Chapter 747 – 747. The Severed Connection (3)
“Kuh… !”
Runaan groaned at the pain of having his finger cut off.
“You don’t scream.”
Runan’s attitude towards the man was very unexpected.
Runan clenched his teeth and suppressed a scream that seemed to explode at any moment.
Then he glared at the man who had cut his thumb with his dagger.
“Nice… I… Did you want me to scream and beg for your life?”
“I didn’t want to beg for my life. It would have made things easier.”
If that were the case, the disclosure of Eunhyun’s information would have gone smoothly.
The man knew very well that if he planted fear and agitation in the emotions he thought would be strong, it would only be a matter of time before they collapsed.
However, he did not think that a man named Runan would break down so easily.
“I wish I could just blow it. It’s not like I’m doing this because I like it.”
“…”
Runan didn’t answer.
He was just looking up at the man and glaring at him, but in his eyes, he could feel the will to kill himself.
“… Tsk.”
As expected, the man clicked his tongue, saying that it did not go easily.
In his experience, a person who makes such a face really doesn’t give in even if a knife is put in his throat.
Then, he swung his dagger once more and slashed down the restrained Runaan’s left hand.
His index finger, followed by his thumb, is cut off and tumbles across the floor.
“Ugh… Eww!”
Runaan desperately held back from screaming in agony again.
However, the pain of having a body part amputated is not the kind of pain you can easily adapt to.
No matter how strongly he made up his mind, the pain gnawed at his body and mind, and he would eventually succumb.
How long you can hold out will depend on the individual differences, but the ending is not different.
After struggling with such pain, the man cut Runan’s middle finger a few minutes later.
“You’re poison. Usually, it’s time to talk.”
After his middle finger, his ring finger, and even his little finger, he cut off all of his left fingers.
Although he contorted his face in pain, his eyes were not dead.
No. That is the face prepared for death.
“… I don’t know why you’re so loyal to that man. People like you are just scum who casually change owners to preserve their immediate interests or lives.”
The man knew about the relationship between Runan and Heilangdan and Eunhyeon.
The Heilangdan were caught up in a factional political battle within the kingdom, and the faction he belonged to was defeated by Eun-hyeon.
As long as the high-ranking nobles of the kingdom who commanded them disappeared, the only thing waiting for them was to pay the price of assassination and scheming with death.
Eun-hyeon, who manipulated the aristocrats of the opposing camp from behind, took them in.
It could be that Runan is holding out like this to repay the favor to Eun-hyeon.
“You feel grace? It can’t be.”
The man is very familiar with information guilds like Runan and Heilangdan.
They are dark beings who buy and sell information with money and assassinate people with money.
There is no such thing as trust or grace between the information guild, customers, and owners, and the only thing you can trust is money.
Information guilds are where conspiracies such as casually breaking promises or contracts and someone who was fine until yesterday are found on a dirty street as a cold corpse overnight.
That’s why there can’t be anything called ‘trust’ between Heilangdan and Eunhyeon.
Heilangdan are just beings like hounds on a leash to Eun-hyeon, and they can be discarded at any time if they are no longer useful.
It would be the right decision to betray first before being abandoned, before being betrayed and dying.
But Runan didn’t make that choice.
“Kuk-kuk…”
Runan, who was listening to the man’s story, laughed.
Even though all five of his fingers were cut off and the spilled blood was soaking the chair and the floor, the man showed an incomprehensible reaction as he saw Runan laughing.
“You look like you don’t understand why I don’t beg for my life and sell him.”
“…”
It’s a straight line.
The man, like Runan, is a human in the same industry.
Runaan read his mind.
“It is exactly as you said. We don’t need trust or grace. But… Betrayal is worthwhile only when there is an advantage when betrayed.”
“… What?”
“Even if I betrayed him, I don’t think you could do anything to him.”
It was difficult for Runan to imagine a future where Eunhyeon would lose, even if they had a weakness for Eunhyeon.
In that case, it is better not to betray in the first place.
“… If you don’t tell me, you will die here anyway.”
“My life is worth nothing.”
No matter how much his fingers were cut off, his limbs were cut off, and even if he faced death at the end, what Runan considered important was not his own life.
The most important thing he considered now were the Heilang members.
‘If I could guarantee the members’ safety with my life, it would be cheap.’
It is an insignificant life that took the lives of others, sold information, and lived with it.
The reason he doesn’t betray Eun-hyeon isn’t grace or trust.
It was because, as Runan understood, Eunhyeon was a person who was frighteningly careful with calculations.
If he dies here without disclosing information about him, Eun-hyeon will most likely take responsibility until the end.
Although he doesn’t trust the Black Wands, he thought that with his life, he was worth a deal.
Isn’t that alone a life worth living?
‘It was a life that could only do this much anyway.’
Runan had no regrets in his life.
However, what caught his mind was the faces of the members who had followed him until now.
He has been living in the slums since he was a child, where even taking the lives of others for his own survival was tacitly accepted.
He would fall down the street and claim a piece of dusty bread. He had a fight with someone and he had to do anything to survive.
At that time, he experienced murder for the first time.
He received a large sum of money from an unknown aristocrat and killed a certain commoner.
At the time, Runan did not know what kind of conspiracy and conspiracy was involved in the contract to kill.
Only the fact that he could get a lot of money to live on for months just by masquerading as a robber and killing that person made him move.
And over time, he honed his assassination skills alone and gradually began to make a name for himself in the shadows.
He did not particularly enjoy the crime of murder.
To him, he was just a means to make a living, and he didn’t have much empathy for the people he killed.
He was too busy making a living for himself.
‘I guess I’ll get that punishment now.’
It’s nothing more than getting back the accumulated karma.
This pain, the horror and fear of having your fingers cut off one by one and bleeding out.
What would happen to Heilangdan if he died?
Eun-hyeon will continue to look after her, but in the end, the operation of the organization requires someone to take over the leader’s position and lead the members.
Runan felt sorry for some reason.
Was it really the right thing to teach them to kill and pass on their skills?
It was best to survive then.
The reason why young orphans in the slums, abandoned by their parents, helped them earn their own food and live on their own, was nothing more than self-satisfied contradictory selfishness to alleviate the guilt of what they had done so far.
The only thing she could pass on to her children was the assassination technique, which she used to take the lives of others as she did when she was young.
‘Is this fate too?’
Runaan had a premonition of his fate in his fading consciousness.
The amount of bleeding from her amputated finger was more than expected.
As time passes, her body loses strength and the disorientation that seems to cut off at any moment makes her forget even the intense pain of her amputated hand.
When she was so sure that her own death was near, there was an uproar in her dark warehouse.
“Cheuk!?”
“What! Kuck!”
The gasping sounds of the people guarding the warehouse began to increase one by one.
The sound gradually filled the warehouse and made a commotion, then it was quieted down.
When she opened her heavy eyelids as if they were about to close and looked in front of her, a woman came into Runan’s field of vision.
He was wearing a light leather tunic armor, perhaps because he was an adventurer.
What was impressive was her crimson hair and the beast ears on her head.
“… Suin?”
“You are a man named Runan. That’s right?”
“That… Yes.”
Runan struggled to nod her head and answered the beast woman’s question.
As soon as the beast woman identified her Runan, she took a potion from her bosom and poured the contents on her Runan’s head, and then poured it all over her amputated finger, which was bleeding profusely. .
“This… Case?”
The bleeding from her fingers stopped.
Although not all of the damage accumulated in her body and the blood shed so far have been restored, at least she has passed the hurdle of dying right now.
With this level of healing power, it must have been a fairly expensive potion even in the adventurer’s guild.
With her haggard eyes, Runaan looked at the female adventurer who had helped her.
She thought maybe she was a lifeguard sent by Eunhyeon or Heilangdan, but she was the first person she had ever seen.
Why did she save herself when she didn’t even know her?
She probably didn’t save herself, at least not for no reason.
“Why did you save me? You… Who are you?”
“My name is ‘Juhong’. What saved you… I want to ask you a favor.”
“Ask?”
The Suin woman, who introduced herself as Ju-Hong, took a moment to catch her breath and spoke again to Runan with her nervous face.
“The man behind you. Please let me meet someone named Eunhyun.”
“…”
Runan was surprised inside.
She couldn’t understand where or how she had appeared, but her words that came out of her mouth mattered more to her.
There was something desperate and urgent in Juhong’s eyes.
But that’s something she can’t promise easily, even on her own.
He opened his mouth to say it was impossible, but Runan’s consciousness reached its limit first.
“… Hey?”
Ju-Hong was a little taken aback when he confirmed that Runan, who was collapsing with her head hanging down, had lost her mind.
He tried to wake him up by shaking his shoulder somehow, but judging by the amount of blood that soaked the chair and floor, it was close to a miracle that he had been conscious until now.
If it was too late for Ju-hong to use the potion even a little bit, Runan would have met his death.
“Whoa, can’t help it…”
Juhong let out a small sigh and released Runan’s restrained body.
For now, moving somewhere and treating him was an urgent priority.
Although the worst situation of getting worse was avoided with the potion, the bad condition did not change.
I put Runaan’s body on his shoulder and left the warehouse.
“At las… I wish I could meet you…”
Ju-hong walked the dark road thinking about the long-awaited reunion with him.
