[Hermes’ Almighty Anklet (Item)
Effect: Upgrades Agility by one class.
Physical Damage Absorption: 0/6500
Magical Damage Absorption: 4000/4000
Class: A
Duration: 1 hour
Cooldown time: 1 day]
If I had this item in the past, my fate would have been different. During that period, I was only able to upgrade my Sense to S-class despite my efforts in trying to increase my other stats.
After I put on the anklet, the Eighth Virtue took off her earrings, which were also named after a God.
[Avalokitesvara Guan Yin[1]’s Emblem (Item)
Effect: Upgrades skills and traits with healing attributes by one class. Reduces the cooldown time of the healing skills by thirty percent.
Physical Damage Absorption: 0/7000
Magical Damage Absorption: 3000/3000
Class: A]
This item’s effect wasn’t constricted by any duration or cooldown, meaning the user could use this item indefinitely and permanently. Since it was applicable to every healing skill rather than just one, it was the highest-class item for healers.
The Suzuki sister had opened a master box. It was impossible for them to open it with their current dungeon points, so they must have completed an A-class daily quest… One of the reasons why I skipped my childhood tutorial was because I didn’t have such a quest scheduled during that period. The System was obviously favoring them.
“Can you track how they received these items?” I asked the controlled Eight Virtue.
“No.”
“Okay, then wear it for now.”
Suzuki Chiharu, the Eighth Virtue, looked devastated after she was released from Woo Yeon-Hee’s Mind Control. Both of them could hear and see while Mind Control was in effect, so she knew what was happening to her and had noticed that we had taken away their precious items.
Chiharu quickly came to her senses and rushed toward her sister Ririka, then began sobbing while wiping the blood on Ririka’s face. However, I heard another crying sound next to her. It was Woo Yeon-Hee. She was not only shedding tears, but also staring at the sisters with a heartbroken face. I approached her, placed my hand on her shoulder, then whispered, “Wake up. Your trait Empathy has been activated, and that’s the only reason why you feel this way.”
“I know, but I can’t help it. My heart aches so much…”
Her expression was the exact mirror of Chiharu’s, and she buried her face in my chest as if she couldn’t stand to see them any longer. The Suzuki sisters must have cared about each other more than other siblings. Ordinary siblings usually didn’t pay much attention to each other and fought often, but the Suzukis seemed to be very close as they had gone through life and death together.
“Give it back.”
Chiharu was determined to get them back, and that was the last thing she said before she became unconscious.
Bbagak!
***
I cracked every Awakened’s legs, including the sisters’. Some of the yakuza woke up in a scream and swore at me, but at some point, they started begging.
“Yakuza. If you say a word from now on, you’ll be dead right away.”
Then, they became silent.
Fortunately, Woo Yeon-Hee had settled down. A few minutes ago, the side effect of Mind Control had reached its peak when I broke Ririka’s legs. Woo Yeon-Hee stopped me as she was more like Chiharu than herself. The knocked-out Awakened were quiet, but the rest were constantly groaning.
I looked around and noticed that the group members had diverse ethnicities. There were only four Asians including the sisters, and one of them had a Korean name. He was number seventy-one on the quest, and his name was Kim Hyo-Seob. The quest to eliminate him was set at F-class, and there was nothing significant about him other than his nationality. He tried using that to appeal to me, “Korean! I’m also Korean!”
His pronunciation and accent were accurate. One of his legs wasn’t functional as an arrow had pierced through it. When I trampled his other leg, he writhed in agony. Blood poured out as his muscles burst, and his leg bones broke into pieces like grains of sand. When he screamed, the other two Awakened made a desperate effort to run away in their tattered physical conditions.
Sheeeek-
Woo Yeon-Hee threw a dagger, and it penetrated their thighs.
“I should aim for the heart next time.”
She spoke in English. Her tone was cold, and her face was tense. However, that expression was obvious proof that she was in the most painful state. The Korean guy squeaked his voice as if he was begging me, “Ugh…ugh… They captured and brought me here. I didn’t want to be here.”
“Tell me more,” I replied.
“So… half a year ago… Ugh… I was kidnapped by the Yamaguchi Association. That was when I first saw her.”
He looked at Ririka, and I flicked the badge I took away from the yakuza in front of him.
“Yes, that’s right. The guy was Keuk Jin-Hoe, the direct secretary of the Yamaguchi chairman,” the Korean guy continued.
“Are you Korean-Japanese?” I questioned.
“I’m from Incheon[2]. Ugh… That woman’s sister heals… It hurts… It hurts that I’m going to die. Please. Please make her heal me. Please…”
“So you mean Suzuki Ririka is the gang leader, right?”
“Ask anyone here. No, those bastards will know the most,” he replied.
“I’m working on a black list right now, so you shouldn’t have told me a single lie. Tell me everything about what has happened up to this point.”
According to him, he was an ordinary convenience store part-timer. Six months ago, he was kidnapped by a Korean gangster and handed over to the Japanese yakuza. This was his second time attacking a dungeon.
“The dungeon in Kansai… Keuk… There were fifteen. We had succeeded in conquering it, but eight of us died and newbies replaced them a month ago.”
Oddly, I had not overlapped with them when I was targeting Japanese dungeons.
“Why haven’t you given up on the assassination quest?” I asked.
“The woman ordered me.”
“I see. Your name?”
“Huh?”
“What’s your name?” I questioned coldly.
“Shin Jun-Seob. Aaaaaargh!”
I stamped on his other leg as he lied to me.
“Kim…kim! Kim Hyo-Seob!” He cried.
It was too late. He started getting up and begging for mercy from behind my back, but when his eyes met mine, he had no choice but to shut up.
I moved on to the next guy, but he lied too. However, his description of the Seventh Virtue, Suzuki Ririka, overlapped with what Kim Hyo-Seob said. Woo Yeon-Hee looked at Ririka as if she couldn’t believe that Ririka was the boss of the biggest Japanese gang since she looked like an ordinary college girl. However, a solitary feeling swept across Woo Yeon-Hee’s face as if she had finally been convinced.
I woke up Ririka. She vomited blood to the side and glared at me with one eye that she could barely open.
“Everyone calls you a yakuza boss,” I said.
“Why? Am I not supposed to be a boss? You must have done much worse than me, you son of a bitch.”
Ririka flinched suddenly as she discovered that Chiharu was lying down in the pool of blood, not moving. Then, she slowly shifted her gaze toward Woo Yeon-Hee who was looking at her while sitting on a rock.
“Chiaruuuuuu! You guys are going to be punished by Heaven!”
Ririka didn’t care about the fact that she was naked. From her perspective, we were the evils, and she was an innocent victim. Meanwhile, there were no tattoos on either Ririka’s or Suzuki’s bodies, which meant that they had dominated a gang instead of being born into one.
However, it was impossible to do this with an ordinary mindset. There must have been a trigger that forced them, and I doubted that it was the quest.
“Hey, the sixth chairman,” I said.
Finally, Ririka stopped looking around and fixed her glance on me.
“Shut the hell up. Screaming doesn’t help you with anything, and it just shortens both of your lifespans,” I continued.
“Chiharu…”
“If you had given up the quest, you wouldn’t have come this far.”
She snarled, “You…”
“Yes. The System mentioned me as a ‘threat to everyone,’ but that’s to you guys. The female chairman of the gang? Tsk. If you guys weren’t involved in a gang, we would have wrapped it up at this point. However, it seems like we have to see this to the bitter end.”
Seuk-
The ring enlarged into Youxia’s Scimitar in my hand. The intimidating blade was right above Ririka’s neck as if it would fall and immediately behead her. I swung it and stopped right in front of her neck, and Ririka closed her eyes reflexively. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and said, “Yamaguchi was a quest. You can kill me, but don’t kill Chiharu. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
I knew it. The System’s favoritism was serious.
“If the Yamaguchi bother you, just take it. Is that enough? You’ve already taken my anklet and Chiharu’s earrings, but are you still planning to even take our lives?”
Ririka was desperate.
“If you knew how precious your lives were, you should have treated others’ lives the same way. I’ll let you go painlessly,” I replied coldly.
“No…!” she shouted.
Keeping them alive was turning a blind eye to future trouble.
[You have completed the quest ‘Assassination(2).’]
[You have obtained a silver box as a reward for completing the quest.]
If the System had not sent me this notification message, I wouldn’t have been emotionally shaken. It had driven me to this situation, and all it did was talk about a silver box. I felt disgusted.
***
Blood dripped from Youxia’s Scimitar. Woo Yeon-Hee turned her head away when I sliced Ririka’s neck. Yakuza didn’t seem to have deep-rooted loyalty because no one cried even when their chairman died. The ones who lost their minds were the conscious Awakened as they thought the slaughter had finally begun after breaking their legs. Every time I took a step, they screamed for mercy. The next destination of the scimitar was Chiharu.
[You have completed the quest ‘Assassination(3).’]
Woo Yeon-Hee approached me.
“Seon-Hu.”
“Don’t say anything. This was meant to happen when the System created such quests.”
“No, it’s not that. We promised not to get hurt from this.”
“…”
Shit, I couldn’t hide my pain from her. Her word was a trigger as something exploded in me. The energy drained out from my body, and I couldn’t stand up straight even if I tried to support my weight with the scimitar.
Damn it. Have I gotten used to the peace in this era? Why am I wasting my emotions on those who tried to kill me?
The sorrow of the sisters could later turn into bitter resentment, killing me in the future. They would have harmed our family and friends with their gang. However, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the two sisters looked at each other.
I used Youxia’s Scimitar as a cane and leaned against it. My thoughts cleared up when I got myself together. The grief welling up from the corner of my heart wasn’t guilt because I didn’t regret it at all.
It was because I realized there could be two Systems. I had emphasized to Woo Yeon-Hee not to view the System as something bigger and grander. However, I was the one who was being sucked into the fucking idea that there were good and evil Systems, and the evil System was the one that made us have no choice but to kill each other… It had turned self-defense into murder, and the perpetrator into a victim. This made me weak.
I realized that the Eight Evils and the Eight Virtues had been born by assigning characteristics to the System and being selfish!
Seon-Hu. Seon-Hu! Hey! Don’t give the System a persona. You’ll be ruined from that moment. It doesn’t matter if there is one or more Systems. Nothing has been confirmed yet. It’s just an assumption! Just think about what you need to do. It’s time to kill those who need to be dead and save the others.
Srrrr.
I returned the scimitar to the ring. Anyway, the Seventh and Eighth Virtues were now also erased from history like the First Evil. The System had brought this up, and I now had to bear three of the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues’ roles.
I could do it. If I continued at this pace, I would be able to kill the Seven Demon Kings by myself…
1. The most famous Buddhist celestial being, also known as the Lord who looks down with compassion. ☜
2. A metropolitan city located in northwestern South Korea. It’s famous for having the largest international airport in Korea. ☜