The party was attended by some truly big names: the Guildmaster of the Shine Guild and the Chairman of the Il-Sung Group. There was also the Baekdusan Guild, which was on par with Shine Guild in terms of prominence, as well as the Golden Lion Guild, guardian of Daegu. Several other mid-sized guilds—less famous than Shine, yet still well-known—showed up, along with the Hunters Association. Lastly, there was the UK Group.
A gathering of famous figures indeed. Yet the atmosphere did not feel heavy in the slightest. A Spirit took the stage, singing and dancing to set the mood, and the relatively younger Awakened cheered and jumped right into the merriment.
"Aeple can handle it, right?" Kim Ki-Rok asked.
"Absolutely. The energy is fantastic here. Aeple has a bright personality, and on top of that, she learned a lot from being around you, Guildmaster."
After wrapping up a song, Aeple would flutter over to the party guests, striking up conversations to break the ice. After chatting for a good while, she would slip back onto the stage once the next song was ready, performing a fresh round of singing and dancing.
"Good to hear. If there are any problems, let me know right away," Kim Ki-Rok said.
"Hm? Are you going somewhere?"
"Yes. I'm going to get some fresh air."
"Understood. If anything unexpected comes up, I'll contact you immediately."
Leaving the party hall behind, Kim Ki-Rok took the elevator to the rooftop. Once there, he pulled a glimmering necklace out of his subspace pocket. The moment he chanted a short incantation, his figure vanished.
Having activated an artifact imbued with an Invisibility Spell, Kim Ki-Rok positioned himself at the edge of the roof and peered down. Dozens of reporters stood outside the DG Guild building. Any Awakened criminals hoping to scout the building would feel the weight of countless eyes on them; using their powers or specialized gear would be no simple matter.
"Let's see... Discernment."
He used the skill on every person gathered around DG Guild. Sometimes only a name appeared in midair, other times a translucent window revealed both a name and an ability. Occasionally, there was a sealed ability listed.
Ability: Physical Augmentation
Frowning in recollection, Kim Ki-Rok took out his smartphone. He had already asked Kang Man-Ki for the list of all registered Hunters in South Korea. The Association President willingly shared the list because there could be Awakened criminals who hid their identities like Black Mask. Using the specialized search program, Kim Ki-Rok looked up Yang Seong-Tae.
"He's an independent Hunter. For now, I'll keep him in mind... There's another one. Discernment."
One by one, he used Discernment on each suspicious person, scrutinizing them in detail.
"Down from five to three now..."
Possibly some of them had lost their nerve after realizing so many well-known Guildmasters and the Association president himself were here. Using his invisibility artifact at one-hour intervals, Kim Ki-Rok patrolled the rooftop, scanning for observers.
"As I thought. Looks like they're all ordinary civilians."
A few individuals had been lurking around since morning, occasionally disguising themselves to loiter near DG Guild. Even so, just because someone was monitoring the building did not guarantee they were accomplices of Awakened criminals. They could be fans, or government agents, or even spies hired by a guild wary of DG's rapid growth.
He planned a final check at 1 a.m. on the twenty-sixth. After memorizing the faces of three civilians who had been keeping vigil since dawn, Kim Ki-Rok felt a strange twinge as something in the scene caught his eye.
"Hoooh, what do we have here?"
It was the leader of Dagger, one of the worst Awakened criminal groups around that dealt primarily in assassinations. He seemed to be conversing with one of the civilians Kim Ki-Rok had been watching earlier.
Though the man wore thick-rimmed glasses and kept his hat pulled low, blending expertly into the crowd of reporters, Kim Ki-Rok recognized him in an instant. The moment Kim Ki-Rok saw Dagger's leader approach that watcher, he cast Discernment, confirming both name and possessed skills.
Across different Attempts, Dagger's leader sometimes took part in the attacks, and other times stayed on the sidelines.
"Three times out of ten, if I recall."
The reason varied depending greatly on Kim Ki-Rok's name value.
It depended on how famous Kim Ki-Rok happened to be at the time. There was a mole inside the Association who took bribes from Dagger and fed them information. Whenever that insider exaggerated Kim Ki-Rok's reputation and made him out to be a big-shot, Dagger's leader got personally involved in an assignment. Conversely, if Kim Ki-Rok's reputation seemed unimpressive, the leader deemed the contract easy enough to leave to his subordinates.
By his 77th Attempt, Kim Ki-Rok was too famous, and so was the DG Guild. Their reputation had been built on a string of spectacular achievements, which made it entirely possible that Dagger might sit this "revenge match" out.
"Glad I provoked them... I'll cut their numbers down as much as possible this time."
To prevent exactly that, Kim Ki-Rok had stoked the fears of a certain teleporter. If an assassination contract with Dagger was placed, it would lure the whole group into this confrontation.
His resolve firm, Kim Ki-Rok climbed down from the rooftop.
The man known as Dagger's leader stood gazing up at the DG Guild rooftop. Slowly, he shook his head. "No, it was nothing... Just my imagination."
No video of Kim Ki-Rok in combat had ever been made public, leaving his true strength a mystery. However, the fact that the guild was still C-Class was evidence that, despite his performance in Ma Ak-Soo's subjugation battle, Kim Ki-Rok's level was not all that high.
But that didn't mean he could be approached carelessly. It was a known fact that Kim Ki-Rok possessed a skill called Discernment that allowed him to identify others' names and abilities. There was a high chance that the identity of his subordinates could be inadvertently revealed.
"Continue monitoring him," the man ordered.
On the night of Christmas, the DG Guild party was finally over.
The guild members had been free to do as they wished until 10 p.m., so they burned all their energy partying, then scattered to rest as soon as the party had disbanded. In the now-quiet guild building, Kim Ki-Rok found himself at the mercy of a pouting Kim Ji-Hee.
"I'm sorry," he apologized.
"You really can't do it?"
"Mister is too busy today."
"Then tomorrow. I'll do everything our Ji-Hee wants."
Her eyes sparkled, apparently mollified by that promise.
"Mister," she called.
"Will you bring a gift?"
"Should I buy a gift?"
Kim Ji-Hee gave a firm nod, her tiny fist clenched in excitement. "Yeah!"
"Okay. Then have fun."
"Byeee." Kim Ji-Hee left the building holding Lee Ji-Yeon's hand.
Perhaps disappointed she couldn't play with him today, she kept looking over her shoulder to wave goodbye, even as she walked away. Only when her small figure disappeared from view did Kim Ki-Rok wipe his smile clean and turn on his heels.
Bloody Christmas Eve.
Commonly abbreviated as Bloody Christmas, it was the day both monsters and Awakened criminals attacked on December 24th. Whenever he stopped it from happening, the Awakened criminals retaliated. There were differences in numbers and scale, but it was bound to happen.
Naturally, Kim Ki-Rok had planned for that. Instead of buying an existing structure, he had one built from the ground up with defense in mind. Traps were hidden throughout the interior—poisoned arrows would shoot from the walls, and some corridors were rigged to flood with toxic gas if the building entered "defense mode."
Naturally, all that had been hidden during the final inspection for the building's permit.
Strolling around, Kim Ki-Rok inspected each floor, paying special attention to the emergency stairwell next to the elevator. Assassins would never take the elevator, preferring either the stairwell or the building's outer walls.
Ascending the stairwell, he noted that if the building entered defense mode, the steps themselves would grow spines that made climbing impossible. Meanwhile, tiny needles would shoot out from holes in the walls. Touch the banister, and blades would descend from the ceiling.
Kim Ki-Rok came out of the emergency stairs, slowly looked around the second floor, and then moved to the third floor, going up the stairs again.
From the second floor, he moved slowly to the third, then continued until he reached the seventh floor, using the elevator down to the fifth at the end. He had "sent off" all the Hunters—every last one—to further the impression that DG Guild was carelessly letting its guard down after a massive Gate defense.
The spirits began to hound him as soon as Kim Ki-Rok opened the door to the Guildmaster's office.
"We had 88 buttons in total, so is that 11 per floor?"
Kim Ki-Rok replied, "Ten buttons on each floor. The remaining eight are installed in the basement, exterior walls, rooftop, and a small open space between the buildings used as a parking lot."
"So you anticipated this?" one of the spirits asked.
"No, I knew it would happen."
He hadn't just "expected" an Awakened criminal raid when building DG Guild headquarters, he had been absolutely certain one would come. The spirits could clearly read Kim Ki-Rok's intent.
"So you plan to wipe them out in one fell swoop."
"That's right," Kim Ki-Rok answered.
He had to minimize casualties. That, of course, meant minimizing the deaths of all Hunters. But when it came to the criminals who had repeatedly threatened society, those he deemed beyond redemption had to be put down with certainty. Some Awakened criminals, however, did possess the potential to be rehabilitated. After all, when an existential crisis hit Earth, many even chose to collaborate with the Association and government simply to survive.
So ideally, they would only kill the truly irredeemable scum and spare those whose crimes were lesser, only if it costed no allied lives. It wasn't worth risking a single teammate's safety to show mercy.
"No..." Kim Ki-Rok said suddenly.
"Do we even need to keep them alive? They won't cooperate for their lives."
"What a scary thing to say."
Cooperation? They would never consider it. During civilian rescue operations, they wouldn't come back once the mission ended, they'd just ransack the collapsed city for loot. And when tackling Gates, if a situation turned too dangerous, they would abandon their fellow Hunters and flee.
In the end, they were scumbags who trampled on people's lives and property. All of those damned bastards went straight for retaliation as soon as their plans had been thwarted.
"Right..." Kim Ki-Rok mumbled.
"Let's just kill them all."
The spirits fell silent, stunned at his blunt declaration.