Chapter 53: The Beast’s Fury and Bitter Memories

Three giant plant-type monsters perished with a single swing. She exhaled a long breath, then rested the massive sword on her shoulder.

Her taut muscles rippled, a testament to her formidable strength.

The Dojon, in ancient times, was known as the ‘Executioner’s Blade.’ It was indeed the very sword used to sever the heads of criminals.

The two team members, having once been beaten senseless by its flat edge, quickly extended their hands forward.

Wind and fire erupted, creating a powerful synergy. The flames, having perfectly incinerated only the monsters, swiftly died down.

With all the monsters dealt with, the two men straightened their shoulders.

“Oh, Captain, when have we ever slacked off?”

“That’s right. We might talk a lot, but we’ve hunted plenty too.”

“…You two would be popular if you just kept your mouths shut.”

“What do you mean by that?!”

“We are popular!”

The team leader didn’t bother to inform them that such indignation was akin to admitting the truth. Instead, she spoke with a cynical edge.

“I’ll acknowledge it when you find someone to date while keeping your A-rank hunter status a secret.”

“……”

“……”

The two men were utterly defeated.

Kugugugung!

Kwakwang!

The ground vibrated, and sounds of a different caliber echoed through the forest. The team leader clicked her tongue.

“He still doesn’t know the meaning of moderation.”

Turning her head, she saw ice crystals jutting sharply above the distant forest. While it couldn’t compare to the ice mountain from two years ago, the casual use of such power suggested that even “S-rank superior” was an understatement.

Although at the bottom of the list, Yoon Hye-ri, a team leader officially registered as an S-rank in Credit, narrowed her eyes.

Sagyeol’s image in the media was that of an ideal top star. He was an S-rank hunter, handsome, and possessed the city’s greatest heroic tale. On top of that, he smiled readily.

Sagyeol’s soaring popularity was, in a way, entirely natural.

However, many industry professionals and those above team leader rank at Credit knew better. They understood it was a meticulously crafted image.

‘It felt as though his cynical, almost inhuman side was forcibly suppressed.’

Sagyeol treated those within his inner circle well. Lee Hyun-su might not agree, but he was, humanly speaking, a rather decent superior.

Even if it was an act, Yoon Hye-ri didn’t particularly care. In fact, if he had claimed to be a philanthropist, she would have long since transferred to a different guild.

Yet, this was Sagyeol.

Kugugung.

Kurururu.

The ground rumbled as if an earthquake had struck, and several more ice crystals shot upwards. Above them hovered a flying drone, with Sagyeol suspended beneath it.

‘Look at the murderous intent in his eyes.’

Yoon Hye-ri let out a whistle. By now, it was hardly a surprising sight.

At some point, he had grown so sharp-edged that anyone would flinch at his presence. It wasn’t just once or twice that she had gripped her sword hilt, startled by a murderous aura she’d typically only sense from monsters.

‘If someone were to ask exactly how and where he’d changed, it would be difficult to answer.’

His methods, one might say, had become cruel. More precisely, they had become excessive.

He would deliberately slaughter monsters in a brutal fashion, creatures he would have dispatched instantly before.

Outwardly, nothing seemed to have changed. He still wandered around with a languid smile, as if a screw had come loose, and continued to act as Lee Hyun-su’s hypotensive remedy, despite Lee Hyun-su not even suffering from low blood pressure.

He was exactly as everyone knew him to be.

This was precisely what Yoon Hye-ri found chilling.

‘Perhaps the change was something more fundamental…?’

Though “essence” might be too grand a word, she could discern that something defining the guild master had indeed shifted.

However, her concern ended there. Sagyeol might have lost some humanity, but he remained a good superior, and there were no issues with his work. The money was always reliably deposited.

“To think he’d actually come to lend a hand with purification. Our Guild Master has truly become a decent person.”

Yoon Hye-ri suppressed a laugh at the ignorant team member’s words. *Become a person?* Quite the opposite.

‘The beast who was never truly human has merely transformed into a ferocious monster.’

For Sagyeol to undertake purification, not even a simple subjugation, was nonsense in itself. Lee Hyun-su asked him? If that man were one to comply so readily, Lee Hyun-su wouldn’t be walking around with a resignation letter tucked into his chest.

Yoon Hye-ri easily deduced the truth: he had been temporarily cast into the forest to exhaust the fervor of a beast that couldn’t be reined in.

“Captain. Stop watching and let’s go.”

“That’s right. There’s less than ten minutes until the next target opens.”

‘Well, it’s not my concern anyway.’

Yoon Hye-ri swung her Dojon horizontally. A beast-type monster, drawn out by the commotion at the territory’s edge, was cleaved in half and instantly killed.

Just then, two other team members, who had dealt with a nearby gate, joined them. One was a hunter wielding twin long-bladed swords, and the other commanded lightning.

“Let’s go.”

Yoon Hye-ri’s five-person squad vanished amidst the forest.

Sagyeol had arrived at the forest around noon. By the time he completed his assigned tasks, the sun had already begun to set.

Pink and blue hues stretched across the entire sky, as if painted with long strokes. Blinking like someone waking from a daydream, he gazed beyond the forest.

His entire body was drenched in monster blood. He had only used ice a few times at the beginning.

Soon after, Sagyeol leaped from his drone and beat the monsters down with his bare hands. The same went for the boss-level beasts; he broke their horns and then stabbed them through the heart with their own broken horns.

In this manner, he closed ten gates. Sagyeol attempted to wipe the blood from his hands but frowned.

His clothes were so soaked in blood that there was nowhere clean to wipe. Clicking his tongue briefly, he roughly wiped his fingertips on some mutated grass and operated his terminal.

“It’s me. I’m done.”

[Yes. Well done. We will send a cleanup crew now.]

His tasks were completely finished. Though Sagyeol thought this, he still took the drone deeper into the forest.

Before long, the southern boundary line came into view. The drones used by the subjugation teams already had the explored maze lines programmed into them.

This was another improvement made over the past two years. Simply holding onto it, the drone would automatically navigate the maze within the forest, arriving at its designated destination.

‘Two years… Has it already been two years?’

Perhaps because there was nothing to do but grip the drone, his memories drifted back in time.

Following the monumental incident two years ago, when Sagyeol pierced through the blocked maze, a large-scale cleanup operation took place in Grisha.

It wasn’t against monsters, but an arrest operation targeting a gang that had been smuggling magic stones out to manufacture drugs.

As hunters were the primary force, a massive joint operation between the defense corps and hunters was carried out, completely wiping out the syndicate.

During the operation, many suspects died due to excessive force, but this garnered little attention. It was overshadowed by a larger issue.

The Hestia Guild had found a returnee.

All of Grisha was abuzz. The media churned out daily articles, proclaiming that there was no longer any need to worry about dead ends appearing in the maze.

Sagyeol’s eyes turned fierce for a moment, but upon hearing the returnee was D-rank, he merely scoffed, “‘Hah, what an idiot.'”

Bae Gil-su, filled with inferiority towards Sagyeol and Credit, knew that Sagyeol was looking for a returnee but couldn’t deduce the specific circumstances.

Simply because Sagyeol was searching, he wanted to get his hands on whatever Sagyeol desired first.

‘I don’t know what it is, but a returnee can solve the Black Mist, right? Okay. Find them immediately!’

‘Hahaha! A returnee! I found them first. I beat Sagyeol!’

He could almost hear the idiotic voice in his ears. Sagyeol irritably ran a hand through the back of his hair.

The fact that Bae Gil-su hadn’t bothered to investigate further, which would have revealed that even a returnee needed a certain level of strength, was particularly contemptible.

The drone juddered slightly. Sagyeol snapped to attention.

The drone, which had swayed as if drunk, finally returned to its stable position. Sagyeol’s eyes darkened.

It had been a year since the upgraded drones were officially deployed, and reports of similar phenomena occurring in the new models, much like the older ones, had started about six months ago.

It wasn’t a mechanical defect.

While drones and other devices had been improved, the miasma of the forest also grew denser the closer one approached its core.

‘This means older models would be completely useless deeper inside.’

Progress on hunter terminals remained slow. Thinking he would have to push the research team, Sagyeol gazed at the walls of miasma lining both sides.

Experts studying monsters and the forest unanimously warned that at this rate, the point where even low A-rank hunters couldn’t set foot was fast approaching.

Sagyeol, uncharacteristically, agreed. As someone fighting on the front lines, he felt that truth more acutely than anyone.

‘And a returnee is absolutely necessary.’

Thick thorns pierced his insides. The thorns, planted two years ago, never dulled, constantly pricking at him.

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