Auto Hunting

The building exteriors were painted white, and the delicate smell of medicine peculiar to medical facilities could be smelled even from outside. No special security measures could be observed.

There weren’t even checkpoints on the way in or hoards of guards moving around. In fact, dozens of civilian vehicles were parked in the spacious parking lot.

Puck-!

Yoo-seong landed on the rooftop of a six-story building.

The door was closed, but Yoo-seong felt so surprised that he tried to turn the handle gently. It wasn’t locked at all.

As Yoo-seong walked down the stairs, he was certain.

‘This must be a hospital.’

The smell of disinfectant and medicine was a dead giveaway. As he reached the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, he heard footsteps approaching.

However, Auto-Hunt did not make any effort to hide or escape.

Yoo-seong kept walking casually.

Soon a doctor in a gown appeared at the corner. They exchanged a brief moment of eye contact.

The doctor gave a little bow and spoke. Of course, what he said was in Japanese, so Yoo-seong had no idea what it meant.

However…

As soon as the doctor passed him by, his hand pulled out his phone.

His translator app was already running. Auto-Hunt had clearly planned for this.

The translation wasn’t perfect, but what the doctor said was:

‘It is on the third, fourth, and fifth floor. Please change clothes and wait.’

Still controlled by Auto-Hunt, Yoo-seong continued walking down the stairs.

As he approached the fifth floor, the sound of footsteps and voices became louder. There were nurses and doctors.

From time to time, people who were dressed like patients also passed through the wide corridors.

No one paid Yoo-seong any attention, as if it weren’t strange that he was here.

‘What the hell is happening?’ Yoo-seong felt confused.

‘Is this place really just a general hospital?’

Other than the weird circumstance of having its location hidden from the map, there were no other special security measures that Yoo-seong could see.

However, he soon noticed the strange condition of the patients. No one seemed to have any trauma or injuries. In fact, they all looked like they had just woken up from a deep sleep.

Other than that, their steps were as steady and carefree as Yoo-seong’s.

‘The patients here are all…’

The realization hit him.

Beep-

The glass door at the end of the hallway opened, giving Yoo-seong a glimpse of what was inside the operating room. It looked no different from the emergency rooms of other hospitals.

However, the difference was the people inside.

The patients here were not people who were ill, or in critical condition.

Rather, they would be stronger and healthier than ordinary people.

The patients in this hospital were all CE users.

A nurse passing by spoke to Yoo-seong.

“You have to change clothes.”

However, Yoo-seong ignored her and kept walking toward the beds.

“Hey!” the nurse called out.

The equipment inside the operating rooms was different from that found in an intensive care unit.

Instead of oxygen tanks, ventilators or defibrillators, the equipment inside the room was mostly pumps.

They were connected to the patients’ lower abdomens, arms, and legs.

Yoo-seong recognized the equipment. In fact, he had used it before, once every two weeks.

It was equipment used for CE injection, the exact same equipment as in Jin Chang-hoon’s hospital.

But this apparatus seemed to have a different purpose.

Go-oh-oh-!

Instead of injecting CE, they were extracting CE from the people lying on the beds.

‘This…’ Yoo-seong was speechless.

The scenes before him didn’t make sense. The only reason Sung-wook had given him his CE was because Sung-wook could not use it anymore.

Otherwise, most hunters did not pass their CE to others, even in a desperate situation. It was a question of being a superhuman or an average human.

‘Is this even legal?’ Yoo-seong wondered.

There were common international laws that applied to CE handling. In the case of human-to-human CE transmission, the authorities had to be notified prior to the injection. It was also illegal to store extracted CE in a container for more than three hours. Since CE was also treated as a part of the human body, unauthorized transfers were severely punished.

“How do you feel?”

It was a woman’s voice.

Yoo-seong turned Auto-Hunt off before turning around. A doll-like girl was behind him.

It was obvious that she was of mixed race at first glance. Her pale skin seemed like white jade, creating a sharp contrast against her bright red lips. Her hair was tied back neatly, making her sailor-style outfit stand out.

“Nice to meet you, I…” the woman began.

“What is this?” Yoo-seong roughly cut her off.

She didn’t seem to care much. Instead, she gazed upward and placed a finger on her lips as if she were thinking hard.

“Well… what should I say? Since you came here with my brother-in-law, he must have told you about the ‘main actor’ stuff?”

Yoo-seong stared at her without responding.

“Let’s just say that this is the extras’ sacrifice to make the main actor shine brighter!” she giggled.

Only then did Yoo-seong realize…

Kodama.

That was how the son-in-law of the Leto Group managed to hold that amount of CE.

“Are you one of the main actors, then?” he asked the woman in front of him.

“Oh, how did you know?!” The girl seemed truly happy.

Go-oh-!

It was easy.

Judging just by the amount of CE that Yoo-seong could feel around her, he could tell. He’d never met anyone with this much CE.

“My name is Chika Sukune. If you’re comfortable doing so, you may call me Chika.”

She smiled and tilted her head at Yoo-seong, but he did not respond.

“Would you like to tell me your name? Of course, I already know you, but… it’s still our first meeting. You can make it more romantic, right?”

“You find this romantic?” Yoo-seong’s voice was cold. “You said Kodama is your brother-in-law. Then where is your father?” he asked her.

“He’s here, of course. He told me to bring you.”

“Bring me to him, then.”

“Aw, don’t say it so coldly. I’m hurt.” The girl pouted.

Yoo-seong shook his head and sighed.

Suddenly…

“Huh… huh!”

They turned toward the sound of heavy breathing.

“Oh, brother-in-law!”

Kodama came through the glass door.

“Mr. Oh Yoo-seong… well… you got here first…”

Kodama was pale, as if he had also sprinted after Yoo-seong in the cold, sharp landscape. However, Yoo-seong didn’t care about that at all.

“Director, I need to meet your father-in-law,” he said urgently.

However…

“No,” Chika said firmly. “I’m Oh Yoo-seong’s fan. I watched all the broadcasts about him. Brother-in-law, I will bring him to Father. You can go.”

Kodama looked embarrassed.

It didn’t sound like a child’s demand. It sounded like she had unfinished business with Yoo-seong.

Kodama turned his gaze on Yoo-seong and tried to explain.

“Miss Chika is the chairman’s youngest daughter. It could be said that among his children, she is his…”

“His favorite and his most cherished treasure.” Chika finished his sentence off with a proud expression.

“Why don’t you walk with her to the chairman’s office?” Kodama suggested.

Yoo-seong didn’t even look at the girl.

“His most cherished treasure…” Yoo-seong’s voice was full of contempt, “created from using people like this?”

He spread his arms toward the beds in the extraction room they stood in.

The patients didn’t seem to mind them. They looked sleepy and exhausted from the extraction.

Powerless.

Kodama tried to calm Yoo-seong down.

“I understand you feel bad about this…”

However, Kodama’s voice sounded to Yoo-seong as if he didn’t really understand why Yoo-seong was angry.

“But don’t get me wrong, we never force these guys…”

“They are useless anyway.” Chika cut Kodama off once again. “They are humans who can’t use their CE properly. It’d be a waste. It’s best to give them to more talented people, like you and me. Right?” she added.

Her expression was bright, as if she really thought they were doing what was best for these people.

“That’s funny.” Yoo-seong’s reply was brief.

Kodama felt anxious. It was the first time he had seen Yoo-seong’s chilly attitude.

He shot a worried look toward his sister-in-law, who wore a big smile despite the situation.

“But… why don’t we take a rest first?” Kodama tried to salvage the atmosphere. “I am not saying we should delay you from meeting the chairman, but…”

He appealed to Yoo-seong with his eyes.

‘Please, Oh Yoo-seong,’ he wanted to say. ‘Aren’t you a courteous man?’

However…

“If you don’t lead me to him, I’ll find him myself,” Yoo-seong said firmly and began to turn.

Suddenly…

Gooh-oh!

Chika grabbed Yoo-seong’s arm to stop him. Her grasp was heavy with Aura.

“If you keep ignoring me…” Her sweet voice had a hint of anger in it.

“Let me go,” Yoo-seong warned.

“You don’t like it?” She smiled innocently.

Kodama was watching Yoo-seong intently over his sister-in-law’s shoulder.

Yoo-seong was a courteous man. In fact, he had never shown Kodama any rude gesture before coming here. However, that was only because he recognized Kodama as a government official who could lead him to the chairman.

But the way Yoo-seong looked at the hand on his arm right now…

“This is my final warning. Let go.”

Yoo-seong didn’t have to be polite at all.

The person who had grabbed him was the daughter of a vicious international criminal. She was a product of his crimes.

“I don’t want to…” Chika began. However, before she even finished speaking, Yoo-seong’s hand was already moving.

He pressed the automatic hunting button.

Auto-Hunt seemed to agree with how Yoo-seong felt.

Howoook-!

In an instant, Yoo-seong’s fist shot out.

Kuk-!

It struck Chika square in the face.