24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 238

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24-Hour Friendly Market Specializing in Dimensional Items Episode 238

Episode 238. Annihilation (3)

As always, the air quality issue left me gasping for breath, my lungs completely depleted.
I should have anticipated that the buses would stop running once the disaster alert went out.
For failing to foresee that, I had to endure the misery of walking on foot.
I only realized I could use the Emerald Skywalk outside the Tower after the Baekdan building came into view—another oversight to add to my list.
“Huff… wheeze.”
I turned the corner and clutched my side.
Despite my activity level increasing significantly, my pathetic condition suggested I was cursed with stamina that would never improve.
In any case, I finally arrived at Gwanmo-dong after struggling against my own exhaustion.
The moment I rounded the corner, the Baekdan Guild building should have appeared in all its grandeur, but…
‘…Was it split horizontally?’
It looked as though it had been subjected to a bombing.
Pandemonium, dystopia, hellscape—any word I could apply would fit perfectly.
The elegant building that had been breathtaking to behold was now devastatingly ruined, as if it might collapse at any moment.
I had thought the empty streets of Gwanmo-dong resembled a ghost town, and now the building’s appearance matched that impression perfectly.
It was oddly striking how all the crowds that should have been on the streets were gathered here instead.
In any case, this was far more visually shocking than when the Babel Management Bureau was split vertically.
Every window in the upper floors where the meeting rooms and CEO office would be located was shattered, leaving only bare frames gaping open toward the sky.
Glass shards scattered across the road below glinted in the sunlight.
It wasn’t just the upper floors that were damaged—all the glass below had shattered from the impact as well.
Several Hunters stretched their hands skyward, maintaining massive defensive barriers. Without them, the fragments would have rained down on everyone’s heads.
Given Baekdan’s defensive specialization, it was a blessing that so many members could deploy shields.
The area around the devastated building was not merely chaotic—it was deafening.
Baekdan Guild members were pouring out of the building.
Some staggered with support, others limped while bleeding, and still others stood frozen, staring blankly upward into empty space.
Seeing Uniforms bearing Guild marks from various nations mixed together confirmed that Karma’s earlier speculation had been accurate.
I carefully approached the scene with my Robe Hood pulled down securely.
Normally, I would never set foot in a place where A-rank or S-rank Hunters gathered, but in a situation like this, they wouldn’t have the leisure to notice someone as insignificant as me.
As I drew closer, people’s voices became distinctly audible.
“Multiple non-Awakened office staff are reported isolated on the sixth floor.”
“The data stored in the Underground Server Room is secure, correct?”
“The rear entrance window frame is on the verge of collapsing!”
The words came rapid and urgent, but I could understand enough to grasp the general situation.
I gathered that a collision had occurred in the upper levels, though they hadn’t yet determined why.
I understood the Baekdan members’ state of mind, certainly.
‘What language is that, seriously?’
I couldn’t understand a word of the loud shouting from foreign hunters with their eyebrows raised like Matiz car owners.
I could use the Interpretation Skill outside the Tower, but with dozens of people screaming at once, dozens of translation windows appeared, and I had no time to read them properly.
That’s when a white woman passed by my side and growled.

-Damn it, Mr. Seo is now a madman we can’t handle.

She was an S-rank Hunter from Portugal, someone I had seen a few times before.
Even I, who didn’t watch TV that often, recognized how famous she was—and here she was, speaking in pure rage.
‘I completely agree.’
Staring at the translation window, I pressed my lips together firmly and silently sympathized.
Mr. Seo was truly mad, after all.
Mad enough that this many people had to evacuate.
I hid behind a large concrete ruin to avoid being swept up in the crowd scattering in all directions.
It wasn’t just Baekdan and foreign hunters here.
Babel Management Bureau staff were controlling the area, even though the building had been split vertically.
They were shouting evacuation orders through megaphones, blocking people from entering the cordoned-off zone, and spreading a wide defensive barrier to block debris cascading down from the upper floors of the building.
Concrete fragments fell dully against the translucent barrier.
Every staff member’s face was pale.
Well, no matter where I looked, chaos was unfolding.
‘But nothing looks quite as ominous as up there.’
I gazed upward quietly.
An upper floor with only window frames remaining, all the glass blown away.
An enormous aura was pouring out from there.
Of course, I couldn’t read mana, but even I could tell something abnormal was happening up there.
To be precise, I sensed danger.
I turned my head frantically, searching for something to rely on.
‘Where are they, these people?!’
I said I didn’t trust them, but it was the duty of a South Korean citizen to place hope in our three S-rank Hunters!
Han Ro-mi was over there, at least.
In a temporary medical tent positioned far from the building.
Because the road conditions were poor due to debris scattered from the building, it was where severely injured patients who couldn’t be transported to the hospital were being gathered.
“Han Ro-mi, could you take a look at this laceration wound?”
“Mm, wow….”
“…Yes?”
The listless tone and indifferent expression, moving slowly, didn’t exactly inspire confidence… but at least she was helping with something.
Han Ro-mi’s title was never meant for the business of killing people anyway, so I’d let that slide.
‘Where are Nam Pu-reum and Park Ji-woon?’
They were the ones I could trust more, but there was no sign of them anywhere.
Could they have already gone inside?
Perhaps it didn’t look like I was in a standoff with Seo Jae-hyuk.
That was when it happened.
“Oh!”
“What?!”
I reflexively responded to the people pointing upward and crying out in surprise.
Shielding my eyes slightly from the brilliant sunlight, I looked up at the sky and saw something beyond the shattered window.
Someone was walking out.
Treading upon a slender golden line unfurling from within, naturally.
“…Seo Jae-hyuk.”
I gritted my teeth and muttered his name, momentarily forgetting that he was concealing his presence with the Robe.
Seo Jae-hyuk stood in mid-air with nothing beneath his feet.
Legato, drawn out in the shape of a window frame, was firmly gripped in his right hand.
The golden light blazed as if drinking in the sunlight, glittering brilliantly, and despite the windless air, his hair rippled from the surge of powerful magical energy.
‘Ugh, my eyes.’
I narrowed my eyes and refocused on Seo Jae-hyuk’s form.
Well, even if I discerned something, I couldn’t immediately stop Seo Jae-hyuk, but I thought if I could see what expression he wore, I might find some other breakthrough.
However, there was something I noticed before his expression.
A man struggling and thrashing, his neck seized in Seo Jae-hyuk’s left hand.
‘It’s Park Bo-bae.’
Baekdan’s shield of white, Park Bo-bae.
Unlike Seo Jae-hyuk’s composed expression, which seemed to require little effort, Park Bo-bae was flailing his arms trying to break free from the hand tightening around his neck.
Despite his massive build and renowned grip strength, he was nothing but prey before Seo Jae-hyuk.
Fortunately, it seemed he wasn’t suffocating yet, as he was shouting something and exerting all his strength to escape.
Even from below, I could see Park Bo-bae’s pale white skin turning red.
Only after hearing the people nearby sigh in disbelief did I blink.
Until now, I had tried to interpret everything positively somehow, but this….
‘Seo Jae-hyuk is finished.’
Not that Seo Jae-hyuk’s fall was complete, but that his image might be irreparably damaged.
By holding the life of none other than Park Bo-bae?
Park Bo-bae isn’t exceptionally strong, but he’s one of the Hunters with the best image in the Hunter industry.
If you say there are exactly three people in the Hunter world you shouldn’t touch, first there’s Park Ji-woon, without whom the nation would fall into chaos, and Jang So-min, whose death would cause Seo Jae-hyuk to go berserk.
And the third and final person would be Park Bo-bae.
Because Park Bo-bae has nothing but good deeds no matter how much you dig, and he has the genuine feel of a national Hunter, someone approachable.
To the people of South Korea, Park Bo-bae enjoys popularity at the level of national treasure number one.
And now he was subduing such a person, holding his neck.

Boom—

“….”
Ah, let me correct myself.
I had hurled such a person down thirty floors onto the street below….
The force of the throw was so tremendous that the stairs at the building entrance shattered, sending up clouds of dust.
Park Bo-bae, who had crashed through the shield at the building entrance and embedded himself in the ground, lay unconscious and limp.
Someone called out Han Ro-mi’s name loudly, and the Baekdan employees nearby gasped and rushed toward that direction in a panic.
Judging by the numerous wounds covering his body, it seemed he had held his ground against Seo Jae-hyuk until the very end.
With this, Seo Jae-hyuk’s image—already overwhelmingly inferior to Park Bo-bae in terms of reputation, character, and likability—had plummeted into the abyss.
At that moment, Seo Jae-hyuk, who had been standing rigidly in midair, turned his body toward the building.
Simultaneously, Legato, which had been roughly two meters in size, began expanding at a terrifying speed.
“Director Park Ji-woon.”
…So Park Ji-woon had just arrived at that breached floor.
A colossal golden spear, easily exceeding three meters, trembled not at all as it aimed at the uninvited intruder within the building.
I had thought that given Seo Jae-hyuk’s current state of madness, his relationship with Park Ji-woon wouldn’t be good.
‘…Isn’t Park Ji-woon going to die like this?’
I wanted to brush it off as unlikely, but Seo Jae-hyuk’s momentum was far too vicious.
I never imagined that the destruction of South Korea would begin here.
But there was nothing I could do from this position.
I could only swallow dryly in anxiety, clutching the dread I hadn’t managed to suppress.
At that moment, a voice fractured with strain came from ahead.
“No, that won’t do.”
The voice belonged to Park Bo-bae.
Park Bo-bae, who had barely managed to stand amid the collapsed rubble, was a mass of injuries.
Park Bo-bae, whose left eye was too damaged to open properly, glanced up at the sky for a moment, then limped toward the entrance.
“I will stop it.”
Even in such a state, his eyes remained fixed forward with unwavering resolve.
“You can’t, Hunter Park Bo-bae. Legato is currently exerting S-rank or higher power!”
“Hunter Park Bo-bae, no matter what, an A-rank can’t stop an S-rank! You’ll die!”
It was the Baekdan guild members who tried to stop Park Bo-bae.
There was no way an A-rank Hunter like Park Bo-bae could withstand an S-rank, especially one strengthened further by Babel’s corruption—Seo Jae-hyuk.
Yet Park Bo-bae offered a composed smile and responded firmly.
“I might die, yes.”
“That’s exactly why you can’t!”
“But if I don’t stop it, everyone might die.”
Park Bo-bae shook off the hands grasping at him and moved toward the interior of the building.
As the atmosphere among the Baekdan guild members turned funereal and their wails filled the air, I found myself listening with only half an ear.
‘To allow an A-rank to stop an S-rank.’
I stepped forward as if possessed.
If no one could stop Park Bo-bae from going to his death.
…Then I would.
‘I just need to help Park Bo-bae.’
That’s what I’ve always done.
I just need to keep Park Bo-bae alive.
If there’s nothing I can do directly, then I’ll help others do what needs to be done!

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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