Chapter 71: Struggle for Supremacy (2)
Wonsan City is home to a very old hunter association.
For a long time, the powers that have dominated the harbor area and back alleys:
The Blood Guild, the Tiger Guild, and the Wonsan Blade Guild.
On the surface, they claim to be hunter guilds, but in reality, they were no different from organized crime syndicates.
Wherever sweet honey pools, flies are bound to swarm.
These guilds divided Wonsan City into three parts and exploited the merchants and corporations.
They formed an association, but that didn’t mean they got along.
On the contrary, they were always waiting for the moment when one of them would weaken.
In fact, it was not uncommon for a weakened organization to be devoured by other established groups or new powers.
These gangs always claimed to value loyalty above all, but in reality, betrayal was as common as eating a meal.
For some reason, these people, who hadn’t gathered at the same table in a very long time, were now meeting.
“So, everyone failed?”
“They all failed the aptitude test. The same happened with your group, didn’t it?”
“Damn it! Did someone leak the information? Otherwise, how is it that not a single one of our people managed to infiltrate the guild?”
Hyun Suho found it strange that so many people had failed the aptitude test, the Trial of Holy Fire.
It wasn’t based on any specific statistics, just his intuition, but his intuition was never wrong.
When the Ex Machina Guild posted an announcement for recruiting new hunters, these groups had colluded to plant spies.
Their objective was clear.
“We need to act before that guy who calls himself the ‘Light Bringer’ takes over all of Wonsan!”
“How dare an outsider mess with our territory. We have to teach him a lesson, don’t we?”
“Expanding influence without our permission is against the code. We’re the ones who’ve been sustaining Wonsan’s economy until now.”
Their words sounded righteous, but they were all wrong.
Hyun Suho had never messed with them or infringed upon their interests.
He was simply quietly doing his own thing.
Yet, the reason they were so eager to take down the Ex Machina Guild was quite simple.
“I hear the Mermaid tourism business is incredibly lucrative.”
“It’s more than that. It’s a goldmine! Soon, people from all over the country will be flocking there.”
The Mermaid tourism business was booming day by day.
At first, most visitors were people who wanted to take photos and post them on their personal SNS.
However, the island was so well-designed and offered great value that more and more people wanted to visit again, and some even came multiple times.
In the era of hunters, for ordinary people to travel to another city, they had to take the expensive underground train.
No matter how few monsters there were underground, the fare was inevitably high.
So, many people spent their entire lives in one city, never visiting another.
Compared to the pre-Cataclysm era, it was like the cost and effort of flying abroad.
In fact, when Hyun Suho first launched the Mermaid tourism business, he targeted the people of Wonsan City.
After all, it wasn’t about making money, but about changing the perception of the Mermaids.
But later, people started coming from all over the country, and even from abroad, to see the Mermaids.
Despite setting reasonable prices, the money he was earning was beyond his imagination.
These groups were eyeing that tourism market.
Even if they did manage to push Hyun Suho out, the Mermaids would never follow their orders, but blinded by greed, they didn’t consider that at all.
Absurdly, they thought that if they just threw the Mermaids some fish, they would obediently comply.
“That’s not all! There’s also a blacksmith in the Ex Machina Guild with mysterious skills!”
“I heard about that too. Someone who can upgrade items, right?”
Hyun Suho had obtained the skill “Blessing of the Machine God,” a unique aura skill that grew stronger as the number of believers increased.
To maximize the aura skill’s enhancement, he started charging people to upgrade their items.
As long as they provided the materials, he only took a commission.
It was an insanely powerful skill that permanently enhanced the equipment.
Naturally, people began to think there was an extraordinary blacksmith hunter in the Ex Machina Guild.
Unlike other support professions that were often looked down upon, blacksmiths were almost exclusively treated like nobles or royalty.
Most large guilds would raise at least one or two blacksmiths.
Among them, Hyun Suho’s upgrade skill stood out as particularly exceptional.
Hunters from all over the country started flocking to upgrade their equipment, to the point where Hyun Suho had so much work that he had to take reservations.
“Hmph! Those things are just chump change. The real money is in the transportation business. Everyone knows about the massive ships coming and going from the harbor!”
Indeed, the biggest money-maker was the transportation business.
The business, which started with the father-daughter duo of the Mir Merchant Guild, had now expanded to include over a hundred related merchants.
The greatest danger in marine transportation was, of course, the terrifying monsters that lived in the sea.
The more powerful ones could sink a ship in an instant and devour people like cracking open a shellfish.
As a result, modern ships had become smaller and more streamlined for speed, naturally reducing cargo space.
But Ex Machina’s merchant ships were large and had never had a single accident.
Based on that capability and trust, they had been actively conducting business not only in Korea but also in Japan, China, and Russia.
“If we could take that over...”
“We wouldn’t be stuck rotting in this backwater. We could go national.”
Their greed seemed to burn in their eyes.
Then, suddenly, someone spoke up, sounding worried.
"But I heard that guild leader is no ordinary person. Light Bringer. Didn’t they say he even took down that terrifying Butcher?"
The gatekeeper guarding the entrance was formidable.
Moreover, it seemed like he was close with Branch Manager Kwon Cheol-jung, who approved most of his requests and even provided support.
The reason these guilds had been sitting idle until now was precisely because of Ex Machina’s formidable strength.
In particular, the story of him killing the Butcher had made them flinch as if they had been burned, prompting them to hide far away.
But in the end, they couldn’t resist their surging greed.
Besides, they had their reasons.
“Don’t you know it was all revealed to be a scam? They say he cowardly poisoned the Butcher with a deadly toxin.”
“I heard it was all staged with paid actors. There’s no way a rookie like him could be strong enough to take down a ranker.”
Amusingly, the fabricated information that Nova had spread to conceal his identity had been believed by these people.
“No matter how capable he is, surprise attacks are unbeatable. I hear he roams the Red Zone alone, so setting a trap should do the trick. And in that field, aren’t we the experts?”
“Heh heh heh! That’s right.”
Though these groups were always fighting, they were surprisingly in sync when it came to doing something evil.
Together, these three factions had more than a thousand members.
Of course, most of them were small fry, but there were a few high-level ones among them.
Numbers and underhanded tactics.
Even the strongest could be defeated by sheer numbers.
“Alright then, let’s go with that plan.”
“We’ll split the spoils evenly.”
Though they were all in the same boat, these were still organizations that couldn’t trust each other.
From the start, trust wasn’t a word that fit them.
They would choose the right day, but they wouldn’t act together.
The three groups made plans to attack the Ex Machina Guild separately.
* * *
Compared to the other two organizations, the Tiger Guild had fewer members but was the best-trained.
That was because the guild leader, Jung Moo-bae, preferred to raise a small but elite force rather than a large group of thugs.
In fact, they were the group that hunted the most in the Red Zone. Guild leader Jung Moo-bae personally led the hunts.
Even so, the organization had well over 200 members. He had brought them all today to ensure the success of the operation.
“Hunting here?”
“Yes, boss. These guys move here regularly to hunt.”
They didn’t have to struggle to track them down.
The members of the Ex Machina Guild always moved on the same day of the week at the same time.
Their plan was to ambush the Ex Machina Guild members who had gone to the Red Zone and then make it look like the work of monsters.
There was no need to put much effort into covering it up. If they left the bodies behind, the monsters in the area would quickly devour them.
“Let’s go.”
Shashashak!
The heavily armed Tiger Guild members followed the traces of the Ex Machina Guild.
And finally, they spotted them, seemingly resting on a plain after finishing their hunt.
Jung Moo-bae, observing them through binoculars, frowned as if something was off.
“What’s with those guys? Why do they all seem so similar? They’re not all brothers, are they?”
Of course, they all looked different, but there was something similar about their aura.
Even though he led a violent organization, Jung Moo-bae had risen to the position of boss with nothing but his bare hands.
He was exceptionally skilled and decisive, with a keen instinct.
So, when he saw the resting hunters, something about them gave him an eerie feeling.
But he quickly shook his head, dismissing the thought.
He assumed he was just a little tense because it had been a while since their last large-scale attack.
In doing so, Jung Moo-bae unwittingly squandered the last chance he had.
“About 30 of them? This’ll be over quickly.”
They outnumbered the enemy by a ratio of 6 or 7 to 1.
He figured that if they slowly encircled and tightened the noose, the hunters would fall like autumn leaves.
Just as he was about to scout for a good ambush location...
“Hm?!”
He suddenly locked eyes with someone who was at least 2 kilometers away.
Jung Moo-bae was the cautious type.
Even at such a distance, he had been carefully watching from behind rocks and bushes, fully hidden.
No matter what kind of skill the enemy hunter had, it wouldn’t have been strange.
“No way...”
Just as he thought it was his imagination...
Suddenly, all 30 of the hunters turned to look in his direction as if they had planned it.
Then, they made some sort of incomprehensible noise.
“Beep-beep! Bop!”
The sound reached him as if they were singing in unison.
And then...
Click!
The 30 hunters simultaneously drew their guns and aimed them at him.
“Damn it! What the hell is this...?!!”
Jung Moo-bae shouted in alarm, but the situation had already spiraled beyond control.
The 30 hunters with rifles began firing at them.
Rat-a-tat-tat!!
The distance was over 2 kilometers.
Even a trained sniper would need to aim carefully for a long time, calculating distance and wind to hit a target at that range.
But astonishingly, despite using rifles instead of sniper rifles and barely aiming through their scopes, their accuracy was incredibly high.
Clang!
A bullet fired by someone pierced straight through the lens of the binoculars that Jung Moo-bae was holding.
It was only after he had lowered the binoculars from his eyes that Jung Moo-bae realized the bullet had gone through his eye.
As he reflexively raised his hand to touch his eye, he realized the bullet had gone right through it.
Before he could even register any emotions, another bullet followed, piercing his forehead.
Thud!!
Jung Moo-bae, his brain turned to mush, collapsed lifelessly.
It was the ignoble end of a boss who had once ruled the Wonsan region with terror.
The subordinates who had lost their boss didn’t fare any better.
The "Bipo" soldiers, even as they slowly advanced, fired their shots with unnerving precision.
Rat-a-tat-tat!!
“Aaargh!!”
At this moment, the "Bipo" unit was no different from the brutal killing machines seen in movies.
Like a mechanical army, they mercilessly exterminated their enemies without hesitation or guilt.
And so, those who had come to ambush the "Bipo" unit were riddled with bullets and fell on a nameless hill.
* * *
Jo Chi-soo, the leader of the Wonsan Blade Guild, was originally a pirate.
He had a few small assault ships that he used to attack passing merchant ships and extort money.
Although he had now settled more securely on land, he hadn’t given up his pirating ways.
If things went awry and he was chased out of the city, he was ready to return to his life as a pirate at any moment.
That opportunity came sooner than expected.
He planned to ambush the Ex Machina Guild's ship, kidnap key figures, and steal their cargo.
He had already identified that the father-daughter duo of the Mir Merchant Guild were in charge of the Ex Machina Guild's trading routes.
If he could capture them, he could seize all the trade routes they had pioneered.
This was the most lucrative business that the Ex Machina Guild had.
Of course, Jo Chi-soo had no intention of sharing this with the other organizations.
He planned to devour it all after dealing with the Ex Machina Guild.
The other organizations weren’t unaware of his intentions, but since he had the ships, they had no choice but to concede.
Waiting on a nearby island, Jo Chi-soo shouted with glee as the Ex Machina Guild’s ship appeared in the distance.
“Ha ha ha! It’s been a while since we set sail! Take everything and pillage it all!”
Vroom!
For the first time in a while, he even raised the pirate flag.
There was a time when just the sight of this flag would make people wet themselves in fear.
It was time to relive the glory of the past.
But not long after setting sail, something went wrong. The ship that had been sailing smoothly suddenly came to a halt.
Thunk!
“What’s going on? What’s the problem?”
“Ah, it seems we’ve hit a reef.”
“You idiots! At such an important time, are you going to ruin everything over a mere reef?! Can’t you get it moving?!”
It seemed his subordinates had become lax from the long break in sailing.
Jo Chi-soo planned to give them a harsh lesson after this was over.
But in the end, his plan was futile.
“Are you the one?”
A voice came from behind him.
Strangely, it was a young woman’s voice. There weren’t any women in the Wonsan Blade Guild, though.
Startled, he turned around to find a beautiful woman with coral-colored hair standing there.
“You… wha…”
Shocked, Jo Chi-soo stammered and pointed at her.
For a moment, her unreal beauty made him question if he was dreaming.
But this was no dream.
If it were a dream, he wouldn’t have felt pain.
Thunk!
A sharp trident pierced through his abdomen, making him double over.
“Guh! Gah!”
No matter how tough a man in the sea he was, he couldn’t withstand the agony of a trident twisting his insides.
Jo Chi-soo reflexively turned his head to call for help.
The ship was full of his subordinates, after all.
But soon, despair filled his eyes.
Just like him, his subordinates were also being slaughtered by the women who had emerged from the water—mermaids.
As Jo Chi-soo watched in horror, the woman who had pierced him with the trident, Coral, sneered.
“The sea creatures are going to have a feast today.”
As she said, moments later, the assault ship sank, surrounded by countless fish drawn to the scent of blood.
