I had been inhibiting my abilities so that Leon would experience the true horrors of the dungeon. However, it was no longer necessary, and we had to set up the stage for him. As I swept away mutts, Woo Yeon-Hee joined me. Hundreds of mutts now turned into corpses, then the boss monster finally got up.

“There’s a protective barrier.”

Woo Yeon-Hee was more focused on the protective barrier surrounding the boss monster's entire body rather than its strengthened appearance.

“It’s at least three thousand points of defense,” I said.

I needed a higher class of Night Eyes to see the exact number. Anyway, the barrier was only a minor problem when the boss monster’s rage reached its peak. In the past, its speed and power alone had killed six experienced E-class hunters out of a group of ten.

The boss monster began sprinting toward us.

“What should I do?” Woo Yeon-Hee asked.

“We fight it together, but don’t kill it,” I replied.

“Okay, I got you,” she answered.

When the boss monster was crippled, I exchanged looks with Woo Yeon-Hee. I collapsed first, then she followed me after. We were covered in mutts’ blood, so Leon couldn’t see that we had no wounds as he came near us. I even frowned and grimaced on purpose.

“Is…it over…?” Leon hesitated.

“N…not…yet…Go finish…it..” I intentionally made my voice tremble.

The boss monster was standing up from where it had been stuck against the wall. Then, it screamed in anger, “Kreeeewakkkk!”

It sounded like the fight wasn’t over yet. Leon hurriedly shook Woo Yeon-Hee to wake her up.

“Mary, Mary. Mary! Wake up! Please! It’s still alive!” he shouted.

“She’s done. You are the only one who can fight,” I said.

“C…can you get up…?” he asked.

“I can’t even move my fingers, but don’t worry. You can finish this.”

“...That evil? …How?”

“Take Mary’s dagger.”

Leon took the dagger out from Woo Yeon-Hee’s hands. When he looked up, the boss monster was in his visibility range.

“Roarrrr!” the monster screamed again, and the entire ceiling and floor tremored.

“Don’t be afraid. That’s the sound of the monster dying,” I reassured him.

“How is that the sound of dying? I’ll just help you get up,” Leon said.

“No, if you don’t finish that monster, everything will be over. Just follow my instructions. Kill it…”

Leon gulped.

“Do you think…I can do that?” he asked.

“Mary and I have nearly finished it. If you go all in, you can. The team’s survival is in your hands. This is why we brought you here,” I replied.

The boss monster began walking slowly, and its footsteps got louder as it approached us. Leon’s eyes widened and he turned toward Woo Yeon-Hee after looking at me and her alternately. Then, he cried out her code name.

“...It will soon enter your line of sight. Then, you’ll know,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“That you can do it, too,” I replied.

“You really can’t move, right?”

“I’d love to, but no.”

“It’s getting closer. Shit! What should I do?” he asked.

“How many times should I tell you? Just wait. You’ll know what to do when it comes.”

Leon saw the boss monster when it got into his range of sight. One of its arms was gone, and it was limping. However, its livid eyes were still burning.

“Grrrrrr…”

The boss monster showed its teeth, and Leon should not be deceived by that. He could defeat the monster if he did his best since the monster was near death despite its bravado.

Leon seemed to have decided as he held his dagger tightly and prepared to fight. I made eye contact with Woo Yeon-Hee, who opened her eyes slightly, and she seemed to cheer him on.

The boss monster shouted again, and I knew it meant Leon should move aside so it could kill Woo Yeon-Hee and me for maiming it. Then, Woo Yeon-Hee closed her eyes in pain. Leon didn’t rush toward the monster or prepare for combat. He suddenly turned toward me and tore my shirt apart. He glared at the insignia embedded in my chest.

“How can I get the Escape insignia?”

“You usually get it from the box,” I said.

“So there must be other ways.” He looked at me.

“You can take off the skin where the insignia is engraved in another person and swallow it.”

Leon must have remembered the conversation we had that time. The tip of his dagger pressed to my chest, and it was obvious that he was going to cut my skin and swallow it. The test was over. I pulled myself up by snatching the dagger in his hand.

“From now on, you’ll have to fight even if you don’t want to,” I said.

Leon didn’t pass the test.

He couldn’t follow us as the maze was complicated and he could only run at human speeds. When we came out of the dungeon, agents approached us. Then, they quietly looked away after seeing Woo Yeon-Hee’s face.

She burst into tears, and I had not seen her cry for a while. She sobbed while looking at the dungeon entrance.

“We gave him plenty of chances,” I said.

“What if he comes out alive?” she asked.

“Do you want him to?” I questioned.

She shook her head. A few hours later, we found his body when we re-entered to finish off the boss.

***

He could have gotten out alive. Since the boss monster was on the verge of death, he could have beat it up. He would have suffered from injuries, but they would have healed after a few days. Also, his trait would have enabled him to get out of the dungeon without much difficulty. However, he blew all those opportunities.

Of course, my explanations didn’t comfort Woo Yeon-Hee as she was blaming herself for his death. I regretted that I had taken her in with me as I had not realized how hard she would be affected.

“I’ll return his company to his family through appropriate methods,” I said.

“...Will they believe you?” she asked.

“I’ll tell them that he died in Africa.”

I could manage that by tweaking a few documents in the training center.

I added, “Also, we won’t add new members for now.”

If Leon couldn’t manage the situation after eighteen months of intense mental training in the camp, I didn’t know how many more would die until I found the third member. The world was still peaceful, so people could fight against African rebels, Somali pirates and terrorists, but not monsters. Therefore…

I said, “Only you and I will do this from now on.”

“Yes, I’d rather do that,” she replied.

“It’s going to be difficult and painful.”

“It’s better than adding someone else. I’ll try to take on multiple roles.”

***

Woo Yeon-Hee wanted to mourn, and while she was attending Leon’s funeral that only had an empty casket, I met Jonathan in New York. The materials markets including oil were showing signs, and the FED had lowered the interest rate once again due to terrorist attacks. The interest rate was now at an all-time low, so the investors who noticed that the dollar was plunging now gunned for the materials market. They would earn lots of profit.

“We’re dealing with the oil market pretty well, but that’s not why I called you today. It’s because of real estate.”

Jonathan handed me a document.

“Everyone’s attention is directed to the deadly terrorist attack, Sun,” he added.

Although I had not told him, Jonathan himself realized that this was an opportunity. The document was full of names and details of banks. I put the papers aside.

He asked, “Why?”

“There’s no need to look into it. Merge them as much as you can,” I said.

Jonathan nodded as if he had expected I would react like this.

“But, be aware of the repercussions. The FED and their lackeys in the White House will pick a fight,” I added.

“Lackeys? Haha.”

Jonathan deeply agreed with my word choice as no other word could describe them. The U.S. government wasn’t the one printing out dollars. The FED was ruled by financial groups like the Rothschild family, and the government was borrowing money from them. That was the overall system of America. The government was a debtor, and the financial conglomerates of the FED were creditors. This was an ugly truth, not a conspiracy theory. They would become so greedy on the Day of Advent, and I couldn’t let them decide the future.

Jonathan interjected, “First, Arab funds are being withdrawn day by day, and the U.S. government is busy taking care of it. Second, we will go to court if necessary. We couldn’t get into the banking industry because of the government’s damn surveillance of us. We are not doing anything illegal, but…”

Jonathan smirked.

“We’ll become enemies of the U.S. government, but it’s worth taking the risk. This opportunity will never come again,” he added.

“After we buy those banks, the products Brian[1] was planning on…” I said.

Jonathan suddenly became quiet and waited for what I was going to say next with an uneasy stare.

“Are so poisonous,” I finished my sentence.

If we followed Kim Cheong-Soo’s plan, we would create the Great Depression of 2008 on our own.

“So?” he asked nervously.

“I like it. If we don’t do this, other pigs will anyway,” I said.

Jonathan’s face brightened.

“Haha. You are calling us pigs too?”

I replied, “It cannot be helped because of what we’re doing. We will give up our conscience to make more money and become pigs. I’m amazed that Brian made such a plan.”

“Brian is deeply invested in Wall Street.”

Jonathan answered while looking out the window. The street was deserted since the terrorist attacks had just happened, but it was slowly recuperating.

“Jonathan, you’ll have to think about your reason for making so much money. It shouldn’t be just based on your greed, but a proper motivation,” I said.

He smiled and asked, “My greed can’t be compared to yours, Sun. So, what’s your motivation?”

“I do this…for my family,” I said.

The beginning had been as simple as that.

1. Kim Cheong-Soo ☜