Chapter 256 – Hero Invasion (3)

People were being dragged away helplessly.

They seemed to have no human rights. Tied with ropes, their eyes were lifeless.

These were the people of Earth, dragged here by the demons.

Dragged to a strange, unknown place and treated worse than slaves, the captives trembled in fear every day.

A few of those who had resisted among the captured were killed.

Among them was a Hunter, albeit a low-ranked one, who had once nearly succeeded in escaping after killing a demon. But outside, all that could be seen was a desolate wasteland reeking of sulfur.

There was nowhere for them to run.

As a price for the escape attempt, several more of their companions were killed.

The survivors could do nothing but curse their desperate fate.

“Come out.”

Today, too, the bars of the cage, built like an animal pen, opened. At the command of a fleshy demon, the survivors moved.

They already knew that asking where they were going would yield no answer.

To these beings, humans were merely food; they did not consider them fellow intelligent life forms in the slightest.

The twenty Korean survivors were being led to an outer castle that looked as if it were painted entirely in black.

The inner castle was teeming with demons and served a similar function to a human city. The only difference was that, even in this place that resembled a market, no currency was exchanged.

They only used the system’s currency, called Coins.

The ordinary demon residents snickered as they watched the humans being dragged away, finding some sort of amusement in it.

“Get in.”

They were brought by the soldiers to a makeshift iron-barred cage in the outer castle.

It was a mobile prison for confining criminals, and they had no choice but to obey, lest they be beaten severely by the soldiers.

“What a waste. They’re just bait anyway. It wouldn’t matter if one of them was missing an arm, would it?”

A fleshy demon drooled as he stared at the people locked in the cage.

Meeting his gaze, every last one of them couldn’t help but tremble in fear.

“Stop messing around. We don’t have time, so let’s move quickly.”

Fortunately, another demon with him stopped the fleshy one.

The people averted their eyes, trying to avoid the gaze of the demon who kept swallowing his saliva and looking back regretfully.

They didn’t understand why they had been locked up alone in this quiet part of the outer castle.

The twenty survivors shook and kicked the bars of their cage, but they soon gave up.

It wouldn’t budge. And even if they did escape, they had no idea where they would run.

“Mom…”

A young student thought of home and shed bead-like tears.

They were tears she had desperately held back.

With no soldiers glaring menacingly at them, the tears flowed freely.

Watching her, the others chewed on their own despair with hardened faces.

“We’re… going to die, aren’t we…?”

one person finally spoke.

There seemed to be no way out of this place. They weren’t awakened heroes like the Hunters; they were just ordinary, everyday people.

“I’m on very good terms with a high-ranking official at the disaster agency. I’m sure he knows I’ve been captured and is sending a rescue team as we speak.”

“Mister, he’s just some guy you know. Besides, how would a rescue team even get here?”

the young man muttered reproachfully to the middle-aged man.

“But… what did they mean by ‘bait’…?”

A young woman, bothered by what the soldiers had said earlier, asked the others.

“Those bastards treat us like meat in a butcher shop. How are we supposed to know?”

The middle-aged man’s irritated words only deepened the anxiety in the young woman’s eyes.

Generally, bait is a small thing sacrificed to catch something bigger.

That meant they were locked up here to lure something.

“Where I was before, I overheard a rumor that a really strong Hunter is going around saving people.”

She called it a rumor, but for people whose daily lives consisted of being locked up, the amount of information they could hear was minuscule.

No one really believed her.

“That would be nice.”

“As soon as possible. Before we get eaten.”

Still, they wanted to believe. No, they had to. It was the only hope they had.

“That creepy demon is coming again.”

The captives saw a few of the fleshy demons approaching.

But for some reason, their eyes were filled with killing intent.

Reading the ominous feeling in their gazes, the people slowly became wary.

“They’re just bait anyway, so it doesn’t matter if one or two go missing. Don’t you guys think so?”

The fleshy demon soldier had, in the end, returned.

Even if it meant disobeying orders.

The people swallowed dryly.

There were twenty of them. And five demon soldiers.

They couldn’t win a fight. But if they all ran at once, some might survive.

With complex emotions, the people exchanged glances.

“Don’t try anything stupid like running. If you get caught, you all die. Got it? Not like you could escape anyway.”

But the demon soldier raised a dagger caked with dried blood, his eyes greedy.

Faced with predators whose crimson eyes gleamed, there was nothing the captives could do.

It was doubtful they could even run the moment the gate opened. The large bodies of the demons were blocking the entrance.

Just then, they heard a *shhh* sound, like the wind.

*Thwack!*

A single dagger embedded itself in the eye of the demon soldier holding the knife.

“Guuuh!”

A sound like a pig being slaughtered echoed unpleasantly.

The survivors recoiled at the sight of the demon soldier spewing blood. Seeing their comrade attacked, the remaining soldiers drew their swords and quickly scanned the area.

“There…!”

One of the soldiers spotted a human walking leisurely toward them.

An unrestrained human.

That could only mean one of two things.

Either he had escaped from a cage, or he was the target who had taken the bait.

“Dammit, I told you we should eat later…!”

Judging by his well-built, muscular body, it clearly wasn’t the former.

And so, the demon soldiers turned to flee in a panic.

*Splat!*

He was just over there, but in the blink of an eye, the muscular man was right in front of them.

No, he had already swung his sword.

“…!”

The people trapped in the cage couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

In a world filled with man-eating monsters, the man they had only ever seen on TV appeared before their eyes.

“The Delivery Man…”

They never expected that childish nickname to sound so cool.

Watching the Delivery Man, Lee Hyunbin, dispatch the demon soldiers in an instant, the captives were overcome with emotion, and tears streamed down their faces.

The relief of knowing they were now safe.

“Th-this is bait. Us. I mean, they said we were bait. So that means they were trying to lure you, Hunter-nim.”

The young woman began to speak urgently, her words jumbled.

The young man spat out her words as if translating them.

“Hunter-nim. They were dispersing all the captives today. It’s like… this whole situation, it’s as if they knew you were coming…”

“Now that I’m here, it’s over.”

As Hyunbin smiled reassuringly, the captives felt the tension drain away.

These were the words of the man presumed to be the strongest, no less.

“You’ve all been through a lot. Please rest for a moment.”

When Hyunbin opened his hand, everyone was sucked into his inventory dimension.

Even without the survivors’ testimony, he had already figured it out from their placement.

The hostages were scattered far apart. It felt like a deliberate lure, as if beckoning him to come and rescue them.

“Hah.”

Hyunbin found it amusing.

On the surface, demons and humans seemed similar, both intelligent life forms. But they were completely different creatures.

Just as a psychopathic serial killer’s way of thinking differs from that of an ordinary person.

And yet, this Demon King understood human concepts and was exploiting them.

To a demon, a prisoner of war meant certain death.

A being captured because of weakness was not worthy of life.

Despite that, the Demon Kings were essentially saying this to Hyunbin.

*Keep coming to save the prisoners.*

*You’re the humans’ hero, their Hero. Surely you wouldn’t abandon them, would you?*

It was a blatant trap.

“Sir Hero, I’ve finished the errand like a slave pig.”

“We’re done over here, too.”

The Company Man and Siegfried finished cleaning up the area and walked over to Hyunbin.

“Sir Hero, isn’t this too dangerous? No matter how strong you are, we don’t know how many Demon Kings are in there.”

“The number doesn’t matter.”

Hyunbin replied instantly to The Company Man’s words.

“But the fact that it’s a trap is annoying.”

He didn’t like how his opponents were leisurely enjoying the game as if they held all the cards.

Card games are only fun when you bet your life on them.

Hyunbin closed his eyes.

He shut off his sight, his sense of touch, his hearing.

He silenced all his senses and poured his entire focus into the system.

Soon, everything began to feel like binary code, composed of zeros and ones.

He spread that sensation, that domain, expanding it around him.

He could feel the captives trembling in fear. The soldiers hurrying to report the enemy’s arrival. And the countless soldiers and knights waiting with swords and bows drawn.

They all wanted just one thing.

To exhaust the Hero’s stamina.

No matter how skilled a warrior, they were no match for the Hero. The same was true for the Demon Kings.

The battle between a Demon King and a Hero is decided by the slimmest of margins.

Having experienced slaughtering countless Hero before, the Demon King was being exceedingly cautious, even against a powerful one.

“Store.”

Hyunbin instantly retracted his greatly expanded domain.

He could feel the people held as bait being transferred to his inventory in a single moment.

He could now store things in his inventory just by sensing their existence, without needing to touch or even see them.

“What did you just…”

“…!”

Even The Company Man and Siegfried, who were standing right next to him, were stunned, sensing that Hyunbin had done something.

In a fleeting instant, Hyunbin’s domain, which had swelled outward, suddenly enveloped everything and vanished.

“I stored all the captives in my inventory.”

“…Is that even possible?”

Siegfried was dumbfounded by Hyunbin’s words. He wanted to believe it was a joke, but one look at his face told him it wasn’t.

“Then does that mean we don’t have to walk into the trap anymore?”

“We’re going in.”

The Company Man didn’t understand what Hyunbin meant.

“There’s a damned thing in there.”

“A damned thing?”

In the Demon King’s capital, there is a black hand that opens dimensions. As if that weren’t enough, that black hand opens dimensions like a tentacle and scoops up people.

In other words, if I destroy that, humanity will no longer be abducted. No, the Demon King won’t be able to cross dimensions either.

“And while I’m at it, I’ll slice the Demon King’s neck too.”

“Of course you will.”

To think he would go in without hesitation when not one, but several Demon Kings were waiting.

“I understand.”

What Hyunbin wanted was a blitzkrieg.

This was the Demon King’s capital, the place where all their core forces gathered.

And thanks to the surprise attack, the enemy’s forces had not yet fully assembled.

Now was the chance.

“I’ll have to show the Demon Kings what it feels like to be invaded.”

Hyunbin upgraded his power to Phase 1.