Chapter 301: Episode 301

As evening fell, the demonkin went to get dinner. We trailed right behind him.

We found an outdoor restaurant set up on a high-rise terrace and settled at a corner table where we could keep a reasonable eye on our target.

Since we might have to move at a moment’s notice, we ordered some light food and gazed out at the sparkling night view of Carnival Land.

Just then, the theme park’s main attraction, the evening parade, began passing by below. Carnival Land characters danced and sang atop massive, festive floats modeled after cakes and animals.

People packed tightly along the pathways were enjoying themselves, mimicking the characters’ dances in the glowing neon light.

The music was incredibly upbeat. Without realizing it, my shoulders were bobbing to the rhythm.

“Yusin.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

I blinked at the sudden expression of gratitude.

“For what? Are you thanking me for coming with you on this mission?”

“No. For answering my plea to save my sister.”

Why is she suddenly bringing up something from years ago?

“Wasn’t that years ago, during the Frost incident?”

“Yes. I asked you to save her back then, but I never got the chance to properly thank you. It weighed heavily on my mind the entire time you were unconscious.”

“Well then, I’ll gladly accept it.”

I filled my glass with soda, raising it in a mock toast.

“I simply did what needed to be done.”

We tapped our glasses together and took a sip.

This is nice.

The weather was perfectly cool, neither too hot nor too cold. We had prime seats, and the food was delicious. On top of that, being able to dine while looking down at the illuminated parade. If it weren’t for the demonkin, it would have been the perfect night.

“Since we’re on the subject, I’ll listen to whatever else you want to talk about tonight,” I offered. “It’s been five years. Is there anything else on your mind?”

She paused for a moment.

She replied with a soft smile.

“How about this kind of story? My dream was actually to become a pianist.”

I blinked in surprise.

It was the very first time I was hearing this.

“Back when my sister was an active hunter, I hadn’t awakened yet. I was studying the piano. People always told me I had a gift for it, and I placed pretty high in competitions, too.”

“Oh, that’s an unexpected talent.”

“But my Awakening happened so suddenly, completely without warning.”

She slowly swirled her glass. The sloshing of the juice looked somewhat mesmerizing.

“I awakened as a player, but I had absolutely no intention of becoming a hunter. I loved the piano far too much. My Unique Ability, Guardian, pushes a person’s learning capacity to the absolute extreme. Thanks to that, my technical piano skills skyrocketed in an incredibly short amount of time. But…”

“But?”

She lowered her eyelids.

“My music became dead music.”

“…Huh?”

“Everyone who heard my playing said the exact same thing. They told me it held absolutely zero emotion, that it left no lingering impact. I sounded like a machine programmed to hit the right keys. I had completely lost the ability to infuse imagery or express anything abstractly. For an aspiring professional pianist, it was a death sentence. That was my first real period of wandering.”

I listened to her in silence.

She cast her gaze out over the terrace.

I could see the crowds dancing enthusiastically as the glowing parade floats passed by.

“So, in the end, I became a hunter. It was a life I never wanted, a path I was forced to walk after my actual dream died. And this line of work? You just swing a weapon a few times, and it’s over. It was a never-ending cycle of days devoid of accomplishment, joy, or motivation. I thought of my ability as a curse. I fell into a deep, hollow apathy.”

…I had never known. I hadn’t realized that the incredible power she possessed was the very thing that had sacrificed her dream.

“The people who listened to my struggles just told me to stop whining about first-world problems. They said the world was full of people suffering far worse than me, and that since I’d been gifted with such an incredible ability, it was my absolute duty to use it for the sake of humanity. …It’s not like I ever asked for this power.”

“I understand.”

“But then,” she said, her eyes locking onto mine. “I met you at the Academy, Yusin.”

“Ah. You mean the kicking incident…”

At the mention of the kicking incident, she frantically fanned herself with her hand, as if just thinking about it was embarrassing.

“In front of the entire class, I got utterly crushed by you. Twice,” she said. “Of course, I was frustrated… but on the other hand, I felt liberated. I felt this immense relief knowing there were people out there far greater than me, and that I didn’t have to carry the weight of the world all by myself.”

I stayed completely silent.

“Because of that, I started to want more, you know? I wanted to be just like you, Yusin, so I worked myself to the bone. Every time I reached a new level, you were already leaps and bounds ahead of me. That realization thrilled me so much it gave me goosebumps. But then…”

The vibrant expression of the girl who had just been chatting so cheerfully darkened once again.

“You fell into a coma.”

She took a sip of her juice, as though the memory alone parched her throat.

“That triggered my third phase of wandering. I killed Fiends, I killed people—I went through the motions like an emotionless pianist. I became the Hunter Association President just like I’d always dreamed, and I officially reached rank 1, but… I don’t know. I wasn’t really happy. It was just that, since I had become a great hunter, I survived on the sheer sense of duty to protect others.”

I nodded.

“And now?”

“Now…”

She looked up. Even through her contacts, I could feel the magnetic pull of those golden eyes staring right into me.

“I think my wandering is finally over.”

“Why?”

She smiled shyly.

“Do I really have to spell it out?”

My heart pounded.

The lively parade music faded into a dull, buzzing hum in the back of my mind.

I wasn’t fighting a monster, so why did it feel like time was slowly grinding to a halt? Why was my focus sharpening to such an absolute extreme?

We just looked at each other.

Without uttering a single word, an entire conversation passed between us.

I leaned in, and she met me halfway.

Without either of us actively taking the lead, we drew closer, utterly bewitched by the moment.

She was beautiful.

No matter how many times I looked at her.

I gently grasped her shoulders.

Her eyelids fluttered shut.

And then—

“Ah!”

Her eyes flew open in surprise. Her expression instantly hardened as she pressed a finger to her earpiece, listening intently to a sudden report.

“Yusin,” she said, her voice dropping into a strictly professional tone. “The main target, Alexandro Carlus, has appeared.”

*

Following command’s update, we moved swiftly and arrived just outside the target area.

-It’s a shame, Tower Master. You were actually looking forward to it, weren’t you?

Ahem, be quiet.

Honestly, I didn’t even know what had come over me back there.

They say the right atmosphere can bewitch a person, and it was absolutely true.

“Yusin. This way.”

The Hunter Association had already secured an infiltration route. Hong Yeon tapped on a metal ventilation grate before expertly dismantling it.

The shaft was narrow and filthy, but this was hardly the time to be picky about our surroundings.

She crawled inside without a second of hesitation, and I followed right on her heels. The space was so cramped we had to shuffle forward on our hands and knees.

I fell silent.

Because lifting my head would result in a rather compromising view of her backside, I desperately forced myself to keep the conversation going.

“But if we pull out of the area, what happens to that rank 2 Danger Level Fiend?”

“Hunter Im Namjin just arrived on the scene to cover it.”

“Ah, well, he’s definitely reliable.”

We slipped out of the ventilation shaft and pressed our backs against a concrete pillar, waiting for a group of staff members to pass by. Once the coast was clear, we sprinted down the hall in the opposite direction.

“Alexandro is moving faster than expected,” Hong Yeon noted as we ran.

“He seems to be traveling by vehicle.”

“Can a car even get through a crowded place like Carnival Land?”

“It’s the middle of the parade right now. All the main pedestrian paths are under strict traffic control, so driving through the back routes would be entirely possible.”

She checked her wristwatch.

“It’s currently 8:05 PM, and the parade ends at 9:00. In that case…”

“Everything will go down within an hour, at most,” I finished for her. “The crowds will flood the exits right after the parade ends. If he delays too long, escaping by car will be impossible.”

“Exactly.”

Finally, we arrived at the designated meeting spot.

It was an empty, tunnel-like loading bay with absolutely zero cover. With nowhere to hide on the ground, we scaled the wall and concealed ourselves atop the thick ceiling pipes. I expanded my sensory range with Deva’s Eye and peered down.

That man is Lee Seokhun.

The CEO of Carnival Land—and the man highly suspected of colluding with the Fiends. He looked to be in his early forties, noticeably younger than I had expected.

Ten bodyguards surrounded him in a tight perimeter. Sweeping over them with Deva’s Eye, I noted the concealed firearms tucked into their jackets.

Five of them also carried swords visibly pulsing with mana. That meant they were active hunters utilizing specialized hunting devices.

They didn’t have much time to waste, either. If a handoff was going to happen, it had to be right now.

Tension slowly coiled through my muscles.

-Tower Master, they’re here!

The exact moment Ea spoke, bright headlights slashed through the dim tunnel as a motorcade rolled in.

Three pitch-black sedans rolled to a halt in a neat row, and the car doors swung open.

“That’s him,” Hong Yeon whispered.

Alexandro. A rank 1 Danger Level Fiend. The man was practically a walking national disaster.

Down below, the two men stepped forward to shake hands and exchange a few words. To secure the undeniable proof, Hong Yeon raised a military-grade camera and began recording the transaction.

“Yusin, are you ready?”

“Yeah,” I replied, swallowing hard.

Just as the word left my mouth, a sudden, blinding streak of light flashed through the air and smashed her camera to pieces.

“We have rats,” Alexandro declared, his gaze snapping up toward the ceiling. The Fiends and Lee Seokhun’s bodyguards instantly leveled their firearms at us, their killing intent suffocating the air.

“Well, whatever,” Hong Yeon murmured, entirely unfazed. She casually tossed the shattered husk of the camera aside. Pinched delicately between her fingers was a tiny SD card.

“I secured the memory chip.”

“Nice!”

She slipped the chip safely into her subspace pocket and rose to her feet atop the pipes.

“I am Hong Yeon, President of the Korean Hunter Association,” she announced, flashing her official hunter license down at the men.

“I don’t need to give you a tedious explanation of your rights, do I? Under the National Special Security Act, you are all under arrest. Surrender peacefully, and we can keep the violence to a minimum.”

“Kill them.”

At Alexandro’s cold command, a man standing directly beside him thrust out his arm.

A mass of something resembling liquid metal tentacles shot upward, utterly obliterating the pipe we had been standing on.

Hong Yeon and I leaped into the air just in the nick of time.

“Then should we even out the numbers first?” I asked.

-Understood, Tower Master. Golems online.

Mechanical clicking sounds rapidly echoed off the floor and walls as glowing golem blueprints unfurled across the concrete. Embedded Mana Stones rose to the surface, eagerly devouring the surrounding debris and rebar to seamlessly construct themselves into fully armored golems.

Thanks to the golem balls designed by Eunsol five years in the future, the entire fabrication process took a mere three seconds.

In the blink of an eye, my mechanical army surrounded the Fiends and Lee Seokhun’s entourage, charging forward with a deafening, metallic roar.

“Shoot! Shoot!” Lee Seokhun shrieked, his voice cracking in terror.

Deafening gunfire filled the tunnel as a torrential rain of mana bullets struck the golems, only to ping harmlessly off their thick armor without leaving so much as a dent.

“Move.”

The bodies of a few men in Alexandro’s group violently contorted, their skin instantly tearing as they transformed into hideous monsters that lunged straight at the advancing golems.

While the monsters and golems clashed in a brutal, earth-shaking melee, Alexandro smoothly snatched Lee Seokhun’s briefcase, shoved his own into the CEO’s chest, and pivoted back toward his sedan.

Lee Seokhun was frantically darting his eyes around the chaotic battlefield, desperate to find an escape route of his own.

“Give it up.”

Hong Yeon stepped effortlessly into the fray and swung her blade. The upper half of the Fiend charging at her went flying into the air, a deep V-shaped gouge carved flawlessly through its chest.

“The Association’s hunters have already established a complete perimeter around the building. There are no gaps.”

She was Korea’s strongest hunter. Hong Yeon’s golden eyes bore into the man, emanating a terrifying, predatory sharpness.

“There is absolutely nowhere to escape.”

Alexandro simply looked at her and let out a sinister, grating sneer.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep