The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 79

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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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79
Chapter 79 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
Patter, patter.
Cold rain streaked across the asphalt of Neo Seoul. I crouched behind an old air conditioning unit at the mouth of an alley, surveying the street. My heart still raced with adrenaline. My body was battered from crawling 600 meters upward, but the tension suppressed my exhaustion.
Whirrrr— whirrrrr—
A drone passed overhead, firing a red laser beam. It bore the Dominion Security Service logo—a surveillance drone scanning the faces of passersby at random, searching its database for registered terrorists.
‘Even one of those must cost a fortune.’
I could gauge how desperately Dominion was hunting. They had dozens of drones deployed, maintaining 24-hour surveillance.
“Citizens, thank you for your cooperation. Please submit to inspection.”
Police cars and Dominion’s black vans had erected barricades along the main street. Armed soldiers stopped passing vehicles and searched their trunks. The suffocating intensity of their cordon was palpable—they were determined not to let a single rat slip through.
‘The net is tighter than I expected.’
I pulled my hood deeper. My appearance was a disaster. I’d purified the filth from the Tower’s lower levels, but my torn, soaked work clothes screamed suspicion. If I walked out like this, a drone would spot me within a minute.
First, I needed new clothes.
I scanned the alley. A darkened laundry shop caught my eye. A collection bin sat beside the back door, filled with old clothes no one had claimed. I pulled out a black windbreaker and loose cargo pants. The musty smell made my nose wrinkle, but it didn’t matter.
“Purify.”
The moment I touched them, the stale odor vanished and the fabric became crisp and fresh. I stripped off my wet clothes, tossed them in a trash bin, and changed into the clean ones. I picked up an abandoned cap from the street and pulled it low over my head.
I checked my reflection in a puddle. Better than before. At least I didn’t look like a monster crawling out of the sewers anymore. Just a homeless person caught in the rain, perhaps.
‘This will do.’
Preparation complete. Now I had to find them.
District 7 lockdown. That’s what the news said. Wherever they concentrated their forces was where the hideout lay. Conversely, it meant Park Jae-jung and the others were at the center of the cordon.
I moved through the shadows, reading the flow of Dominion’s forces. Patrol cars and drones circled tighter around the Western Redevelopment Zone—a district dense with old commercial buildings and condemned apartments, riddled with CCTV blind spots and a maze of tangled alleys.
‘Park Jae-jung would definitely choose a place like that.’
A veteran tank from a mercenary background. He knew far more about escape and concealment than I did. He would have picked such a location.
I sprinted westward through the rain. My A-rank physique made no sound. Even stepping through puddles, the water didn’t splash—my movements were light and silent, a technique honed while evading monsters in the Lower District.
Ten minutes later.
I arrived at the rooftop of a half-collapsed villa at the entrance to the redevelopment zone. A searchlight-equipped helicopter circled overhead while hundreds of soldiers on the ground tore through the district. They were searching building by building, even opening manhole covers.
‘With that many personnel, it’s only a matter of time.’
Anxiety gnawed at me. Where are they? Where could they possibly be hiding?
I closed my eyes and opened my senses. Vision alone wouldn’t find them. To pinpoint them in this vast zone, I needed to detect traces only I could perceive.
Mana? No. If Seo Eun-ha had used magic, she’d have been discovered long ago. Dominion has mana-detection equipment.
That left one option.
Han Su-jin.
Her skill—Substitution. A cursed ability that allows her to bear others’ pain and wounds in their stead. Every time she uses it, faint but distinctive traces of contamination linger in the air around her. The aura of suffering, curses, disease. A fishy stench that ordinary Hunters could never detect—only I, a Purifier, could smell it.
‘Please… don’t let them be hurt.’
No, that was contradictory. The scent of Substitution meant someone was injured, and Han Su-jin was bearing that pain for them.
I traced the smell mixed with rainwater. Exhaust fumes, garbage stench, concrete dust, and….
Zzzt.
Electric current ran down my spine. I felt it—faint but unmistakably alien. The lingering echo of pain, as if someone’s festering wound had been forcibly sealed. A curse’s trace, mingled with fishy and putrid odors.
‘Found them.’
Direction: eleven o’clock. The Old Spherical Department Store Building, abandoned and decaying from halted demolition. That stench was emanating from its basement. Distance: approximately 300 meters.
I kicked off from the rooftop railing and sprinted forward. My heart hammered wildly in my chest. That smell meant someone was badly injured, and it meant Han Su-jin was still enduring excruciating pain, her own flesh deteriorating by the second.
‘Hold on. I’m coming right now.’
I leaped between buildings, taking the shortest route possible. I slipped through shadows to avoid the drone’s surveillance range. Three minutes. That brief span felt like three hours.
I arrived at the Old Spherical Department Store Building. The exterior walls were cracked, and every window lay shattered. Demolition stickers were plastered everywhere, but the construction appeared to have been halted long ago.
I found the staircase leading underground. The Emergency Exit sign glowed faintly. I descended silently.
Following the scent, I reached Basement Level 2 and stood before a corroded metal door. Dim light seeped through the gap—candlelight, it seemed. From within came a stifled voice.
“Ugh….”
A man’s groan of agony. Park Jae-jung. That distinctive deep, gravelly voice. It had to be him.
I stopped my hand before reaching for the handle. I needed to assess the situation first. I peered through the small glass window in the door.
My breath caught.
Park Jae-jung lay on the floor, cold sweat pouring down like rain as he clenched his teeth. His left thigh was… almost unbearable to look at. Flesh had been torn away, blackening and rotting. Dark crimson veins spread like a spider’s web around the wound. This was no ordinary injury.
‘A cursed bullet.’
The kind the Dominion Pursuit Squad used. When struck, the wound rots, and ordinary potions can’t even stop the bleeding. Over time, the poison spreads throughout the body and kills you.
“Please… stop, Su-jin.”
Park Jae-jung spoke with great effort. He was trying to push Han Su-jin’s hand away.
“Stay still…. If we don’t remove this… we’ll have to amputate the leg….”
Han Su-jin stubbornly shook her head, her hand pressed against his wound. A faint golden light flowed from her palm. Transference. The ability to take another’s pain upon oneself.
But the price was horrific.
As the black miasma drained from Park Jae-jung’s wound, dark bruises crawled like serpents up Han Su-jin’s pale forearm. Starting from her wrist, spreading past her elbow to her shoulder. Her veins were blackening. Her lips had turned blue, and her entire body trembled violently. Yet she didn’t remove her hand.
‘She’s insane….’
She’ll die like this. Taking the curse of a cursed bullet through transference. That’s not the transfer of pain—it’s the transfer of death.
“Damn it! They’re right on top of us!”
Seo Eun-ha, keeping watch beside the door, whispered urgently. The confident Genius Mage with red hair, always so assured. But now she looked like someone I’d never seen before. Paralyzed by fear. Her hand gripping the staff trembled uncontrollably, and her eyes were bloodshot. She hadn’t slept properly in days, or she’d been crying. Perhaps both.
Since the Day of Fate, the trauma from what Kang Chang-gyung had done to her—reducing her to a broken shell—seemed to have resurfaced. Back then, too, she’d lost everything in the end.
“I guess this is really the end.”
Seo Eun-ha muttered in resignation. Her voice was hollow. Not the confident tone I knew.
“Eun-ha, I’ll buy us time… you take Park Jae-jung and get out through the Ventilation Shaft.”
“Eun-ha! What are you saying! If we’re leaving, we go together!”
Park Jae-jung tried to force himself up but staggered. Dark crimson blood flowed fresh from his wound.
“Shut up! Look at your leg! You’re just dead weight!”
Seo Eun-ha shouted. But tears streamed down her face. Her voice was sharp, yet the tears wouldn’t stop. The instinct to survive and the loyalty to sacrifice for her comrades collided within her, tearing her apart.
“Eun-ha….”
Han Su-jin called weakly. Her consciousness was already fading. The side effects of transference were reaching their limit.
“It’s fine. I’ll stay behind alone, so you take Park Jae-jung and….”
“Don’t say such foolish things!”
Seo Eun-ha’s voice cracked.
“Why did we end up like this! We didn’t do anything wrong! We were just trying to save people!”
She struck the wall with her fist. Skin tore and blood seeped, but she didn’t care.
“Tae-hyun is gone, and only we’re left, and now even we….”
Tae-hyun is gone….
Those words pierced my chest. They had known I wouldn’t be able to climb back up from the Lower District. They thought the Tower’s destruction had severed the path. They had endured those days of despair. Without hope.
My vision blurred as I watched them. Something hot surged up from deep within my chest.
‘Fools….’
Why would they go this far? They could have just escaped. If they thought someone like me couldn’t make it back up, they could have each found their own way to survive and left. Why were they clinging to that rotting bridge? Why were they trembling with fear yet still protecting each other?
Tears streamed down my cheeks. Not from sadness. Gratitude. Remorse. And relief. That you’re alive. That you’re protecting each other like this. And that I came too late.
‘I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.’
I could have come faster. I should have hurried more at the Tower. How terrified must these people have been? How desperate?
I wiped away my tears. I couldn’t just stand here and watch anymore.
Creeeeak—
I slowly pushed open the rusted iron door and stepped inside.
“Who’s there!”
Seo Eun-ha cried out as if screaming, pointing the end of her staff toward me. A faint flame flickered at the tip of her staff. Her eyes burned with a mixture of fear and rage. The resolve to kill was evident in her gaze.
Without a word, I removed my cap and pulled back my wet hood.
My face emerged from the darkness.
The flame at the end of Seo Eun-ha’s staff extinguished. Her mouth fell open. The hand gripping the staff began to tremble violently, and finally, she let it slip from her grasp.
Clatter.
The sound of the staff hitting the floor echoed through the quiet Mechanical Room.
“You….”
Seo Eun-ha’s voice wouldn’t come. Her lips merely quivered.
“Tae… Hyun?”
A hoarse voice. An expression as if she’d seen a ghost. The Guild Master she thought was trapped in the Lower District, never to be seen again. Yet here he was, walking in on his own two feet.
“Guild… Master?”
Park Jae-jung tried to push himself up with his mouth agape. As if forgetting the pain of his wounds, he rubbed his eyes again and again. Disbelief was written all over his face.
“Is this a dream…?”
Han Su-jin looked up at me with hazy eyes. She was already half-conscious. The side effects of Substitution had turned her entire body a sickly blue-black.
“No… the Tower was destroyed… there was no way you could have come back up….”
Seo Eun-ha shook her head. As if she couldn’t accept it.
“It’s a hallucination. I’m so exhausted that I’m seeing things….”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks. When she opened them again, I was still standing there.
Seo Eun-ha’s pupils trembled. And finally, she accepted reality.
“You… you bastard…!”
She burst into tears. Everything she’d been holding together—the cool facade, the strength—crumbled away.
“I thought I’d never see you again! I thought you’d never make it back up!”
I walked forward and knelt on one knee in front of Han Su-jin, who was trembling as she sat on the floor. Her pupils wavered as they took me in.
“Tae… Hyun? Are you really… the Guild Master?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I’m late.”
I carefully wrapped my arms around her blackened arm. The skin was cold and stiff. Blue-black bruises covered her from wrist to shoulder. The veins showed through her skin, darkened like ink. How much pain must she have endured? How heavy must it have been? This gentle person bearing the suffering of others in her stead.
“It’s over now. I’m here.”

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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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