A S-Class Hunter With Great Agility - Chapter 184

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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 184: Chain (1)

“Th-that was a mistake…”

“A mistake?”

“There were circumstances. My family had some debt, and I was trying to pay it off.”

Hong I-jo flipped through the documents.

“Seven times, a mistake.”

“….”

“Not a mistake. Intentional.”

The evangelist almost bit her tongue. How much did he know about her when he wasn’t even a legal professional?

She felt genuinely wronged. She had only intended to recover the principal, just the principal, but she never knew she would end up gambling seven times.

“The debt?”

“I-I paid it off…”

“How.”

“The church paid it for me. In exchange, they told me to serve as an evangelist…”

The evangelist finally confessed. No matter how much she pretended to be virtuous, it wouldn’t work in front of this man.

“…But won’t you tell us why we’re being arrested? Of course, it was wrong to raise children in the church, but the bishops paid off my debt and are very kind people…”

The evangelist looked tearful. If she hadn’t joined the Goemin Sect, she would still be rotting in an illegal gambling house.

It didn’t make sense that the church that pulled her out of that gutter was being oppressed like this just for raising homeless children.

“There must be some misunderstanding. Maybe raising them as Awakened was just an excuse to ease the children’s guilt.”

Hong I-jo looked at the evangelist with his dark eyes. To him, she appeared to be someone taking the final step before becoming a ‘fanatic.’

‘She’ll end up like the auctioneer eventually.’

Someone who forcibly raises their stats and boldly commits illegal acts with that gained power.

It was fortunate that the evangelist wasn’t an Awakened. If she had been, she would have already crossed an irreversible river.

“Misunderstanding… Well.”

Hong I-jo pressed his brow as if tired.

“To call it a misunderstanding.”

“….”

“They killed many people.”

“What?”

The evangelist looked bewildered. As expected, she clearly didn’t know what the Goemin Sect had done.

“….”

The church providing food and shelter. That alone was fine. It was naturally a righteous good deed.

However, if there was some purpose behind that act, then it was wrong. Raising children to make them Awakened?

‘That’s no longer a good deed.’

Hong I-jo put down the documents.

The children would probably be sent to nearby childcare facilities or orphanages. In cases where believers were the parents, protective facilities would take separate measures.

With children who lost their parents to dungeon breaks overflowing everywhere, the related systems were well-established.

“…Let’s end this.”

Hong I-jo pushed back his chair and stood up. He didn’t want to talk about this topic anymore.

Tonight, he would probably have more trouble sleeping than usual.

* * *

“You annihilated him?”

“…Yes. It just happened somehow…”

“Huh, so that was actually possible.”

I held out a small orb to Yu-kyung. It was an item the bishop left behind after being annihilated.

White light sparkled inside the orb. It looked like a magic stone that drops when a monster dies.

“Well, he was useless as a hostage anyway. Even if we tried to get information, that bishop was extremely uncooperative. And there are two other bishops.”

“….”

“All that was left was punishment, and being annihilated by you would be a greater punishment than being thrown in prison. You did well.”

Yu-kyung nodded as if it had been a rational decision. Then she began watering the flowers again.

This was outside Red Dog headquarters. It was in the mountains where the abandoned factory was built.

Yu-kyung had bloomed flowers with her skill, saying she should create a garden in this desolate mountain.

Swoosh—

The watering can Yu-kyung held sprayed transparent water droplets over the flowers.

“Hmm, then it would be better to annihilate the remaining bishops after the investigation is finished too.”

“Yes. I think so too.”

If we left those immortal intelligent beings alone, who knows what schemes they might pull. It was better to remove the seeds of discord in advance.

‘I have to do that to raise the achievement rate anyway.’

Yu-kyung, who had been watering the flowers, suddenly spoke.

“Oh, right. There’s something I received a report about from Lee Cheong-ryu.”

Yu-kyung put down the watering can. Then she turned around to look at me.

“Seriously, who makes a report like this? It’s a story related to Hong I-jo, but it’s a topic he doesn’t particularly want to mention, so it would be better to hear the details from you—that’s what he said. That bastard, really… Ugh, whatever.”

“….”

“What happened at the church?”

…Passing the buck on explanations. I felt like cursing him out like Yu-kyung would.

‘It’s not exactly an easy topic for me to talk about either.’

But since it had come to this, there was no choice. I opened my mouth.

“…You saw that Hong I-jo injured his left eye, right?”

“Yeah. He was wearing an eyepatch, wasn’t he? I thought it was surprising. I wondered if the bishop was really that strong. If skills worked on him, he shouldn’t have been that difficult an opponent.”

“He was hit by his own ability.”

“What?”

Bewilderment seeped into Yu-kyung’s voice. I continued my explanation.

“You know Hong I-jo has the ability to judge sins, right? The ability to inflict damage proportional to the sins the opponent has committed.”

“Of course I know. It’s famous. That’s one of the reasons Red Dog takes the lead in crime suppression.”

“Right. But the bishop I eliminated reflected Hong I-jo’s ability back at him during the fight.”

“Reflected it?”

Nod.

“Hong I-jo injured his left eye immediately after being hit by the attack.”

“Hmm…. This has become troublesome.”

Yu-kyung pressed her temple. I asked cautiously.

“…Wouldn’t it be better to demand an explanation? Honestly, it’s hard to believe that Hong I-jo committed a crime.”

“That’s true. But would he readily talk even if we asked? You know how extremely taciturn he is.”

Right. Even casual conversation was difficult with him. Hong I-jo used sentences so brief it was strange to simply call him taciturn.

But to explain his own sins…. Even if he started attending a speech academy now, it would be difficult.

“What’s going on…?”

Just then, Yeon Na-yeon suddenly appeared.

“Oh, Butterfly. Are the kids’ health checkups finished?”

“Where there are flowers, butterflies come. Yes, they’re finished. The other doctors are conducting the remaining tests.”

Yeon Na-yeon pointed toward the back of the headquarters as she spoke. It meant the checkups for the children raised at the Goemin Church were complete.

“There weren’t any particular problems. Obviously no malnutrition or anything like that. But there was one child among them who awakened as E-rank…. I just examined that child more thoroughly, that’s all.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Right.”

I felt like a weight had been lifted from my mind.

Yeon Na-yeon knelt down to examine the flowers Yu-kyung had bloomed, then asked a question.

“They’re pretty…. But what’s this about Red Dog?”

After I explained the whole situation, she tilted her head puzzledly.

“Hmm, that’s unexpected. Sins…. He seemed like someone who wouldn’t produce even a speck of dust if you shook him out. We should probably hear his explanation though.”

“The problem is Hong I-jo would never open his mouth.”

“Hmm.”

Yeon Na-yeon straightened up and stood. Then she spread out her palm.

Flutter.

A small butterfly appeared on her palm.

“What if I have a solution?”

While Sister Yu-kyung and I tried to guess her intention, Yeon Na-yeon explained.

“My illusion skill is based on the unconscious mind.”

“….”

“Using this, I can see it. The ‘sin.’ Through the unconscious mind underlying it.”

Certainly….

‘If we can’t hear it directly from his own mouth, doing it this way would be right.’

Being an S-rank Hunter and Guild Leader doesn’t mean you have to be absolutely clean. They resolve many matters in the shadows and get blood on their hands accordingly. They might occasionally commit acts labeled as sins, like violence.

But Red Dog is different. It’s problematic for the leader of a guild that champions crime eradication as their slogan to be so unrighteous that he gets hit by his own skill.

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

Yu-kyung agreed.

“He happens to be here.”

She looked up.

On the roof of the abandoned factory, a man with red wings was sitting.

We climbed up onto the abandoned factory. Yu-kyung had created a World Tree that grew up to the top of the abandoned factory.

Thud.

I stepped down from the World Tree and onto the old abandoned factory roof.

‘It’s high.’

The abandoned factory was frighteningly tall. Looking down below, I could develop acrophobia even if I didn’t have it before.

Meanwhile, Hong I-jo was sitting there perfectly fine, enjoying his contemplation.

‘He’s sitting there like someone resting on a bench…’

Yu-kyung approached Hong I-jo first.

“You heard everything, right? You have good ears.”

“….”

His silence was mostly affirmative. It was interpreted to mean he had heard most of what we were talking about below.

“How about it? Would it be okay to hear an explanation for a moment?”

“….”

Was this one negative? It was ambiguous.

Yu-kyung swept back her platinum hair. After letting out a meaningless sigh, she continued speaking.

“…I’ve known for a while. That Red Dog’s leader has some shameful secret he doesn’t want discovered.”

Even at Yu-kyung’s words, Hong I-jo maintained his taciturn demeanor.

“Through things like that scar on your face and your way of speaking, I had a feeling you were hiding something.”

“….”

“But that was all.”

These were the leaders of guilds that competed for 1st and 2nd place in Korea. They were rivals who had competed for a long time.

‘The atmosphere…’

Changed quickly. Hong I-jo, who had seemed to be observing the world, listened to the words of his companion and rival sitting beside him.

“Ah, of course at first I thought about exploiting your weakness. Taking this opportunity to completely eliminate Red Dog and make Eden the perfect number one guild.”

“….”

“But I gave up. You value justice more than anyone and can’t tolerate things like crime. I concluded that in the long run, it might be Red Dog, not Eden, that would help Korea.”

So there was such a thing. No wonder she accepted it so quickly when we just talked about Hong I-jo.

It seemed Yu-kyung had been suspecting for quite a while. Hong I-jo’s unspeakable circumstances. This incident was just the trigger for suspicion to turn into certainty.

“I’m saying I trust you that much. So don’t worry. I’ll turn a blind eye unless it’s something serious.”

Yu-kyung patted Hong I-jo’s shoulder.

“Now, that’s enough persuasion. Has your mind changed a bit?”

Another silence followed.

It was a sign of acceptance.

“Good. I’ll make this hallucination visible not only to me but to the other two as well. Originally there isn’t just one judge.”

Yeon Na-yeon lightly tapped the air with her finger. Four butterflies appeared in the air.

“Illusionary Garden.”

The butterflies fluttered around each of us and soon crumbled away.

Kuwoong—

There was a roaring sound, and my vision changed.

“…You’ll be disappointed.”

The last thing that brushed my ears was Hong I-jo’s murmur.

* * *

‘This place is…’

So, it was a dark and damp place. A space of complete darkness where not a single ray of light entered.

‘My voice won’t come out.’

Even when I opened and closed my mouth, no sound came from my vocal cords. I gave up trying to speak and looked around.

‘Is this a dungeon?’

It was a place with nothing… like a prison. The air was stuffy and thick with the smell of blood.

‘Rather than actually smelling it, it’s being recognized in my mind. That this is a dark place that smells of blood.’

Hong I-jo’s memory seemed to be seeping into me.

Thud.

I took a few steps. Then someone caught my eye. It was a young child.

‘…Hong I-jo?’

Black hair and black eyes, and palm-sized red wings positioned behind his back.

No matter how I looked at it, it was definitely Hong I-jo as a child.

Clank.

And around the child’s neck were bound black chains.

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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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