Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 60

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

60
Looking closer, I noticed the figure at the front was herding a massive swarm of Mad Bulls. He ran with ease, occasionally glancing back over his shoulder, and sometimes even backpedaling to ensure the creatures were following properly. It was clear this wasn’t a desperate situation—he was deliberately driving the monsters toward us.
He wore a sleek red suit with a short sword strapped to his waist, and that crimson color only further provoked the Mad Bulls.
He skillfully herded them toward Oh’s Group, and I immediately shed my cloak and launched myself forward.
“Chang-hee, fire!”
[Huh?!]
“Shoot that bastard!”
[Y-yes!]
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The shots came in rapid succession, but I couldn’t land a hit on him as he zigzagged at high speed.
“Wh—? What?! Everyone, run!”
Yu President shouted as he saw dozens of Mad Bulls charging toward him.
“You’re too slow to escape like that.”
The bastard taunted us with an irritating smirk, attempting to slip through Oh’s Group, but I threw myself in front of him to block his path.
“Wh—what?!”
He noticed something rippling in the air and, startled, changed direction. It was a smooth pivot that defied the momentum of his high-speed charge.
“Chang-hee, keep firing! Min-woo, bind him with your summons! Everyone else, get behind me!”
I shed my cloak, enlarged my form, and swung my armored arms in a wide arc against the swarm of Mad Bulls.
The herd collided with me and scattered like waves crashing against a breakwater.
He came back around, seemingly intent on finishing us off, deftly evading Chang-hee’s gunfire and Min-woo’s newly summoned creature.
Based on his charging speed alone, he was faster than the Axe Wielder. I hadn’t seen his other abilities, but that speed alone already rivaled an A-rank Hunter.
However, since his target was us, I could easily predict his movements. I wrapped my entire body around Oh’s Group to shield them from both the Mad Bulls and him.
I blocked the Mad Bulls with my body while firing aura projectiles from my fingertips, and Chang-hee provided supporting fire. Though slow, Min-woo’s new summon also managed to latch onto him.
“Tsk….”
With his movements severely restricted, the Red Suit Assassin clicked his tongue once and fled.
“Is everyone alright?”
“Yes!”
“Call the Awakener Management Bureau for rescue! I’m going after him.”
I immediately pursued, but the Red Suit Assassin was too fast—he’d already vanished from sight. The widely spaced footprints told me just how fast he was moving. The scent was faint, but not beyond my ability to track.
After a few minutes of pursuit, I spotted him resting. Despite his speed, he apparently lacked the stamina for prolonged running.
“Hah….”
I approached from behind while still cloaked, catching my breath.
“…Huh?”
He cracked his neck side to side before looking in my direction.
We stared at each other for a moment without moving.
Unwilling to drag out the standoff, I saw him tense his legs for action.
To strike first, I swung my hand at his throat. Despite the ambush, he fluidly arched his body backward to evade and launched a kick at me.
Crack!
I drove my fist down against his incoming kick, aiming for his groin.
His reflexes were extraordinary. The moment he saw my punch coming, he hastily retracted his leg.
“Damn it! Fuck!”
He yelped as my foot came down on his instep. If I hadn’t stopped quickly and pulled back, he would’ve been fitted for a prosthetic leg starting tomorrow.
“Are you from New North Korea?”
“I’m not from North Korea?”
Once he’d regained some composure, he lifted his injured foot slightly off the ground and answered my question.
“Go learn Seoul dialect again before you try to con someone.”
His halting accent was unmistakably similar to that of New North Korea’s people.
“Damn bastard… barely escaping alive from the Supreme Leader.”
“Did you do this because you thought Korea wouldn’t progress if Hunters died?”
“Doesn’t matter. You need to die here.”
He bounced on the ground and drew two short daggers from his waist.
There was no point in standing idle, so I rushed forward and threw a punch, but he was fast as expected.
He dodged backward, creating distance, then charged at me. For a person running, he was faster than arrows or Chang-hee’s bullets.
I threw a punch at the approaching Red Suit Assassin, but he nimbly ducked beneath it and slashed at my ribs. The wound from his blade wasn’t particularly deep. An attack like that without aura was negligible. I could take it.
Then a sonic boom erupted from his supersonic movement and crashed over me. Without a sturdy body, I would’ve been torn to shreds. But it wasn’t enough to damage my resilient frame. The wounds were merely surface scratches, and they’d already regenerated.
“Fuck! What is this?!”
My blood, which had stained his dagger when he slashed my ribs, melted the blade’s edge. The dagger’s aura completely vanished.
“Looks like the Supreme Leader didn’t give you a weapon as good as his axe.”
“Let’s see if you can still talk trash after I pierce your heart.”
He gritted his teeth, pulled back the hand holding his remaining dagger, and charged. When the distance between us was about ten meters, he thrust the dagger forward, and an energy mass flew from its tip. This wasn’t a skill that cut by riding momentum—it was one that fired as a single point. I’d seen another Hunter use it before. In terms of penetrating power alone, it rivaled aura.
It was impossible to fully evade an attack coming at that speed. Fortunately, this idiot was considerate enough to target my heart as he’d declared, making it easy to prepare.
I blocked with my arm over my heart, and as he tried to slip past my side, I exhaled a blood mist.
He’d seen the Supreme Leader suffer from it before, so he panicked and sharply changed direction. His speed plummeted and his posture crumbled. I drove through the mist and rammed him with my shoulder.
“Gahhh!”
He sprawled across the ground like a frog hit by a car. Hunters like him who specialized in speed usually had their stats concentrated there, leaving their defense pathetically weak.
* * *
“Hunter Lee Ji-seok, you’re certain this is the perpetrator, right?”
The Investigator asked me outside the Interrogation Room.
“We caught him at the scene, so there’s no doubt.”
The Investigator, confirming once more with me, entered the Interrogation Room and began questioning him.
“What’s your name?”
He asked the man in a restraint suit that looked like something used in a psychiatric hospital.
“…”
He simply stared at the empty table and said nothing.
“Why did you do such a thing?”
“Did New North Korea send you?”
“If you continue to refuse to answer, you’ll be sentenced to death for the murder of multiple Hunters.”
The Investigator asked questions in succession and even threatened him, but his lips remained sealed.
“Could I speak with him alone for a moment?”
I asked the Investigator who had stepped out of the Interrogation Room.
“…I can’t do that. Director already gave strict orders to keep a close eye on Lee Ji-seok.”
Why did I bring him in so hastily? If I’d roughed him up a bit before coming here, he would’ve talked more readily.
“Stop the interrogation.”
A man in a business suit approached the interrogation room.
“What is this?”
“I’m a Public Defender.”
“A Public Defender? Are you joking? You’re going to defend a terrorist from New North Korea?”
“How do you know he came from New North Korea and not Korea?”
“An unregistered hunter comes to North Korea and suddenly kills a Korean hunter? Does that make sense to you?”
Veins bulged across the Awakener Management Bureau investigator’s forehead.
“Don’t you know the presumption of innocence? You can’t treat someone as a criminal based on unproven claims.”
“Unproven? This bastard was caught red-handed!”
The investigator, who had been speaking politely, finally lost his composure and exploded.
“Watch your language! There wasn’t a single body at the scene of the arrest! You’re trying to connect this to incidents from days ago, but you’ll need solid evidence! And you need to verify whether he’s even from New North Korea! Korea isn’t a lawless wasteland—you can’t just arrest everyone you suspect!”
“Damn it, this is so infuriating I can’t stand it!”
The investigator, more heated than I was, stormed out of the room.
“Lee Ji-seok, you should go now.”
“Ten people.”
“Pardon?”
“Ten people died because of this bastard.”
“…That’s still unconfirmed. It could have been someone else, couldn’t it? Guilt or innocence will be determined at trial.”
I understand the Public Defender’s intentions are good. You can’t persecute someone based on suspicion alone without physical evidence. Otherwise, you might arrest an innocent person or, frankly, fabricate a criminal that doesn’t exist.
Some Awakeners have the ability to detect lies, and it would be useful to employ them, but like a lie detector, courts only treat such evidence as reference material.
Part of me thinks I should have just broken his neck when I caught him, but since it’s already happened, there’s nothing I can do but leave as well.
* * *
I tried to make New North Korea pay the price for capturing the Red Suit Assassin, but New North Korea denied any involvement.
While I couldn’t exact immediate retaliation, it was only natural that the Awakener Management Bureau focused its surveillance on New North Korea. In truth, hunters of the caliber of the Red Suit Assassin or the Axe Wielder didn’t seem to be abundant in New North Korea, so such terrorist acts seemed unlikely to occur again.
And as time passed, as expected, no more unexpected incidents occurred. Occasionally there were injuries or deaths within normal parameters, and even those were thoroughly investigated.
“So what does New North Korea actually want?”
“Who knows? I don’t understand their thinking either. Apparently, in exchange for renouncing rights to most of North Korean territory excluding New North Korean territory, they’re demanding items and mana stones.”
“So New North Korea would exist within Korea?”
“That doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“By the way, did you hear about the new Gates that opened?”
“Really? Hmm… It seems like they’re increasing because people keep coming up in Korea. Just like Paul said, Gates seem to multiply where there are more people. How many new ones opened?”
“Two more, so there are three now. New North Korea is managing the existing Gate, and the Awakener Management Bureau took responsibility for the two new ones.”
“Everyone was complaining that money was decreasing as Gates decreased, so at least something good came out of this. I’ll get less grief too.”
The subjugation of North Korea progressed gradually. It cost an astronomical amount of money, but we covered expenses with mana stones and byproducts, and more importantly, there was greater significance in Korea absorbing and restoring North Korean territory.
I spent my days hunting large monsters and leveling up with Oh’s Group and Yang Sang-heon. Bae Na-young remained busy being called around to treat patients.
I’m not sure how much money she’s receiving or in what amounts, but according to Yang Sang-heon, she might be earning more than what Rigen makes. Apparently high-ranking foreigners come and pay for her treatment? Bae Na-young doesn’t know much about the business side of things, so Yang President has been backing her up.
Yang President handles work meticulously and responsibly, and his connections are quite extensive, so I think it was the right decision to have him take the position of Rigen’s president.
I participated in the North Korean Territory reconstruction mission with various objectives, but unfortunately, my level didn’t increase. Of course, being able to manifest armor and shoot aura like bullets were achievements, but they weren’t enough.
My struggle against the Axe Wielder last time had awakened my sense of crisis. Perhaps the outcome would have been different if I’d fought with the resolve to kill him from the start, but even accounting for that, I felt acutely how insufficient my current strength was.
Beep beep beep—-
While we were all chatting, my phone, Yang Sang-heon’s, and Oh’s Group’s phones rang simultaneously.
“Huh…?”
Everyone checked the app’s contents, and their faces went pale.

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