Chapter 51
The Cheongryong Guild had never been a normal organization from the start.
The bottom of South Korean Hunter society.
Those driven out of other guilds.
Those with criminal records.
Those who abandoned their comrades inside dungeons.
Those who had skill but everything else about them was broken.
As outcasts with nowhere else to go gathered one by one, they became a massive collective before anyone realized it.
That was Cheongryong of Gangdong.
Of course, judged solely by individual ability, it was no place to take lightly.
If anything, the opposite was true.
Most of the people who had washed up here were genuinely skilled, at least in that one respect.
The problem was everything else.
Character.
Dignity.
Social skills.
A shred of conscience.
It was a gathering of women who were each missing something they should have possessed as human beings before they were Hunters.
Perhaps because of that, Cheongryong had no proper promotion system.
A system in which one built up achievements, underwent an evaluation, and earned a position.
Such civilized procedures did not suit this place.
The way to rise higher was simple.
Knock down the person above you.
Then take their position.
Survival of the fittest.
Winner takes all.
The guild master was no exception.
Reaching the top of Cheongryong meant having thousands of Hunters beneath you, while also knowing you could be stabbed in the back at any moment.
Ambushes.
Assassinations.
Poisonings.
Rebellions.
As long as someone could bring down the current guild master, the next position belonged to the victor.
And so, despite being only a little over forty years old, Cheongryong had already changed hands seven times.
And each time, the newly risen leader said the same thing.
That she alone would completely unite this rotten pack of beasts.
But.
“There’s no future in doing things like this.”
A woman appeared who was the first to say something different.
About ten years ago.
At the time, the seventh guild master had been killed alongside an attacker after being ambushed by a subordinate, leaving Cheongryong’s summit vacant overnight.
It was truly Cheongryong’s darkest period.
Territorial disputes.
Seizures of vested interests.
Assassinations of executives.
Each of them bit at one another’s throats, claiming they would become king.
If things went wrong, the very name Cheongryong might disappear.
Yes, if “that woman” had not appeared.
Baek Sawol was Cheongryong’s number two at the time, a woman known for a white mask that looked carved from bone and killing intent that made her seem capable of tearing a person apart barehanded.
Betrayal with betrayal.
An even more brutal retaliation for an ambush.
Because she understood Cheongryong’s ways better than anyone, she was also the person closest to claiming the vacant guild master’s seat.
One woman defeated her head-on.
Not through an ambush.
Not with poison.
Not through a cowardly trap, but through pure skill.
A perfect defeat in every sense.
By Cheongryong’s rules, that should have been the end.
The loser dies.
Or grovels at the victor’s feet.
But that day.
What was held out to Baek Sawol, who lay collapsed on the floor, was neither a fist nor a blade.
Instead, even with her face covered in blood, she laughed heartily and said,
“So why don’t you change this world with me?”
“⋯!”
What she had extended to her was a hand—the first such gesture Baek Sawol had ever received.
Not a hand extended to demand obedience.
Nor one held out for her to kneel before, but one extended to say they should go together.
From that day on, Jin Yeoryeong became Cheongryong’s eighth guild master, and Baek Sawol volunteered to become her right-hand woman.
And the organization once called a disgrace to Korea’s Hunter world truly began to change, little by little.
“Don’t lead with your fist every time.”
“If something can be resolved with words, finish it with words.”
“We’re people with the power to protect humanity. There are countless ways to make money without committing crimes.”
At first, everyone laughed.
Conversation at Cheongryong?
Legality?
Social trust?
Those things didn’t belong here.
But Jin Yeoryeong was sincere.
She cut off the dirty under-the-table money.
She expanded legitimate dungeon operations.
She provided guild members with criminal records with education and recidivism monitoring.
“It’s a company dinner for everyone tonight!”
“Guild Master, drinks again?”
“I’m paying, aren’t I? You got a problem?”
“No, ma’am!”
“Then follow me!”
For the first time, a way for people to live like human beings appeared in the jungle-like organization.
Negotiation instead of fighting.
Contracts instead of threats.
Official wages instead of under-the-table money.
Some people looked down on it.
But there were many people in Cheongryong who had never even received such guidance.
Poverty.
Crime.
Domestic violence.
Juvenile detention.
Loan sharks.
Women who, for their own reasons, had been pushed farther and farther out until they finally washed up here.
For the first time, she told people like them:
You can start over, too.
Just because you were called trash didn’t mean you had to live as trash forever.
Perhaps that was why.
The young Hunters, including Baek Sawol, gradually began to trust her.
Maybe, just maybe,
they, too, might be able to live cleanly.
But the smell of blood that had soaked in for so long did not fade easily.
Cheongryong’s darkness did not end with internal corruption alone.
Behind it was a larger hand.
Politics.
Corporations.
The vested interests surrounding dungeon rights.
And the black markets beyond the border.
For decades, people who did not want to dirty their own hands had been throwing money into the trash can called Cheongryong.
When they wanted to silence a reporter.
When they wanted to seize dungeon ownership.
When they wanted to eliminate a political rival.
When Jin Yeoryeong tried to cut that chain, the backlash did not come only from within.
“Korean politicians are truly frightening.”
It was the guild master’s birthday.
She had chosen the cake herself and gathered even executives who normally would not have attended.
In the middle of the celebration, a familiar voice laughed.
“I never thought you’d even procure something like this from China.”
“Kehk!”
A short blade pierced her chest.
“G-Guild Master!”
Black Blood Snake Poison.
One of the Ten Great Forbidden Poisons thought to have been discarded even in Chinese Murim.
A poison said to have disappeared following the international Hunter accords after the Opium War.
The woman standing there with it coating her dagger was an executive who, at the time, claimed to be Jin Yeoryeong’s left-hand woman.
Ma Jaerim.
“Happy birthday, Guild Master.”
A smile played at the corners of her mouth.
“You like the present?”
Under normal circumstances, this would have been impossible.
At the time, Ma Jaerim was B-rank.
Jin Yeoryeong, on the other hand, was a top-tier Hunter about to undergo her S-rank promotion evaluation.
An ordinary dagger should not even have been able to pierce her skin properly.
But the Black Blood Snake Poison laughed at that gap in strength.
The blade’s tip cut through flesh, and the poison spread through her veins.
Her knees buckled.
And as though it had been waiting for that moment, the entire guild rose in revolt.
The executives who hated reform.
Those who wanted to reclaim the severed under-the-table money.
Those who had been waiting to return Cheongryong to its former state.
They drew their blades as one.
That even trash could be put to use again.
That even broken people deserved a chance.
That was what Jin Yeoryeong had said.
But that day, Baek Sawol learned for the first time.
That there truly were things in this world that could never be put to use again.
There was only one thing she could do.
Get the guild master out and flee.
Blades flew at their backs.
Former comrades blocked their path.
People who had once drunk with them put a bounty on their heads.
Even so, they could not stop.
Carrying the bloodied guild master on her back, she escaped Cheongryong.
After that day, the organization returned to its past.
No, perhaps it fell even deeper than before.
And the two of them became fugitives for a year.
No money.
No connections.
Not even a hospital they could safely enter.
Above all, Black Blood Snake Poison was not something ordinary medicine could treat, so as time passed, their hope only dwindled.
Then, one day, just as they were about to give up nearly everything, a strange scene appeared on TV.
The Baekho Guild Master who had suddenly announced her retirement eight years earlier.
Han Yura.
A woman known to the world as retired, but who had in fact been in a vegetative state for a long time.
She had risen again.
And a man was there with her.
A silhouette blurred out on the TV screen.
But Baek Sawol could not simply let the scene pass.
Because men were scarce in this world.
In particular, a man being present at the scene where the fate of an S-rank Hunter and a guild was overturned could never be a coincidence.
So she investigated.
Following the traces.
Digging through records.
Following people.
And there, she discovered an even more unbelievable fact.
Guild Master Jang Mi-ran of Geumseong, who had grown increasingly violent over the past several years.
The cause was neither simple mental illness nor a brain disease.
A forbidden creature thought to have vanished from the Chinese Murim world long ago.
The Gu Worm.
Seo Jihoo had personally removed it from Jang Mi-ran’s head, ultimately saving the patient as well.
The moment Baek Sawol confirmed that fact, her heart began to pound.
The Gu Worm.
The Black Blood Snake Poison.
Though different in form, both had been born from taboos of the Chinese Murim world.
A realm beyond the reach not only of modern medicine but even of most Hunter specialists.
Yet that man had already captured one.
‘If so⋯.’
For the first time.
Truly, for the first time.
Another possibility arose in the mind that had held nothing but despair.
‘Could that man save the Guild Master?’
That was why she appeared.
In front of Jihoo.
And tried to abduct him.
Baek Sawol knew, too.
That this was wrong.
Not a hand that people should be dragged away by force.
Power did not entitle anyone to take what they wanted.
She had heard it time and again.
She had never forgotten those words.
Even so, she had no money.
She could not reveal her identity.
Above all, Jin Yeoryeong’s condition was worsening by the day.
If it meant saving her, she would even take a devil’s outstretched hand.
And now.
“From what I hear.”
The man standing at the center of the encirclement opened his mouth.
“There are only three people in the world whose movements are monitored in real time by satellites.”
“⋯!”
Seo Jihoo raised one finger.
“The first is someone whom even the United States cannot imprison, despite their criminal status, because of their overwhelming power.”
Known as:
The One Who Cannot Be Imprisoned.
A second finger unfolded.
“The second is the president of the Life Resources Administration, who stands at its summit.”
The air around them changed.
And then.
One final finger.
“The third.”
For that moment alone, the man before her no longer looked like an ordinary medical student who had been fleeing in her arms moments earlier.
“The person currently receiving real-time protection from space through the MailLink system currently being pilot-tested by the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs.”
A faint smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
“That person is me.”
Kwoooom!
“!!”
A tremendous roar split the night sky.
They instinctively looked up.
And saw it.
The sky of the barrier, which they had believed perfectly replicated reality.
A massive crack opening in the middle of the black canopy where not a single star could be seen.
“The sky⋯.”
“It’s breaking?”
Craaaack.
Crack.
The night split apart like glass.
Beyond it, real moonlight began to pour down.