Cha Kwan kept watching TV on his phone while waiting.
- … With the entrance of the S-Rank hunter Choi Eun-Ji, all heads will turn! Buy The Saint’s Fragrance and show them how it’s done! -
‘Man… I really should buy that premium streaming package. So many ads…’ He gave out a huge sigh. ‘But it’s so expensive though! 10000 Won! That’s like $10 every month in my previous life…’
Suddenly, he was reminded of the financial reality of his current situation.
‘F*ck… I can’t even afford that, and I have to keep doing this…’
He closed the TV app in frustration. He couldn’t even tap at his phone angrily, because it was his most prized possession at the moment. Even when irritated, he had to be extra extra careful!
Finally, his target exited the dungeon, he saw with the corner of his eye.
Kim Tae-Hyun. The son of the Ares guild leader. A brat, in the fullest sense of the word. And a fiend. Though it was arguable if the word itself could contain this brat’s true disposition.
All in all though, a perfect fit for his criteria!
Cha Kwan checked his gear once more.
To be honest, calling what he had “gear” was akin to treating dirty rags as priceless silk. A shiny but dull knife, an old cloak with at least a dozen holes, a small jar filled with excrement and goblin fuel, and a broken sword. That was all he had. His “gear.”
‘… Should be enough.’
Cha Kwan stood up from the bus stop and started walking toward the subway station. From his estimates, the Ares guild was going to travel back to their headquarters with armored vehicles. And considering the (re)construction projects along the way, they had to take the Lavender street as a shortcut. An unassuming wide open road that no one would even look twice.
‘They should be registering their loot…’ He calculated that he had nearly 15 minutes. More than enough time.
Due to the dungeon appearance, the subway station was closed. But a mere metal fence could never stop Cha Kwan’s bread and butter short range teleportation skill.
He quickly made his way to the tunnel. Thanks to his constellation’s blessing, darkness had no meaning. In his eyes, the tunnel looked as if it was lit by bright sunlight!
Just like how he had done in the last few days, Cha Kwan followed the path he had charted. Regular critters of the subway were nowhere to be seen today, which was a problem that he had to deal with eventually. But today wasn’t that day.
After 13 minutes, he arrived at his destination. 15 meters up, was the Lavender street. Thankfully, the space between the tunnel and the surface wasn’t just solid rock and dirt. Coincidentally, this was the place where the subway tunnels, the sewers, and an old emergency entrance to a World War 2 shelter pancaked on one spot.
When he closed his eyes to listen, Cha Kwan could detect the slight vibrations from the light vehicles above.
“Well, time to get to work!” He spoke out loud to psych himself up.
He activated his other blessing, which was matter phasing. Though unlike short range teleportation, Cha Kwan wasn’t particularly fond of this ability.
Passing through solid matter… Well, it wasn’t meant for a human. However, when push came to shove, Cha Kwan was helpless.
He restricted the phasing under his feet to use the tunnel walls like stairs, and climbed up towards the sewers. Of course, Cha Kwan did not phase through the sewer walls; he wouldn’t repeat that mistake twice! Then he reached the tunnel leading to shelter. The main grounds in which Cha Kwan would kill his target.
Since he had already placed “explosives" two days ago, all he had to do was wait.
Minutes passed, and finally he noticed distinct vibrations of heavy vehicles.
‘There were 15 vehicles today, and he was always inside the 6th for the past week. That should still be the case.’
One vehicle, two, three, four, five… And when the sixth was just about to pass, Cha Kwan activated his phasing ability, and the unique blessing of his constellation. The Corpse Explosion.
Corpses of thugs, gang members, and other criminals he meticulously kidnapped and killed, all of them exploded into the signature blood mist. Violent expansion, trapped by the tunnel that previously blocked by Cha Kwan, had nowhere to go but up, or down.
All of a sudden, the street underneath the armored convoy bellowed first, then sank later. C rank guards got caught up, and became mostly useless. B ranks fared better, but most of them concentrated on protecting their young master. Their actions revealed that Cha Kwan had correctly hit his target, and didn’t have to switch to plans B, C, D, or E.
Meanwhile, the singular A rank guard at the front of the convoy, flew up and tried to get an overview of the situation.
Cha Kwan, unaffected by the physical carnage around him, stayed inside the loose rock and soil that was about to further sink into the subway tunnel. He calculated he had less than 7 seconds until his target was out of his range. Thankfully, he was just where he wanted to be.
He took out the small jar and positioned himself beneath the trapped vehicle.
Phasing effect would fade away in a few seconds if he didn’t maintain direct contact with an object. And if the effect end while phasing through solid matter, a violent expansion would occur, since two objects could not occupy the same space at the same time. Some leeway was possible for matter in gaseous and liquid state, but not for solids.
6 seconds left.
Cha Kwan held the dull knife with his hand and threw the bottle directly above. Right when the phasing effect disappeared, the bottle was passing the ceiling armor. Solid matter of the bottle interacted with the armor, caused the goblin fuel to overexcite and explode. Coupled with the excrement within, a terrible stench and shrapnel splattered everywhere.
Dull screams of the guards made Cha Kwan certain that he could proceed with 2nd variation of the plan A.
5 seconds left.
Unfortunately, the young master wasn’t injured thanks to the expensive armor. But Cha Kwan had fully expected that. He threw himself into the vehicle and momentarily deactivated his phasing. The swing he made with his dull knife was already intercepted by a B-Rank guard, but that wasn’t his goal. He only wanted the guards to concentrate on the knife while he grappled the boy.
4 seconds left.
When phasing a large object, the more surface contact he had, the less mana he would use. Though the boy was wearing armor, enough skin was exposed for Cha Kwan to exploit. In less than 1/5th of a second, he activated his phasing skill to the fullest. He, and the young master in tow, started to sink into solid matter.
3 seconds left.
At the same time, mana exploded from up above, clearly the A-Rank guard felt the danger and decided to interfere with all he had. But it was already too late. Cha Kwan internally breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t have to switch to G series plans, or worse, the H series.
2 seconds left.
Just a few centimeters into the metal frame. That was enough. An excruciating quarter of a second later, Cha Kwan released the boy and forcefully retracted his mana. Flesh and blood spattered all over car interior.
But that wasn’t enough, not for the clean-up at least. He still had 15% of his mana, so he activated the corpse explosion skill once more on the fresh corpse of his target. All of the unwitting B-Rank guards trying to help their employer, turned into red-brown mist.
1 second left.
The A-Rank guard landed next to the vehicle, despite the explosion. Which was a mistake, because it accelerated the collapse of the tunnels underneath!
As the remnants of the convoy mixed in with sewage, Cha Kwan was already phasing through solid matter once more. He had less than 8% mana, but his mission was a success!
As a final touch, he threw the broken sword inside the subway tunnel. The timing and the mana signature was vital, so he couldn’t do this until now.
Once the crime scene collapses into the subway in a few minutes, the sword, or rather, the insignia on it, would come into play.
“F*ck me… This is so tiring…”
Cha Kwan appeared at the side subway tunnel and threw away the brown rags that he used as a cloak. As insurance.
Then he started his walk toward the subway exit on the other side of the city, paying special attention to hide his tracks, mana, and presence.
[Your sponsor, Faceless Slaughterer of the Unending Night is delighted by your devotion]
Cha Kwan’s mouth dropped. He actually got a message? From that insane maniac?!
[Your sponsor, Faceless Slaughterer of the Unending Night sends you 5000 coins as a reward]
“5000?!” He shouted without realizing. Though the tunnels weren’t silent due to far away noise of the active subways, his voice still echoed.
But he couldn’t worry about that at the moment. 5000 coins took precedent. Because that amount was more than 10 times the coins Cha Kwan had earned thus far!
‘… Did I kill some bigshot without realizing?’ Cha Kwan panicked momentarily. But calmness returned as he entered the crisis management mode.
First, he had taken many precautions and planted dozens of false evidence, both before the act, and during the act.
Second, and perhaps the most important point. He was a nobody. Truly and utterly, he had nothing in this world. No family, no friends, no money. He even dropped out of high school and registered as a non-combatant awakener!
If he didn’t have the memories of his previous life, Cha Kwan would’ve lost his mind already. Especially with the blessing of the Faceless Slaughterer of the Unending Night, it would be hard for an 18-year-old to keep their sanity with all the required body count one had to fulfill.
Cha Kwan slowly walked and tried not to think about anything. If on the off chance that someone would start to patrol the subway tunnels, he had to be ready. The mana signature and presence erasing skills, he operated them in full force!
Hours passed, and he arrived his exit point. The maintenance station on the outskirts Seoul. He then boarded a bus back into the city, got off half-way to his destination and walked the rest of the way.
By the time he got home, it was already 9PM. Tired from the day’s work, Cha Kwan took a shower and went to bed immediately after.
* * *
The next morning, he finally felt calm enough to open the news.
- … New information about the assassination of Cheon Ma’s grandson, and the heir of the Ares guild, Kim Tae-Hyun. -
Cha Kwan closed the TV at once.
Cheon Ma? As in, the savior of Korea? The Hero of Murim, The Heavenly Demon that saved millions. That Cheon Ma?!
Wasn’t Kim Tae-Hyun just an average douchebag young master that raped unawakened citizens?
That was the entire reason Cha Kwan chose that piece of sh*t as his target!
If he had to kill, why not kill the trash of humanity? That had become his motto after he acquired (forced into) the sponsorship.
“… Let’s take a deep breath… One… Two… Three… Yes, let’s NOT watch TV. Yeah. Assassination? Who cares. It probably happened in a distant land anyway, right?”
In his day-to-day life, Cha Kwan did everything in his power to ignore and separate his activities as a murdering maniac.
Instead of watching TV, he started browsing the social media instead. One of his ultimate pleasures was to look at pictures and videos of cats!
But today, social media sites weren’t as peaceful as he had hoped.
- Assassination in the middle of Seoul, in broad daylight, with billions of Won worth of property damage! Is the hunter’s association sleeping?!
- New CCTV footage from 16 blocks away
- 19 people died in the 12th attack of this year
- S-Class Assassin?
- Birth of a Super Villain
- Evidence of Gemini guild involvement in the latest attack
- Hunters Association released a statement
- …
The front page of all social media sites was filled with news and speculations.
Cha Kwan put down his (prized) phone. ‘This is fine.’ He thought. ‘No one will be able to associate me with the murders anyway. But…’
He looked into his status window.
‘It’s going to make it harder to kill random people…’
[Name: Cha Kwan]
[Age: 19]
[Sex: Male]
[Race: Human]
[Sponsor: Faceless Slaughterer of the Unending Night]
[Coins: 5001]
[Constellation Skills:]
-----------------------------
[Presence Concealment (Lv. 8)]
[Phasing (Lv. 4)]
[Short Range Teleport (Lv. 6)]
[Sight (Lv. 10)]
[General Skills:]
-----------------------------
[Balance (Lv. 6)]
[Space Perception (Lv. 4)]
[Throwing (Lv. 2)]
[Hand-Eye Coordination (Lv. 7)]
[Trajectory Calculation (Lv. 4)]
[Fast Thinking (Lv. 3)]
[Mana Efficiency (Lv. 5)]
[Mana Capacity (Lv. 1)]
[Nausea Resistance (Lv. 9)]
[Disorientation Resistance (Lv. 10)]
[Pain Resistance (Lv. 10)]
