The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 90

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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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90
Chapter 90 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
Whirrrrr—
Only the faint vibration of an electric motor hummed through the truck’s interior. The rain had stopped, but the night streets of Neo Seoul rushing past the window greeted us with a cold, parched wind that cut deeper than any downpour.
Park Jae-jung sat motionless in the driver’s seat. His knuckles were drained white around the steering wheel, and his eyes—visible in the rearview mirror—were rimmed red. From the cargo hold came only Han Ae-ri’s stifled whimpers and Han Su-jin’s quiet, soothing voice attempting to comfort her.
[Breaking News: Massive explosion at Dominion Central Hospital. Steel Alliance Security Team controlling the scene.]
[Dominion states, “Suspected outdated gas pipe rupture”… rules out possibility of terrorism.]
News poured from the dashboard radio. The anchor parroted the script written by Dominion’s PR team. That inferno where countless lives had been ground to dust was being buried as nothing more than an infrastructure failure.
“Turn it off.”
Park Jae-jung jabbed the radio button harshly, killing the power. Silence returned.
Beside me, Seo Eun-ha hugged her knees, staring out the window. Streetlights from Neo Seoul swept across her tear-stained cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak several times, then stopped. In the end, she said nothing.
It wasn’t that there were no words to say—it was that any words would feel hollow in this moment. I felt the same.
We had survived, but no one could say “thank goodness.” The price we had paid was far too steep.
[Guro Safe House]
Clang. Screeeech.
Only after the shutter descended and the sound of double and triple locks engaging reached us did I finally release the tension. The familiar scent of a butcher shop. Beneath the crimson lighting, we collapsed to the floor like defeated soldiers.
“Han Ae-ri… are you alright? You’re safe here.”
Han Su-jin laid Han Ae-ri on a worn sofa. Han Ae-ri—the slasher who cut down enemies with blinding speed and lethal strikes, the one who always smiled brightly and took charge of keeping the party’s spirits up—now stared at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, trembling violently.
“No… I can’t… the injections… I hate them… everyone… the others….”
Her mind remained trapped in Basement Level 4, in that horrific laboratory. The shock of witnessing her comrades transform into monsters and slaughter each other. This was a wound carved deep into the soul—beyond the reach of ordinary healing magic or sedatives.
“Let me take a look.”
I forced my wavering body upright and approached the sofa. The headache from mana depletion felt like my skull was splitting, but I couldn’t rest now.
“That’s dangerous. You have no mana left….”
Han Su-jin protested, but I shook my head.
“If I don’t sever it now, Han Ae-ri might spend the rest of her life trapped in that terror.”
I dragged a chair to Han Ae-ri’s bedside and sat down. Then I placed my hand on her cold forehead.
“Attunement.”
I opened my mana circuits and forcibly synchronized my wavelength with hers. In an instant, my vision inverted and horrific images slammed into my mind.
‘Crack! (the sound of bones shattering)’
‘Help me… (Lee Seung-ryong’s voice)’
‘Prepare test subject 105. (the Researcher’s cold voice)’
Pitch-black darkness. Screams. The stench of blood. Han Ae-ri’s terror and despair flowed unfiltered through my nerves. Pain as if my own flesh were being torn. I gritted my teeth and plunged deeper into that chaotic maelstrom of emotion.
‘Found it.’
Deep within her consciousness—the core of trauma clinging like black tar. The contamination born from the fear Kang Chang-gyung had planted and the hallucinations wrought by drugs, all tangled together.
“Purification.”
I wrung out my remaining mana and channeled white light through it. Gently, but decisively, I enveloped that black mass and burned it away.
“Ugh….”
Han Ae-ri’s body convulsed like a fresh-caught fish, then went limp. Her ragged breathing gradually steadied, and the terror-stricken expression melted into peaceful calm.
Thud.
Dizziness overtook me as I collapsed to the floor. Blood trickled from my nose.
“Director!”
Park Jae-jung steadied me. I raised a hand to signal that I was fine.
“She’s fallen asleep. When she wakes… she won’t remember the nightmare.”
Only after confirming that Han Ae-ri had slipped into deep slumber did relief wash over me. But the real problem was just beginning.
I staggered to my feet and made my way to the table. There lay the spoils we’d retrieved from the Research Facility—a shattered silver-gray helmet and a magical engineering core torn from the Cleaner’s suit.
“This is… Blue Tower’s equipment?”
Seo Eun-ha picked up the helmet, her expression darkening. The Blue Tower’s logo was stamped clearly on the helmet’s side, and beneath it, a small Latin inscription.
[Veritas Non Mentitur Coram Scientia]
(Truth does not lie before knowledge)
“This is ridiculous.”
Seo Eun-ha let out a bitter laugh.
“Truth does not lie before knowledge? So you sneak around killing people and destroying evidence? You’re living the complete opposite of your own motto, you hypocrites.”
“You’re right.”
Blue Tower was the most secretive and academically-minded of Neo Seoul’s Three Major Guilds. They were known to pursue data over money, truth over power—so why would they involve themselves in the ethically corrupt bioexperiments of Dominion?
“Could it simply be for money?”
Han Su-jin asked carefully.
“No. Blue Tower is already rolling in wealth from patents alone.”
I picked up the magical engineering core. Its surface was a smooth blue crystal, but my eyes could see something else—a foreign aura mixed deep within.
“This core… it has a scent.”
“A scent?”
“The smell of contaminated mana that came from Kang Chang-gyung’s test subjects. It’s faint, but definitely mixed in.”
I walked to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and wrote Dominion and Blue Tower. Between them, I drew a question mark.
“Kang Chang-gyung’s experiments involve implanting artificial mana cores into humans. And Blue Tower stands at the pinnacle of such magical engineering.”
Hypotheses assembled rapidly in my mind.
“What if… Blue Tower’s research hit a wall? What if they needed a partner to supply living data without ethical constraints?”
“And that partner was Dominion?”
Park Jae-jung’s eyes grew sharp.
“It’s highly likely. Dominion supplied the raw material—the lower-class citizens—while Blue Tower provided the technology. A filthy transaction where both sides’ interests aligned perfectly.”
But there was still an unanswered question. The Cleaners who burst in today—they hadn’t come to save us. They came to destroy evidence.
“They failed today. They couldn’t kill us, and they lost their equipment. By now, Blue Tower’s leadership must be in chaos.”
I tapped the helmet’s visor with my finger.
“There might be communication logs or operation records stored inside this. If we crack it, we could learn exactly what contract Dominion and Blue Tower made.”
“Can you hack it?”
Seo Eun-ha asked with hopeful eyes.
“No. Blue Tower’s security is world-class. Forcing it open might trigger data self-destruction.”
This was beyond what my purification ability could handle. It was a matter of science, not magic.
But it wasn’t entirely hopeless. My purification ability could directly manipulate mana circuits. If Blue Tower’s security was based on magical engineering, I might be able to open parts of it not by decrypting data, but by simply clearing away the contaminated mana locked within the mechanism.
Or better yet—what if I could synchronize with the mana circuits and read the data directly?
I placed the helmet on my lap and rested my hand on the visor.
“Just a moment.”
“What are you doing?”
“Resonance. Even if it’s not a living creature, magitech equipment has active mana circuits, so if residual records exist, I might be able to read them.”
I closed my eyes and laid my consciousness over the equipment’s residual mana. Resonance. The sensation flowing through machine circuitry rather than the wavelengths of life felt foreign and cold.
But I could definitely sense something.
A threadlike trickle of data. Security layers were stacked upon each other, but the outermost layer—the most recently recorded communication log—still retained warmth.
Whirrrr.
A faint holographic log window materialized inside the visor. I couldn’t open everything. But fragments of the outermost layer, the recent communication records, began to flow out.
[Operation Codename: Whitewash]
[Objective: Eliminate all survivors in Underground Level 4 Research Facility and recover experimental data]
[Authorized by: Blue Tower Executive Council / Research Code: JK-00]
And below that.
[CAUTION WARNING — Automatic report to JK-00 / Dr. Junk upon access to this operation information]
Park Jae-jung leaned toward the helmet and raised an eyebrow.
“Dr. Junk? This is a warning message. If this log is accessed, it automatically reports to Dr. Junk?”
“That’s how it reads.”
“Wait.”
Seo Eun-ha leaned forward as if remembering something.
“Dr. Junk… I’ve heard that name somewhere. Hold on.”
She tapped her temple with her finger.
“That’s right. I heard it once from a broker I know in the Lower District Black Market. They said he’s an eccentric engineer who performs miracles with scrap metal. There were rumors he’s a genius kicked out of the Blue Tower.”
“I’ve heard that name too.”
Park Jae-jung chimed in, crossing his arms.
“Lee Seung-ryong mentioned it once. He said there’s someone in the Lower District who takes commissions and even repairs Blue Tower equipment. Since he’s not formally affiliated with any Guild but can handle Blue Tower technology, the source is obvious.”
I looked at the warning message in the helmet again.
A hypothesis occurred to me about what it meant that Dr. Junk was the report recipient for this log. From the Blue Tower leadership’s perspective, Dr. Junk was already someone they’d cast out.
But the fact that his code designation still appeared as a report target meant he wasn’t simply expelled. Either the Blue Tower leadership continued monitoring his movements because he knew too many internal secrets, or conversely, he was digging into the Blue Tower’s affairs.
“Interesting.”
I wrote another name above the question mark on the whiteboard.
Dr. Junk.
“Eun-ha, can you contact that broker?”
“I’m not sure if I can reach him. Haven’t seen him in months. But I know where he hangs out.”
“That’s enough.”
I circled the question mark on the board in red.
“Right now we have no choice. We can’t recklessly charge at Kang Chang-gyung—he’s too strong, and the Blue Tower has his back. We need to sever their connection to have any chance.”
“But why would Dr. Junk help us? Isn’t it dangerous? What if it’s a trap?”
Han Su-jin asked worriedly.
“Of course, it could be a trap. We might already be too late.”
I pointed at the warning message on the helmet with my finger.
“But the fact that the Blue Tower leadership is still monitoring him means they fear him. And if this log automatically reports to him, then Dr. Junk knows right now that we’ve subdued the Blue Tower Cleaners.”
“So?”
“I’m curious what kind of reaction he’ll have when he finds out that someone capable of touching the Blue Tower has appeared.”
I glanced around at my colleagues. Their bodies were exhausted and scarred, yet their eyes shone with a resolve more steadfast than ever before.
“For now, let’s rest. Once Aeri wakes up, we’ll take her testimony and this helmet to Dr. Junk.”
I lifted the shutter slightly and gazed up at the night sky. Neo Seoul’s heavens, where satellites and drones drifted like stars. Somewhere within that colossal blue tower, someone was trembling at the thought of concealing the fact that their technology had been used for murder.
‘Knowledge doesn’t lie?’
A faint laugh escaped me.

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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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