Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 262

262. Infinitely Light (5)

As Hyun-woo stopped and stared into the hangar, Song Yeo-un’s gaze followed.

Song Yeo-un flinched upon spotting the masked man and gripped her whip.

However, Hyun-woo quickly blocked her path.

The masked man was looking towards Hyun-woo, but his gaze was directed further away.

Towards what looked like a runway.

Hyun-woo spotted Lee Seo-yeon’s plane just starting to move down the runway. At the same moment, his body leaped up as if propelled.

It was almost the exact moment the masked man threw something.

Whoosh!

The sound of air tearing apart echoed.

Hyun-woo ran with all his might for the first time since returning from Difficulty: Hell. Each step he took left a deep, resounding footprint.

Thanks to Hyun-woo’s quick start, he managed to intercept the trajectory of the object thrown by the masked man just before it hit the plane.

Because they were moving at almost the same speed, it appeared to be frozen in mid-air.

It was a fragment of metal, like Park Do-ryung’s dagger, which Hyun-woo called ‘Ghaul’s Fragment’.

Hyun-woo judged that he didn’t have time to draw a weapon, so he struck the fragment down with his fist.

With a bang, the fragment was deflected to the side.

The fragment skipped across the runway like a flat stone, leaving a long gash. Hyun-woo’s hand was also cut, and blood spurted out.

“Damn it…”

But Hyun-woo heard the sound of air tearing a second time. The masked man had thrown a second fragment.

The plane was just about to leave the runway, but it couldn’t avoid the fragment. It was impossible for Hyun-woo, who had lost his balance, to catch up.

Hyun-woo briefly considered giving up on Lee Seo-yeon. She wasn’t someone he needed to save at all costs.

But the hesitation didn’t last long.

Hyun-woo immediately used Skill: Ego Weapon.

It wasn’t that he wanted to save Lee Seo-yeon.

He just couldn’t stand the thought of the other party’s intentions succeeding.

As Hyun-woo pulled his arm back, a long, purplish-black spear was summoned into his hand.

The spear began to writhe with murderous intent towards Hyun-woo as soon as it was summoned.

But Hyun-woo was faster at throwing the spear at the target than the spear was at stabbing him.

The distance of the fragment to the plane was more than twice the distance between Hyun-woo and the fragment.

It was a situation where he had to hit a bullet with a bullet, and that too, much later, hitting its tail.

But Hyun-woo did it.

A flash of dark trajectory crossed the runway. Just before the fragment hit the plane, Hyun-woo’s Ego Weapon struck it directly.

With a clear, ringing sound, a shockwave swept across the runway in an instant. It was the aftershock caused by the Ego Weapon.

Kwaaaaa!

The aftershock shook the plane for a moment.

The plane wobbled precariously for a while, but soon regained its posture and took off steadily.

There didn’t seem to be a third shot. But Hyun-woo couldn’t relax yet.

Summer sunlight sparkled dazzlingly in the fragments scattered as the shard shattered. And at the same time, the Ego Weapon rushed madly towards Hyun-woo.

Hyun-woo quickly started running. The Ego Weapon ran towards Hyun-woo like a hungry dog.

“Get out of the way!”

Song Yeo-un, with wide eyes, was in front of Hyun-woo. Song Yeo-un quickly threw herself down.

And behind her, the masked man was still standing inside the hangar.

Just before the Ego Weapon pierced his back, Hyun-woo quickly twisted his body.

As his body flipped in the air, Hyun-woo’s body was parallel to the Ego Weapon in the air.

In that state, Hyun-woo quickly grabbed Changsin. He could feel his body being dragged along rapidly.

Hyun-woo made eye contact with the masked man.

The Ego Weapon pierced the masked man in an instant.

The Ego Weapon didn’t stop there, creating a large hole in the hangar.

Hyun-woo was tossed around like he was riding a rodeo, barely managing to reverse summon the Ego Weapon.

It would be good to throw it at the masked man again, but he can only take such a stable posture when he first summons the spear.

“Ah, ha! You son of a bitch, did you think it would be so easy to screw me over?”

Hyun-woo quickly jumped back into the hangar. But the masked man’s torn remains were nowhere to be seen.

He knew it. The sensation when he pierced him with the spear was too weak.

Like piercing the air.

“Still a stray dog.”

But the masked man was fortunately still there.

Like before, he was standing in the middle of the chaotic hangar.

Hyun-woo felt a sense of doubt at his voice.

It was a voice he had heard before.

Hyun-woo found the owner of this voice among the countless voices he had buried, thinking they were useless now.

In fact, there was no need to think about it.

The opponent had already shown everything to prove himself.

Hyun-woo asked suspiciously.

“Park Do-ryung?”

***

“Long time no see. Kang Hyun-woo?”

It was clearly Park Do-ryung, whose life he had taken with his own hands and whose fragment he had seized.

Even if nothing else, taking the fragment was a clear symbol of death. Since he died at Hyun-woo’s hands, resurrection as a subordinate was impossible.

‘Is he undead?’

But he didn’t feel the coldness or stench that were characteristic of the undead.

Park Do-ryung was alive. Too clearly.

Park Do-ryung was wearing a mask pieced together with tape and glue. Seeing that, it was clear that it was the mask Hyun-woo had stepped on and crushed.

Hyun-woo had considered the possibility that the teacher was Park Do-ryung.

But if that were the case, there would have been no reason for Park Do-ryung to be so easily defeated by him in the first place.

“You have a curious expression.”

“Even for me, killing the same person twice is a bit unsettling.”

Hyun-woo said that and suddenly wondered how it would be handled if he killed Kawaro and Itwaro twice. Should that be counted as two times?

“Why were you trying to kill Lee Seo-yeon? She’s Lee Ji-tae’s sister. Weren’t you on the same side?”

“I’m only protecting Lee Ji-tae.”

Park Do-ryung said calmly.

“And the one on that plane is not Lee Ji-tae’s sister, but a traitor [literally, a ‘seed-selling slave,’ meaning someone who betrays their own people] who is trying to sell humanity for her own glory. It would have been better to kill her with my own hands now than for Lee Ji-tae to kill her.”

“You’re still judging and acting arbitrarily.”

It seemed he knew about Lee Seo-yeon and the star behind her.

“Okay. I’ll ask what I’m really curious about. How are you alive?”

“I’m happy that you’re really curious about that.”

Park Do-ryung chuckled under his mask and replied.

“Because I’m not going to tell you.”

“You son of a bitch. Then die now and make what happened when you came back to life undone.”

As soon as Hyun-woo finished speaking, the whip wrapped around Park Do-ryung’s body.

Song Yeo-un bound Park Do-ryung’s body with the whip and activated Skill: Repulsion.

It was a pressure that would have split an ordinary ability user in half vertically around the point where the whip was wrapped.

But Park Do-ryung easily unwound the whip and soared into the air like the wind with the force of repulsion.

He was heading towards the ceiling of the hangar. But Hyun-woo rushed at him quickly as he floated in the air.

Tam’s blade cut into Park Do-ryung’s body in an instant.

It felt like he was cutting through the air in vain, just like the Ego Weapon had done. But at that moment, Hyun-woo pulled his left hand back sharply.

The spiderwebs he had laid on the ceiling grabbed Park Do-ryung like a net. Park Do-ryung, who was trying to escape the attack, flinched in the air for a moment.

Disappointment was in Park Do-ryung’s eyes inside the mask.

Hyun-woo didn’t miss the gap and slashed upwards in one breath.

Thud.

This time, there was a definite sensation of cutting. But Hyun-woo had a disappointed expression.

Numerous silver-white crystals were growing on the ceiling of the hangar.

The crystals had a similar feel to the fragments that Park Do-ryung used to throw.

In the jungle of crystals, Park Do-ryung identified the cut on his chest. It was a fairly deep wound, but not fatal.

“You’re wearing all sorts of things on your body.”

What Hyun-woo felt when he cut Park Do-ryung was not flesh, but the feeling of breaking something hard.

He must have been wearing a thin layer of that silver-white crystal all over his body.

“You seem to have gotten a little stronger in the meantime. At least enough not to die in one hit.”

Park Do-ryung ignored Hyun-woo’s sarcasm and ran his hand over the wound.

Following his touch, silver-white crystals began to sprout from the wound. Soon, the bleeding stopped from the wound covered in sparkling silver-white crystals.

“You’re growing like a monster…”

Even during the Pyongyang Recovery Operation, Park Do-ryung and Hyun-woo were at a similar level.

Of course, Hyun-woo hadn’t used his ultimate skill, but their basic abilities were still similar.

But now he was overwhelming him. Considering that Hyun-woo had started hunting in earnest less than a year ago, it was terrifying.

“Consistent effort, a healthy diet, and a regular lifestyle are the secrets. And a little bit of fine dust.”

“Interesting.”

Park Do-ryung looked at Hyun-woo without a hint of a smile.

‘He’s not just getting stronger.’

Until now, Park Do-ryung had been creating clones at the moment of being attacked to create a timing to evade.

After the Pyongyang incident, Park Do-ryung added a new characteristic to his clone skill.

The clones were no longer black dolls like before, but perfectly imitated Park Do-ryung’s appearance.

In the short moment when the clone pushes the body away, the opponent is caught in an optical illusion that makes them believe they have succeeded in the attack.

Until now, very few people had read that subtle difference. But Hyun-woo had figured out that fact with just one missed attack.

“I didn’t come here to fight you. Kang Hyun-woo.”

Park Do-ryung judged that it would be difficult to face Hyun-woo.

“My purpose is the same as yours. I came here to kill the starving star bastards who were here.”

“The same as me?”

“Yes.”

Park Do-ryung said with a sigh.

“I understand why you antagonize the Alliance. We had a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“No, the guy who tried to kill me shouldn’t talk like it was an accidental mistake.”

Hyun-woo retorted in disbelief, but Park Do-ryung ignored him.

“But the Alliance’s goal is ultimately the happiness and good of humanity. Pursuing that inevitably led to a clash with you. If you seemed even a little less harmful, we wouldn’t have gone wrong like this.”

“Harmful? What’s wrong with me?”

“…And the Alliance was also paying close attention to the incident in Korea this time. We also resolved it in an unexpected way.”

It seemed to be an excuse that the Alliance had not intervened in this matter. It wasn’t a very reliable statement. They were such dark-hearted bastards.

“Yes, to be honest, I admit that we waited until the Omnipotent Alliance was dismantled. But we were also planning to prevent Korea from heading to the worst situation in the end.”

“So, to summarize, you’re saying, ‘I’m scared, so why don’t we call it a draw here?'”

“You could summarize it that way.”

Park Do-ryung admitted simply.

“Honestly, if I could have killed you, I wouldn’t have brought this up. But right now, I don’t even see that possibility. I don’t know if there will be any in the future. So I wish you would let me go here.”

“It’s too petty to call it off because you think you’re going to lose, isn’t it? Rejected.”

“I knew it. You stray dog.”

Hyun-woo bounced his body.

At that moment, the silver-white crystals on the ceiling exploded all at once with a bang.

Hyun-woo had become like someone who had jumped into countless falling crystals at full speed.

“What a damn…”

Hyun-woo quickly swung Tam to deflect the crystal shards, but he couldn’t help but have some of the crystal shards embedded in his body.

He bombarded the spot where Park Do-ryung had been a beat late.

With a sharp tearing sound, Park Do-ryung’s right arm and leg fell off at the same time.

But this time, the sensation was light.

‘Clone.’

Hyun-woo quickly identified the presence.

He could feel dozens of clones already splitting and scattering in all directions.

If he was close, he might be able to figure out what was real, but now it was too far.

Only one bait clone remained and fell to the floor with a light sound.

Hyun-woo landed on the floor.

“If our goals are the same, we’ll meet again soon. Kang Hyun-woo.”

Park Do-ryung’s clone calmly looked at Hyun-woo and opened his mouth.

“And soon someone will come to meet you…”

“Ah, I know, so shut up.”

Hyun-woo stomped on the clone and crushed it. The clone twitched and then disappeared into smoke.

“This bastard seems to have become more talkative since he came back to life.”