The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low Chapter 13

The black thorns that shot out in an instant poured fiercely toward Wijae. Wijae, ignoring the thorns rushing at him as if to engulf him, twisted the man’s neck with a composed face.

Snap! The sensation of the neck bone breaking in his grip was vividly felt. Shortly after, the man’s neck bent at a bizarre angle. Even the last light remaining in his hazy eyes disappeared, and his body went limp.

“This bastard’s causing trouble to the very end.”

Wijae muttered in an annoyed voice and checked the state of his body. His clothes were torn here and there, but not a single scratch remained on his body. A few of the thorns that had persistently tried to burrow into Wijae’s body were even bent outward.

Wijae, who had shaken off his bloodstained hands and risen, tilted his head.

‘What is this? Wasn’t it supposed to only appear at night?’

If these conspicuous things were crawling around in broad daylight, their existence would naturally have become known. There was no way the regular Hunters wouldn’t have talked about them either.

‘But I’ve never even heard similar stories.’

Suddenly, the image of the gas mask standing there flashed through his mind. Wijae let out a hollow laugh and muttered.

“I thought it was telling me not to mention that I’d seen someone….”

If it was a gag order not to reveal its very existence? Information control for the sake of confidentiality was a common thing, so there was nothing particularly surprising about it, but….

Wijae furrowed his brow. If that were the case, why had the gas mask let him go? It would have been easier to just kill him rather than go out of his way to impose a gag order and let him live.

At that moment, a small presence and a sniffling sound came from the hangover soup restaurant. Haeun, having noticed that it had gotten quiet outside, was approaching the door. Just in case, Wijae hid the man’s corpse in the trash. Then he ran to the door and knocked on it with the back of his hand.

“Haeun, it’s Uncle, can you open the door?”

When he deliberately brought his face close to the glass and waved his hand, the lock clicked open along with a small presence. Haeun was sitting slumped, clutching her backpack and trembling finely. Seeing Wijae seemed to have relieved her, and her legs seemed to give out.

Wijae also lowered himself and crouched down, quietly matching her eye level.

“It’s okay. There’s no strange person now. He went far away.”

“He went away?”

Her tear-filled eyes turned toward Wijae. Seeing her face still carrying the sound of crying, Wijae bit the inside of his cheek.

‘…Did I kill him too nicely?’

Haeun threw down her backpack and reached out her hand toward Wijae. Over that small hand, the bandage-wrapped hand he had once held for her blurred as if overlapping.

The boy who lay with his entire body wrapped in bandages, unable even to speak. The only communication the boy could manage was slightly wiggling his fingers. When the boy moved his fingers, Wijae would stroke his head or grip his hand tightly.

‘Fuck….’

His stomach churned. Wijae pulled Haeun into a hug with lowered eyes and patted her back with his left hand.

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah….”

“Everything’s okay now. You were scared, weren’t you?”

Instead of answering, Haeun sniffled. Wijae, worried that the dye he’d applied to his hair might touch the child’s skin, pulled his head back slightly and spoke affectionately.

“Uncle will tell all the Hunters. Then this won’t happen again.”

“Yeah….”

After patting her back for a while, she seemed to have calmed down a bit. Haeun muttered in a stuffy-nosed voice.

“Tell Jeongbin and Honeybee too.”

…That might be a bit difficult. Those two had never come to the hangover soup restaurant in the first place, so he couldn’t even tell them. But he couldn’t coldly refuse when the startled child needed comforting, so Wijae changed the subject with a disgruntled face.

“First, can Uncle go wash off the dye?”

“Yeah…. Actually, it kind of smelled.”

“Please say it’s the dye smell exactly. If someone else hears, they’ll misunderstand.”

Only then did Haeun burst out giggling. Wijae also let out a short sigh and worried about how to deal with the corpse lying in the trash pile. He then thought of the hangover soup restaurant regulars who would be coming in an hour.

A corpse that ordinary people couldn’t handle. Himself, who needed to hide his identity.

‘Then I’ll have to ask a Hunter.’

From now on, it was time to act thoroughly like an ordinary person.

∞ ∞ ∞

A dark figure wearing a gas mask strode into the clean lobby of Seowon Guild. As if the gas mask were an ID, the security guards did not stop him. A boy in a white coat standing in front of the central staircase spotted the gas mask and approached with quick, small steps.

“You’ve arrived, Lee Sayoung.”

Sayoung looked down at the boy with indifferent eyes.

“Where’s Nam Woojin.”

“He’s in the operating room. I’ll guide you.”

As the boy entered the right corridor, Sayoung followed. Seowon Guild’s corridors were complex like a maze and tangled like an anthill.

Only after walking for a while did a monochrome iron door appear, and above it, a red ‘In Surgery’ lamp was lit. The boy carefully opened the door and stepped one step to the side.

“Sir, Lee Sayoung has arrived.”

In truth, that place was closer to a scientist’s laboratory than an operating room. Books and documents densely filling the walls, surgical tools and medical devices scattered in disarray—in the center of the room sat a large operating table.

The man sitting in a chair with his eyes closed slowly opened them. Green surgical scrubs, a white coat, white hair tied back in one, white eyes, silver-rimmed glasses. It was a rare appearance even in the Hunter era where all sorts of hair colors and eye colors ran rampant. Sayoung nodded his head roughly in greeting.

“Nam Woojin.”

South Korea’s rank 6, Korea’s only A-rank healer, Nam Woojin, rose from his seat.

“I heard you were busy these days, so I thought I’d have to wait three hours. You came quickly.”

“You know it well. I’m busy, so let’s get to the point.”

“Sure.”

Woojin, standing in front of the operating table, pulled off the white cloth covering the bulging operating table. The corpse of a man with a crushed face soaked in blood, and black thorns sprouting from every twisted part of his body, was revealed. It was a being they called an ‘addict.’ Sayoung muttered indifferently.

“The condition is the worst.”

“According to Jeongbin, it was in this state from the moment it was discovered. The face is sunken from being hit with a very strong force.”

“That alone wouldn’t kill it.”

“Right. The direct cause of death is a neck fracture. Someone broke the neck.”

On the neck, livor mortis in the shape of a hand had risen. Interest flickered in Sayoung’s eyes as he discovered the scar.

“This is….”

“Yeah. Grabbed it bare-handed and, in one go, like this.”

Nam Woojin made a gesture of grabbing something in the air and twisting it.

The bodies of the creatures whose bodies began to mutate after taking drugs are very sturdy. Ordinary force wouldn’t be able to break bones and subdue them. Sayoung, who had been observing the corpse, straightened his upper body.

“Who’s the reporter?”

“Yang Hyejin. An A-rank Hunter belonging to the Crack Management Agency.”

It was a name he’d heard before. Sayoung tapped the operating table with his fingertips and asked.

“Did she handle it?”

“No. No one knows who handled it. There was a separate first discoverer too. A part-timer at a hangover soup restaurant found it while throwing out trash, but… the appearance.”

Woojin glanced at the corpse with black thorns sticking out all over.

“Looked like that. Apparently, he was quite terrified.”

“…”

“Well, it’s understandable for an ordinary person to be surprised. He was trembling, not knowing what to do, and asked Yang Hyejin, who came to eat hangover soup, to report it.”

“…Hangover soup?”

“Yeah. Apparently it’s a tasty place…. I haven’t been, so I don’t know the details.”

When he said tasty hangover soup place, only one place came to mind where Bae Wonwoo showed up so diligently as if possessed. Sayoung furrowed his brow. The fingertips that had been touching the operating table gradually slowed.

“What exactly is the location where it was found?”

“That’s the interesting part. Hey.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy waiting nearby handed over a tablet with a map displayed. Sayoung zoomed in on the map on the screen.

“The location looks familiar, doesn’t it? It’s the recycling center near the alley where the addict was found last time.”

“…”

“We need to check whether a new supplier has appeared in that area. For reference.”

As Woojin said, this discovery location was an alley very close to where Sayoung had met ‘hyung.’ Could it really be a coincidence?

“Ah, and there’s another peculiar point…. Take a look at this.”

Woojin pointed with a gloved hand at a few of the black thorns sticking out ominously from the corpse. Among the many thorns sprouting from the body, several thorns protruding from the abdomen and heart were bent as if they had collided with something hard.

Sayoung tilted his head slightly and fixed his gaze on the twisted thorn tips. A strange sense of déjà vu came over him.

“I’ve never seen thorns bent in this shape before, so. It seems like they suddenly collided with something very hard, but… have you seen this before?”

He had.

The thorn that had been bent when ‘hyung’ smacked it with a ladle looked exactly… like this. Because he had chewed over that day’s events countless times, Sayoung could tell immediately. His stiffened lip corners drew a curve.

When not a single trace came up even after searching the entire database, he’d been so furious he could barely breathe. After some time passed, he became filled with the determination to beat him to death the moment he found him. But now that traces had actually appeared like this, laughter leaked out first. Woojin propped his chin and muttered.

“You look like you know something.”

“Yeah.”

Sayoung smiled contentedly.

“I’ve finally caught his tail.”