Chapter 252

Things wrapped up in an instant. No matter how much Jin Haedo was the supreme head of some cult, there was no way he’d station truly important manpower in a place like this—so it was only natural.

‘Yeah, there’s no way he can use high-rank Hunters in Cheonmyeonggyo as door-guarding dog bastards.’

I mean, they were only “guarding” it for form’s sake. Did anyone actually think somebody would really storm this house?

But at the same time, if you’re going to live as a cult leader, it’s only right that you be able to handle an event at this level.

Anyway, because he couldn’t assign decent manpower as the house-guarding dog bastards, the end result was that everything guarding Jin Haedo’s place was just a bunch of C-rank-and-below weak-ass losers and a handful of fairly well-made traps.

That didn’t mean I went picking a pointless fight.

Gargoyle’s Gaze (C)

An item processed from a “gargoyle’s eye.”

When activated, causes short-term paralysis.

I carried items worth using in situations like this, after all.

For the record, the reason I didn’t knock people out with my own hands wasn’t because it would be annoying if things got complicated—it was because I still didn’t have a solid feel for how I was supposed to control my strength.

In other words, I was holding back because if I hit wrong, I could end up killing them. This wasn’t a dungeon, and I didn’t feel like cracking the “good citizen” Title by killing people for no reason.

I activated the item smoothly, and put most of the bastards who hesitated and rushed at me to sleep.

The unlucky ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) ones who were quick on the uptake and failed to get knocked out at the right timing—standing there staring blankly—I went and grabbed those personally and put them to sleep in a different way.

As for the remaining traps, I dealt with them by picking up the cult bastards sleeping sprawled out on the floor and tossing them into things. Maybe because the people stationed here were such trash, the traps themselves looked pretty nasty in places, but... whatever. It’s not like I was getting hurt, so I didn’t care.

‘Easy!’

I never thought it would take that long in the first place, but it really only took about ten minutes for all of this to be over.

Stepping over the bastards wandering around in their dreams on the floor, I slowly looked around the doors.

There was still no sign of anyone, but figuring out which room Jin Haedo was in...

...wasn’t difficult.

‘Status Window.’

Name: Jin Haedo

Age: 32

Rank: D

Title: —

Main Skills: Marionette (B), Fate Insight (A)

Growth Limit: D

Without hesitation, I opened the door to the room Jin Haedo was in.

Maybe because I’d made such a loud scene outside, Jin Haedo didn’t look particularly startled even when I barged in and opened the door. Well, if I’d raised that much hell, it was basically the same as knocking and announcing I was coming in.

Jin Haedo was laying down a cushion on the floor and starting to brew tea, looking as composed as he had the last time I saw him.

First, I offered a polite greeting.

“Hello.”

“.......”

Jin Haedo lightly ignored my greeting, took a sip of tea, and only then looked at me a beat late.

The guy’s outside raising absolute hell, and you still feel like brewing tea. Guess even being a cult leader takes the right mindset or something.

I sat down across from Jin Haedo and glanced around the room. It looked like an ordinary house, nothing special. There were a few bizarre decorations whose purpose I couldn’t guess, but that much was easy enough to chalk up to “cult leader interior design.”

“It’s been a while.”

Only then did Jin Haedo finally offer his delayed greeting. I straightened my head slowly, met his eyes, and smiled.

“So... what brings you all the way here?”

“I don’t think we really got to talk properly last time.”

“Just to talk?”

A faint smile curved at the corner of Jin Haedo’s mouth as he asked. He seemed to think for a moment, then spoke lazily.

“To erase the dungeon I created overnight... that wasn’t what it was meant for....”

“.......”

“Countless of my believers who relied on it are wandering with nowhere to go. A regrettable thing.”

“.......”

What the fuck is he even saying?

I gave him a half-assed response.

“Yes, how tragic.”

Jin Haedo’s eyebrows twitched, and he said in an even voice,

“I had a contract with the owner of that dungeon.”

What kind of bullshit is this now?

Whether I furrowed my brow or not, Jin Haedo continued.

“But now that contract has ended. Since the dungeon’s owner has lost the ground it lived on, it’s only natural.”

“What kind of contract did you make?”

“In exchange for helping maintain the owner’s power, it agreed to grant what I desired.”

So, in exchange for keeping its existence going by feeding it Hunters’ anxiety, he put on a performance of “raising ranks.” The fact that he’d “contracted” with the boss inside the dungeon was interesting, but the actual contents were something I’d already witnessed with my own two eyes a while ago—so it wasn’t exactly shocking.

I spoke slowly.

“Is that so... my condolences. For clearing your dungeon.”

“.......”

Sure, but I obviously hadn’t come here today to apologize.

I went straight to the point.

“I heard some stories about Cheonmyeonggyo believers whose ranks supposedly rose.”

“What stories did you hear?”

“They all say your blessing is incredible, Lord Haedo.”

“Hm.”

Seeing the corner of his mouth tilt up, I smiled brightly.

“It’s really impressive. Building a cult this big on your own. You saw right through how people lean on religion when something big happens, and....”

“.......”

“...planned a con like this.”

When I gathered up the cases of people who’d received Jin Haedo’s “blessing” and said their ranks rose, there really was a clear commonality.

“It’s not very likely that someone’s set amount of mana would suddenly increase, so I looked into how you created these ‘cases’...”

“.......”

“...and they weren’t low-rank people to begin with.”

The shared trait among those Jin Haedo targeted—those who testified that their ranks had definitely risen—was that every single one of them was “injured.”

“And... you didn’t amplify their mana. You pulled in outside mana instead?”

And taking advantage of the way that “injury” disrupted the flow of mana, he borrowed mana from outside.

Then you really could get the effect of a “rank increase.”

Just like me.

This time, fully aware of what I was doing, I clenched my right hand hard—then grinned as I lifted the corner of my mouth.

The danger of being a fiend-merge Hunter wasn’t just that a fiend could swallow a human. It was also that in most cases there was a gap in mana, and the body couldn’t endure that much mana—so the flesh collapsed.

‘But it probably didn’t show. They were people who were already defective to begin with.’

In short, it was a system where you get fucked, and if you mess up, other people get fucked too.

As for how he attached the fiends... well, just looking at Gi Cheongmin’s case—gradually turning fiend-like inside that “dungeon”—I could pretty much guess. And I could easily predict that their endings would be tragic.

I continued in a calm voice.

“It’s a special kind of case, isn’t it? One person creating fiends on a mass scale? And doing it just to increase the number of cult believers... that’s a really interesting story.”

“.......”

“Cheonmyeonggyo’s big, sure—but since it’s a group that formed after the upheaval, it’s still crude, sloppy.... the kind of thing that could crumble if it gets hit with a few Titles mixed together just right.”

Jin Haedo still didn’t react. He only stared into his teacup.

I paused for a moment, watched him carefully, and finished slowly.

“It’s something that disappears when its head gets blown off.”

And naturally, that “head” was Jin Haedo sitting right in front of me.

Jin Haedo chewed on my words for quite a while, then slowly opened his mouth.

“You’re still rude, still bold... and you do act smart, to a degree. Not weighing the consequences is a bit of a point deduction, but... fine. Interesting.”

“.......”

“I’ve been waiting for you to come. I didn’t expect you’d start with blackmail like this, though.”

Only then did Jin Haedo finally set down his teacup and look at me straight.

“I still remember what you said last time. You claimed you had a ‘precognition skill,’ didn’t you? I tried to determine whether it was true... but in the end, time proved it. A large Gate appeared, and people died—just as you said.”

“.......”

“And it turns out you really don’t use the surname “Choi”... which means what I saw wasn’t the future after all.”

Jin Haedo’s words flowed smoothly, without hesitation—like he’d been waiting for the chance to say all of this.

And in that strange tone, there was a faint interest that hadn’t been there before.

“Good.”

With eyes that carried a different light, Jin Haedo set a teacup down in front of me with a clack.

The tea was boiling hot, steam still rising from it. The moment I glanced down at the cup, Jin Haedo spoke again.

“So what is it you truly want to say? Do you need my ‘believers’?”

Instead of answering, I threw a question back.

“How did you start seeing those changing ‘futures,’ Lord Haedo?”

“.......”

I lifted my head, met his eyes, and asked something even more blunt.

“Who did you kill, and how?”

“And why are you asking that?”

I answered simply.

“So I can use it as a reference.”

***

Catching a taxi and getting in, I replayed Jin Haedo’s words.

‘So I can’t just kill anyone and steal a skill.’

I’d thought a usurper could just kill anybody and get a skill, but surprisingly, there were conditions. Well, if that weren’t the case, a usurper’s life would be way too easy, I guess.

There were three main conditions for usurpation.

First: I had to be a usurper.

‘Yeah, no shit.’

From the second condition, things got pretty interesting.

I could only take the target’s “core skills.” For example, in the original novel I’d read, the skills of Do Yehyun that Im Haekyung had were “Moonlight’s Blessing” and “Raging Wave”—those two.

Both were healing skills, and for Do Yehyun, who awakened as a healer, those two were the core skills that determined his attribute.

So if I’d taken Kwon Taehan’s “Regression” attribute, that meant it was his core skill.

The last condition wasn’t much of anything.

I could only take skills I could handle...

‘Wang Tiansin’s words still bother me.’

She’d flat-out driven the nail in: it was a skill I couldn’t handle.

Either way, there was one thing that was certain for me right now.

‘I need to see Kwon Taehan again.’