Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 301

301. The Worst Person in the World (10)

As Adam stopped, other Hunters began to gather around.

Meanwhile, Helen of the South China Alliance directed other Hunters to bypass and attack the ability users who were keeping her in check.

With those attacks underway, Helen found an opening and charged at Adam again. A dark trail painted the air like an ink wash painting.

Adam remained still.

Just as it seemed Helen’s neck would be sliced, she suddenly froze. Kang Hyun-woo was holding her ankle.

“What are you doing!”

Hyun-woo swung Helen around and slammed her into the ground.

She expected to be smashed against the ground and bounce off, but instead, Helen sank into the ground as if submerging in water. No, she pierced through the ground.

At the spot where she was thrown, the imprint of her silhouette remained where she had broken through.

Hyun-woo grabbed Adam and shook her.

“Are you trying to die? That won’t do. The thing I hate most in the world is seeing someone I hate succeed!”

Suddenly, Adam shoved Hyun-woo in the back.

It wasn’t an invisible force, but a push with her hand, so Hyun-woo merely stumbled.

Adam frowned and glared at Hyun-woo.

“I was just thinking. About Professor Keller’s intentions.”

Hyun-woo wore a dumbfounded expression.

“What explanation do you need? Make you the worst person in the world. Kill you. Mission complete. Simple, right?”

“I hope you don’t think Professor Keller is as simple as you. To Professor Keller, I’m not just a pawn to be used and discarded. Even if the world is on the brink of destruction, I’m the strongest card with the potential to turn things around at the last moment.”

Was it confidence? But it was almost embarrassing to call it that. It seemed more like an overestimation of self or excessive narcissism.

Hyun-woo was dying to tell her what Adam Fault was like in Difficulty: Hell, but he didn’t have time.

The moment he sensed the killing intent, Hyun-woo leaped into the air. A black trail precisely cleaved the spot where his knees had been.

Helen emerged from the ground like a shark rising from the depths.

“What are you doing, Kang Hyun-woo? Are you siding with the Leviathan now?”

Helen was asking if he wanted to be branded an enemy of humanity as well.

In her hand, ominous black aura dripped.

Judging by how she swam through the ground without any obstacles, her black aura seemed to annihilate everything it touched or send it somewhere else.

“Why, you got a problem with that?”

“I might.”

Helen moved her hand, which was enveloped in a chilling aura. But she couldn’t move easily.

She had already gathered and observed information about how strong Kang Hyun-woo was.

And Adam Fault was there too. She alone was not enough to win.

“You’re going to protect me, Kang Hyun-woo.”

Adam suddenly spoke. Her eyes had returned to their usual indifferent state.

“Then I’ll leave the cleanup to you. I need to think a bit.”

“Huh? What? Wait a minute, what are you saying?”

Before Hyun-woo could grab her, Adam’s body floated into the air. At that moment, Helen quickly passed Hyun-woo and tried to grab Adam.

However, Hyun-woo reflexively attacked Helen again, disrupting her stance. Her hand failed to grab Adam.

That was the last chance.

Adam disappeared into the air too quickly for Hyun-woo or Helen to catch her.

Someone screamed and attempted to snipe her, but it was futilely scattered by Adam’s unidentified power.

Helen and Hyun-woo stared at each other in disbelief. Soon, Helen’s face twisted.

“You…”

Soon after, American, Russian, and other Hunters arrived.

The arrival of the Almighty League Hunters created a strange tension.

Hyun-woo realized that Adam had screwed him over in a very simple way.

And now he was worried about how to explain why he had protected an enemy of all mankind.

***

“It’s dangerous to kill Adam Fault now?”

Helen asked suspiciously.

Even after Adam left, the tension between the factions remained.

Everyone was in a strange state of excitement due to the sense of elevation from entering the shadow, which kept the excitement going.

However, the atmosphere did not become more hostile because the two representatives of the forces, Helen of the South China Alliance and Kang Hyun-woo of the Almighty League, had abandoned their intention to fight.

“It’s ‘if you kill her poorly’. If you can’t kill her in one go and only injure her, the situation will become even more dangerous.”

“What do you mean? Do you know something?”

Hyun-woo simply shrugged.

There was no need to explain Difficulty: Hell to her.

There, Adam Fault, even when injured, didn’t weaken but instead unleashed power close to a true monster.

And he said that the more she got hurt, the more she lost control.

“Let’s just say there will be a more appropriate time. If you only inflict superficial injuries, a great disaster will occur. I have no proof, though.”

Helen looked suspicious. Hyun-woo would have been too.

Helen raised her right hand. Following her fingertips, a strange ink-like aura flowed down.

While ordinary auras soared upwards like fire, Helen’s aura felt heavy and sticky.

“This is a skill called ‘Warehouse Keeper’. If anything touches this aura, it will be moved somewhere else.”

Helen said, grabbing a stone. Then, a hole exactly the size of her handprint appeared in the stone.

“As you can see, it simply ‘moves’ things regardless of defensive power. If Adam Fault were to be hit by this skill and only her head went somewhere else, would you say that’s ‘poorly’ killing her?”

“Taking off her head doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll die.”

Especially if the opponent is an Agent.

At Hyun-woo’s answer, Helen closed her mouth. She, as an Agent, would also know that Hyun-woo’s words were correct.

Hyun-woo examined Helen’s skill in detail.

[Warehouse Keeper (Legendary)]

[Special Ability: Creates a ‘door’ in the form of an aura. All objects that touch the door are transported to the warehouse owned by Yog-Sothoth, the Starving Star, and the transported objects are recognized as sacrifices offered to Yog-Sothoth. In an emergency, objects can be taken out of the warehouse, but the subordinate Warehouse Keeper must pay Yog-Sothoth a corresponding price.]

[Characteristics: Expansion, Scar]

It was like using an infinite magic bag from a fantasy novel for attack.

‘By the way, Yog-Sothoth [a powerful cosmic entity in the Cthulhu Mythos], this greedy bastard wants a lot more than just mana from his subordinates. He’s like a model of a terrible boss.’

But apart from that, it was a coveted skill. Who wouldn’t want an infinite magic warehouse?

The part about paying the price was a concern, but he thought the part about ‘subordinate Warehouse Keeper’ was the key.

If he wasn’t a subordinate, how would Yog-Sothoth charge him a price?

It was like a thief trying to get something for free, but there was no way to do it right now. It’s not like Hyun-woo had the ability to steal skills.

Helen glared at Hyun-woo with an unpleasant expression. She seemed eager to chase after Adam.

However, she couldn’t move with Hyun-woo, who was hindering her, behind her back. She thought that if she let her guard down even a little, Hyun-woo might kill her.

“Then what do you want me to do? Even if it’s Adam Fault, she can’t survive if her limbs are scattered. If you don’t interfere…”

“You’ll know when the time is right. Not right now.”

Helen seemed annoyed by Hyun-woo’s vague explanation. It was a natural reaction.

Hyun-woo added a condition to appease her.

“Okay. At least I’ll leave killing Adam Fault to you. When the time comes, you can do it as much as you want. I won’t stop you. I won’t even touch Adam Fault.”

Helen looked at Hyun-woo with suspicious eyes. She looked like she was suspecting him of having some ulterior motive.

“How can I believe that?”

“Oh, then go stab her right now and perish together. You’ll be the first to die if Adam Fault goes berserk, so I won’t have to see you in such a sorry state.”

The atmosphere of the ability users who heard Hyun-woo’s words became hostile again, but Helen stopped them.

“That’s not wrong, but it’s not a friendly thing to say.”

Helen quietly stared at Hyun-woo.

“I don’t know what your purpose is, but it would be better to avoid that attitude, Kang Hyun-woo. I’ve studied you for a long time. Including your relationship with Lee Seo-yeon. It would be better not to underestimate me so easily.”

Hyun-woo raised his middle fingers on both hands in response.

“As you wish, madam.”

***

“Have you contacted Lee Seo-yeon?”

[Yes. Helen seems to have been given a trial by the Starving Star. Not only Helen, but all the subordinates of the Starving Star have been given a common trial, and they promised a great reward to those who succeed in the ‘Leviathan’ mission.]

Hyun-woo was in contact with Yoo-min outside the shadow.

Wireless communication was difficult near the Chepesh case due to the electromagnetic storm, so Hyun-woo had to deviate slightly from the operation area.

Anyway, to find Adam, he needed to know where the shadow was moving, so other forces scattered to places where radio waves could reach.

“So that’s why Helen was so desperate to get to Adam.”

Helen is the conspiracy type. Until now, she had hardly appeared on the surface and had integrated the forces of Africa, South China, and Southeast Asia.

Although it seems somewhat random, it was thanks to China’s One Belt, One Road project [a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government] that she had a firm grip on the economic power of the region.

Helen made huge profits by using Chinese businessmen as front men through the project.

And by buying off the officials of South China who led the project one by one, she established herself as one of the most powerful forces.

Moreover, with the fall of North China and Lin Huimin, a political rival, being dealt with by Hyun-woo, she also benefited greatly from Kang Hyun-woo.

It was an achievement that was difficult to achieve with mere tricks. It meant that she was very good at moving behind the scenes.

Even so, in the end, ‘strength’ itself is a wall that must be overcome to integrate the stars.

The lack of combat ability was clearly the reason why she was still a Saint and had not become an Agent. Helen seemed to want to firmly establish herself as an Agent with this trial.

[Lee Seo-yeon has decided not to participate this time. Instead, she became the manager of the South China Alliance as Helen’s Agent, and her attitude seemed humble to Helen. Well, such a huge trial is something that anyone with ambition would not miss…….]

“I guess so.”

Lee Seo-yeon would not have any intention of becoming a Saint or Agent of the Starving Star in the first place. If Hyun-woo’s guess was correct, she was already an Agent of the Whispering Star.

It was unclear when she had been hiding it, but Lee Seo-yeon would be planning to devour the forces of the Starving Star from within.

Conspiracy and conspiracy were rampant.

“Ah, I don’t care about those scrubs. Originally, the head is used by those who are not in good shape. More than that, about the important opponent right now, I suspect that Adam Fault is, well… her head is strange.”

[Her head?]

“She keeps talking about a child. But there’s no way a child could be alive inside the shadow, and I couldn’t see it either. She even gestured in the air.”

[……That definitely doesn’t sound good. Hmm, could she be seeing hallucinations? Or was she hit by a hallucination skill.]

“That could be. If a strong guy like Adam is so easily affected by hallucinations, things could go badly. If someone could cast hallucinations on Adam… only the Whispering Star comes to mind.”

Hyun-woo had already seen the hallucinations of the Whispering Star in Difficulty: Hell.

He suspected that the Whispering Star, or Lee Seo-yeon, was interfering while pretending to be indifferent to this situation.

If that were possible, she would decide who to kill and who to save according to her taste, and then make Adam commit suicide.

“Either way, it’s not a situation to be careless about. It would be better to monitor Lee Seo-yeon more.”

[Um, but Lee Seo-yeon is on the other side of the world. Could there be other possibilities?]

“Other possibilities?”

[Adam Fault might really be sick.]

“What do you mean?”

[There’s a possibility that Adam is going crazy.]

Yoo-min knew more about Maria Keller than Hyun-woo did.

She was also an authority in the same field of academia, and she read all of her papers. She even regularly read the doomsday scenarios that Chrome announced every time.

[Professor Keller is a contradictory person in many ways. She is pessimistic about the future of mankind, but she tries to overcome the situation by using that pessimistic future. Sometimes she seems like a misanthrope, and sometimes she seems like a humanist herself.]

“That’s true.”

[Honestly, that’s already at the level of mental illness. And Adam Fault is like the strongest kid in the world who worships and follows such Professor Keller. But she must also be feeling Professor Keller’s contradictions.]

“What kind of contradictions?”

[For example, telling her to love humans while ordering her to kill.]

Adam Fault had killed countless people under Maria Keller’s orders. She believed her words without question and followed them without hesitation.

But at the same time, Maria Keller wanted Adam Fault to love humans with her own will.

So she wanted her to be a fence and sheepdog that could protect humans safely.

However, Adam can only think simply.

Maria Keller.

Only Maria Keller was the fence that protected her reason.

[This Leviathan mission may be the last drop of water that pushes Adam Fault beyond her limits. Honestly, if I were Adam Fault, I wouldn’t be in my right mind anymore.]

Yoo-min speculated about what the ‘child’ that Adam Fault was talking about might be.

[Adam Fault may want to see herself protecting ‘innocent humans’ while massacring everything inside the shadow in order not to deny Professor Keller’s orders. That’s the picture Professor Keller wants. Because that’s what Professor Keller would like.]

The existence of the child is just a delusion created by her brain to be excused by Professor Keller.

Yoo-min said so.