Ch.154Chapter 154 – Hell (4)

“So you’ve won in the end, Kwak Tae-woo.”

“Damn you. Took you long enough to get here…”

Kwak Tae-woo spoke weakly while leaning against the corpses of the headless Behemoth and Leviathan. Shin Jae-hyuk treated Kwak Tae-woo, who had been on the verge of death, with a holy spell.

‘The spell has gotten stronger. …To think this is the power of just one person.’

Kwak Tae-woo clicked his tongue as he looked around at the terrain that had been transformed into a flat plain. While he could feel that he himself had grown stronger, Shin Jae-hyuk’s growth was at a level that even Kwak Tae-woo found hard to believe.

After recovering his physical condition somewhat, Kwak Tae-woo said:

“Now that we’ve achieved the two goals the sage mentioned, only one remains.”

“Right. To reach Heaven, we first need to find the gate to Purgatory…”

Shin Jae-hyuk and Kwak Tae-woo examined the area around the ruined Qliphoth tree. Finding the gate wasn’t particularly difficult. A golden gate had appeared in the pit that formed when the Qliphoth tree collapsed.

“Good, once we pass through this, we can leave this wretched hell and go to Purgatory…”

Just as Shin Jae-hyuk and Kwak Tae-woo were about to approach the gate, a black gate suddenly materialized beside it.

“Step back, Jae-hyuk!”

‘Could it be the Demon King?’

What unfortunate timing. Shin Jae-hyuk hurriedly prepared for battle. Perhaps the Demon King had noticed the presence of intruders due to the commotion they’d caused in Asmodeus’s territory. Fortunately, contrary to Shin Jae-hyuk’s expectation, it was Satan who emerged from the gate, not Mara Papias.

“Satan? Why are you here?”

“Jae-hyuk, Tae-woo. The plan has changed.”

Satan spoke immediately in a tone devoid of his usual playfulness. Shin Jae-hyuk sensed an ominous current in Satan’s demeanor. Trying to shake off his foreboding intuition, he asked:

“The plan changed? How?”

“Jae-hyuk will infiltrate Heaven as originally planned and destroy the ‘reservoir.’ But Tae-woo needs to go to Earth immediately.”

Kwak Tae-woo, who had just recovered from a near-death state, frowned.

“Why so suddenly?”

“There’s someone who needs to be stopped.”

“Who is it?”

“The Hero.”

***

“Jae-min? It’s been a while since we ate out. Is there anything you’d like to eat?”

On a warm afternoon, Jung Mal-sook asked her son from a scenic window seat at a famous restaurant.

“Choose whatever you want. You never want to go out to eat. Now that we’re here, we should indulge ourselves.”

“…Order whatever you’d like, Mother.”

“Come on, don’t be like that. Pick something. This is a famous restaurant. Association Chairman Hwang Hee-jong personally made the reservation for us.”

Unlike his excited mother, Kim Jae-min wasn’t in a good mood. He didn’t enjoy dining out. During his days as the Hero, half the meals he ate at restaurants had been poisoned.

Kim Jae-min slightly furrowed his brow as he watched his mother ordering food.

‘I can definitely feel the aftereffects.’

Just as the doctor had said, he could sense his ki perception being limited. His reflexes and peripheral vision also seemed slightly diminished, giving him an odd feeling.

While the situation was uncomfortable overall, Kim Jae-min could endure it. Just as he always had.

‘Mother.’

The only person in this world he could absolutely trust and depend on. The pillar that had allowed him to endure a hundred years of suffering. No matter how grueling the battles he went through, how comforting it was to know he had a home to return to.

“Oh my, it’s here already? Wow… this looks delicious. Jae-min, try some too.”

His mother’s happy smile stabilized Kim Jae-min’s mind and body. As he always felt, just being near his mother made his guard drop. It felt like becoming an ordinary child again, not having to constantly be on alert for threats to his life.

‘Yes. This is the only scenery I live for…’

***

“Coordinates confirmed.”

Adriano put the telescope to her eye after ending the radio transmission. The target was visible through the lens set to maximum magnification.

‘The face is different. But they said the identity was confirmed, so it must be some kind of artifact that interferes with recognition.’

Adriano is a criminal.

Recently, her image as an S-rank hunter has become so widespread that her origins are often obscured, but it’s well known that Adriano is the boss of a criminal cartel that would do anything for money.

Despite being a criminal, she was able to attain S-rank status because her power was that formidable. The Association arranged jobs for her to use that power for good causes. When gates appeared that couldn’t be closed by the power of a single country, they connected that country with Adriano to have her handle the gate as a problem solver.

But recently, she had incurred deficits that couldn’t be covered by mercenary work alone. The empire she had extensively invested in had collapsed, and the Lucifer subjugation mission she had participated in to cover her losses had ended in failure.

Although she had cleaned up her image by becoming a public figure and had avoided illegal activities as much as possible, these recent consecutive failures had driven Adriano back to unsavory business.

Coincidentally, a request specifically targeting her had come in. The compensation was quite substantial—enough to make up for all the losses she had suffered. For Adriano, there was no reason to refuse the request. Even if the content was somewhat dubious.

‘Assassinate Kim Jae-min… I really don’t understand what those high-ups at the Association are thinking.’

Adriano tried to grasp the client’s intentions. Ordering the assassination of a thriving hunter? No matter how much she thought about it, it didn’t make sense. Was it a case of using and discarding? Or containing a rapidly rising power?

‘The repercussions of this assassination will be no joke… Well, that’s not my concern. I just need to get paid. That’s what being a mercenary means.’

Adriano shook off her idle thoughts to complete the request. Although she still felt somewhat uneasy, she had enough motivation to carry out the mission.

Kim Jae-min, a guy who did the same gate-solving work as her. A bastard who not only stole her jobs by charging ridiculously low prices for an S-rank, but even drove down her own market value.

Adriano hadn’t forgotten the grudge against him for causing her enormous losses. Her killing intent rose along with her magical power. At an altitude of 3000 meters, beyond the reach of Kim Jae-min’s senses, a transfer gate opened.

Two transfer gates were positioned vertically toward the ground and parallel to each other. A steel ball passed through one gate. Following gravity, it fell and passed through the second gate. The steel ball that passed through the gate emerged from the first gate again and fell into the second gate.

Each time it passed through the two parallel gates, the steel ball accelerated. The bullet, propelled by gravitational acceleration, continuously accelerated on an infinite runway.

Finally, when the bullet’s speed reached the limit Adriano could control, she removed the acceleration gates and muttered:

“A sucker who doesn’t understand the law of supply and demand. This is all your karma.”

***

“Oh dear, Jae-min. Why don’t you have any appetite? My goodness, mom will have to feed you.”

Jung Mal-sook was enjoying her time with her son. It felt like she was being rewarded for the past 10 years she had spent anxiously searching for her missing son.

Her son claimed he had been kidnapped and forced to work as a slave on an island, but Mal-sook didn’t believe that. If he had merely been overworked as a laborer for 10 years, he wouldn’t have adapted so quickly to the suddenly changed world.

However, since Kim Jae-min seemed to dislike talking about his past, Mal-sook went along with the lie and respected her son’s wishes.

“Are you still a picky eater? I still remember how much you used to throw tantrums about not eating vegetables in elementary school.”

“That was so long ago…”

Mal-sook served food to her son, who was picking at his meal. Amidst the unfamiliar atmosphere, she could find glimpses of the familiar figure from her memories.

During the 10 years of his disappearance, Mal-sook had no idea what had happened to her son. She didn’t know how the boy who loved playing computer games at home had become so cold, why he showed paranoid vigilance toward people, or where he had learned magical abilities and deadly martial arts. She knew nothing.

People saw in the cool and skilled Kim Jae-min the image of a reliable veteran hunter. But as a mother who cherished her son more than anyone, Mal-sook saw a different side to him.

Not the hero everyone relied on and admired, but a lonely and frightened child in an unfamiliar environment. Despite his outwardly strong appearance, Mal-sook saw in her son a precarious and fragile inner self.

She couldn’t imagine what terrible things he had experienced. But like any mother, Mal-sook couldn’t abandon her wounded child. She was determined to understand and embrace everything with her warm love.

Mal-sook smiled as she looked at her son.

“Son, you know mom always loves you, right?”

“…Yes. I love you t—”

And then everything happened in an instant.

A bullet fired at 33 km per second pierced through the clouds and fell. Without even giving time for a sonic boom to form, the bullet reached its designated coordinates.

Kim Jae-min failed to notice the sniper’s presence. In his state of impaired senses due to aftereffects, there was no way for Kim Jae-min to detect Adriano’s stealthy strike.

Therefore, what happened next can only be explained as pure coincidence. It could have been Adriano’s mistake, the effect of a sudden gust of wind, or the influence of an obstacle in its path.

The steel bullet, with its trajectory slightly twisted, penetrated the window like a beam of light and invaded the restaurant. Only upon hearing the sound of breaking glass did Kim Jae-min belatedly sense the danger, and his consciousness accelerated. Even in the slowed-down world, the bullet was too fast. The bullet flew, leaving a faint afterimage.

Even Kim Jae-min had difficulty perceiving the bullet’s movement, but anyone could see the result.

The bullet struck directly one meter away from its intended target.

Kim Jae-min’s pupils dilated.

‘No.’

Flesh scattered. The spoon that had been reaching toward Kim Jae-min lost its supporting force and collapsed. The wooden table, stone floor, and glass fragments scattered like fireworks. Brain matter and blood splattered onto Kim Jae-min’s clothes.

‘No.’

At this moment, his excellent peripheral vision was too much of a curse. In the slowed-down world, the result of the sniping was observed with excruciating clarity. The shattered skull, the crushed brain fragments, the protruding eyeball. And beneath it all, a smile that hadn’t even had time to fade.

He wished he didn’t know. It was Kim Jae-min’s misfortune to know the owner of that smile.

‘Ah. That smile alone would have been enough.’

***

“Kyaaaah! Murder!!”

“Wh-what’s happening? Murder? Huh- ugh…”

Hearing the commotion, the staff arrived belatedly. At the gruesome murder scene, some screamed while others retched. Amid the eruption of shock and horror, only one man stood still.

“W-wait! Let me through! I’m a doctor! Please make way!”

Apparently, there was a doctor among the customers, as a middle-aged man urgently pushed through the crowd. These days, with well-developed potions and medical techniques, most external injuries could be healed if treated within the golden time.

‘This is…’

However, the middle-aged doctor’s face hardened as soon as he saw the corpse, rendering his effort to push through the crowd futile. The head was crushed as if it had been hit directly by a blunt hammer. It was an instantaneous death with no chance of survival.

Soon after, the gazes of those who had confirmed the death turned to the man standing blankly. The presumed murderer. Hostile gazes converged on the man’s face.

“Is that man the murderer?”

“Who is he? He looks familiar…”

The initially fearful and hostile gazes of the people quickly changed. Someone recognized the man’s identity and shouted:

“That person… isn’t that Hunter Kim Jae-min?”

“Oh, really Kim Jae-min? Wow.”

“Whoa, crazy! I-I’m a fan! Just one photo, please!”

People forgot they were at a murder scene and became excited as if a top star had appeared. Despite his popularity, Kim Jae-min rarely appeared in public. People behaved as if an impromptu fan meeting had been organized, cheering noisily. Even as some staff tried to control the scene, the people’s fervent interest didn’t subside.

At the center of this almost manic commotion, Kim Jae-min remained quiet. A gloomy aura swirled in his unfocused eyes, as if his consciousness had shut down.

The doctor, who had been closely observing Kim Jae-min’s expression, said gravely:

“Wait, those symptoms… they look like PTSD…”

The next moment, light gathered in the former hero’s hand. That light was black.