TFN C4

Chapter 4

The cigarette smoke scattered on the night air.

The bitter, heavy smell spread, only to be swept away quickly by the cold wind.

Though warmer than yesterday, the temperature was still below zero, yet the man, wearing only a thin suit jacket, sat on a bench and stared at the Tower as if unbothered.

He’d drafted a report on time spent lingering at a site he had visited two days prior—there was nothing worth revisiting—and now even a nonexistent headache felt like it might flare.

Cheongmun snapped his fingers at the glow of the ember he had coaxed alive.

Following the noiseless tap of his fingertips, a black current gathered, and a very small, semi-transparent cube formed.

He tossed the cigarette he was holding into it, then casually clamped it in his palm and crushed it.

The cube compressed and vanished, and the cigarette butt inside disappeared as if it had never existed.

“Team leader.”

He turned his head toward the presence approaching at speed.

The team member who had run toward him, seated in a corner of the rooftop garden, was catching his breath in a fluster.

A combat-type hunter shouldn’t be winded from sprinting inside a building; he must have used a skill to accelerate—was it that urgent?

“What is it?”

Under thin silver frames, his eyes, impassive and lowered, made Deputy Manager Kim Geungsik hesitate, then he held out the tablet in his hands.

“A murder.”

“And?”

Cheongmun still didn’t move a muscle.

His report related to Tower-climbing had been submitted. Officially and forcibly, he had been on leave for exactly one hour.

A murder was not grounds to recall him to the field.

Knowing him, Geungsik rolled his eyes for a moment, then moved the hand holding the tablet. Then, as if projecting the tablet’s display into augmented reality, a three-dimensional screen floated in the air.

“Fifteen minutes ago, in an apartment near Aeogae Station in Mapo-gu, an incident occurred. The victim is Kim Jeong-hee, age twenty-nine. A melee combat-type hunter, she was streaming at the time of death, so the scene was broadcast live as it happened. Reports came in to the police and to us simultaneously, and according to those who reported after seeing the stream, the perp was…”

Geungsik hesitated over whether to say it, but it was something he had to report anyway, so he spoke plainly.

“A ghost, they say.”

Cheongmun’s eyes tightened slightly.

Pretending not to notice, Geungsik averted his gaze and continued.

“In any case, since the victim is a hunter, Mapo Precinct contacted us to request a site visit.”

Listening to the report, Cheongmun scanned the scene being replayed in the air—supposedly what had been broadcast live.

Whether because the camera used for the stream was decent, it had recorded in stark detail how the victim’s head was torn off, how the neck muscles ripped, and how the bones snapped.

“The stream has been halted, but clips edited by viewers at the time have already spread across communities and even hit the news.”

For an incident only fifteen minutes old, the rate of spread was alarmingly fast.

Even though hunter deaths from ambushes outside the Tower and dungeons were no longer unusual, the buzz here likely owed to the presence of an assailant not captured on camera.

That was Deputy Manager Kim Geungsik’s analysis.

“Probability it’s a ghost-type monster?”

Cheongmun first checked the most obvious thought.

“Deputy Manager Nam is reviewing whether there were issues with mana waves detected around the nearest cell tower…”

As he waited for the other team member’s report, a message came in, and he delivered the answer on the spot.

“There were no mana waves with particularly meaningful values.”

Which meant either a monster entirely beyond mechanical detection—or a real ghost.

“We verified energies classified F-grade and above—none. There were two H-grade pulses. But for a ghost-type monster that could emerge from an H-grade rift to have killed the victim, the victim’s rank is overwhelmingly high.”

“I know.”

Hunter Kim Jeong-hee—better known by the nickname “CandyCandy”—was someone even Cheongmun had seen a few times.

Beyond her resume, the distinct hair color she’d acquired after awakening and the way her stats scaled with food intake made her unforgettable.

With her defensive skillset, she would have survived even an A-rank dungeon. She had a shield in hand, too.

Such a hunter died after two invisible strikes.

“What shall we do?”

At Geungsik’s words, Cheongmun rose, unhurried, as if nothing were urgent.

“If they call, we go.”

“I’ll head up first.”

At the dispatch order, the gathered team members grabbed their gear and left ahead.

Left alone, Cheongmun surveyed the apartment perimeter.

If the killer was a monster, even one that slipped out of a very small rift, there should be traces.

Due to international safety ratings for structures implemented several years ago, this complex was required to be equipped with IBLS level-2 facilities.

Even if a C-rank dungeon rift formed, the building itself could block monster ingress.

From B-rank upward, it was a disaster; government core facilities were the first to be rated accordingly, so for most aging apartment complexes, level 2 was the best they could do.

Short of demolishing and rebuilding, upgrading the safety rating itself was unrealistic.

He checked the security facilities first.

The emergency stairwell doors, at least, were of better material than the complex’s overall rating suggested, with auto-lock on rift detection and a system that wouldn’t allow passage in normal times without registered access.

Same for the balcony windows.

He replayed the footage Deputy Manager Kim had brought up.

He remembered vividly the victim’s pupils as she stared at the ceiling.

Though nothing was caught on camera, her focus had shifted as she tracked something.

“The camera.”

Depending on the streaming camera’s performance, things vary, but the two clues—“not visible” and “an attack an A-grade tank couldn’t block”—both nagged at him.

He circled the building to check the rear.

Three buildings were arranged in a “┌” shape within one block, overlooking a central plaza; with elevators included, there were only two accesses to the scene—front and rear entrances.

It wasn’t a corridor-style building, so approach via a neighboring walkway and vaulting across wasn’t feasible.

Given the victim’s unit was at the very end, one couldn’t get there that way without passing through the neighbor’s place.

If it had flown in through the air, perhaps—but even if it had, it would have triggered motion sensors on the roof and exterior walls.

He flicked his fingers.

As his skill activated, black currents pooled at his feet and formed semi-transparent cubes.

He stepped onto them in polished shoes without crushing them and summoned the next cube, calling them in sequence like steps to ascend to the floor where the victim’s body lay.

He placed a hand on the balcony window.

A light push didn’t open it. Even with a firm shove, it held. When he applied more force, the balcony glass protested with a sharp creak.

“With about C-rank strength, it would open.”

The victim wouldn’t have been felled by a monster of that grade.

If a skill had been used, mana traces should remain, but no such report had come in yet.

He recalled that, among the registered skills of awakeners holding Republic of Korea nationality, none existed that would be used for an attack in this manner.

There were stealth skills in assassin-adjacent roles, but those left traces. All skills did.

Therefore, the highest likelihood was an unregistered monster.

He raised the hand clad in half-palm gloves and tapped the balcony glass.

A team member investigating inside hurried over, disengaged the lock, and opened the door.

“Have you verified?”

“Access from outside is possible apart from the entrance, but inefficient. Even if it flew or clung down the building, it should have triggered the motion-sensor system—there’s no sign of that. Any mana readings?”

The team was analyzing the scene under the premise of an awakener crime.

Since no high-grade rifts had occurred nearby, it was clearly human work.

With that premise, they would have swept the site with mana detectors as soon as they arrived.

At his question, the team member’s expression turned awkward in an instant. It was a face that said no separate report was necessary. And given the continued silence until now—

“Seems nothing turned up.”

“…Nothing yet.”

“Yet” should imply something would turn up soon, but lacking confidence, his words trailed off.

Cheongmun looked at the people in protective suits gathered around the victim’s body.

There were more heads than expected—besides Special Agency staff, the forensics unit was also collecting evidence.

The Special Agency for Hunter Management operated a special judicial police team investigating hunter-related crimes; but since the exact cause of death hadn’t been determined, it was proper for the police to be present and analyze the scene—hence the crowd.

Before stepping in through the balcony, he slipped on the shoe covers a team member held out, then stepped down from the cube.

Footnotes:

• Semi-transparent cube compression: A personal spatial-compression type skill used for containment/disposal and as temporary footholds; functions like conjured platforms or trash-compactor storage.

• IBLS level-2 facilities: A fictionalized international building safety rating that mandates anti-rift, anti-monster security features (auto-locks, motion sensors, mana detection) for residential complexes.

• H- and F-grade mana waves: In-world classification of detectable energy pulses; higher than F would indicate notable phenomena. Absence suggests either non-mana entities (true ghosts) or detection-evasive threats.

• A-rank tank and melee classifications: Borrowed from MMORPG semantics; “tank” is a defensive hunter build, “melee” fights at close range. A-rank denotes elite capability; being felled in two unseen hits implies exceptional or atypical threat.