Read Novel Full Chapter 1814: They came for the hunt?
Chapter 1814: They came for the hunt?
After finishing eating, Young Aether glanced at the dead woman beside the bed. He merely shrugged his shoulders and asked RIN to unlock the door she had sealed. He wanted to know the truth about why Delta was here, so he moved through the remaining rooms one by one.
“W-Who are yo—”
“N-No!!”
“M-Monst—”
“Call—”
None of them even had a chance to escape. They simply broke down like the wolfman had.
Some were already broken before he had even finished speaking, while others simply died the moment they saw him.
The rooms gradually fell silent.
^Honestly, I feel like you just want to feel their fear before eating them?^
After swallowing the tenth body, Young Aether gave a small burp before looking toward the woman with a bullet wound in her forehead.
It wasn’t just her. In every room he entered, he found the same strange scene. Some of the women had been killed in the middle of what they were doing, while others had been shot afterwards.
It was almost as if someone had made certain that they would never have the chance to speak to one another.
“It’s not like that… I’m careful with my words, but they break so easily. Some of them just turn retarded, and it becomes really difficult to tell where I should stop.”
Young Aether shook his head before a sly smile slowly spread across his face.
“And yeah, I’m enjoying this a little bit… You know, just a little… bit~”
He drew a slow breath and glanced toward the doorway.
“But don’t worry. I more or less know how to control my words now.”
After another quiet breath, he stepped out of the room, leaving the woman’s dead body behind as he headed toward the next door.
With RIN’s assistance, he unlocked it simply by pressing the ring on his middle finger against the door.
Instantly, blue particles shimmered between the ring and the metal surface. Numerical symbols flickered rapidly into existence, crawling across the door like streams of digital light.
A soft mechanical click followed.
The door shuddered once before sliding open.
“Who is it?”
A gruff voice came from inside.
“Room Service~”
Young Aether answered in a light, playful tone as he stepped inside.
Then he stopped.
The woman was… alive?
She sat quietly on the edge of the bed, with a middle-aged man seated beside her. Neither of them seemed particularly concerned by his arrival. Their attention remained fixed on the night sky beyond the transparent glass wall, where countless stars glittered above the sprawling city.
The man looked to be middle-aged. Faded scales traced the area near his jawline, while thin aquatic fins extended from both sides of his neck.
‘It’s him, right?’
Young Aether raised his eyebrows slightly.
His gaze shifted toward the desk.
A gun rested there.
He walked toward it without a word, picked it up, and examined it briefly. His fingers brushed against the weapon as his eyes narrowed.
The man shouted without turning back,
“What are you doing? Come on, give us something to drink.”
He gestured lazily toward the room before glancing at the woman beside him.
“And what do you want, my lady~?”
The woman gave a faint laugh.
“Hah… Oh, please, Sir. You are the guest here—”
BANG!!
The gunshot shattered the quiet room.
A bullet struck her forehead, and her body collapsed from the edge of the bed onto the floor. For a moment, the room remained completely still.
Young Aether stood there with the gun lowered in his hand, his expression unreadable as the silence returned.
The man’s face turned horrified as he spun around.
“HOW DARE YO—”
His words abruptly halted when he saw… a familiar figure.
Standing before him was a tall, muscular figure wearing a rabbit mask over his face.
The middle-aged man’s expression turned to shock.
“H-How are you here?” he asked, his voice trembling.
Lackey tilted his head slightly before speaking in a wicked tone.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it… rich freak? Hehe~”
The middle-aged man swallowed hard. He couldn’t understand how this fellow slave had ended up here. It was the same man he had spoken to before they were both auctioned.
And now, that same man was standing before him with a gun in his hand.
Lackey casually twirled the weapon around his fingers.
“Hmm… Why did you let her live? I mean, after visiting your fellow dead comrades’ rooms, everyone killed those women while yours… Hmm. Why, bro?”
He stepped closer, the gun swinging effortlessly between his fingers.
The middle-aged man swallowed again, ‘Everyone died?’ and slowly raised both hands. He wasn’t sure why this man was here, but he had no intention of dying in this room.
Without making any resistance, he surrendered.
Lackey blinked.
“That’s… good for you.”
There was a hint of mild surprise in his voice. The others had resisted him, but this one had immediately understood the situation.
The middle-aged man glanced toward the dead woman.
“She is a fine woman… I promised I wouldn’t kill her. That’s why.”
Lackey followed his gaze toward the corpse, then simply nodded. He showed not even the slightest trace of concern before sitting down on the bed.
The man slowly lowered himself to his knees before him.
“Since you know me… how about you answer a few questions of mine?”
Lackey leaned forward slightly.
“Why are you here?”
The middle-aged man gulped before carefully asking, “You wouldn’t kill me if I told you everything?”
Lackey nodded without hesitation. He placed the gun on the bed between them.
“As long as you tell me the truth, I won’t… Believe me, I won’t lie~”
The middle-aged man took a deep breath before answering.
“I don’t know the exact reason, but our Commander said we were going to hunt down a monster in Zeta City. So we all came together.”
Lackey raised his eyebrows.
“All? You mean…”
The man nodded.
“The remaining commanders and their squadrons… everyone is in Zeta.”
Lackey’s expression hardened.
“Monster… What kind of monster is here?”
The man shook his head.
“I… I really don’t know.”
His eyes shifted toward Lackey, as though the answer had suddenly become obvious to him.
“Until now.”
Lackey hummed thoughtfully and pointed at himself,
“You came to hunt me?”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“I heard you caused problems in Beta. Of course, you’re on the wanted list. And seeing you here… it confirms why everyone arrived in Zeta.”
For the middle-aged man, it actually made perfect sense.
After all, the monster that had appeared in Beta had become infamous throughout the Empire. If that same monster had somehow come to Zeta, then gathering the remaining squadrons there to hunt it down was the most logical explanation.
However, none of this made sense to Lackey, because nobody should have known that he was here in the first place. Heck, he hadn’t even used his Lackey persona after entering Delta, so there was no obvious way for anyone to identify him or track his movements all the way to Zeta.
And more importantly, why the hell had they come to Zeta in the first place?
Lackey frowned deeply as the pieces refused to fit together.
‘Did Jonathan sell me out after I caused the destruction of Delta?’
His thoughts continued racing as he considered the possibilities, wondering whether these people had actually come here because of him or whether something else had brought them all to Zeta.
‘Are they really after me… or is there something else going on here?’
“When are you guys going to hunt?”
“W-We don’t know… We just came here, and our leader, that wolfman, took us here to have some fun. That’s all I know.”
Lackey hummed quietly as he considered the answer, his eyes remaining fixed on the middle-aged man kneeling before him.
“Why did everyone kill those women?”
“It was… protocol. I really don’t know anything else.”
The man answered in a serious tone, making it clear that he genuinely had no further information to offer about the matter.
Lackey hummed again while tilting his head slightly, his expression becoming increasingly thoughtful as another question came to mind.
“Where are your commanders staying?”
“They’re staying near the Alpha-Zeta Border.”
The man answered immediately, apparently seeing no reason to hide that particular piece of information from him.
“Okay, then tell me exactly what happened after you got auctioned.”
The man nodded slowly before beginning to explain everything that had happened to him after the auction.
First, he had been assigned to the Delta Division, where he was forced to undergo a training period that lasted approximately one week. During that time, they taught him how to speak their language using some kind of machine, allowing him to communicate with the soldiers despite having no previous knowledge of their language.
After that, they trained him to operate a mech-suit, teaching him the basic functions and combat procedures required for battle.
As soon as he completed his training, he was assigned to Commander Five and sent directly into the war against the Naiadea Empire.
At first, they genuinely believed they were winning the battle because their forces had managed to overwhelm the enemy and advance through their defensive positions.
Then, without any warning, their mech-suits suddenly stopped functioning.
Their portals also closed without explanation, cutting off their route of retreat and preventing reinforcements from reaching them. The enemy forces immediately took advantage of the situation and began pushing them backwards with overwhelming force.
They held their ground for as long as they possibly could, desperately trying to prevent their formation from collapsing completely before they were eventually forced to retreat toward the Alpha Division through another portal.
It was after returning there that they finally heard the devastating news that their entire Delta Division had been destroyed.
None of them had any idea who had caused the destruction, and there had been no clear explanation for what had happened to the division or why it had suddenly disappeared.
Then, on the following day, they were brought to Zeta City with orders to hunt down some kind of monster that was supposedly hiding there.
Lackey listened carefully to the entire explanation without interrupting, quietly processing every piece of information the man had given him.
When the man finally finished speaking, Lackey nodded slowly.
“Good, then. That gives me enough information for now.”
The middle-aged man’s expression immediately brightened with visible relief after hearing those words.
“I-I told you everything, didn’t I? C-Can I leave now?”
Lackey simply nodded in response, giving him permission to leave without showing any further interest in him.
The man released a huge sigh of relief before slowly getting back onto his feet and walking toward the door.
Even while moving away, he repeatedly glanced over his shoulder at Lackey, carefully watching for any sudden movement that might indicate he was about to attack or prevent him from leaving.
However, Lackey remained seated on the bed without making any attempt to stop him.
The middle-aged man eventually reached the door and stood there for a moment, his hand resting against the door while he continued staring at the masked figure behind him.
A faint smile gradually appeared across his face as his fear was replaced by genuine curiosity.
“Why did you go against these people?”
Lackey remained silent as the man turned his body fully toward him, seemingly wanting an answer before he finally left the room.
“They gave us everything we needed to survive, including food, shelter, training, and a place in this society.”
The man’s expression became increasingly serious as he continued speaking, revealing that this question had been bothering him for quite some time.
“Yet you chose to stand beside those monsters who treat us as nothing more than slaves. Why would you willingly choose them over the people who gave you everything?”
For the first time since their conversation began, there was no fear in the man’s voice.
There was only genuine curiosity, because despite everything that had happened, he truly wanted to understand why Lackey had made that choice.
The slaves who had been brought here were living their lives to the fullest, unlike the miserable existence they had endured previously. And yet… this man had objected to them, and now those very people were going to hunt him down.
What a mental case!
Lackey tilted his head slightly, as though he genuinely found the man’s reasoning amusing.
“Monsters? So now your own people are nothing more than monsters? Hahaha… How funny. These guys really brought you up like their boot-licking doggies~”
The man frowned before merely shrugging his shoulders.
“Suit yourself.”
If he was going to die, then so be it… He’d rather be the boot-licking dog than a fucked up dead!
He turned around and tried to open the door, but it refused to move.
The man frowned and tried again, banging the door with increasing frustration, but the door remained completely shut.
A nervous feeling suddenly settled in his chest.
He swallowed hard before slowly turning his head.
“I thought we had a de—!!”
His words halted the instant he saw Lackey standing directly behind him; his ugly face came to view with a wicked grin,
*When you make a deal with the devil… you should always be carefuuuulllll~*
Lackey’s fingers closed around the man’s neck, holding him firmly in place as his other fingers pressed against the sensitive gills along his neck.
“ARRRHH!!”
The sudden pressure sent a sharp wave of pain through the man’s body, making him stiffen as Lackey’s wicked grin slowly widened beneath the mask.
*You said you fucking loved every second of breaking a man’s family, didn’t you?*
Lackey leaned closer, his voice becoming quieter and more sinister as he whispered directly into the man’s ear.
*I wonder… how much you’ll love it when I do the same thing to you~ Hehehe~*
Suddenly, an unnatural darkness spread across the man’s vision, swallowing everything around him until there was nothing left but endless blackness.
Two crimson-red eyes slowly emerged from within that darkness.
*Let’s see… how long it takes to break your mind~*
“N-N—”
The middle-aged man’s face turned deathly pale as his memories began twisting into something unrecognisable, one horrifying thought bleeding into another until he could no longer distinguish… reality from nightmare.
Crack!