A S-Class Hunter With Great Agility - Chapter 182

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 182: Truth (1)

Red Dog Headquarters basement prison. Actually, calling it a prison was just a figure of speech – it wasn’t a real prison with iron bars or anything like that.

Sister Yu-kyung, Hong I-jo, and I looked around the surroundings.

“Is it used like a detention center?”

Walls made of reinforced glass instead of iron bars, narrow living spaces visible beyond the glass.

Inside were several Awakened with menacing appearances.

“Yeah.”

“….”

“They stay briefly before going to court.”

Bang!

As Hong I-jo passed by in front, someone struck the glass hard.

“—! ———! ——!!”

No voice could be heard. It seemed to be perfectly soundproofed.

“….”

Hong I-jo approached that glass. There was a yellow button on the wall. He pressed the button.

“Speak.”

“You fucking bastard. Get me out of here right now! What right do you have to lock me up in this shithole!”

The menacing-looking man shouted in rage. Hong I-jo looked down at the man with pitch-black pupils.

“Transfer in one week. Trial after that.”

“Trial my ass, you fucking birdbrain, do you think I’m a pushover? Once I get out of here—”

“Choi Dong-sik. 37 years old. C-rank Awakened. Murder and robbery using physical enhancement skills. 7 prior convictions.”

….

“Feel wronged?”

Red mana leaked out. A bright red light flickered in his pupils.

While the man flinched, Hong I-jo took his hand off the button and turned back toward us.

Yu-kyung shrugged her shoulders and said.

“Surprised? This place is always like this. There are many guys here who can’t be rehabilitated. Since regular police have trouble handling crimes using Awakened abilities, they temporarily lock them up here before going to court.”

“….”

“Especially the guys in here – they’re all heinous criminals among heinous criminals who have killed at least 3 people each.”

‘No wonder….’

Their Four Pillars readings all showed prison stars or death stars – none had good fates. Their eyes were all basically rotten too.

“I heard people outside also call this place Az*aban? Haha, funny.”

Yu-kyung said a word I didn’t know and laughed by herself. Az*aban? What’s that?

“It’s a prison from a famous novel…. Never mind, never mind. Let’s watch it together later.”

She shook her head and turned her gaze to Hong I-jo.

“Those guys aren’t important today anyway. Red Dog, where are the bishops?”

“This way.”

Hong I-jo gestured with his chin toward the deeper parts of the prison. We headed further in that direction.

‘It’s getting darker and darker.’

It had been bright until just now, but the deeper we went inside, the fewer lights were on except for essential lighting.

Meanwhile, Yu-kyung asked me.

“…Do you really have to see them? And alone at that.”

I answered without hesitation.

“Yes.”

“What’s the reason?”

“There’s something I need to hear.”

I needed to know the truth. What if everything I had dismissed as mere coincidence was actually inevitable rather than coincidental?

I wanted to resolve this uncomfortable feeling.

‘What was coincidence and what was planned, from where to where. What the divine spirits want from me and what relationship they have with the Goemin Sect…. I want to know everything precisely.’

I no longer wanted to feel left alone. I was done with the sensation of knowing everything alone while also knowing nothing at all.

‘Besides, divine spirits aren’t entirely benevolent beings. They’re entities that toy with humans and use shamans for what they want.’

So I needed to keep all possibilities open.

“You’re not going to meet all three, right?”

“Of course not. I’m not that reckless either. Who knows what would happen if I woke all three at once. Besides, I only got a promise from one of them anyway.”

“Good thing you know that.”

Yu-kyung sighed as if relieved. I continued.

“And anyway, only one of them will know what I want to know.”

“Hm?”

“Here we are.”

Hong I-jo stopped walking. Transparent glass appeared through the darkness.

Inside it was the silver-haired bishop, bound with talismans attached.

I quietly looked down at him. Until now, I had thought he was human, so I couldn’t examine him closely…

“…Souls have something called density. More precisely, it’s the traces of time that soul has wandered the mortal world.”

“…”

“That one is the darkest. He must have lived for a very long time. So he would know.”

The truth I want to know.

“Open it.”

Click.

Hong I-jo placed his finger on the prison’s recognition device. Then the glass door slowly began to open.

“If something happens, press this.”

He pointed to a red button attached to the corridor. I nodded.

“Yes. I understand.”

Even though the glass door opened, the bishop didn’t move at all.

Like a corpse that had died long ago, or a statue that had hardened over a long time, he just sat there motionless.

“…”

I turned slightly and bowed to Yu-kyung and Hong I-jo. Yu-kyung spoke with a reluctant expression.

“…I’ll come back in 30 minutes.”

“Yes.”

“And…”

Yu-kyung’s expression hardened.

“If he struggles, eliminate him. It’s more important that you don’t get hurt.”

“…Yes.”

Soon the two of them retraced their steps back.

I entered the prison. The cool-temperature prison had not a single ray of light coming in.

Thud.

I sat across from the bishop. Cross-legged, resting my elbows on my knees and propping my chin, I muttered.

“…Did the ghost gate star align this year? I didn’t know I’d still have headaches from ghosts even after awakening.”

That’s how livelihood is. The time spent living doing that work isn’t something that can be easily erased.

“Now, shall we slowly untangle this thread bundle?”

Riiip.

The talisman attached to the bishop’s forehead was removed. And not long after, the ancient soul opened his eyes.

“…Haha. What a pathetic state.”

As soon as he got up, he grasped the situation. Soon realizing he was trapped somewhere, he smiled slyly.

“My body… won’t move. You only awakened my mind? That’s professional-level skill. I never thought a human could do something like this. You really are different in every way.”

“You talk a lot. Seems like you’ve given up on honorifics.”

“The polite speech was just a constraint to avoid getting too excited during fights. In a situation like this, it’s just cumbersome.”

The bishop spoke with a thoroughly insolent tone.

“Did you capture the other bishops too? Your abilities are certainly worth praising. That crazy witch will go insane and rampage again.”

“…”

“If she comes, won’t you show me too? I’ve wanted to see that disgusting face crumple for my entire life.”

“Aren’t you companions?”

“Companions?”

The bishop laughed loudly at that word. He burst into laughter so noisily that the prison seemed to shake.

“Ah… You could call us companions. But it’s a bit different. We’re just an ‘alliance’. We joined hands because our goals happened to align.”

“Goals?”

“Hmm. Come to think of it, this is an interrogation. But do I have any obligation to tell you that?”

“Hah…”

I ran my hand through my hair. I didn’t want to engage in tedious word games.

‘How many days and nights did I work for these 30 minutes?’

It was a precious opportunity I had obtained by tediously slashing monsters. I couldn’t waste that opportunity on a war of words with an evil spirit.

“Talisman Arts.”

A talisman was created in the air. I wrapped the talisman around my right hand.

Thwack—!

My fist struck the silver-haired bishop’s cheek. The bishop, whose head snapped to the side, looked bewildered.

“I’m rather merciless with evil spirits.”

“…”

“Answer what I ask. Unless you want to be annihilated right here.”

However, the bishop quickly regained his composure. As if annihilation didn’t matter to him at all.

I spoke again.

“…Right. Let me put it differently. For a ghost like you, this would be more terrifying than annihilation.”

“This would be?”

“Living forever in your current state. A life where you can’t even relieve boredom, and your limbs aren’t free.”

I looked down at the bishop with indifferent eyes.

“I can make you like that.”

Even though life continues, why does prison become punishment? Because it takes away freedom.

However, if bishops aren’t affected by the passage of time, that punishment would only be punishment by human standards and wouldn’t reach them. The prison would rot and crumble faster than they would die.

But…

I could imprison him in an eternal prison. By sealing him.

“So answer me. What is your purpose, and how do you know about me.”

Everything, without missing a single detail.

The bishop was silent for a moment. He seemed to be imagining the story I had told.

“…Fine. What’s the big deal. Clean annihilation would be better than endlessly continuing life. Sure, that’s right…”

His eyes became cloudy. Soon he began explaining in a drawling voice.

“You probably half-realized it already. That’s why you made such a threat to me. That I don’t have much will to live.”

“Is it because of the years?”

“Of course. Just think about it once. Meaningless drifting that continues for hundreds, thousands of years.”

The bishop sighed.

“But there was a time when I desperately wanted to live too. It was during my orphan days when I was starving to death.”

“….”

“Karbati. An empire in a world different from this place. That’s my hometown and where I first met ‘The Deity.'”

Karbati.

It was an unfamiliar name. However, it wasn’t important information right now. I focused on the word ‘The Deity.’

“Is The Deity the god you serve?”

“That’s right.”

“…My divine spirit said you’re serving something that isn’t a god.”

I remembered what the Mountain Lord had said.

— They believe something that isn’t a god is a god… Our confrontation with them is also an old matter.

“Kek kek… How much do you trust their words? The Deity is indeed a god. He personally saves those who have fallen into the abyss—. If not a god, then what else could he be?”

I narrowed my brow. The probability that the being the bishop spoke of was a ‘god’ was low. Unless it was an evil god.

‘Or something that wants to become a god…’

When gods provide salvation, they don’t discriminate between targets. They either don’t save at all, or they act indiscriminately.

It’s not just shamanic gods that do this. Most gods that exist in the world showed such attitudes.

‘In other words, specifically choosing someone to save is, conversely speaking, proof that he isn’t a god.’

The bishop rambled on without caring about my reaction. Within that were words that revealed their purpose.

“We united to bring about The Deity’s second coming and place Earth under his dominion.”

“…So you’re the ones who created the monsters.”

“Haha! You have good intuition?”

The bishop’s eyes lit up as if he found it interesting.

‘It makes sense.’

The word ‘god’ isn’t something that can be used carelessly. If they dared to speak of a god, it meant they had enough power to create something as tremendous as gates.

Moreover, the power I had personally realized through encountering the Strange People Cult so far was…

Controlling monsters, or giving them commands to obtain what they wanted. These were all things that would be difficult to accomplish unless done by the being that created the gates.

But even so, thinking that gates were ‘created by some specific someone’ wasn’t exactly an ordinary idea.

The bishop explained the reason.

“To you people, monsters and gates are like nature. You don’t wonder why they appeared or for what reason they exist. Maybe the older ones do, but for the young ones, gates are too natural a phenomenon.”

“….”

“You humans are really… To put it nicely, you’re easygoing, and to put it badly, you’re stupid. Thanks to that, we had it easy though.”

It was a ridiculous story. The being that made us perceive monsters and gates like natural objects, and made us think of those who die swept up in them as part of daily life…

Was calling us stupid instead? I let out a hollow laugh.

“That doesn’t seem like something you should say, when you created monsters just to serve a single god.”

“….”

“If we’re stupid, then you’re… weak. Struggling because you can’t even take over one planet.”

At my words, the bishop ground his teeth with a grinding sound. Then he looked at my black eyes and spoke clearly.

“Whose fault do you think that is?”

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