S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 30

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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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Episode 30. Volunteer Work (3)
The office lay in ruins. Not a single piece of furniture remained intact, and there was no trace of human life.
If anyone had survived, they would surely make some sound.
The cry of agony. The cough of gunpowder smoke. But the office was silent.
Only the occasional crumble of walls and ceiling broke the quiet.
Crunch.
The moment a footstep crunched on debris in the silence, an awl shot out from the dust.
Thunk!
“Ggh!”
A whistling gasp escaped the mouth of whoever had made that footstep.
“Let me see what bastard you are.”
Lee Dongsik walked out from the smoke, coated in dust but unharmed.
The secret lay in the blood coating his body. Just before the grenade detonated, he’d grabbed two organization members by their hands and used them as shields.
Thanks to that, he’d taken no damage and had been playing dead ever since.
“You’re… Oh Seongtae?”
The one who’d made the footstep and gotten stabbed by the awl was Oh Seongtae.
Lee Dongsik was bewildered.
Oh Seongtae was a pushover. There was no way a pushover could pull off such a bold grenade attack.
Bang!
Then a gunshot rang out from the smoke that still hadn’t cleared.
“Damn bastard!”
The moment Lee Dongsik heard the shot, he spun his head and flicked the bullet away with his awl.
“And who the hell are you?”
A man in a neat suit. This was the first time Lee Dongsik had seen Chae Mujin’s face.
“A volunteer.”
“Stop spouting nonsense!”
The awl in his grip flew forward with tremendous speed—far faster than a bullet.
But Chae Mujin rolled to the side the moment he spoke, vanishing from sight.
Lee Dongsik pulled another awl from inside his coat and charged.
His charge was fast enough to generate a shock wave, but—
Click.
“…?!”
He hadn’t seen it through the speed and smoke. The grenade trap set between the doors.
Just a crude trap with a string threaded through the pin of a grenade.
Yet that crude trap caught Lee Dongsik anyway.
Though he protected his whole body with Mana, his battle experience couldn’t compare to Chae Mujin’s.
Boom! Whiiiiing—
What detonated wasn’t a lethal grenade. It was a Flash Grenade, generating intense light and sound.
Mana couldn’t block light and sound, so Lee Dongsik’s vision went dark and his ears rang with tinnitus.
Bang!
Lee Dongsik had always been the aggressor. If there was an ambush, he set it. If there were traps, he laid them.
Having never been the victim, he panicked.
With his sight and senses deadened, not knowing when an attack might come, he unleashed skills in frantic desperation.
Crack! Boom! Crash-crash-boom!
Wherever his awl touched, walls tore open and pierced through.
Not knowing where Chae Mujin was, he attacked indiscriminately around him.
After about ten seconds, Lee Dongsik’s vision returned and the ringing subsided.
Slash!
The moment he heard the cutting sound, his calves burned.
His vision spun and he lost his balance.
Thud!
Lee Dongsik fell. He tried to get up but couldn’t. His legs had no feeling. What had hit him?
Before he could realize, a shadow fell upon him.
His killer’s instinct moved his arm. He stabbed at the attacker with his awl.
Whoosh, thunk!
The awl pierced through Chae Mujin’s palm. Rather than pulling away, Chae Mujin pushed his hand through, gripping Lee Dongsik’s arm firmly.
“…!”
Slice!
The Light Sword Ephilui severed both of Lee Dongsik’s arms.
An ordinary blade wielded with one hand would lack proper force.
But a Light Sword was a kind of laser blade. Even a swing alone delivered full damage.
“Grrrgh……”
Pain finally hit Lee Dongsik and he thrashed about with strange sounds, but the battle was already decided.
With both legs and arms gone, how could he thrash at all?
Chae Mujin pulled the awl from his palm and placed his hand on Lee Dongsik’s chest.
Lee Dongsik sensed death coming, but…
“Light of Healing.”
Chae Mujin saved him instead.
The bleeding slowly stopped. At the same time, bleeding from Chae Mujin’s pierced palm ceased as well.
“Light of Healing.”
This time the heal went to the fallen Oh Seongtae, not Lee Dongsik.
Oh Seongtae wasn’t seriously wounded in the first place. Chae Mujin had applied a solid Defense Buff before sending him in as bait.
But no matter how high your defense, not all damage can be prevented—not against weapons with Penetration Enhancement options like awls.
“That was close.”
Chae Mujin loosened his necktie and looked down at Lee Dongsik.
“Should we introduce ourselves? I’m Chae Mujin.”
Chae Mujin extended his hand to Lee Dongsik, who had lost his hands, greeting him.
* * *
Instead of giving his name, Lee Dongsik spat.
Chae Mujin dodged it lightly and slapped him across the face.
“Seems you have no name, so I’ll give you one. From now on, you’re a bug. Bug. I’m going to ask you three questions. If you answer them, I’ll let you live.”
“Cough, cough!”
“What’s the password to the bomb in Oh Seongtae’s inventory?”
“Keheheh, the day your mother met me.”
“Second question. Is what Oh Seongtae ate real poison, or is it drugs?”
“Screw you.”
“Third, how many people have you killed?”
“Revenge? Are you family of someone I killed? Or a commission? Keheheh, who? Please tell me. Then I’ll tell you everything too.”
“I appreciate your sincere answers. I’ll keep my promise and let you live.”
Chae Mujin carried Oh Seongtae on his back and truly left. It couldn’t be a trick—the sound of footsteps clearly faded into the distance.
Ten minutes later, Lee Dongsik steadied his breathing.
“Damn it! Chae Mujin? This bastard. Does he think I’ll live like a cripple just because I’ve lost my limbs?”
His arms and legs were severed, but they could be regrown. High-level Healers could restore severed limbs.
Of course it would cost an enormous amount of money, but money was something he had in abundance.
“Huff, huff.”
Lee Dongsik crawled like a worm toward the basement. Everything he had was there.
An emergency phone, carefully laundered money, keepsakes from the Hunters he’d killed.
“Damn it, Chae Mujin you son of a bitch, I’ll gut your whole family—your relatives, your friends, everyone—right in front of your eyes.”
The vault required iris recognition to open, but without limbs, the iris scanner seemed impossibly high to Lee Dongsik.
He was jumping pathetically, trying to get the iris recognition to work, when—
Grab.
Chae Mujin suddenly appeared from behind and grabbed him by the hair, lifting him up.
“Thought I’d help.”
“W-what?!”
Beep, clang.
The thick steel door slid open with iris recognition. A space filled with neatly stacked money and the equipment and keepsakes of dead Hunters.
Lee Dongsik’s cold sweat poured down.
‘How did this bastard appear behind me without a sound?’
He’d clearly heard him leaving, but hadn’t heard him return.
Lee Dongsik didn’t know that a Buff had been applied to him during healing, nor did he know about the skill that could teleport to any Buffed target.
「Skill—Buff Link (A)」
• You can teleport to a target who has received your Buff. Mana consumption increases proportionally with distance.
Chae Mujin had no intention of letting Lee Dongsik live anyway. But if he was going to die, Chae Mujin wanted to do it right.
‘Guys like this always have secret stashes.’
He predicted Lee Dongsik would head there once released.
He’d waited about thirty minutes and then used Buff Link—the timing was perfect.
And there was something else he wanted to confirm.
“…Is hypocrisy also a kind of virtue?”
“W-what are you saying?”
“Just talking to myself. Don’t mind it.”
[Collection Target: Lee Dongsik]
Goodwill Points: 720
[Collection List]
Traits:
‣Death Stalker (B)—30,000 [Collection Impossible]
‣Penetration Enhancement (E)—1,000 [Collection Impossible]
Skills:
‣Bloodless Needle (B)—30,000 [Collection Possible]
Healing him had been intentional, leaving had been intentional. Yet the system recognized it as goodwill anyway. Despite having not an ounce of intention to let Lee Dongsik live.
Bang!
Chae Mujin put a clean bullet through his forehead and sent him off in one shot.
Killing an evil person painlessly in a single shot wasn’t mercy from Chae Mujin.
‘I don’t toy with life, at least.’
He would kill, yes, but he wouldn’t mock death. This conviction was the seawall that protected Chae Mujin’s own humanity.
And the system recognized that as goodwill as well.
[Collection Target has been updated.]
Collection Target: Lee Dongsik
Goodwill Points: 720→
42,720
[Collection Target has died. Collect anyway? This will be your last chance to collect.]
“Huh…?”
Giving Lee Dongsik, who had been evil, a clean death.
Was that truly such tremendous goodwill? Chae Mujin couldn’t fathom the system’s heart.
“Did it want to show me that you can collect from corpses too?”
The Collection skill wasn’t limited to the living. It worked on the dead as well.
“…The gun has no sin. The one who wields it is at fault.”
Even if it’s a villain’s skill, if I use it well, that’s all that matters.
And so Chae Mujin collected two skills from Lee Dongsik.
「Trait—Penetration Enhancement (E)」
• Physical Penetration +10%
(+0.1% per level)
「Trait—Death Stalker (B)」
• You gain bonuses to Stealth and Concealment.
• When attacking an unaware target, you gain +200% additional damage of the damage dealt.
• Additional damage ignores Defense and Resistance.
The active skill Bloodless Needle couldn’t be used with a sword, so he didn’t take it.
After collection, he searched the man’s treasure vault. Twenty apple boxes full of ten-thousand-won bills.
Even a rough calculation showed over a billion won per box.
There were other valuable pieces of equipment visible, but he didn’t touch them.
He didn’t believe there was clean money in this world. But he believed there was such a thing as dirty money.
“I’ve already gotten enough compensation through Collection.”
He found a suspicious pile of potions in the corner. Unable to tell which were antidotes and which were poisons, he collected them by type.
“If this were a game, there’d be a note with the bomb’s password.”
There wasn’t, but there was a phone. He checked the call history and messages, but it was all dirty stuff.
He went back upstairs and called the Hunter Police from the phone he’d just found.
“I’ve caught a villain. Could you handle the cleanup?”
—Yes? May I ask who’s calling, and what’s the location?
“The Righteous Bandit Hong Gildong. You can trace the phone. I’ll go now.”
No matter how short-staffed the Hunter Police was, they wouldn’t ignore such blatant crime happening right in front of them.
The government would handle the illegally earned money appropriately.
Ding.
Just then, his phone rang. A vibration from his own phone—a text, not a call. From Civic Support Funds.
—When are you coming home? Let’s have dinner together.
He replied while walking away from the scene.
—Busy with volunteer work. Probably won’t be home tonight either.
—The excuse you came up with is volunteer work? What kind of volunteering are you doing?
—Environmental cleanup. I just finished organizing a huge piece of trash and I’m exhausted.
—But we’re leaving tomorrow and won’t see each other for a week. You’re not even seeing us off?
—I already gave you all the consulting. Anything else to ask?
—I’m really disappointed. That’s why you’re unpopular with women.
—I’m actually very popular.
No reply came after that. Chae Mujin didn’t bother texting further either.
“As long as I don’t take the bomb out of inventory, I can leave it. But the poison has to be dealt with today.”
He’d wiped out the loan sharks who’d been trying to force a straw into Oh Seongtae, but the poison problem remained unsolved.
If it was real poison and he died, that would be a problem.
“The kids might feel a bit sad… but actually, why would I feel sorry?”
He wasn’t a nanny. He was simply the company president and an affiliated Hunter.
“…Still, I should see them off.”
Thinking of Lee Minji, who would feel disappointed, and Kim Yeoul, who would cry, he just felt like doing it.
* * *
The poison Oh Seongtae had eaten was real poison, and there was no antidote in the warehouse. But since he’d brought the Poison Bottle, creating an antidote from it was easy.
It just took some time and money.
After staying up all night, exhausted as he was, Chae Mujin still went to see off Kim Yeoul and Lee Minji.
“Did you really come just to see us off?”
“I had a late night yesterday. Cut me some slack. Yawn—I could die of sleepiness right now.”
“We’re going now, Manager.”
“Learn from Yeoul, Minji. See how spirited she is.”
“Will you visit?”
“Anyone seeing this would think you’re enlisting in the military. It’s only a week. You won’t even get the full military experience in a week.”
“Jeez, if you’d just said you’d come, that would’ve been enough.”
—The train is arriving. Please stand back from the yellow line.
The Joint Training location was Gangwon Province. Chae Mujin placed his hands on Kim Yeoul and Lee Minji’s shoulders and spoke.
“I’ll give you a mission so you won’t be bored for the week.”
“A mission? What’s the prize?”
“The prize is a secret. The mission is for both of you to score 90 points or higher in the Joint Training.”
“90 points? Do they actually give tests there?”
“You’ll find out when you go.”
“We already took the Hunter exam, that was enough.”
“Then there’s no prize.”
The train arrived and the doors opened. Chae Mujin took a step backward and moved away.
“Go on. I need some rest too.”
Though it was just a week, not a deathbed, Kim Yeoul and Lee Minji felt something strange.
Lee Minji didn’t want to feel that strange emotion, so she boarded quickly, while Kim Yeoul waved tearfully.
Chae Mujin waved back, and once they’d moved far enough away, he muttered.
“Status Window.”
[Status Window]
Name: Chae Mujin (Lv. 98)
Job: Supporter
Strength: 107 Stamina: 107
Agility: 107 Mana: 333
Traits:
Savior (EX), Akashic Record (EX), Swordmaster’s Soul (A), Healing Share (D), Penetration Enhancement (E), Death Stalker (B)
Skills:
Buff (Unique), Collection (EX), Taishan Struck Blade (C), Light of Healing (D), Buff Link (A)
In two days, I’ve become quite strong.
I partnered with the all-A-rank Bastard Guild and brought on Oh Seongtae, who makes contracts.
I could say the most urgent matters are handled, but there’s still much to do.
“I need to find special equipment, find a dungeon specialist, and level up Oh Seongtae’s rank.”
The workload had already lightened thanks to delegating tasks to Mom and Dad.
“I’ll finish everything before the kids come back.”
As Chae Mujin got in a taxi again for work and dozed off during the ride—
Kim Yeoul and Lee Minji arrived in Gangwon Province and began their week of Joint Training.

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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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