Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 107

107. Monster and Prey (2)

“Kara, you son of a bitch. Do you think I’m someone who clings to a position? You guys were the ones who begged me to come in the first place. You were the ones who asked me to join your election campaign when you mentioned the Nobel Prize nomination.”

[That was then, and this is now. You’ve gone too far. National security takes precedence over everything.]

Do Won-kyung took the phone away from her face and unleashed a torrent of curses. After almost a minute of invective too colorful to repeat, Do Won-kyung put the phone back to her ear.

“National security what?”

[……Cover your phone if you’re going to swear. What do you think will happen if the exoskeleton you gave to Hunter Kang Hyun-moo is mass-produced?]

Do Won-kyung cursed inwardly again. *How does this bastard know about that?* Was there a spy inside?

No, in fact, she had already anticipated something like this. Park Gyu already knew about her plan.

“What will happen is that the survival rate of the soldiers will increase, dungeon exploration will be easier, and the damage caused by monsters will decrease.”

[You’re uncharacteristically naive. If the power of lower-level ability users suddenly increases, the balance of power will collapse immediately. The government is barely controlling the ability users. But already clans, rogues, and trans-national individuals are appearing. Did you think we would condone that?]

“If that happens, it’s the flow of the times, you son of a bitch! Do you think the development of technology can be stopped by blocking it! What are you going to do by just controlling the ability users, saying they are hostile, when the difficulty is increasing? Are we just going to die together? Do you think you *are* the country?”

[The majority of non-ability users…….]

“Hey, shut up! You brainless bastard!”

Do Won-kyung threw the phone down and smashed it. The investigation team tensed up all at once.

They worried that Do Won-kyung would tell Hyun-moo to kill them all right away.

Since the gun had been disassembled, no one could control Hyun-moo right now.

But Do Won-kyung took a deep breath for a while and approached Prosecutor Ryu Jin-yeol. Then she took out an envelope from her pocket and threw it down.

It was a letter of resignation.

“Hey, I quit. You didn’t fire me. Got it?”

Ryu Jin-yeol looked at her in disbelief.

“Resignation and dismissal are clearly different…… Besides, criminal responsibility is separate…….”

“Oh, do whatever you want! Just tell that blockhead!”

Do Won-kyung kept cursing like a crazy old woman and stormed out of the lab.

The researchers looked at each other with anxious eyes, wondering what would happen to them now. Hyun-moo wondered if he should follow her, but it seemed better to leave her alone for now.

Just then, the phone rang. It was Prosecutor Ryu Jin-yeol’s phone.

“Yes, yes. Yes? Kang Hyun-moo?”

His gaze turned to Hyun-moo. Hyun-moo gestured for him to bring the phone himself.

Ryu Jin-yeol seemed taken aback, but in the end, Hyun-moo was the boss here. Hyun-moo took the phone.

[Mr. Kang Hyun-moo. Thank you for your cooperation in avoiding conflict.]

Hyun-moo hadn’t decided what to do yet. It could be said that the work he had already done was a conflict. Therefore, Park Gyu’s words were close to a warning not to do anything.

‘Is this guy Park Gyu?’

Hyun-moo had tried to find out about Do Won-kyung’s superiors. Officially, Do Won-kyung’s superiors were the Minister of the Ministry of Ability and the President, but the real power was held by the Chief of Staff.

Park Gyu.

He led the current president’s election campaign and had participated in many processes before, so there was even talk of him being a close aide to the president.

“The investigation team was rough.”

[I’ll give them a warning. After all, former Director Do Won-kyung has a fiery personality, so I thought a strict response would be necessary. By the way, I wanted to meet you sometime, but it’s a pity it turned out like this.]

Hyun-moo remembered being invited to the Blue House [the executive office and official residence of the South Korean president] a long time ago.

He had refused.

The funny thing was that when he refused the invitation, it was treated as if ‘such a thing never happened in the first place.’

[I heard that Mr. Kang Hyun-moo’s personality is also difficult, but thank you for showing such restraint. I hope we can see you again soon.]

Park Gyu hung up.

Park Gyu seemed to think that Hyun-moo had already shown enough restraint just by not harming the investigation team.

Hyun-moo put the phone back in Ryu Jin-yeol’s front pocket.

The corners of Hyun-moo’s mouth tilted upward.

‘I’m the one who’s grateful. I’m just grateful that you’re moving as I expected.’

The wheels were turning according to the orbit Hyun-moo had drawn. It was time to move on to the next stage.

***

“Really? Then that’s a relief.”

Park Gyu, who was soaking his whole body in a VIP-only sauna near the Blue House, was relieved to receive a call from his secretary. It was about the president accepting Do Won-kyung’s letter of resignation.

He was also worried about attacking Do Won-kyung, who was a fellow government official.

If Do Won-kyung came out swinging, she might have been able to damage Park Gyu.

If the situation became noisy, the opposition party might talk about a cabinet split or call for accountability.

‘It’s a relief that Do Won-kyung is officially a private researcher.’

He wouldn’t care about a research institute director, let alone a minister, so the opposition party wouldn’t be very interested.

Since Do Won-kyung had stepped down on her own after the investigation, Park Gyu was planning to cover it up at a moderate level. After all, he had already obtained everything he needed.

‘The problem is a guy named Kang Hyun-moo.’

Park Gyu had no intention of just letting Kang Hyun-moo go.

Of course, in his opinion, Kang Hyun-moo was just a hunter who had been seduced by Do Won-kyung.

Kang Hyun-moo had almost no external activities other than being involved with hunters.

Park Gyu was well aware that many hunters lacked social skills.

‘But I can’t figure out his identity at all.’

It’s not as simple as Oh Dae-sung of Jeonungryeon [All-Nation Ability Union], and it’s not as cooperative with the regime as Lee Ji-tae of Taesung. If I had to compare him, he felt similar to Park Do-ryeong of Hwanma.

Unlike the early days of Hwanma’s establishment, Park Do-ryeong had not been seen at all for the past few years.

He couldn’t leave a powerful ability user in a state where he didn’t know his identity.

‘I’ll find an excuse to win him over soon, or…….’

It was then. Suddenly, the lights flickered and the surroundings went dark. It seemed like there was a power outage.

“Hey!”

Park Gyu called his secretary to find out what was going on. But no one answered.

A bad feeling flashed through his mind.

There were not only secretaries outside, but also hunters dispatched from Taesung for protection. There was no way they couldn’t hear his voice.

Then the lights came back on.

Just as he was about to feel relieved, Park Gyu felt his heart drop when he saw the person standing at the entrance.

It was a person wearing a strange mask. No, he couldn’t even tell if it was a mask.

The bizarrely distorted shape of the mask made it impossible to focus, and it scattered his vision here and there.

Just looking at it made him feel nauseous.

The man slowly took off his mask.

“Nice to meet you, Chief of Staff Park Gyu. It’s a little earlier than expected, isn’t it?”

Park Gyu’s eyes widened. He knew this voice. It was the person he had spoken to just a few hours ago.

“Kang Hyun-moo…….”

Park Gyu looked outside urgently.

There was no way that Kang Hyun-moo could have entered here without being stopped even once. But it was hard to see even one wound on him.

“Did you kill them all?”

“Now is not the time to worry about those friends.”

Park Gyu looked at his own appearance. He was naked with only a towel on. He was more helpless than ever.

Park Gyu fiddled with his cell phone, hoping to turn on the recording function.

But even the phone had its battery removed at some point. He felt like he was possessed by a ghost.

“Are you going to kill me?”

At Park Gyu’s words, Hyun-moo asked back in a laughing voice.

“So what would I gain from that? Old meat?”

“Then what do you want? Do you have a grudge because of Do Won-kyung?”

“Chief of Staff Park Gyu. I think you have a big misunderstanding.”

Hyun-moo slowly approached Park Gyu. Park Gyu tensed up when he put his hand in his pocket, but what he took out was a cell phone.

Hyun-moo started playing a video on his phone. Park Gyu’s eyes widened as he watched the video.

It was a video of Jeonungryeon hunters wearing exoskeletons and fighting in the Taean Dungeon.

The video that Park Gyu had received from an anonymous informant.

Hyun-moo had the very video that no one else but Park Gyu could have seen.

Park Gyu had thought that someone from the Obsidian Team had betrayed Hyun-moo and leaked the information.

But the anonymous informant was Hyun-moo himself.

“You reported Do Won-kyung?”

“I needed to.”

Park Gyu couldn’t understand at all. Do Won-kyung’s morality was tarnished and her career was over.

She had many enemies, so there were many people in academia who were ready to tear her apart.

Of course, her skills wouldn’t go anywhere, but as someone who was at the top, it would take a long time to get back on her feet.

“Weren’t you on the same side?”

“It was just a business relationship. I’ll switch if there’s a better partner.”

Hyun-moo answered briefly and put his phone back in. Park Gyu paid attention to the fact that Hyun-moo mentioned ‘partner’.

He still couldn’t figure out what he was up to, but it was clear that he would be making some kind of offer.

“Please think of Do Won-kyung as a gift from me to the Chief of Staff.”

“I didn’t ask for a free lunch. What are you hoping for?”

Hyun-moo chuckled.

“I’m going to make Jeonungryeon a national organization. I hope the Chief of Staff will cooperate with this.”

Jeonungryeon? Why is Jeonungryeon coming out here again?

To Park Gyu, Jeonungryeon was nothing more than the minimum fence to prevent ability users from running around like wild horses.

He would rather confine lower-level ability users, who became unemployed and caused trouble, in a fence called Jeonungryeon and throw them some pocket money.

Most of the Jeonungryeon executives were already living off such government subsidies.

“What do you mean? You want to…… hire all of Jeonungryeon as civil servants?”

“What kind of joke is that? How can such a waste of taxes be done carelessly?”

Hyun-moo crossed his arms and continued.

“There will be a major reorganization in Jeonungryeon soon. At that time, get involved in the reorganization process of Jeonungryeon and declare it a state-run clan under the pretext of internal improvement. However, I will decide on the reorganization plan. The state will directly invest resources to grow Jeonungryeon, not a private organization.”

In short, he was asking him to help Hyun-moo take control of Jeonungryeon and pour money into it.

Park Gyu was speechless at the absurd idea.

A state-run clan, to have a military organization different from the military and police?

“Do you think that’s going to happen as you please? It’s not something that can be done by revising one or two constitutions! It would take years just to persuade the National Assembly…….”

“I wouldn’t have come to see the Chief of Staff if I was going to do it according to the law.”

Park Gyu closed his mouth at Hyun-moo’s words.

What Hyun-moo was saying was not light. Park Gyu admitted that he had misjudged Hyun-moo.

*This guy is crazy.*

But he’s a crazy guy with power and a clear sense of purpose.

“Didn’t Chief of Staff Park Gyu also plan a state-run clan? You ended up giving up because of Taesung and Hwanma. But state-run clans are already being done a lot in other countries, including the United States. Our country is too late.”

Park Gyu’s head started to spin complicatedly. One of the reasons he gave up on the state-run clan was because Taesung was loyal to the government’s taste.

But in the end, Taesung is an organization that is absolutely loyal to Lee Ji-tae. You don’t know what will happen the moment Lee Ji-tae turns around or is replaced by someone else.

‘But Jeonungryeon is too weak.’

Park Gyu’s evaluation of Jeonungryeon was negative. The executives are corrupt and the members are lethargic. It’s natural that all the talented people with ambition and ability went to Taesung or Hwanma.

‘Still…… if a crazy guy like Kang Hyun-moo leads it, it might be different.’

Park Gyu had already seen the power of the exoskeleton used by the hunter team led by Kang Hyun-moo.

If the overall ability can be improved and an organization that is loyal to the country is created, the situation will be reversed.

If that happens, the number itself will become a great power, and the check on Taesung can be passed on to Kang Hyun-moo.

It was an attractive bait for Park Gyu, who was pursuing constant checks on ability users.

“Then what do you get? Is eating Jeonungryeon all you want?”

But whether he could trust Hyun-moo was a separate issue. He had to know his motives.

“Please allow the ability user soldiers currently included in the military to join Jeonungryeon as well.”

What is the group with the most ability users after Jeonungryeon? It’s none other than the military.

Even excluding long-term service soldiers who actively utilize their characteristics as ability users specialized in combat, there are thousands of ability users who are conscripted through 1.5 years of mandatory service.

Park Gyu’s eyes narrowed.

‘This bastard is drawing an absurdly big picture.’