Winner Takes All (1)

Takashi, who hurriedly returned home after finishing the recycling, looked for footage from the scene, but there was none.

There had been no gutsy “madman” with the nerve to casually record the situation in the middle of a fierce battlefield.

But there were quite a few eyewitness accounts, and he could watch a video reconstructed based on them.

It definitely had not been an ordinary situation.

Takashi belatedly continued speaking while connected to the other members in the voice room.

“Lee Ye-rin made the first move?”

-Yeah. She used her head well. She made it so Heuksaja couldn’t stand not taking the bait. She threw her own body out as bait, and they bit properly.

-Wow, Heuksaja are crazy bastards too, but Lee Ye-rin is really a crazy bitch as well.

-Takashi. But no matter how well Lee Ye-rin lured them in, isn’t this strategy useless if Shin Kang-hoo can’t finish it?

“That’s right. The person who made this tactic bloom properly was Kang-hoo. Without Kang-hoo, they couldn’t even have started.”

-That’s what I’m saying.

“How on earth did this composition come out…….”

Takashi tilted his head repeatedly while looking at the screen that visualized the reconstructed situation at the scene.

Simulating one situation in multiple branches was Takashi’s long-time hobby and strength.

Since he always enjoyed calculating various possible outcomes, drawing up virtual battles was also easy.

However, with this assassination of the Gwak Hyeong-su–Gwak Hyeong-seok brothers, he could not even get a sense of how Kang-hoo had succeeded.

It was an unreasonable assassination that he would not even have attempted. Even if there were well-known assassin skills.

“The battle time wasn’t even that long…… If he wanted to end the battle in barely a dozen seconds, every exchange had to be a picture where Gwak Hyeong-su and Gwak Hyeong-seok kept having their blind spots stabbed, didn’t it?”

The only possibility that came to mind was exactly that one.

To summarize, it was like this.

In every situation where the battle unfolded, the two brothers had lost the battle of calculations to Kang-hoo “entirely.”

That was why they died without even having time to do anything properly. To the point that they had not even had time to use their items’ protective options.

-Your friend is really amazing! Who would have thought a mutation like that would come out of Korea, which was called a wasteland for assassins?

-I admit it this time too. I’m not trying to praise the Heuksaja guys by saying they were great, but Shin Kang-hoo really took those two down cleanly. Rumors about this are going to spread a lot from now on.

-Come to think of it, Takashi, you said you and Shin Kang-hoo were going into a dungeon together soon. I’m getting seriously excited?

Seeing the Takashi Family’s reaction, which was entirely full of praise, strength also went firmly into Takashi’s shoulders as someone who had Kang-hoo as a friend.

How should he put it? It felt like he had perfectly proved that his eye for people had not been wrong. There was pride.

As expected, Kang-hoo was Kang-hoo.

Takashi was certain.

This incident had not been luck following Kang-hoo, but a beautiful picture designed from the very beginning.

Takashi was pleased by the fact that he, too, was tied together within the circle of fate belonging to such a guy.

A dungeon he had not yet gone to.

But his chest already fluttered as if he were going together with Kang-hoo. Preparations were proceeding well.

“Yeah. Once the preparations are all finished, we’ll see Kang-hoo soon. The two guys who’ll go with us this time should just know they’re lucky. You’ll know when you meet him. His true value!”

A smile filled Takashi’s lips as he spoke with emphasis.

He wanted to meet Kang-hoo quickly. And he definitely wanted to hear the behind-the-scenes story of this battle.

It seemed there would be many interesting stories for which popcorn, nachos, and cola would not be enough.

The intensive care unit.

Kang Dong-hyun, who had undergone emergency surgery at a hospital under Eclipse, was recovering.

It had been a major surgery serious enough that all of the hospital’s core medical staff had to rush in.

The doctors praised Kang Dong-hyun’s superhuman strength, saying that even while suffering fatal injuries, he had contacted his subordinates at the scene and somehow endured.

Of course, given the hospital’s financial structure, where Eclipse’s support was essential, there was a great deal of flattery mixed into those words.

But it was also true that Kang Dong-hyun had endured in the worst situation, where it would not have been strange if he had died.

He had passed the crisis of death, but Kang Dong-hyun had not awakened yet.

According to the doctors, from now on it depended on Kang Dong-hyun himself.

Whether he would open his eyes, wake up, and recover, or fail to wake up and fall into a long, long sleep, was his fate.

“Brother Jeong-wan! Are we supposed to just stay like this? We have to catch that bastard Shin Kang-hoo right now, break his bones, peel off his flesh piece by piece, and kill him!”

Bang!

Cheon Seung-ho’s fist, filled with rage, struck the inner wall of the hospital room.

Perhaps because this kind of thing happened from time to time, the inside of the intensive care unit was finished with thicker walls than other places.

Since it was a hospital operated by Eclipse, outsiders absolutely could not enter the hospital.

For that reason, even though it was a spacious intensive care unit, Kang Dong-hyun was the only patient there. There was no particular need to care about others watching.

At Cheon Seung-ho’s violent reaction, Son Yun-a’s gaze turned toward Im Jeong-wan.

Her true feelings were no different from Cheon Seung-ho’s, but in the current situation, the authority to decide lay with Im Jeong-wan.

Of course, Kang Tae-yang, the official leader, existed, but to them, Kang Tae-yang was not a new lord.

Their lord was still Kang Dong-hyun.

They thought Kang Tae-yang was nothing more than a puppet president brought in and planted by Casey Rex from outside.

“Seung-ho, stop it.”

“Brother, aren’t you angry?”

“I am angry.”

“Then why are you standing blankly in the intensive care unit like a wooden doll? If we gather the guys, we can catch one Shin Kang-hoo!”

Even at Cheon Seung-ho’s violent reaction, Im Jeong-wan’s expression did not change. Rather, he even looked calm.

He shook his head.

“Didn’t you hear the news about Heuksaja? Both Gwak Hyeong-su and Gwak Hyeong-seok were taken down by Shin Kang-hoo. Don’t you know what that means?”

“What does it mean?”

“Gwak Hyeong-su and Gwak Hyeong-seok once fought the leader before. At that time, those two pushed the leader as if they were not two people, but three, and until the fight was forcibly interrupted midway, the leader couldn’t escape inferiority. That’s how much stronger those bastards are when there are two of them than when there’s one.”

“…….”

“The brothers who were said to be invincible together died after being pierced through by one Shin Kang-hoo, even with dozens of escorts. Do you really think a different result will come out if the three of us go? Speak coldly.”

“……Fuck. Fuck! Fucking shit!”

Cheon Seung-ho’s expression twisted as far as it could twist as he spewed curses. It was to the point that calling it rotten seemed fitting.

Expressing extreme rage paradoxically also meant he was perceiving the situation coldly.

Im Jeong-wan, Cheon Seung-ho, and Son Yun-a already knew. They had felt it enough. What was impossible was impossible.

“Shin Kang-hoo, that bastard is a genius of assassination. Even among our Eclipse executives, the number officially killed by him alone is four. Cha So-hee, Jin Hyo-young, Go Gyeong-pyo, Jo Hwan-seong. The leader’s name almost got added to that. This much disgrace is enough.”

“Hooah……. Are you saying we really have to accept this?”

“The new leader’s direction is correct. Cheong-an, Heuksaja, and us too. Because we were too absorbed in Daejeon, we lost opportunities to expand and opportunities to strengthen our forces internally. Now we have to change.”

“How do we have to change?”

“Like Myeongga Guild, which moved its base to Gangwon-do and is expanding its forces with unstoppable momentum. We, too, now need to look somewhere other than Daejeon.”

Im Jeong-wan’s cold judgment.

No one said it aloud, but they were all thinking it inwardly. Kang Dong-hyun’s era was over now.

The fact that Kang Dong-hyun, who had been praised as undefeated and invincible, had been one-sidedly defeated by Kang-hoo carried great implications.

The hierarchy had changed.

Kang Dong-hyun was no longer an existence that reigned over Shin Kang-hoo like a great mountain. He was merely past glory.

Shin Kang-hoo had even killed Heuksaja’s leaders with his own hands. Not one, but two of them.

Would a guy like that really die against “lackeys” like them? The possibility converged to zero.

Because Im Jeong-wan had been considered Kang Dong-hyun’s number one trusted subordinate more than anyone else, the meaning behind his words was heavy.

Soon, Cheon Seung-ho and Son Yun-a lowered their heads.

Shin Kang-hoo, who had once been nothing more than a level 10 trash hunter working in the mana stone mine of Cheongmyeong Detention Center.

Such a man had now become a Grim Reaper who could take their lives whenever he wanted.

They had to throw away their petty pride. If they wanted to preserve their lives, it was right to curl up tightly.

They absolutely had to do so.

Because there would be no more foolish way to commit suicide in the world than facing Shin Kang-hoo one-on-one out of pointless stubbornness.

The rooftop of a building that looked clearly down over downtown Daejeon.

Kang-hoo was sitting on the railing of the quiet rooftop, where no one interfered with him.

The snacks and canned coffee he had set beside him as side dishes were now just about half-empty.

He was observing the battle situation.

The Cheong-an Mercenary Corps’ major counterattack had begun, and bloody mop-up battles were unfolding here and there.

Until just a short while ago, the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps had been the defender and the side holding the fortress, but now they had become the attacker.

On the other hand, the reactions of the Heuksaja hunters, who had not received proper orders, were all different.

Some fled, some faced them with sheer evil and grit, and some begged for their lives through surrender.

No matter what form Heuksaja’s response took, the conclusion was the same. They were repeating defeat.

Heuksaja, which had lost both leaders at the same time, became a rabble. It had been that way from the start, but that tendency became even more severe.

And Lee Ye-rin, who had declared that there would be no compromise at all with Heuksaja, did not put any mercy into their treatment.

Whether they fled, fought back, or surrendered. The result was the same: death. There were no exceptions.

Meanwhile.

Through Huntergram news, Kang-hoo confirmed that Eclipse had suddenly occupied three dungeons today.

The places they had targeted were not within the sphere of influence of Heuksaja or the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps.

They were located in Boksu-myeon, Geumsan County, Chungcheongnam-do; in other words, a location one could reach by advancing south from Daejeon.

There was no regional hegemonic force there, and it was a place managed by a small neutral guild.

In the big picture, they had struck a guild that supplied mana stones to Eclipse, so it was no different from striking an ally.

But they had ignored such a cooperative relationship and pacified and integrated the force.

After all, directly mining through the organization would be more profitable than receiving mana stones and paying compensation.

The small neutral guild had no particular supporting or backing force, so there was almost no public interest.

Naturally, there was also no force that would raise its voice to condemn or oppose a “small-scale war” and annexation of this degree.

“Kang Dong-hyun has disappeared, but…… Eclipse actually feels upgraded. They know how to hide their claws.”

Kang-hoo found the cold and rational Kang Tae-yang more troublesome than the impulsive and emotional Kang Dong-hyun.

The saying that a younger brother could not surpass his older brother seemed to fit the Kang Tae-yang–Kang Dong-hyun brothers perfectly.

“Anyway, it looks like it’ll take at least a few days for this situation to be sorted out. It’s not a fight between alley bosses, after all.”

Kang-hoo turned his eyes away from the battlefield, where nothing in particular would change.

From now on, it was an area that depended purely on the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps’ capabilities.

The request he had contracted one-on-one with Lee Ye-rin had long since been achieved. Because he had killed Gwak Hyeong-seok and Gwak Hyeong-su.

However, the situation had to be neatly settled for the negotiations with Lee Ye-rin and the final wrap-up to be clean as well.

He did not particularly want to hurry the settlement. And he also thought there was a need to wait for things to simmer appropriately.

Because the closer victory drew before her eyes, the deeper Lee Ye-rin’s gratitude and appreciation toward him would become.

Was this the leisure of the victor?

Kang-hoo had nothing to rush.