthworm, unable to endure the pain.
“What’s your situation over there?”
"Target subdued.”
"Roger."
“Roger,” my ass. A bunch of cultists pretending to look professional. Still, things were unfolding more or less according to plan. Starting with the fact that I’d ended up handling the firearm I’d taken in Lee Arin’s place better than expected.
Am I actually talented?
My shoulder ached from firing an unfamiliar rifle.
Since it was an illegal gun replicated with a 3D printer, it seemed there was a chance the automatic fire wouldn’t function properly, so Lee Arin’d prepared several of them. Thanks to that, rapid firing was possible—but if it hadn’t been for the enhancement potion I’d wrung out of Han Jaeyeong, my shoulder would’ve been dislocated.
When Jeong Dajeong suggested going to a live-fire range, I wondered what nonsense he was talking about.
Thanks to that, I’d achieved pretty decent results. While I drew attention with gunfire here, Lee Arin herself would use an item to lie in wait near the garden and ambush Lee Manbok.
That was Plan A.
Of course, the success rate wasn’t very high. No matter how low their level, there were bound to be numerous guards swarming around Lee Manbok.
Still, Plan B worked.
“Daaad!”
From the garden came Choi Miyeon’s desperate wail.
Killing Lee Manbok would have been ideal, but if that failed, provoking Choi Miyeon was Plan B. Of course, I hadn’t expected them to use Choi Seonghun as a shield in place of the leader and let him take the blade.
I glanced at the system message.
The system reminds “Jeong Daon” of the quest “Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿”.
Your actions have been judged by the majority as “excessive self-defense.”
Your stats have slightly decreased.
Jeong Daon (Normal)
Potential Ability Rating: S-rank
Stamina: LV. 18 (No cap)
Strength: LV.14 (No cap)
Mana: LV. 27 (No cap)
Overall Level: LV. 20 → 20
Recommended Dungeons: C–D rank
Aside from my mana level dropping from 28 to 27, nothing much had changed.
Within expectations.
Given the judgment of excessive self-defense, it seemed they acknowledged that Truelight Sect had intended to harm me. On top of that, being a cult in the first place probably didn’t count as something society was willing to tolerate.
In any case, a slight stat decrease wasn’t all that important right now.
Listening to Choi Miyeon’s cries, I looked down at Lee Manbok standing in the central garden.
Lee Manbok, the leader of Truelight Sect. The man who deliberately ruined talented Hunters and offered them up as sacrifices for his so-called “miracles.” Was he truly an “Enemy of Humanity,” the reincarnation of my older sibling from a previous life?
With that question in mind, the Lee Manbok I saw in person was…
“Honestly…” I couldn’t stop a hollow laugh from escaping. “What the hell is that?”
The soul of the bald old man reflected in my Eye was so murky it was nauseating just to look at.
Lee Arin’s soul was also clouded by hatred, but it still carried a fierce, storm-like intensity. But Lee Manbok’s soul inspired nothing but revulsion, like looking at grime that had never been washed away.
There was no way that thing could be that person’s soul.
Figures. It wouldn’t be that easy to find.
If it were, the system wouldn’t have gone so far as to assign a main quest just to eliminate the Enemy of Humanity. Still, the fact that Truelight Sect was using soul cores meant there was definitely a connection to the Enemy of Humanity.
Do I need to torture Lee Manbok to find out?
That would complicate things a bit.
I watched as Lee Arin, still restrained by the guards, continued to provoke Choi Miyeon using the truth she had avoided all this time.
Sometimes, truth is a weapon sharper than any blade. That truth mercilessly shredded Choi Miyeon’s mind. On top of that, she had just lost her father before her eyes. Losing her reason was only natural.
And the soul core was greedily absorbing Choi Miyeon’s rampaging mana.
I leaned my arms on the window frame, resting my chin in my hands as I looked down at the scene. My reason for pushing Lee Arin had been, in part, simple curiosity.
First: verifying the theory behind soul cores. I’d already experienced two Dungeon Breaks, yet I still hadn’t figured out how that was possible. But the moment I realized a soul core was being formed here, the mystery unraveled.
Thinking back, I’d seen something glimmer in the hand of that man who entered the supermarket in Eunpyeong District. What he’d been holding at the time was a soul core, and what I’d witnessed was that soul core shattering.
One human being is no different from an entire world, and when the core containing that human’s soul is forcibly destroyed, an immense explosive force is released in an instant.
Of course, the affected area is nothing more than a tiny fissure in this vast universe, but invaders from beyond will never miss such a gap. That was how a Dungeon Break occurred.
I never destroyed one myself, since I intended to house my own soul.
My sibling from the previous life seemed to have used soul cores differently, so it wasn’t implausible.
The greater the mana contained in a soul core, the stronger the explosion. Choi Miyeon was roughly A-rank, so there was a high chance of a Type 1 Dungeon Break, one that would drag this entire area into another dimension.
“Myaak!”
While I was watching the central garden below, Leo returned after carrying out my order, his tail bristling. “Success! Success!”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly difficult. That’s the bare minimum.”
What Leo had done was keep Choi Miyeon from fully succumbing to the mental-type magic installed around the statue. Mental magic isn’t invincible, especially not against someone like Choi Miyeon, who had high affinity with animals—I figured she’d snap out of it easily just by hearing a cat cry for help. I had added a bit of flair by channeling some of my mana into it, though.
Leo lay down on the window frame, yawning and stretching. It was a peaceful motion, starkly different from the chaos unfolding below.
As I stroked Leo’s back, who was clearly fishing for praise, I looked down at the garden again. The play had reached its climax.
Seeing that Choi Miyeon had gone berserk, Lee Arin shook off the guards’ grip, drew the dagger hidden in her sleeve, and charged straight at her.
If Choi Miyeon died like this, the soul core would be temporarily completed, and Lee Arin would shatter it. Lee Manbok would then vanish from this world, dying trapped inside a dungeon. That was the only way for Lee Arin to complete her revenge.
In a world ruled by invaders from another dimension, human laws are meaningless. No matter how much you beg to pay bail, the only currency monsters accept is your life.
So now, all Lee Arin had to do was plunge that blade into Choi Miyeon’s neck.
The quest "Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿" is in progress.
The system notes that “standing by while murder occurs” is an action not agreed upon by the majority of society.
“Shut up.”
If standing by were truly such a condemnable act, then Lee Manbok should have been properly punished long before Lee Arin was driven this far, but that never happened. The authorities sided with the cult leader, and as Lee Arin had said, they never stood with the weak.
Anyway, second, I wanted to see how this play would end.
Of course, the ending was practically predetermined. Lee Arin would kill Choi Miyeon and succeed in her revenge against Lee Manbok. Someone who has already resolved to throw away their own life wouldn’t place much value on another’s. Lee Arin’s soul core was already overflowing with hatred; there was no chance she’d make a different choice.
The system questions User “Jeong Daon”’s inaction.
Well. You could call it the curiosity of a former Demon Lord. Or perhaps…
I just want to prove something.
This world is already falling apart. Imperfect weaklings receive no help, while the powerful, armed with the weapon called money, are innocent under human law. So for the weak to survive, they can only tear at other weaklings. Humanity has no path left but mutual hatred.
Just like my old world.
The quest "Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿" is in progress.
The system requests that “Jeong Daon” provide support to “Yu Hanul.”
Would you like to participate in the quest “SAVE THE WORLD”?
A world where doing good brings no reward isn’t worth protecting; I wanted that to be proven to me, so I watched Lee Arin’s choice.
The dagger in her hand was about to pierce Choi Miyeon’s neck, with revenge only a step away—
Crunch! Blood sprayed.