By Zephyria In an instant, black thorns shot out and poured fiercely towards Eui-jae. Ignoring the thorns rushing to engulf him, Eui-jae twisted the man’s neck with an unperturbed face.
Crack! He vividly felt the sensation of the neck bone breaking in his grip. Soon after, the man’s neck bent in a bizarre direction. The last light in his hazy eyes disappeared, and his body slumped.
“This is a pain in the ass until the end.”
Eui-jae muttered in an annoyed voice, checking his condition. His clothes were torn in places, but his body was without a single scratch. Some of the thorns that had stubbornly tried to penetrate Eui-jae’s body were even bent outwards.
Eui-jae dusted off his bloodied hands, stood up, and tilted his head.
‘What is this? Aren’t they supposed to only appear at night?’
If these conspicuous bastards were crawling around in broad daylight, their existence would have been known. And the regular Hunters wouldn’t have failed to mention them.
‘But I’ve never heard anything similar.’
Suddenly, the image of the Gas mask came to his mind. Eui-jae chuckled in disbelief and muttered.
“I thought they meant not to talk about beating people up…”
What if it was a gag order not to reveal their existence itself? Information control for maintaining secrecy was common, so there was nothing new to be surprised about…
Eui-jae frowned. If so, why did the Gas mask just let him go? It would have been easier to kill him rather than letting him live while enforcing a gag order.
At that moment, he heard a small sound and sniffles from the Hanover Soup Restaurant. Noticing that it was quiet outside, Ha-eun was approaching the door. Eui-jae hid the man’s corpse with trash, just in case. Then, he ran to the door and knocked with the back of his hand.
“Ha-eun, it’s your uncle. Can you open the door?”
He deliberately showed his face close to the glass and waved his hand. With a small rustle, the lock was released. Ha-eun was sitting huddled with her schoolbag, trembling. She seemed to have lost strength in her legs from relief after seeing Eui-jae.
Eui-jae also lowered himself to squat and quietly met her eye level.
“It’s okay. There are no strange people anymore. They’re gone far away.”
“Gone?”
Tearful eyes turned to Eui-jae. Seeing her face still filled with tears, Eui-jae bit the inside of his cheek.
‘…Did I kill him too cleanly?’
Ha-eun threw down her schoolbag and reached out to Eui-jae. Over that small hand, the bandaged hand he had once held flickered as if overlapping.
A boy wrapped in bandages all over his body, unable to even speak. The only expression the boy could make was a slight twitch of his fingers. When the boy moved his fingers, Eui-jae would stroke his head or hold his hand tightly.
‘Shit…’
His stomach churned. Eui-jae lowered his eyes, hugged Ha-eun, and patted her back with his left hand.
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah…”
“It’s all okay now. Were you scared?”
Ha-eun sniffled instead of answering. Eui-jae carefully pulled his head back, worried that the dye on his hair might touch the child’s skin, and spoke gently.
“Uncle will tell all the Hunters. Then this won’t happen again.”
“Yeah…”
After patting her back for a while, she seemed to have calmed down a bit. Ha-eun mumbled in a nasal voice.
“Tell Jung-bin and Honeybee too.”
…That might be a little difficult. In the first place, those two had never been to the Hanover Soup Restaurant, so he couldn’t tell them. But he couldn’t coldly refuse to comfort a startled child, so Eui-jae changed the subject with an awkward expression.
“Can Uncle wash off the hair dye first?”
“Yeah… It smelled a bit, actually.”
“Please say it’s the hair dye smell. Other people might misunderstand.”
Only then did Ha-eun giggle. Eui-jae also sighed briefly, wondering how to dispose of the corpse in the pile of trash. He then thought of the regulars of the Hanover Soup Restaurant who would be coming in an hour.
A corpse that an ordinary person couldn’t handle. Himself, who had to hide his identity.
‘Then I have to ask a Hunter.’
From now on, it was time to act like a thorough ordinary person.
A dark figure wearing a Gas mask strode into the clean lobby of the Seowon Guild. As if the Gas mask was an ID card, the security guards did not stop him. A boy in a white coat standing in front of the central staircase spotted the Gas mask and approached him with hurried steps.
“Have you arrived, Lee Sa-young?”
Sa-young looked down at the child with indifferent eyes.
“Where is Nam Woo-jin?”
“He is in the operating room. I will guide you.”
As the child entered the corridor on the right, Sa-young followed. The corridors of the Seowon Guild were as complex as a maze and intertwined like an ant tunnel.
After walking for a while, a solid-colored iron door appeared, with a red ‘In Surgery’ lamp lit above it. The child carefully opened the door and stepped aside.
“Teacher, Lee Sa-young has arrived.”
In fact, the place was closer to a scientist’s laboratory than an operating room. Books and documents filled the walls, and surgical tools and medical equipment were scattered in the middle of the room, where a large operating table was located.
A man sitting in a chair with his eyes closed slowly opened them. Green surgical gown, white coat, white hair tied in a bun, white eyes, and silver-rimmed glasses. Even in the Hunter era, where all sorts of hair and eye colors were rampant, it was a rare appearance. Sa-young nodded his head in a casual greeting.
“Nam Woo-jin.”
Nam Woo-jin, ranked 6th in Korea and Korea’s only A-rank Healer, rose from his seat.
“I thought I’d have to wait three hours since you’re so busy these days. You came quickly.”
“You know it well. I’m busy, so let’s get to the point.”
“Let’s.”
Woo-jin, standing in front of the operating table, lifted the white cloth covering the bulging operating table. The corpse of a man soaked in blood with a crushed face and black thorns sprouting from his twisted body was revealed. It was the existence they called ‘Addicts’. Sa-young muttered indifferently.
“The condition is the worst.”
“Jung-bin said it was in this state when he found it. The face was caved in from being hit with a very strong force.”
“That alone wouldn’t kill him.”
“Right. The direct cause of death is a neck fracture. Someone broke his neck.”
Bruises were rising on his neck in the shape of a hand. Sa-young’s eyes flashed as he discovered the scars.
“This…”
“Yeah. Grabbed him with bare hands and snapped it in one go.”
Nam Woo-jin mimicked grabbing and twisting something in the air.
The bodies of those who have started to mutate after taking drugs are very strong. It would be impossible to break their bones and subdue them with ordinary force. Sa-young, who had been observing the corpse, straightened his upper body.
“Who is the reporter?”
“Yang Hye-jin. A-rank Hunter belonging to the Rift Management Bureau.”
It was a name he had heard before. Sa-young tapped the operating table with his fingertips and asked.
“Did she handle it?”
“No. I don’t know who handled it. There was another first discoverer. A part-timer at the Hanover Soup Restaurant found it while throwing away the trash… and the way it looked.”
Woo-jin glanced at the corpse with black thorns sticking out all over it.
“It was in that state. I guess he was very frightened.”
“……”
“Well, it’s understandable that an ordinary person would be surprised. He was just trembling, not knowing what to do, and asked Yang Hye-jin, who came to eat Hangover Soup, to report it.”
“…Hangover Soup?”
“Yeah. It’s a famous restaurant… I haven’t been there, so I don’t know the details.When it came to Hangover Soup restaurants, there was only one place that Bae Won-woo went to as if he were possessed. Sa-young frowned. The fingertips touching the operating table gradually slowed down.
“Where exactly was it found?”
“That’s a bit interesting. Kid.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
The child waiting next to him handed over a tablet with a map displayed. Sa-young zoomed in on the map on the screen.
“Doesn’t the location look familiar? It’s the recycling area near the alley where the Addicts was found last time.”
“……”
“We need to check if a new supplier has emerged in that area. Keep that in mind.”
As Woo-jin said, the location of this discovery was a very close alley to where Sa-young met ‘Hyung’. Was it really a coincidence?
“Oh, and there’s another special thing… Take a look at this.”
Woo-jin pointed to several black thorns protruding menacingly from the corpse with his gloved hand. Among the numerous thorns sprouting from the body, several thorns protruding from the abdomen and heart were bent as if they had collided with something hard.
Sa-young tilted his head slightly and fixed his gaze on the twisted thorn tips. A strange sense of déjà vu came over him.
“I’ve never seen thorns bent in this shape before. It seems like they suddenly collided with something very hard… Have you ever seen it?”
Yes, he had.
The thorns that ‘Hyung’ had hit with a ladle and bent were exactly… like this. Sa-young knew immediately because he had mulled over that day’s events countless times. The corners of his stiff mouth curved into an arc.
He was about to lose his mind when he couldn’t find a single trace even after searching the entire database. After some time, he was filled with the desire to track him down and beat him to a pulp as soon as he found him. But when the trace actually appeared like this, he couldn’t help but laugh. Woo-jin leaned his chin and muttered.
“You look like you know something.”
“Yeah.”
Sa-young smiled contentedly.
“I finally caught his tail.”