18
“Just a relationship that led to a break up after doing all this and that…”
“…Did you break up after coming here or before leaving from there?”
“When it comes to the timing, we broke up a long time ago. We had a business relationship, and I came here because I had the chance to. That’s it.”
Lee Hwan blindly believed in himself. He believed that someday, he would go back to Earth and see his brother again. He would heal his brother’s hand. It all happened due to his actions and strength of will. The only person who had seen him accomplish everything was Yeo-Hwa.
However, there was no way that such a relationship as theirs would last long. Even if that happened, they wouldn’t have wanted it for each other. There must be someone left behind, and it would be pure greed to try to hold on. Yeo-Hwa wasn’t that selfish, and so she let Lee Hwan go.
“That person…”
Hmm.
“She will survive well. She is not the type to get beaten up anywhere she goes.”
Lee Ho suddenly became curious. She was not the type to get beaten up anywhere… He wondered to what extent…
Lee Hwan looked at him and asked, “You’re wondering how strong she is, are you?”
Were his thoughts revealed in his expressions?
“She seems like a ghost. To be honest, huh… I’m not sure of your standards, brother.” He laughed. “If three Hunters of roughly your level would fight with her, they will last for about three minutes each. If there are about ten of you, they won’t last long. And if there are about twenty or thirty of you, she can kill them all easily. There must be at least a hundred people of your caliber to subdue her without injuries. Did you get what I’m saying?”
“…She’s a monster.”
“Indeed, she is a monster. Do you know Dr. Strange?”
“Of course.”
“You can think of her as something similar to that. That was her nickname, actually, The Dimensional Witch.”
“…What kind of world did you live in?”
He leaned back in his chair and pondered on Ho’s question. What kind of world was it?
“It was a tough world, but it was a place where people lived in. It’s actually similar to this place, especially the mess.”
The two continued to have a nice conversation.
Lee Hwan found out how Ho had made his money. At first, there was friction with the state. He became a businessman in different fields and saw talents from each field. Actually, it was natural for talented people to gather where the money flowed. People with different abilities were cash cows. Whatever they did turned to money; they even made money just by breathing.
Managers, accountants, and lawyers flocked to them. Of course, Hunters also gathered. That was how Lee Ho was able to enhance his strength.
Lee Ho, the Implementer, who was part of the world’s Top 3 Hunters, was also the chairman of a company at a young age. Aside from all that, he was also handsome.
The businesses handled by Providence were very diverse. From manufacturing, distribution, securities, the entertainment industry, even aviation and shipbuilding. Of course, among those numerous organizations, there was also an artifact business.
Ho told him the whole story, and Hwan also talked about everything. The two laughed and chatted and learned a lot of things they didn’t know about each other.
Eventually, Lee Ho’s brush stopped moving. He held up the canvas and showed it to Lee Hwan.
The painting was almost like a work of art.
In the picture, Hwan was sitting in the chair with a small smile that seemed to stay in the corner of his lips. The lines were alive; the painting seemed to be breathing and ready to move at any moment.
Lee Hwan looked at the picture for a long time before saying.
“Take that painting.”
“…….”
“No matter who your opponent is, it will certainly save your life at least once.”
***
Yoo Ee-Na had been smiling a lot recently. The reason was no big deal, only that the second team leader of Quick Reaction Force, Lee Joo-Heon, didn’t go to work. She thought he might arrive at lunchtime, but he didn’t, so she was feeling good overall.
The next day, Lee Joo-Heon still did not go to work. It was almost like heaven. She felt like the threads that were entangled and suffocating her were gradually loosening.
However, as the days went by, Yu Ee-Na felt a chill going down her spine. Beside her, two Hunters, a man and a woman, were gossiping with each other.
“Have you heard that Lee Joo-Heon is missing?”
“Missing? Didn’t he get scouted, quit this place, and run away?”
“Why would that man run away? And everybody knows what the guild is and that he is a hunter with a steel plate on his face. He is far too gone for a scout.”
“Then is he like a stowaway?”
“It’s also strange that Hunter’s Investigation Department scanned Lee Joo-Heon’s track record and found that he just disappeared as if he had evaporated. No sign of spending money or robbery.”
“But there’s got to be some kind of trail.”
“Well, you know the Beast in Gangnam, right?”
“The hunting bar?”
“I heard he was last seen there.”
There was a moment of silence between the two Hunters who were talking. No one was saying anything, but inside, they were all thinking the same thing.
There were many accidents that happened in modern times. Among them, if a Hunter went missing, fifty out of one hundred are found dead and the other forty-five are never found. In other words…
“Is he really dead?”
With those words, there was a silence throughout the office. It seems that everyone was listening to the both of them without them knowing it. As if he had made a slip of the tongue, the male Hunter smiled awkwardly and turned his head to the side.
“Hunter Yoo Ee-Na, what do you think… Huh?”
She was sitting over there just a moment ago, but now her chair was empty. Turning his head toward the doorway, he saw Hunter Yoo Ee-Na hurrying outside.
Where was she going so fast?
***
Yoo Ee-Na ran. She ran like she didn’t have much time left. It was the same when she was young, Yoo Ee-Na always ran—to the library, to the school, to eat, to work. She was the type of woman who always ran.
She was also the type of woman who always wanted to be fast. That was her personality.
She ran all the way to Jaya Apartment and buzzed the owner of the household by entering the unit number.
After a short while, a man’s voice came out of the speaker beside the door.
-Isn’t this your office hours? What’s the matter?-
Yoo Ee-Na did not say anything. Lee Hwan would be looking at her face, and he must be tilting his head by now, thinking, ‘what’s wrong with this woman?’ And judging by his personality, he would surely open the door.
As she expected, the front door opened with a beep. Lee Hwan, whom she had known for only several days, as that type of man.
She took the elevator to go up to his unit. Upon arriving, she pressed the doorbell and came face-to-face with Hwan.
“Come on in.”
His voice sounded calm. She went inside and saw that in the kitchen of his spacious house, Hwan was studying, having several books open on the counter. They seemed to be review books for the GED, but there were too many to be sure. She didn’t think he could have read all of that.
“Can a public official come out to play like this?”
Yoo Ee-Na turned to Hwan, who had asked her with a smile.
“How did you do it?”
“What?”
Ee-Na stared at Hwan’s naive-looking face without a word. She knew he was overly handsome, but this was serious.
“Please make it a little bit more understandable. What do you mean by what I did? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“Lee Joo-Heon.”
At her words, Lee Hwan made a strange expression, which convinced Ee-Na.
“…It was you, right?”
Lee Hwan continued smiling as he headed to the kitchen. Ee-Na followed behind him and asked him again.
“Lee Joo-Heon, what did you do to him?”
Hwan pressed the button for a latte in his coffee machine before turning to her.
“What do you think I did?”
“…Did you kill him?”
“Well…”
Ee-Na’s expression hardened as she stared at Hwan. Goosebumps rose on her arms and she tried to rub them away, or maybe it was just her imagination. Hwan was always smiling, and there was a kind of joke in the way he spoke.
Why the hell was he taking this so playfully?
“Did you kill him?” She asked again.
Hwan poured the finished coffee into his mug and muttered before answering.
“Yeah. I killed him.”
“How? You aren’t even a Hunter.”
“I’m not a Hunter, but do I have to be? What does that have to do with killing people?”
“…….”
He reached for his cup and took a sip of coffee. Looking at him, Ee-Na tried to organize her thoughts. Lee Hwan killed Lee Joo-Heon. It didn’t matter how he did it; it had already happened. So the next question to be asked here was this…
“…Why?”
“Just because.”
It wasn’t her imagination; chills were going up and down her spine.
“…How?”
Hwan answered casually.
“Well, first, I grabbed his neck and asked him if he had any last words.”
“…….”
“He screamed, I ignored him. He was struggling, so I broke his arms. I also broke his legs.”
“…….”
“I suffocated him while all his limbs were broken. When he passed out, I broke his neck and killed him.”
“…What about the body?”
“I have quite a few tricks. This is just one of them, but all you need to know is that he has been erased from the world.”
Now Yoo Ee-Na was really curious.
“Why the hell?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you kill him?”
Hwan leaned his body against the table and sipped his coffee again. Ee-Na asked him once more.
“Don’t tell me you killed him because…I said that I wished he would disappear?”
“It seems that you still remember what you said. You had drunk a lot.”
Ee-Na could not answer. She just stared at Hwan with an expression of longing for an answer. In the end, he shook his head.
“As I have said before, I am not a person who lets someone else tell me what to do.”
“…….”
“I killed him because I wanted to. I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
“Is that so?”
“Do you remember what he said when he first came to Earth?”
“…….”
“That rude bastard… And at work, he was talking behind my back… I’m really not used to that because once upon a time, I killed everyone who did that to me.”
“…….”
“I caught and killed every single one of them, tore their limbs and cut off their throats. Sometimes I even fed them alive to the animals. I didn’t even think about it, but when I came here and a bug crawled up my arm, I killed it.”
Yoo Ee-Na was not a fool. She felt a strange nuance at Hwan’s words, it felt like there was something more to them. It was only a gut feeling, her instinct, telling her.
“That’s all? It’s not, right?”
A soft smile formed around Hwan’s mouth. This woman was better at reading people than he had thought.
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