The S-Rank Warden Devours the Academy - Chapter 47

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 47

Pitter-patter.
Red rain soaked Sa Hyeon’s shoulders.
He narrowed his eyes, staring at the empty Quest Window.
Normally, when you entered a Gate, a Quest would appear as a waypoint.
But if it’s blank, that means someone deliberately hid it.
‘There has to be a way to unlock it.’
Sa Hyeon cleared his throat and surveyed the field with a broad gaze.
His eyes stopped in one place.
Lee Won collapsed on the rooftop floor.
“Quite the S-Rank specimen.”
Sa Hyeon moved forward slowly.
Lee Won was taking the full brunt of a Mental-Type Debuff.
He didn’t need to look closely to know what state Lee Won was in.
This rain targeted the subject’s weakest link.
Much like the skill Sa Hyeon used during interrogations.
Even now, each raindrop that touched his skin hunted for an opening to shatter his mind.
Beneath Lee Won’s closed eyelids, the faint tremor of his pupils was visible.
‘He’d probably wake on his own if I left him…’
But searching the building alone would be less efficient than having two heads work on it.
He examined the rooftop carefully.
An Emergency Exit entrance stood prominent in the center.
He grabbed one of Lee Won’s feet and dragged him toward the Exit.
As he pushed through the Emergency Exit door, the rain streaming against his skin stopped.
Thud.
He released Lee Won’s foot without hesitation.
The closed eyelids twitched in spasm.
“He’ll be awake in about five minutes.”
But Sa Hyeon wasn’t in the mood to wait.
He could wake him with a skill, but against an opponent of this caliber, it would just be wasting energy.
Sa Hyeon deliberated for a moment, then extended a hand fitted with Leather Gloves.
He brought a finger close to Lee Won’s forehead.
Sa Hyeon curled his thumb and middle finger.
An S-Rank would have a skull just as hard.
He put more force into it than usual.
Snap!
Then flicked his middle finger straight.
A sharp crack echoed out, like solid wood splintering.
“…!”
Lee Won gasped sharply, his eyes flying open.
He pushed himself up with a dazed expression, rubbing his forehead.
“…The Interrogator?”
Sa Hyeon’s mouth curved upward in a smile.
“It’s always effective.”

* * *

Minutes earlier, Lee Won opened his eyes in darkness.
‘Am I inside the Gate?’
He tried to move his body, but his arms and legs wouldn’t respond.
As if bound by chains—utterly immobile.
The moment he struggled against the restraints.

—…brother…. I’m scared….—

“!”
A frightened voice drifting up from below.
Pictures began to paint themselves across Lee Won’s darkened vision, as if someone were brushing watercolors onto a black canvas.
An orange sunset, crumbled buildings. Beneath them, a small child pinned down by debris, unable to move.
Lee Won’s Younger Brother.
Another image spread rapidly across the black background.

—…It’s okay. Just wait a little longer. The rescue team will come.

Young Lee Won, dressed in a school uniform.
His lower body was crushed beneath the collapsed ceiling.
Lee Won understood immediately.
‘…Damn. I’ve been hit by a Hallucination Skill.’
He had to break free.
He tensed his limbs, straining against the invisible bonds.
Pop, crack-crack-crack.
The restraints grew progressively looser.
The harder Lee Won pushed, the more ferociously the visions assailed him.
The sunset vanished. His breathing grew shallow….
Lee Won bit down hard on his lips.
Desperation and urgency, terror and guilt.
The emotions of that day rushed through him in waves.
Just as helplessness and resignation began to consume him—
Crash!
The rubble crushing the two children lifted as if it weighed nothing at all.
Above it, superimposed, the silhouette of a Black-Hooded Figure.
The only Hunter who had come to save them.
The single moment that had turned Lee Won’s entire life around.
Even within the hallucination, the figure remained blurred, indistinct.
‘…No. I can’t just lie here and lose myself.’
Lee Won clenched his teeth hard.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!
At last, the bonds constricting his wrists shattered completely.
Bang!
A sudden, jarring impact rattled his skull.
His eyes snapped open.

* * *

“—Gasp!”
The hallucination shattered into pieces.
Lee Won gasped sharply and lurched upright.
Red raindrops rolled down his face, which was slick with cold sweat.
And the first thing he saw was….
“…An Interrogator?”
A shadowed face.
For a moment, it overlapped with the silhouette he’d glimpsed within the hallucination.
“Pretty effective, isn’t it.”
Sa Hyeon smiled faintly and straightened the knee he’d been bending.
“I’m on leave at the moment. Call me Yeom Sa Hyeon.”
‘Yeom Sa Hyeon? Is that his real name?’
Lee Won turned the unfamiliar name over in his mind.
Then he suddenly became aware of the hot throbbing in his forehead and snapped to attention.
“…Did you wake me up by hitting me?”
“Yeah.”
At Sa Hyeon’s blunt admission, Lee Won exhaled in exasperation.
“…There was no need for such a crude method. I would have broken free on my own.”
“Hardly. You could’ve laid there while the monsters trampled right over you and never noticed.”
…….
“For the Ranking’s top player, you’re pretty useless, aren’t you.”
‘…Useless?’
Lee Won stared at him in bewilderment—he’d never heard that particular descriptor applied to himself since his Awakening.
Sa Hyeon casually brushed aside the reaction and shifted the subject without hesitation.
“That’s not what matters right now, anyway.”
……
Of course the one who’d struck him would see it that way.
‘Should I be grateful he didn’t just leave me here?’
Lee Won rubbed his aching forehead and pushed himself up, when Sa Hyeon gestured toward empty air.
“Look.”
“…! The Quest Window — why…?”
Only then did Lee Won notice the blank space in the Quest Window.
Inside a Gate, anything could happen without raising eyebrows.
Yet even Lee Won, who’d navigated countless Gates, had never seen anything like this.
“The Quest information is completely blocked?”
“As you can see.”
“…This is my first time. It’s going to be difficult to determine a strategy without knowing what we’re dealing with.”
“Difficult? The objective’s still the same, isn’t it?”
Sa Hyeon answered lightly.
Eliminate the Boss.
Besides, Sa Hyeon’s reason for entering this place had been singular from the start.
Finding the Red Fragment that had been sucked in here.
Creak, creak.
That was when it happened.
Sounds of movement echoed up from below the iron stairs.
Sa Hyeon and Lee Won both tensed simultaneously.
A Monster? Lee Won’s hand moved to the hilt of his sword.
“Is anyone there?”
An unfamiliar voice rang out through the stairwell.
A person? Lee Won loosened his grip on the blade slightly.
Footsteps ascending the stairs.
Sa Hyeon tilted his head and watched silently.
“Ah…!”
A young man who looked to be in his early twenties emerged into view.
He climbed the stairs with a relieved expression.
“So there are others caught up in this as well. Besides us….”
The moment before he set foot on the rooftop where the two stood.
A sharp whoosh — and a vicious crack!
Sa Hyeon kicked him without hesitation.
With a sound that split the air, the young man flew backward and crashed into the wall with a thunderous impact.
“…!!”
Lee Won’s eyes widened in shock.
“What in the world are you doing?!”
“What do you think?”
Sa Hyeon’s voice was chillingly calm.
Whatever rumors circulated about Interrogators, he never expected anything quite so brutally direct.
Lee Won exhaled sharply.
“Look closely. See what that is?”
Sa Hyeon pointed with his chin toward where the man had been sent flying.
Lee Won’s gaze followed.
“…!”
The shadow that had been embedded in the wall was warping.
Like the red rain that had scattered from the rooftop, it dripped into a thick, viscous liquid.
Then it bubbled with a nauseating hiss, and within moments, it evaporated into murky vapor.
Sa Hyeon spoke matter-of-factly.
“Contact it and you’d probably be contaminated outright. I don’t have to worry since I have Mental-Type Immunity, but…”
……
He’d saved Lee Won from becoming a Monster, and now this was the thanks he was getting.
“…I see. Thanks to you, we avoided a disaster.”
Lee Won let out a faint sigh before continuing.
“Still, it needed confirming. What if that really was a civilian caught up in the Gate by accident?”
“But it wasn’t, so what?”
“…Right.”
Lee Won found himself at a loss for words at Sa Hyeon’s curt, unruffled reply.
It had to be a mistake on his part.
There was no way such a ruthless, self-serving figure could be the same person he’d known.
Lee Won was withdrawing his gaze, his eyes hollow, when it happened.
Screech, crackle—!
The system window floating in mid-air erupted with violent noise.
Then, moments later.
A portion of the empty space began slowly coming into view.

[Defeat monsters.]
[B-Rank or higher monsters 1/5,000]

“…Five thousand?”
Bewilderment colored Lee Won’s voice.
Even in what were considered high-tier Gates, subjugation counts rarely exceeded a thousand.
But five thousand B-Rank or higher monsters?
It defied all logic.
Sa Hyeon, by contrast, let the corners of his mouth curl upward.
A monster that had evaporated like liquid. And a quest that had come to him only afterward.
“So this is the kind they hand-tailor for you?”
Sa Hyeon let out a soft murmur of admiration.
Now I know what to do….
“Let me find a suitable place.”
This cramped space wouldn’t work for five thousand monsters.
Sa Hyeon swept his gaze over the narrow Emergency Exit and moved forward.
“…! Where are you going alone, Sa Hyeon?”
“Each of us does what we need to do, yeah?”
Should’ve just left them sprawled on the Rooftop.
Sa Hyeon turned downward, his face plainly showing annoyance.
“…Given the number of monsters involved, wouldn’t it be better if we acted together?”
Do as you like.
Sa Hyeon shrugged, and Lee Won followed reluctantly, as if he too wasn’t keen on the arrangement.
They descended the stairs, pushed through the blue door that creaked on its hinges, and stepped inside….
“Perfect.”
Sa Hyeon offered a brief assessment.
The Factory Interior yawned open at its center, with railings and catwalks installed along the walls.
And.
“That’s….”
Lee Won’s gaze came to a halt as he followed Sa Hyeon in.
A massive Tank rose before them, easily two stories tall.
Inside it, the red rain that had fallen from the Rooftop mingled with the same strange liquid that had spilled from the monster’s corpse, churning and swaying in a vast, viscous pool.
“Found the material.”
Sa Hyeon descended the straight staircase without hesitation.
He peeled off his Leather Gloves as he strode purposefully toward the Tank.
“A hundred or so for a taste should do, right?”
“…Pardon? What are you saying?”
Lee Won voiced his confusion at the sudden remark.
But Sa Hyeon, as though he had no intention of answering, placed his bare hand on the Tank’s surface.
“Wait—if you touch it like that without thinking—”
Just as Lee Won tried to stop him, the ash-grey pupils reflected in the Tank’s surface began staining a deep, dark crimson.

[The ‘Whispers of the Dead (S)’ skill has been activated!]

In that instant.
Glug-glug—
“!”
Lee Won’s head snapped upward.
The liquid in the Tank began churning violently, as if seized by madness.
Sa Hyeon’s pupils, meanwhile, had returned to their ordinary ash-grey. As he withdrew his hand from the Tank and stepped back slowly, Lee Won instinctively backed away as well.
The liquid swelled to the brink of overflow, transformed into something gelatinous, and cascaded out of the Tank.
Screech, screeeech—
The red liquid pooled on the floor twisted grotesquely.
With a wet, bubbling sound, it gradually transformed into a human shape.
It was a bizarre form—no hair, no face.
“…So they do reshape themselves into human form.”
Lee Won narrowed his brow with instinctive revulsion and pulled the Black Bracelet from his Inventory.
An A-Rank Mental-Type Immunity item.
It defended against mental corruption, just as it had protected him from the red rain moments before.
It came from the emergency kit, so there was only one, but….
‘…The Interrogator should have innate Mental-Type Immunity anyway, so he won’t need it.’
Lee Won turned his gaze toward Sa Hyeon.
“Disgustingly repulsive stuff.”
He watched with casual composure as the Monsters gradually molded their features into place, his expression twisted in distaste.
It was just as Lee Won relaxed and fastened the item around his wrist.
Ping.
Without warning, the Quest Window chimed.
Both Sa Hyeon’s and Lee Won’s eyes snapped toward the floating window in mid-air.
An empty slot was slowly filling in.

[! ‘Mental-Type Immunity’ is restricted.]

“…! Wait, right now—this…”
Lee Won’s eyes widened as he spun back to Sa Hyeon.
“That was aimed at you, wasn’t it?”
The debuff had appeared the instant Sa Hyeon touched the Tank with his Mental-Type skill, as if they’d been waiting for it.
It was too perfectly timed to be coincidence.
Sa Hyeon twisted his mouth and let out a dry laugh.
“These bastards….”
They sure know how to thrash around.

S-Rank Interrogator Devours the Academy 47

Author
Baek Ru-ga
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yun Tae-ri
Cover Design
Tong

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260512043.0048

ⓒ2026, Baek Ru-ga

※ This electronic book is protected under the copyright laws of the Republic of Korea.
Without permission from the author and publisher, no part or whole of this work may be adapted, modified, or reproduced in any form.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————