“The situation is turning bad.”
Lee Hyungmo was looking up at Crack No. 57 from underneath the high-altitude work platform, alongside Lee Hansoo.
They had placed a new boss in the crack as their employer had instructed, then threw a bomb in front of the magic circle to prevent any hunters from returning.
They thought everything was settled with that, but an unexpected event occurred.
Just as they were about to jump into the crack using the footplate, a sudden message appeared.
– The boss within the barrier zone has been defeated. The barrier will close shortly. [00:59:58]
The message confirmed that the boss was down and the barrier would soon seal shut.
The brothers realized something had gone wrong and hid near the crack.
If the raid team appeared by any means, they had to ambush and kill them.
So, they stayed there until five minutes before the barrier closed.
But no one showed up.
Lee Hyungmo was somewhat relieved and passed through the crack with five minutes remaining, confident that although the raid team had killed the boss, they would never return to the crack’s entrance.
After exiting, the brothers immediately held a press conference.
Thanks to prior notifications sent to various broadcasters that a raid would take place at this crack, reporters were already gathered in droves around the area.
Lee Hyungmo announced at the press conference that the raid team had succeeded in defeating the boss but all had perished, and he disclosed the horrific details of the raid to the journalists.
Still, he reassured the anxious reporters that the crack would soon close.
Originally, after declaring the raid a failure, he planned to form a new team and lead them back to hunt down the boss rare again.
The new team would be composed entirely of Lee Hyungmo’s loyal subordinates, tasked with retrieving only the magic stones from Shin Woojin’s corpse left behind at the boss rare.
They would waste about four days in the crack, then return and end the interview with a sorrowful expression, claiming they failed to find the boss.
That way, before any other raid team had time to clean up the mess, Crack No. 57 would evolve into a Class C, and once they received the final payment from their employer, everything would be settled.
The issue of the students and professors who had observed the raid through the academy could be wiped clean using the employer’s influence.
Besides, there would be no record anywhere that students or professors had entered this crack.
They had already sent someone ahead to secretly erase all related CCTV footage and records before entering.
However, right after the press conference, a problem arose.
Even after a long time, the crack wouldn’t close.
Despite waiting with countless reporters, Crack No. 57 still shone beautifully, unchanged.
“What on earth is going on? They said the boss was defeated at the cost of six hunters’ lives, so why isn’t the crack closing?”
“Are you sure the boss was actually defeated? Maybe they mistook another mid-level boss for the final one?”
“What about the hunters’ sacrifices? If the crack doesn’t close, won’t that severely damage Hunter Lee Hyungmo’s career?”
Sensing a scoop, reporters pounced on Lee Hyungmo and Lee Hansoo like hyenas.
“Uh, well…”
Just as Lee Hyungmo frowned and tried to respond, someone shouted.
“Something’s coming out of the crack!”
“Th-That’s a monster!”
“What’s going on all of a sudden?”
“I-It’s a wave!”
People waiting for the crack to close screamed, and the area instantly descended into chaos.
Some threw down their filming equipment and fled, while others sat frozen in terror.
Looking toward the crack, Lee Hyungmo saw a giant monster emerging.
Starting with a head over two meters in diameter, its torso appeared—but no legs were visible below the waist.
The massive, gorilla-like monster’s upper body alone looked over four meters tall.
Its heavy form fell with a thud onto the panel of the high-altitude work platform 25 meters below, making a deep rumbling sound.
“What… is that?”
It was astonishing.
A strange form of giant monster unlike anything he’d ever seen.
And it suddenly appeared by passing through the crack.
But the monster didn’t move.
Covered in blood, it lay motionless on the panel.
“Another one’s coming out!”
“This one has no upper body?”
The monsters emerging from the crack were more than one.
Bloody lumps of flesh, so distorted it was hard to tell what they were, dropped beneath the crack.
The corpse of a gondola without its upper body.
Seeing that, Lee Hyungmo and Lee Hansoo’s expressions stiffened.
They had never expected the boss monster they had mutated by embedding black magic stones in a hunter’s forehead to appear here instead of as a rare.
Two monsters had fallen outside the crack, but that wasn’t the end.
The third to come out was a giant Bulk.
This Bulk slid out relatively intact and landed atop the other monster corpses.
Seeing the Bulk’s body, Lee Hyungmo was utterly horrified.
This was impossible.
Cold sweat trickled down his back.
At that moment, people appeared from the crack.
First came Shin Woojin, followed by Shim Jaedeok and three other hunters sequentially.
They used the scattered monster corpses on the panel as cushions to land safely.
“A survivor!”
“What? Lee Hyungmo said everyone died!”
“What exactly happened here?”
The reporters, knowing that the monsters that had fallen earlier were all dead, stopped fleeing and returned.
They swarmed around the survivors who looked utterly beaten down as they stepped off the high-altitude work platform.
“Are these all the survivors? Five people in total?”
“Eight entered, seven came out, so only one casualty?”
“But I don’t recognize this hunter from the raid team roster.”
“What’s going to happen to the crack?”
“Are these corpses the loot? So the boss really was defeated?”
Amid the uproar, Shin Woojin quieted the crowd.
Then, slowly, he began to speak.
“The survivors… are all of us. This person here was an unplanned raid participant, and two hunters died.”
The reporters listened intently to Shin Woojin’s explanation.
Not once did he mention the vile deeds Lee Hyungmo and Lee Hansoo had committed.
He defended them, saying that the rare had collapsed due to an unexpected explosion, so the brothers probably didn’t think any survivors were possible.
They barely escaped the collapsing rare, and luckily defeated the boss to return alive.
He even offered condolences for the two fallen hunters.
Shin Woojin looked directly at Lee Hyungmo and nodded, as if reassuring him, “I won’t question your sins, so don’t worry.”
“… That’s how we managed to bring out these three giant monsters. Among them, Captain Lee Hyungmo deserves the most credit for defeating the giant Bulk, so I’ll hand it over to the captain here.”
Shin Woojin said something out of place, then winked at Lee Hyungmo.
Lee Hyungmo couldn’t understand the situation at all.
It was unbelievable that these people had survived, and even more impossible that a few of them had taken down the enormous gondola.
‘Kim Seojoon isn’t here? Is he dead? They don’t even mention him.’
This meant Shin Woojin and Shim Jaedeok had decided to bury Kim Seojoon’s death.
Perhaps Shim Jaedeok, who had targeted Kim Seojoon, persuaded Shin Woojin to kill him and keep it secret, trying to cover up what he and his brother had done.
With both sides having dirt on each other, it seemed like an unspoken agreement to stay silent.
“Glad you’re alive, Shin Woojin. And you all, too.”
Lee Hyungmo began to play along.
“We thought you were all dead. It’s a huge relief you made it back alive, really!”
Lee Hansoo caught on and joined the act.
“Let’s discuss the details back at the management bureau. For now, I’ll explain more to the reporters, and captain, you should gather the loot and head back first to file your report.”
“Alright. I’ll go ahead. You handle things here.”
Lee Hyungmo uttered these hollow words and hurried away.
To keep things secret, they didn’t even call the disposal team for the monster corpses or debris, so the brothers had to handle the giant Bulk themselves.
They loaded the Bulk’s body onto a five-ton refrigerated truck.
Shortly after, as Shin Woojin had said, the crack finally closed.
Lee Hyungmo and Lee Hansoo grimaced and quietly left Crack No. 57.
Since they had only fulfilled half the employer’s request, they couldn’t get the final payment.
At least by disposing of the Bulk’s corpse, they hoped to cover some of the losses.
Shin Woojin watched the brothers leave in the refrigerated truck with a strange look.
When the reporters bombarded him with questions, he calmly answered.
*****
Vrooom
The truck was speeding along the highway, leaving Yongin behind.
Their destination was the corpse disposal factory belonging to the Crack Management Bureau in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.
“Hyung, they’re definitely going to blackmail us over this until the end.”
Lee Hansoo didn’t trust Shin Woojin.
“Sure, that’s why we have to get ahead of them.”
“What are you planning?”
“We’ll use the money from selling the bodies we brought back to hire scavengers.”
Scavengers.
They were the worst kind of trash in the hunter world.
They’d do anything for money.
But they were surprisingly capable, able to quietly eliminate a Class C hunter for 200 to 300 million won.
“If we don’t hurry, they might spill everything to the Crack Management Bureau.”
“So we should contact them right away.”
Lee Hyungmo smiled oddly while driving and said to Lee Hansoo,
“Oh! That’s right. We already have scavengers hired.”
Not long ago, they had hired scavengers to kidnap and detain Park Jaehong’s wife and child.
Using his family as bait, they had set a second trap to prevent any unexpected situations.
Seeing Park Jaehong missing among the survivors, it was likely he had already triggered a self-destruct.
“That idiot Park Jaehong can’t even finish one job cleanly despite carrying such a massive bomb. He just dies alone.”
Lee Hansoo grumbled as he turned on his phone and dialed.
When the other party picked up, Lee Hansoo spoke coldly.
“Kay. The bait’s lost its effect. Clean it up thoroughly.”
– Understood. Please transfer the remaining payment once the job is complete.
“There’s an additional request. Is that possible?”
– …Let’s finish this first, then I’ll come see you. I’ll notify you of the meeting place.
“Good.”
After ending the call, Lee Hansoo gave Lee Hyungmo an “OK” sign.
“The Bulk’s body is in decent shape, so we should get at least 200 million won. That should cover the extra job fees.”
“It’ll cost more to deal with the others. What about Professor Shim Jaedeok?”
“I’ll meet him myself. Doesn’t seem worth spending money on…”
Bang!
Suddenly a loud explosion shook the truck violently.
Barely keeping control, Lee Hyungmo pulled over to the roadside.
He and Lee Hansoo got out to check the tires.
“Damn. Why a flat now of all times?”
One of the rear tires had blown out.
Looking closely, the wheel rim was bent, as if crushed by something heavy.
“Is the Bulk’s corpse too heavy?”
“This truck’s max load is five tons. The Bulk is maybe two tons, so it shouldn’t cause a flat.”
“Right. Anyway, I’ll replace the tire. You go smoke over there.”
“…Alright.”
As Lee Hansoo started changing the tire, Lee Hyungmo sat on the truck’s rear step and lit a cigarette.
At that moment, the truck shuddered faintly.
“Did you shake it, Hansoo?”
“Huh? No, maybe it was you sitting down?”
“Hmm…”
Lee Hyungmo felt something strange in that movement.
It didn’t seem caused by external force, but something inside the truck.
“I’ll check the Bulk’s corpse for a moment.”
“Okay.”
Lee Hansoo focused on changing the tire while Lee Hyungmo opened the rear door and stepped inside.
The refrigerated truck was freezing cold inside.
The bulk of the frost-covered giant Bulk’s corpse filled the space, making Lee Hyungmo tilt his head.
“There’s no way a dead thing would move…”
He stepped deeper inside.
The blood seeping from the countless weapon wounds was already hardened.
As Lee Hyungmo approached the Bulk’s head, a chilling subtle movement came from the tightly closed eyes.
It was as if the eyeballs under the lids were moving alive.
Cautiously, Lee Hyungmo lifted the eyelid with a careful hand.
Bloodshot eyes.
Veins spread like a spider web across the crimson eyeballs, staring straight at Lee Hyungmo.
“_…Gah!”
His gaze darkened and slackened after meeting those red eyes.
The bloodshot eyes trembled and glared fiercely.
Lee Hyungmo, staring blankly, suddenly drew the longsword he carried on his back.
His eyes glazed over, drooling, as if possessed, he stepped out of the truck.
Approaching Lee Hansoo, who was diligently changing the tire, he said,
“There’s nothing inside, right? The monster must be just some kind of postmortem rigor mortis or something… huh?”
The moment Lee Hansoo looked up and turned toward Lee Hyungmo,
Swish
Lee Hyungmo sliced through Lee Hansoo’s neck with his sword.
Thud. Rroll…
Lee Hansoo’s head rolled off, still sitting.
Lee Hyungmo lifted his brother’s head and torso, then went back inside the truck.
He tossed the corpse aside and sat leaning against the Bulk’s body.
The eyes remained wide open.
At some point, tears streamed down Lee Hyungmo’s face.
He raised the hand holding the sword in reverse and placed it before his chest.
His hand trembled violently.
It was as if his body fiercely resisted doing something he didn’t want to do.
But the physical resistance didn’t last long.
As if an invisible force pulled Lee Hyungmo’s hand, the sword slowly pierced his chest.
And then,
Thuck
The sword completely pierced Lee Hyungmo’s heart.