Chapter 41: Both Mean the Same Thing

The Hunter Association, arguably the strongest organization on Earth.

Even if it was just a branch, they wouldn’t build their representative building shabbily.

They built a building on par with a major corporation’s headquarters, with the permission of the Korean government.

Standing proudly in the heart of Seoul, the capital.

That building, which boasted such grandeur, was now shaking.

Bang!

A violent explosion echoed from inside the building.

A sharp person would have recognized it as the sound of an explosive.

Explosives were indeed going off, and it wasn’t because of an attacker…

It was the hunter currently fighting the attacker who was setting them off.

A moderately beautiful female hunter with her black hair tied back.

Light gathered in her hand, transforming into a state-of-the-art bomb.

And when she threw it, it exploded with the force of a real bomb.

Detonating here and there inside the branch building, shaking the entire structure.

Not satisfied with that, the female hunter now created a gun.

Ignoring the explosions blocking her view, she indiscriminately fired forward.

Only one Korean hunter was capable of such abilities.

Hailey, the C-class star hunter whom Seyul had saved before.

She was now fighting the attacker alone.

“Ugh! Why, again, is this happening to me!!”

Hailey screamed as she sprayed bullets.

She was lamenting her current situation.

Last time, she had accidentally encountered an overwhelming monster.

She barely survived that time and suffered quite a bit afterward.

Because the unidentified person who saved her had disappeared without a trace.

Everyone kept asking Hailey if she knew anything.

Finally, the situation calmed down.

She happened to visit the branch, and this is what happened.

“Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?!”

Hailey felt so unlucky that she just wanted to cry.

‘It’s not doing any damage!’

Even as she lamented, she diligently unleashed her attacks.

But they didn’t inflict any damage on the enemy.

She attacked with enough force to blow up the branch building, but it was useless.

There was no other choice.

‘Let’s run!’

Hailey chose to flee.

If others saw her, they might say, “What kind of hunter runs away?”

But there were circumstances.

‘There’s no one to protect anyway.’

Unlike the last time with the monster, there was no one to protect inside the branch.

Because they were all dead.

The people working inside the branch, killed by the attacker.

The hunters who resided there permanently.

And even hunters like Hailey who had just stopped by.

Everyone was dead, leaving only Hailey.

In this situation, if her attacks weren’t working, there was no other option but to run.

‘Let’s get outside. And wait for reinforcements to arrive!’

Before they died, the now-deceased employees had made an emergency report that a villain had arrived.

The best course of action was to escape first and then join them to fight together.

‘Go!’

Hailey continued to pretend to attack while secretly creating a weapon.

She created a small, spherical bomb and subtly rolled it to the side.

It exploded when it touched the nearest wall.

Even though it was small, the bomb was quite powerful and instantly destroyed the wall.

Whoosh.

Hailey immediately threw herself toward the wall.

This was a high-rise building, and jumping would mean falling more than 10 meters.

It would be suicide for a normal human, but Hailey was a hunter.

Instead, she activated the jetpack on her back and fell even faster.

And landed lightly.

The superhuman physique of a C-class hunter ignored the impact of the fall.

‘I’m alive!’

Hailey cheered inwardly.

Now all that was left was to run far away.

Fortunately, there was nothing to hinder her nearby.

Originally, the area was crowded because it was near the capital.

But thanks to Hailey’s indiscriminate firing of military weapons, everyone had fled the area.

It was fortunate that she wouldn’t be held back by saving people.

Hailey tried to move by flying low to the ground using her jetpack.

If she flew in the air, the enemy might shoot her down.

She had made thorough preparations to escape.

“You’re slow.”

At that moment, a voice came from behind.

The voice of the grim reaper who had just killed all her colleagues inside the branch.

“Ah….”

Hailey felt her hair stand on end and turned around.

There he was, the source of all her troubles.

A man wearing a uniquely designed black outfit.

His hair was also black, and he looked to be in his 20s.

His body was toned, and he was quite handsome.

If she had seen him at another time, she might have been interested, but now he just looked like a monster.

About 30 minutes ago.

This man had suddenly barged in, claiming to be what they called a villain.

In less than 30 minutes, he had killed everyone except Hailey.

Aside from Hailey, the hunters who were stationed there at the time were all low-ranking, but they were still hunters.

Each one was a monster that would require dozens of humans armed with guns to take down.

More than ten of them had been killed in an instant.

‘This is a villain?’

Hailey’s eyes were filled with despair.

This was the first time she, a C-class hunter, had seen a villain.

She didn’t know they were this strong.

Villains.

They weren’t just hunters who did bad things.

They were all unidentified beings.

Not long after the appearance of monsters and hunters.

Strange rumors began to circulate in the world.

That there were humans who acted together with the monsters, the enemies of humanity.

As if they were controlling them.

At first, it was just a rumor, but more and more witnesses appeared.

Everyone tried to uncover the identities of these unknown humans, but it was in vain.

Every time they tried to capture them, they would overwhelm their opponents with incredible power that surpassed even hunters.

Or they would escape.

So no one knew their identities.

They were just presumed to be hunters because of their superhuman strength.

And they were called villains because they were villains who acted like monsters.

They were treated as a half-urban legend by ordinary hunters.

Hailey, having seen their true power with her own eyes, abandoned all hope.

‘I’m going to die.’

She thought she had barely escaped, but he was casually behind her.

She sensed that nothing she did would work and was about to close her eyes tightly when.

Suddenly, metal objects scattered around, such as cars or steel frames from the destroyed branch building.

Began to move on their own and rushed toward the villain.

“What!”

Even the villain, who boasted overwhelming power, couldn’t help but be taken aback by this.

He reflexively stepped back, but the metal objects followed him.

Flash!

It wasn’t just metal.

A lightning strike flew from somewhere, targeting the villain.

Lightning was the attribute closest to light.

He couldn’t dodge it properly and could only scramble around.

In the moment he was busy dodging.

New metal flew from a direction he hadn’t noticed.

A compact car.

The villain smashed the metal mass to pieces, but that wasn’t the end of it.

Even though it was broken, the shattered pieces clung to the villain as if they were alive.

“This!”

The metal pieces, divided into hundreds of fragments because he had broken it.

It was impossible to deal with all of them while continuing to dodge the lightning that was targeting him.

He created a fatal opening while trying to shake off the pieces clinging to his body.

And one lightning strike hit the villain through that gap.

Strangely, the lightning strike didn’t attack the villain but bound him.

It took the form of a long rope, hindering his movements.

Taking advantage of the gap created by the lightning, other metal masses clung to the villain as well.

Completely surrounding him like countless iron filings clinging to a magnet.

Then.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning fell from the clear sky.

A lightning strike with tremendous power fell from the sky and struck the villain!

If it had fallen in the middle of the city, it would have killed thousands of people.

It instantly ruptured and melted the massive sphere of metal.

Thoroughly destroying the area around the villain.

“Kyaaagh!”

Hailey frantically ran away from the lightning that had struck right in front of her.

And when the situation calmed down a bit, she looked up at the sky.

Someone was descending from the sky.

Without a doubt, it was the person who had struck the villain with lightning.

It was a woman with a flamboyant appearance who looked to be in her early to mid-20s.

Brown bobbed hair and a youthful yet sharp-looking beauty.

Her figure, which continued below her face, was also outstanding.

Her figure was slender, but her chest was wonderfully prominent.

It was a familiar figure to Hailey.

She had always looked at it and envied it, wishing she could be like that too.

“Ms. Semi!”

Han Semi.

Her unique ability was electricity.

She could manipulate electricity to shoot lightning or control metal with magnetism.

Her hunter rank was ‘A’.

She was the only A-class hunter in Korea, a full two ranks higher than Hailey.

“Where have you been?!”

Hailey ran to Semi, who had descended from the sky, and demanded an explanation.

She had seen her a few times, so they weren’t close, but they knew each other.

They had greeted each other today because they had visited the branch at the same time.

But when the villain attacked, she was nowhere to be seen?

“Where were you until this mess happened?!”

“W-well, I was just at the PC cafe.”

“Why there?”

“There was a reason.”

Semi stammered an excuse to Hailey, who was pressing her.

She had just gone out for a bit because she needed a computer due to her brother Seyul’s broadcast issues.

How could she have known that something like this would happen in the meantime?

“Still, thanks to being at the PC cafe, I got here before you died!”

Fortunately, the search term “branch attack” had appeared on the internet, so she had rushed over immediately.

“W-well, that’s true.”

Anyway, she had been saved thanks to Semi’s return.

Hailey breathed a sigh of relief, thinking she had survived again.

It was too early to relax.

“Ms. Hailey. Dodge.”

It was still too early to relax.

Semi said to dodge with a stiff face.

Hailey was momentarily bewildered by those words, but soon her face turned white.

The villain, who they thought was dead, was still alive.

A large hole had been created at that spot because of Semi’s lightning strike.

Only a huge hole remained, as if a missile had exploded.

The villain’s figure wasn’t visible, so they thought he was dead, but his aura was still felt.

“Damn it.”

Semi muttered a curse as she saw the villain slowly flying up and out of the hole.

The lightning she had used a moment ago was her ultimate move.

If everyone was standing still and densely packed.

And if they were ordinary people who weren’t defending themselves with armor or other protective gear.

She could kill up to 10,000 people if she used it well!

But the villain didn’t seem to be as injured as she had expected.

“Tch, this bastard.”

Smoke was rising from his entire body, but the villain was still looking down at the two women with all his limbs intact.

‘He’s unharmed even after being hit by an A-class hunter’s attack?’

‘He’s stronger than me! The difference in power is too great!’

The two women, being watched by the villain, flinched and thought.

It was an undeniable crisis situation.

At that moment, something else fell from the sky.

“!”

“What?”

“That is….”

The three, who were in the middle of a confrontation, focused their attention on the suddenly appearing intruder.

The intruder was wearing full body armor that covered their entire body.

It was a very beautiful form of armor that didn’t reveal their face because it was seamless.

It was a shining silver color, and the overall design was sleek, inspired by a dragon.

‘It’s that person!’

‘It’s Oppa!’

Seeing that figure, the two women instantly recognized who it was.

Hailey recognized that the figure of the person wearing the armor was the same as the one who had saved her last time.

Semi recognized that it was her brother Seyul because of the silver dragon armor.

“Oh…!”

Semi was happy to see her brother appear in a crisis and was about to call out to him.

‘Oh, should I call him “Unni” since we’re outside?’

She realized that she shouldn’t call her brother “Oppa” to a woman.

‘No, shouldn’t I pretend I don’t know him in the first place?!’

She realized that she shouldn’t acknowledge someone who was hiding their identity.

“Oni-chan!”

Amidst the confusion.