The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 146

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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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The Maxed-Out Player’s 100th Return – Episode 146
146. Human Trafficking
Umbako, a member of the Human Trafficking Organization, was bewildered.
‘I… I didn’t even see the attack.’
His gaze drifted downward.
The Taxi Driver, who had been conducting steady business with the organization, had become a corpse in an instant.
‘A scythe? Did that extending scythe do this?’
How the scythe extended was irrelevant.
What mattered was the speed—so fast I couldn’t even react.
*Gulp*
Despite holding an assault rifle, Umbako tensed.
Superhuman speed, a weapon defying common sense, a youthful face.
Taken together, this was undoubtedly a Player—one I’d only heard rumors about.
‘A Player… In my lifetime, I’m facing a Player. Damn it.’
I’d assumed the bearded man was an ordinary civilian in his forties, but it turned out he’d deliberately disguised himself to locate our position.
“You… What’s your identity? Are you police?”
Umbako spoke without thinking, then mentally corrected himself.
‘No, that can’t be. We control all the police in this area. Besides, that bastard is clearly East Asian.’
Umbako aimed his rifle again, never taking his eyes off his opponent.
Player or not, with an invincible assault rifle in hand, there was nothing to fear.
If it came down to it, I’d just shoot.
Wouldn’t he die like any other human?
“Who are you! Which organization sent you!”
“Would you know if I told you? Just come over here quietly.”
‘Would you go if you were me?’
Umbako swallowed the retort that had risen to his throat.
There was no point in provoking a Player.
“Not coming? Then I’ll come to you.”
As Ryu Min took a step forward, Umbako made his decision.
Whatever the opponent’s identity, I’d just kill him.
“Die! You bastard!”
*Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-bang!*
Before even pulling the trigger, Umbako had already imagined it.
Soon, the opponent would be riddled with bullets, bleeding out and collapsing.
After all, even a Player is still human, isn’t he?
All humans are equal before bullets.
But something unexpected happened.
‘What… He’s fine?’
Despite aiming precisely and firing, the opponent stood unharmed.
Umbako blinked as if seeing a phantom, then fired again.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!
This time, I could see it clearly.
The man weaving his body left and right, evading every bullet.
‘He’s… dodging all of them…?’
Thirteen rounds of gunfire erupted in the span of two seconds, yet not a single bullet found its mark.
A sight that defied belief even as my eyes witnessed it.
Ryu Min smirked at his opponent’s shock.
‘So he was relying solely on the gun. How naive.’
With the Rune of Balance and the Rune of Slaughter, my agility had reached 1,176.
Even an assault rifle faster than a handgun posed no difficulty in evading.
‘Especially with the Rune of Future Sight on my side.’
I smirked and took another step forward.
“N-no, don’t come closer! Don’t come closer! You monster!”
He unleashed another volley of bullets.
Click—click—
The magazine was already spent, the trigger yielding nothing but empty clicks.
“I-I need to reload…”
With trembling hands, he reached for the spare magazine on his belt.
“Gasp!”
Umbako recoiled in terror as I appeared before him.
“Out of bullets, I see?”
“H-help!”
Umbako stumbled backward and fell hard on his rear.
I did nothing.
I simply watched him tremble in fear.
“Yamtti.”
Yamtti, who had been hiding behind me, peeked her head out.
“Yes, Master.”
“Take control of him. Then command him to guide us to the Mob Organization’s boss.”
* * *
Thud-thud—
As Umbako walked, his armed comrades came rushing over.
“Umbako! There you are?”
Hey, we heard gunshots. What happened?”
At their question, Umbako shrugged casually.
“Some of the humans we brought in from the Human Trafficking Organization tried to resist, so I fired a few rounds into the ground to scare them.”
“Wait, the humans you brought in—are they the ones behind you?”
Umbako glanced back slightly.
Behind him stood Ryu Min and Yamtti.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Even though Umbako had acknowledged it, his colleagues couldn’t shake their doubts.
Who in their right mind would move with a kidnapped person left behind them?
What if they were ambushed or tried to escape?
‘Something’s off.’
Most tellingly, despite being kidnapped, there wasn’t a trace of fear in their expressions.
“You’re saying you grabbed them for human trafficking? Seriously?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“But something about that doesn’t add up….”
His colleagues couldn’t say another word.
Ryu Min’s scythe had mercilessly severed their necks.
Thud— thud— thud—
Watching the heads fall in the order they were cut, Ryu Min spoke coldly.
“Keep moving. Toward where the Boss is.”
It was time to start cleaning up the trash.
* * *
A musty underground basement where sunlight never reached.
Subina, an ordinary thirty-year-old woman, wept behind iron bars.
‘If I’d been born just two months later, I would’ve become a Player. Then… I never would’ve been dragged to this hellhole….’
Usually, people despaired upon learning that becoming a Player meant living a life with a time limit, but Subina was different.
Instead, she harbored a lifelong regret at missing Player status by mere months.
Being trapped in this hellish place was simply because she lacked power.
‘How much time has passed?’
She didn’t know how many days had elapsed since her abduction, but she had witnessed much in this place.
Organization members would beat women like cattle if they didn’t like the look in their eyes, or drag them away with greedy gazes.
When the women returned, their eyes were vacant, as if something essential had been unscrewed from their minds.
What had been done to them was painfully obvious.
Occasionally, strangers would appear and point out women like selecting merchandise at a market, then take them away.
Not a single person who was pointed out that way ever came back.
‘At least I’m better off than the others, right? Nothing’s happened to me yet….’
Subina recalled what the man who appeared to be the Boss had said when she first arrived here.
-Your face and body are totally my style. Listen up. Don’t touch this one. Once I finish cleaning up the backlog, I’m going to rape this one first.
-Understood, Boss. We’ll keep her safe until then. Hehehehe.
He had singled her out because he liked her appearance.
That was the reason she had been spared so far.
‘I definitely heard it. That he was going to rape me.’
Subina hugged her knees and buried her face.
Was this how a cow felt knowing it was about to be slaughtered?
Knowing that something horrific awaited her, every hour was filled with anxiety, and every footstep made her nerves stand on end.
Wondering if this time was her turn.
‘If I’d been a Player, I never would’ve had to endure this….’
Helplessness gnawed at Subina’s mind.
‘If only I could bite my tongue and die….’
I had contemplated suicide countless times, but the accompanying pain terrified me beyond measure.
Yet when I considered the suffering that awaited, suicide seemed like the right choice.
‘What am I supposed to do….’
Then footsteps echoed through the quiet Underground Basement.
The pace was hurried, as if to deny me even a moment to think.
‘Ah, ah. H-he’s here. It m-must be the Boss.’
But the voice that reached my ears belonged to a woman I had never heard before.
“Huh? There’s someone here too?”
Subina, who had been trembling with fear, cautiously opened her eyes at the unfamiliar foreign language.
It was a woman.
An East Asian woman dressed in a ridiculous outfit, no less.
‘That outfit… Could she be a Player?’
Crack—!
As the woman shattered the cell lock with the dagger in her hand, Subina understood.
Strength that transcended ordinary human limits.
This woman was a Player.
But why was she breaking the lock?
So convinced that hope was lost, Subina didn’t even realize she was being rescued.
“Come on out. Hurry up.”
When Yamtti gestured, Subina walked out with a bewildered expression.
“W-where are you taking me?”
“What are you talking about? Just follow me.”
“…?”
When Subina remained frozen at the command to follow, Yamtti eventually grabbed her hand and dragged her along.
The two emerged from the musty Underground Basement and stepped outside the building.
A sparse Forest surrounded the area, with a Clearing laid out before them.
Beneath the streetlights in that space, people had gathered and were murmuring amongst themselves.
‘W-what is this? I’m scared.’
Subina remained vigilant, but as she saw the faces of the people gathered in the light, her expression gradually softened.
They were the kidnapped women she had seen in this place.
“What are you all doing here….”
Subina suddenly noticed a mass at their feet and gasped in shock.
It was a human corpse.
The stench of blood rose belatedly, making me retch, but only for a moment.
“Huh?”
When I saw the face of the Mob Organization boss who had been terrorizing me, the nausea mysteriously vanished.
There was more than one corpse.
Looking further, countless bodies of what appeared to be Mob Organization members lay sprawled across the ground.
“W-what is this…?”
A suspicious man wearing a white mask approached the Eastern Player.
“Yamtti. Have you freed all the kidnapped people?”
“Yes. I searched thoroughly using presence detection, and everyone here is accounted for.”
“Is that so?”
Ryu Min counted the gathered people.
They were all women—exactly twelve of them.
All of them had been confined in iron cages set up throughout the building.
“Hello.”
When Ryu Min greeted them in English, their eyes turned toward him.
Since English was commonly used in Nigeria as well, no one failed to understand.
However, because of the mask, they all regarded him with cautious eyes.
“There’s no need to be so wary. As you can see, we are Players who came to rescue you. You’ve already seen the evidence, haven’t you?”
When Ryu Min pointed to the ground beneath his feet, the women nodded.
The demons who had tormented them with their cackling laughter were now reduced to mere chunks of meat.
Ryu Min had deliberately chosen not to use Trace Erasure precisely so the women could witness this.
“As you can see, I’ve killed the organization’s Boss. I’ve also eliminated all twenty-one members of the organization that were here. The threat has been completely eliminated, so you can rest assured. In other words, you are free. You can go home.”
“Really… is that true?”
“Are we really free?”
At their disbelieving questions, Ryu Min pulled car keys from his pocket.
“These are the car keys I collected from the organization members. Anyone who can drive should take a set and head home. Here you go.”
As Ryu Min handed over the keys, the women’s eyes finally glistened with tears as reality set in.
“Sob, thank goodness. Thank goodness indeed.”
“Now I can go home.”
Ryu Min knew how painful the days had been for the women trapped here.
He had heard of their atrocities from the organization’s Boss.
‘They kidnap seemingly defenseless travelers or ordinary people in their thirties and above, confine them like livestock, and then sell them to other organizations for large sums of money. You could say they’re primary suppliers.’
Throughout this process, verbal abuse, violence, threats, and rape were commonplace.
When virgins were needed, they sometimes restrained themselves from rape, but according to the kidnapped women, the despair was equally unbearable.
‘In any case, this organization is merely a human trafficking ring, not IS.’
In the previous round, Ryu Min had experience raiding IS to build Black Scythe’s reputation.
However, he didn’t know exactly where IS’s headquarters was located.
Since it was a network organization, they changed locations each time, and he didn’t think it necessary to remember.
‘Eventually, as I work my way up from the bottom organizations and systematically dismantle them, IS will surface.’
Since there were countless derivative organizations that followed IS, obtaining information was easy if he dismantled just a few organizations.
In the previous round, he had found IS’s leader in this very manner.
Moreover, with Yamtti here, obtaining information and luring them out would be even easier.
“Don’t take too many cars—just two will do. There’s a risk of being tracked, so abandon the vehicles after driving away.”
“Thank you, truly thank you.”
“Thank you for saving us.”
“You are the savior of my life.”
The women wept as they expressed their gratitude toward Ryu Min.
Subina, who had been thanking them alongside the other women, asked what seemed to be the one crucial detail she had overlooked.
“But we don’t know the name of our benefactor….”
Ryu Min smiled beneath his mask at the question he had been waiting for.
“Black Scythe. That’s all you need to know.”
“Black Scythe….”
“I’ll remember it well.”
“I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life.”
Ryu Min spoke his alias without hesitation.
After all, the tale of rescuing women from the Human Trafficking Organization would only serve to build the legend of Black Scythe.
That was precisely why he wore the mask.
“Now, please go. It’s getting late.”
As Ryu Min waved his hand dismissively, Subina asked a question.
“But Black Scythe, aren’t you leaving?”
“I have things to attend to here. Please, go on ahead.”
“Ah, then we’ll be on our way.”
“We won’t forget this kindness.”
“Thank you so much.”
The women smiled brightly for the first time.
As they disappeared into the van, only Ryu Min and Yamtti remained in the hideout.
Ryu Min disposed of the numerous corpses, erasing all traces.
Then he extended his hand toward Yamtti.
“You grabbed the boss’s phone, right?”
“Yes. Here it is.”
Taking the dead boss’s phone, Ryu Min sent a message in English.
[Three women, one man. Disposed of urgently at 20% discount. Contact us.]
It was a message sent to the contact person of the organization listed as their business partner.
Not long after, a reply came.
[Okay. Coming now.]
“The bait has been taken.”
Ryu Min smiled, his lips curling upward.
“Shall we prepare to welcome our guests?”

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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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