WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 105: The Liberation Brigade’s Ghost
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A criminal organization of Players that committed every kind of crime under the banner of Player liberation.
It was also the last organization Rimon had fought and dealt with as a PAB agent.
The Liberation Brigade.
Even upon hearing that name, Ryu Gang-cheol was not surprised.
Ryu Gang-cheol merely looked up at Wang Gi-neung as though he could not understand why and bluntly asked,
“...Why’s the Liberation Brigade suddenly coming up here?”
“There’s no need to play dumb.”
If this had been intended as a leading question, it had failed completely. Ryu Gang-cheol’s reaction seemed too unfamiliar and genuine.
Yet Wang Gi-neung was not disappointed.
Wang Gi-neung simply spoke with certainty.
“Our Seven Dragons Society reached the conclusion that you belong to the Liberation Brigade after examining all available information from every angle.”
“What information could lead you to that conclusion?”
“A very simple process of elimination.”
Perhaps curious about the basis for that unshakable conviction, Ryu Gang-cheol looked interested despite the torture-like pain of being trampled beneath Wang Gi-neung’s foot.
Wang Gi-neung twisted up one corner of his mouth.
“There aren’t many organizations that could use a Player of your caliber as a lackey, are there?”
“Ain’t you overestimating me?”
“Not at all. It’s an entirely objective assessment.”
A duke-class Player at level 80 or higher was both a one-person company and a one-person army.
Players at that level usually established their own guilds and became guild masters, or at least became important figures at the level of a sub-master.
“Generally, there are only three categories of organizations with enough talent to use a duke-class Player for this sort of work.”
The Ten Great Guilds, which had Monarchs.
The Seven Dragons Society, which held all the world’s wealth.
And the great powers that operated Player units.
Whether through military might, money, or political power, they were groups that had reached the pinnacle in some field.
Unless an organization was overflowing with high-level Players, it would be impossible to do something as insane as using a duke-class Player for corporate terrorism.
“The problem was that we found nothing after investigating all three.”
The Seven Dragons Society had been excluded from the start.
No matter how separately the seven clans operated, they had no reason to do something like this.
The same went for some of the great powers.
Attacking the Seven Dragons Society, which controlled the global economy, would be an atrocity that put an entire nation out on the streets.
The Ten Great Guilds had been the most suspicious.
Having become the undisputed rulers of this era through the power of Monarchs and the resources of Dungeons, they were dangerous competitors who had begun reaching even into the Seven Dragons Society’s territory.
That was why the Seven Dragons Society had focused its investigation on the Ten Great Guilds.
But the result had been a blank.
No matter which of the Ten Great Guilds they investigated, they could not find any connection to Ryu Gang-cheol.
“Thanks to that, the investigation nearly hit a dead end. Then, at just the right time, someone suggested a change in perspective.”
“What kind of change?”
“If we could not find clues in those three places, why not search elsewhere for somewhere that might have a Player like you?”
“Isn’t that a contradiction?”
“Well, people clutch at straws when they’re drowning.”
An individual or group with limited manpower that could nevertheless use a duke-class Player as a killer.
It was a condition that defied common sense, like searching for someone who owned tanks and fighter jets despite not even having a home.
Even so, the Shanghai Wang Family conducted the investigation with nothing to lose.
Major corporations and wealthy tycoons.
Third World nations and cults.
Even legendary witches and shamans.
They searched so indiscriminately that they seriously discussed whether Rimon had staged the whole thing himself.
“But after looking properly, we found exactly one place that fit every condition.”
“And that place was the Liberation Brigade?”
“Yes. Once we investigated them, it fit so perfectly that it was strange we had not considered them sooner.”
The Liberation Brigade consisted of Player criminals of every sort, making it an organization with many hidden high-level Players.
Because of its thoroughly Player-centered ideology, it was only natural that even the Seven Dragons Society’s intelligence network could not reach it.
Despite committing countless crimes and acts of madness, it was a criminal organization so strangely intangible that its senior executives were rarely caught and its bases were rarely exposed.
There was so little information on them that their senior executives were secretly called ghosts.
But seen another way, that meant records of the Liberation Brigade’s crimes still existed.
“Four years ago, the massacre of United States Senator Jeron’s entire family.”
“Two years ago, the annihilation of the Slokovskaya Bratva in the Russian Khanate.”
“One year ago, the Knights of Malta serial murder case.”
“Do you know what all these cases have in common?”
The victims’ identities.
The countries where the crimes had occurred.
There was no apparent connection among the three cases.
But Wang Gi-neung mockingly listed the commonalities that only the Seven Dragons Society, with its intelligence network unbound by nationality, could uncover.
“First, every victim was either a Player exclusionist or someone seeking to reduce Player power through taxation, organization, and similar measures.”
Of course, Player exclusionists were more likely to earn the resentment of Players.
Massacring mafia members was one thing, but few high-level lunatics were capable of exterminating even social elites like senators or the Knights of Malta.
And every investigative agency agreed that the most likely place for such criminals to belong was the Liberation Brigade.
“The second is that no suitable clue could be found even through Skills, so the cases remained unsolved.”
The Liberation Brigade was exceptionally difficult to track down.
Ryu Gang-cheol could not be found even by Tracers.
Ryu Gang-cheol’s comrades remained a complete mystery.
In an era when Prophecy Skills and information Skills had made it rare for criminals to escape justice, that was a commonality that could not be ignored.
“The final one is that the perpetrators used knives. And, quite coincidentally, knives of very similar dimensions and materials to the ones you use.”
The investigative agencies of each country had been unable to identify the murder weapons because the appraisal Skills they usually relied on did not work.
But masters of Tracking Arts within the Seven Dragons Society could tell from autopsy records alone that similar knives had been used.
“Don’t you think it is rather too much to call all of this a mere coincidence?”
Individually, each could have been a coincidence.
But taken together?
The conclusion was clear.
Ryu Gang-cheol was a killer for the Liberation Brigade, and the Liberation Brigade was behind the repeated attacks on subsidiaries of the Black Dragon Clan.
“Hearing you out, it does make some sense.”
“Are you admitting that the Liberation Brigade is behind you?”
“No, I’m saying it makes sense.”
Ryu Gang-cheol shook his head.
Then he grinned broadly and continued.
“But Comrade, there’s no proof, is there? Isn’t it a stretch to accuse me based on nothing but circumstances?”
“And what does that matter?”
“...What did you say?”
“Ghost of the Liberation Brigade, do not misunderstand. We are not the police. We are the Seven Dragons Society.”
Whether they were law-abiding citizens.
The people’s protectors.
Or agents of a special institution.
The Seven Dragons Society was different from those who could not settle a grudge or take revenge without evidence.
“Even if you truly have no connection to the Liberation Brigade... no, even if you are not the one who attacked our clan in the first place, it does not matter.”
The Bronze Age, when the will of the Seven Dragons took precedence over laws and morality.
The descendants of those who had ruled the world.
They considered that era alone their ideal world.
They had fought to restore it.
And because they made it both faith and conviction, the Seven Dragons Society had been called the Demon Cult, an organization of fanatics.
The head of a prestigious clan that had proved absolute faith and loyalty for generations looked down at Ryu Gang-cheol with a cold sneer.
“It is enough if I think so and the other clans believe it.”
“...You people are insane.”
“We are not insane. This world has simply grown stranger than it was in the old days.”
“That’s what you call insane.”
Looking at Wang Gi-neung, who dismissed the very significance of modern laws, morality, and common sense, Ryu Gang-cheol muttered without thinking.
Even Ryu Gang-cheol, who prided himself on being exceptionally crazy, could only click his tongue at logic that had gone so completely rotten.
“So what if we are a little insane? Beating down pests like the Liberation Brigade can only benefit the world. It will never harm it.”
“Comrade, if you take the Liberation Brigade so lightly, you’re in for a nasty shock.”
“There’s no need to worry. You should worry instead about what you and your comrades will suffer from now on.”
“That certainly sounds promising.”
“Look forward to it as much as you like. You will not be disappointed.”
Thud!
Wang Gi-neung kicked Ryu Gang-cheol in the head, then turned and walked out of the torture room.
Wang Gi-neung let out a sigh.
That was pointless.
Compared to the pain inflicted by the countless torture arts already being used, a single kick could barely be called pain.
Needlessly stimulating the prisoner would only lessen the suffering.
Wang Gi-neung knew that perfectly well, yet had acted anyway.
It was unlike Wang Gi-neung.
Stay sharp.
Wang Gi-neung steadied himself.
If the Shanghai Wang Family was to escape the danger of being expelled from the prestigious clans, they needed to handle this matter properly.
What Wang Gi-neung needed to do was clear.
I must make Ryu Gang-cheol talk and learn about the Liberation Brigade.
That was why Wang Gi-neung gave an immediate order to the Intelligence Chief waiting outside.
“Make the preparations.”
“...Will that be all right?”
“There is no other choice. Since our family’s torture arts have failed, there is only one place that can make him open his mouth.”
Of the Seven Dragons Society’s 36,500 torture arts, only 108 had been passed down to the Shanghai Wang Family.
Torture techniques were a kind of secret art, and they were so difficult to learn that one or two people could not possibly master them all.
So the Seven Dragons Society raised specialists.
Experts who each learned a portion of the 36,500 torture arts.
And they created a place.
A place that could conduct torture on behalf of a clan when needed, or for outside clients.
“That is why the torture chamber exists, is it not?”
“That is true, but...”
The Intelligence Chief trailed off.
It was not merely because of the enormous fee, or the possibility of having to share the credit.
The problem was where the torture chamber was located.
More precisely, the person in charge.
“Will the Princess accept this?”
“She will.”
Wang Gi-neung answered without hesitation.
Though things had stabilized somewhat lately, Li Qing-yu’s authority had already been reduced as far as it could go.
She might object to a private matter, but she could neither oppose nor would oppose using the torture chamber against the culprit who had harmed the clan.
Even she, foolish as she was, would know which side benefited her more.
And if she refused?
“If she refuses, we only need to make her accept.”
Whether by moving the Elders.
Or by using the clan’s public opinion.
Saying it would be easy to pressure Li Qing-yu, Wang Gi-neung strode away.
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