Shortcut (3)

How long had they walked?

Normally he would draw things out until the other party broke the silence first, but this time, Kang-hoo fired first.

“Benny. Why are you hiding your identity by working as a bartender?”

It wasn’t a situation where speaking first would put him at a disadvantage. He was simply more curious than cautious.

“Hehe. If you know I hid my identity, that means you can tell the difference between a hunter and a non-hunter, right?”

She hit the nail on the head.

Benny was always Benny. Even the name she used here really was Benny. Saying she “hid her identity” wasn’t quite accurate.

But Kang-hoo had seen her constellation information appear irregularly, so the words came out that way.

And since he’d already blurted it out, he had no intention of hiding it. What he wanted was information about her.

“Benny, I know for a fact you’re trying not to get found out as a hunter.”

Benny nodded.

Then, with the pointed toe of her high heels, she gently gathered three trash cans that had been rolling around here and there.

Her next question followed.

“Is it better to gather trash in one place? Or to let it wander around as it pleases?”

Trash was trash.

Kang-hoo thought it didn’t matter what you did with it, but he tried thinking from her point of view.

Her words felt like they carried an intention—like wanting to gather “trash” (bad people) into one place (a liberation area).

Was that too much of a leap?

If it were, then the current situation was a little too perfect. The trash metaphor fit too well.

“It depends on the person who wants to clean it. If someone gets pleasure from gathering it up, having it gathered for them beforehand might make the satisfaction of cleaning smaller.”

“Oh?”

Benny reacted with surprise.

Usually, if you asked that kind of question, people gave a canned answer—most said it was better to gather it.

But Kang-hoo interpreted it differently, pinpointing the cleaner’s perspective and what they cared about.

If a “cleaner” felt satisfaction from resolving disorder and irregularity, it might not be that simple.

Kang-hoo had been unusual from their first meeting, and the stories Benny heard afterward were always “special,” too.

Benny had organized all that information into her memo about Kang-hoo—including where she had met him.

Daejeon Station, Club Hades.

Pyeongtaek Station, the modern bar Lady Lady.

Memos didn’t lie.

She continued.

“If you want to know more about me, I can tell you as much as you like. But you’ll need the resolve to bear the weight and responsibility that comes with it.”

Benny’s words sounded like a soft declaration of war.

Kang-hoo felt something from her that reminded him of An Hui-yoon, whom he had met on Jeju Island.

He hadn’t confirmed it directly, but before that man suddenly teleported him to Seoul, what Kang-hoo had seen while experiencing his power was “yellow eyes.” The pressure he’d felt then now emanated from her.

Benny smiled.

She stared at Kang-hoo, who didn’t answer, and slid a cigarette between her lips.

“If we ‘coincidentally’ meet again next time, then I’ll answer exactly one question. Promise. But not today. It looks like you came here to do something else. And since our thoughts match, I’ll open the way for you.”

“……?”

Tap.

Benny only lightly touched Kang-hoo’s shoulder, but suddenly every surrounding environment changed.

A phenomenon where the ‘Aesthetics of Space’ effect from his shoes, Aesthetics, was the only thing that did not apply.

He’d been caught by forced spatial relocation.

This wasn’t distortion but relocation, so it couldn’t be avoided.

Of course, thanks to Aesthetics of Space, the chance of dying to a space-distortion skill was already 0%.

But just like when he met An Hui-yoon last time, arriving at an unknown destination was not a pleasant feeling.

Still, the displeasure lasted only a moment.

“……”

Kang-hoo sensed the meaning of this special space that had abruptly replaced the base camp outside the liberation area, and held his breath.

This was where Yun Cheol, the assassination target the client had requested, was staying.

It was the stronghold of the criminal organization “Koma.”

Where Kang-hoo had vanished,

Benny—smiling more than usual, cigarette in her mouth—pulled in a long drag of smoke in one breath.

She’d quit smoking for quite a while, but from the moment she saw Kang-hoo, it was as if she’d needed stimulation again. The craving hit hard.

So like a beast led by instinct, she put the cigarette in her mouth, and before she knew it, she was smoking.

Then—

“Oh, miss. You a bartender working here? You’re smooth. So what do you say? Wanna have some fun with your oppas?”

“We’ve got stacks of money in our camper. We’ll pay you by the minute. How about it?”

Two bald men took seats on either side of Benny and threw out pick-up lines, breathing the worst possible stench—a mix of coffee and cigarette smoke—right at her.

It was a pick-up attempt she never intended to accept, but the utter lack of basic manners made her expression go cold.

Even so, Benny—who was usually always polite “enough”—expressed her refusal as courteously as she could.

“I don’t do one-night stands. I’m not someone who sells my body, either. So go on your way.”

“Why? ’Cause we’re ugly?”

With a leering voice and a “deep” gaze, one of the bald men brushed his hand through Benny’s hair.

He looked like he already knew the answer, but the answer wasn’t only one thing. That was just one of them.

To begin with, Benny was not the type to casually give her heart to anyone.

The delusion—judging her by appearances and assuming she was open and promiscuous—was disgusting.

Benny endured one last time.

“Don’t touch me. I’m not touching you, am I? Don’t touch without consent. I didn’t want it.”

“Why’re you acting like this all of a sudden?”

The two men, now showing their true colors, moved in as if to surround her. Benny sighed, “Haa.”

To avoid stepping in shit, it wasn’t enough to dodge—you had to kick it away. Shit didn’t understand.

So—

Wham!

She spread her arms and pulled both bald men hard into the crooks of her elbows, hugging them into place.

It looked like a headlock, but the posture was almost comical.

“Oooh?”

“Nice perfume.”

The two bald men, half held in her arms, snickered.

But only for a moment.

Crack.

A sharp, thick fracture sound—so brief no one else could hear—rang out.

And the two bald hunters, whose toughness would be hard to beat, died on the spot.

Their cervical vertebrae had shattered.

Not just broken—pulverized into powder in an instant, like they’d been crushed in a press.

“I told you not to touch me……. Ah! Excuse me! These guys are weird! They suddenly staggered and collapsed!”

Benny waved urgently at passersby, asking for help.

Since it truly looked like they had simply dropped suddenly, no one noticed their cause of death.

Benny had no interest in the dead men at all.

Instead— she kept thinking about Kang-hoo, whom she had personally flung neatly into the liberation area.

If they met again, what would he ask her? And where would she be living then?

Thinking ahead to a future that hadn’t happened yet made her heart race.

The memo she had on Kang-hoo still flickered in front of her vision. She had left it there on purpose.

She took it in once more—then added a new memo.

A question still in progress, with no answer yet. She’d hear some kind of news soon enough.

If he died, the memo would be destroyed along with him.

If he lived, the story would continue into something even more interesting.

Benny hoped—no, she insisted—that it would be the latter.

Shin Kang-hoo. The more she saw him, the more interested she became.

By sheer accident, Kang-hoo had been dropped into a real shortcut.

No matter how he reassessed it, this was Yun Cheol’s base.

At worst, he could use teleport as an emergency escape to the base camp outside the liberation area.

With one solid insurance policy in place, it seemed acceptable to gamble a more aggressive move inside.

Originally, Kang-hoo’s first plan had been to target Yun Cheol from the rear, quietly, while Yun Cheol moved into an all-out war with Cheonhye.

But since he had directly entered a stronghold that was normally hard to infiltrate, things became simpler.

He just had to find Yun Cheol and kill him.

The process wouldn’t be easy, but he could build the method from here.

First, he hid himself with Stealth.

Delaying detection for as long as possible was the top priority.

Then— two hunters who looked like Koma members were smoking together and talking a block away.

Even though this seemed like the inside of a building underground, they smoked without a care, as if they had nothing to worry about.

Kang-hoo enhanced his hearing and focused all his attention on their quiet conversation.

“The boss is still fooling around on the 5th floor? What a horny bastard. It’s a war and he still wants to do that?”

“Dunno. Sounds like he called a bunch again. They said he’s coming down to the lobby soon.”

“Called again? He’s already got some inside and he’s calling more girls to play with? It’s not even evening and he’s going another round?”

“I don’t know, fuck. They said he only picked pretty ones. Let’s go up and see. At least we can look. You think it’s easy for guys like us to see women?”

“Seriously, that bastard…… fine, finish this cigarette and we’ll go up and watch. Should be fun.”

“Heh heh heh. Wonder if any scraps fall our way. Boss is too greedy—always wants everything for himself.”

“Watch your mouth. Remember that guy who got caught talking shit? Boss shot him on the spot and blew off one of his legs.”

“Yeah. Gotta watch what we say.”

As if chased, the two members hurriedly finished their cigarettes and took the internal elevator up.

Listening to them, Kang-hoo fell briefly into thought.

Several strategies came to mind, but one especially plausible play surfaced.

Of course, the foremost condition was that he had to overcome his own disgust at himself.

But if he could get past the disgust, there might not be a skill better suited than this one right now.

‘Yeah. If I spill blood before I even get close, the next step up gets harder. Yun Cheol isn’t an idiot, and there’s no way the path will be smooth.’

Judging purely by strategic value, the first method that came to mind was effective.

In other words, it felt like the only way to enter Yun Cheol’s vicinity without bloodshed.

Kang-hoo quickly moved to the elevator, pressed the down button, and stood still.

He was currently on basement level 1, and the place he needed to go was basement level 5.

The two members had said “5th floor,” but Kang-hoo judged it couldn’t be aboveground.

The building might not even have five floors—and even if it did, Yun Cheol wouldn’t be lounging up there in comfort.

If he had any brains, he wouldn’t be drinking and enjoying women on the surface where he’d be easy to target.

Whiiir.

The elevator descended quickly.

A familiar chime rang—ding—and from inside came a rustling sound.

Someone was on it.

In the next instant—

Half by choice and half against it, Kang-hoo used a skill he had been saving—one he had never used even once until now.

Cross-dress.

A female-disguise skill.