Chapter 84

A proverb surfaced in Kim Kiryeo’s borrowed mind: late-blooming thieves never know when to stop.

But that was hardly important.

***

“Hunter Seonwoo Yeon!”

“Oh, you’re here.”

Finding the warehouse had not been difficult. After hearing my proposal, Seonwoo Yeon had agreed to let me accompany her without much hesitation.

“Your name has already been registered as an appraiser for this investigation, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’m sorry for asking so suddenly.”

The B-Class Hunter smiled at once.

“It’s fine. I’m glad you could join us, Kiryeo-ssi.”

For some reason, her innocent trust made me feel a faint pang of guilt.

‘How will she react when she discovers I came here to steal Blueshell?’

At that moment, the car came to a stop.

It seemed we had reached our destination.

‘They built it in an impressively remote place.’

Following the officers’ instructions, Seonwoo Yeon and I stepped out of the vehicle.

Before us stood a plain rectangular building, its walls covered entirely in ivory-coloured panels.

‘So this is the warehouse?’

It was unexpectedly clean and spacious.

Of course, appearances meant little when the security was this poor.

The barrier surrounding the building was so crude that I could not help frowning.

‘Good grief. This is even worse than the Magic Tower Guild’s barrier.’

Every time I encountered something like this, I was reminded anew that I truly had fallen into another world.

‘What a primitive magical civilisation.’

Just then—

Boom! Boom!

A sudden roar erupted beside me, loud enough to resemble a lawnmower. I instinctively turned my head.

Boom! Boom!

Something was striking the barrier.

A fierce wind howled around the Awakened woman with the long, flowing hair. As I watched Seonwoo Yeon use her ability, a thought occurred to me.

‘Huh?’

Perhaps teaching her how to use that technique had been a mistake.

‘She’s become rather strong.’

Now that Seonwoo Yeon had gained full control over her ability, she had become quite a dangerous opponent.

An F-Class body like mine would be sliced in half the instant that cutting wind so much as brushed against it.

‘Hmm.’

Whoosh.

I nodded slowly as I listened to the vicious shriek of the wind.

‘I absolutely cannot let her catch me stealing Blueshell.’

The dangers of this operation were only just beginning to sink in.

Bang!

At last, the barrier collapsed. The magical energy enveloping the warehouse scattered into the air in an instant.

“Will that be enough?”

“Yes, Hunter-nim. We can enter now.”

They had said this operation would not be especially dangerous, but—

‘Why are they all so heavily armed?’

I glanced at the detectives clutching their batons and cautiously asked,

“Isn’t this more dangerous than expected?”

Seonwoo Yeon answered calmly.

“It will be fine. All the gang members inside are non-Awakened.”

“Hmm.”

“Because we work in the Hunter industry, Awakened people can seem common to us. In reality, however, they make up only a small portion of the population.”

Even after hearing that, I found it difficult to relax.

‘An F-Class Hunter could probably lose a fight against an ordinary person... couldn’t they?’

While I was secretly breaking into a cold sweat, one of the officers at the front called out to Seonwoo Yeon.

“Hunter Seonwoo Yeon, remain behind us and report Jang Jongsik’s location at regular intervals.”

And so the warehouse raid began.

The interior of the building was dark and damp.

‘There are quite a lot of rooms.’

Its structure was stranger than I had expected. Temporary partitions had been erected throughout the warehouse, turning the interior into a maze of narrow corridors.

‘Does each room serve a different purpose?’

The police and Seonwoo Yeon continued advancing without pause.

I watched them for a moment, then quietly drifted towards the rear of the group and tried the handle of a nearby door.

Click.

Locked.

‘Tsk.’

I repeated the attempt several more times, but every door produced the same result.

‘Not a single room in this corridor is open.’

Still, after coming all this way, I could hardly allow the opportunity to go to waste.

I followed behind the officers, discreetly testing every doorknob whenever no one was looking.

Before long, one of the gang members emerged from a room further inside the warehouse.

“You bastards, don’t move!”

“You are under arrest for violations of the Narcotics Control Act and the Special Act on Awakened Crimes!”

We had yet to find the Blueshell, but that did not seem to be much of a problem.

To my surprise, Earthling police officers were remarkably skilled fighters.

‘Oh.’

I let out a small sound of admiration as the gangsters were subdued almost instantly.

Everything was proceeding smoothly.

Bang!

Then came an ominous noise.

“A gun?”

“That sounded like a gunshot.”

“Where did it come from?”

The sound had echoed from somewhere beyond the far end of the corridor, immediately putting the officers on alert.

They were not the only ones whose demeanour changed.

“That’s the direction Jang Jongsik is in!”

Seonwoo Yeon had sensed the distributor’s location near the source of the gunshot and shouted the information aloud.

The officers reacted at once.

“Move!”

Something might have happened to the key suspect they were supposed to capture alive.

Without wasting another second, they sprinted down the corridor.

There was, however, one person who did not follow them.

‘Are they insane?’

That person was me.

Kim Kiryeo.

‘There are guns in Korea too? That’s strange. I thought those only appeared in films. The information in this brain definitely said—’

Some time ago, while browsing the internet, I had come across a post titled:

[How to Identify a C-Class Hunter.gif]

Do you know what the post contained?

It was a video of someone abruptly firing a gun at an Awakened person.

The explanation was simple.

Hunters ranked C-Class and above would not be harmed by ordinary firearms. Below that threshold, however, the outcome varied depending on rank.

‘A piece of trash like Kim Kiryeo would be pierced straight through.’

I had no intention of following them.

Why would I loiter near a gunfight and risk being struck by a stray bullet fired by some amateur?

‘Good grief.’

Besides, the arrest operation was already approaching its conclusion.

Would it not be safer simply to wait here?

‘All this trouble just for a few samples.’

I shuddered and paced through the quiet corridor.

Then an eerie sound drifted from the direction opposite the gunshot.

“Ugh... hng... sniff...”

Was someone crying?

‘What is that?’

The warehouse was dark and gloomy, but unfortunately for any potential spirits, I was an archmage who had already finished deciphering the nature of the soul.

I did not believe in supernatural phenomena.

‘It cannot be a ghost.’

Which meant the sound had to be coming from a person.

“Ugh... hng...”

The longer I listened, the more concerned I became.

I slowly followed the sound.

Naturally, I kept my senses fully alert and remained prepared to flee at the slightest sign of another person.

Fortunately, none of my fears came to pass.

‘Is it this room?’

The door stood wide open.

That made satisfying my curiosity simple enough.

All I had to do was lean forward and look inside.

“Hng... ugh...”

A woman lay on the bare cement floor.

Her voice had grown so faint that she seemed to have lost even the strength to cry.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that her eyes were covered by a blindfold, while her arms and legs had been bound with rope.

The situation looked grave.

‘Hmm.’

This was now a simple problem of logic.

The warehouse belonged to a criminal organisation.

Criminal organisations were gatherings of wicked people.

Therefore, the woman had most likely been captured by those wicked people.

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

The answer was obvious.

I decided to help her.

‘She’s an unarmed civilian. Even if something goes wrong, I should be able to handle it.’

Although a few less-than-pure motives might occasionally have entered my thoughts, I was nevertheless grateful for my own altruistic nature.

“Ugh...”

I approached while carefully inspecting the surrounding area.

“Are you all right?”

Once I was close enough, I cautiously addressed the citizen lying on the floor.

There was no response.

“I’m going to free you now.”

Having once been kidnapped myself, I knew exactly how frustrating it was to be unable to move.

I channelled magic through the [Pyromancer Necklace] hanging around my neck and burned through the ropes binding her.

‘Hm?’

The woman remained disoriented, so I had no choice but to remove the blindfold myself.

‘That should do it.’

Rustle.

After I removed the last of her restraints, she awkwardly pushed herself into a sitting position.

“Wh-what...?”

Within three seconds, all colour drained from the Earthling’s face.

“Why did you let me go all of a sudden? Are you... are you taking me away already?”

I had no idea what she meant, so I remained silent.

The woman immediately began sobbing and clasped her hands together.

“I’m sorry! Please spare me!”

“What?”

“I-I swear I won’t tell anyone what you did! I mean it!”

Why was she behaving like this?

Was she afraid they were going to play “Gongguri” and dump her into the sea?

She continued babbling about boats and other things I could not understand.

“I-I didn’t even know this place belonged to the Gayang Faction...!”

By then, I had begun to grasp the source of her misunderstanding.

‘Does she think I’m one of the gang members?’

How dare she mistake a good person like me for a common thug?

At first, I found the notion absurd.

Then I reconsidered.

A white shirt and black trousers.

Of all the clothes I could have chosen, today’s outfit happened to resemble the clothing worn by the criminals in this warehouse.

“Excuse me...”

I tried to clear up the misunderstanding.

Then I noticed something new.

A thin stream of red blood was trickling down the woman’s forehead.

‘Blood?’

Only then did I realise that she had been injured.

The wound did not look minor.

‘Did she hurt her head? That is a vital area for Earthlings, isn’t it?’

In all forms of treatment, a swift initial response was crucial.

Alarmed by the injury, I immediately bent down to examine it more closely.

“Aaah!”

Instead of gratitude, I received a terrified scream.

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“Oh, I only want to inspect the wound.”

“What?”

“Turn your head this way.”

“M-my head? Again with my head? No!”

No matter how many times I explained that I was not a gangster, it had no effect.

The confused citizen trembled like a leaf and muttered frantically.

“Please... please don’t kill me...”

She shook her head so violently that even more blood began flowing from her forehead.

“Ah! P-please stay still.”

Flustered, I first attempted to stop her movements.

Thud.

I placed my right hand against her head.

“Hic!”

Unfortunately, the emergency treatment did not produce the desired result.

The moment I grabbed her head, her face went white and she let out a strangled gasp.

“I’ll tell you!”

What else could she possibly have left to say after all that?

“I’ll tell you everything! I won’t hide anything! I’ll remember whatever you asked me before, somehow. Please!”

I was certain she had been brought here for a reason, but to be honest, I had no interest in discovering what it was.

Rustle.

I carefully parted the woman’s hair until I located the source of the bleeding.

Her scalp had indeed been torn.

The wound was fairly deep.

‘Repairing living tissue is difficult. For now, I should simply stop the bleeding—’

At that moment—

Bang!

A door was kicked open with tremendous force.

I turned my head towards the sudden noise.

I was not particularly startled.

The Awakened person standing in the doorway was someone I knew.

“Ah.”

“...!”

Seonwoo Yeon entered the room, breathing heavily.

It seemed she had tracked my position with her ability.

“You arrived quickly.”

But why was she looking at me like that?