Chapter 350

With that, my business here was finished. After a long round of threats, I successfully bound him with the newly revised [X ight's Oath].

From now on, Andy Oliver would serve as a loyal subordinate to the alien—committing no crimes and keeping his conscience clean while remaining fully compliant with the law.

'Of course, when it came to the restriction against harming people, I made an exception for his former bosses.'

He would have to bring down the organization he had founded with his own hands. And he would have to keep my secret.

That was all.

'Hmm.'

Besides, even if trouble arose because of the Youth Guild—the one loophole left in this contract—I now had enough power to deal with it.

'From now on, I really don't intend to concern myself much with what happens on Earth. I just need Korea, where I'll be living, to quiet down a little.'

The immediate problem had been dealt with.

"Andy Oliver. Then I have one last question."

"Ah, yes. Yes..."

"This company called Pixy... perhaps because your technology is so advanced, there are occasionally rumors going around."

"Yes?"

"Does your company... really torture aliens to make its translators?"

Now that everything else had been settled, all that remained was to satisfy a few lingering curiosities.

"Ah, no. Ha... I understand what kind of joke you were making. But the only reason Pixy ever gets rumors like that is simply because I worked hard."

"So you really were just that talented technically."

"If things were as easy as dissecting an alien, we'd have done that ages ago. But development is such a difficult, tedious process."

Thud!

'Aagh! Why...?'

At least that answered every question I had left about Andy Oliver.

So I left the mammal where he was, his jaw knocked crooked by a slap, and calmly made my way back toward the entrance.

.

.

.

But to think this would be the sight waiting for me when I returned.

'Ugh.'

People were sprawled unconscious all over the floor, and in the middle of them stood a hunter drenched in blood.

"Hunter Kang..."

No.

Come to think of it, I had definitely told him to run away when the time was right.

So why the hell had that driver stayed here until he'd ended up looking like this?

"Have you been guarding the entrance this whole time?"

"You told me to."

"When did you change back, anyway?"

"Everyone suddenly started rushing at me while shouting my name. I figured my identity was already exposed, so I just released it. It's uncomfortable moving around like that, you know."

Tuk, tuk.

A bodily fluid essential for maintaining homeostasis became nothing more than filth once it left the body.

Kang Changho, now stained a color completely at odds with his usual hair, casually flicked some of it away.

Looking like that, he explained that he had done his absolute best to keep anyone from escaping.

And frankly, the results spoke for themselves.

"Well. This is impressive in its own way."

Although my interference halfway through had allowed a few Awakened to escape, he had apparently spent that brief period locked in a fierce battle against superhumans.

More surprisingly, none of the blood covering him was his own.

"I tried to subdue them without hurting them too badly, but there were just too many. Otherwise, I wouldn't have accidentally torn any arteries."

"Ah... so all of this is their blood."

"Anyway, good thing I brought potions."

He had actually kept his promise until he'd gotten himself this filthy.

A complicated feeling came over me as I stared at the mammal standing there in such a miserable state.

'I only gave him this simple job because I wanted him somewhere out of the way... but seeing him like this, I actually feel a little sorry for him.'

And so, while my conscience was stabbing at me rather painfully...

"Hunter Kang Changho. There's something I'm curious about."

"What?"

"A few things came up while I was talking with the owner here..."

Given the circumstances, there was only one thing I could be referring to.

"Just to make sure—are you part of the Youth Guild?"

I steeled myself and asked.

Just in case, I also focused carefully on the flow of mana through his body.

Yet the answer I received was so simple it almost left me deflated.

"...?"

"...?"

"Are you part of the Youth Guild?"

"No. I'm not. Youth?"

"What is wrong with this guy?"

"Oh, Youth. That... place with a branch in Asia. The one those guys in the chatroom were talking about."

"Yes, yes."

"I'm not sure how you even ended up asking me that. But if you look at my usual schedule, shouldn't the answer be obvious?"

"What?"

"I'm a freelance hunter."

Seriously, what was I even doing, having this conversation with someone like him?

I didn't need some sophisticated lie detector to know anymore.

Kang Changho was telling the truth.

One hundred percent.

Above all else, there hadn't been the slightest disturbance in his mana.

'There's no tension at all.'

Besides, the fact that he knew the chatroom existed yet didn't know where Youth was located had already been partially explained to me before I ever came to the United States.

"This should be enough, shouldn't it? Hunter Kim Giryeo asked me to find out who ultimately gave the order behind the Beast Incident. It's not as though I can investigate every insignificant person who happened to be involved. And you can't exactly afford to wait several more years, either."

Then was the person I really needed to suspect that underworld informant Kang Changho had hired?

'If they're involved, tracking them down will be even harder. Even if they went to the trouble of learning how to use the internet, there's no chance they'd answer if I simply asked where they lived.'

Either way, this wasn't something I needed to deal with right now.

And it didn't sit well with me to leave someone standing there covered from head to toe in blood and grime.

Given the situation, it might be better to wait until Youth eventually got caught in someone else's net rather than turn everything upside down trying to find them myself.

More than anything, I was impressed by how faithfully Kang Changho had kept his promise.

So I decided to bring our return home forward a little.

***

And thus, I returned to my beloved Korea.

"..."

Rattle.

For the record, the person stepping out of the car this time wasn't blond-haired, but blue-haired.

The two Koreans had safely completed their business and made it back home—albeit illegally.

Now all that remained was to clean up the alibi I had fabricated using the Gate.

Then everything would be over.

"How many people have gone in so far?"

"None."

South Korea's third S-rank hunter, Kang Changho, immediately closed the high-level Gate he had kept sealed in Gyeongsangnam-do.

Once everything had been wrapped up, he climbed into his car and drove away.

[05XX-XXXX]

An eight-digit number.

The Korea Hunter Association was calling.

The moment Kang Changho saw the number on his phone, he ignored it without a second thought.

"Hm?"

Unfortunately, pretending he couldn't answer because he was driving didn't save him.

By the time he reached the area near the Seoul tollgate, a familiar hunter appeared and stopped him in person.

"Hunter Kang Changho!"

It was Jung Haseong, Korea's number-one-ranked hunter.

'Looks like he knew I'd be passing through here and waited for me.'

Kang Changho was driving an expensive foreign car, but the person pursuing him was an S-rank hunter as well.

With nothing more than a light run, Jung Haseong caught up to the moving vehicle.

Left with little choice, Kang Changho pulled over to the side of the road.

"You came running out near a crosswalk, so technically you just barely avoided committing a traffic violation."

Jung Haseong looked almost dumbfounded by the trivial remark.

"First of all, I'd like to apologize for stopping you so suddenly."

"A polite young man... Well, if you're going to be that courteous, I suppose I have no choice but to hear you out."

"But... I heard something so shocking that I..."

Kang Changho's mild attempt to guide the mood of the conversation immediately proved useless.

"Hunter Kang Changho, I just want to make sure... Did you recently ask Hunter Kim to help you raid a dungeon?"

Click.

The mixed-race man froze midway through putting his sunglasses into the inner pocket of his jacket.

"What?"

"I'm talking about the high-difficulty Gate you finished raiding today."

"Hmm."

"I only heard about it a little while ago through the Association, but apparently you and Hunter Kim spent two whole days clearing it."

"That's right."

Kang Changho maintained his usual smile.

But the young man in his twenties, hailed nationwide as a hero, spoke hesitantly, his expression stiff with concern.

"I mean... I know Hunter Kim Giryeo is so strong that it's easy to forget, but he was hospitalized immediately after dealing with the Beast. He was only just discharged."

Who would have guessed that all this agitation came from concern for someone else?

"No matter how healthy a hunter may appear, I've heard that injuries still require proper rest to recover from. So when I suddenly heard about this..."

His expression darkened.

"I was honestly a little shocked."

Apparently, Korea's number-one-ranked hunter had assumed that the Gate raid had been carried out because someone had requested Kim Giryeo's help.

Of course, reality was the exact opposite.

The man in question had dragged his exhausted body all the way to the United States and back of his own accord.

Yet somehow, Kang Changho had ended up being subjected to this absurd misunderstanding.

'That damn tuberculosis-stricken Awakener. He's surprisingly energetic for someone who's supposed to be dying.'

Still, Kang Changho kept that complaint firmly inside his head.

Instead, he tried to steer the conversation toward as peaceful a conclusion as possible.

He had thought this many times before.

This black-haired young man was, fortunately, the nation's foremost guardian—the person who contributed more than anyone else to keeping the country safe.

As long as he had any choice in the matter, Kang Changho had no intention of becoming hostile toward the Awakener standing in front of him.

The problem was that situations where he had no choice seemed to be occurring far too often lately.

So how was he supposed to explain this in a way that kept their Gate alibi intact?

Just then, an idea occurred to him.

"Ah."

For the record, it was the sort of idea that only sounded reasonable from Kang Changho's perspective.

'I obviously can't tell him I secretly went to the United States. Fine, then. Really, what Awakener in this world would dislike being acknowledged as strong?'

The S-rank hunter decided to recycle an excuse he had used once before.

And so Kang Changho proceeded, without the slightest shame, to lie using nothing but the truth.

"Jung Haseong, listen carefully. The reason I entered that dungeon this time was..."

In a sense, what he was about to say was no different from tossing a lit match into the otherwise peaceful waters of South Korea's media.

"I was instructed to do it by Hunter Kim Giryeo."

"Yes?"

"I didn't have any say in the matter at all. If anything, he was the one who took the lead from beginning to end."

"Th-the dungeon raid...?"

"Because of various things that happened in the past, I can't exactly defy that superhuman's orders. Naturally. I mean, if you were in my position, could you ignore someone that frightening and powerful?"

"Of course not."

"So don't misunderstand."

And yet, the superhuman who would ultimately ignite the real firestorm was someone else entirely.

"To put it bluntly, I'm just Hunter Kim's lackey. I simply do whatever he tells me. So from now on, if you have any questions, go ask that Awakener directly."