TFN C68

Chapter 68

Cheongmun exhaled quietly before he began to explain.

“The last post he ever wrote while alive was that one. I reviewed the earlier ones too—most had been deleted, but they were all of a similar nature. Boastful.”

“Similar?” Wonhyo asked.

“Yes. He’d steal other people’s photos, show them off as if they were his own achievements, bask in the attention, and then delete the post once comments began calling him out. Then he’d upload a new one and repeat the cycle. During that time, he also attempted fraud.”

At the word fraud, Wonhyo grimaced.

On HunterNet, there was only one kind of scam that came to mind.

“Wait—are you talking about the ones who claim they’ll help you climb the Tower for free?”

“Exactly. He exchanged contact info with a few people, but then cut communication and vanished before it escalated into monetary damage.”

“So he wasn’t a high-rank Hunter.”

It was the only reason he could think of for backing out like that.

Cheongmun’s lips curved faintly. “He wasn’t even an Awakened.”

“Wow.”

The sound left Wonhyo without thinking—it was almost impressive how ridiculous the man’s behavior had been.

“Anyway,” Cheongmun continued, “he pretended to be a Hunter, using stolen photos. The actual owner of one of those photos discovered the post and confronted him. A student who had nearly been scammed by him joined the protest, repeatedly posting warnings that he was a con artist.”

Wonhyo dropped his face into his hands.

He didn’t even need to hear the names. He could guess.

The motive was pathetic enough to make anyone cringe.

“So… since it’s hard to kill a Hunter, he went for the student first,” he muttered.

“Correct,” said Cheongmun.

“Officer Lee’s report suggested a paranoid personality. Someone who finds comfort only when the world follows his self-made rules. If things deviate, he feels pain—and regains pleasure through control. He likely saw his victims as people who ‘broke his rules.’ By removing them, he thought he could restore his perfect, controllable world.”

He’d also been described as extremely attention-seeking and deeply insecure.

Wonhyo didn’t fully understand all the psychological jargon, but he agreed with at least one thing: the man had clearly been obsessed with showing off.

Even after death, that compulsion persisted—posting again and again on HunterNet.

The meaning behind it was clear as day: You can’t stop me, even now.

And the worst part—he’d already succeeded once. By luring a commenter into a dungeon and killing them, he’d proven he could.

That emboldened him.

“We’ll have to catch him,” Wonhyo said firmly.

He’d seen a lot of malevolent spirits, but one deliberately manufactured like this—one that embodied the ugliest parts of its former human self—was something new entirely. He couldn’t just ignore it.

He tapped his cheek lightly, trying to refocus. The sting of pain helped clear his mind.

At least, without that physical-contact penalty, he could actually fight this one now.

The elevator slowed to a halt.

With a chime, the doors slid open—and a rush of cold air hit him full in the face.

“Forgot to mention,” Cheongmun said casually. “That’s sterilization mist.”

A chill like fog or fine rain swept across Wonhyo’s body.

He blinked, cracking one eye open to see several security staff staring at him curiously from the other side.

Cheongmun strode forward, flashed his ID, and the corridor’s full-length security doors unlocked with a click.

“Please wait until he’s fully cleared before entering,” a staffer instructed politely after noticing Wonhyo’s visitor badge.

Cheongmun went ahead first. The door closed, then opened again to let Wonhyo through.

He hurried into the narrow tunnel ahead, the faint hum of static brushing against his skin making him quicken his pace.

“Clear,” a voice said when his badge scanned again.

Past the final checkpoint, Wonhyo spotted Cheongmun waiting ahead. He scurried to catch up, noticing how the staff’s eyes lingered for a moment before shifting away.

Cheongmun nodded briefly to a guard and continued deeper inside.

The corridor split several times—rows of reinforced doors under the pale blue of fluorescent lights, each labeled with coded markings.

They turned another corner, then another, until they reached a section with only a single door along the long concrete wall.

[Laboratory IV]

The simple plaque gleamed under the sterile lighting.

“Here,” said Cheongmun.

He pressed his ID card to the lock, and the massive reinforced door began to open—layer after layer of heavy steel, like something out of an old mecha anime.

Each barrier looked at least sixty centimeters thick.

The final door was a pane of frosted glass. When it slid aside, the lab beyond came fully into view.

“You’re here!”

“Sir!”

People in thick hazmat suits rushed forward.

Startled, Wonhyo froze. They halted too.

“Uh… hello,” he said awkwardly.

“Welcome,” said the deputy leader, lowering his goggles and mask to reveal a polite smile.

It looked exactly like something out of a pandemic broadcast—sterile suits, sealed gloves. Wonhyo glanced around, expecting some sort of containment hazard… but the room was empty.

No windows, no desks, not even chairs—just a wide, gymnasium-like space.

He looked to Cheongmun for direction. In response, Cheongmun summoned a cube.

Team members who’d entered with him stumbled out of it, gasping for air as they hurriedly stripped off their suits.

“We almost suffocated in there—had to sprinkle holy water on each other just to keep sane.”

“My mouth still tastes like salt,” one grumbled.

“Same. Who sprayed it like that?”

“I did.”

“What, did you run out of holy water and use seawater instead?”

Their chatter filled the space the moment their masks came off.

Ignoring the noise, Cheongmun expanded the cube’s perimeter.

“What’s the HunterNet status?” he asked.

“Uh, it’s going crazy—one post per second. It’s triggering auto-report spam and the system’s temporarily blocked new uploads. We moved all existing posts into the admin board for classification.”

Wonhyo followed his gaze to the far end of the lab.

He hadn’t noticed it at first—flat, half-hidden among equipment—but there it was: a laptop.

Encased in a faint blue barrier, plastered all over with talismans.

He reached for his gimyeong, the spiritual instrument that amplified his senses.

The moment he gripped it, the subtle static of energy sharpened.

Before awakening, this hyper-awareness had been his normal state.

He focused, tracing the flow of aura leaking through the seals.

Shapes began to emerge from the air itself—currents of black mist stabbing outward through the barrier like thorns.

“That won’t hold,” Wonhyo warned. “It’s leaking.”

Cheongmun stripped off his gloves and activated his own skill.

Wonhyo almost moved to help—he’d expected the cube wouldn’t contain it either—but something changed.

A chill yet radiant golden energy shimmered across the cube’s edges, intertwining with the black aura like frost over shadow.

“…Huh?”

Wonhyo’s eyes widened. That energy—he knew it.

It was Pama (破魔), the sacred anti-demonic force.

He glanced at Cheongmun’s left eye. Within the dark iris, a glint of gold flickered faintly.

So that’s what he received from the Tower reward.

Even in his slightly dulled state, Wonhyo could sense how powerful it was.

The new cube pulsed once, and the oppressive aura slammed against it—only to shatter like brittle glass.

Black spikes crumbled into dust.

“How is it now?” Cheongmun asked.

“…It’s sealed. Completely,” Wonhyo replied, almost breathless.

If he were alone, he’d have given a double thumbs-up.

Cheongmun merely nodded and layered another cube over the first.

“Is it still posting?”

“Let me check—hold on. Uh… no. It stopped. Right after you used your skill.”

A wave of collective relief swept through the team.

Members of Unit 1 let out deep breaths, tension melting from their faces.

Once the immediate crisis passed, the debate began.

No fancy conference room—just agents sitting cross-legged on the bare floor, sipping energy drinks, their tones sharp and exhausted.

Wonhyo sat quietly in the corner, folding scrap paper from his inventory.

He’d seen scenes like this before—even as a chick or a puppy, apparently chaos among humans looked the same.

He just watched, trying not to laugh.

“So I’m saying, we should just catch it and end it for good.”

“Catch what? You can’t capture what’s not physical. Sealing is the only way.”

“Sealing won’t work—we tried holy water, remember?”

“What about the Team Leader’s skill?”

“That’s suppression, not permanent sealing. We need to destroy it.”

“Oh, sure. And how exactly do you propose that? You gonna camp in front of the laptop until it shows up?”

“…Wouldn’t it rage and manifest if we just delete the post again? Then we could ambush it.”

“And if it explodes out of the dungeon again?”

“Then we dive in after it. If a breach happens, we’re the only ones cleared to enter anyway.”

📝 Notes:

• Pama (破魔) – Literally “to break evil”; a sacred or purifying force that nullifies demonic or cursed energy. 
• Gimyeong (기명) – A spiritual tool used by shamans or exorcists to channel and amplify their senses.