Chapter 62: The Shadow of Retribution

-We’ve Met Before

1.

Code name: Spider-Man.

A C-rank awakened individual and a second-tier surveillance target of the association, he had assisted Hae Eung Eung in cleanup operations.

After enduring constant observation by his colleague

So Kyungseok for a while, the association suddenly lifted his surveillance due to a policy change, making him a free man once again.

“Could it be because I’m no longer worth monitoring?”

Initially, he worried that something had happened to Hae Eung Eung, like her going missing.

But seeing her broadcasting as usual put his mind at ease.

“You’re really extreme. You know how they say uncle fans of idols can’t ever understand others? ”

“How do you get this obsessed with a gaming streamer?”

“Don’t be a hypocrite. You got tired of regular idols and now obsess over star awakeners.”

” Don’t be so harsh when we’re both aging in the same boat.”

Though their words were sharp, the two shared a friendly camaraderie, exchanging messages through their phones as they stood shoulder to shoulder.

[Why was the surveillance lifted?]

[I’m not sure. Rumor has it the C-team of the association’s monitoring division got completely wiped out, both the field and monitoring agents.]

[All of them? Out of nowhere?]

[Maybe they messed with someone they shouldn’t have.]

[Does Hae Eung Eung have someone backing her?]

[Or maybe she handled it herself. Who knows?]

As seasoned freelance awakeners familiar with the association’s murky affairs, they couldn’t help but be intrigued by the rare turn of events.

Whether it was through her own strength or the

support of a mysterious benefactor, the fact remained: someone had taken on the association and forced them to concede.

[Still, it feels a bit disappointing.]

[Disappointing? What’s there to be disappointed about?]

[My little streamer turning out to be a key figure backed by a powerful force it’s just not the same.]

“You’re insane.”

So Kyungseok finally broke the silence with an exasperated sigh.

“A streamer with 230,000 subscribers and an average viewership of 13,000 how exactly is she your little streamer?”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Wake up, idiot. She lives in a completely different world than us. ”

“Do you think someone constantly summoned by the association, risking her life daily, would have any interest in someone like

us? We don’t even qualify for life insurance.”

“I never said I wanted to marry her!”

“Come on, I’ve worked with you for years. Do you think I don’t know what’s on your mind? ”

“Let it go before it’s too late. You got lucky this time, but it might not happen again.”

The words struck a chord, leaving Woo Jiwoo momentarily stunned.

Patting his shoulder, So Kyungseok got ready for his patrol, leaving Woo Jiwoo to reflect.

‘He’s right.’

It was rare, almost impossible, for someone under the association’s scrutiny to be released.

‘And she wasn’t just any woman.’

Hae Eung Eung had taken down over ten Unknowns in a single moment, rendering them near death.

And if her backers could obliterate the association’s monitoring division, then she was likely

tied to a dangerously powerful villain organization.

‘What am I, a day-to-day freelancer, even thinking? Falling for someone who might be part of a villain group? That’s completely out of my league.’

The whirlwind that was his first love had arrived suddenly, only to slip away just as quickly, like a fleeting fragrance carried by the wind.

He believed that he would never again have the chance to speak with Hae Eung Eung.

That is, until the frantic vibration of his wrist device interrupted his thoughts.

<Emergency Alert: Gate Raid in Myungho District 2>

Myungho District.

The very place where he had first encountered Hae Eung Eung,

the woman whose beauty and demeanor had captivated him despite his otherwise plain life.

“Wait, isn’t this where we got dispatched last time?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Woo Jiwoo, you’re not thinking something crazy, are you? What’s with that face?”

“Sorry. I need to go first.”

“Hey, hey! You idiot, don’t you dare!”

Ignoring his colleague’s shouts, Woo Jiwoo took off running, his determination unwavering.

Dodging the monsters that swarmed the eight-lane road, Woo Jiwoo swung between streetlights using his webs, frantically flipping through the list of rescue requests.

‘Found it!’

It wasn’t Hae Eung Eung herself, but a woman named Joo Ahyoung who had previously been seen with her.

“…Why does it have to be there?”

The location was the convenience store near the gate.

According to a detailed report from another rescue requester, Lee Haechan, there were three people inside the store: two women and one man.

If they weren’t just random customers, the two women could very well be Joo Ahyoung and Hae Eung Eung.

‘Would it even help if I ran to someone way stronger than me?’

‘Stop being an idiot. This is your chance to rack up association contribution points.’

Suppressing the impulsive tug of his desires, he reached the scene seven minutes later, drenched in sweat.

‘They’re already wiped out…’

The street was littered with the corpses of monsters.

Standing at the center of the chaos was a woman, twirling an umbrella slung casually over her shoulder.

Her nonchalant expression and unscathed appearance made it clear she hadn’t suffered a scratch.

Woo Jiwoo’s legs gave out beneath him. He slid to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

‘How embarrassing…’

Instead of a smooth landing, his entrance was more of a graceless crash.

The notification from his wrist device came a moment too late, amplifying his humiliation.

[C-rank Awakened, Spider-Man, has arrived at the scene.]

“Are you okay?”

“Haha, this is… quite humiliating. An association awakener being worried about by the rescue target? That’s a first.”

“Just the fact that you showed up in this chaos is more than enough,” Joo Ahyoung said kindly.

Woo Jiwoo brushed off her concern with a weak laugh, though internally, he was mortified.

‘What kind of humiliating disaster is this in front of my first love?’

If he could, he’d turn back time in an instant.

As Woo Jiwoo silently prayed, his gaze landed on the monster corpses scattered around him. He immediately seized the opportunity.

“With a contribution of this magnitude, I bet the mana stones retrieved here are worth a small fortune.

How about entrusting their extraction and sale to the association? I can personally oversee the process for you.”

“Oh, right! Unnie, mana stones fetch a really high price! Since you’ve taken down so many monsters, you should sell the stones too.”

Nobody would object to someone personally retrieving discarded money for them.

[May I take a look?]

“Oh, you’re inspecting the quality? Go right ahead.”

Woo Jiwoo carefully extracted a mana stone from one of the corpses, wiped the blood off, and handed it over.

The stone was about the size of a child’s fist, glittering faintly like a gemstone.

Hae Eung Eung stared at it coldly before tossing it into the air.

Slash!

Her sword sliced cleanly through the mana stone mid-flight, and the split halves fell to the ground with a metallic clang, scattering shards.

“Unnie! That was worth so much money how could you break it?”

“What? Do you have issues with the association?” Woo Jiwoo asked hesitantly, alarmed.

[There was a bad energy inside it.]

“Pardon?”

Mana stones typically contain a form of natural energy.

If extracted properly, they can be highly valuable.

However, this particular stone carried an impurity a dark energy, or takki.

‘Even mere exposure to takki can have adverse effects. Using a mana stone tainted with such energy could only lead to disaster.’

As a martial artist with the ability to discern the purity of energy, Hae Eung Eung was resolute.

To her, mana stones were nothing more than containers for dangerous pollutants that should never leave the gate.

Unaware of her perspective, Lee Haechan couldn’t help but feel sorry for Woo Jiwoo.

‘He went out of his way to show goodwill, only to have it bluntly rejected. What a terrifying woman he might actually cry.’

Considering the lizardmen’s low individual rank, the mana stone’s value per lizardman was about 200,000 won.

Factoring in the likelihood of damaged stones during combat, the average profit per corpse dropped to about a third of that.

With over 60 lizardmen killed, Woo Jiwoo could expect a total income of roughly 4 million won.

Adding the elite lizardman’s mana stone worth 1 million won, the total came to a respectable 5 million won.

However, for Hae Eung Eung, who had wiped out more than twice as many monsters,

even a conservative estimate put her earnings at over 10 million won.

‘It’s like offering her a 10-million-won diamond ring and having her reject it outright.’

Feeling pity, Lee Haechan decided to throw Woo Jiwoo a lifeline.

“There was a lunatic spraying glow-in-the-dark paint on the main road earlier. ”

“They might still be nearby. How about investigating that?”

Woo Jiwoo eagerly seized the chance.
“Such a heinous act! Don’t worry, I’ll find them immediately.”

Following Lee Haechan’s tip, Woo Jiwoo pursued the suspect,

eventually catching Choi Hopil in the act of destroying nearby CCTV cameras to cover his tracks.

Choi Hopil had witnessed Hae Eung Eung’s massacre from start to finish.

‘What did I mess with this time?’

Even the notoriously vile Choi Hopil couldn’t suppress the tremor in his hands as he imagined what would happen if his misdeeds were discovered.

Her overwhelming display of power struck fear into him.

‘Evidence I need to destroy the evidence!’

Blinded by revenge, he had made a reckless move, only to find himself facing an even graver consequence.

His efforts to erase the proof of his crimes were cut short when Woo Jiwoo caught him red-handed, sealing his fate.

“Damn it, breaking the cameras alone isn’t enough,” muttered Choi Hopil.

Desperate to eliminate evidence, he broke into nearby shops to destroy video footage,

tampered with parked cars to remove black box memory chips, and frantically worked to erase every trace.

But just as his efforts seemed to gain momentum, his luck ran out.

An awakened association member appeared Woo Jiwoo and caught him red-handed.

“This is the man. I apprehended him while he was destroying evidence on the scene,” Woo Jiwoo said.

Choi Hopil, now handcuffed, was thrown onto the pavement. His heart sank like a stone as the sound of a heavy thunk echoed nearby.

In front of him, Hae Eung Eung’s umbrella struck the ground, piercing three inches (9 cm) into the concrete.

The sight alone froze Choi Hopil’s body in place. His head, stiff with fear, creaked as it slowly tilted upward to meet her gaze.

[We’ve met before, haven’t we?]

This was the woman who sliced through monsters as if they were mere chunks of meat. Her strength was immeasurable, her skill intimidating.

[I was already planning to find you. It’s convenient that you saved me the trouble.]

In the martial world, settling debts be they grudges or gratitude was an ironclad principle.

‘This can’t be happening. I’ll accept punishment, face trial, confess everything in court just please, don’t do this. Don’t kill me. Please, I don’t want to die…’

“Agh!”

Hae Eung Eung, her irritation clear,

grabbed the chain linking Choi Hopil’s handcuffs to her umbrella and began dragging him into a narrow alley filled with the bodies of slain lizardmen.

“Even if he’s scum who deserves it, are you sure this is okay? I don’t want you to get into trouble, Unnie…” Joo Ahyoung hesitated, concerned.

“That bastard already removed every CCTV in the area,” Woo Jiwoo added. “Nobody will ever know what happens here.”

Her words erased Joo Ahyoung’s lingering doubts.

Even Lee Haechan, who struggled to suppress his anger after nearly dying due to Choi Hopil’s actions,

could empathize with Hae Eung Eung’s fury.

Neither of them intervened as Choi Hopil screamed and thrashed, helplessly dragged into the alley.

And Woo Jiwoo?

As the association’s awakened member responsible for apprehending Choi Hopil in the first place,

he certainly wasn’t going to stop her.

No one made any attempt to intervene until the two disappeared into the shadows and Choi Hopil’s blood-curdling screams eventually faded.

“Unnie, what did you do in there?” Joo Ahyoung asked cautiously.

[It’s better if you don’t know.]

‘But seriously, what did she do?’

Joo Ahyoung and Lee Haechan exchanged uneasy glances, while Woo Jiwoo grew even more certain of his own misinterpretations.

Even among licensed awakened individuals, killing was rare, and boundaries were strictly enforced.

Considering the pleading screams that echoed earlier, whatever Hae Eung Eung had done was not ordinary.

It was clinical, calculated professional.

‘She’s definitely part of some villain organization,’ Woo Jiwoo concluded.

When Hae Eung Eung finally emerged alone from the alley, her indifferent demeanor only deepened the misunderstanding.

She casually swung her umbrella, flicking blood off its surface against a wall.

Even among awakened individuals with license to kill, few displayed such chilling nonchalance.

As Hae Eung Eung walked away, the gap between perception and reality grew impossibly wide,

solidifying the false impression she had inadvertently created.