Chapter 9 – The Strongest Porter (2)

“Seon-su!”

Kim In-ho, a rookie hunter from the Tushin Guild, trembled in fury at the sight of the blood-soaked Kang Seon-su.

The man in the suit, standing leisurely, offered a smirk.

“Don’t you worry. You’ll be following him soon enough.”

At the Company Man’s provocation, the other hunters’ expressions hardened.

“This bastard is a wanted villain!”

“Crazy bastard. How many hunters do you think are here? Committing murder right in front of us!”

A dozen or so hunters drew their respective weapons. Among them, a trainer who had once been on the verge of becoming an intermediate hunter scoffed and stepped to the front.

“I do it because I can.”

The Company Man sneered at the large man at the very front. The man swung a massive greatsword befitting his size.

*Fwoosh!*

With a sharp whoosh, the greatsword flew as if to shatter the Company Man’s neck.

*Thwack!*

But with a dull thud, the man’s greatsword stopped dead in its tracks.

“W-what the hell!”

“What do you think?”

The Company Man casually flicked his hand. Shadow thorns had stitched the man’s shoes to the floor.

The Company Man swung his briefcase at the immobilized man’s face.

*CRUNCH!*

With the grotesque severing of his spine, the man’s head rolled across the floor like a bowling ball. Seeing this, a faint-hearted hunter screamed in terror.

“You’re screwed.”

The Company Man raised both hands into the air. Simultaneously, thorns shot up from the shadows of the surrounding hunters.

The thorns that erupted in an instant bound everyone’s legs.

“Now, then.”

The Company Man twirled his briefcase as he walked toward the immobilized people, ready to take their heads.

The first man targeted trembled, shaking his head as if to plead for him to stay back.

*Swish!*

The Company Man reflexively retreated at the sudden sound of something cutting through the air. A kukri sliced through the air, right where he had been standing a moment ago.

A blond man, who had appeared beside him, could be seen frowning as if to say, “So close.”

The Company Man glanced at the man’s feet.

He was barefoot. Seeing this, the Company Man brushed the back of his hand across his neck.

The stinging sensation of a wound, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. The stickiness soaking the back of his hand.

“There’s nothing more enjoyable than crushing a promising bud.”

“No.”

It wasn’t just the blond hunter who had arrived.

“You’re the one who’s going to be crushed. Scum.”

All the hunters in the vicinity had gathered. Among them was a high-rank hunter.

“Let me ask you something, just in case.”

The Company Man’s eyes curved into crescents as he smiled.

“You don’t actually think you can do something if you all attack at once, do you?”

The high-rank hunter sneered at the Company Man’s arrogance.

“Consider today your unlucky day.”

The enraged hunters charged at the Company Man all at once.

* * *

The dungeon’s overall atmosphere was a deep gray.

Dungeons are created from gate cores. And these cores emit highly concentrated mana.

This thing called mana has a color. A faint yellow aura spread out in all directions.

The space that had been gray until now.

When a dungeon fails to expand, it solidifies its expanded territory and begins to develop.

Though, by development, it just means mass-producing monsters.

The fact that the gray dungeon had turned yellow literally meant the dungeon core had been reactivated.

And a moving dungeon core meant that the dungeon was beginning to expand again.

The dead dungeon would move once more.

I arrived at the respawn point. What I saw on the way were people turned into chunks of meat. He had been kind enough to slice them up.

There, I was able to confirm one thing.

‘He didn’t kill them on purpose.’

The killer hadn’t killed them. The few who had unfortunately died were mostly those who bled out.

Those who tenaciously held on were clutching their severed hands and feet, gritting their teeth.

The pitiful expressions on their faces as I walked over. The faces of people waiting for salvation.

Unfortunately, I’m not a healer, nor am I some rich potion-chugger. I can’t save dying people, but I can rescue them.

“They say if you pick up someone’s wallet, you get to keep 5% of the money inside. I’ve saved all of you, so don’t you dare try to stiff me, okay?”

“Kugh…”

I’ll take that as a yes. First, I stored all the living people in my inventory.

It’s amazing, even to me. A dozen people vanishing in an instant, as if they’d evaporated.

The names of the people who entered the inventory appeared in a list.

Just in case, I picked up an arm and stored it too. I don’t know whose it is, but they’ll probably recognize their own arm.

-Kwon Ju-ho’s Arm.

Oh my god.

A name appears in the inventory. Ah, it’s convenient, which is nice, but this is incredibly creepy.

My 50-slot inventory was suddenly down to only 20 slots. Ten people were now in the inventory.

I have no idea what kind of reward I’ll get for saving these people.

Still, they’re hunters who make good money. Surely they won’t just walk away without paying. They wouldn’t repay kindness with malice.

Here’s the question.

Why didn’t our killer finish them off? Even though he clearly knew they weren’t dead.

To hunt sharks, you deliberately spread fish blood to lure them in. Because they’re creatures that can smell it from far away.

The Anyang Resort Dungeon mostly has low-rank or novice hunters. The only intermediate hunters are the few who hunt on the 3rd floor.

In other words, the killer is in a place full of easy prey, spreading the scent of blood to lure something out.

And that lured something must be what changed the dungeon’s color from gray to a sticky yellow.

In the other world, this was called an ‘offering’.

I don’t know what kind of guy the killer is. Frankly, I don’t want to know.

I have no desire to understand the mindset of some edgy middle schooler who’s like, “I hate hunters, so I’m going to destroy every hunter in this world.”

Since he’s a villain, there’s bound to be a bounty on his head.

Meaning, catching this guy will bring in a pretty hefty reward. It must be at least a few hundred million.

And if I catch a notorious guy like him, my own recognition will go up.

Popularity. Yeah, I’ll get popular.

When you get popular, your value goes up along with your recognition. Maybe I’ll even shoot a commercial, meet and marry a beautiful actress, build a picturesque house, and live happily ever after.

But before all that.

“Hello there.”

“Coach-nim…!”

A black veil was choking the blond kid. All the people lying around him were collapsed and severely injured.

“How did you get in?”

The Company Man, who was choking the blond kid, blinked in surprise.

“You just sliced up the others and were done with it. Why are you choking this friend here?”

“He was resisting so much on his own that I got annoyed without realizing it.”

That’s our blondie for you. To think he held out this long against a killer on his first day in a dungeon.

The blond kid’s face was flushed, looking as if he was about to cry.

My timing must have been perfect. No, to be precise, I created this timing.

I just saved all those people.

From the Company Man’s perspective, the offerings he’d prepared had suddenly vanished. The guy must have known I was coming.

“Let’s put the man down and talk. Our dear hunter is going to die at this rate.”

“Did I say he was lucky earlier?”

The Company Man offered a gentle smile. If it weren’t for the current situation, it would have looked like a genuinely kind expression.

“I take that back.”

“Coach-nim!”

The blond kid looked at me with agitated eyes.

A black shadow flew swiftly toward me.

* * *

High-rank hunter Lee Jun-su couldn’t comprehend the current situation.

Even if they had rookies among them, ten people had attacked all at once.

But the result was disastrous.

They couldn’t even put a single scratch on the Company Man.

The sharp shadow thorns erupting from his shadow pierced everything in their path.

A high-rank hunter. Lee Jun-su was a B+ ranker.

Even an A-rank hunter couldn’t have toyed with him like this.

‘He’s A-rank or higher.’

A killer who’s A-rank or higher.

This was no different from a catastrophe.

Most of his comrades around him were severely injured and groaning in pain.

The high-rank hunter gritted his teeth. He could have killed them, but he didn’t.

Right now, the Company Man was choking the blond-haired rookie hunter.

‘Dammit.’

His juniors, rookies who had just set foot in a dungeon, had fought with their lives on the line, and now they were about to die.

A nightmare came back to him.

The awakening of a criminal.

The horrific incidents that occur when a murderer possesses great power.

The appearance of villains after the gates emerged had led to numerous brutal murders. And due to one of those incidents, the high-rank hunter had lost many comrades he’d been with since the training center.

‘If I’m going to die anyway.’

It was one thing for a hunter who’d been through the wringer like himself, but he couldn’t just stand by and watch the young ones die.

The high-rank hunter forced himself to his feet. He breathed raggedly, coughing up blood. He raised his weapon again.

Just then, someone appeared.

‘Reinforcements?’

For a moment, he felt a glimmer of hope. But that hope soon turned to despair.

‘Of all people.’

The one who appeared was an ordinary trainer who hadn’t even awakened.

‘Lee Hyunbin.’

A well-known figure in the Anyang Resort Dungeon.

A man who, at thirty, was still striving to awaken without giving up.

“Run…!”

The high-rank hunter shouted urgently. He wanted to reduce the casualties by even one person, but he couldn’t finish his sentence due to coughing up blood.

The man looked toward Lee Jun-su and raised a hand, as if to reassure him.

Lee Jun-su couldn’t understand the man’s composure.

Was it because he wasn’t a hunter that he couldn’t sense his opponent’s immense power?

Lee Jun-su gestured with his eyes to the hunters who could still move.

The moment the hunters who could still hold their weapons gritted their teeth and rose to their feet.

“Gyaaaargh!”

Shadow tendrils, spread by the Company Man, had already constricted the bodies of the hunters, including Lee Jun-su.

He was so strong, yet he never let his guard down; from a hunter’s perspective, it was maddening.

“I take that back.”

Along with the Company Man’s sarcastic words, a barrage of shadow thorns began to pour down on the man.

Was it because the attack was too fast? The man stood there blankly, not even attempting to dodge.

*Sssk.*

A sharp sound of cutting air. The shadow thorns failed to penetrate their target.

Lee Jun-su doubted his own eyes.

The Company Man tilted his head.

It looked like a direct hit, yet it wasn’t.

The corners of the Company Man’s mouth lifted as he fired another volley of shadow thorns.

A sharp sound cut through the air as they shot out, riding the cave’s shadows.

But the shadows suddenly evaporated.

*Smash!*

The man had shattered a lantern inside the dungeon.

*Smash!*

The man walked in a straight line toward the Company Man, smashing the lanterns that lit the dungeon one by one.

“……”

The Company Man’s brow furrowed slightly.

As the light vanished, the shadows were also swallowed by darkness.

The Company Man let go of Kim Tae-yang. Clutching his throat, Kim Tae-yang coughed and sputtered, trying to breathe.

“Without light, there are no shadows. It’s a simple weakness, yet no one seemed to notice.”

“That’s because you learn that in elementary school. The more educated people become, the faster they forget what they learned as kids. That’s how you become an adult.”

“The problem, however, is that I was also aware of such a countermeasure.”

The Company Man said this and reached a hand into the air. And from a dark inventory space, the man pulled something out.

A glowing light source. He scattered them all around.

“You mentioned the principle of shadows earlier, didn’t you?”

The Company Man taunted.

The shadow lingering at his feet spread out toward the man like a net.

“Wa-watch out…!”

Everyone lying here knew just how dangerous that technique was.

The shadow thorns that didn’t even make a sound as they flew.

But the man had already vanished.

The Company Man flinched.

*THWACK!*

The man was suddenly right in front of the Company Man. He drove a body blow straight into the Company Man.

‘What?’

The high-rank hunter saw the Company Man’s body stagger.

“Keuk!”

The Company Man grunted in pain and took a step back. The man landed another body blow.

The Company Man’s body crumpled significantly.

This was the villain who hadn’t even blinked when so many hunters attacked him at once. A monster comparable to an S-rank was literally getting beaten up by a single person.

The Company Man urgently drew a pattern in the air. In that instant, his figure vanished.

“Behind you, behind!”

The villain had reappeared right behind the coach. Kim Tae-yang shouted frantically, but the Company Man’s shadow blades were already pouring out from all directions.

In shooter game terms, it was like the entire screen was filled with a bullet hell pattern.

Kim Tae-yang saw Coach Lee Hyunbin being killed.

The black shadow thorns mercilessly swallowed Lee Hyunbin.

The person he had unknowingly grown fond of over the past two weeks had died trying to help, and he could do nothing.

“Pfft.”

The Company Man let out a laugh without realizing it.

With that man’s death just now, all hope was lost. Seeing the despairing hunters was immensely satisfying.

Honestly, he had been a little flustered.

He was an opponent who saw through the weakness of his shadows and was quite skilled in one-on-one combat.

If his opponent had been holding a weapon, he might have been the one to lose.

“Now, then.”

The Company Man was about to take care of the gathered hunters. At that moment, he felt a chill run down his spine.

“What’s so funny? If something good happened, let’s laugh together.”

“……!”

The Company Man spun around, putting distance between them while simultaneously extending his arm.

At his will, a shadow shot toward his opponent. But his opponent easily dodged it.

‘How!’

Contrary to the Company Man’s shock, the man grabbed his wrist and pulled.

It was a brutally strong grip.

The man, no, Hyunbin, threw a punch at the chin of the Company Man who had been pulled toward him.

A blow that felt like it could knock him out instantly. The Company Man counterattacked to get away from his opponent. But he only hit empty air.

“That was just my afterimage.”

The fist that slammed into his side again felt like being hit with a hammer.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I threw in a bit of everything. Just tell me which one you prefer.”

*POW!*

Hyunbin’s straight punch struck the Company Man’s face.

This attack was different from the previous ones. Because he had borrowed a skill from someone stored in his inventory.

Power Strike.

It was a skill that literally doubled his striking power.

*THUD!*

Everyone witnessed the Company Man sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath.

It was an unbelievable sight.

High-rank hunter Lee Jun-su recalled something someone had once said.

-That guy, I heard one of the rookies he was in charge of messed up and let a monster loose, and he caught it with his bare hands.

For an unawakened civilian, and one without any equipment at that, to skillfully subdue a monster was not a common occurrence.

-If a fella like that awakens, he’ll be a real monster, won’t he? Hey, maybe our Anyang Resort will finally produce an S-ranker, whaddya think?

Lee Jun-su had scoffed at his colleague’s words back then.

“You’re really lucky today. You should go buy a lottery ticket.”

Having ended the situation, he grabbed the fallen Company Man by the collar and uttered those inscrutable words.