Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 27

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

27
According to the information I’d gathered, he was working at a Detective Agency in Seoul, not far from here.
Finding another Detective Agency through a Detective Agency—there’s a certain irony to that.
It took thirty minutes of driving to reach the Detective Agency. I’d expected some rundown establishment, but it was surprisingly located on the second floor of a clean building in a bustling commercial district.
I climbed the stairs to the office and opened the door.
“Welcome….”
The face of the man who greeted me froze like ice. It was him—the one I’d seen on the CCTV footage.
“Ah… hello.”
He offered a stiff greeting.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“That is….”
“I told you to educate your son properly, yet you never thought I’d come looking for you?”
“Si-hwan, what’s going on?”
A man sitting at the largest desk stood up and spoke. He was massive—easily two meters tall with a considerable build.
“Boss, Lee Ji-seok the hunter has come. Just recently….”
The man called boss flinched in surprise. There were five people total in the office, and they all stood up simultaneously.
“So your name is Si-hwan. What should I do with you?”
“I’m sorry!”
He dropped to his knees like lightning.
“I absolutely never intended to hurt him! I only meant to scare him a little, but the cup shattered in such a strange way…. I’m truly sorry.”
He pressed his forehead to the floor in apology.
“I could tell. I watched the video.”
“Then you understand….”
“Unintentional or not, an apology doesn’t erase the crime committed.”
I struck the same cheek where my Mother bore her wound with my open palm. Had his attitude been worse, I might have killed him, but seeing how he genuinely apologized the moment he saw me, I held back enough to leave him alive.
Si-hwan’s body flew backward and crashed into the wall.
The remaining four rushed at me simultaneously. From their speed, they were all Awakened, though weak ones.
One of them pulled out a wooden club from somewhere in that brief moment and charged. I stared at the club descending toward my head. After it shattered against my skull and I saw the shock in his eyes, I kicked him away.
I kicked the next two who attacked me as well, sending them crashing into the wall.
“Lee Ji-seok, do you really think you’ll walk away from this unscathed?”
The last remaining boss stopped his charge and spoke.
“What if I don’t?”
“If we report this, you’ll lose your hunter license and definitely go to prison, won’t you? You’ve vented your anger enough—let’s call this even and forget it ever happened.”
“Then why did you lay a hand on someone else’s mother? There are lines you don’t cross. Lines.”
“….I’m truly sorry. I only found out later that she was your mother. If I’d known from the start, I would never have touched her. Isn’t this punishment enough?”
“Would I have done this if you were a C-rank hunter? Would I have spared an F-rank or someone who isn’t a hunter?”
“That’s not something Lee Ji-seok needs to concern yourself with.”
I’ve been hearing that phrase often lately.
“Who sent you?”
“I can’t say that.”
I approached the gang leader, whose position I still didn’t know, and grabbed his hand, interlocking our fingers.
“Wh… What?”
I closed my hand and slowly applied pressure. His fingers turned white in an instant, then shifted to a deep purple.
“Ugh… AHHHHH!!!!”
“Talk fast, or you’ll be crippled.”
“The drawer! The request is in the drawer!”
The gang leader answered with bloodshot eyes, snot and saliva dripping down his face.
“Get it.”
I released his hand.
“Ugh… Yes….”
I snatched the request form the gang leader pulled out and read it.
“Request details. Destroy the target’s hunter activities and daily life. Requester…. Unknown?”
My information was listed as an F-rank hunter who awakened two months ago. Were they trying to obstruct my hunter activities to drain my finances and bring the contract back? Or perhaps they intended to intimidate me into signing by force.
“Since it’s not exactly honest work, who would give out their personal information? Besides, they paid extra to keep it quiet, so I didn’t ask many questions.”
“Gang leader.”
“Yes!”
“You have potions, right? Treat your subordinates’ wounds and gather them in front of me. Do it now.”
“What?”
I stared coldly at the gang leader as he questioned me.
“Do it!”
The gang leader retrieved potions from the safe and applied them to his subordinates’ wounds or had them drink them. Seeing how generously he distributed the expensive potions, he seemed to care for his men.
“Anyone here who’s committed serious crimes like murder, rape, or aggravated assault—step forward. Attempted crimes included.”
I made five men kneel in a line and asked, but as expected, no one stepped forward. However, judging by their heart rates, they weren’t lying.
“Gang leader.”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure—none of you or your men have done anything like that?”
“We haven’t.”
No lie detected.
“So you haven’t committed any serious crimes?”
“Right. We’re just small-time. We find people, collect debts, that sort of thing.”
“While breaking the law a little?”
“Just a tiny bit.”
The gang leader, despite his massive build, held his thumb and index finger slightly apart in front of his eyes as he spoke.
“Besides what you did to my Mother regarding the request, what else did you do?”
“Well… We spread bad rumors on the Hunter App to make it hard for you to find party members, and we filed two or three complaints with the Awakened Management Bureau.”
“Wow… The request was only two days ago, and you’ve done quite a lot.”
Since I hunted alone, the party aspect didn’t affect me, and if I’d ignored the Management Bureau, it might have caused problems later.
“Haha….”
“Take down the posts and withdraw the complaints.”
“That’s… I can take down the posts, but the complaints were filed anonymously, so I can’t withdraw them. But since there are only two or three, they shouldn’t have much impact!”
“We’ll figure that out when the time comes.”
I flipped the overturned sofa back upright with one hand and sat down.
“So everyone here is an Awakened? The boss seemed like he used to be a hunter?”
“Yes. His abilities were insufficient, so he quit soon after.”
“What about the other four?”
“…They Awakened and either dropped out of the Academy or couldn’t adapt to being hunters, so they ended up drifting here.”
I considered the situation carefully. These men hadn’t done anything right, and they were no benefit to society. However, the one pulling the strings from behind was the real villain—the boss was just small-time, as he’d said. I could rough them up for catharsis, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything meaningful. Still, a better use for them came to mind.
“From now on, work with me.”
I needed people to put to work anyway. Since these guys owed me a debt, I could push them around without guilt. Might as well rehabilitate them in the process.
“Sir?”
“Keep doing what you’re doing, but also do what I tell you. Of course, I’ll pay you. I won’t say anything about bending the law like you have been, but don’t do anything that would make innocent people cry.”
“What kind of work…?”
“It varies depending on the situation. For now, find me everything you can about the person who hired me. They’re probably from Shinwoo.”
I pointed at the contract with my finger as I spoke.
“Shinwoo?? You mean the major corporation Shinwoo?”
“That’s right. The major corporation Shinwoo. The name was Tak Dong-yeon, but it could be an alias.”
“We’re not in the same league as them…”
“I’m in their league, which is why I’m picking a fight with them, right?”
“My apologies.”
“I’ll handle the heavy lifting. Just do the background investigation. Isn’t that your specialty? And you don’t have a grudge? You ended up like this because they gave you bad information.”
“That’s true.”
“I’ll send you an advance. Give me your number.”
“No, sir. You don’t need to pay us.”
“Working without pay—how diligent. Hand it over.”
“Here it is.”
The boss respectfully handed over his business card with both hands. It read “President Yu Hyung-bin.”
“President Yu Hyung-bin, I look forward to working with you.”
I handed over the advance payment and a copy of the contract that Tak Dong-yeon had left behind.
“This much?!”
Even if I was putting these guys to work, doing it for free would guarantee they’d all bolt within a day. What sense of loyalty would make them listen to me? The moment I turned my back, they’d run. I needed to use both the whip and the carrot appropriately to manage them effectively. If that carrot was just money, then all the better.
“If you just do my work well, you’ll earn more than you did before. It seems someone named Lim Sung-jun was behind this, so dig up everything on Lim Sung-jun and Tak Dong-yeon—their residences, places they frequent, any dirty secrets, everything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t wait until you’ve gathered all the information to report. Bring me updates daily as soon as you find anything.”
“Yes, sir!”
“If you run…”
“We won’t run!”
All five answered simultaneously before I could even finish.
“Work hard and live right, and I’ll treat you accordingly. Now get to work without me having to come back here.”
“Yes, sir!”
I left the Detective Agency with its newly disciplined staff and headed home.
* * *
The next morning, I tried to reserve a Gate through the app, but the reservation button had turned gray and wouldn’t respond to my touch.
“What the…? What’s going on?”
Even after closing and reopening the app, reinstalling it didn’t help, so I asked Yang President to book a Gate reservation for me.
“Ji-seok, your name won’t go through for a reservation. It’s strange—I checked with the Management Bureau, and your hunter license has been suspended.”
Suddenly, I remembered what the Detective Agency boss had said yesterday about filing a complaint.
“I’ll go directly to the Management Bureau and look into it.”
Yang President rolled up his sleeves and took action.
“I’ll come with you.”
* * *
“Excuse me? How does that make any sense?”
Yang Sang-heon’s father questioned the civil servant in charge with an incredulous expression.
“Well, when we receive a report, we have to investigate it. Once the investigation is complete, you can be reinstated.”
“But… how many reports came in exactly?”
The Detective Agency boss had said two or three yesterday, but the list the civil servant showed me was far longer. Reports had come from multiple places, with some duplicate complaints.
It seemed he hadn’t just hired someone to do this. Or perhaps Tak Dong-yeon had done it himself.
“I’ve never seen a case like this before.”
Looking at the documents the official handed over, I saw accusations of murder within Gates, item theft, tax evasion, unauthorized use of abilities outside Gates—essentially every possible crime a hunter could commit was listed.
“How can you suspend someone’s license based on baseless suspicions like this?”
“Because there’s no evidence, we’re not making an arrest. And honestly, we wouldn’t suspend for just two or three complaints, but there are simply too many cases.”
The official said there was nothing he could do.
“Let me try contacting Director Baek Young-shin.”
I picked up my phone. Having worked on two subjugation missions, I’d built a rapport with him—it might help.
“What? License suspension?”
I explained the situation on speakerphone, and Director Baek Young-shin’s voice came back with confusion.
“Does this even make sense, Director?”
Yang President protested on my behalf as well.
“That’s strange. Hold on. Let me look into it and call you back.”
After hanging up, I sat in the coffee shop on the first floor of the Management Bureau, sipping coffee.
“Boss, has your staff grown quite a bit?”
“Thanks to you. But no matter how many I hire, it’s never enough. These days, thanks to you, work feels rewarding. Ha ha ha.”
“Really? Then should I increase the workload?”
“Ah… no… don’t we already have plenty? We can’t even finish post-processing, and there’s still a lot of materials in the warehouse.”
It seemed he didn’t have the capacity to take on more work. Truth be told, I was joking anyway. We’re already handling plenty, and there’s no real need to increase it further.
As I listened to Yang President’s desperate excuses, Director Baek Young-shin came down.

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