Episode 33
Contrary to what was feared, as time passed, not a single man got up.
The sight of him lying face down like an earthworm that had been stepped on by a shoe did not appear to be an act.
Kang Jin-hyeok thought the situation was more or less resolved and walked briskly to the bar.
Then he grabbed the shoulders of the brown-haired man who was lying there.
“Hey, wake up. I have something to ask you.”
The man, whose blood was gushing from his broken nose, opened his eyes and groaned as Kang Jin-hyeok shook him roughly back and forth.
“Huh… … Huh?!”
As soon as he regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was Kang Jin-hyeok’s face.
It was natural for him to flail and flail like a fish on land after seeing a human being beat him up.
The brown-haired man tried to step back, thinking of increasing the distance between them, but he couldn’t move as he wanted because Kang Jin-hyeok had his shoulder firmly held.
All he got in return for his pointless rebellion was a single, heavily weighted body blow.
“Ugh!”
Kang Jin-hyeok let go of his hand, mindful of the brown-haired man throwing up the food he had eaten.
Fortunately, the opponent knelt quietly without soiling the floor with vomit.
It was very heartbreaking to see him holding his stomach and trying to overcome the pain.
While the brown-haired man was paying the price for his actions, Kang Jin-hyeok squatted down in front of him.
Kang Jin-hyeok, who was at eye level, opened his eyes wide and glared at the man.
“Looking at it, it doesn’t seem like you’ve done it once or twice.”
Even though the approach was rustic, it was to place colleagues around him.
They even arranged a place like this and tried to get things done by giving sleeping pills.
Every single move was planned.
‘What the f*ck!’
The bartender, hiding across the bar, cursed inwardly.
For now, he was pretending to be scared like a victim, but he felt like he would be found out to be part of the gang if he continued like this.
‘We need to stop him before he starts talking nonsense.’
The bartender secretly opened his inventory while Kang Jin-hyeok was turning his back and took out his weapon.
Now is the perfect time to catch the eye of the brown-haired man.
The employee swung his sword, believing that Kang Jin-hyeok was unaware of his presence and was letting his guard down.
But that was just the employee’s misunderstanding.
Kang Jin-hyeok had noticed from the beginning that it was a con because he had seen his karma level.
“Of course, a human with a value of over 400 can’t just be an ordinary person.”
When Kang Jin-hyeok, who had been pretending to look elsewhere, dodged the sword just before it made contact, the bartender’s face turned pale.
If even a surprise attack doesn’t work, how can you defeat a human who took down an entire party by himself?
The bartender expected the punch to be aimed at the face or torso, like the other co-workers had been.
The terrified bartender squeezed his eyes shut.
But as time passed and contrary to expectations, the fist did not come.
Kang Jin-hyeok kicked away the sword the bartender was holding and grabbed him by the collar.
“You were the one I was aiming for from the beginning.”
The fact that he had stood up and hit the brown-haired man was to bait the employee into coming out on his own.
The reason I chose such a cumbersome method was to obtain solid evidence rather than to pursue the case solely based on karma levels.
Although it is true that most people with high karma scores are criminals, this is still just speculation.
Since we couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that he was an unrelated person, we needed evidence to be certain.
The employee coughed as his breathing hole was blocked due to Kang Jin-hyeok pushing him against the wall.
“Speak honestly.”
“What, what are you talking about?”
“Who is watching over you guys?”
“There, there, there’s no such thing.”
The bartender’s excuse was a meaningless excuse that didn’t even make sense.
“You keep doing this without getting caught, and you don’t have any supporters?”
The bartender nodded vigorously and insisted on his innocence even as he was grabbed by the collar.
But as long as Kang Jin-hyeok sees his karma level rising every time he nods.
There was absolutely no way that such a move would work.
“Don’t lie.”
“No, that’s not a lie! It’s true!”
Kang Jin-hyeok was furious at the bartender’s shameless behavior as if he had a metal plate on his face.
He swung his hand hard, grabbing the bartender by the collar, and threw him to the floor. The glasses on the rocks also fell to the floor and shattered.
“Ugh!”
The bartender almost lost his mind from the shock of having his internal organs tossed and turned.
Kang Jin-hyeok asked him again, who was barely holding on to consciousness.
“If you don’t want to get hurt anymore, tell me who’s watching your backs.”
“There really is no such thing… … !”
The bartender maintained his ignorance to the end.
He was desperate, even though he was a coward who was so scared of getting hit that he even closed his eyes tightly.
Keeping your mouth shut like this either means you have incredible loyalty or you are more afraid of being hit than you are of being hit.
It didn’t seem like he would open his mouth easily.
“Tch.”
Because of the delay, police sirens could be heard outside.
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“There’s no way these guys called… … Did one of the people who ran away report it?”
Although Kang Jin-hyeok had committed no crime, he wanted to avoid meeting the police now.
It was quite uncomfortable to be questioned by the police again so soon after being implicated in a murder.
“Kuuuuu, if you don’t want to be bothered, you’d better let go of this hand.”
Even though the police came, the bartender was not afraid, but instead warned Kang Jin-hyeok.
Kang Jin-hyeok could easily guess why his employee was showing such a 180-degree change in attitude.
“It looks like there’s a gang among the police.”
“Well, what do you think?”
The bartender sneered as if the tables had turned.
Boom! Boom!
Outside, the police began to slam the door with all their might, trying to break it down.
When they continued to ram their bodies into the door but it did not break, the police officers shouted and threatened them.
“I know everything that’s inside!”
“Open this door quickly!”
Even though the police were shouting like that, the bartender didn’t seem scared and had a relaxed expression.
“That door may be well-built, but it’s going to break in no time.”
“so?”
“If you want to run away, now is your only chance.”
The bartender was so arrogant that he was talking nonsense.
A completely different attitude from when he was getting beaten by Kang Jin-hyeok.
It was an appearance that openly showed that there was a corner where one could believe.
Kang Jin-hyeok, who couldn’t stand seeing that arrogant sight, finally couldn’t stand it anymore and threw a punch.
“Ugh!”
The fist lodged in his abdomen caused a shock that turned his internal organs inside out.
Unable to bear the pain any longer, the bartender rolled his eyes and passed out on the spot.
Kang Jin-hyeok lifted the unconscious bartender onto his shoulder like a sack of rice.
Lucia couldn’t understand why Kang Jin-hyeok acted like that.
“Should I take that human with me?”
“I’ll try to sort out the situation first.”
“For what?”
In Lucia’s view, what Kang Jin-hyeok was trying to do was a useless act that deviated from his original purpose.
“Our plan is to see what kind of actions a high-karma human would take. Then why don’t we just end it here? Why take that guy away?”
If you look at the situation, Lucia was right.
I already know enough about the purpose with which humans with a karma value of 300 or more approached me.
There was no point in continuing an experiment that had already ended.
But Kang Jin-hyeok thought differently.
“It still smells bad. I can’t finish it like this because it’s uncomfortable.”
Kang Jin-hyeok continued speaking while picking up the sword that the bartender had dropped.
“And the smell of money is in the air.”
Kang Jin-hyeok held out the sword he was holding to Lucia, who still did not understand what he was saying.
“I felt it and it seems to be a rare item.”
“Rare grade?”
“It means it’s an incredibly valuable item. The item description says it’s a sword made of rare metal.”
Lucia examined the blade of the sword to confirm.
I wasn’t a craftsman like a dwarf, so I couldn’t tell the exact value just by looking at it, but I could tell that it was better than the junk that was all over the market.
The predictions floating on the blade were usually at a level that would not be possible with a railroad.
“The ones who are falling for me are clearly low-level hunters. It’s strange that they have such items.”
Kang Jin-hyeok was convinced as he recalled the hunters who had harassed him.
Those who are currently lying in this store are hunters of C rank or lower at best.
They were people who couldn’t even hunt monsters properly without borrowing the power of the guild.
It makes no sense for such people to be holding rare weapons.
If you were a C-class hunter who was busy just living from hand to mouth, even if you were lucky enough to get a rare item, you would have immediately converted it into cash.
“There must be some people supporting these guys.”
It is also a force with a lot of money and influence, enough to plant people in the police force.
If you try to follow up with mediocre skills, you might get hurt in return, but Kang Jin-hyeok thought it was worth taking that risk.
“Normally, stealing other hunters’ items is a serious crime. But raiding a criminal organization is not a crime.”
“Aha, you’re going to come out like that?”
Only then did Lucia realize what Kang Jin-hyeok’s purpose was.
Breaking into the bandits’ stronghold was something she had done whenever she was short on money while working as an adventurer.
“It’s a pretty salty and good method, but… … if you touch it wrong, it’ll be a real pain, right?”
Lucia offered some advice from experience.
I thought they were just a bunch of bandits and eliminated them, but they were actually connected to the local lord, so they turned the nobles into enemies.
There has never been a time when everything went smoothly.
“It’s okay because there is a corner of trust here.”
“A corner of faith?”
Lucia noticed that Kang Jin-hyeok’s gaze was fixed on her.
I had a rough idea of what that meant.
“Surely that corner of your faith isn’t talking about me?”
“Hahaha, since we’re on the same boat, it’s not a bad idea to hang out until the end.”
“It’s not that bad. Just how much trouble are you trying to get me into?”
“You don’t have to worry too much. As far as I know, there is no hunter stronger than you.”
“Do you think that’s the problem now?”
Lucia let out a sigh as if expressing her frustration.
Even though I wanted to say something, the door blocking the police was starting to fall apart.
There was no time to have a leisurely conversation like this.
“Let’s get out of here first. We don’t want to get caught by those humans, right?”
As Lucia said, if we were caught by the police now, it would be a disaster in many ways.
Judging from the attitude of the staff, there was a high possibility that they would be falsely accused of this incident even if they were innocent.
“Let’s escape through the back door.”
Lucia quickly ran towards the door that Kang Jin-hyeok pointed to with his hand.
Then he stretched out his left foot and kicked the door hard.
Despite its seemingly thin legs, it succeeded in opening the tightly locked door in one go.
Instead, a loud noise rang out that could be heard by the police outside.
“What are you doing inside!?”
“Open the door quickly!”
The door lock gradually came off with a clanking sound, as if someone had brought a professional door-picking machine.
Feeling that there was no more time to delay, Kang Jin-hyeok hurriedly escaped through the back door.
While Kang Jin-hyeok was out, Lucia used her developed five senses to search for an escape route without any signs of human presence.
“This way.”
Kang Jin-hyeok fixed the bartender hanging from his shoulder and ran over the wall after Lucia.
