Chapter 184
Following the children’s lead, Do-Jin headed toward the place where the woman lived. It was a cabin buried deep in the mountains, far from the village. The place looked like the kind of house a persecuted witch would hide in, like something out of an era when people accused of black magic were burned at the stake. Of course, this world was nothing like that, so the resemblance meant nothing. It was simply a hunter’s rest shelter.
The strange part is that a woman lives out here alone, Do-Jin thought.
She looked to be in her late thirties. Her eyes were dark and sunken as if life had spent years grinding her into the dirt. Fortunately, she was alone inside the shelter.
Do-Jin told the children to wait, then began moving toward the cabin. He had only taken a few steps when the woman shrieked like she’d seen a ghost.
“Wh-who is that?!” She yanked a blade from her clothing and held it out toward the door.
Someone else had appeared at the hut.
“It’s me. It’s Romont.”
The moment he said his name, she rolled her eyes like she wanted to stab him on the spot.
“Romont? You useless shit! I’m already scared out of my mind and you show up trying to give me a heart attack. What are you doing out here this late? Actually, no. Did I or did I not tell you to stay the hell away for a while?”
“I didn’t want to come either, damn it. But I thought I should tell you this.”
“What? If you’re here because you want an excuse to fool around and get your dick hard again, you’d better remember I told you I would carve you into a girl the next time.”
Do-Jin listened closely.
“Stop talking shit,” Romont snapped back. “I was drunk then. Goddamn it, this isn’t the time. Detol just died. They found him on the street in three pieces.”
They were clearly talking about the man who died earlier today. In other words, these two knew him. They also had every reason to be terrified by his death.
“Detol... that idiot really died?” the woman asked in a quieter voice.
“He did. Do you remember what he said? The thing about...”
“Stop it. You know he talked all kinds of garbage when he was drunk or high. Don’t let that crap get to you.”
“You’re seriously saying that right now? The bastard is dead. And he isn’t the only one who said he saw a ghost,” Romont added.
“So what do you want me to do? Pray? Run?”
Do-Jin had heard enough. By this point, there was no question that these two were knee-deep in something rotten. Do-Jin could bash their skulls in right now and the gods would probably clap for him, which meant he had room to do whatever needed to be done without worrying about the consequences.
“Hold it.” Do-Jin steadied the children by placing his hands on their shoulders and calming the killing intent that leaked from them. After they settled, he walked toward the hut. The two adults were too busy yelling at each other to notice him approaching.
“Excuse me...” Do-Jin called out to them with a harmless, almost innocent voice.
Both of them snapped their heads toward him, but they never saw the rock coming. The stone Do-Jin borrowed from the mountain hit them before they could scream, and the shock sent both of them crumpling to the ground.
***
The man and woman came to when a short, violent surge of electricity tore through their bodies hard enough to snap them out of unconsciousness. They hadn’t even managed to scream. Their bound limbs jerked like startled animals as their eyes flew open, and they began thrashing the moment they understood the situation they were in.
“Mmph!”
“Mmff! Mmmph!”
Do-Jin watched them struggle in silence with their mouths sealed shut. When he hit them with another burst of electricity, their bodies snapped upward again, flopping like fish out of a tank. The noises came out thick and strangled, like people trying to yell through soaked cloth.
Do-Jin watched them without saying anything, then continued with the next surge. Each sharp flash of light came with an equally sharp burst of pain. From their side, the repeated pattern must have felt like pure terror.
While they suffered, they learned an important lesson on their own. Moving earned them punishment. Making noise earned them more. They kept their mouths shut and stared at him, too scared to try again. He didn’t need long speeches to teach them a lesson. Drilling it into them until it sank into their bones worked much better.
This feels more like breaking them in than teaching, though.
Do-Jin let the thought fade because he didn’t care either way. He finally opened his mouth to speak. “I’m giving each of you a chance to talk one at a time. You’ll start by admitting what you did wrong, and then you’ll tell me everything you know. If you ramble, lie, or mix in anything useless, your next chance to talk is coming a long time from now.”
Then, he started with the man. Do-Jin melted the hardened mud spell that had been sealing the man’s mouth. The man gagged and spat out the mud that had clogged his throat. Terror twisted his voice as he forced the words out.
“I swear I don’t know anything. I have no idea why you’re doing thi—”
The mud shoved itself back into his mouth mid-sentence, and he choked on it while thrashing like a dying animal. His strangled cry came out as a broken, guttural attempt at speech.
Do-Jin let out a long, irritated breath. He’d expected that people like him would always share the same flaw. They were unbelievably stupid. If this man had even half a brain, he would’ve chosen the path with less pain.
Do-Jin had no choice but to deliver another controlled cycle of electricity, three long seconds of burning current followed by a second of rest. The man jerked wildly at first, then went stiff like he’d been frozen, then collapsed limply, like a puppet with cut strings. His body repeated that rhythm until he couldn’t muster anything but weak spasms.
The woman stared at Do-Jin with wide, furious eyes. She looked like she wanted to scream that she didn’t even get a chance to speak yet, so she didn’t understand why she had to suffer too.
To Do-Jin, however, she simply had the misfortune of being punished as a package deal. He kept going until both of them wore the hollow faces of people who’d rather die than breathe. The magic delivered pain clean and sharp.
Their bodies were unable to hide the pain. Their eyes lost their light and darkened until they looked even duller than dead fish. Do-Jin watched them quietly and released the spell blocking their mouths.
The woman sagged forward. She pushed the remaining mud out with her tongue and forced her jaw to work until she managed to speak. “I... I’m just in charge of managing them.”
Her answer didn’t mean anything on its own, so Do-Jin flicked his hand in warning.
She panicked immediately and spoke faster. “Wait. Please wait. I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything.” She broke into desperate tears as she continued, “They said they needed slaves.”
The story finally came out. They were part of a group that supplied people to buyers who wanted slaves. They disguised the disappearances as monster attacks, runaway cases, or unexplained vanishings, kidnapped the victims, and delivered them as merchandise.
The woman’s job wasn’t anything complicated. She gathered the people they kidnapped and managed them like inventory, acting as a go-between for the kidnappers and the buyers.
“What kind of bastards are buying the slaves?”
“I... I don’t know. I really don’t. I just assumed they’d distribute the slaves somewhere else.”
Her voice rang with honesty, though not the honesty of a good person. It was the blunt honesty of someone who’d already sold people for money and didn’t care what happened to them afterward.
So they started by selling a few people for pocket change, and once they realized how easy it was, they turned it into a full operation.
As more accomplices joined in, they covered the disappearances by posing as witnesses. Once someone claimed they had seen a huge wolf drag the victim away, inventing a cause of death became easy.
“We aren’t even the worst ones. There are people out there way more ruthless than we are. I’ll help you find them. I’ll do anything. Please... just let me live!”
Her little cluster of traffickers barely numbered eight. She explained that organizations identical to theirs were scattered all over this region like rot in the walls.
“Finding the others won’t be hard even without your help,” Do-Jin said flatly.
He already had a list of the idiots who’d whined about seeing evil spirits. When he cross-referenced it, the worthless bastard in front of him was on it too. The man even had a record of getting drunk, ranting about evil spirits, causing trouble, and ending up in a holding cell. And even if someone wasn’t on the list, it didn’t matter. This woman hadn’t been, yet Do-Jin still tracked her down.
“How’d you hand over the merchandise? How’d you contact them? Can you still get in touch with them right now?”
The questions came one after another, and the woman nodded frantically to everything.
“Yes. Of course. I’ve been keeping my head low lately, but if I send the signal that the merchandise is ready, the collector will come.”
“And how exactly do you send a signal?”
“That’s...” She hesitated.
When she saw the spark crackle between Do-Jin’s fingers, she jolted in fear and answered immediately. “There’s a designated spot. If I tie a knot there, the collector comes within three days.”
That was extremely useful information. Tracking someone was far easier once their contact methods and meeting patterns were clear, instead of chasing them blind.
If she’s lying, I’ll confirm it when I cross-check with the others.
Do-Jin decided he’d heard enough from these two. There were more than enough people left who’d spill everything once he squeezed them.
As he stood up, the woman pleaded, “Please, don’t kill us.”
She bowed her head so fast it looked like she might snap her neck, clearly mistaking his movement for the prelude to finishing them off. Next to her, the man panicked and started crawling on the floor like a maggot.
“Relax. I’m not planning on killing either of you.” Do-Jin walked out of the shack.
Is he really leaving? Is that it? Did we make it out of this alive? The woman stared at his retreating back with trembling eyes.
However, something appeared out of nowhere right in front of her. She gasped hard enough for her breath to catch in her throat. Terror spread across her face, but it wasn’t the same fear she’d shown Do-Jin. This fear was much more deeply ingrained.
“You... you... you’re—”
The girl she’d sold not long ago stood right in front of her.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. Your mother racked up gambling debt. That’s her fault, not mine.” The woman tried to crawl backward while tied up, shaking her head in wild denial.
The Wraith Cluster stared at her without moving. Then, her arm bent backward in a direction no human joint should’ve allowed. She froze for a second and stared at her twisted limb. A raw, animalistic scream tore out of her mouth. The shack echoed with her screams for a long while, sharp enough to make the air feel thin.
Do-Jin waited outside in silence the whole time. When the screaming finally stopped, a child covered in blood walked out, barely steady on her feet.
“We can go, sir.”
Those children had the right to take revenge. Do-Jin knew he didn’t. Either way, the bitterness sat heavy in his heart.
“Alright,” Do-Jin replied, leaving with the children.
Afterward, he met with the people listed in the records and questioned them directly. Most of them insisted on not knowing anything. A few were already half-broken from fear of evil spirits, and those confessed in fragments. That was enough for Do-Jin to piece together something reliable. Over the next few days, he watched the people the children had named from a distance.
People who are obsessed with money always keep going, even in situations like this.
His faith in human greed paid off. He eventually caught them in the act of contacting their superiors to sell more merchandise.
There’s a black knot on a tree in the middle of nowhere. That’s the sign.
The next day, a group arrived to complete the trade. They sold seven people in that hidden mountain range.
Do-Jin watched the whole thing through Farsight, then quietly followed the two men who’d bought the captives. Anemone stayed close behind him. At first, he wondered if they were nothing more than low-level criminals in a slave-trading ring. Once he saw where they were heading, he dropped that thought immediately.
Isn’t that a cave concealed by magic?
A random criminal gang wouldn’t have done that. Even if they had the skill, pouring that much money into security for a small slave operation made no sense. People only overspent like that when they were hiding something far worse, and in this world, only a handful of groups fell into that category aside from the Cult of Ruin.
That’s enough. They’re the ones.
Now that he was convinced, Do-Jin decided to deal with the collectors before they returned to their hideout.