43. The First Step Toward Expanding A Faction (2)

A tomb of concrete.

Even in ruins made all the more desolate as dusk settled over them, a few buildings still held their shape. One of them was a twenty-story hotel. Before the Great Cataclysm it had been known as a respectable three-star establishment; now it was better known as the Red Spider’s den. Strings of lights scattered along its outer walls threw off a gaudy glare, and beneath them people branded with spider tattoos threw a frenzied party.

“Live it up! Whether we croak today or tomorrow!”
“Ihihihi!”

Liquor, drugs, and the flat mechanical thud of a beat all blurred together into chaos. From the lounge above, a half-naked man looked down on it and curled his lip.

“Kheh. Simple-minded bastards, every last one.”

A scar was carved across his bared back, shaped like a spider’s eight legs. That wound was what had given the organization its name: the Red Spider. Kim Jaewoo, boss of one of the three factions that had carved up Ground Zero between them, let his eyes roll with menace.

“Boss. We’ve got ten days of food reserves left.”
“Chairman.”
“Ah, right. Chairman.”
“Hyeongtae. We’re not a pack of gangsters. How long are you going to keep calling me ‘boss’?”

— Drdrdrdrd!

The lounge windows rattled violently, as though a gale had struck them. A 6th-Rank Hunter’s killing intent rolled off him, mana-laced and ferocious, and the bald man shuddered.

“M-my apologies. Chairman.”
“Gotta let our boys keep their chins up. Things have been kinda gloomy lately, haven’t they?”

Kim Jaewoo flailed his arms theatrically. They’d planned the raid the moment they noticed the old man was absent from the Galaxy Pub, but far from getting a leash on Madam Oh Hyeonjeong, they’d had one of their money pipes cut instead.

“Ha. Bitch.”

The Red Spider was a large organization, hundreds strong. Losing a single crimson camouflage wasn’t enough to topple it. The real trouble was that they’d failed to finish off the Galaxy Pub; with a major funding route cut, even the Red Spider’s standing had begun to crack.

“Who are the stiff-necked ones these days?”
“The army boys and Blue Shirt are gathering numbers.”
“Crush them by tomorrow.”

With the raid on the Galaxy Pub a failure, more and more had begun to question the Red Spider’s grip. That was why he’d thrown the storehouse open even with a major funding route gone. Money would only get tighter from here, but holding an organization together sometimes meant putting on a show.

“Ten days, you said?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve arranged to meet Chairman Im. Get a few of the boys ready.”
“You’re taking the Guryongbang’s backing?”
“The Galaxy Pub fell through, so everything’s gone sideways.”

The Guryongbang was a large criminal organization rooted in Hong Kong. Lately they’d been using the West Sea as a bridgehead, reaching out as far as the Red Spider in a bid to build an East Asian crime network.

“The Guryongbang’s too big an organization, Chairman.”
“I know. Damn it all! You think I’m thrilled about jumping into bed with them?”

At best it could be called a partnership offer; in truth it was half a step short of folding the Red Spider into the Guryongbang as a subordinate outfit. A deal was only an equal one when both sides matched in weight class, and he’d meant from the start to drag the negotiations out, or even let them collapse.

“If that idiot Jo Seungcheol had just guarded the gate properly.”

Kim Jaewoo’s eyes glistened with killing intent. With the crimson camouflage shut down ahead of schedule, a gaping hole had been blown in his cash flow. Keeping the organization running meant fast money, and there weren’t many places willing to bankroll an outfit out of Ground Zero. Before the regression the Red Spider had turned the Guryongbang’s offer down, but Yujin’s intervention had changed the future.

— Creeeak.

“Boss! We’ve got a big prob—”
“It’s Chairman, you son of a bitch!!”

The Hunter took the glass Kim Jaewoo hurled and pitched forward onto the floor with a strangled cry, blood streaming from his split forehead. He was a 4th-Rank Martial-line Hunter, yet he couldn’t withstand Kim Jaewoo’s brute strength.

“M-my apologies. Chairman!”
“Enough. Just spit out what you came to say.”
“They say there’s unrest in Kaesong.”
“The man-hunters?”

The Kaesong man-hunters. Their formal name was the “Fifth Revolutionary Corps,” though no one ever used it. They bred monsters and forged them into a fighting force; their own numbers were few, but the monsters they commanded were numerous and powerful enough that no one could afford to dismiss them.

“What about the Kaesong crew now?!”
“Word is they’re coming down toward the borderlands.”
“Wouldn’t even make good dog food.”
“If it’s the man-hunters, won’t they be the ones feeding us to the monsters?”

The man-hunters were a crew even the Red Spider wanted nothing to do with. Anyone outside the “Fifth Revolutionary Corps” they threw to the monsters as feed, or worked to death as forced labor. Kim Jaewoo had once considered joining hands with them, too.

“How bad did we get hit back then?”
“Twenty-five men, Chairman.”

The moment they sat down at the negotiating table, the man-hunters had loosed their monsters and ambushed the Red Spider. Both sides took heavy losses, and all it taught him was that they were a breed there was no negotiating with. After that clash the man-hunters had gone quiet.

“Have they caught wind of the rumor too?”

Kim Jaewoo slammed his fist down on the desk.

— Krrnch!

The desk caved in, a fist-print pressed deep into the steel.

Terrifying strength. A steel desk, in a single blow…

— Gulp.

The subordinate whose forehead had been split open only moments ago studied Kim Jaewoo’s expression.

“It’s not bullshit, is it?”
“No. The source is solid.”
“And you don’t know what the man-hunters are after?”
“Not for certain, but word is they’re heading toward the Black Herb farm.”

Kim Jaewoo clamped his mouth shut, rage swelling all the way to the crown of his head. The urge to smash everything in sight rose in him, and he barely managed to hold it down.

“Triple the guard.”
“That’d mean cutting back on the watch over the Madam, though.”
“You got a brain in there? If the Black Herb gets cleaned out on top of everything, the organization’s finished!”

— Wha-baaam!

The glass hurled a second time snapped the subordinate’s head sideways.

“Hyeongtae.”
“Yes. Chairman.”
“I’ll deal with the army bastards myself.”
“Then…”
“I’m leaving the farm to you, so handle it well.”

The Red Spider’s second-in-command, Choi Hyeongtae, gave a short shudder at the weight settling onto his shoulders.

While the Red Spider mobilized its Hunters, hooked by the Madam’s false information, Yujin had returned to the borderlands.

“Thankfully, it’s not far.”

— You mean the farm the Red Spider’s said to manage?

“Yeah. Two kilometers from the obelisk and we’re there.”

Factoring in how far the fog spread, it came to a little under a kilometer. The placement of the last Black Obelisk he’d raised was exquisite.

— The fog’ll just barely reach the path to the farm.

“Perfect for hunting the Red Spider.”

— May I ask you one thing?

“Ask as much as you like.”

— This farm. Is there really a need to build it in the dangerous borderlands?

“Depends on the crop, yeah.”

Yujin snickered.

“Hey, past-life hero — you ever heard of Black Herb?”

— I have not.

“A plant that only grows in land steeped with high-density mana.”

Just as wild ginseng grows only where the earth-energy runs abnormally strong, Black Herb was a rare plant that could be cultivated only in land meeting certain conditions.

“Mix it with a few medicinal ingredients and you can make a cocktail called Black Moon.”

— You go to all that trouble just to make one cocktail?

“As if.”

Black Moon was a powerful narcotic; whoever took it could dream up any fantasy they pleased, every image in the mind made to feel as real as life.

“It’s addictive, but the aftereffects aren’t bad, so they call it the elixir of dreams or something.”

— Heh. To use a word like “dream” so cheaply.

“Don’t be so hard on it. Even Hunters who’ve climbed to high Stellar Ranks use it now and then for meditation.”

Building one’s own inner vision was, for any Hunter who dreamed of a higher realm, something that simply had to be done. The Martial-line drove their inner vision out into the outer world, while the Magic-line Hunter toyed with the principles of reality through the rules carved into their own heart, bending them to their will.

“Either way, you have to build an inner vision to glimpse anything beyond the 7th Rank.”

— You talk like you’ve set foot in that realm.

“I’ve picked up a lot of hearsay.”

— Well, you’re not wrong. I was building my own inner vision in the thick of real combat, after all.

At the until I died that the hero left unspoken behind those words, Yujin gave a wry smile.

“Anyway, the point is the stuff’s filthy expensive.”

— No wonder the Red Spider would come running barefoot.

“We’d best get ready to welcome our guests, too.”

— Hahh.

Letting out a short sigh, Yujin looked back over the past two weeks’ work.

Level 23, huh.

He’d run into monsters while tracing the flow of the spirit vein, fought to gather the flesh and bone that fed the Black Obelisk, and after raising the structure, beaten back everything that came to greet the new neighbor. No wonder his level had shot up.

Kronos, who had been listening in silence, asked.

I told you before. I leave a couple of slots open on purpose.

It’s because you never know what situation’s coming. Leisure, my ass.

The knowledge held in the Ring of Black Darkness was vast, but System constraints capped how much he could inherit at once: two spells per ten levels. He left some deliberately un-inherited, so the instant a crisis hit he could claim exactly the spell he needed.

There was no magic worth using.

Spoken like a true backwater wraith, all carefree. A Necromancer was supposed to learn the essential spells before his level ever climbed.

What I’ll use this time is…

Yeah. Other than the fast cast time and being able to catch an opening, it’s got nothing on Bone Spear.

Bone Spear had it beat on raw destructive power, too. But there was a reason he’d learned a spell so short on practicality: it was the prerequisite for the next one he’d pick up.

Finally, I get to inherit this one.

The crown jewel of Necromancer attack magic. Among spells below the 3rd Rank it boasted the highest destructive power, and for all that force the spirit-power cost stayed modest. Better still, so long as a corpse was on hand, it could be cast in an instant.

Raising them without their permission in the first place already seems pretty off the mark, though.

Well. You’ll see when it’s done.

The third spell shared vision. Cast on a wraith, it gave him an edge in gathering intelligence.

And the last one goes to alchemy.

This should about cover the prep.

Before getting down to the real work of preparing for a fight, Yujin pulled up his status window to look himself over.

Specs like this in under two months since awakening.

His physical stats sat at the entry level of a 2nd-Rank Martial-line, while his spirit-power figure ranked top-tier even among Magic-line Hunters of the same rank.

Add up all the boosted figures and I’d be a solid 3rd Rank.

All of it came from wringing the monsters’ life force dry with Life Drain. And the spells in his arsenal kept steadily piling up, too.

This is doable.

The Red Spider? Fighting inside the Necropolis, he was sure he could handle a hundred of them. Even if Kim Jaewoo himself, the 6th-Rank Martial-line Hunter, came in person, staying in one piece would be no trouble at all.

“Kihihihiii!”

Off in the distance, a wraith let out a ghostly shriek. He cast Ghost Eye at once. Through the wraith’s borrowed vision he could make out Hunters moving among the underbrush, faint and blurred.

“Hey. …farm…”
“Man-… …ters…”

From the shape of their lips, they seemed to be mouthing “man-hunters.” He released the shared vision at once.

“The first guests have arrived.”

— We’ll have to give them a grand welcome.

“Of course.”
“I’ll make their welcome so warm not one of them will ever feel like going home.”