Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - chapter 34
“You don’t know where the homeless guy is?”
I asked Minu after we went down to the first floor.
“No. He never came to the window. Maybe he’s in one of the bedrooms?”
We opened the doors one by one, looking for the homeless man who’d supposedly come in a few days ago.
“Uh… he’s… nowhere…”
We searched the entire house, but there was no sign of the homeless man.
“I really didn’t see him go out.”
Minu was starting to get creeped out too; his face had gone pale.
“Blood smell…”
With my sharpened senses, my nose picked up the smell of blood and chemicals. Following the scent, I headed to the kitchen. The smell was leaking out from behind the pantry shelf.
“Does something smell?”
Minu sniffed the air, but of course he didn’t pick up anything. My sense of smell was already sharper than a dog’s.
“I think there’s something behind this.”
I grabbed the shelf and gave it a light push; it slid aside with a soft scrape, revealing a metal door.
“Hyung… what is this?”
Minu swallowed hard as he asked.
“Can you open it?”
I pointed at the keyhole in the steel door.
“If you can’t, we’ll just break it.”
At this point, not getting caught wasn’t the main issue anymore. At first, I’d only had a slight suspicion, but when I heard about the homeless guy, it became half suspicion, half certainty. And now, after seeing the smells, and this steel door leading to a basement, suspicion had turned into conviction.
“I can open it.”
Minu bent his finger and slid it into the keyhole. It seemed trickier than the upstairs door; he grunted a bit, but soon the lock clicked open.
The stairs going down into the basement were unlit and pitch black.
I could see fine in the dark, but Minu couldn’t see at all, so I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight.
Descending the stairs, the basement came into view.
“Blegh!”
Minu threw up everything he’d eaten onto the floor.
There was a refrigerator and a big sturdy-looking work table. Black stains were mottled all over the table, and on the wall hung things like saws, hammers, and axes. On a nearby shelf, chopped-up human body parts were stored in liquid-filled containers.
Leaving the retching Minu behind me, I opened the refrigerator. Inside were more dismembered people. None of them looked like they’d died easily; every face was twisted in agony.
I’d seen plenty of filthy scenes in my previous life, so I didn’t throw up like Minu, but it was still a nauseating sight.
“Is this the homeless guy?”
I pointed at a head in one of the tubs that still smelled of relatively fresh blood.
“…Haa… haa… yeah… blegh!”
Minu gave it a quick glance, confirmed it, and then started heaving again.
I took the phone from his hand and snapped photos.
We had trespassed and discovered his little dungeon; we’d have to report this anonymously. Without photos, it was obvious the investigation wouldn’t be taken seriously.
“Clean that up.”
“Huh?”
“The puke. You want to leave proof you were here? They’re going to go over this place top to bottom.”
If the cops found vomit, they might suspect Minu.
“Use that bucket and detergent over there and scrub it.”
“Ah… y-yes…”
While Minu cleaned up his own vomit, I waited quietly.
“Let’s get out.”
We went back up the stairs, closed the metal door, and slid the pantry shelf back into place—when I heard footsteps behind us.
“Well now. I was wondering who came into my house, and look who it is—Hunter Lee Ji-seok.”
Seo Kyung-hyeon was standing behind us. The sound must’ve been blocked in the basement, so I hadn’t realized he’d come home.
“Why’d you kill those people?”
“For justice, of course. Isn’t it my duty to clean up trash that’s no benefit to society? Everyone I killed was a toxin in the body of society.”
“And who are you to decide who’s a toxin?”
Justice is one of those things you can twist however you like. What’s justice to me might be injustice to someone else.
“My skill is Justice Sword, remember? When I do righteous deeds, my sword grows stronger. The fact that my sword got stronger proves I carried out justice.”
Light wrapped around his sword. It shone far brighter than Sang-heon’s ever had.
“Even killing villains alone is hard to call justice. And you’re hacking people into pieces like that—what kind of ‘justice’ is that? You just twisted the meaning of justice to suit yourself so you could power up your skill.”
“Sounds like you and I have different ideas.”
The smile vanished from Seo Kyung-hyeon’s face, and for a moment, silence fell.
We glared at each other for a few seconds, and then Seo Kyung-hyeon suddenly lunged, his light-wreathed sword thrusting forward.
I thought he’d aim for me, but he went for Minu’s heart.
As if a D-rank could move faster than I could react. I reached out and grabbed the blade.
“Huh?”
He hadn’t expected to be blocked and tried to yank his sword free; I tightened my grip and smashed my right fist into his head.
With a thud, his skull cracked.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
Minu, who’d fallen on his butt in shock, asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little scratch.”
The skin on my palm was barely cut. I hadn’t even bothered with any special reinforcement, and yet a mere D-rank had managed to scratch me—he certainly had talent. If he’d grown stronger, I might not have taken him down this easily.
A few drops of blood fell to the floor. I can control the toxicity of my blood at will. Normally I keep it non-toxic and only make it poisonous when needed, so I don’t go melting floors by accident, but I didn’t want to leave proof I’d been here, so I wiped the blood up.
After tidying up, we hid our faces and left through the front door. Since Seo Kyung-hyeon had disarmed the security when he came in, no alarms sounded.
Outside the front door, two cars had crashed into each other, and President Yoo was lying in front of them.
“Boss!”
Minu ran over.
“Ugh… I thought I was gonna die…”
When Minu shook him, President Yoo groaned and sat up, rubbing his head.
“What happened, Boss?”
“The two of you go in, and suddenly that bastard comes back. He’s trying to go inside, you’re not answering your phone—what was I supposed to do? To buy time, I just rammed him with my car. I told him we’d call insurance, apologize and all, and that jerk attacked me without a second thought. Why didn’t you pick up your phone?!”
“Ah… I guess I had no signal in the basement.”
“President Yoo, file an anonymous report with the police. Include the photos on Minu’s phone.”
“What photos?”
“You’ll know when you see them. If you want to puke, do it in the bathroom first.”
—
From the rooftop of a nearby building, we watched Seo Kyung-hyeon’s house. Local cops arrived soon after, followed by multiple patrol cars and what looked like forensics vans. Police tape went up all around the house.
Once I saw that, I left.
Later, the news reported that Seo Kyung-hyeon had been dismembering homeless people, and that the killer who’d slain Seo Kyung-hyeon himself had not been found.
“The police suspect that, since Seo Kyung-hyeon chose only weaker victims, the person who killed him is not one of the victims but rather an accomplice. What do you think?”
The news anchor asked a crime expert.
“There’s nothing from the crime scene to indicate the presence of an accomplice. I personally think it’s highly likely that Seo Kyung-hyeon acted alone. And the one who killed him would be a vigilante.”
“So you could say they were a kind of hero of justice, since they killed a serial murderer?”
Seo Kyung-hyeon wouldn’t shut up about justice, and ended up as a serial killer. And the one who killed him—me—was being called a hero of justice.
I opened my notebook, where I’d written down what I needed to do based on memories from my previous life. I drew a long line through the entry for Seo Kyung-hyeon—an unexpected case solved in an unexpected place.
—
“Hyung, why are you staring at your phone like that?”
“Sang-heon, I think my eyes are broken. Why is the button gray again?”
I kept staring at the gate reservation button, but it was still grayed out.
“Didn’t it get unlocked after you caught Na-young’s stalker?”
“It did.”
Had that bastard pulled something again? Maybe I’d let him off too easy.
Just then, my phone rang.
“Hunter Lee Ji-seok? This is Park Tae-gwan, from the Gate Division at the Awakener Management Bureau.”
“I was just about to call because I can’t reserve gates again. I thought the complaint issue was resolved.”
“Oh, it’s not the complaints. You’ve violated the mandatory requirements, so normal gates have been blocked for you.”
“Mandatory requirements?”
“E- and D-rank hunters are required to clear a certain number of undead gates, and you skipped that and jumped straight to C-rank.”
“Undead gates…”
“You don’t want to go, do you? That’s exactly why the requirement was put in place.”
I guess my tone gave me away.
There’s nothing to gain from undead gates. And if you don’t have the skills to deal with spirit-type monsters, you have to buy holy water, which costs extra money—no wonder hunters hate them.
On top of that, I’d died fighting undead in my previous life, so they gave me an even stronger aversion. Now that Regeneration had reached C-rank, I could absorb life force after a fight and go right back into combat for near-endless battles—but you can’t do that with undead, since they don’t have life force.
“Normally, we notify you a few months after you get your license, but we didn’t expect you to reach C-rank in the meantime. Thanks to you, we’re in the middle of rewriting the regulations. Anyway, details are in the email we sent, so please check it.”
When I opened my inbox, there was indeed an email from the Bureau.
“We trust a hunter of your caliber will meet the requirements quickly. Then, have a good day.”
The Bureau official hung up.
“Hyung, you’re going to the undead gate?”
“Looks like I have to.”
In my last life, once Regeneration hit B-rank, my offensive options broadened. Since it had come to this, I might as well not just clear the Bureau’s requirements, but also aim to level up my skills.
“I’ll go too.”
Sang-heon said.
“Sure. Let’s bring Na-young as well and all go together.”
Na-young and Sang-heon also had to clear undead gates as part of their mandatory quota, so the three of us headed to the gate.
“Noona, it’s finally time for me to show my true power.”
Sang-heon said, light wrapping around his sword. His light attribute sword was the best weapon you could ask for against undead.
“I’m the opposite. I’ve got nothing but mana balls for offense.”
Na-young’s curses were much less effective against undead, which were already dead and rotting.
“It’s E-rank, so mana balls should be more than enough.”
Passing the chatting Sang-heon and Na-young, I stopped in front of the undead gate. Memories of my last battle in my previous life swirled in my head.
“Let’s go.”
Steeling myself, I stepped into the gate.
Inside was a gloomy cemetery-like space. Even the ground had that characteristic purplish tint.
As soon as we entered, a mass of skeletons rose from the ground to greet us.
Sang-heon and I charged in first.
E-rank skeletons weren’t even a match for me; I smashed them apart like snacks.
Sang-heon was fired up, smashing skeletons one after another as well.
“This is way too easy.”
He swung his glowing sword in the air as he spoke.
“I don’t have much to do if you two take them all.”
All Na-young ended up doing was occasionally taking out the few that slipped through toward her with mana balls, so she had it pretty easy.
“Let’s skip the mana stones and move fast.”
Mana stones are like crystallized life force and mana. The more life or mana a monster has, the bigger they get, and their color varies depending on whether they’re more life-heavy or more mana-heavy.
Skeletons with nearly no life or mana drop only tiny stones, and picking out those little bits from their bones is a waste of time.
So I hadn’t even called Hwagok Collection for today. Our sole purpose was to clear the Bureau’s requirement and level up skills.
Leading the two, I kept smashing skeletons and scouting ahead.
“There it is.”
Sang-heon swallowed, staring at the number-one reason hunters avoided undead gates.