Chapter 53: Chapter 52: I’ll Take Out My Four-Year Injustice on Monsters, Part II
I planted my feet firmly on the ground. I was a melee fighter with no skills to use. All I had to rely on were my supreme stats. In other words, I only had my body to fight with, and my body hadn’t let me down yet.
As the giant spiders came at me with their forelegs poised to attack, I swung my greatsword in a giant circle with a war cry. I swung eight times and was rewarded with satisfying slicing sounds, telling me my attacks rang true. When I stopped, I saw that eight of the closest spiders were sliced in half at their thorax.
“Huh? I stood there amidst the silence. All I could hear were the sounds of the spiders’ heads falling to the ground as their bodies disappeared.
“What is this? Why is this so easy?” I asked myself as I stared at the spiders’ remains.
The spiders that had charged at me so confidently stopped dead in their tracks when their eight comrades were killed in an instant.
“Who’s next?” I asked the other twenty-two spiders. “Huh? Hey! Why are you running? We’re just getting started!” The spiders skittered away from me as fast as they had charged at me.
“Oh, come on!” Astounded, I lifted my greatsword and rested the blade on my shoulder.
These spiders were pretty smart. Once they knew their opponent was too strong for them, they fled in all directions. The area that was once covered in black spiders was completely empty.
“That was barely a warm up.”
[You have gained a level.]
I felt cheated when the spiders ran away like that, but when I heard the level up alert, I smiled. It felt like I was rewarded for being unable to do anything for four years, a marvelous sense of fulfillment. But it was still just a feeling, and I bent over to pick up the dropped golden rings and items.
“A penny saved is a penny earned. I might have more than a million golden rings, but I should still collect as many as I can…”
Each spider head sold for about 7-10 golden rings a pop. I put them all in my inventory without leaving any heads behind.
“These spider legs would sell too, though…” There were a few legs here and there where the spiders’ bodies vanished.
“I don’t have much left room in my inventory. What a waste.” If I decided to leave my greatsword out and not put it back into my inventory, I would have one more slot leftover.
“I should still take them. I’ll toss them out if I find something better.” I picked up the three leg pieces and placed them in my inventory. They stacked so they fit in my last inventory slot.
“I don’t want to have to chase down all those that ran away, but going somewhere seems like a waste of time. I might as well catch up on lost time while I’m here.” It’d be nice if they all came at me like moths to the flame, but I decided to at least enjoy the hunt while I was here. I felt like if I didn’t let loose a little, I wouldn’t be able to sleep well tonight… even though I slept way too much recently.
The further I ventured into Paju, the spiders’ habitat, the more giant spiders there were. And there were a lot of them. There were spiders that ran away, but I didn’t need to chase after them as more came out to attack me after I took a couple of steps.
All it took was one swing to the head. I didn’t need to try harder than that. Head, body, leg, it didn’t matter where I swung; I cut them down with ease. I even saw the occasional yellow flash, telling me that some of the attacks were criticals, although I didn’t really need them.
“I never got a single critical off when I fought that boss. I’m already killing them all off with one hit anyway; why am I getting so many now?” I muttered to myself, without stopping my torrent of attacks. I was still having fun killing the spiders with ease.
“This is the hunt that I wanted for four long years!”
As I struck down a charging spider, the rest hissed before scampering away.
[You have leveled up.]
I was at a low enough level that I consistently got level up messages just by killing some field monsters. I happily closed the message screen and continued hunting. This was my first hunt in four years and my excitement was far from cooling down.
“There’s still more time until the sun sets. Let’s go!” I stalked around looking for more spiders, like a jungle cat looking for prey.
Back in Sunbin Guild’s headquarters, Song Haechang returned to the building after chasing out Lee Jiwon. If he could have, he would have taken Lee Jiwon to some back room and killed him a few times. He wanted to hurt the leech. He wanted the guild master and Song Haein to make ugly expressions… but he knew he couldn’t hide everything he did in the headquarters. He knew he had to get him out of there first. He could at least make it seem like Lee Jiwon had left of his own free will.
“I’ll just say that he left on his own. I really didn’t want to have to look at him any longer, and I couldn’t just leave him alone like that. Hehehe! I wonder what sort of expression Song Haein’ll make.” Song Haechang returned to his room and dialed a number on his cellphone. The call rang a few times before it went through.
“Oh my. To what do I owe the pleasure for the heir of the Sunbin Guild to be calling me? It’s been so long that I worried you might’ve forgotten my number.”
“Cut the chatter.” A vein on Song Haechang’s head pulsed at the sarcastic tone, but his voice remained calm. He knew this guy was like that. He also knew that contrary to how he spoke, this person was skilled. He used him every time he could.
“Hehehe! I’m just grateful for your call.”
“I have a request for you.”
“If it’s the request of the Sunbin Guild’s heir, then I shall heed it. Yes, I shall. You’ve been so punctual on your payments and always pay top dollar. Hehehe! There are so many other trashy fellows that I barely get enough work these days.”
“There’s a man named Lee Jiwon who just left the Sunbin Guild’s headquarters a couple of hours ago. Kidnap him and hide him somewhere he won’t be found. Be mindful with this one. Make sure you leave no trace.”
He was going to tell the guild master than Lee Jiwon left on his own, but he knew that the guild master would set out to look for him. That was why Song Haechang decided to make such a request; so that Lee Jiwon would disappear without Song Haechang having to personally step in.
“Hmm…you don’t want to do this simple task yourself, and you’re making someone like me do it for you without having anyone find out… I’m assuming that anyone includes the guild master of the Sunbin Guild, as well?”
“That’s right.”
“My, my. I was happy that you gave me a call after all this time, but you’re leaving me with such a dangerous task. You want me to avoid the Sunbin Guild’s eyes, here in Seoul…”
“You can’t do it?”
“Hahaha! Whatever do you mean? Of course I can do it. It’s just that it’ll cost you more than usual.”
“I’ll pay you three times the normal price.”
“Three times…shouldn’t you offer at least five?”
Song Haechang ground his teeth.
“I let you stay in Seoul this long, and this is how you repay me?”
“Hahaha. Of course, we’re forever grateful to the young master, Song Haechang, for letting us live in Seoul. Isn’t that why we’ve been at your beck and call all this time? You want us to stay out of the guild’s sight to do this job…don’t you think that’s a fair price? The Sunbin Guild is very strong and powerful, you know.”
“Haa…fine. I’ll pay five.” Song Haechang was furious, but decided to restrain himself.
“Hehehe. Thank you very much. It’s not that big a price for you, is it? Just think of it as helping us poor fellows out. Hehehe!”
Song Haechang didn’t reply to the sarcasm once more.
“You have two weeks. You better have it done by then.”
“I assume the guild master, vice-master and Song Haein will return from America in two week’s time. This Lee Jiwon person you want us to kidnap must be very important.”
“Since when did you care about such trivialities? Are you thinking of backing out now?”
“Hehehe! You know that we always work in such risky conditions.”
“Then I’ll ask you once more. Do you accept or not?”
“Hehehe. Have we ever turned you down? We’ll do anything you ask of us as long as you pay. Hasn’t that been our policy so far?”
“Good. Shall I turn over all the information I have on Lee Jiwon, like before?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t that be the cleanest way?”
“Good. I’ll be on the rooftop in five minutes.” Song Haechang hung up before throwing his phone to the floor.
“Damn hyenas, biting the hand that fed them so much like this!”
The Sunbin Guild carefully maintained Seoul, as the city was its domain. The guild carried out many sweeping operations to clean out the gangsters, but could never fully root them out. The gangsters always survived as they had an inside man within the guild. That insider was none other than Song Haechang!
Song Haechang was on the roof five minutes later, as promised. An eagle flew towards Song Haechang and landed next to him. He looked at the eagle’s beak expectantly.
The eagle opened its beak wide, and Song Haechang placed Lee Jiwon’s medical records and a background report labeled ‘Level 32’ into the eagle’s beak. The four sheets of paper all fit into the eagle’s mouth. The eagle then swallowed all four sheets of paper before walking around Song Haechang a couple times. He gave a nod to the eagle, which then flew off.
“Hahaha! I really want to see the sad faces of Song Haein and the guild master!”
Song Haechang smiled as he imagined what he would do to Lee Jiwon. He would kidnap and imprison him somewhere without anyone knowing, and get a Respawn Point item and kill him over and over until he wasn’t angry anymore.
“Maybe I should take a video of it and send it to them. Maybe they’ll end up neglecting their hunts or just break down completely. Kekeke! No, I really want that to happen!”
After reveling in his imagination for a while, his smile completely disappeared and he looked off into the distance. He then came down from the roof and headed for his room, wearing the same deadpan look.
“Yes, sir. He just went back inside.”
“You filmed everything?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Retreat for now.”
A man revealed himself on the roof on the opposite side of the Sunbin Guild’s building after making his report. He stared at the roof access Song Haechang had disappeared into.
“Song Haechang, did you really think you could discard us that easily? We have so many secrets on each other that we’re basically one now. If one of us goes down, the other will go down with them. Hehehe!” The man turned around before disappearing into a cloud of smoke.
