Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 328

328. Get Lost (1)

A man with his hood pulled low leaned against an alley wall, gazing up at the sky.

The crimson sky churned busily today. Countless red, mosquito-like creatures filled the air, flitting about erratically.

The swarm of insects, too numerous to count, seemed like a single, massive organism.

The man, as if imagining the disgusting scene unfolding beyond the insect cloud, pulled his hood down further.

A storm raged somewhere in the distance. The trembling thunder sounded like the death throes of the sky.

The hooded man slowly entered a building deep within the alley.

The building’s basement was dark, but it didn’t matter to him.

As he entered, people already waiting turned their heads.

“Helen, you’re late. Has laziness fattened your belly?”

The first to speak was a massive, hulking figure encased in armor that took up nearly a quarter of the room.

However, his armor, which usually blazed with power, was now palely cooled, and his thunderous voice was nervously quiet.

He was the agent of the Conquering Star.

“Don’t press Helen, Victor. She sacrificed her largest familiar as bait to avoid the mosquitoes’ gaze.”

The one who spoke was a pale, frozen-looking old woman.

Her body was shrunken to half the size of an average adult, but her voice was that of a young girl, creating a bizarre contrast.

She was the agent of the Wailing Star.

“I told you not to call me that. Baba Yaga.”

Finally, Helen, the agent of the Starving Star, snapped irritably at Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga nodded and said,

“This old crone just can’t understand the changing times. Choosing a male form as soon as biological traits become meaningless. Am I too old-fashioned?”

“I, for one, don’t understand why you insist on the same gender even though you can freely choose your body. Doesn’t it get boring living as the same gender? You could have it all!”

Then Victor, the agent of the Conquering Star, slammed his fingers hard on the table in the middle of the room, breaking it. The two shut their mouths and looked at Victor.

“Enough with that ridiculous talk! Since when have we ever understood each other?”

He was right. That’s why this war had lasted forever.

Helen silently took a seat in a corner of the room. He turned his head and looked around.

“But I’m the last one here? The number of agents has decreased a lot in just three years.”

“Don’t pretend to be indifferent, Helen.”

Victor whispered in a growling voice.

“If you hadn’t brought in Kang Hyun-woo, things wouldn’t have come to this.”

“So, what? If I hadn’t brought in Kang Hyun-woo, would we be sitting here facing each other, having a friendly conversation?”

A moment of silence filled the room.

For a different reason, Helen’s words were now being realized.

The agents of the stars, working together to survive.

A situation that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Breaking the heavy silence, Baba Yaga spoke.

“We have to eliminate Kang Hyun-woo.”

Helen made an unpleasant face.

“I’ve said it before, it’s impossible. That crazy bastard is too… deeply embedded in our structure. None of us can touch Kang Hyun-woo carelessly.”

“We can kill him if the three of us unite! He’s not yet at our level! Helen, it’s because you keep coddling him that he gets away every time!”

At Victor’s angry shout, Helen gritted his teeth.

“You rusty tin can, if you hadn’t made a deal with Kang Hyun-woo to stab Baba Yaga in the back, I could have annihilated Baba Yaga and Kang Hyun-woo together!”

Helen’s confession and revelation burst out suddenly, but Baba Yaga was not surprised.

“Yes. And thanks to the plague I received from Kang Hyun-woo, I was able to defeat Helen. It made more than half of her army sick. Who knew the Starving Star would have a plague it didn’t possess.”

“What? That damn plague was from Kang Hyun-woo?”

Helen looked as if he was about to faint, but Baba Yaga calmly said to the two.

“We’ve all been deceived and used by Kang Hyun-woo several times. At the same time, we’re using him too. There’s nothing to be surprised about.”

Baba Yaga turned his head back to Victor.

“If the plague that Kang Hyun-woo supplies disappears, I won’t have the strength to withstand your offensives. I’m holding out on quite a few fronts with plague zones. Victor, what about you?”

“The Beasts of the Apocalypse occupied Ulgan’s Furnace half a year ago. The furnace has completely hardened, and it’s still being restored. To drive out the Beasts of the Apocalypse, I either have to station about 1/3 of my forces there, or borrow Kang Hyun-woo’s power. Damn it. I should have been suspicious when he offered to help.”

The two’s gazes turned to Helen.

Helen contorted his face and tried to keep his mouth shut, but under the unspoken pressure from the two, he had no choice but to open his mouth.

“…My familiar’s union leader is Kang Hyun-woo.”

A moment of bewilderment passed between Baba Yaga and Victor.

“Wait, a union leader? Are you serious? Your familiars have something like that?”

“For you to have a union leader, of all people, doesn’t the Starving Star get angry?”

Helen glared at the two, grinding his teeth.

“I had no choice to appease the familiars. But Kang Hyun-woo did a really good job. He generously shared the star’s power with my familiars, so I thought I had nothing to lose. But now I see…”

The three were silent for a while.

“If we eliminate Kang Hyun-woo, we’ll all be in a painful situation.”

Breaking the difficult silence, Baba Yaga spoke again.

“But Kang Hyun-woo is using all of us, weakening our power and increasing his own. To a terrifying degree. It’s only been three years, and now Kang Hyun-woo has come right under our noses. If he’s already like this when he’s weaker than us, what do you think will happen when he catches up to our level?”

“Damn it!”

Helen shouted loudly. At that moment, Victor hurriedly raised his hand to stop her from shouting.

This was also an ironic sight.

The agent of the Conquering Star, who had the loudest voice of anyone, was anxiously worried about the sound leaking out.

Baba Yaga whispered.

“We have to eliminate Kang Hyun-woo. Even if we have to combine our strength.”

“We can’t kill Kang Hyun-woo.”

Helen muttered, feeling a headache that felt like his head would break.

“My familiars will go crazy. No, there are quite a few who are closer to Kang Hyun-woo’s familiars. If the furnace is destroyed, Victor will have to fight with his bare hands, and the plague will now rage in all lands. What about the Star of Monsters? That psychopath is also on Kang Hyun-woo’s side. Kang Hyun-woo is not going to die quietly. He’s going to make this land a living hell before he goes. You guys know that, right?”

Victor was also speechless when he anticipated the painful consequences that would come if the assassination attempt failed. But Baba Yaga said, sharply shining his eyes.

“We don’t necessarily have to kill him.”

“What? If we don’t kill him?”

Baba Yaga quietly whispered a plan.

Hearing the plan, Helen made an absurd expression, then soon realized it sounded plausible and nodded.

Victor muttered heavily.

“Will the Shattering Star agree?”

“Don’t worry.”

Baba Yaga whispered.

“Because the Shattering Star proposed the plan to me.”

***

For a month, I missed everything that was difficult: normal [everyday life].

For a year, I missed Yoo-min’s face the most.

And in the third year.

Kang Hyun-woo missed ramen more than anything else in the world.

Putting curly ramen noodles into boiling water, and pouring in the soup powder, the foam briefly surges.

The vegetable soup is omitted. Crack in an egg, and chop a handful of green onions to put in.

It’s also good to put in dumplings or rice cakes, but right now I want to purely enjoy the taste of ramen. Therefore, I don’t scramble the egg and cook it.

“…I thought it would get better after three years.”

Hyun-woo muttered, blankly staring at the red sky. The red sky looked like ramen soup.

But instead of looking for non-existent ramen, he fiddled with the last caramel in the caramel box.

The caramel was down to the last one a year and a half ago, on the day he took the head of Hirmas, the agent of the Roaring Star.

Since then, Hyun-woo hasn’t been able to put anything that could be called a product of modern civilization in his mouth.

“What’s the point of unifying the will of the stars if you can’t even make a single caramel or a bowl of ramen… sigh.”

Since you can breathe with mana and get the necessary energy, it seemed like the concept of food culture had collapsed.

It was fortunate that the Starving Star at least had a concept of meals, but the situations of the Wailing Star and the Conquering Star were terrible just to hear about.

Hyun-woo fiddled with the caramel in the caramel box.

He was particularly homesick today. But the day to eat this caramel was set.

Until then, Hyun-woo had no intention of touching the caramel.

‘…Should I just lick it a little?’

That’s when it happened.

Rumble!

Suddenly, the rooftop of the building where Hyun-woo was lying shook. Hyun-woo reflexively got up and looked around.

A giant armor appeared, climbing up the walls of the building, raising fierce heat.

[Kang Hyun-woo! The time has come to meet your end!]

It was Victor, the agent of the Conquering Star.

Armed with guns and swords, Victor dripped molten metal and looked down at Hyun-woo menacingly. Hyun-woo sighed, put his hands in his pockets behind him, and stepped back.

“Long time no see, transforming robot. End? Is there something you’re not happy with in our contract?”

“There will be no more contracts, Kang Hyun-woo.”

Another voice.

Someone crawled out from somewhere in the corner of the rooftop, tearing apart the rotting corpse of a monster. It looked like a newborn baby, but its face was a wrinkled old woman.

It was Baba Yaga, the agent of the Wailing Star.

“We have all compromised. Even if we take some losses, we have decided to exclude you from this world.”

Hyun-woo felt that the situation was unusual. He felt that he had been doing a good job of walking the tightrope, but had he made a mistake somewhere?

At that moment, the voice he least wanted to hear in this situation was heard.

[C o n t r a c t t e r m i n a t e d. K a n g H y u n – w o o.]

A squirming mass of flesh, shaped like vomit, fell from the sky onto the rooftop.

The mass of flesh created a red human form, as if making a statue.

[Y o u r u s e f u l n e s s e n d s h e r e.]

“…Helen. I know you can speak normally now, but do you really have to say it like that? I told you. The way to manage the subordinates is not to pose with a strange tone, but with appropriate employee welfare and consideration.”

“It’s no use saying anything.”

Baba Yaga whispered threateningly.

“We have decided to banish you.”

Hyun-woo, who was preparing for battle while stalling for time, paused at Baba Yaga’s words.

“Banishment?”

“Not just us. We have gathered the opinions of all the stars and all the agents. You are an existence that does not fit in this world. You are just a troublesome outsider who came from outside.”

[Yes! Get out of this world quickly! You son of a bitch!]

[I h o p e I n e v e r h a v e t o s e e y o u r f a c e a g a i n.]

In the situation where Hyun-woo was blankly watching, not understanding what was going on, he suddenly found someone.

Maria Keller, with the appearance of constantly shattering crystals, and Isaiah Ren, wearing a white suit, were seen on the opposite rooftop.

Maria was staring at Hyun-woo with a blank expression, but Isaiah Ren smiled and raised his hand.

Hyun-woo then understood the situation.

“Huh.”

Hyun-woo chuckled slightly, as if he was dumbfounded. At the same time, his hand naturally reached for the last caramel in the caramel box.

“It’s only been three years.”

The moment he put the caramel in his mouth, Helen approached and tapped Hyun-woo’s chest. In his hand was a small stone fragment.

“G e t l o s t.”

Hyun-woo thought that something similar had happened once before.

The world suddenly turned blindingly white.

***

Hyun-woo stared at the blindingly white scenery for a long time.

It wasn’t the same effect as when using a return stone. Hyun-woo recalled this scenery from his memory.

It was the same place as when he was invited to the priests’ space. Now he felt like he knew who would appear.

As if dropping ink into a white space, Isaiah Ren soon appeared.

“I’ve stopped the return for a moment. I have something to tell you.”