WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
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◈ Xianxia Cultivation with a Dragon Heart ◈
Chapter 39: Psychopathic Retribution
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It was hardly surprising that Park Seryong had learned of the new S-Rank Hunter's emergence this way.
There had only been two S-Rank Hunters in the country, though there were now three. Given his immensely important position and his central role at the Great Rift, it might have been information he needed to know. After all, whether there was one more S-Rank Hunter could affect all sorts of strategic decisions.
Or perhaps he had learned of it on his own before the Special Ability Management Bureau could even make an institutional decision. How could one dismiss the power of the connections he must have built over nearly twenty years as an S-Rank Hunter?
There were surely many people within the Bureau who were close to Park Seryong. Some of them might have voluntarily brought him information about the new S-Rank Hunter.
'No, was it both?'
He might be someone whose position naturally allowed him to receive reports, who could use private connections within the Bureau to dig up more detailed information, and who also possessed the power to force something like this through.
“We still have many aspects of the situation to determine. But since it has already reached the news, I thought informing you should come first.”
“...I understand. So it wasn't a mistake, after all.”
It was difficult to say this had happened through incompetence. It was more like Park Seryong, a powerful figure, had landed a preemptive political blow.
“You still don't know why he did it, correct?”
“That is correct. Ah, just a moment...”
At that moment, the case officer seemed to receive some important news. After speaking quietly with someone else for several seconds, she addressed Han Yujin with clear alarm in her voice.
“Mr. Park Seryong has just confirmed the location of your Safe House and is currently on his way there. He says he intends to apologize to you personally over this matter, but...”
“...He has access to information about my Safe House? No matter how S-Rank he is, he isn't even affiliated with the Special Ability Management Bureau.”
“I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. There's no excuse I can make. As for how this happened... it seems to be connected to Deputy Minister Kim Jaehoon of our Bureau.”
The case officer's voice trembled faintly through the phone.
At a glance, that trembling seemed to come from guilt toward Han Yujin and shame at being unable to prevent anything. Perhaps some frustration and anger at a situation spiraling beyond her control were mixed in as well.
“Deputy Minister Kim must be very close to Park Seryong, then?”
Han Yujin could sympathize with the case officer's position to some degree, but he could not suppress his irritation as he asked in a low voice.
A clear chime from the front-door intercom rang out.
“He got here quickly. It seems he set out quite some time ago.”
“If you don't wish to meet him, I'll immediately...”
“No, it's fine. How could you stop it when someone at the deputy minister level is determined to help him? I'll handle this myself.”
Han Yujin ended the call and sighed as he looked at Muyong beside him.
“Can you hide in the room for a while?”
Squeak!
Muyong gave a small reply, immediately slipped into one of the rooms, and disappeared from sight. Han Yujin went into the living room with an expressionless face and checked the wall intercom.
It really was him.
A man Han Yujin had only occasionally seen in the news. South Korea's second S-Rank Hunter, someone who mainly operated at the Great Rift and had earned considerable achievements, enough to be regarded as a hero by most of the public.
But seeing his face like this today gave him an entirely different impression.
Without even asking who it was, Han Yujin pressed the intercom button and opened the door. The middle-aged man on the screen looked faintly surprised that the door had opened immediately without a single question.
Soon after, the sound of someone entering through the front door came, followed by the man's appearance in the hallway connected to the living room.
He seemed far larger in person. He was over 190 centimeters tall, with solid muscles to match. His carefully groomed hairstyle gave him a sophisticated air, creating an atmosphere that was dangerous yet restrained.
His tailored suit only heightened that impression. His cold, calculating gaze brought to mind a mafia boss from some film.
“This is our first meeting. I regret that our first greeting must happen this way. You are Han Yujin, I presume?”
“I heard you came to apologize.”
“You received the news quickly as well. Then again, that must be why you opened the door right away.”
He looked around the living room, then glanced at the sofa meant for entertaining guests.
“May I sit?”
“Go ahead.”
Perhaps because he had been an S-Rank Hunter for so long, neither his speech nor his mannerisms felt ordinary.
Once seated, he watched Han Yujin sit across from him and spoke.
“First, I will apologize for acting on my own. I am sorry for exposing you to the public without your permission.”
“Why did you do it?”
“To explain briefly... it was to ease some of the pressure at the Great Rift. You didn't know because an embargo is still in place, but only a few days ago, a Level 7 Mana Stone mine was discovered. It's large-scale, and it's even an open-pit mine.”
After briefly watching Han Yujin's reaction, he continued with his explanation.
Mana Stones were Earth's term for what the cultivation world called Spirit Stones. As minerals containing spiritual energy, they possessed immense usefulness both in the cultivation world and here on Earth.
There was little point in calculating exactly how useful they were.
Their energy conversion efficiency being over twice that of conventional fossil fuels was already remarkable, but it was harder to find fields where they were not used: construction, manufacturing, medicine, military defense, information and communications, agriculture, even environmental protection.
That was precisely why Hunters could earn such enormous incomes.
In any case, back to the matter at hand.
As far as Han Yujin knew, Level 7 belonged to the grade of mid-grade Spirit Stones. It was also a grade obtainable only in the Great Rift.
The discovery of a large-scale open-pit mine containing Level 7 Mana Stones was certainly a tremendous event. He could naturally understand what Park Seryong meant.
The Great Rift in the former North Korean territory was so dangerous that it had forced South Korea, China, and Japan into semi-compulsory cooperation. Yet nearly thirty years had passed since North Korea's destruction, and throughout that long time, they had successfully defended it without a catastrophic crisis.
They had even gone beyond merely defending it and begun gradually developing the interior of the Great Rift.
It was the perfect time for conflicts to rise as each country began thinking only of its own interests. All the more so when the United States and the European Union were adding their various schemes to restrain the massive East Asian Alliance formed by South Korea, China, and Japan.
Tensions between the Hunters of the three countries over the open-pit mine had reached their peak. That was why Park Seryong claimed they could not afford to wait calmly for the new S-Rank Hunter to emerge.
“So you didn't even have time to say a single word to the person involved? Yet you could come here in person like this?”
“Publicly revealing your abilities in such a hurry created this breathing room. Of course, it's barely enough room to breathe, but I caused this matter, so I must clean it up.”
“You aren't even the Minister of Foreign Affairs, yet it seems you mediate conflicts like that?”
“The Great Rift... You'll understand once you go there yourself, but legal order becomes somewhat blurred inside it. There are quite a few aspects governed by nothing more than raw strength.”
“Even in an event this significant?”
“If the circumstances are favorable, a country will sometimes encourage that tendency itself.”
It was quite an amazing story, but he somehow understood it immediately. International diplomacy had always operated far more openly and brutally than people thought.
“All right, I roughly understand.”
Han Yujin continued.
“If that really was the reason, then before you return to the Great Rift, please hold a brief press conference and apologize. I wasn't trying to remain secret for no reason, but since you say it was for the nation's benefit, I'll respect that patriotism and pretend this never happened.”
“...”
“Why have you suddenly gone silent? It shouldn't be such a difficult request.”
Han Yujin let out a quiet laugh.
In other words, he was asking this.
Was it truly for the national interest alone that Park Seryong had committed such discourtesy?
Was there truly not even the slightest intention for someone among the established elite to restrain the emergence of a new powerhouse and preserve his own power by displaying that he stood higher?
“Is this personal apology not enough?”
“It's not that it's insufficient. It just leaves a bad taste. It looked as though you were trying to show that, no matter if he's S-Rank, a socially inexperienced twenty-something greenhorn can still be manipulated however you please. Coming to my Safe House without contacting me also seemed intended to pressure me.”
“...”
“If I'm merely mistaken, then apologizing in a brief press conference shouldn't be difficult.”
Park Seryong looked slightly upward as though he found the whole thing absurd. Then he let out a small but distinct sigh.
“Young man, you are quite bold.”
“Hahaha.”
The line was so much more typical than Han Yujin had expected that he could not help laughing.
“Does that mean you have nothing to say? It sounded exactly like it did.”
“Is this because you've only just become S-Rank... Must you really take such a sharp attitude against me?”
At that moment.
Violet light flashed within Han Yujin's eyes.
* * *
The intelligence of a Dharma Soul Stage cultivator far exceeded an ordinary person's imagination.
They could immediately find and expose contradictions in an opponent's words and actions during a conversation. They could also analyze a spell, understand it, and slightly twist part of it for their own use.
Park Seryong had no way of knowing that.
The instant he met Han Yujin's eyes again, he felt an eerie sensation as though he were being stripped naked.
'What kind of gaze is that...?'
Just as the thought that he might have taken this matter too lightly crossed his mind, he felt a faint dizziness that he had almost never experienced since becoming an S-Rank Hunter. Then reality suddenly felt distant, and his mind went blank.
'A dream?'
The thought appeared out of nowhere, but Park Seryong shook his head and drove away the delusion.
He had no idea why he felt that way. Before he could properly consider the strange sensation, something terrifying happened.
Han Yujin, sitting across from him, launched a surprise attack!
Park Seryong reacted instinctively. Without his countless battle experiences in the Great Rift, he never would have been able to respond that way.
Dark gray energy burst from his body and formed a barrier around him. At the same time, he kicked the low table in front of him to hinder his opponent and toppled backward with the sofa.
A golden ray narrowly grazed the bridge of his nose.
Geng Metal Sword Qi.
Even Park Seryong's abilities as an S-Rank Hunter could not block the sharpness of that spell. But the evasive maneuver he had taken on instinct saved his life. Though his barrier had been pierced, it had bought him an instant of time.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Park Seryong quickly rolled to his feet and shouted. He immediately counterattacked as well. The best defense was offense, and the ambush had been threatening enough that he had to give it his all.
Dark gray energy flowed like water, suddenly accelerating as it shot forward like spearheads. There was more than one, and they occupied even the spaces where his opponent could evade.
What appeared in response was a radiance of mingled violet and gold, the Violet-Gold Radiance.
Amazingly, Park Seryong's attack was stopped effortlessly by that glow. In the meantime, his opponent leisurely stretched out a hand and created a ball of fire.
A terrible heat washed over him. The instant he registered it, his survival instinct drove the dark gray energy to burst forth with greater force than ever before, forming a spherical barrier.
The fireball exploded in a flash of light.
The blast was so immense that it felt as though the entire world were breaking apart.
When Park Seryong regained his senses after being thrown back and rolling wildly, an entire floor of the apartment had been destroyed until almost nothing but its pillars remained. Ominous groans sounded throughout the building as though it might collapse at any moment.
“You...! No matter how angry you are, this, this is truly...! How dare you do this in the middle of the city?!”
“Hmm. So an S-Rank is still an S-Rank, I suppose.”
“Have you really gone insane?! This is terrorism!”
“The terrorism is what you did to me.”
With those absurd words, his opponent stretched out a hand again and launched another attack. Park Seryong realized that the twenty-something greenhorn named Han Yujin was a complete psychopath.
'I provoked the wrong person!'
But it was too late for regret. Streams of those golden rays shot from the outstretched hand.
Dark gray energy shot from Park Seryong and embedded itself throughout the building. Propelled by the elasticity of that energy, he performed evasive maneuvers like acrobatics before darting out of the apartment building, which looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Cold sweat covered Park Seryong's face as he rapidly descended toward the ground, embedding dark gray energy into the exterior walls.
'He's not just insane. What the hell are those golden rays? Nothing I heard mentioned anything like that.'
They were so fast and sharp that he did not dare consider facing them head-on.
Even aside from that, the violet-gold radiance barrier that had blocked his own attacks, attacks capable of piercing steel like tofu, was shocking enough.
For now, he had to run.
Rather than face someone like that one-on-one, it would be far wiser to report the act of terrorism he had committed in the middle of the city and confront him alongside others.
But at that very moment.
Krakakaboom!!
With an enormous, sudden thunderclap, a bolt of lightning crashed down.
It was an attack moving at a speed no human could evade.
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