Chapter 13
“Whoa...”
Baek Je-jung couldn’t speak.
One man had beaten all three of them alone.
It hadn’t even been a desperate fight.
He had literally toyed with them.
Were those guys really that weak?
There was no way.
They had fought monsters perfectly well.
Je-jung had watched them from directly behind.
He knew their skill wasn’t bad.
He said he was E-rank.
Was he really E-rank?
Je-jung had seen E-rank Hunters a few times before.
But he had never seen a fight like this.
That wasn’t even a proper fight. It was more like... an adult fighting children...
Did that man simply have an overwhelming number of Runes?
If he had absorbed hundreds of E-rank Runes, then maybe it made sense.
The power of Runes really is incredible...
Once again, just like back in the Grassland Field, Baek Je-jung felt the overwhelming power of Runes.
“Are you okay?”
At that moment, Hyeon-jun approached.
Je-jung looked up.
The moment he saw Hyeon-jun’s face properly, his mouth froze.
Th-That’s the guy from back then!
The man from the Grassland.
The person who had pushed Je-jung deeper into Hunter life when he had originally planned to simply have fun and chase romance.
Now that he saw him up close, there was no mistake.
He never imagined they would meet again.
Especially not here.
“I-I’m sorry.”
Baek Je-jung lowered his forehead to the ground.
It was an apology for resenting him a few moments ago.
“Huh?”
Hyeon-jun tilted his head.
He had no idea what Je-jung meant.
And Je-jung couldn’t exactly explain it.
So he simply kept his head down.
“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for, but I’ll untie you first.”
Hyeon-jun used Kim Seok-dae’s dagger to cut the ropes binding Je-jung’s hands and feet.
“Ugh.”
“Stand up slowly.”
With Hyeon-jun’s help, Je-jung got to his feet.
Even though he hadn’t been tied for very long, he felt dizzy.
“I think they hit you in the back of the head. The blood has already dried, but just in case, go to a hospital after we get out.”
“Thank you...”
“Go outside and rest. I need to clean this place up.”
Hyeon-jun sent Je-jung outside, then inspected the cave.
There were no traces of the Green-Mane Tyrant.
“They must’ve already killed it.”
The Tyrant took several days to respawn.
Apparently, they had killed it and used the cave as a base until it returned.
“How many people did they kill here?”
Signs of corpses remained throughout the cave.
There seemed to be at least ten victims.
If they regularly cleaned the place, the actual number could be far higher.
“Pieces of trash.”
Rope also lay in one corner.
Hyeon-jun picked it up.
He intended to tie the three criminals and drag them outside.
“If I followed my feelings, I’d turn them into corpses right here...”
But then he would be no different from them.
There was no need to stain his hands with blood.
The law would be more than enough.
People guilty of Rune Killing would probably never return to society.
That was the kind of crime it was.
“Still, I need solid evidence.”
The man he rescued could testify.
But that alone might not be enough to prove they had committed Rune Killing before.
“This definitely wasn’t their first time.”
Their methods were too practiced.
If he searched carefully, he would certainly find something.
Hyeon-jun spent time thoroughly searching all three people.
He removed their equipment and confiscated all their weapons.
They weren’t carrying much directly.
But Kim Seok-dae’s backpack contained a huge amount of items.
Mana Stones.
Monster materials.
Dozens of Runes.
And finally...
Soul Traces.
“Found it.”
Three Soul Traces lay carelessly inside the bag.
These would prove their crimes.
“It’d be even better if we could identify the owners...”
Unfortunately, that was probably impossible.
There were too many dead people.
And no IDs remained.
There was no practical way to determine exactly who the traces belonged to.
“These Runes probably came from processing traces too.”
It seemed they had been collecting them to sell in bulk.
Hyeon-jun tightly bound all three criminals with rope.
Then he checked the Runes.
“How much is all of this worth?”
There were clearly dozens of them.
It almost felt painful that all of it would have to be submitted to police as criminal proceeds.
“Huh?”
While sorting through the Runes, Hyeon-jun found one with a different color among the many F-rank ones.
He picked it up.
A gray Rune.
The color of E-rank.
And unlike ordinary Runes, far more Rune Characters covered its surface.
“A-Skill Rune.”
A Rune that granted a Skill simply by being absorbed.
Skill Runes could be obtained at a certain probability from Other Spaces other than ordinary hunting grounds.
And they were extremely expensive.
Because of their rarity, even the lowest-grade ones sold for high prices.
“How do these bastards have one?”
Skill Runes started at E-rank at minimum.
There was no way these people had killed an E-rank Awakener.
So where had it come from?
“Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
Hyeon-jun examined the Rune with a pounding heart.
This was the first time in his life he had seen a Skill Rune in person.
“What Skill is it?”
He wanted to check.
Was there no way?
After thinking for a while, Hyeon-jun suddenly remembered Copy.
“Come to think of it, my daily copies increased.”
After reaching E-rank, his daily uses had increased to eleven.
That morning, out of habit, he had only copied ten Agility Runes before absorbing them.
“And now I can copy E-rank items too. So checking it isn’t a problem. Wait... If that works, couldn’t I sell Skill Runes?”
Until now, he had completely forgotten about Skill Runes because he had assumed he couldn’t copy them anyway.
Hyeon-jun’s heart began pounding for a different reason.
“All I need is one E-rank Skill Rune worth at least two million won.”
He could copy the Skill Rune and sell the copies.
Then use the money to buy Stat Runes.
That would let him earn money and grow stronger at the same time.
“First, I need to confirm that copying really works.”
Hyeon-jun calmed himself and activated his skill.
[Would you like to copy <E-rank Skill Rune – Magic Arrow>?]
“I-It works.”
Copy itself was possible.
But there was still one major obstacle.
The twenty-four-hour limit wasn’t the issue.
If he lowered the price enough, the copied Rune would easily sell within twenty-four hours.
The real problem was only one thing.
Would a copied Rune work normally if someone other than Hyeon-jun absorbed it?
“How do I test that?”
“Ughhh...”
Hyeon-jun naturally turned toward the sound.
