Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 298

298. The Worst Person in the World (7)

Crack.

As Victor moved, the debris around him collapsed.

His ironclad suit, of an unknown internal structure, stood nearly 4 meters tall.

“When I heard that a monster had been discovered in Afghanistan, I thought it was a metaphor for the biochemical weapons or armaments the Russians were hiding.”

Thump, thump.

Each time he took a step, protruding rebars and building ruins snapped like straws. Yet, his ironclad suit remained without a single scratch.

“But the closer I got, the more I heard it wasn’t a monster, but a god.”

Victor tensed his entire body to the maximum. However, Adam showed no interest in him.

She glanced around, scanning for other disruptive elements.

“The more I heard about you, the more absurd it became. A god, a monster, a beast, a devil, no, the end itself… When I even heard there was a religious group that worshiped you, I was rather disappointed. I just thought it was crazy fanatics talking nonsense.”

But it wasn’t.

Adam was real. And she could be a god, a monster, a devil, and a symbol of the end.

The Russians had thrown in a division to secure her, but failed.

“Then, at the request of the UN Special Surveillance Department, we conducted a joint operation together. With Professor Maria Keller.”

At the mention of Maria Keller’s name, Adam, who had been indifferently looking around, stopped.

Finally, their eyes met, and Victor grinned.

“I remember the situation when I found you with Keller. Countless human corpses were piled up under your feet, unrecognizable. Locals who adorned you with gold and jewels to worship you, and Russian soldiers who invaded to take you. I can still vividly picture you playing jackstones with them all lumped together.”

Adam tilted her head slightly and replied.

“The locals weren’t killed by me.”

“But you treated their corpses with indifference all the same. You’re a beast, Adam. You gratefully accept food when it’s given, but that’s it. Isn’t tearing at the flesh of the dead something only a beast would do?”

Adam didn’t answer. The fact that she even responded to Victor was a great consideration on her part.

Victor’s sense of inferiority towards her, the fear he subtly revealed, and the competitive spirit that surged within him held no meaning for her.

“Maria Keller was the only one who insisted on keeping you alive. Everyone thought Keller was crazy. To prove her point, Keller tamed you for three days straight in that highland region without sleeping.”

Of course, the price for Maria Keller was not small.

Three days later, Maria Keller, who crawled out, was immediately taken to the emergency room for major surgery.

Thanks to Maria’s life-risking persuasion, they barely agreed to accept Adam, but her management was entirely under Maria’s jurisdiction.

After that, Maria’s body gradually broke down and crumbled.

She, who had been an ambitious dungeon exploration scholar, became a paraplegic in less than half a year after meeting Adam.

There wasn’t a bone in her body that wasn’t broken, and she underwent life-threatening major surgeries more than ten times.

There were countless moments when they thought there was no hope.

However, Adam was the opposite.

The more Maria’s body deteriorated, the more Adam learned social skills like a child learning to speak.

“Some say it’s like Helen Keller and Sullivan Teacher. Of course, it’s not as romantic a relationship. Because Sullivan Teacher paid a harsh price that anyone could see. On the other hand, you rose from a beast to a human.”

Adam increasingly felt Victor’s words were unpleasant.

She couldn’t understand why Victor was telling these stories. And she didn’t know why she was listening to them.

Already, the sense of indebtedness she felt towards Maria Keller was beyond what others could imagine.

“What do you want to say?”

“So, I became curious.”

Victor muttered, clenching his fists together.

“Is a beast pretending to be human stronger than when it was a beast?”

***

The moment Victor kicked off the floor, the surroundings cracked and shattered with the shockwave.

Unbelievably fast for his massive weight, Victor charged at Adam.

Just before his fist struck Adam’s face, a dull impact crashed down.

Victor felt a tingling shock in his fist.

But his fist didn’t reach Adam.

Inside a transparent wall, Adam stared at Victor without moving a finger.

She soon indifferently turned her gaze away.

“Look at me, Adam!”

Victor shouted and swung his fist again.

The moment he swung his fist horizontally, hot molten metal suddenly poured out of his hand, forming a shape.

Shaped like a giant hammer, it struck the transparent wall surrounding Adam.

A massive vibration, incomparable to the fist, shook the surroundings, and dust rose all at once.

Adam frowned and turned her gaze back to Victor.

Victor’s lips curled up.

However, contrary to Victor’s expectations, Adam wasn’t looking at him.

‘Where did that child go?’

Adam was looking for the child who had been in front of Victor earlier, the one she had tried to snipe with her staff.

But no matter how much she looked around, she couldn’t see him. Adam had been refraining from attacking, worried that the child would get caught up in it.

‘He must have run away or hidden somewhere.’

Adam was relieved for now.

Relieved?

At that moment, Adam flinched.

What reason was there to be relieved?

After all, if he was in the shadows, he was an object to be eliminated. With that logic, she had already turned numerous regions into ruins and killed countless people.

Being relieved that the child had disappeared was no different from betraying her own purpose.

Adam suddenly fell into confusion. Why was she thinking like this now?

She just had to follow Maria’s orders.

Love humans, protect humans.

Like a command programmed into a machine, Adam repeatedly muttered.

There was no need to think deeply about what love was or what it meant to protect.

Because Maria would tell her.

Thump, thud, thud.

Adam felt the vibration shaking beneath her feet.

Victor had realized that Adam was indifferent to him and had changed his weapon.

Victor was holding giant scimitars in both hands. The floor began to collapse as the scimitars, almost as tall as him, slashed around Adam.

“I am the agent of the conquering star. Adam, equal to you!”

Victor shouted, spewing hot air from his mouth.

“The heart of Ardan, the conquering star, beats in my chest! I hear the sound of his hooves conquering the world! His history unfolds in my hands now!”

Victor attacked, slashed, and drove Adam back, changing weapons with dazzling skill.

The scimitars he wielded with both hands had become a halberd [a combined spear and battle-axe], and the halberd he was slamming down instantly turned into a heavy axe.

Adam felt that it was becoming increasingly difficult to defend against the attacks as time passed.

Victor’s attacks were focused on a single point, but her barrier was wide, making it inefficient. Adam retreated and floated into the air.

“Haha! Humans have already conquered the sky for a long time! Are you trying to be cute with me, Adam?”

Victor instantly transformed his arms, turning the gauntlets on both hands into high-speed machine guns like those on fighter jets.

Literally, the history of conquest, the history of weapons, was contained in his hands.

Crack, crack, crack.

A series of dull roars that sounded like tearing metal echoed.

Unlike magic bullets, these were weapons created by the agent of the conquering star using skills.

They were one-time use, but each shot was powerful enough to tear apart even formidable monsters.

Adam, who had soared into the sky, was instantly surrounded by a barrage that brightly illuminated the surroundings.

Crack.

For the first time, a bullet pierced her barrier and grazed her.

It didn’t hit her directly, but the sound of it passing by was enough to tear her earlobe. Adam’s eyes turned fierce. But at the same time, there was a mind suppressing it.

‘To destroy the familiars in the shadows for 72 hours, I must conserve my strength.’

Victor was quite a troublesome opponent, considering he was called an agent.

Adam decided to end the fight as quickly as possible if she had to fight anyway.

She gathered the scattered staves of God and quickly pulled them towards Victor, centering on him.

The moment she thought he would be crushed like a flattened frog, the staves of God stopped in front of Victor’s armor with a thud.

“What are you doing, Adam? The staves of God were the first weapons devised in our America.”

Victor said, grabbing one of the staves of God stuck to his armor. Even a metal pillar with a diameter of 1 meter looked like an ordinary spear to him.

“We just yielded to you because you could handle it more appropriately. Did you think the UN Special Surveillance Department could create such high-strength synthetic metals?”

Victor threw the staff of God in his hand towards Adam.

Adam quickly tried to grab the staff of God and deflect it, but her strength didn’t work.

Adam quickly crouched down.

Thud.

Hit by the staff of God, she was thrown backward and fell to the floor.

She barely managed to stop at a precarious height, but a tingling shock shook her whole body.

Adam wiped the blood from her mouth and glared at Victor.

Victor felt a chill run down his spine at her hostile eyes.

“Yes. Hate me, Adam! Burn with anger! Become a monster again!”

A long iron whip, melting with hot molten metal, slowly formed in Victor’s hand.

The molten metal splattered everywhere as he swung the whip, leaving long scars on the ruins.

“Humanity has conquered barbarism and become the conqueror of the world! And today, I will conquer a monster and add a step to that history of conquest!”

Victor shouted with joy.

“I will respectfully cut off your head and hang it on my flagpole. And when it rots and only bones remain, I will make your skull into a cup and commemorate this day every day!”

“Unsanitary.”

Adam retorted coldly and reorganized her body.

Her body began to ripple strangely. Victor’s heart pounded.

Victor had come to this place with the most thorough preparation in his entire life.

Remembering Adam’s appearance in Afghanistan, even this preparation was insufficient. But Adam was only showing a much weaker appearance than then.

To see that same appearance again.

And to conquer such a monster, he had to strip away Maria Keller’s teachings from Adam.

And so now, Adam was looking at Victor, burning with animalistic hatred.

It was what Victor had been hoping for.

The eyes of a complete beast. Bright yellow eyes.

The eyes of barbarism lurking in the darkness, still preying on humans.

Adam finally raised her hand. The tips of her fingers were blackened and distorted.

The moment his gaze was drawn to the shape of her hand, Victor’s helmet was torn apart and scattered.

Splat.

Soon, Victor’s head, split into five pieces, was revealed inside the cracked helmet.

However, what flowed out from within was not red blood, but thickly melted metal. Victor’s lips were even split, but he was smiling instead.

“Ha, haha, hahaha!”

Thump. Victor let out a hearty laugh and stomped his foot on the floor once.

Inside the stripped ironclad suit, Victor’s appearance was no longer human.

Melted metal was constantly flowing out from his split skin. The weapons he had created up to this point were no different from his blood and flesh.

“Finally, I’m going on a beast hunt!”

Victor was betting ‘everything’ to hunt Adam, literally.

Now that he had transformed into an inhuman form, he had given up his position as a general, his reputation, and his family.

Finally, only the complete agent of the conquering star existed.

“Blow the hunting horn!”

With Victor’s roar, Adam’s body moved again.

If smashing her head was useless, then tearing her apart was enough.

However, the moment she focused her strength on Victor, a sharp pain struck her.

Thwack, crack. Crack.

Something pierced Adam’s hands, shoulders, back, legs, and insteps.

Belatedly, hunters wearing dark equipment came into her view.

They were members of Victor’s exclusive special forces unit called Warhammer. Five of them, all of them felt at least the power of an apostle [a high-ranking figure or powerful individual].

“Hunting is originally done in groups.”

Adam belatedly realized that Victor’s provocation up to this point was a trick to remove her barrier.

Victor burst into a roaring laugh, swinging his whip in a circle.

The hot molten metal wrapped around Adam’s neck. The moment the iron whip was pulled to snap her neck.

Adam’s body instantly turned into a blurry black mist.

***

Victor exhaled deeply. A satisfied smile was on his lips.

“What’s so enjoyable?”

Adam asked, holding Victor’s head in the air.

His neck was cut off, but Victor’s life was stubbornly clinging on.

He would probably live for a while in this state. If he reattached it to his body, he might even survive.

Victor smiled and said.

“I’ve finally revealed that you’re a beast.”

Adam tilted her head at Victor’s answer.

“Is that so satisfying?”

“Of course.”

“Your subordinates are annihilated, and your lifelong efforts have been in vain. But does the fact that one person’s efforts over a lifetime have been ruined make you so happy?”

“It’s enjoyable that there’s still something to conquer.”

Victor said with a smirk.

“Beasts, monsters, and barbarism are destined to be conquered. I will die here, but it has been revealed that monsters are monsters after all. No matter how much you wear the mask of a human, it will be the same.”

“……”

Adam dropped Victor’s head to the floor.

With a splat, his mouth was crushed, and Victor could no longer say anything.

Adam looked down at Victor with a cold gaze and said.

“That’s right. No matter how hard Professor Keller tries, I’ll probably be a beast forever.”

That was the curse of her, who was chosen as an agent from birth.

Tearing out of her parents’ womb on her own, twisting beasts and sucking their fluids when hungry, and living only by the will to live.

How could such a creature live a human life?

Nevertheless, Adam Fault had no intention of stopping or running away.

“But what does that matter? What’s wrong with being a beast?”

Victor was speechless. He didn’t even have a mouth, so he couldn’t answer.

“To be honest, I just think you’re like a child who enjoys popping a ball when his friends are playing with it. I still don’t know if this has such an important meaning to you.”

Adam took her gaze away from Victor with an indifferent look.

She only had to pretend to be a docile human in front of Maria anyway. What was the point of showing Victor a human side of herself?

Watching Adam’s back as she walked away calmly, Victor thought of one thing.

The only moment he could have killed Adam was before she met Maria Keller.