novelraw Chapter 131 : Mission 10: The Hunters of Old (4)
Chapter 131 : Mission 10: The Hunters of Old (4)
The prisoners erupted in a chorus of grumbles at Hae-eun’s announcement.
“You’re telling us to stick our necks into Cheongnyangni, guarded by those Knights?”
“Fuck that. I’d rather get thrown into a Dungeon Break.”
“We may be doomed and worthless, but this is over the line…”
In an era where Gates and monster invasions had slashed the average life expectancy to below sixty, anyone over fifty was treated like an antique.
In this age of shortened lives, the Knights—a geriatric Hunter guild—had held back periodic monster hordes for thirty years, boasting an average age over sixty.
Dismissing them as old fogeys was an amateur’s mistake. In this world, survival was proof of strength.
The assembled prisoners were all hardened Villains who had clawed their way up from the bottom.
They knew damn well that Cheongnyangni Gate was a den of wily old monsters. They also knew, all too well, that charging blindly into the tiger’s den meant ending up a corpse buried without ceremony.
Just as the mood in the barracks turned sour, Hae-eun added a sweetener.
“To the distinguished operative who succeeds in subduing or ‘handling’ the Iron Knight...”
The prisoners’ eyes started bulging.
“...immediate release will be granted, along with a massive bounty.”
A beat of silence.
One prisoner raised a hand, stammering, “Did I hear that right? What was that? Release?”
“You heard me.” Hae-eun nodded. “Anyone who plays a decisive role in taking down Iron Knight Shin-woo Jo gets a full pardon on the spot.”
“I’ve got fifteen hundred years left on my sentence. You’re saying you’d wipe it all clean in one go?”
“That’s right.”
The barracks filled with murmurs.
Another prisoner raised his hand. “How much is this ‘massive bounty’?”
“Enough cash to buy a small building on the outskirts of Seoul outright. You’ll be living large the second you’re out.”
The murmurs swelled.
It was an unprecedented reward, befitting a mission of this magnitude.
“Even if you don’t get directly involved in handling the Iron Knight, just participating in this operation and accumulating other merits will net you rewards that blow past missions out of the water.”
Hae-eun raised her voice.
“So no slacking! Be diligent! Hard-working! Throw yourselves into this operation. Got it? This is all in service to your country, you know.”
Click!
She clicked a remote, and a beam from a projector lit up a large screen on one side of the barracks.
A 3D blueprint of Cheongnyangni Gate’s facilities and defensive schematics materialized. Blue lines traced multiple routes across the holographic map.
“The Gate Defense Bureau has secured a total of twenty infiltration routes into Cheongnyangni Gate.”
Beep. Several of the routes turned red.
“Five of those have already been compromised.”
Two had been used during the Baekdo Unit’s earlier infiltration, and the Knights had discovered an additional three. They were no doubt scrambling to find the rest.
“We’ve selected the routes among those remaining with the highest probability of being secure. Each team will infiltrate simultaneously through these points.”
Jail Mojik, the Deck 2 leader, raised her hand.
When Hae-eun nodded, she asked, “Even if we all get in safely... that’s nine teams, so forty-five people, right? The Knights have over a hundred.”
Jail Mojik scanned the men in the barracks.
“We’re outnumbered. Can we really pull this off on our own?”
“I was getting to that. The ever-so-desperate Hunter Association has graciously offered to take the vanguard.”
The Hunter Association was originally one of the three major armed organizations in South Korea, alongside the Gate Defense Bureau and the military.
But after the Gangnam Station incident, they had been thoroughly humbled.
Facing overt government pressure, they had been pushed to the brink of dissolution. And now, one of their own elders, the Iron Knight, had pulled a stunt like this.
They had reached a point where they had to prove their loyalty with their lives.
“The Association’s direct Awakened units—Harang, Chupung, and Donghwa—will all be deployed.”
Hae-eun’s cane tapped the front gate on the map.
“While they and a few affiliated guilds raise a ruckus outside to draw attention, we slip inside.”
Seeing the prisoners’ lingering anxiety, Hae-eun smirked.
“And it seems you’ve misunderstood something I said earlier...”
The prisoners’ eyes widened at her next words.
“This is a competition among participants. You’ll be fighting over the Iron Knight’s head, vying to see who takes it first and claims the ‘release’ ticket.”
“…!”
“Any need to increase the number of competitors? You’ll have your hands full dividing the prize among yourselves.”
Click!
The screen changed, displaying a chart of additional rewards.
“On top of that, one million Credits for every Knight member subdued or killed.”
“…!”
“And additional Credits will be awarded for destroying specific defensive installations on this list, like the outer barrier devices or the main gate’s locking mechanism. More Credits for retaking key areas within Cheongnyangni Gate from the Knights.”
Not just the Iron Knight, but his subordinates and the fortified facilities were all targets with a price on their heads.
Hae-eun smiled slyly.
“Get it? The more havoc you wreak in there, the more the rewards will pour down. That entire Cheongnyangni Gate is basically a treasure trove just for you.”
“This is completely insane…”
While some prisoners were dumbfounded, others thought differently.
“No... it’s not that insane.”
“What?”
“Think about it rationally. This is a game we can definitely win.”
“According to that reward chart, even if we don’t touch the Iron Knight and just work on the other objectives, the payout is enormous...”
A stir went through the Convict Unit.
Fundamentally, they were criminals. Befitting the vicious felons sentenced to hundreds or thousands of years, most were high-rollers chasing a single big score.
The Iron Knight is terrifying, but the rest seems doable.
I can probably mess around a bit and pull out if things get too dangerous.
If I play it smart, I can just skim the rewards.
Take down ten Knights, and I can get out immediately?
And above all, they were the rulers of their respective decks. A pack of wolves with balls of steel, brimming with confidence in their own abilities.
Someone gulped nervously.
The prisoners were starting to get serious about this hunt for the old tigers—the Iron Knight and his Knights.
Adjusting his glasses as he took in the atmosphere, the Deck 3 leader, Cultist, raised his hand with a wry smile.
“When do we deploy, Commander?”
Hae-eun answered instantly, “Tonight, at midnight.”
Surveying the transformed atmosphere in the barracks with satisfaction, she declared, “That’s the time the Iron Knight is scheduled to contact us. While his attention is focused on the communication, we begin the operation!”
***
December 10, 2050, 9:00 PM.
Cheongnyangni Gate. Central Control Room.
Iron Knight Shin-woo silently stared down at the old phone in his hand.
The screen displayed a chat log from a messenger app.
- Grandpa
- Thank you for raising me
- Don’t seek revenge
- Promise me you
It was the last message his granddaughter had sent.
She was the kind of girl who always sent messages with cute emoticons. The kind who sent messages with perfect spelling, even on days she’d been drinking heavily.
But her final sentence had arrived unfinished, just like that.
Don’t seek revenge.
His granddaughter had known.
She knew that if she died, her grandfather would set out for vengeance. That he would not hesitate to wage war, whether his opponent was the government, the military, or anything else.
And that in the process, he would be destroyed.
That must have been why she sent this message, worrying about her grandfather even in her final moments.
Shin-woo couldn’t begin to fathom the heart of his granddaughter, sending a message to her grandfather while being chewed to death by a monster.
Nor could he understand why she had to die so cruelly. She never deserved such an end.
I’m sorry, little Ye-eun.
Whispering her name in his heart, Shin-woo turned off the phone’s screen.
Your grandfather has to do what must be done.
No matter how this incident ended, Shin-woo would die. Whether he died fighting, was captured and executed, or was “advised” to commit suicide, he would not survive.
It didn’t matter.
He had lived long enough.
As one of the first Awakened, to protect a free future for his kind.
As an elder Hunter, to open a path for his juniors to live.
And above all, for the repose of his granddaughter’s soul.
The old Hunter was all too willing to go down fighting.
“Commander!”
Just then, one of Shin-woo’s subordinates monitoring the permanent Gate’s data reported urgently, “The Gate’s spatial distortion levels are abnormal!”
“What?” Shin-woo shot to his feet. “Abnormal? How, specifically?”
“The levels are too high! It’s a precursor to a rampage!”
“Put it on the screen, now!”
Instantly, the Gate’s various metrics appeared on the briefing screen in the central control room.
“What in the...”
Shin-woo gritted his teeth as he watched the violently fluctuating graphs.
He had defended this Cheongnyangni Gate for thirty years. He knew all too well what happened when these levels appeared.
“The Gate is opening now? Why? The next cycle is still weeks away...”
Permanent Gates spewed out large quantities of monsters from the same location, but they opened and closed on a fixed cycle.
He had chosen the safest possible time to execute this plan, yet the Gate was now rampaging with unprecedented suddenness.
“The Gate is distorting! It’s about to open!”
“Close it! Pour in all the Gate particles we have in reserve!”
“It’s no use! They’re forcing it open from the ‘other side’... Dammit! Gate opening in thirty seconds!”
Shin-woo immediately bolted from the control room.
Flying down the stairs, he shouted into his communicator, “Team 1, Team 2! All personnel to the Gate Room! The Gate is opening!”
«Yes, Commander!»
«On our way immediately!»
“All other personnel, on emergency standby! Stay sharp!”
The Hunters of the Knights were all veterans who had defended Cheongnyangni their entire lives.
By the time Shin-woo reached the Gate Room, the Hunters of Team 1 and Team 2 were already in formation, waiting.
Taking his position in their center, Shin-woo glared at the Gate, grinding his teeth.
“Battle stations!”
The Gate Room was a vast, high-ceilinged, sealed space reminiscent of a large indoor stadium. At the far end of the room floated the circular door connected to another world.
Crack! Craaack!
The suppression devices encasing the door buckled, burst, and fell away.
From the center of the door, ominous purple particles churned and undulated like waves. The waves soon became a surge, and the surge a raging torrent.
«Twenty seconds to Gate opening!»
As the voice crackled over the communicator, the center of the purple Gate tore space apart as it opened.
Inside, countless eyes glowed crimson, belonging to snarling monsters.
“You goddamn monster filth...” Shin-woo spat, his hand gripping the hilt of the massive greatsword on his back.
“Wasn’t making my life hell for thirty years enough for you? Now you’ve lost all sense of timing, too?”
«Ten seconds to Gate opening! Prepare yourself, Commander!»
Seconds later, the Gate reached its critical point and shattered, throwing open the maw of hell.
Like lava flowing from an erupted volcano, a countless horde of monsters began to pour out of the Gate all at once.
Watching this unfold, Shin-woo clenched his jaw.
Something was going very, very wrong.