Chapter 94

Chapter 94
Chapter: 94

Chapter Title: Waterfall Rendezvous

—

After giving it some thought, I didn’t hesitate to speak my mind.

“Just as I suspected, if you want to find people, you have to look for the landmarks.”

I mumbled the words while staring at the gargantuan waterfall in the distance, which was tirelessly pumping out water that shimmered with the colors of a rainbow. Its magnitude was easily on par with Niagara Falls. There was likely no corner of this place where it wasn’t a prominent part of the skyline.

Even if someone couldn’t see it right away, they’d eventually stumble upon it just by wandering. I simply needed to coordinate everyone to congregate at the northern edge of the falls.

Once I transmitted the instructions over the radio, I began making my way toward the water alongside Han Sang-ah and the group of hunters we had already confirmed to be the real deal.

“That’s pretty disgusting.”

The liquid plunging down from the heights wasn’t your typical H2O. It was a fluid saturated with hallucinogenic toxins, the kind of stuff you’d never encounter back on Earth.

“This place must look like a gold mine to a black market chemist. Don’t you think, pal?”

As we reached the north side of the falls, a voice drifted from behind me. I spun around to identify the speaker.

“State your name.”

“Jeong No-hoon. What about you?”

I didn’t give him a straight answer; instead, I tossed a question back at him.

“During your internship at Team Headhunter, what was the very first task you performed in the gym?”

“Cracking eggs. For crying out loud, is this Chan-seok or Sang-ah?”

“Yoo Chan-seok.”

At my reply, the guy let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.

“So the person standing next to you has to be Han Sang-ah, then?”

“Correct.”

Once Han Sang-ah confirmed her identity, Jeong No-hoon reached into his belongings and pulled something out, his expression full of doubt.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“An anion bracelet. Word on the street is they’re great for your physical well-being.”

Han Sang-ah didn’t miss a beat in responding to Jeong No-hoon.

“There is zero scientific validation that anions provide health benefits. By definition, anions are merely ions carrying a negative electrical charge. They aren’t a particular chemical compound or a secret ingredient—it’s just a term for the state of an atom.”

Han Sang-ah paused for a second to collect her thoughts before delivering the finishing blow.

“If you truly believe anions are medicinal, feel free to ingest some cyanide or slather it on your skin. That is also an anion.”

Jeong No-hoon immediately laughed, sounding relieved.

“Hah, that’s definitely the Han Sang-ah I know.”

“Both you and Yoo Chan-seok—how are you so certain about everyone else? You haven’t even bothered to grill me with personal questions.”

Jeong No-hoon acted as though it was a total mystery how we had verified Han Sang-ah so easily.

I didn’t feel like walking him through it.

“Regardless, that piece of jewelry is useless.”

“Is it? To be honest, it’s just a cheap, normal bracelet.”

He had fabricated the story just to see if she would react like the real Sang-ah. While we stood there talking, more hunters began to arrive at the rendezvous point one after another.

“There’s no reason for us to draw blades. Let’s just filter out the fakes all at once.”

I addressed the growing crowd of hunters.

“Filter them all at once?”

A basic general knowledge test. A few people in the group started murmuring after I spoke.

“What happens if someone is actually human but just sucks at trivia…?”

I shot a look of pure pity at the person who asked. What else could happen? They’d just have to face the consequences. Think of it as a penalty for lacking common sense.

In reality, I wasn’t planning on asking anything overly intellectual.

Aside from Adakawa Nanami, every hunter who had stepped into this Erosion Core was Korean. Therefore, I was going to use cultural touchstones that any local would be familiar with.

To keep things fair, I ordered everyone to wear blindfolds. There was no point in a test if they could just watch their neighbor and mimic their movements.

But first, I needed to pick out Adakawa Nanami.

“I’m looking for Adakawa Nanami. If that’s you, put your hand up.”

Four people raised their hands. Narrowing it down wasn’t a struggle—we had spent enough time together during this mission to know her quirks.

After a few targeted questions, I had the real one separated, and then I moved on to the main event: a high-stakes game of True or False.

“We’re starting. In a typical Korean eatery, a bowl of white rice usually costs about 2,000 won. Raise your right hand if that’s true, and your left if it’s false.”

If you didn’t realize that was a lie, you weren’t Korean. Honestly, if you ended up dead because of a question that simple, that was on you.

Even at those predatory restaurants hidden in tourist valleys, the price was usually capped at 1,000 won.

A place might try to skimp on the portion size, but charging more than 1,000? That business would go under in a week, or the patrons would stage a riot.

By repeating questions of this nature, I could prune the imposters—even the ones who were lucky guessers—in record time.

Hitting five 50/50 guesses in a row? Those are bad odds. I kept a close eye on the ones who failed and began cracking skulls one by one.

“When you’re eating ssam at a barbecue joint, the correct etiquette is to cram the whole wrap into your mouth in one go. Right for true, left for false.”

“If you order fried dumplings at a Chinese restaurant, they always provide the sweet-and-sour pork for free. Right for true, left for false.”

By the time I finished the screening, we were down to a group of 98.

“…How did two more people manage to fail that?”

I wasn’t joking—there wasn’t a single question a native Korean should have missed. Furthermore, the environment inside the Erosion Core hadn’t shifted drastically yet. That meant there were likely a few lucky mimics still hiding within our 98.

I didn’t know the exact count, but it wouldn’t take long to find out. I checked the radio: everyone else had finally reached the falls.

“Don’t you think this is a bit too simple?”

I looked over at Adakawa Nanami when she spoke.

“Do you have a concern?”

Her perspective was always worth considering. She answered me.

“The initial gimmick was somewhat tricky, but it wasn’t impossible. On top of that, there are hardly any monsters in here, and the ones we saw weren’t even a threat. Usually, that’s a sign that the core itself is a monster or that there’s a much bigger gimmick coming.”

Was there something massive lurking? It was a valid point—compared to the freezing gimmick back in Bratsk, this whole ordeal felt a bit underwhelming.

“Let’s just take care of this part first.”

It was time for the second phase of the screening. Adopting the roles of job interviewers, the four of us sat down and summoned the hunters one at a time to verify their answers.

The moment someone gave a wrong response, we ganged up and took them down.

As the minutes ticked by, the successful hunters huddled in one corner while a pile of corpses from the failures grew in another.

We caught 14 more fakes. I stared at the pile, feeling a bit stunned.

“Sixteen people really didn’t know that a bowl of rice at a restaurant is 1,000 won?”

Han Sang-ah chimed in.

“Even I knew that.”

Exactly. Even a daughter from a billionaire family knows that! How could anyone else fail?

At that very moment, the gray masks obscuring our features began to melt away, and our dull, monochromatic clothing dissolved to reveal our actual clothes and faces.

“Looks like we’ve cleared out the trash.”

So, what was the next step? Just as I was wondering, the massive body of water in front of us began to churn violently. Something of unthinkable size started rising from the depths.

“Whoa. Is that the boss?”

It took on the appearance of a young girl—but her scale was so immense that the Niagara-sized waterfall looked like a mere bathtub in comparison. Her hair shone like polished obsidian, and her eyes were a kaleidoscope of shifting colors.

Just looking at her caused complex patterns to dance across my vision, making my head swim.

“It’s a fake.”

Specifically, an illusion. I could feel the faint prickle of mana in the air.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
—How can it conclude in such a manner? This is blatant cheating. I was hoping for something far more entertaining.

A voice resonated through the air. It was a cacophony of sounds—an old man’s rasp mixed with a child’s giggle, a young woman’s lilt blended with a man’s baritone… hundreds of voices layered over one another.

—I simply wished to observe you for a little while longer.

Following those words, the gargantuan girl opened her mouth and let out a piercing wail. My vision blurred instantly as my mind began to reel.

Ah, it’s trying to invade my soul. It probably wants to rummage around in there, tear it to shreds, and break my psyche.

I glanced around and saw that the others were already caught in the spell, their eyes glazed and empty. I clicked my tongue.

“There’s no point in struggling against this.”

It was surprisingly anti-climactic. After all that preparation, the subjugation of Zaun Valley was going to end quite easily. As the fog settled over my consciousness, a small smile played on my lips.

Go ahead. Step inside. See the truth with your own eyes.

See what kind of person I really am. And see exactly whose soul you’ve decided to play with.

“I can promise you one thing: this won’t be a fun experience.”

I let my eyes drift shut.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Banshee Narsenti was the heart of this Erosion Core. She was an undead entity who had existed for millennia, her power swelling with every passing century. Even among ghosts, banshees were considered a cut above the rest.

And Narsenti, through the passage of eons, had become a legend even among her own kind. Her scream didn’t just hurt the ears; it rattled the soul, creating an opening for her to slip inside and demolish a person from within.

Tragedies, deep-seated traumas, agonizing pasts, and moments of despair—she weaponized them all to create cracks in the soul, widening the gaps until the entire spirit shattered.

Sometimes she would pull up blissful memories, using the contrast with a person’s current suffering to strip them of their will to live.

“A meeting with a lost lover, parents who were monsters, the sting of betrayal…”

This instance was no different. She intended to pick apart the souls of the people gathered here, breaking them and feasting on the remains.

The fragments of their strength would become her own. She divided her essence into dozens of pieces, thrusting those fragments into the minds of the paralyzed hunters.

However, a sudden wave of sheer terror soon raced up Narsenti’s spine. Her survival instinct kicked in, forcing her scattered soul to pull back together into a single entity.

“What is this supposed to be?”

Narsenti had always thought it was an impossibility. How could she, a banshee who had survived for thousands of years, be intimidated by a simple human soul? It made no sense.

Yet, looming before her was a colossal, roaring black flame, taking the shape of a terrifying beast.

“…”

The entity was so tall that she had to strain her neck just to see it. It reached toward the heavens, a beast-like inferno of black fire held in place by heavy crimson chains.

“No.”

A primal, abyssal fear washed over her. Simply witnessing it made her feel as though her consciousness was melting like butter on a searing griddle.

Her eyes felt like they were going to explode from the heat. Her mind spun with a paralyzing sense of dread. How could this… exist inside a mere mortal?

“It can’t be. This is impossible…”

This wasn’t just another disaster. This was the literal embodiment of the end—the manifestation of the finality of all things.

It was a predator designed to consume everything until nothing remained. And that roaring black fire? It wasn’t even the entirety of this human’s soul.

The chains that were currently restraining that impossible, hopeless apocalypse—that was the actual soul she had entered.

“That thing. How… World, I… I can’t understand. Why…”

To be the vessel for something so monstrous. Her success in entering the soul now terrified her more than failure ever could. Narsenti stared at the soul-form, unable to process what she was seeing.

She felt crushed. Her ability to think and reason was being ground into powder by the incomprehensible landscape.

It was a visceral, living representation of the end of days. And the chains were there to suppress it, to govern it, to keep the end bound.

“No.”

Even the great emperor who commanded the legions of the dead from far-off Beijing would falter here. He might stand his ground for a moment, but he could never endure this. Never.

This was a different level of existence entirely. The emperor’s soul radiated a heavy pressure, certainly. But this? This existence was nothing but pure violence.