The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low - Chap 215
She spread her arms wide, as if to show off.
“People in power have already screwed up the world twice. Now, we’re trying to do something about it, and you have a problem with that? Are we supposed to just sit around, waiting for the awakened to save us? Always putting them first?”
Something about her words felt off. Wasn’t she speaking as if she wasn’t one of the awakened herself? And she knew about the two world-ending events. Cha Eui-jae frowned. Ga-young crossed her arms and shook her head.
“Well, at least I’m a bit regretful~ Didn’t expect things to happen so soon… If I had known, I would’ve made them taste the terror of the end first before letting them out.”
An unsettling phrase. Terror of the end. Cha Eui-jae only understood it after hearing it from Kkokko. But Ga-young was accepting it as if it were completely natural. She was accepting everything. Ga-young tilted her head, looking puzzled.
“Huh? J, didn’t you survive it too? The way you’re moving around so casually.”
“…”
“Ah, right… It’s because you’re a traitor to the world, isn’t it? Impressive. Always ahead of the rest.”
Ga-young twisted her lips into a grin. Her smile was filled with dark malice. People being swallowed whole by gigantic monsters, a man drenched in blood, wailing in despair— it made Cha Eui-jae feel suffocated. Were they also dragged into this against their will? Or brainwashed into walking into their deaths? Ga-young showed no sign of guilt, standing atop their blood.
“What’s your goal?”
“My goal?”
Ga-young pulled off the ID card hanging around her neck and threw it away. Splat… The ID fell into the black liquid and dissolved without a trace. Screams echoed from all directions. Cha Eui-jae tightened his grip on his spear.
“Don’t you already know? To stop the end of the world with human power! No more leaving it to the awakened, who’ve already failed twice.”
“…”
“And to stop the end of the world…”
Ga-young looked up at the sky with an ecstatic expression. Cha Eui-jae followed her gaze. Monsters were pouring endlessly from a bright white hole. Ga-young let out a sharp laugh.
“…The end has to come first.”
“From the way you talk, you’re not an awakened, are you?”
“Hm? That’s right, I’m not an awakened.”
“But the hospital director…”
“Oh? Oh, that. Haha.”
Ga-young raised her index finger and smiled brightly.
“That was when the Awakened registration system still had loopholes. It was pretty easy to manipulate. I didn’t even meet the director during the interview. He’s a very busy man!”
Every time her cheerful voice rang out, Cha Eui-jae’s anger simmered. He couldn’t let his emotions control him. He took a deep breath, even his polite tone slipping away. He stepped forward.
“…You targeted him from the start, didn’t you?”
“No way~. At first, I didn’t even know he existed. He was hidden so well. Though, I did go in expecting to find something useful.”
“…”
“And in the end, it was the best decision I ever made. Right, my little darling?”
When Ga-young asked sweetly, the human— her “darling” —who was kneeling beside her, nodded slowly. But could you even call that a human? Its mangled skin resembled what Lee Sa-young used to be, its stiff movements mimicking those of mutated creatures. Cha Eui-jae couldn’t look away, recognizing instinctively that it must have been made based on Lee Sa-young’s data. And…
If Lee Sa-young had been unlucky, he might have ended up like that.
“…”
Cha Eui-jae clenched his teeth hard enough to make a sound. Ga-young smiled at him.
“This is my masterpiece. The strongest and most obedient thing I’ve ever created. But…”
She sighed dramatically, circling around the kneeling figure.
“If I’d had him, it wouldn’t be such a mess of patches. That’s the only thing I regret~. If I had conducted a few more experiments, I might’ve found a way to restore that shredded skin.”
At the same time, a strong hand suddenly grabbed Ga-young’s throat. She gasped, her face contorting as she raised her palm toward the human. The creature, which had been poised to leap at Cha Eui-jae, knelt again. Her feet were now dangling above the ground. Ga-young struggled to smile despite the tightening grip.
“Oh… c-civilians… aren’t you not supposed to… attack them?”
“…”
“Lots of eyes… o-on you.”
“Shut up.”
Cha Eui-jae’s face drew closer, his voice a monotone, devoid of any emotion.
“I’m holding back, so just shut up.”
“…”
“If I could follow my instincts…”
His hand tightened, and Ga-young’s face paled.
“I would have killed you already.”
Suddenly, Cha Eui-jae let go, and Ga-young stumbled, clutching her throat as she gasped for breath. After several moments of wheezing, she lifted her head, glaring at Cha Eui-jae with bloodshot eyes. Her raspy voice spat venom.
“Why don’t you just kill me then? Oh, wait… Can’t bring yourself to kill anyone, can you?”
“…”
“Hypocrite. You rely on your power and settle for weak threats!”
Ignoring her, Cha Eui-jae checked his phone again. Still no reply from Lee Sa-young. Did he lose consciousness again? His mind was a whirl of worries— Ga-young’s words, concern for Lee Sa-young, the monsters endlessly raining down from the sky, all tangled together. He bit down on his tongue hard. The taste of blood brought him back to focus.
‘I need to take this woman somewhere. To the Awakened Management Bureau, or the Pado Guild… Maybe I should ask Hong Ye-seong. No… even the fish market could work.’
There was much to learn from Ga-young, not just about Lee Sa-young, but about Prometheus as well. Cha Eui-jae scrolled through his other phone quickly. Meanwhile, Ga-young staggered toward her creation. She murmured to herself.
“He was so useful to me.”
“…”
Cha Eui-jae’s fingers paused on the screen. Ga-young stared blankly into space, as if reminiscing.
“He didn’t scream or struggle like the others. He endured the pain so well.”
“…”
“Do you know? He followed me on her own.”
Ga-young laughed, her shoulders shaking. Lies. That’s impossible. Lee Sa-young had promised to wait for him. He had waited all this time. Cha Eui-jae said nothing, refusing to acknowledge her words. But he couldn’t block out the unsettling feeling she stirred in him.
“You know, J… You were active back then, so you remember, right? When civilians got caught up in a rift and lost limbs or were on the verge of death, do you know what happened to them?”
Most of them didn’t survive, unable to receive proper treatment. Even after the Awakened Management Bureau was established, the medical system never fully recovered. There were too many casualties and too few medical staff. They prioritized treating the awakened who could fight against monsters.
“So, what do you think happened to him, with you gone?”
“…”
A chill ran down Cha Eui-jae’s spine, like someone had poured cold water on the boiling anger in his chest.
Treating a dying boy like Lee Sa-young required vast amounts of money and rare materials. When Cha Eui-jae wasn’t on call, he endlessly cleared dungeons that contained poison monsters to collect antidote ingredients. He paid enormous sums to the hospital in the name of charitable donations for society.
That kind of luxury was only possible for someone like J.
If J disappeared…
Crack… The phone screen in Cha Eui-jae’s hand cracked. Ga-young chuckled.
“If I hadn’t taken him, he would’ve slowly died. Without any treatment…”
“…”
“For two months, he was fine. People still believed you’d come back by then. The resources and money you left behind were enough. But in the third month, everything ran dry.”
“…”
“That’s when I realized how important you were. The world started to break down just because you were gone. There was a shortage of manpower, more injuries, more awakened getting hurt, more resources being used to treat them, and civilians were left behind…”
“…”
“Isn’t it ridiculous? Everything falls apart just because one person’s gone.”
Ga-young shuddered as she laughed. She adjusted her crooked glasses.
“Even in the hospital, they couldn’t keep taking care of a kid for free, no matter how much you entrusted him. The staff was too stretched thin. And it wasn’t like he was an awakened, just a dying civilian kid. So fewer people cared for him, until only the bare minimum was done.”
“…”
“So I took him with me. And I asked him directly.”
Cha Eui-jae silently stared at Ga-young. She mouthed the next words slowly.
“Would you come with me to find J?”
