LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 51 - Come Out, Criminal!
Translator: Marctempest
Editor: The Reader
Chapter 51 Come Out, Criminal!
[Alert! Alert! A monster is currently roaming the city! All citizens, please evacuate to the nearest shelters immediately!]
The moment the lower half of the angel’s corpse broke through the asphalt road and appeared on the surface.
The peaceful streets of Yeongdeungpo turned into a scene of chaos in an instant.
The roads were paralyzed, and people passing by abandoned their cars and started running madly towards nearby subways or shelters.
Meanwhile, at the Hunter Association branch in Yeongdeungpo, a massive force of hunters was seen dispatching immediately to handle the situation.
“Did we overdo it?”
“No. If we didn’t do this much, that ‘Jamsil Monster’ wouldn’t show up, as the leader said.”
The intersection started to fill up with hunters and heavily armed police forces.
Two people were watching the street from a high-rise building.
One was an old man in a black suit that clearly showed the years he had lived.
He wore half-broken glasses that seemed like they needed replacing, and at his waist was a pitch-black sword completely coated in darkness.
And the other one.
She was a woman with pigtails and blue ribbons.
She had dull white hair and bright red, emotionless eyes, and she wore the same black suit as the old man next to her.
“Riverine, what’s the next plan?”
“As you can see, we will continue to cause disturbances like this until the Jamsil Monster appears.”
“With just that half-dead corpse?”
The old man gestured towards the lower half of the angel’s corpse, which was standing still behind them, connected to the blue-ribbon woman’s fingertips and magical thread.
“So, I have nothing to do?”
The old man, who still seemed active, stretched his body.
“Paul. The leader always warned us.”
“Ugh…”
“Our ‘Villain Group’ must always operate from the shadows.”
As always, Riverine cautioned him.
“If Paul starts rampaging here, it would basically announce to Korea that the Villain Group has emerged.”
“True, this is a ‘Hunter Advanced Nation.’ Being cautious won’t hurt.”
Hearing that, the old man Paul relaxed his body, realizing he had been careless.
“Then, will you cause another disturbance with that corpse, Riverine?”
“No. The security has become too tight. Let’s retreat for now.”
“Understood. Then I will guard you as usual.”
With that, Riverine and Paul leaped from the rooftop to another high-rise building, gradually moving away from Yeongdeungpo.
However, at the same time.
“……”
Among the magical threads that had entered the invisible gaps and reached the cooling tank in the underground research building, Riverine felt a momentary sense of unease from the severed thread connected to the lower half of the angel’s corpse.
‘It felt like someone touched my thread… Am I imagining things?’
Her thread was so fine that even the seven National Authority Level Hunters in the U.S. couldn’t fully grasp it.
She thought it impossible for her thread to be detected in such a small country and soon forgot her worries, flying calmly between buildings again.
***
“Can you see this?”
“Is this… a thread?”
“Can you see it too, Seok-gyu?”
“Me? Well, sort of… It feels like I can and can’t at the same time…”
But contrary to Riverine’s thoughts, Jin-ah Lee was currently holding her severed magical thread as evidence.
And the first person to show her this was, of course, Sophia, her counterpart in Korea’s National Authority Level.
“Wow, it’s really well made! You can’t see it unless it’s right in front of you.”
“Indeed. Even though I’m touching it, I feel the sensation of my fingers more than the thread itself.”
Rolling and Lee Seok-gyu couldn’t help but be amazed.
In the now-repaired detached house, they sat across from each other in the kitchen with serious expressions.
“So, the fact that there was a magical thread…”
“Yes. The criminal is a Marionette Hunter. In short, a ‘Puppet Master.'”
“…! But isn’t the Puppet Master a very rare type of hunter? I thought there were none in Korea.”
“Exactly. That’s why we’re currently investigating all foreigners who have entered Korea in the past month in cooperation with all airports.”
However, still having no substantial results, Jin-ah Lee clicked her tongue in frustration.
Marionette Hunter.
Also known by the alias Puppet Master, they were hunters capable of controlling anything with magical threads emanating from their bodies.
“But why would a Puppet Master suddenly do something like this? Have their motives been revealed?”
“No, in fact, I want to know more.”
In terms of rarity, they were said to be as hard to find as Beast Hunters.
Thanks to this rarity, Marionette Hunters were given special treatment regardless of the country or branch they belonged to.
So why would such a Puppet Master go to the trouble of making their life hard by attacking the Hunter Association… and the Korean branch at that?
Could it be that there was a Puppet Master with a deep grudge against Korea?
“Do we need to check the list of criminals in Korea…”
At that moment, when no clear solution was coming to her mind, and a slight worry appeared on Jin-ah’s face.
“About that criminal. May I track them down?”
“Dear?”
“Seok-gyu?”
Lee Seok-gyu confidently stood up from his seat.
However, considering he wasn’t a Detective Hunter but a Beast Hunter, his words didn’t seem very credible…
“Oh, I misspoke.”
“…?”
“We will take on this mission.”
“We?”
“Yes?”
He seemed to disappear for a moment.
Going upstairs, he came back a little later wearing a military uniform adorned with four stars.
And on his arm was a band labeled ‘Military Police.’
“There are guys who specialize in catching deserters or those who harm the nation, even from the other side of the globe.”
“Dear, you don’t mean…”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
It looked like they were on the brink of a national emergency!
“I will deploy the Military Police!”
Lee Seok-gyu proudly raised his thumb, laughing heartily as if he was assuring the two women at the table.
***
An unfamiliar ceiling.
Feeling a discomforting sensation as if ants were crawling all over his body, he opened his eyes with a slight headache.
“Where…?”
When he tried to get up, the pain starting from his right arm and spreading throughout his body made it impossible to move.
So, with a frown, he turned his head with difficulty to look around.
“A hospital… room?”
He could see the interior of a hospital room equipped with the latest medical devices.
Could this be the VIP room he had only heard about?
Well, for his parents, that level of wealth would be nothing.
‘What happened to Princess Kurumi? And I think I saw Che-ran just before I collapsed…’
Even though he wanted to know, he couldn’t move a finger.
He didn’t even know how many days he had been asleep, and there was no one in the room to ask.
It would have been nice if there was at least someone.
Just then.
Knock. Knock.
“…?”
Could it be Sophia?
Well, it wouldn’t be strange for Sophia to always be by his side.
After all, the VIP room was a special room where only permitted guests could visit.
So he thought that it must be someone he knew.
Creak.
“Sophia…”
He tried to call out Sophia’s name, thinking it might be her.
“Well, you’re awake.”
His smiling lips suddenly closed shut.
“Hey, friend, sorry to bother you, but can I ask you a few things? I’m not here to eat you, just curious about a few things.”
A woman smoking a cigarette openly in the hospital room.
Inside her black coat, she wore only a revealing bra, and her red glowing eyes peeked through her fluttering black hair, staring intently at him.
And he knew this woman.
Her name was Katarina Volit.
Katarina Volit was the leader of the official villain organization, the Villain Group, in the original work *Hunter’s Blood*, and one of the representative antagonists of the ‘secretly a good person’ cliché.
‘But why is she here?!’
Originally, she was a character who only appeared around the mid-to-late parts of the story.
If one followed the Villain Group route, she would naturally become the protagonist’s mentor.
The memories of laughing, fighting, and standing back-to-back on the screen still came vividly to mind.
And despite her outstanding appearance, she was a tragic supporting character who never became a heroine, which made her particularly unforgettable for me.
‘Since it’s still early in the story, her ‘Monster Syndrome’ hasn’t fully manifested yet, right?’
Katarina Volit.
As the story progressed towards the later parts, she increasingly lost control over herself and eventually became one of the bosses worse than death in the original work.
I looked at Katarina, avoiding the embarrassing parts.
Because of the long coat typical of the Villain Group, her arms were covered and not clearly visible, but judging by the atmosphere, she still seemed okay.
Meanwhile,
“…Excuse me.”
“Oh, yes?”
“If you’ve stared at me so blatantly, you need to answer my questions as payment.”
Did she feel my gaze like that…
But it was true that I had looked at her quite blatantly to some extent.
Blushing, I nodded my head.
“Oh, yes… please ask.”
“Alright, then I’ll ask.”
The leader of the Villain Group, who would have appeared much later in the original work.
What could she possibly want to ask after illegally entering Korea, even destroying the original plot?
As I waited with a slightly nervous heart,
“You see, I’m looking for the ‘Monster of Jamsil’ right now.”
“The Monster of… Jamsil?”
“Yeah. I’ve been tracking down witnesses, and that’s how I reached you, injured by the monster’s appearance at the amusement park.”
“Oh, yes…”
The Villain Group being interested in the Monster of Jamsil?
This was something that never happened in the original work, which piqued my interest, so I kept listening.
“So, I was saying, you should come with me for a while.”
“……What?”
“You’re being kidnapped from now on.”
In the middle of her speech, Katarina walked over to my hospital bed and grabbed it.