Ch.7777. What’s This Now

“We shall all be together. Live today and die tomorrow~ Bury your shrinking smile deep in your heart~”

A dark back alley.

A scruffy-looking gang member hummed.

The mask covering the lower half of his face filtered his voice.

A lizardman patrolling alongside him complained.

“Do you have to sing that song here?”

“Why? What’s the problem?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Is it because of the next lyrics? Don’t tell me you actually believe in ghosts?”

“They do exist!”

“Sure, whatever you say~”

The scruffy gang member replied with a snicker.

Ghosts?

As if such things existed. It’s all lies made up by exorcists to make money.

This was the thinking of a man who had never seen a ghost in his entire life.

But the lizardman pressing him thought differently.

“Hey, you can say that because you grew up in a middle-class home with a roof. They get exorcised regularly. In the slums, they appear at least once a year!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The man snickered and hummed the next verse, as if teasing his companion.

“The boogeyman will come in the twilight dusk~ He’ll slit your throat with a rusty knife~ In the early evening~ Stuff you in a sack and throw you in the sea~ Late at night~ An empty ship will enter the harbor~ Early in the morning~”

“Please! Stop it…”

The lizardman who had been holding back finally exploded.

That’s when it happened.

[It’s an assassin! The boss is down!]

“”?!””

The man and the lizardman’s eyes met.

What is this?

He thought it might be an out-of-season April Fool’s joke, but obviously no one would pull such a crazy prank over the radio.

Rat-tat-tat!

Moreover, the gunshots coming from the abandoned factory, their gang’s hideout, told them this was no joke.

The two rushed toward the abandoned factory.

As they got closer to the factory, they began to see other comrades who had been patrolling like them.

“Who’s the intruder?”

“Is it those Elangscol bastards we fought recently?”

“They say it’s just one person?”

“Huh??”

They exchanged brief information before entering.

No one knew who the intruder was or what they were after.

No one knew how they had managed to take the boss’s head without being caught by the patrol teams, CCTV, or mines.

They only knew one thing.

The assassin was alone and still rampaging inside the factory.

They hurriedly entered the factory.

Immediately upon entry, flying daggers slit the throats of two men.

“Shit! Take cover!”

The patrol teams took cover without even identifying the assassin.

From beyond the wall, they could hear the sounds of the vanguard fighting the intruder.

The man who had been humming the song just moments ago trembled with fear.

Clang!

“Gurk…”

“Chavo!”

In a single exchange, one executive fell, foaming blood at the mouth.

What kind of monster was this assassin to kill an executive in a single exchange?

Could it be that they came because of the song he was humming?

No. Ghosts don’t exist in this world.

The man denied that thought and peeked around the wall.

To prove it wasn’t his fault.

As he peeked around the wall, he saw a figure slaughtering the gang members.

A figure with its entire body wrapped in black cloth, wearing a skull mask under a deeply pulled hood.

The mask’s eyes met the man’s.

The three lenses installed in each eye were repulsive, like a spider’s eyes.

The predator’s red lenses silently stared at the man.

The man’s body shrank from an inexplicable sense of terror.

– “Shoot! Shoot, damn it!”

An executive’s shout brought the man back to reality.

The man hid behind the wall again.

The figure lost interest in the hiding man and swung its sword at those shooting at it.

– “Fuck! What is that monster!”

– “That bastard is regenerating! Did it escape from some lab?!”

Amid the deafening gunfire, the voices of his comrades came through the radio.

Shouts, screams, and death rattles.

Amidst the numerous noises, the man made a decision.

He grabbed the wrist of the lizardman who had been patrolling with him until just now.

“Let’s run.”

This gang is finished.

Whether that thing was the boogeyman, a ghost, or an escaped lab experiment didn’t matter.

There was no way a gang like theirs could survive against a monster that was immune to bullets and could regenerate wounds.

In times like these, saving your own skin was the best strategy.

The lizardman whose wrist he grabbed agreed with that thought.

The two naturally slipped away from the scene.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, escaping wasn’t difficult.

This place, once a meat processing factory, had numerous corpses hanging from hooks.

Among the corpses, one or two people mixed in wouldn’t be easily distinguished in the chaos.

They slipped out of the factory, blending in among the “logs” – bodies with their organs harvested.

And as soon as they judged they were far enough from the factory, they ran with all their might.

“Just watch me ever sing that song again.”

As soon as they were safe, the man relaxed and blurted out those words.

It was to assert that he had never been scared.

“But what do we do now?”

“What do you mean? I anticipated this and already contacted Elangscol. We can go there.”

“You’re going to do the same thing there?”

“Why? You want to give up this honey pot?”

“No way. Count me in too.”

The lizardman snickered alongside him, also trying to maintain his dignity.

Neither showed any remorse.

There was no reason not to continue – kidnapping people without connections, luring unsuspecting students and harvesting their organs brought in millions of won.

At least, that’s what they thought.

And so the two gang members survived another day…

Splat!

…or not.

The two gang members instantly turned into chunks of meat.

A giant stepped into the puddle of blood where they had been standing and muttered.

“I told you not to block my way.”

He hadn’t actually warned them, but that didn’t matter to the giant.

What mattered was that weaklings had blocked his path.

Khaak- ptoo!

The giant spat on the lizardman’s tail that had flown off in the distance and looked at the factory.

“Let’s see what kind of bastard this is.”

With a belligerent smile on his face, the giant raised his axe high.

***

Inside the abandoned factory.

Amon, wearing a skull mask, swung his sword.

Amon harvested the necks of gang members without emotion.

Killing people shouldn’t be this numb, but those Amon was cutting down now weren’t human.

When he saw bodies hanging upside down like livestock in what was once a meat processing factory, living people being thrown into machines like animals for slaughter, and organs being pulled out of corpses only to be replaced with bags of white powder,

Could one really consider them people?

So Amon swung his sword.

Abandoning even the momentary compassion in his heart, he harvested the necks of these evil men.

The way he swung his sword without making even the rustling sound of his clothes sent chills down the spines of those watching.

No matter how intense his movements were, no matter how strongly he kicked off the ground, no sound was made.

It was an unpleasant silence, as if the space where Amon existed was in a different world.

Even after being discovered, that silence served its purpose.

“He’s hiding again!”

With a gang member’s shout, Amon hid among the corpses hanging from the meat factory hooks.

As he let a little magical power flow into his clothes, they took on a mottled color matching the shade of the shadows.

No sound could be heard, and his form was difficult to discern.

Despite so many eyes watching, no one could track Amon to the end.

Once again, Amon appeared above an executive’s head.

He pierced through the executive’s heart through his shoulder, then pulled out his sword again, spraying blood around.

While everyone’s vision was obscured by the blood mist, the lenses installed in Amon’s mask showed him what lay beyond.

Gang members involuntarily closing their eyes, others straining to keep their eyes open and endure.

Amon took in all their expressions as he swung his sword.

Five heads flew into the air.

The mask’s lenses detected a bullet flying between a head and its body.

But Amon didn’t bother to dodge.

Ting!

With a sharp metallic sound, he felt a heavy impact on his neck.

But the bullet failed to penetrate the mask.

The sniper who had aimed for his face didn’t panic and aimed for his chest this time.

This time, Amon slightly altered his path.

He offered his shoulder instead of his chest.

He felt a heavy impact on his shoulder.

The bullet succeeded in bruising his shoulder but failed to wound him.

Amon felt the bruise regenerating and guessed the type of bullet.

‘Armor-piercing?’

For something to cause a bruise on Amon, who had become completely immune to regular bullets, that was likely.

They probably thought Amon had received some kind of bulletproof treatment.

Not wrong, but not entirely right either.

His skin was bulletproof, but it wasn’t the result of a procedure.

It was the result of his skin adapting to bullets after entering this factory.

First pistol rounds, then rifle rounds, now armor-piercing rounds.

He had continuously exposed himself to bullets, as long as they wouldn’t be fatal.

The wounds had already regenerated, and now he had adapted to most bullets.

He had even adapted sufficiently to grenades, so it was fair to say that most physical attacks one might commonly encounter wouldn’t work on him.

Amon continued his extermination, trusting in his <Adaptation> and <Accelerated Recovery>.

He looked in the direction from which the two bullets targeting him had come.

He spotted a sniper aiming at him from the second-floor railing.

He memorized the sniper’s position and pretended not to notice as he continued swinging his sword.

When the sniper fired another bullet, Amon suddenly slid between the legs of a gang member in front of him.

The sniper was confused when Amon suddenly disappeared from view.

The sniper didn’t think to look for Amon under the gang members’ legs and instead searched for him near the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Amon slid under the gang members’ legs and drew his pistol.

Going behind a gang member, he shot one bullet into the back of the knee of a gang member he had passed, and another into the lower jaw of a gang member who had been aiming at him from the opposite side.

With his already quiet gun and the effect of his clothes, no sound was heard.

After quietly taking care of the two, he rose from his sliding position and jumped high.

The sniper belatedly noticed Amon’s presence, but before he could aim at Amon, Amon pulled the trigger.

The muzzle emitted a small puff of smoke along with a bullet.

The bullet left the pistol, pierced through the sniper’s lens, and penetrated his eye.

‘Oh, lucky shot.’

It happened to be a lucky shot.

He had aimed for the head, but a movie-like perfect shot was executed.

Amon admired the result as he landed back on the ground.

After dealing with the troublesome sniper, Amon continued to eliminate the remaining gang members.

That’s when he felt killing intent directed at him.

Immediately after, he saw a massive shockwave coming from that direction.

Kwagwang!!

A massive shockwave with no subtlety targeted Amon.

Amon threw himself sideways, barely escaping the shockwave.

Without time to worry about his landing, he dodged two more incoming shockwaves before he could get up again.

From within the ruins of the collapsed factory, Amon looked in the direction from which the attack had come.

Amon’s eyes widened.

A horned giant carrying a massive axe was staring at him.

The problem was the nature of those horns.

‘Why a drill of all things???’

They weren’t horns because he was a beast-man.

It was a man who had attached power drills to his forehead.

Moreover, a goblin mask with glowing red eyes was attached to his groin.

Amon’s impression upon seeing this was…

‘What the hell is that…’

No matter how free fashion might be in this world, he couldn’t understand the meaning of that fashion.

‘Should I teach him how to dress properly…’

While he was having such trivial thoughts, the giant revealed his yellowed teeth in a grin.

He didn’t even glance at the fallen gang members and just stared at Amon.

“Is it you? The one playing hero of justice these days?”

“…?”

Amon tilted his head.

Hero of justice?

As Amon tilted his head in confusion, the strange man spoke.

“Don’t play dumb. Lately, because of someone, we haven’t been getting any test subjects or materials, and it’s giving me a headache. Do you really think it’s a coincidence that someone is stirring up our subcontractors at this particular time?”

Hearing this, Amon understood what he meant.

Ah.

This guy is also connected to the human trafficking network.

But Amon didn’t rush in immediately.

In case there was a misunderstanding, he attempted minimal dialogue.

“Are you police?”

“What? Do I look like police to you?”

“Then why are you here?”

At Amon’s question, the giant grinned and raised his axe high above his head.

And as he brought the axe down, he shouted,

“To catch a rat!”

Once again, a massive explosion occurred.