Chapter 36 : Famous(2)

‘This is just my personal opinion, but I think all those blond, tanned guys who appear in romance comics or novels should die.’

‘Not just die, they should be torn limb from limb.’

If such a character appears in a story about an ordinary male lead and female lead falling sweetly in love – nine times out of ten, their

purpose is predetermined.

But I never wished for something like that to happen in reality.

Besides, the male victim in this incident only looked like a blond, tanned man on the outside; fundamentally, he was someone who believed

in pure love.

The photos the men in suits showed me, taken from various angles inside the room, were truly gruesome.

A liquid dyed the white wallpaper red.

Anyone could tell it was human blood.

And it had been scattered by the perpetrator using some method.

The intention behind bothering to scatter the blood was easy to guess.

The perpetrator, holding a grudge against the victim, must have deliberately made such a mess to shock the victim’s closest friend, her.

“…My goodness.”

“And recently, a video was uploaded to a video site and then set to private. Please watch.”

Leaving burning or half-destroyed tall buildings behind, the woman captured on the blurry screen stood in the middle of a four-lane road,

crossing swords with naked men.

-Hiiik! I don’t want to die!

-You monster… I didn’t do anything!

However, the closer I looked, it was clear one side was overwhelmingly disadvantaged, far from an equal sword fight.

Beyond disadvantage, it was a one-sided massacre reminiscent of a fight between a child and a professional fighter.

Fingers and toes were cut off one by one, and the men, swinging their blunted limbs with despairing expressions, unable to grab anything,

met their ends one after another.

Completely naked, with all limbs severed, resembling slaughtered livestock.

Gushing fountains of blood from every orifice of their bodies while their limbs were cut off, the men died screaming in endless agony.

Even users with superhuman physical abilities couldn’t possibly withstand that amount of blood loss.

The woman on screen, who had just committed acts cruel enough to make the demons of the Bible shake their heads, remained

expressionless throughout, just as she had from the beginning of the video.

Like a broken doll.

“You recognize that face, don’t you?”

“…I do. Very well. Where was this video taken?”

“It was filmed in Busan, at the intersection near the Hillstate apartment complex. As you might have guessed from this video, the proposal we

are requesting from you, Ms. Gyeoul, is-“

I dragged Yejin, Yerim, and even Hyewon, who had been lounging around at my place, and flew to the coast of Busan.

The weather happened to be clear, so the feeling of flying through the sky was amazing.

Not having to deal with traffic jams coming down from the metropolitan area to Busan – surely, Mage is the class of true noble users.

However, the excited mood, like going on a picnic, quickly subsided upon arriving in Busan.

“…I expected it, but sure enough, the whole place is a mess.”

After the ‘Hell Peninsula Annihilation Incident’ I caused last time, the extremist faction here had weakened considerably, so the military and

moderate users had already occupied the main strategic points.

Nevertheless, traces of the battles between the moderate-military coalition forces and the extremist users still remained, clearly showing the

devastating aftermath.

Roads with huge holes exposing water pipes, half-destroyed houses with their interiors fully visible, and apartment buildings without a single

intact window pane, etc.

Even though we claimed neutrality between the extremist and moderate factions, witnessing firsthand the tall skyscrapers of Busan, a

developed city I had often seen, now broken in half was a bit shocking.

“The situation is much worse than what we saw in the video. It feels like we’ve come to another country or entered a movie.”

“Right… This isn’t the Busan I knew anymore.”

I inwardly agreed with Hyewon’s assessment.

The current state of Busan felt like watching scenes from African countries undergoing civil war, as seen on the news.

It also felt like something out of a foreign disaster movie.

“Still, it’s fortunate that the casualties are almost nonexistent compared to the property damage.”

“It probably means that extremists who abandoned even basic decency towards civilians, like those [Hell Peninsula] guys, have almost

disappeared, at least within the country.”

“It’s all thanks to you, Oppa. Most of those types operated with support from high-level users belonging to [Hell Peninsula], but someone

wiped out the entire guild…”

Listening to Yejin and Yerim’s back-and-forth, I landed the three of them at the location where the video shown by the government agents

was filmed.

The road was a mess with bloodstains that had turned brown over time.

Fortunately, the bodies seemed to have been cleared away by someone, as they were nowhere to be seen.

“The location where that video I showed you was filmed is right here. We’ll start searching in expanding circles centered on this intersection.”

I paused for a moment and handed Hyewon the documents I had prepared.

It was the information I remembered about the user ‘MaxLevelRabbitPrincess’.

To cast a search spell, information about the target is needed, and I had memorized most of the necessary details.

Even the unnecessarily specific parts.

Know thyself, know thy enemy, and you shall win a hundred battles – knowing your opponent is the way to seize victory.

As a Mage, especially an Elementalist, a bottom-tier PvP character, putting effort into understanding competitors was a matter of course to

rank high.

I never thought the PvP knowledge I’d accumulated would be useful for this kind of search magic, but hey, good is good.

Hyewon scanned the file I handed her, then frowned and opened her mouth.

“Race is Rabbit beastkin… Gender is female. These two things I knew already since she’s famous… but how on earth do you know her level,

stats, and skill levels? You even know her weapon mastery level and charm stat? Have you perhaps hacked her account before…”

“It’s information I deduced by analyzing videos of her competing in tournaments or by fighting her directly. They are figures easily obtainable

by considering all variables like damage taken, skill levels, coefficients, stance bonuses, weapon mastery, target’s defense, traits, and passive

skills. Most of it is probably accurate.”

It was originally a simple calculation that took less than a few dozen minutes, but after my body changed into a dragonkin, I became capable

of performing such damage calculations, and inversely calculating the opponent’s stats from those damage numbers, through mental

arithmetic in tens of seconds, or even just a few seconds.

It wasn’t particularly difficult, so I answered casually and was about to continue the explanation when I faintly heard Hyewon muttering

something.

“…I thought you were the most normal one out of the three… I didn’t know you had such a perverted side…”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing at all!”

“…Anyway, to continue explaining what we need to do-“

To summarize my lengthy explanation, as I said earlier, we would search in expanding circles from this intersection, and for a thorough

search, we would split into two teams.

Naturally, each team needed to include one Mage class user capable of using search magic, so I had to struggle to peel off Hyewon, who was

trying to stick to me.

“So, you and I are destined to be separated until this job is over-“

“I definitely didn’t hear anything like that! Me, on a team with that crazy woman?! This job isn’t even essential for me in the first place, I

won’t take the money, so I’ll just head back-“

“Alright, alright, stop trying to run away… Team up with Yerim. I’ll take Yewon. Okay? If you complain any further… I’ll have no choice but to

force you into the same team as Yejin.”

Grabbing the collar of her clothes as she was about to fly off towards my house, I proposed the alternative.

Hyewon glanced at Yerim’s gentle face for a moment, then reluctantly nodded.

“Fine. I’ll do it. But make sure you give me the promised money. Got it? If you don’t, I’ll curse you for life with a succubus’s curse that makes

you get horny whenever you see a demonkin or a man.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Cute-ignoring Hyewon, who was threatening me with a vaguely scary curse, I called Yerim and Yejin over to form the teams.

As previously discussed, my proposal led to Yejin and I forming one team, and Hyewon and Yerim forming the other.

This was based on my judgment that a proper search would be impossible if Hyewon and Yejin were left alone together.

As easily seen from her horrified reaction just now, Hyewon strongly dislikes Yejin.

There was no option other than me taking Yejin.

After splitting into pairs, I gave a briefing for contingency to the two who would be separated from me.

“If you encounter extremist users, contact me via communication magic. Calling is fine too. If a fight breaks out before we can provide

support, try to capture the opponent alive if possible, but if it becomes too troublesome, you can kill them. Most extremists are criminals

who’ve committed serious offenses anyway. The higher-ups said they’d cover up any ‘unavoidable accidents’ during the operation. However,

if it’s an ordinary citizen, just knock them out or subdue them appropriately and contact us.”

“Yes!”

“Okay…”