Chapter 108
"It's been a while..."
With trembling hands, Hong Man-gi picked up a cup of makgeolli. As though making a toast, he poured some into the empty cup in front of Bellok.
The alcohol did not fill the cup. Instead, it flowed straight through and spilled onto the floor.
Even so, Bellok gave a bitter smile simply from smelling its aroma.
"What on earth... happened to you? How could someone like you end up..."
Bellok covered the hole in his abdomen with his enormous hand and calmly began to speak.
"Those snake-like bastards... They were hunting dogs sent by Cha Mu-jin."
His recollection took them back to a rainy night in the back alleys of the Shadow Market, not long ago.
It had been a night when the rain poured down just as heavily as it did today.
Bellok had finished a late dinner made from the leftover parts of the Hellfire Boar he had given Hong Man-gi.
He was just about to leave his hideout.
It had been a fairly pleasant day, and he had even enjoyed a moderate amount of alcohol.
But as he stepped through the red iron door of the market, his instincts detected murderous intent despite his drunkenness.
The marketplace, which would normally have been bustling with activity, was as silent as a graveyard.
There were no merchants calling out to customers, no drunkards, and not even a single rat.
Only the sound of the rain filled the silence.
"Come out. Stop hiding like a bunch of rats."
Bellok growled.
At that moment, dozens of shadows rose from the darkness simultaneously.
They were men wearing black suits and masks.
The Shadow Walkers, an assassination unit directly under the Hunter Association.
Unlike ordinary Hunters, they had been trained as killing machines with their emotions stripped away.
They carried specially designed Mana Suppression Handcuffs that could interrupt the flow of mana, along with what appeared to be small anti-personnel explosives.
"Gluttonous Bellok. You are hereby sentenced to immediate execution for illegally trading Class 1 prohibited items and violating the Association's security laws."
The man who appeared to be their leader delivered the sentence.
Bellok burst into loud laughter.
"Execution? Bwahahaha! Who the hell do you think you're executing? If you wanted to capture the great Bellok, you should have brought an entire army! And what have I done that's so terrible that I deserve to be executed? Huh?"
Bellok snorted and drew his enormous butcher's cleaver.
The imposing presence of an A-rank Hunter erupted from his body.
"I suppose I can take this as you picking a fight with me?"
Just then,
[Pewww!]
The snipers lying in ambush on every side simultaneously pulled their triggers.
But they had not fired ordinary bullets.
They had fired ampoules filled with highly concentrated mana suppression agents.
[Thud! Thud!]
The ampoules pierced Bellok's thick skin and lodged inside his body.
"Urgh...!"
In an instant, the mana flowing through his blood vessels stopped like a river blocked by a dam.
His strength began to drain away, and his vision grew blurry.
"Ugh... You... bastards...!"
Taking advantage of Bellok's unsteady movements, the Shadow Walkers charged at him like a pack of wolves.
Without his mana, Bellok was nothing more than an enormous lump of meat.
The assassins wrapped chains around his arms and legs to restrict his movements, then began cutting away his flesh piece by piece with their sharp daggers.
"KRAAAAAH!"
Bellok roared like a wounded beast and fought back.
He tore at their necks with his teeth and smashed their skulls with headbutts, struggling with everything he had.
Several Shadow Walkers lost their lives or suffered severe injuries from his desperate resistance.
Like the A-rank Hunter he was, Bellok fought fiercely with nothing but his raw physical strength.
But there were simply too many enemies.
Eventually, he reached his limit.
At last, Bellok collapsed.
Before killing him, the assassins confirmed that he had handed certain materials over to Hong Man-gi.
"Target secured. Transaction involving Flame Lizard's Tears confirmed."
Bellok muttered inwardly.
'So this was your real objective...'
At the final moment, the leader approached Bellok with an enormous spear.
"Team Leader Cha Mu-jin has a message for you. He hopes you enjoyed your meal."
[STAB!]
The spear pierced straight through Bellok's abdomen.
His internal organs ruptured, and the pain of his severed spine spread through his body.
Bellok collapsed, coughing up blood.
Cold rain poured down over his dying body.
The assassins did not even bother to retrieve his corpse.
They simply tossed it onto a pile of rubbish in the Shadow Market, like the discarded remains of a slaughtered animal, and disappeared.
They had left his body there so carelessly that it almost seemed as though they wanted someone to find it.
It was an utterly miserable and pitiful end for a man who had once been called the king of the back alleys.
After finishing his story, Bellok's soul looked at Hong Man-gi with empty eyes.
"That's how I died. Like something worth less than a dog. Me, the great Bellok."
His words were delivered in a dry voice, but unmistakable anger lay beneath them.
"...I'm sorry."
Hong Man-gi lowered his head.
He clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails dug into his palms.
Bellok had died because of him.
Because Hong Man-gi had selfishly gone looking for those materials.
"Sorry? Heh, heh... I didn't come here to receive an apology."
Bellok shook his head.
His gaze moved toward the gaping hole in his abdomen.
"It hurt. When that spear pierced my stomach, the pain was absolutely terrible. But..."
His expression twisted.
It was not because of the pain.
"There was something even harder to endure."
