The Reincarnated Hunter Sweeps Up All Fortunes - Chapter 19

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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 19
Episode 19
Truth be told, Im Gang had never intended to go this far.
How had he, the living conscience of this age, come to such a pass?
Not a massacre technique.
Not out of any desire to kill.
Just.
‘If I know for a fact they’re trying to kill me and I do nothing, that makes me a complete fool.’
Im Gang steadied his breathing in the darkness and let the thought settle.
A conscience… yes, he had one.
Clearly, he did.
‘But a conscience and your life are two different things, aren’t they?’
A conscience can be broken without you dying, but your life breaks and you’re done for.
Even a child knows this obvious truth.
Besides.
‘How dare they come after my life?’
Before leaving the cave, Im Gang had made extensive preparations.
He hadn’t expected to use the Pickpocketing technique he’d learned from the Bi Do in the Thousand-League Divine Palm, but it had proven useful all the same.
When he’d decided to accept the Second Rank manual and returned to the Vagrants, he’d slipped Dark Blades from the pouches of Dae-mun fighters as he passed by them.
He’d done the same when drawing the Vagrants’ attention with talk of sharing manuals.
Even when he’d taken point, moving deliberately slowly as if disarming traps, his hands never stopped working.
Not just Dark Blades, but Gold Wound Medicine, Antidote, even coins.
Whatever his hands could reach, he took.
He hadn’t been greedy enough to get caught.
Carefully, naturally, he’d slipped everything out in small amounts that escaped notice.
‘Pickpocketing… this has to be cheating, right?’
A First Rank thief skill was capable of this much.
When the rank went up, wouldn’t he start stripping the underwear off people’s bodies?
That was somewhat terrifying.
“Exhale.”
Im Gang took a short breath and checked his pouch. Six Bi Do had been removed. Four Dark Blades. One Gold Wound Medicine, one Antidote.
He’d started counting the coins but stopped, just tucking them away. He’d taken them by pure instinct, not intent. He convinced himself it was a handling fee and called it square.
He waited, watching for the right moment to arrive.
‘My previous life comes to mind.’
His days as a Treasure Hunter in his past life surfaced in memory.
Treasure had been sweet, and the twisted humans who craved that sweetness had all been equally ugly.
He’d shoved aside the talented, let the incompetent go, and dealt decisively with the backstabbers and weasels.
He’d overcome countless rivals and claimed the treasure.
That was the daily life of a Treasure Hunter.
Nothing had changed in this life.
Since becoming a Vagrant, he’d never left an enemy alive.
Enemy? How did he define it?
Simple.
The moment they target your life, they become an enemy.
This wasn’t a matter of conscience.
It was survival.
‘All right. Time to review.’
Formation Technique.
The core of this dungeon called the Honmyeong Mido Formation was a Formation Technique that deceived the five senses.
To their eyes, five paths appeared.
Walls became paths and paths became walls.
His escape through the cave wall must have looked like he’d simply walked through solid rock.
‘But to me, there’s only one path.’
The map skill displayed only a single correct path as well. Whether it was because he was Awakened or because his Treasure Hunter trap-sensing skill pierced through Formation Technique, he wasn’t certain.
What mattered wasn’t that.
What mattered was the undeniable advantage he possessed in fighting within a Formation Technique.
A direct brawl against a numbers advantage was dangerous. No matter how confident he was in being the strongest Second Rank, if Dae-mun fighters joined forces, there was no answer.
But this was inside a Formation Technique. They were blind; he could see.
‘And there’s also the trap.’
He’d claimed to have disarmed all the traps while coming through, but he’d left some active.
The moment Im Gang became certain that Dae-mun intended to slaughter everyone from the start—during those negotiations with the local lord—he began laying his plans.
He’d dismantled the traps early on to keep the Vagrants from getting hurt.
‘Keeping them alive was more useful, after all.’
Once they became enemies, he stopped dismantling the traps altogether.
He only went through the motions.
Neither the Dae-mun thugs nor the Vagrants suspected a thing.
When he reached out into empty air at what looked like a false passage and pretended to manipulate something, they fell for it every time.
‘Ruthless, maybe. But what else can I do?’
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—that’s how it goes. Watch over me, Hammurabi.
Im Gang was silently offering thanks to the ancient lawgiver of his past life.
“Find him now! Tear through the walls if you have to, drag him out!”
The local lord’s roar echoed through the cavern like thunder.
Fury didn’t begin to cover it.
His face was purple-red, like a bomb on the verge of detonation.
“Where in blazes did he go? There’s no way he passed through solid rock!”
“L-Lord, I checked the wall where he went through, and it’s just… a wall. Nothing else.”
“I saw it clearly with my own eyes! He went right through it!”
The faces of the Dae-mun martial artists had gone deathly pale.
The cavern was already an anxiety-riddled place, full of traps—but watching a man vanish into solid stone was driving them to madness.
The superstitious Vagrants were even worse.
Having witnessed Im Gang disappear into the cavern wall with their own eyes, they stood frozen, their legs numb with terror.
“C-Could it be… a ghost…?”
“When did he become a ghost? Where’s the real Eun Ryeon Bi…?”
“Shut your mouths if you want to live!”
The local lord silenced the babbling Vagrants. He ground his teeth, eyes blazing at his own men. One of the Dae-mun fighters spoke up urgently.
“It must be a Formation Technique of some kind.”
“…A Formation Technique? Now that you mention it, something did feel off.”
The local lord muttered under his breath, grinding his teeth. The Dae-mun fighter swallowed hard. One wrong word could mean death. No words at all might mean the same.
“There’s… there’s definitely a real passage beyond that wall. I’m certain, even if I don’t know why that Vagrant didn’t trigger the formation.”
“What does it matter whether it’s true or false!”
The local lord bit down hard and roared. Once a formation takes hold, it’s finished. Only the Formation master can unravel it, or open the Life Gate. Or raw power can smash through.
“Haah… Stand back.”
The local lord steadied his breathing slowly, drawing Inner Force up from his Dantian and gathering it in both palms. His feet planted firmly into the earth, his waist twisting as he
Crack-boom!
A Palm Strike channeling Inner Force slammed into the cavern wall.
Sound and tremor shook the entire cave. Small fragments rained down from the ceiling, and dust billowed up, swallowing the torchlight.
A devastating Palm Strike—hardly what you’d expect from a Second Rank warrior.
And yet.
“…Not a scratch.”
The wall stood pristine. Not even a mark. The Formation Technique had proven itself formidable; this level of force couldn’t break it.
He threw another Palm Strike, then another. Each one hit with greater force, yet it made no difference.
The wall didn’t budge an inch.
A wall constructed by a Formation Technique wasn’t a wall of stone.
“Damn.”
For the first time, the local lord let a curse slip from his lips.
* * *
Im Gang was some distance away, using his Map Skill to track the situation roughly.
Being inside the Formation narrowed his range, but combining it with Ki Sensing gave him decent awareness.
‘Wow. Second Rank, but his martial prowess is insane.’
The shockwave from the Palm Strike carried all the way to his position deep in the cave.
Pressed against the wall behind him, his back resonated with the impact.
It was on a completely different level from the Second Rank fighters he’d battled in the underground arena.
‘So this is the difference between a fake and the real deal?’
Most Second Ranks in the underground arena were self-taught or barely trained pretenders.
Even those from Evil Path sects were just raw Inner Force with no discipline—all shoulder and bluster.
The local lord, by contrast, was a genuine article: trained formally in an Orthodox Path sect.
Even at the same Second Rank, they were worlds apart.
‘What would happen if I faced him head-on?’
Im Gang ran a quick simulation in his mind.
The result:
‘……I’m not confident.’
About winning.
Im Gang figured that while the Dae-mun leader might not quite reach First Rank, calling him late Second Rank wouldn’t be off the mark.
By vagrant standards, he was clearly apex predator material.
But the undefeated streak he’d built in the underground fighting pits, culminating in the title of “Second Rank Champion,” had forged real combat experience.
That experience spoke.
‘……My blood’s boiling again after so long.’
Im Gang’s mouth twisted into a grin. He’d known moments like this before, back when he was making his living as a treasure hunter. Trapped in a dungeon-scale fortress of snares, enemies closing in from all sides. It felt like he’d stepped back into his previous life.
The sensation from those days was stirring awake inside him.
‘But there’s no reason to fight head-on.’
Im Gang drew the Eun Ryeon Bi from his robes. The instant it touched his palm, cold metal sang against his skin. He pulled Inner Force up from his Dantian.
Thirty years.
He poured nearly the entirety of his current Inner Force reserves into the Eun Ryeon Bi.
The Eun Ryeon Bi’s base attack power was ten.
Injecting thirty years of Inner Force added thirty more on top.
Total attack power: forty.
By raw numbers alone, it rivaled a legendary blade wrapped in Inner Force.
And then there was this.
[Ranged Attack Enhancement and Ranged Homing Projectile skill activate.]
Two passive effects stacked together.
The projectile—the Eun Ryeon Bi—had its power amplified and homed toward the designated target.
The same technique he’d used to devastating effect in the war between the Red Stream Faction and the Black Blade Society.
The difference now was this:
His Inner Force had grown several times over, and he now held the Bi Do—the Eun Ryeon Bi—in his hand.
‘Now.’
Im Gang’s wrist moved like lightning.
Screee!
The Eun Ryeon Bi tore through the darkness and flew.
The Inner Force-infused blade sang as it split the air, but the sound was swallowed by the cave’s echoing reverberations and the murmuring of the Dae-mun crew.
And then.
“Find a way to break the Formation Technique, no matter—!”
Thunk.
The Eun Ryeon Bi lodged itself in the Dae-mun leader’s brow. His body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. No scream. Nothing.
He was dead the instant the blade struck home.
‘Ah. My stomach hurts a little.’
Perhaps because he’d poured out nearly everything save the barest remnant of Inner Force.
Im Gang felt the ache in his abdomen—specifically around his Dantian.
As the Inner Force injection increased the blade’s power, the weight distribution changed too.
The recoil traveling up his wrist was noticeably sharper than before.
Slowly, the knack for handling such a brazen volume of Inner Force—unbecoming of someone at Second Rank—was beginning to take shape.
‘Maybe I really am built for live combat?’
“……The leader! The leader’s dead! Everyone, watch the perimeter!”
“Damn it! I can’t see anything, so what am I—!”
In the chaos of panic, he pulled the invisible strand of Ki—the Ki Thread—that extended from the pommel of the Eun Ryeon Bi.
The blade lodged in the leader’s brow slipped free and returned to his hand in a smooth glide.
[Experience Points obtained. Growth achieved.]
…….
[Experience Points obtained. Growth achieved.]
Im Gang wiped the blood from the Eun Ryeon Bi across the hem of his robe and murmured.
“One kill.”
A habit from his past life—counting the ones he’d taken down.
He gazed at the confused enemies and drew in a slow, measured breath.
The hunter’s hour had begun.

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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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