Chapter 72

Chapter 72

Silence fell.

Only the intermittent sounds of gunfire and screams from outside the building, along with the rumble of helicopters and armored vehicles on the move, drifted in.

"......I don't know what you're talking about."

Blue Rabbit played dumb.

"You can't exactly fight in that thing, so quit being stubborn."

A smile crept onto Eunseong's lips.

Nobody would enjoy wearing something so cumbersome in a life-or-death situation.

"And what about you?"

"Don't worry about me. This thing's actually pretty comfortable."

Eunseong tapped the White Bone Soul-Subduing Mask as he replied.

"Though, it is a bit stuffy, so taking it off wouldn't be a bad idea."

Eunseong slid the White Bone Soul-Subduing Mask off.

Sweat-damp hair clung to his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

"Never seen your face before."

"Small fry like you wouldn't have."

"......Heh."

A chilling laugh seeped out from behind the rabbit mask.

"I don't know what hole you crawled out of, but if you're showing your face...... must be confidence. The confidence that you're going to kill everyone here anyway."

"Quick on the uptake."

"Defense Strategy Department?"

Blue Rabbit assumed Eunseong was a hitman sent by the Defense Strategy Department.

"Don't you think you're overestimating yourself?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think the Defense Strategy Department has the time to care about someone like you? Sure, taking out scum like you is technically their job, but you're not worth the effort."

"Little shit runs his mouth."

Provoked by Eunseong's relentless taunting, Blue Rabbit ripped off his rabbit mask and hurled it aside.

"Jeong Mujin, confirmed. Defense Strategy Department, Bucheon branch."

Just as Eunseong sneered, as if he'd expected exactly this--

Thud, thud, thud.

Clank, clank, clank.......

The sound of chains dragging across the ground reached their ears.

"......How could you."

Choi Yura's eyes glinted cold upon catching sight of Jeong Mujin.

"How...... how are you even human?"

"......"

Jeong Mujin did not answer.

"You two talk."

Eunseong quietly withdrew.

Blue Rabbit.

Golden Sun's auctioneer.

And the real killer who had murdered Choi Yura's ex-boyfriend and her best friend.

Dealing with him was Choi Yura's right, not Eunseong's.

***

Just because Eunseong had handed Jeong Mujin over to Choi Yura didn't mean he had nothing left to do.

Eunseong had his own share to settle.

"Ngh!"

Gu Taeil.

The leader of the Nine-Tail Crew, the criminal organization that had reigned over Bucheon as its king for years.

He was hauling his stocky frame upright.

"Fuck......"

Gu Taeil cursed as he peeled a grenade fragment from his face.

He was unscathed despite five grenades detonating simultaneously on top of him.

An ordinary person would have been torn to shreds, but......

There was nothing strange about it.

Gu Taeil was a 5-Star Hunter.

A powerhouse who'd climbed to the level where conventional human weaponry was beginning to lose its effectiveness.

"You little bastard. You're that Cha Eunseong bastard or whatever, right?"

"Yeah."

Eunseong made a surprised expression, caught off guard.

Jeong Mujin didn't even know who he was, so how did Gu Taeil.......?

"You know me?"

"You're that newbie bastard from the TechnoMart Eruption."

"Ahhh."

Eunseong recalled the incident and nodded.

At the time, reporters had happened to gather in front of TechnoMart, and he'd been unavoidably exposed to the media.

"You fucking bastard."

Gu Taeil hurled an obscenity out of nowhere.

"I don't get why everyone loses their fucking minds over a piece of shit like you."

"Out of nowhere?"

"Do bitches have some kind of disease where they go crazy over every pretty-faced bastard they see???"

"......What."

Eunseong's expression went blank with bewilderment.

Setting aside the sheer vulgarity and crudeness of the insults--

He couldn't begin to understand why Gu Taeil was spouting this nonsense with his eyes rolling wild, given the current situation.

"Isn't it hilarious? How the world works?"

"Wh-what is?"

"Strength? Money? Power? All bullshit. Heh heh, heh heh heh. In the end, it all comes down to this."

Gu Taeil pointed at his own face.

His lip curled into a sneer.

His already rough-looking features twisted even uglier, and Eunseong's brow furrowed involuntarily.

"Why do bitches fall all over themselves for pretty-faced bastards like you? They don't even know you, you're a worthless nobody, and just because you're good-looking, they go and make fan accounts calling themselves your fans.........."

A strange expression settled on Eunseong's face.

He didn't know what kind of life Gu Taeil had lived, nor did he care to.

Why should he give a damn about the life of human garbage?

But one thing was certain--Gu Taeil's inferiority complex about his appearance was beyond imagination.

Why else would he be rambling on and on about looks, with no beginning or end?

"So......"

SHING--!

Claw-type Spirit Swords materialized on both of Gu Taeil's hands.

"When I see bastards like you, I just want to kill them. I can't rest until I've shredded that pretty face of yours and hacked off those long legs."

CRACK--!

The concrete beneath Gu Taeil's feet shattered outward.

Gu Taeil's figure vanished from sight.

Explosive acceleration.

BOOM--!

The thunderclap of splitting air followed a beat late.

"......!"

Eunseong's pupils contracted.

Too late to track with his eyes.

Beside his ear.

SLASH--!

Murderous intent flashed.

CLANG--!

The machete and Claws collided, throwing sparks.

"Ngh."

Eunseong grimaced.

A throbbing ache.

His shoulder was tingling. The impact of catching the Claws had traveled down his arm and straight into his shoulder.

"Heh heh heh!"

Gu Taeil, now right in his face, wore a crazed grin.

"Oh? Got some reflexes on you, pretty boy?"

"......!"

Claws loaded with razor-sharp Ether.

The talons of evil relentlessly targeted Eunseong's face.

***

The Defense Strategy Department surrounded the hotel and immediately deployed special forces and Hunters into Golden Sun.

"Execute, Execute!"

BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG!

The elite special forces operators, forged through the most rigorous training, swept through Golden Sun's interior like fish returned to water.

As was typical of high-caliber operators, building clearance was their specialty, and their speed and precision were beyond compare.

CLICK!

The moment power was restored, the main hall's lights came on.

"Wh-what is this......"

"Ugh."

The operators and Hunters nearly lost their composure at the carnage laid bare before them.

A vision of hell.

There was no other way to describe the main hall's interior.

The floor was a sea of blood.

Blood that hadn't yet cooled seeped into the carpet, squelching with every footstep.

Nearly a hundred corpses were strewn in every direction.

Walls, pillars, ceiling--not a surface had been spared from the spatter of blood and flesh.

On top of that, the sight of individuals in animal masks tangled together with half-naked men and women was as grotesque as it was horrifying.

"Ngh, nggggh."

"P-please. Save me."

Amid it all, the moans and pleas of the few lucky enough to survive echoed through the main hall like the wails of ghosts.

"HURK."

"Ugh."

Several operators and Hunters couldn't hold back their nausea and rushed out.

"......Mountains of corpses and seas of blood, they say."

A low sigh escaped Captain Im's lips.

What on earth had Eunseong been doing that everywhere he went, carnage like this followed......?

"S-save me! Ugh!"

A gentleman in a bear mask struggled to his feet.

He'd been entangled on a bed with his purchased [merchandise], and was barely managing to stand.

"Hands up!"

"Hands up, you bastard!"

The operators leveled their muzzles at the customer in the bear mask.

"Remove the mask. Confirm his identity."

"Yes, sir."

The bear mask resisted fiercely.

"Let go! Let go! You bastards! I said let go! Ugh!"

But as it turned out, the man was a civilian, and he was subdued with laughable ease by the operators.

When the bear mask came off, the man's identity was revealed.

"Huh?"

"W-wait."

The operators flinched.

The man behind the bear mask was someone anyone would recognize.

"Assemblyman......?"

Captain Im wore an expression of disbelief and confusion.

The man behind the bear mask was a National Assembly member.

And not just any member--a political heavyweight who had served as the former leader of the ruling party.

"N-no! That's not me!"

He desperately buried his face and denied it with all his might.

"Every single one wearing a mask. Confirm their identities."

"Yes, sir!"

It didn't take long to discover that the former ruling party leader was merely the tip of the iceberg.

"Let go!"

"Don't take it off! You bastards! Do you have any idea who I am!"

"Please, just not the mask...... Ugh!"

A conglomerate chairman, a Supreme Court justice, a high-ranking police official, a university professor, a senior opposition assemblyman, a mid-tier celebrity, and more.

With each mask that came off, the air in the main hall grew heavier and heavier.

"......"

At some point, the operators clamped their mouths shut and mechanically removed masks and fastened handcuffs.

Their faces were hard as stone, and behind their balaclavas, their eyes held nothing but icy contempt.

"I'll give you anything! Anything!"

"Come on, we can bury this! Right? Let's all be friends here."

"Get me your commanding officer!"

"Can't we just let this slide quietly? If the public finds out......"

The exposed individuals each scrambled for a lifeline in their own way.

Some dangled money, some invoked connections, some resorted to threats.

"Fuck, this is......"

An obscenity finally slipped from Captain Im's lips.

This was no ordinary incident.

It was a mega-scandal involving human trafficking with key figures from every sector of society implicated in a chain.

He couldn't even begin to imagine the uproar this would cause.

It was an event of such magnitude that it could set not only South Korea but the entire world ablaze.

And the circumstantial evidence was so overwhelming that it was no exaggeration to say the people involved had zero chance of weaseling their way out.

"These...... these goddamn bastards......"

One operator's suppressed fury broke through.

"Are you...... are you even human, you pieces of shit--?!!"

"GAKH!"

THWACK! CRACK!

A rifle buttstock slammed into the face of the former head of the National Police Agency.

No one stopped him.

They were all holding it in, but every last one of them felt the same.

"You there."

Captain Im pointed at one of the operators and spoke.

"Yes, sir."

"Got a cigarette?"

Captain Im simply could not suppress the urge to smoke today.

If he didn't have a cigarette, he felt he might do something he'd regret.

The hand bringing the cigarette to his lips trembled.

HISS--!

"Haaah--."

Captain Im inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled.

"With trash like this weighing it down, it's a wonder this country still runs at all."

A muttered remark, dripping with revulsion, escaped his lips.

But Captain Im knew.

The fact that South Korea hadn't collapsed yet was not thanks to people like them.

His gaze swept the surroundings.

In this blood-soaked hell--

There were people silently doing what needed to be done.

Administering first aid to survivors, clearing the bodies of the dead, cuffing the criminals--each person fulfilling their role.

"Maybe...... humanity's real enemy isn't the monsters. Hah."

A bitter mutter scattered with the cigarette smoke.