#83
It was a red mark on the right side of Ha-seong’s neck. As soon as he saw it, Do-hyeok’s brow furrowed sharply. It was a bit blurred but definitely looked like a wound. Do-hyeok immediately reached out his hand.
“What is this?”
Then he felt Ha-seong flinch and shrink back through his fingertips. Could it be painful?
“What is this?”
“Aren’t you hurt?”
“Really now.”
Then Ha-seong chuckled as if it were ridiculous and moved away from Do-hyeok’s hand.
“Well, I am hurt, but this was done by someone else.”
“Who.”
Do-hyeok’s momentum was becoming even more menacing than before. But Ha-seong seemed to have no intention of telling, just dismissing it by saying there was some great hunter somewhere.
Do-hyeok couldn’t fathom who could have injured him enough to leave such marks on his neck, which even had vital points. Moreover, a hunter… But Ha-seong just turned his head as if he wouldn’t tell.
“Excuse me.”
Then another shadow fell behind them. Yoon Woo-bin approached the two, scratching his head as if troubled.
“I don’t really want to interrupt your conversation, but I was wondering how long you’d stand there like that.”
Then Woo-bin looked at Do-hyeok and gestured for him to close the door and come in. Ha-seong, having finished what he had to say, slipped inside while avoiding Do-hyeok’s gaze that seemed to want to ask more questions.
“That guy.”
As soon as Do-hyeok entered, he felt the humid air and first took off his jacket and hung it on a chair. For such a small door, the interior was quite spacious. The place where Do-hyeok and Woo-bin were now seemed to have been used as an office in the past, with an old metal table and chairs in the center and what looked like a bookshelf on the side.
Another feature of this room was that the opposite wall was made of glass windows. Like the interrogation rooms commonly seen in movies and dramas.
“Inside.”
Woo-bin pointed beyond the window. When Do-hyeok shifted his gaze there, he could see one unfamiliar person sitting.
“But there really was one. An interrogation room like this in the eastern building.”
“Yeah. Most of the staff probably don’t know about it.”
Woo-bin explained that since it was a space formerly used by soldiers, having an interrogation room like this was perhaps natural.
“Did you read all the materials I sent you then?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, then let’s go in. We need to reveal it now. What the truth is.”
Woo-bin opened the inner door first and went in. Do-hyeok stared impassively at the person beyond the window. Was that guy really the true culprit who caused the incident 10 years ago? Was he really the one who simultaneously opened gates throughout South Korea and drove the country to the brink of extinction?
Was he the one who took away the fulfilling heart he had felt for the first time?
Do-hyeok unconsciously clenched his fist.
“Hey, Cha Do-hyeok.”
That’s when it happened. Just when Do-hyeok’s pupils were gradually starting to empty, Ha-seong opened the door and poked his head out slightly.
“Hurry up and come in.”
“…Yes.”
* * *
The outer space was wider than expected, but the inside was definitely on the narrow side. Whether it was really an interrogation room, the interior lighting was somewhat dim and there was nothing but simple desks and chairs.
“……”
And Do-hyeok slowly looked over the man sitting in the center of that room. A swarthy face and short sports hair. His eyes were sharp and gave off a sturdy feeling, and his impression itself looked cold.
“Are you Baek Sa-jin, son of Baek Seong-hyeon?”
“…To think you know my father’s name, you really do know everything and came to catch me. By the way, I seem to only encounter surprising faces since coming here. Yoon Woo-bin from the management bureau and the Nameless guild leader.”
Baek Sa-jin’s low, sunken voice echoed leisurely. It wasn’t a proper answer to the question asking if he was the person, but it didn’t matter anyway. Since he was brought here, that guy would definitely be the culprit who caused this series of murders and the son of Baek Seong-hyeon, who once was very active in the military unit Sparrowhawk – Baek Sa-jin.
“But I still don’t understand about that man.”
Baek Sa-jin slowly turned his head and stared at Ha-seong sitting in a chair next to the entrance.
“I told you. I’m just an unemployed bum.”
“Could a mere unemployed bum do something like this?”
Baek tapped his temple. The area hit by Ha-seong’s skill had swollen and turned black and blue with bruises.
“Losers talk a lot.”
At Ha-seong’s blunt words, Baek Sa-jin’s gaze looking him over narrowed strangely. Though he had seen Do Ha-seong’s bare face after being dragged here and having his mask removed, it was certain he was still not in his data. But as soon as he glanced briefly, Cha Do-hyeok’s legs came into view. He blocked Do Ha-seong’s front and made eye contact with Baek Sa-jin again.
“My questions aren’t finished yet.”
“……”
“Are you the one who committed two murder cases and tried to kill my guild member?”
Do-hyeok sat across from Baek Sa-jin. And Woo-bin also sat next to him with files containing materials.
“That’s right. I killed two hunters and tried to kill a Nameless hunter but failed. But I’m curious too. How did you know I was targeting Lee Seung-woo from Nameless?”
Baek Sa-jin had been curious all along. How could that person who called himself an unemployed bum set a trap there and catch him?
While doing such things, he had naturally imagined the end several times. Wouldn’t the management bureau and police who figured out his existence someday raid his hideout? He had thought about this several times while blankly looking around the shabby, old container box.
So this was a situation he couldn’t even imagine in all those thoughts. He had no idea his tail would be caught at the crime scene, before he could even properly realize his plan.
At Baek Sa-jin’s question, Do-hyeok and Woo-bin naturally turned their heads to look at Ha-seong.
* * *
“Let’s go catch the culprit of the hunter murder case.”
Ha-seong waved his phone in front of Do-hyeok. Do-hyeok, who had thought he was going to get hit, relaxed his body and took Ha-seong’s phone.
“This is…”
On one place on the map displayed on the screen, several red dots were marked. It seemed to show the locations where a specific person had stayed, and those locations looked strangely familiar.
“Isn’t this around Lee Seung-woo’s house?”
“Right. And it’s also the third target of that damn murderous bastard.”
Ha-seong’s atmosphere strangely changed. His cold voice and expression. Plus the curses he spat out. Seeing that, if he bluntly said he looked sexy, he might really get punched by Do Ha-seong this time.
“Lee Seung-woo is a target?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you know that?”
Ha-seong seemed to think he needed to explain first and sat back down on the sofa. Do-hyeok read the mood and quietly came to sit beside him.
“That day, the day we ate together, Woo-bin-ssi said so. That the next target might come from Nameless.”
Do-hyeok nodded. It was an annoying thing to believe, but anyway, as long as there was even a slight possibility, he couldn’t just sit and watch. Do-hyeok had subtly conveyed to guild members to be careful when going around, trying not to make it obvious, but the free-spirited guys in their prime just laughed heartily and casually brushed off his words.
“Originally, guys like this tend to have patterns.”
“Patterns?”
“Yeah. Even when you watch movies, serial killers only kill specific people. They target only people with specific jobs, or kill only people of specific ages.”
“…What kind of movies are you watching alone?”
Then Ha-seong snapped “be quiet” and continued his story.
“I thought this case was simply targeting hunters too, but I figured there must be some pattern.”
First was Kang Seong-hyeon from the 3rd-ranked guild Myeongwol. Next was Yoo Su-bin from the 2nd-ranked guild Heukcheon. And what Yoon Woo-bin had specified was also a guild member from the 1st-ranked guild Nameless.
“Thinking about it, Kang Seong-hyeon and Yoo Su-bin had something in common. Can you guess what?”
“……”
Do-hyeok fell into thought for a moment. A common point – what could it be? The two people had nothing overlapping in terms of gender or hunter rankings. As Do-hyeok pondered deeply, a spark briefly flashed in his mind.
“Hunters who haven’t been in their guilds for long.”
“Right.”
Ha-seong clapped like a teacher praising a student who got the right answer.
“Kang Seong-hyeon was a hunter with some experience, but he had been moving between medium-sized guilds and joined Myeongwol just a few months before the incident. Yoo Su-bin was also what Woo-bin-ssi told me – a newcomer who hadn’t been a hunter for long but was immediately scouted by Heukcheon.”
Hearing it, it was exactly as he said. Both Kang Seong-hyeon and Yoo Su-bin were hunters who hadn’t been in their respective guilds for long at the time of the incident, regardless of their hunter experience.
“If it’s as you say, hyung, why specifically? Because they’re easy targets?”
But if that were the case, Kang Seong-hyeon wouldn’t apply. While Yoo Su-bin could be considered a newcomer with short experience, Kang Seong-hyeon was an experienced professional who even had his name on rankings.
“Rather than that, I think he was concerned about the bond with the guild. Think about it. If you kill someone who’s been affiliated with a guild for a long time or has been involved to some degree, what kind of reaction do you think the other guild members would show?”
Hunters were people who constantly went between life and death. They didn’t know what monsters they’d encounter in dungeons or what incidents would occur. Due to such unknown events, they could easily lose their lives. Therefore, hunters had closer bonds with people belonging to the same organization – that is, fellow guild members – than other organizations.
Myeongwol’s bond was particularly outstanding, but other guilds weren’t falling behind. Everyone usually thought of guild members who faced danger every time as life companions and family. Naturally, the longer one stayed in a guild, the stronger the bond with other guild members would be. If such a hunter was targeted, as Ha-seong said, it could invite greater backlash and resistance from that guild.
“Well, I’m not saying that guild members don’t particularly care much just because the victimized hunter was a newcomer who hadn’t been there long.”
In fact, Myeongwol’s guild members had made a fuss as if they would rise up immediately after Kang Seong-hyeon died, which Baek Han-bit had told Cha Do-hyeok, and Cha Do-hyeok had told Do Ha-seong.
“However, I think the guy wanted to reduce even the slightest risk to himself while doing the tremendous act of killing hunters.”
It was definitely a reasonable point. Since both Kang Seong-hyeon and Yoo Su-bin were actually hunters who hadn’t been in their respective guilds for long, this added even more credibility to his words.
“Then according to that, Lee Seung-woo being the third also fits.”
“Right?”
Lee Seung-woo was the same as Yoo Su-bin from Heukcheon. A newcomer who had just become a hunter and the youngest in Nameless. Applying the formula from the previous two cases, the target could be easily narrowed down. But Do-hyeok still had a doubtful expression. Perhaps noticing this, Ha-seong spoke again.
“And what made me definitively certain was when I found out what skills Lee Seung-woo mainly uses.”
“Skills?”
“Turns out Lee Seung-woo uses support-type skills more often than combat-type skills.”
Ha-seong seemed to have found out various things from Lee Seung-woo using eating together as bait.
“That’s right. He’s probably in a support position rather than a tanker within the team.”
“Kang Seong-hyeon and Yoo Su-bin were the same.”
When he asked Woo-bin just in case, the answer came back that both of them, like Lee Seung-woo, weren’t in combat-specialized positions.
“From the culprit’s perspective, I think he chose targets he could easily kill while targeting hunters.”
For instance, if he had targeted hunters specialized only in combat like Do-hyeok or Ha-seong, the risk the culprit would have to bear would be greater.
“That makes sense.”
At Ha-seong’s supplementary explanation, Do-hyeok gradually nodded. Certainly, if that were the case, Lee Seung-woo would definitely have been a very appropriate target for the culprit.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
