DRS 20

C20

Blood Demon

After Gwanghyeon finished writing down the information on the paper and handed it over, Bang Subin accepted it and slowly read it aloud.

“Seoul, late twenties, female, B-rank Hunter…”

He then nodded, placed the paper deep inside one of his drawers, and looked up at Gwanghyeon.

“Okay. Well, this shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Then I’ll leave it to you.”

“As for the cost…”

Bang Subin brought up the matter of payment again, hesitating slightly.

He was wondering whether he should try raising the commission fee one more time.

‘…No. Forget it. It probably won’t work anyway.’

Based on his failure last time, Bang Subin had already figured out that Gwanghyeon knew his way around this line of work.

So, rather than wasting time, Bang Subin decided to quote a reasonable price.

“Let’s say one million.”

“One million. Understood. How long will it take?”

“As for the time… Let’s give it about a week, just to be safe.”

A week?

That seemed far too long, so Gwanghyeon thought for a moment.

He had already waited five days. Did he really have to waste another entire week?

After considering it, Gwanghyeon decided to push for a faster completion.

“Let’s have it done within two days. I’ll pick everything up at once when I come back for the previous commission.”

Bang Subin responded with an incredulous expression.

“What, two days? Come on, be reasonable. Do you think I’m sitting around working on your commissions twenty-four hours a day?”

Gwanghyeon had expected that reaction, so he calmly uttered a single word.

“Three million.”

“…What?”

“I’ll make the commission fee three million. Let’s do it that way.”

He was offering extra money in exchange for getting the job done quickly.

At those words, Bang Subin began to waver considerably.

Still, he thought that some things simply couldn’t be done, no matter how much money was offered, and said with a firm expression,

“…Even so, two days is difficult. But for three million, I’ll try to get it done within four days.”

“Five million.”

“…”

Without hesitation, Gwanghyeon raised the offer again.

Unlike unnecessary expenses, which he would ruthlessly negotiate down, he was willing to increase a commission fee whenever the job was truly necessary.

Besides, if he managed to capture Blood Demon, making up this amount of money would be easy, so he didn’t care.

“Uh, um…”

The truth was, two days was an extremely tight deadline, and under normal circumstances, Bang Subin would have refused.

No matter how hard someone worked, there were physical limits.

…but if the commission fee was increased fivefold, that changed things.

“Let’s give it a shot.”

How could he refuse when someone was willing to pay that much?

Two days later.

The deadline had finally arrived, and Gwanghyeon returned to the workshop.

Bang Subin looked much more haggard than when Gwanghyeon had seen him last as he handed over the items.

“Here. The borrowed-name bank account passbook, the cellphone, the Hunter ID…”

Gwanghyeon briefly checked each of the items Bang Subin handed him.

He had experienced Bang Subin’s work before, and once again, the man’s skills were impressive.

“And here’s the list of people matching the conditions you gave me. Whew, I nearly died trying to meet the deadline.”

Gwanghyeon opened the paper envelope Bang Subin handed him and found several sheets of paper inside.

Each sheet contained one person’s personal information and photograph. There seemed to be around a dozen sheets in total.

“After looking into it, I found a little over ten people. Hopefully, the person you’re looking for is among them.”

Gwanghyeon went through the sheets one by one, carefully checking each photograph and name.

Then, around the third-to-last sheet, he finally found the face he had been trying to remember.

‘Bae Yunji. That’s right. That was her name.’

His hazy memory became completely clear the moment he saw her face.

Bae Yunji.

This woman was undoubtedly the villain Blood Demon he had seen on the news.

“Not bad.”

Having obtained everything he needed, Gwanghyeon handed the remaining payment to Bang Subin.

Bang Subin accepted the envelope filled with banknotes and peeked inside.

A wide grin soon spread across his face.

‘Seven million in total.’

He had worked quite hard for a week, but in the end, he had earned seven million won in such a short period of time.

That was certainly enough to satisfy him.

Bang Subin plopped himself down onto the sofa behind him and happily began counting the money.

“Pffhihi. Anyway, good work. Come back if you need anything else.”

“…”

Come back? What does he mean by that?

Gwanghyeon gave a small chuckle and left the workshop.

After returning home, Gwanghyeon took out the paper envelope Bang Subin had given him.

He pulled out only Bae Yunji’s file and left the rest inside the envelope before putting it away in a drawer.

‘Let’s take a closer look.’

————————————

[Bae Yunji]

◎ Age: 29

◎ Marital Status: Single

◎ Blood Type: O

◎ Occupation: B-rank Hunter

◎ Affiliation: Jinsan Guild

…

————————————

“…A member of the Jinsan Guild?”

After skimming through Bae Yunji’s information, Gwanghyeon couldn’t help but find it absurd.

The Jinsan Guild was one of the four major guilds in South Korea, wasn’t it?

Someone who diligently worked as a Hunter in such a prestigious guild was actually a completely deranged villain.

He had vaguely remembered hearing on the news that “Blood Demon’s true identity was an ordinary Hunter working at a guild,” but he had never imagined that the guild in question was Jinsan Guild.

‘What an absurd thing.’

Anyway, the information below also contained Bae Yunji’s current residential address in detail.

Well, considering he had paid five million won for the information, this much was only fair.

Gwanghyeon took out the smartphone he had obtained under a borrowed name and recorded Bae Yunji’s address.

He then checked the time and immediately began preparing to leave.

He equipped his gauntlets and suit, then put on his RD-6 mask before checking himself in the mirror.

‘Now the preparations are finally complete. Let’s move.’

Team Hyeongwol, which was responsible for C-rank Gates at the Jinsan Guild.

The team was filled with a much more harmonious atmosphere than the other teams.

And more than anything, that harmony was thanks to their team leader, Bae Yunji.

“Everyone, we’re almost done. Let’s hang in there just a little longer!”

Despite being the team leader, she never looked down on her teammates. Even though she was a B-rank Hunter, she worked far more diligently than the C- and D-rank Hunters under her.

She was truly someone worthy of being called an exemplary leader.

“Our team leader works way too hard.”

“I honestly think being assigned to this team was a blessing.”

“Let’s hurry up and get moving so our team leader doesn’t have to work so hard!”

Normally, Hunters tended to look down on someone who was younger and less experienced than themselves, even if that person held a higher rank or position.

Yet most of the members of Hyeongwol were older than Bae Yunji, and still, every one of them looked up to her.

That was how highly Bae Yunji was regarded.

“Only the boss is left now. Are you all ready?”

“Yes!”

“Then I’ll go in first!”

However, the truth was that Bae Yunji wasn’t the person they thought she was.

There was a monster living inside her heart.

‘…I can’t take it anymore. I can’t. Should I just do it right now?’

Bae Yunji’s mind was filled with the desire to turn around and tear her teammates apart.

She was barely—truly barely—holding back the impulse.

‘I can handle the boss alone anyway, so I could just do it right now. But if every single team member dies and I return alone, they’ll become suspicious. If they find out and send me to an Awakened detention center, I’ll never be able to kill anyone again for the rest of my life. So I have to hold back just a little longer.’

Bae Yunji’s head began to spin, and her vision even started to blur white.

Only after about ten seconds did her mind finally clear again.

The boss standing before her came back into sharp focus, and she remembered what she needed to do.

“I’m going in!”

After they finished defeating the boss, the team gathered together again at the Gate entrance in a cheerful atmosphere.

Just as always, they showered their team leader, Bae Yunji, with praise.

“Team Leader, you were amazing again today.”

“We’re supposed to be the ones working hard, but you’re always the one doing all the work.”

“Hahaha! Well, we’ve finished everything today, so how about we go out for dinner? Team Leader, are you okay with that?”

At her teammate’s question, Bae Yunji nervously wiped away her sweat and waved both hands.

She was in absolutely no condition to go out for a team dinner.

“Ah… I’m sorry. I’m feeling really unwell today. I think I should head home first.”

Her teammates looked disappointed.

But they didn’t want to make things harder for her, so they reluctantly nodded.

“Understood. Team Leader, we’ll take care of the magic stones and cores.”

“Yeah, Team Leader! Get home safely!”

“See you next week!”

After finishing work and heading home, Bae Yunji arrived at her apartment.

The moment she entered, she was already panting heavily. She hurriedly opened a drawer and pulled out several photographs.

The photographs showed Hunters whose bodies had been brutally mutilated, along with crime scenes completely drenched in their blood.

These were photographs Bae Yunji herself had taken with a Polaroid camera at the scenes of murders she had committed in the past.

She lived a double life.

In public, she behaved like a kind and diligent Hunter, while in secret, she enjoyed murdering other Hunters.

She was a villain.

“Haa…”

Bae Yunji rubbed the photographs against her eyes and nose as she took a deep breath.

It was a deranged act intended to calm the murderous urges surging inside her.

‘…I’m finally starting to calm down.’

By her standards, she had endured the urge to kill for quite a long time.

So she was planning to satisfy the desire that had been building up inside her soon.

‘Yeah. I’ve held back long enough.’

To minimize the possibility of being tracked down by the police, Bae Yunji deliberately kept the number of murders she committed to a minimum.

She feared that if she were caught, she would be locked away in an Awakened detention center and never be able to kill again for the rest of her life.

She carefully prepared each murder, making absolutely certain that she left no traces behind.

But in exchange, whenever she finally killed someone, she unleashed all the pent-up murderous urges she had accumulated at once.

That was why the murder scenes Bae Yunji left behind were so horrifying that they were almost impossible to look at.

“Where was it…?”

For her next target, she had chosen a B-rank Hunter named Nam Wonjun, whom she had been saving for the right moment.

She had stored the information she had gathered on him inside a drawer, and after checking through it once again, she felt considerably more at ease.

Within the next week, she planned to find him and turn him into the same gruesome state as her previous victims.

‘I’ll come find you soon, Nam Wonjun.’

Just as she was contentedly looking at a photograph of her next target, a sudden CRASH! of breaking glass rang out behind her.

Gwanghyeon arrived at the apartment where Bae Yunji lived.

He immediately checked the building and unit number, locating her apartment.

Fortunately, the building’s structure was relatively simple, allowing him to determine its position even from outside.

‘Over there.’

Gwanghyeon planned to infiltrate Bae Yunji’s home, subdue her immediately, and then search the place for evidence.

He knew how Bae Yunji’s identity as the villain Blood Demon had eventually been exposed before his regression, and how she had been arrested.

Blood Demon had committed murders while meticulously ensuring that she left absolutely no traces behind at the crime scenes, to the point that rumors even spread that the killings had been the work of a ghost.

Yet the thing that ultimately brought her down was, absurdly enough, the photographs she herself had taken and stored at home.

‘Seriously, why would anyone keep photos like that? Crazy woman…’

Gwanghyeon didn’t know exactly what had happened, but apparently, one of the photographs she had taken at a murder scene had accidentally been leaked outside.

That had eventually revealed that Blood Demon was Bae Yunji.

It was a case where a seemingly perfect criminal was arrested because of an unbelievably stupid mistake.

‘Anyway, let’s go.’

After checking that there was no one around, Gwanghyeon leaped upward with all his strength.

He soon reached the window of Bae Yunji’s apartment.

Hanging from the window frame, he looked inside.

‘…There she is!’

The moment he spotted Bae Yunji inside, Gwanghyeon smashed the window with his gauntlet.

—CRASH!

He quickly climbed inside and came face-to-face with Bae Yunji, who had rushed over after hearing the noise.

She looked Gwanghyeon up and down before frowning.

“Who are you?”