“So let’s get this straight. You’re sure you’re with Scorpion, is that right?”

“Yes, yes…”

The man, his face and neck a mess of tears, nodded his head wretchedly at Mijeong, who was asking again to be certain. Realizing he was about to die, he was trying his best to look as pathetic as possible. The sight was so comical that a corner of my lip quirked up slightly as I let go of his hair.

“You look so clueless, I can’t imagine you’re with Scorpion. How did you end up joining them?”

“I, I needed money!”

“Money?”

I tilted my head. The man crawled towards me, reaching out as if to grab the hem of my pants.

“There was a rumor that if you join a place called Scorpion, they give you money…”

“They give you money for joining Scorpion?”

What kind of nonsense is this?

The Scorpion I knew were the types to extort money from their own guild members, not hand it out just for joining. I was baffled, wondering what kind of cult he had joined, when the man added an explanation with an aggrieved expression.

“I-it’s true! I heard about it by chance and went to check, thinking it couldn’t be real, but they really gave me ten million won as a signing bonus…. I was told my current rank is level eight. They said if I bring in more than ten people, they’ll raise me to level seven, and every time my rank goes up, I get an amount equal to the square of the initial signing bonus…. My friends and I are mostly level eight or seven, so I don’t know the details, but I think they said from level six onwards, they also give you missions with rewards.”

“…Isn’t that a pyramid scheme?”²

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Lee Han voiced his agreement with Mijeong’s assessment. I, on the other hand, showed no reaction and instead examined the tattoo on the man’s face more closely.

It was the same Scorpion tattoo I had seen so many times, to the point of being sick of it, five years ago. It wasn’t a cheap imitation; it was real. Occasionally, fervent followers of Scorpion would get similar tattoos, but there was a big difference between the tattoos of a guild member and a civilian. The tattoos of the Scorpion bastards were emblems branded by an Awakened with the power of imprinting. Having seen countless Scorpion followers and guild members, there was no way I would fail to tell the difference.

This was their emblem. A Scorpion emblem engraved by an Awakener specializing in imprinting. That meant the man before me had indeed made a contract with Scorpion…

What an absurd situation. They say life is a twisted tale of fortune,³ but who would have thought Scorpion would be reduced to a pyramid scheme?

However.

“The pyramid scheme must be a trick.”

“That’s what it seems like, right?”

“Yeah. Levels seven and eight are just bait to expand their diminished forces. From level six is when they’re treated as official members. Are the level ones the executives? At least level three and up. That’s where the original Scorpion members will be gathered.”

From the man’s story just now, it became clear that the Scorpion bastards were gathering new members and aiming for a revival. No, they had practically already been revived. They had secretly resumed their activities and announced their presence through this incident. Now that they had finished their revival, what they were aiming for was the right time to spread their wings. To announce that the scorpion that had been buried in the mud had returned.

That’s why they would have planned to kidnap Han Geon-joo.

The fact that Noah was going to clear Adelia’s Tomb was an event that would be known worldwide. I didn’t know how the information had already leaked, but the Scorpion bastards, having caught wind of this, had kidnapped Geon-joo right before Noah’s departure to divert some of the spotlight onto themselves. At that point, their plan was as good as successful.

Why Han Geon-joo specifically wasn’t important. They hadn’t targeted him because he was Han Geon-joo; they had targeted the member of Noah who seemed to be the weakest.

“So that’s why they dragged him to Adelia’s Tomb.”

As a fellow criminal guild, I knew. Their way of handling things was similar to mine. I let out a hollow laugh, tilted my head back, and looked up at the Specter Swamp. Everywhere except the frozen areas was bubbling. A place filled with the dead, a space filled with the malice and stench of specters. The reason the Scorpion bastards had entered this space with Han Geon-joo was obvious.

It was ‘cleanup.’

Not just Han Geon-joo, but all the guild members involved in this operation.

It was a method I often used myself. A method used for body disposal, for useless hostages, or for reducing the numbers of a rival guild in large quantities. There was no easier way to clean up than to push people into a Gate and pray for their deaths.

My gaze drifted to the trembling man. A sigh rose to the tip of my throat.

So this is a disposable pawn.

When Scorpion completely collapsed three years ago, their forces were severely weakened. The bastards who had become more cautious because of that incident would not so easily expose their home base and elite members.

So, they used disposable members to kidnap Han Geon-joo and announce their presence, and then planned to get rid of everyone they used for the job inside this dungeon. And the guild members they failed to get rid of were the ones I found.

How vicious.

It was just like the bastards who had swallowed the entire Black Zone whole five years ago, unlike this pathetic scrub before me. I looked at the man who seemed to have been foolishly tricked by Scorpion’s scheme and gotten swept up in all this.

It’s a waste to use Genius’s Eye on him.

“What’s your rank?”

“Huh? I, I’m level eight…”

“Not that, you bastard. I’m talking about your Awakened rank.”

“Ah… I’m A-rank.”

“Name.”

“It’s Seok Ji-hwan…”

“Excuse me. Why are you collecting his personal information here? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of recruiting him into your guild?”

As I was trying to dig up his rank, name, age, main abilities, and so on, Geon-joo approached and grabbed my arm. He was giving me a look that said, ‘Are you really going to recruit the man who tried to kill you into your guild?’ I was dumbfounded. He was usually so quick on the uptake, why was he being so dense about this?

“What are you talking about? I have to know his identity so I can track his past movements after I kill him, right?”

At my irritable reply, the man in front of me flinched.

“…Are you really going to kill me?”

The man who had introduced himself as Seok Ji-hwan cast a desperate gaze. I looked down at him with an annoyed expression. Maybe it was because I had been kind to Geon-joo, but the man before me seemed to have some kind of misunderstanding.

I am not that nice of a person, nor am I particularly generous.

Whether he was wrongly caught up in this or it wasn’t his intention, the fact that he had helped kidnap Han Geon-joo did not change. So why would there be any reason for me to let him live?

And even if I did let him live, it wouldn’t be a very good outcome for him.

“Even if it’s not me, you’ll die here anyway. You said the other guys were all swept away and killed by the monster here, right? You were just lucky to have lived this long. Honestly, if I hadn’t caught you, you’d already be dead, mesmerized by that pathetic specter.”

The man couldn’t offer any rebuttal to my impassive words. However, his aggrieved expression didn’t change. As he trembled with clenched fists, his face grew even more sullen. I was about to advise him that if he felt so wronged, he shouldn’t have joined a strange guild in the first place.

“…Still, killing him isn’t right. His situation seems pitiful. If it’s okay, I will take him to the Association.”

Lee Han, who had been watching the repetitive situation of Ji-hwan begging and me ruthlessly trampling on his hopes, stepped in. Ji-hwan, Lee Han. Did he feel some kind of kinship because their names were similar? I scoffed at Lee Han acting like a saint.

“Do as you please. It doesn’t look like he knows much anyway.”

He was clearly a disposable pawn who had been dragged into this Gate without knowing a thing. What could a guy like that possibly know? At most, it would be about the structure of Scorpion that he had explained just a moment ago.

“I’m warning you in advance, just because he’s alive doesn’t mean it’ll be a good thing for him.”

I gave a light warning to Ji-hwan, whose eyes were sparkling.

Ten million won isn’t pocket change. Would Scorpion really give such an amount to a nobody Awakened? They lure them in with a sweet bait and then abandon them. It was obvious that the Scorpion bastards would take back the ten million they gave him. Perhaps it had already been taken back.

For a man who had risked his life to join an organization because he needed money, whether he stayed here or went outside, it would be hell. What would his despair be like when the money he had sold his life for was all gone?

Therefore, me leaving him to die here was, in its own way, a mercy. Not a hypocrisy like Lee Han’s.

Lee Han was also a man who had cut his teeth in the hunter industry. He had inherited the guild his brother had built, so his position was solid, and because his brother had been killed by hunters, he was well aware of how cruel hunters could be. There was no way he didn’t know that the Scorpion bastards would have already taken back the money they gave Ji-hwan. Yet for him to step up and say he would save his life, what was that if not hypocrisy?

If you’re going to let him live, you should give him the means to live as well.

Anything stops moving when its engine runs out. I forced my gaze away from Ji-hwan, who was looking at Lee Han with adoring eyes as if he were a savior, and swallowed my discomfort. As if sensing my mood, Geon-joo asked why I was making such a face. I knew he was good at observing people, but to think he could catch every single one of these changes, he must have been by my side for a long time.

Although it seemed the time we were apart was longer than the time we were together.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“It doesn’t look like a ‘nothing’ face. Is it because of the organization that man belongs to? What on earth is Scorpion?”

“Ah.”

Does he not know anything?

Until five years ago, the name Scorpion was more famous than Night Rat was now. But Han Geon-joo was the type to have no interest in the hunter industry, and he didn’t pay much attention to world affairs in general, so it was possible he didn’t know.

Well, thinking back to when we first met, it’s not that surprising.

Remembering Geon-joo, who, even considering he had just Awakened, was too ignorant about hunters and had a naive view of the hunter industry, I briefly explained about Scorpion.

“There was this one trash criminal guild.”

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just wondered if you were talking about the Night Rat guild.”

This little bastard.