Kim Jin-chul, the team leader of the Hunter Association’s Special Crimes Investigation Team, took a deep drag from his cigarette with a stern expression.
*Ha…*
The cigarette smoke he exhaled scattered hazily, disappearing into the air.
The entrance to the gloomy alleyway was perfectly cordoned off with control tape.
The pungent smell of blood, stinging his nostrils, mixed with the antiseptic smell, making him feel nauseous.
It was a grim scene.
“Team Leader, you’re here. The Scene Analysis Team’s initial report is ready.”
A young investigator, swallowing nervously, approached and reported. The investigator’s face was pale, seemingly still reeling from the shock of the sight before him.
Kim Jin-chul nodded wordlessly.
“There are four victims in total. Three males and one female. The males have been dismembered by something sharp. Based on the cross-sections, it’s presumed to be a mana-sensitive knife or wire…”
The investigator paused for a moment and turned to the next page of the report.
“Given how clean the cuts are, the analysis team’s opinion is that it was likely the work of a villain, not a monster.”
“Tsk.”
Kim Jin-chul’s expression hardened as he heard the report.
If it had been a monster’s doing, the investigation would have been concluded easily, but a villain’s involvement made it a headache. Awakened criminals, unlike ordinary offenders, could lead to increasing casualties if not apprehended within the golden hour. Furthermore, since they didn’t know what abilities the villains possessed, the investigation had a high chance of being delayed. Indeed, with the world changing to this extent, there were quite a few cases that had become long-term unsolved mysteries.
“What was the relationship between the male and female victims?”
“That… is a bit complicated.”
“Complicated?”
Kim Jin-chul asked again, pulling out a new cigarette and placing it in his mouth. Without lighting it, he walked towards the innermost part of the alleyway. The core of this case lay there.
The female victim lay slumped in the furthest corner. Seeing her, even the veteran leader Kim Jin-chul’s brow furrowed.
“Yes, as you can see, the female victim’s facial skin…”
The investigator couldn’t continue and bit his lip. Like peeling off a mask, her facial skin had been meticulously removed and was gone. It wasn’t the result of a violent frenzy of rage or hatred. It was a clean incision, as if made by a skilled surgeon, without a single error. Even both eye sockets were empty. The eyeballs had been removed.
This made the corpse look even more bizarre and horrific.
“Circumstantially, it appears the group of men approached the woman first. And then a third party intervened.”
In other words, the men and the woman were not acquainted.
*‘And her clothes are torn.’*
Kim Jin-chul’s gaze shifted to the female victim’s clothing. The marks of her desperately clutching her collar were clear.
*‘Robbery or attempted sexual assault? And a third party got involved.’*
Feeling his mind become complicated, he reconstructed the events.
*‘A hero burning with justice saved a woman and punished the perpetrators?’*
That was absolutely not it. If that were the case, there would be no reason for her to be killed.
Hypotheses tumbled one after another, but none fit. If a third party was the culprit who killed the men, why did they kill the woman as well? And not just kill her, but peel off her facial skin and remove her eyeballs?
This wasn’t a simple murder. It was definitely not driven by anger or resentment. The perpetrator’s actions felt like cold, calculated purpose, not passionate emotion.
Only then did Kim Jin-chul light his cigarette. Watching the tip burn, he murmured softly,
“It’s like a hunter targeting prey.”
It was a hunt where the hunter skinned the part they liked best as a trophy.
“Still, this is going to be a headache.”
There was something more important than this case. That was the activities of the organization called Seongjeonghoe. Those guys had recently destroyed the Divine Guild and a black market, killing all the customers inside.
*‘Could this case also be related to Seongjeonghoe?’*
Kim Jin-chul let out a lonely puff of cigarette smoke into the air.
***
“Hoo… Hoohuhu.”
Vestera hummed a strange, song-like tune as she stood before her workbench. Her fingers gently stroked a wooden doll with the texture of delicately carved white porcelain. Vestera had carved it from wood that Azmo had obtained. The doll’s face was still a blank slate. However, the curves of its body and the proportions of its limbs were so perfect and beautiful that one would believe it was a living human.
“Beautiful, truly beautiful!”
Vestera murmured, her button-like eyes sparkling. Her gaze drifted to a box on the workbench. Inside the box lay a woman’s facial skin, neatly laid out and preserved, and two eyeballs contained in a special solution. These were the ‘finest ingredients’ she had harvested from the alleyway.
“Now it’s time to imbue it with eternal beauty.”
Dozens of transparent threads filled with mana extended from Vestera’s fingertips. One thread carefully lifted the facial skin. Other threads spread a thin layer of sticky substance onto the face of the wooden doll.
*Swish—*
The skin settled onto the doll’s face without a single error. The threads Vestera had drawn began to move rapidly along the edges of the skin. Where the threads passed, the skin seamlessly rejoined as if it had never been separated, erasing the boundary between wood and flesh.
Next were the eyes. The threads picked up the two eyeballs from the solution. Vestera precisely fitted the retrieved eyeballs into the doll’s empty eye sockets.
*Plink.*
The left eye was fitted into the doll’s face.
*Plink.*
The remaining right eye found its place with a sound. With the eyeballs fitted, the doll’s face seemed to come alive. It was no longer just a wooden doll. It was a living-like face, immortalizing the terrified last expression of a woman. It looked as if it could blink and scream at any moment.
“Perfect! This is eternal beauty. A perfect being that will never age or change.”
Vestera carefully cradled the completed doll and placed it in the center. Then, she extended dozens of transparent threads from her fingertips. The threads, like self-willed serpents, swam through the air and burrowed into every nook and cranny of the doll’s body. They were intricately connected to major joints like the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, knees, and ankles.
“Now, my dear, show me your first dance.”
Vestera’s fingers began to move as smoothly as playing a piano. At her gesture, the doll’s stiffened arm slowly rose.
*Creak— Crack—*
The sound of new joints meshing echoed in the workshop. The doll stood on its tiptoes like a delicate ballerina and gracefully tilted its head. Its movements were completely contrary to the terrified expression the woman had in life. This dissonance created a bizarre beauty.
Vestera’s hand movements gradually became faster and more passionate. The doll began to dance wildly according to her will. It trembled as if sobbing in grief, then spread its arms wide in ecstasy. At times, it clawed at the air with a furious gesture. It was a mad puppet show, compressing a lifetime of human emotions into a few minutes.
The puppet show reached its climax. The doll stretched its arms towards the sky in a final pleading posture. In that pose, all movement abruptly stopped.
Silence descended. Then, from a dark corner of the dungeon, applause erupted.
*Clap, clap, clap—*
“Truly a marvelous sight.”
Azmo revealed himself. He had watched Vestera’s puppet show with an expression of admiration. His eyes held not just simple interest, but even respect for the artist. Moving the corpses of the dead was something even a Lich could do. However, creating inanimate objects to be so lifelike was a truly admirable talent.
Vestera, as if pleased by Azmo’s praise, tilted her head, her stitched mouth widening even more grotesquely.
“Your compliments are too kind, Lord Azmo.”
Her voice was filled with pride.
“This child is no longer just a doll. It is my perfect understanding and execution of my will, my clone, and my greatest masterpiece.”
At Vestera’s beckoning, the doll, frozen in mid-air, slowly moved towards Azmo. The doll elegantly knelt and lowered its head, showing deference like a living maid. Azmo smiled with satisfaction at this strange harmony—the perfect obedience displayed with a terrified face.
“Good. I like that ability very much.”
Azmo’s gaze lingered on the doll’s face for a moment.
“Then, wouldn’t it be fitting to give this masterpiece a name?”
Vestera seemed to ponder for a moment, then her button-like eyes sparkling, she replied.
“This child’s name shall be… Lillian.”
She whispered kindly to the doll. At Vestera’s words, the doll, now called Lillian, slowly nodded. It was the birth of a new being, neither monster nor human.
“Indeed. Then I shall give you an order now.”
Azmo said. Currently, Azmo’s dungeon company was operated solely by him and Betta. While some Incubuses ran general stores, there was still a shortage of staff. Moreover, Kang Do-yoon, who managed the black market, was dead. Azmo intended to appoint Vestera as the manager of the black market. If she could take over the black market in place of the former human Kang Do-yoon, they could expect more diverse activities.
***
“Hmm.”
A man stood before the black market, smiling. This man was the one who had recently ended Kang Do-yoon’s life. The organization he belonged to was Seongjeonghoe, which claimed to preserve the ‘purity of humanity’ as its cause. They argued that awakened beings were a contaminant that defiled humanity, but their greatest hypocrisy was that the core members of their organization were themselves powerful awakened beings. In other words, the man standing before the black market was also a Hunter.
“That’s strange. I thought it would take some time, but I didn’t expect it to recover this quickly.”
The man muttered, stroking his chin. He had killed Kang Do-yoon, the owner of the black market that sold Terrif potions. Of course, he had suspected there would be a backer behind Kang Do-yoon, but he hadn’t been able to identify them. He expected the black market to collapse, but it had reopened as if nothing had happened in just a few days. However, this was even better for the man.
“This presents a good opportunity.”
The man’s lips curled into a sinister grin. The fact that the black market had recovered so quickly could also be seen as evidence that the hidden backer had surfaced and started to act directly. He felt the anticipation of possibly discovering not just a rat, but the entire nest.
“Perhaps I might even obtain Terrif potions this time.”
The man signaled to two men waiting in the darkness behind him.
“Let’s begin.”
It was time to drench the black market in blood once more.
