Chapter 84
Chairman Park Sang-cheol leaned back in the rear seat of the car.
He was on his way home from the Association headquarters in Incheon.
He recalled the contents of the phone call he'd just received from Jeong Manho.
A sneer crept to his lips.
[I will never climb the tower again….]
Jeong Manho had immediately promised to stop climbing Daejeon Tower and cooperate fully with the strike.
His voice was almost begging.
'Useless bastard.'
Park Sang-cheol clicked his tongue inwardly.
As soon as he applied a little pressure, he knelt as if he'd been waiting for it.
Did an A-grade Hunter not even have any pride?
Then why the hell had he dared to defy me?
'Maybe someone is behind him.'
A plausible conclusion soon surfaced.
Once that thought occurred to him, he couldn't stay still.
It was obvious. Someone was behind Jeong Manho.
The mastermind who'd egged him on and pushed him to climb the tower. Who was it?
There were too many candidates to choose from.
There were probably plenty of people who wanted to take down the man with the greatest power in Korea.
'I should investigate.'
Any sprouts that interfered with his plans had to be cut down in advance.
Thinking he'd order an investigation first thing tomorrow morning, he closed his eyes.
Then it happened.
Park Sang-cheol absentmindedly looked out the window, then frowned.
"...?"
Something was off.
This wasn't the way home.
If they went this way, it would lead to his villa.
"Hey, Driver Kim. This is the road to the villa."
The driver said nothing, just kept driving forward.
Annoyance crept into Park Sang-cheol's voice.
"Didn't you hear me? You took the wrong road…."
Before he could finish, a voice drifted from the front seat.
It was unmistakably a digitally altered voice.
"The world is really convenient these days. Turn on the navigation and it stores your home and work addresses for you…."
In an instant, the air in the car froze.
A chill ran up Park Sang-cheol's entire body.
This isn't Driver Kim.
"Who are you?"
Park Sang-cheol sat up.
He reached out with his right hand and grabbed the driver's shoulder.
But what he grabbed wasn't a solid human shoulder.
Crsh.
The shoulder in his grasp crumbled away at once.
"W-what…."
For a moment he thought he'd ripped off a man's shoulder, but that wasn't it.
"Sand…?"
What remained in his hand was grainy sand.
The driver's form wavered like a heat haze.
What was sitting in the driver's seat and driving was a man made of sand.
"Damn it!"
He didn't know what it was, but he had to get out.
An A-grade Hunter's instincts were screaming warnings.
Park Sang-cheol's body moved reflexively.
He jerked the door handle hard.
Click.
The door wouldn't open. It seemed to be locked from the inside.
"You think an A-grade Hunter is a joke?"
Park Sang-cheol poured mana into his fist.
A strike carrying the power of an A-grade Hunter.
A normal car door ought to have been ripped apart like paper.
Bang!
The car body shook violently.
But the door was fine. Not even a single dent.
Instead, his fist throbbed.
"Impossible…."
Just as Park Sang-cheol was preparing another attack.
Swish.
Something crawled out from beneath the seat.
It was sand as well.
The sand wrapped around his body like ropes.
A surprise attack with no room to evade.
The sand ropes forcibly pinned his body to the seat.
"What the hell is this! Let me go!"
He struggled desperately, but it was useless.
What? Even his A-grade strength couldn't break it?
What on earth was his opponent?
As his mind raced.
That voice from before came drifting out again.
"Don't resist. If you don't want to get hurt for nothing."
A calm voice.
That calmness only made Park Sang-cheol's fear intensify.
"You bastard! Show yourself! China? Or Japan?"
"No. Higher."
"What? What does that even mean…."
Park Sang-cheol couldn't understand it at all.
Higher than China? Then what, America?
But why America all of a sudden?
What the hell was this person?
His mind was full of confusion.
As one thought led to another.
Before he knew it, the car had arrived at its destination and stopped.
"This is…."
A familiar sight.
It was his favorite villa, built in a place where the sea could be seen at a glance.
The sand restraining Park Sang-cheol started moving.
Without regard for Park Sang-cheol's will, it opened the car door and roughly dragged his body out.
"Ghk!"
Park Sang-cheol was helplessly thrown to the dirt ground.
The sand pressed down on his shoulder, keeping him from rising and forcibly making him kneel.
A humiliating posture.
Creak.
He heard the passenger-side door open.
Park Sang-cheol turned his head.
Nothing could be seen.
But he could feel it clearly. Someone had definitely gotten out of the car.
The sound of gravel underfoot, the faint movement of air.
An invisible someone was standing before him.
"Mr. Park Sang-cheol? Nice to meet you. First time seeing your face, huh?"
The transparent being standing in front of him spoke.
The same distinctive altered voice he'd heard before.
"Take a good look at that villa over there. This is the only time you'll see it."
There wasn't even time to ask what he meant.
It was right after that.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-!
An earthquake struck.
The lawn in front of the villa surged upward.
Dirt and clods of grass splashed in all directions.
Amid the dust and the split earth, something horrifying emerged.
A mouth split into several pieces. And within it, a glimpse of thousands of steel teeth.
Park Sang-cheol couldn't even tell what to call it.
The monster attacked the villa.
Crunch! Crack!
The beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows shattered, and the white outer walls were torn apart like paper.
The lovely space he'd spent tens of billions of won decorating was sucked into a giant hole in an instant.
Destruction so swift there wasn't even time to scream.
"N-no…."
His comfortable refuge was gone.
In just a few seconds.
Where the villa had stood, only a huge pit and rubble remained, hideous and bare.
Park Sang-cheol stared blankly at the sight.
None of it felt remotely real.
'T-this isn't even A-grade…."
This is a catastrophe.
At the very least, he couldn't do something like this.
Park Sang-cheol felt the blood in his whole body turn ice-cold.
'There's no way it's Kim Sooho. The man isn't interested in this sort of thing to begin with.'
Korea's only S-grade was Kim Sooho.
He knew that man's personality well.
A man who acted like he had little interest in domination or politics.
Wasn't it because the only S-grade kept quiet that he could run around like this?
Besides, if by some chance he ever ended up in a direct confrontation with Kim Sooho.
He had memorized that man's skills and how to counter them several times over for that very day.
He didn't have a skill that could summon a monster like that.
In other words, the person before him was a foreign Hunter.
'What the hell? An overseas S-grade came to kill me?'
Then the invisible man spoke again.
"I was actually going to do this to your Association building, but I held back."
Park Sang-cheol swallowed.
"Even so, I figured it was a bit much to summon something like this in the middle of Incheon."
A cold sweat ran down Park Sang-cheol's spine.
He was going to do this to the Association building?
That wasn't the sort of thing a normal person would think.
Park Sang-cheol desperately turned his brain over.
What had he done lately that could make someone bear him a grudge?
'Fuck… too many.'
There were so many he couldn't even count them.
But none of them should have been enough to make a precious overseas S-grade personally step in, should they?
Even so, he was thorough when it came to risk management.
He'd carefully chosen only people who couldn't dare defy him, and controlled them with the right amount of pressure.
That should have been his specialty.
Where on earth had he gone wrong?
If there was somewhere that deserved retaliation on this scale….
Just as a few possibilities were about to narrow in Park Sang-cheol's mind.
The invisible man cut off his thoughts.
"Don't touch Daejeon."
"D-Daejeon?"
"It's not a place some punk like you can just mess with. Got it?"
Daejeon. The mastermind who had egged Jeong Manho on and gotten him to climb the tower.
"I can hear the sound of your brain working from here."
A chill, murderous intent laced the voice.
In an instant, all of Park Sang-cheol's thoughts stopped.
Pride, anger, plans. None of that mattered now.
The only thing that mattered now was one thing: surviving.
Park Sang-cheol opened his mouth instinctively, just to stay alive.
His voice wouldn't come out properly.
"I-I understand! I-I won't ever…! I won't even look toward Daejeon again!"
Park Sang-cheol bowed his head so low it looked like he might smash his forehead into the ground.
His voice trembled with humiliation.
The invisible man watching him snapped his fingers without a word.
Snap.
Then the car that had brought Park Sang-cheol here a moment ago instantly turned to sand and collapsed away.
"If you touch one of my people again…. you'll disappear without even leaving a corpse. Understand?"
"Hrk…!"
Park Sang-cheol nearly seized up.
He couldn't think about anything anymore.
He only wanted to get out of here.
"Now walk home on your own, you bastard."
With those words as the last thing he said, the overwhelming presence crushing him vanished like a lie.
Park Sang-cheol immediately fled the spot, crawling on all fours like an animal.
"Aagh!"
As he ran, his feet tangled and he fell on the slope.
He rolled down the slope several times.
If he'd been an ordinary person instead of a Hunter, it would have been a definite serious injury.
"U, ugh…."
But Park Sang-cheol got right back up and ran again.
His expensive suit tore, and blood seeped from his palms and knees, but he had no time to feel pain.
Only the instinct to survive moved him.
He had to get out of there as fast as possible.
Because he had no idea when the person behind him might change his mind.
"Hah… huff."
He ran for a long time with his body in tatters.
Before he knew it, dawn was breaking in the dark sky.
Only then could Park Sang-cheol finally catch his breath for a moment.
"T-the phone…."
His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
He almost dropped the phone several times.
Just as he was barely about to raise his phone to his ear.
Bang!
With a bursting sound, the phone in his hand shattered into pieces.
Something had just brushed past right by his ear.
Fragments of the phone lodged in his cheek and the back of his hand.
"Kyaaagh!"
Blood streamed from his hand.
But he didn't feel any pain.
Because the presence watching him right now was even scarier.
"It's still watching…?"
As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Park Sang-cheol lost his composure.
"Haaahhh!"
Park Sang-cheol screamed and started running again.
His blood-soaked hand didn't matter anymore.
Right now, all he wanted was to hide somewhere safe.
***
Jeong Manho looked like a total wreck.
He was sprawled on the sofa like a dead man.
There wasn't a trace of an A-grade Hunter's dignity anywhere on him.
"Now what am I supposed to do…."
Yesterday, he'd called Park Sang-cheol and bowed so low it was almost humiliating.
He'd sworn he'd never again defy the chairman's wishes and that he'd take the lead in the strike more than anyone else.
"Honestly, it wasn't even a lie, was it? I stayed out of the tower and was on strike the whole time."
But the unease in one corner of his heart still wouldn't go away.
Park Sang-cheol was not the kind of man who would just let that sort of verbal pledge slide.
His personality was meticulous and obsessively persistent.
There would definitely be further action.
Ring-ring-ring-!
The phone ringtone rang out.
Jeong Manho nearly rolled off the sofa.
He swallowed hard and picked up the phone with trembling hands.
The caller was Chairman Park Sang-cheol.
"Hoo…."
He was definitely calling to make some new demand.
Jeong Manho took several deep breaths before finally pressing the answer button.
He prepared the most courteous and groveling voice he could muster.
"H-hello! Chairman…?"
'… Fuck.'
What a ridiculous slip of the tongue.
Jeong Manho squeezed his eyes shut.
Silence hung on the other end for a moment.
Before long, Park Sang-cheol's voice came through.
"Guild Leader Jeong. You're busy, right? Sorry to call so early in the morning."
"… Yes?"
But that voice was completely different from what Jeong Manho had expected.
A tone that was cautious, even polite.
'No, this old man likes to toy with people like this.'
"Not at all! Not at all! Since Chairman called, of course I should answer even at dawn!"
He couldn't let his guard down.
Jeong Manho spat out the ingrained flattery first.
"But what is it about…?"
"It's about the other day."
Park Sang-cheol began carefully.
Jeong Manho's heart started pounding again.
"I made a huge mistake. I didn't understand Guild Leader Jeong's deep intentions…."
"Y-yes…?"
Jeong Manho's mouth hung open stupidly.
Deep intentions? He couldn't understand what the hell he was talking about.
Whether Jeong Manho understood or not, Park Sang-cheol kept going.
"I sincerely apologize for my rash behavior. Please, just forgive me once."
A groveling apology.
Chairman Park Sang-cheol, an A-grade Hunter and the pinnacle of Korean Hunter society, was now apologizing to him in a pathetically submissive way.
"Ch-Chairman? What on earth is this…."
"Daejeon was an area I could never dare to overstep. I regret my ignorance. Please be sure to tell that person that I'm definitely reflecting on my actions…. I also sent a small gift, so please accept it."
"Uh…."
The call ended there.
Jeong Manho stood there blankly with the phone in his hand for a long time.
What was this?
"Could it be?"
A bolt of lightning flashed through Jeong Manho's mind.
'Daejeon is not an area I can dare to overstep'?
Jeong Manho slowly turned his head and looked out the window.
His neighbor's house. A huge wall.
Beyond it lived an unidentified Hunter. One with a daughter in the upper grades of elementary school….
Goosebumps rose all over his body.
Jeong Manho himself had not been the only one to be attacked.
One Star Management. That vice president had been attacked too.
It was obvious that the person next door had taken that action.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
It was a delivery package. The gift Park Sang-cheol had sent.
Jeong Manho stared at the box for a moment.
Then he made a phone call without hesitation. And of course, not to Park Sang-cheol.
"Vice President? This is Jeong Manho. I want to keep working as Daejeon's faithful lackey from now on…."
***
"CEO! What on earth did you do last night?!"
"Huh?"
I, who had overslept because of last night's drive, sat up at the sudden ringing of the phone.
The first thing I heard after answering was an angry-sounding voice. It was the broker.
"What did you do that made Jeong Manho swear loyalty and the chairman send a gift?"
"Oh, he gave you a gift too? What is it?"
"Haah…."
The sound of a deep sigh.
Soon, a voice came through as if he'd given up on everything.
"It's the Spirit Essence."
"Wow, so the old guy still had some decency after all."
"Haah…. Since I received it, I'll bring it to you soon. And make sure you explain everything then."
"Yes, yes. Thank you."
Spirit Essence.
The very rare item I'd fed to the first unit.
It was one of those things you want but can't get, because there aren't any listings.
How did this line up so perfectly?
I smiled in satisfaction and waited for the gift to arrive.