Chapter 55: Confidential Video (1)
"Hurgh! Huff!"
Kang Dong-Hun was breathing heavily. He felt his bloodstained T-shirt stick to his skin as he walked.
'I need to contact the captain...'
Dong-Hun held the memory card tight with a desperate expression. He thought of his captain, who was probably looking for him.
Dong-Hun was thinking of Baek Hwa-Yeon, the beautiful woman with shining silver hair… and the person in charge of the 3rd Squadron of the Hwarang Corps.
"Cough! Cough!" Red blood spewed from Dong-Hu's mouth.
Nevertheless, he wiped off the blood dripping from his mouth with his sleeve and kept moving.
'I need to lose those bastards somehow.'
Dong-Hun bit his lip while fighting against the pain that was turning his mind into a haze. The thoughts about his pursuers made his body feel even heavier.
"Damn it..."
He was gradually losing consciousness and struggled to keep going.
Dong-Hun didn't mind dying, but he couldn't die without giving the video he was holding to Hwa-Yeon. That's how shocking the contents of the video were.
"..."
Dong-Hun stared at the micro SD memory card that was the size of a fingernail. Everything that he had experienced before acquiring this video flashed before his eyes.
'Crazy sons of bitches.'
Dong-Hun frowned as he recalled what he'd seen while infiltrating the Demon Cult. He'd witnessed the cult's members use living people as sacrifices without batting an eye. However, the problem was that the cult didn't consist of one or two lunatics like that. The Demon Cult, which had been believed to be simply a pseudo-religious cult, was far bigger than he had imagined.
After infiltrating the Demon Cult, Dong-Hun acted as if he were crazy too to get more information. In doing so, he managed to record footage of shocking information.
'Everything had gone well until then.'
The Demon Cult strictly restricted communication devices to prevent information from leaking out. Even if someone managed to sneak a device in, they wouldn't be able to use it due to a jamming device installed inside the cult's base. So, for the Hwarang Corps to get the footage that Dong-Hun had recorded, he had to bring the memory card to their headquarters in person.
"Cough! Cough!" Dong-Hun coughed up more blood and fell to the ground.
To get the video outside the cult's base, he had put a fake video on top of the original video, which could only be viewed by using a decoding device that the Hwarang Corps possessed. The fake video was something that wasn't unusual for an adult male to have, so he had managed to walk out of the base of the Demon Cult with ease and then headed toward the rendezvous point.
'Of all times for the camera to be found…'
However, one of the Demon Cult members had found Dong-Hun's camera, wasting his efforts to make a cover-up. The fake video was pointless since the Demon Cult ended up finding out that he'd made recordings of the events inside their base.
After realizing his plan had failed, Dong-Hun took the memory card and fled. Members of the Demon Cult pursued him, and an intense fight took place. Dong-Hun eventually barely managed to escape and contacted headquarters for assistance, but he could barely run due to having received a fatal injury.
"Haa, haa..."
Presently, Dong-Hun felt his conscience was getting blurry because of his continuous loss of blood. He could instinctively tell that he was getting close to his limit. If he lost consciousness now, the evidence he possessed would be destroyed by his pursuers.
"Captain..."
With what was left of his strength, Dong-Hun crawled along a deserted alleyway.
"I smell blood."
At that moment, he heard the clear voice of a little girl. Dong-Hun's eyes lit up, and he crawled in the direction that the voice came from.
* * *
"Huff! Huff!"
Oh Kang-Woo heard the sound of someone panting come from inside the alleyway. He frowned after realizing the scent of blood was wafting over from that direction.
'What the hell?'
Kang-Woo was very far away from the Gate. There was no reason for there to be such an intense scent of blood around here.
He walked closer to the source of the heavy breathing.
"Ahh, urghh..."
There, Kang-Woo saw a young man in his mid-twenties. He was covered in blood and trembling in pain.
Upon seeing Kang-Woo, the young man crawled over to him.
"Th-This... Please..."
With trembling hands, the young man gave Kang-Woo a memory card. It was a micro SD card that was often used in smartphones.
"Hwar—"
Thud.
The man lost consciousness without being able to finish his sentence.
Kang-Woo was confused by what happened.
"What the hell is this?"
The young man covered in blood had collapsed before Kang-Woo could do anything.
Kang-Woo looked around and walked toward the young man.
'He's dead.'
It seemed like the young man had already been fatally wounded before Kang-Woo got there. The young man ended up losing his life almost immediately after he saw Kang-Woo.
Kang-Woo went through the young man's clothes to try to find out his identity.
"Hmm..."
However, he couldn't find anything on the young man—not a wallet or even a smartphone. There was nothing that he could use to check the young man's identity.
'I wonder if I can check who he is with the Authority of the Beholder.'
Kang-woo used the Authority of the Beholder on the young man. After all, Kang-Woo had been able to see Kim Si-Hun's status window thanks to it, so he thought this should work.
Demonic energy emerged from Kang-Woo and entered the corpse.
[Status Window]
[Player Name: Kang Dong-Hun
Level: 52 (Sixth Awakening)]
'Sixth Awakening?'
The young man, Kang Dong-Hun, was a considerably high-level Player. Furthermore, the highest-ranking Trait he had was ranked A, which wasn't low at all.
'It's clear he didn't come out of the Gate.'
To access an S-rank Gate, a Player had to be at least Level 60 and have achieved their Seventh Awakening.
'I didn't see him inside the Gate either.'
Kang-Woo looked down at the micro SD card that Dong-Hun had left behind.
"I guess this is the only clue I have."
Kang-Woo put the micro SD card inside his phone. There was only one video file stored in it. He pressed play and watched it.
"Th-This is—!”
Kang-Woo's eyes widened upon seeing the contents of the video. There were sounds of wet plapping and a woman moaning, along with scenes of exposed skin filling the screen...
The micro SD card that Kang-Woo had received from the young man, who had been on the verge of dying, contained a video that was for adults only.
'This is porn...'
Kang-Woo was dumbstruck by the situation that had far transcended his imagination. To think that the thing that the young man had given him in his last breath was porn.
'What the hell is going on?'
Kang-Woo grabbed his forehead in confusion. He couldn't even laugh at how bizarre the situation was.
'Why would he give me something like this right before dying?'
It was far too obscene to consider it a memento.
'Maybe I saw it wrong?'
Kang-Woo once again watched the video from start to finish, but there was nothing in the five-minute video except for interacting bodies.
"..."
He looked down at his smartphone screen with his mouth closed. His eyes lit up as he decided he had to see into the truth of the video, and he watched it again from start to finish.
"Hmm..."
Again…
"Hmm."
And again…
"Dayum..."
Kang-Woo watched it non-stop.
"This is…"
The corners of his mouth curled up. He looked at the woman in the video with a smile.
"...Nice."
Ten millennia… It had been ten millennia since Kang-Woo had watched porn.
"Very nice."
Nothing mattered to him at that very moment, not even his dignity. Kang-Woo was so engrossed with the video that he might be pulled into it.
'Amazing.'
Kang-Woo had bright eyes as he watched the video. He could feel himself getting aroused just by watching it.
Echidna tilted her head in wonder and asked while pulling on Kang-Woo's clothes, "What's that, Kang-Woo?"
"A video containing something very important," Kang-Woo said in the most serious tone he had ever used.
“Something very important?”
"Yeah. The mysteries of the human body... or the miracle of life..."
Kang-Woo was describing porn in a glorifying way when suddenly…
Step, step.
"Hey."
A group of black-robed men with a crazed look in their eyes surrounded Kang-Woo and Echidna.
"..."
Kang-Woo put his smartphone into his pocket while staring at the black-robed men. He could sense a thick bloodlust coming from them.
'Who are these guys?'
Kang-Woo frowned.
At that moment, one guy who had half of his face covered in burn scars approached Kang-Woo and Echidna. He looked back and forth between Dong-Hun, who was now a corpse, and Kang-Woo.
The man then said in a low tone, "You've seen the video."
"What?" Kang-Woo looked at him in confusion.
The man in black burst out into laughter. "It's pointless to act dumb. I know you've seen it."
"I mean, I did see it, but..."
"As long as you've seen that video, we cannot let you live."
"What are you talking about?" Kang-Woo looked at him in disbelief.
The man with the burned face snorted. "Hmph. Are you trying to act dumb after seeing all that?"
'The hell?' Kang-Woo thought.
"You have a lot of nerve. Or maybe you're just dumb," the man continued.
'What's with them?'
"In any case, as long as you've seen that video, we cannot let you live," the man said.
'Why are they so obsessed with porn?'
Kang-Woo looked around puzzledly, unable to understand the current situation. The black-robed men took out their weapons and released a chilling bloodlust.
Kang-Woo couldn't understand why these people were so obsessed with the video. Nevertheless, the one thing he knew for sure was that they were trying to take this video away from him.
His gaze turned sharp, and he softly grabbed his phone, which he had put in his pocket.
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you have this," Kang-Woo said.
"Hmph, you've finally revealed your true colors."
The men brandished their weapons at Kang-Woo as if they had known this would happen.
Kang-Woo glared at them with a blazing spirit. 'No matter what happens, I will protect this video. Even if it costs me my life!'
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