The boss was furious.
A voice filled with killing intent spilled out from in front of me.
“Who… leaked the information….”
Bang!
The boss slammed his desk irritably. His clenched fist trembled with restrained force.
I glanced at Jang Ijung standing beside me. He had his usual blank expression, but I could see his nape was damp with sweat. The room was nothing if not chilly, too.
Well, given the circumstances, Jang Ijung looked like the culprit who’d leaked the information. He actually was the culprit, too.
If the boss calmed down just a little, he’d notice soon enough. And then that bastard wouldn’t be able to walk out of here in one piece.
A perfectly cornered situation.
In other words, this was exactly the kind of situation that was perfect for creating a debt that Jang Ijung would owe me.
I could pin it on someone else, but to pull that guy—with his overblown sense of justice—onto my side, some cheap trick like that wouldn’t work.
As if sensing my gaze, Jang Ijung’s eyes turned toward me. Our eyes met, and when I smirked at him, the composure he’d been forcing himself to maintain wavered.
Ijung-ah… scared shitless, are you?
Hyung will save you.
I took a step forward.
“…I think I made a mistake.”
The moment I spoke, the boss’s chilling eyes pierced through me.
“A mistake?”
The boss took his hands off the desk and crossed the wrecked floor, coming to stand right in front of me. I could feel a stinging gaze on the back of my neck. I opened my mouth, calm as ever.
“I’m sorry. A while ago I let a repairman in, and it seems that guy was probably a spy… ugh!”
“So it was you….”
I’m not done talking yet, you know….
I wanted to protest like that, but all that came out of my mouth was a choking sound. The short-tempered boss had grabbed me by the throat.
The boss ground his teeth. As a control freak, he was furious that his plans had been thrown off even slightly.
“You… how dare you….”
Thud!
Taking a direct hit to the stomach, I collapsed onto the floor.
“Ugh… kheugh….”
For a moment, I clutched my stomach and trembled from the blunt pain.
Barely holding back the corner of my mouth from curling up, I checked my status window.
[Karma: 53,022 (-8)]
…As expected.
What kind of pain was this just now? Wasn’t it the kind of pain that led me toward happiness!
To lower my Karma, I needed to get beaten more.
“Boss….”
In the middle of this, Jang Ijung tactlessly opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry… ngh, it’s my fault. My carelessness….”
I hurriedly cut him off. My eyes met Jang Ijung’s. Seeing his flustered face, I felt a faint sense of satisfaction.
‘Sticking close to him wasn’t wasted effort after all.’
To think I could shake up a spy who’d come in determined to kill us, to this extent.
Looking around now, only Jang Ijung, the boss, and I were left in the room—everyone else had already left.
‘I helped you out enough, so don’t get in the way and disappear too, if you’ve got any sense….’
With that meaning in mind, I glanced toward the door with my eyes.
“….”
His face deathly pale, mouth opening and closing, Jang Ijung spun around and left as if being chased.
As I stared at the door, left slightly ajar, an eerie voice called out to me.
“Where are you looking?”
“…I’m sorry.”
I suppressed the corner of my mouth that habitually wanted to curl up. No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t the mood for smiling. I clutched my throbbing stomach and stood up.
“Seo Sinwoo.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“I’m disappointed in you in many ways.”
Ah, it’s coming.
The boss’s fist, and the time for a grand reckoning of Karma.
***
The gate opened.
Under the dark night sky, a pitch-black abyss expanded, devouring humans.
Amid a crowd screaming and fleeing, there was a man heading toward the gate alone, going against the flow. Walking out leisurely amid the chaos, the man suddenly grabbed someone’s arm. It was a passerby who’d been about to trip over someone’s foot.
“Oops there.”
“Th-thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The man smiled brightly. He wore a neat suit, with a smile that never left his lips and gentle eyes.
If there was anything unusual about him, it was that the brooch and tie pin he wore were lavishly decorated with gemstones.
In any case, his appearance was more than enough to inspire trust in someone.
Combined with the way the man had been confidently heading toward the gate, the passerby arrived at one conclusion.
“Um, are you perhaps a Hunter?”
“A Hunter?”
“You’re a Hunter, right? Please help me! My friend is in there…!”
The passerby turned and clung to him. One might expect the man to be startled by the sudden contact and shake them off, but instead he stared intently at something without any sign of surprise.
Taking this as a positive sign, the passerby clung even more persistently. Listening to the pleading without any reaction, the man suddenly spoke.
“This ring, it’s sparkling.”
The man’s gaze was fixed on the passerby’s finger.
“What?”
“Is this amber? But the craftsmanship is a bit unusual….”
Sensing something was off, the passerby hesitantly stepped back. The moment they tried to pull away from him, the arm still gripped by the man was yanked hard. The passerby jolted up like a fish forcibly thrown onto land.
The man raised his other hand and gently stroked the clenched fist.
“I’ve never seen amber sparkle like this before.”
“L-let go of me.”
Perhaps because pulling their arm with all their strength didn’t free them, the passerby, muttering in a flustered voice, struggled weakly.
Just as the faint resistance was turning into a full struggle, the passerby suddenly felt a tingling sensation in their hand and stopped moving. It seemed like static electricity from their skin brushing together.
Meanwhile, the man didn’t seem to care at all whether the other person resisted or not. He was still staring intently at the ring. The way he didn’t even blink was terrifying.
The passerby hurriedly looked around. But somehow, the surroundings were already empty. It was the result of the Association’s thorough disaster safety education paying off.
In the end, the passerby began shaking their head while looking at the gate, which had drawn even closer. It was a gesture that seemed consumed by fear.
“Hmm…. I really do want this, though. What should I do.”
“…!”
“If the boss finds out….” the man muttered something incomprehensible, then tightened his grip on the passerby’s forearm.
“Ngh….”
“By the way, have you been working out? Your arm is pretty firm.”
That was the end of it.
Crack—
Without even managing a scream, the lifeless body collapsed onto the ground. It was a sight that would have made an ordinary person faint.
But there was no one here who would care about someone else’s death.
Only the man standing before the corpse scratched his head, feeling a vague sense of unease. It wasn’t a sentimental reaction like guilt over killing someone.
“Something feels off…. don’t you think?”
The words thrown into the air.
The man turned his head as if someone were there, staring fixedly behind him. Then, the space rippled, and a human figure emerged.
A sharp reply came back soon after.
“What’s off about it…! The most off thing in this whole situation right now is you, Seo Sinwoo!”
“What? Haha.”
“I went through the trouble of using my ability, and you just grab some random passerby…!”
The mouth visible beneath the cap twisted irritably. Watching the mole on his lip twitch, the man in the suit—Seo Sinwoo—smiled shamelessly.
“The ring was too eye-catching, I couldn’t help it.”
“Ugh….”
Seo Sinwoo crouched down in front of the corpse with a cheerful expression. It was to take the ring off. The capped young man watched his back and bit his lip.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know Seo Sinwoo’s tendency to lose his mind over any gem he liked. He knew his personality well enough. Still.
“If any witness accounts come up, it’ll all be your fault, Seo Sinwoo. I’m not responsible.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Rising lightly to his feet and turning to look at the other, Seo Sinwoo held up the ring with his finger.
“In exchange, I’m keeping this.”
“I wasn’t even going to ask for it, you know.”
“Well, that’s good then.”
“A ring pulled off a corpse’s hand, how ominous….”
Unfazed by those words, Seo Sinwoo slipped the ring onto his index finger and admired the sparkling gem. Seeing his nonchalant attitude, the young man got irritated and urged him to leave as soon as possible.
Pressured by the urging, Seo Sinwoo stepped over the corpse when he suddenly felt a gaze. He looked down at the body. The face, visible through the disheveled long hair, was pale. The eyes, subtly out of focus, were staring fixedly up at Seo Sinwoo above. Probably because he’d died without even having time to close his eyes.
“….”
Unable to shake off the sense of wrongness in his heart, Seo Sinwoo left the corpse behind and approached the gate. Right now, there was something more important than figuring out what that wrongness was. Also, he was satisfied, having gotten what he wanted.
The young man asked in a tense voice.
“How long will it take for the Hunters to arrive?”
“Well. Five minutes at most?”
Glancing to the side, Seo Sinwoo smirked and put his arm around the young man’s shoulder.
“Why are you so tense? Just trust me and follow along.”
“It’s because I really don’t trust you, Seo Sinwoo….”
“You think I’ve only been doing this for a day or two?”
At the confident tone, the young man lowered his head and muttered.
“In the first place, is it even okay to be doing this behind the boss’s back….”
“Geez, listen to this illegal Awakener. You’re not scared of the state, but you’re scared of the boss?”
The young man shut his mouth. Seo Sinwoo, without stopping, snapped at him further.
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to back out now, after coming all this way?”
“….”
“Didn’t you say you needed money? Just close your eyes, go in once, and come back out, and you can make a lot. It’s the same thing you always do anyway.”
He murmured low, his tone tinged with laughter.
“What, are you scared now that it’s actually happening?”
Gritting his teeth, the young man knocked off the arm resting on his shoulder and stepped into the gate.
“…How young.”
Seo Sinwoo, grinning, followed his back into the gate. Not knowing that he was walking straight into a trap on his own two feet.
***
Perhaps not many people had fallen through the gate, because the inside was cleaner than expected. Torches on the walls illuminated the two of them, flickering.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—this dungeon wasn’t in a wild state.
A wide corridor stretched out before the gate. It was a delicately built structure, proof that the space had been made by an intelligent being.
On either side of the corridor, round pillars stood at regular intervals. It looked like there were rooms between each pair of pillars, though it was too dark to see clearly.
Seo Sinwoo absentmindedly brushed his hand along the white stone wall and remarked.
“Well, finding the artifact should be easy enough.”
The young man beside him shot back.
“And getting caught by Hunters should be easy too.”
“Haha. With a master of stealth here, what’s there to worry about?”
At the casual, clingy attitude that immediately followed, the young man fell silent. He simply turned his head sharply away and slowly pushed off the arm of the gem-obsessed man that had crept onto his shoulder. Seo Sinwoo, not pushed off so easily, held his ground.
Noticing that the young man’s ears had turned red, Seo Sinwoo deliberately teased him even more, and the young man, pretending to be calm, spoke up.
“Considering how everyone died in that short span of time, it seems like there really is a monster here.”
“Hmm….”
Looking down at the corpses, Seo Sinwoo’s mouth curled up.
“Right. But that’s what the Hunters are for—they’ll kill it.”
He gripped the young man’s hand tightly and whispered softly.
“Let’s just grab a bunch of treasure and get out quickly.”
The moment he finished speaking in that gentle voice—
Snap.
The sound of a finger snapping rang out.
And without warning, his arm exploded starting from the fingers.
“…!”
“Ahh!”
What exploded was Seo Sinwoo’s arm. The scream came from the young man beside him.
Hit directly by Seo Sinwoo’s blood and the remnants of his arm, the young man instinctively recoiled, creating a gap between them. Seo Sinwoo did his best to keep from falling over.
Whirling around in shock, he saw the passerby—the one he’d thought was dead—climbing through the gate. Long, straight hair that, at a glance, could be mistaken for a woman’s, fluttered in the air.
The moment that sight registered, a single realization struck through his mind.
Ah, the ring.
At the same time, a single regret surfaced.
I really shouldn’t have ignored my instincts after all.
Who? Why me? Such questions didn’t even occur to him.
In his lifetime, he’d done countless things that would earn him grudges. There were just as many vermin who’d raged about wanting to kill Seo Sinwoo. Well, none of them had succeeded, though.
Maybe today’s the day it happens.
The attacker approached Seo Sinwoo, who was clutching his shoulder in agony.
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to just take things from strangers?”
Seo Sinwoo faced the attacker and smiled brightly.
“…Sorry, but I don’t have a mom.”
With those words, he swiftly tried to attack with his remaining hand. But the attacker dodged it easily.
Seo Sinwoo clicked his tongue. With one arm gone, his balance was thrown off, making it hard to aim. Close combat wasn’t his specialty, and on top of that, the opponent was too strong….
To be honest, Seo Sinwoo had never really liked moving his body much in the first place. It was because using his ability solved most things.
After a brief standoff, his remaining arm was also sliced off by the sword. Seo Sinwoo, now without both arms, staggered.
While he was still reeling, he was kicked in the stomach. With a single kick, he collapsed helplessly onto the floor.
He felt blood soaking his back. Seo Sinwoo could tell. It wasn’t a human amount of blood loss. No—it wasn’t an amount of blood loss anyone could survive.
“Ah…. If only I’d had a mom.”
Sensing his end, Seo Sinwoo lamented.
“Fuck, if only I’d had a mom…. I wouldn’t be dying like this….”
“…….”
A hand rose toward the throat of Seo Sinwoo, who was ranting deliriously with hazy eyes. He wanted to thrash, but his body wouldn’t move.
An expressionless face was looking down at him.
He sent a strong electric current through the skin in contact, but for some reason, the other person showed no sign of being shocked at all.
Wait, where did that capped bastard go?
His vision blurred.
Blackout.
