Chapter 372 (1/2)
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The Hungry Guild.
This guild that operated mainly in the American continents was, in reality, better known as a terrorist organization.
The reason for an awakener ending up as a criminal was fairly simple: they might possess a powerful ability, but they also didn’t want to risk the dangers.
Whether a dungeon raid was a major or a minor one, some degree of danger would always exist. No matter how good an individual was as an awakener, oftentimes, that person would lose their life in vain simply by letting down their guard or making a little mistake somewhere.
Raiding a dungeon was a dangerous business. However, criminal activities including acts of terror were a bit different. Such things were far safer than raiding dungeons, and one could earn a bigger payout much easier as well.
“This is what I’m talking about!”
An Argentinian A-rank awakener, Ginovali, lightly tossed up a small bar of gold he held in his hand.
Clang, tumble—
The gold bar landed on the large pile of accessories and pieces of jewelry and made a clean metallic noise. Ginovali stared at that with a deeply satisfied expression.
These riches were a result of emptying every single jewelry store found in the city. Just these things alone should amount to tens of millions of dollars in total.
Of course, he and his group didn’t cause this commotion just to rob this pitiful little amount. Their real goal was something else.
“One hundred thousand dollars per hostage and we secured 11,150 hostages. In total, 1.115 billion dollars.”
A truly astronomical sum, indeed.
Once they successfully pull off this job, they would be earning closer to 30 million dollars per person, and when that happened, none of them would have to worry about money for the rest of their lives.
Ginovali chuckled, “This is wonderful. Wonderful, I say.”
“Oh, so it’s wonderful now, isn’t it?” A voice suddenly came from right behind Ginovali.
He jumped up in shock and tried to turn his head, but right at that moment, a sword was thrust against his neck, and he froze up stiff on the spot.
“W—who the hell are you?”
“Rather than finding out who I am, isn’t the fact that a sword was pressing against your neck more important? Wouldn’t you agree?”
Gulp—
Ginovali hurriedly swallowed back his saliva.
He felt a chill run down his spine. Although he didn’t sense the other party’s murderous intent, this would be his first time letting an enemy get close enough to place a blade on his neck. As such, he couldn’t help but get nervous.
“Wait a minute. This voice, where have I…?” Ginovali mulled over this for a minute before gasping out in shock. “Kim Su-hyeun?!”
“You recognized me pretty quickly.”
“Anyone living on this planet who doesn’t recognize you is the strange one, mister. Goddammit! To think that it’s you who showed up today.”
Ginovali had been entertaining the idea of suddenly activating his skill to fight back, but now, he chose to raise both of his hands high to reveal his lack of desire to resist.
His opponent today was none other than Kim Su-hyeun, so Ginovali determined that there was no point in even thinking about resisting.
“What do you want? Why are you pointing your sword at my throat, anyway? If you wanted to subdue me, you could’ve just killed me or knocked me out. I’m guessing you want something from me?”
“The priority is to rescue the hostages.”
“That’s going to be very difficult. Even if it’s you, it’d be tough to rescue every single hostage in ten separate locations, now wouldn’t it?”
Despite having both of his hands up in the air and a sword pressed against his neck, Ginovali didn’t look all that scared right now.
His reasoning was pretty simple.
“To you, people’s lives are the most important thing. Isn’t that true?”
He was confident that Su-hyeun’s personality wasn’t callous enough to forsake the hostages, and that’s why he figured that he wouldn’t lose his head today despite a sword being pressed against his neck.
“If you wish to rescue the hostages, you better get this sword away from me, buddy. If you don’t, as per our guild’s regulations, we’ll have to start killing hostages one by one.”
“Sounds like you’re mistaken about something here.”
Shu-wuk—
Su-hyeun withdrew the from Ginovali’s neck.
In all honesty, there was not much difference in whether the sword was placed against this fool’s neck or not. Su-hyeun was confident of chopping off Ginovali’s head whenever he wanted to.
“The reason why I came here for you is that you’re the top dog in this place. Meaning, no one here knows more than you.”
“What do you mean, I know more?”
“I need information. You see, I was thinking of completely uprooting your Hungry Guild just like how I’ve done with the Dump Guild since an opportunity presented itself like this,” Su-hyeun replied in an unconcerned tone.
However, the content of his words would never be described as light-hearted. The Hungry Guild was reviled as one of the worst terrorism-related awakener guilds out there, after all.
“What the f*ck is this as*hole even talking about?” Ginovali thought.
Shouldn’t the safety of the hostages take precedence here no matter what?
Ginovali began wondering if he had figured Su-hyeun out wrongly, and thick sweat drops streamed down his face. If the latter didn’t really care much about the safety of the hostages, then without a doubt, all of the Hungry Guild members would be as good as dead before long.
“And another thing. You’re mistaken about something else here. I didn’t come here because of the safety of the hostages, you know,” said Su-hyeun.
“What was that?”
Grab—
Su-hyeun abruptly grabbed the scruff of Ginovali’s neck and began dragging him away.
“Come outside for a sec, okay?”
Clunk—
Ginovali gasped and struggled for breath at Su-hyeun’s sheer hand strength gripping onto his neck. He got forcibly dragged outside the building he was in.
Tumble, crash—
Keo-heok, keok…
Su-hyeun tossed Ginovali to the side. The latter tumbled and rolled on the ground before coming to a stop, and then while grasping at his neck, he struggled for some air.
“You—you, what are you trying to…?”
Ginovali finally managed to control his rough panting and raised his head to stare at Su-hyeun, but it was also at that very moment that the Argentinian’s eyes caught onto a bizarre phenomenon taking place in the skies overhead.
“A magic circle?”
“Right. I had to work hard to create that. I mean, it was my first time drawing magic lines in the sky, after all. But I learned a lot today.”
Vuoo-woong—