There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 361 - 353. Starlight

Chapter 361: Chapter 353. Starlight

Torodeo Horin always started his day by drinking an herbal concoction made of 108 enzymes, and a pill of longevity created by ingredients found inside the dungeons.

And then he would take a walk around the garden of the main mansion, making sure the servants did their job of maintaining it. A good part of his morning would be spent watching his fish swimming in the pound, before he partook in a healthy breakfast.

Nothing was allowed to disturb him during his calm, meditative morning designed to keep him alive and active as long as possible. Thanks to him being an esper, he had a higher life expectancy than a normal human, making him stay active even in his ninety. But that was to be expected; he was esper after all, a superior being.

But still, he could feel his body wearing down bit by bit, and he loathed the feeling of a weaning power. Ah...if only he could get his hand on the power behind those blue eyes.

The power of a deity.

He was sure he could finally find a way to make him live longer; longer than anyone else from his generation. It was such a stroke of bad luck to have that person fall into the hands of the Mallarc and that darn Vaski brat who dismantled all of his power in Althrea. Because of them, his efforts to get that person always get thwarted. And everything happened just when he could no longer use that system to threaten Rexon.

All of this bad luck made his smooth, calm days filled with annoyance. He couldn’t even concentrate on his meditation; the ripples on the pond reminded him of all the disturbance caused by those lowly people.

And as if it wasn’t enough, his morning had to be further ruined by someone running through the garden and calling him loudly.

"Patriarch! Patriarch!"

Did these people not know he needed absolute calm in the morn--

"Patriarch, it’s urgent!" a clan member arrived behind him with loud, panting breath. "Some--someone ransacked the archive hall!"

"What?!"

Immediately, Torodeo forgot about his meditation and calm morning. "Is anything missing?"

"A...a lot of things are missing, Sir, we still made a tally of it. But—" the man bit his lips and lowered his head before continuing in a trembling voice. "T-the door to the basement is opened and...and they took the logs of...of that."

"Which one? Speak clearly!"

The man lifted his gaze cautiously. "The...the [Kronos] system..."

Immediately, the air vibrated and the man had to grit his teeth from the pressure. The water of the pond churned and suffocated the fish, killing them in a second. Even when the air finally calmed down, the man in front of Torodeo kept looking at the ground, as his neck and back were drenched in cold sweat.

In a cold voice, the old man finally spoke. "Get me Han Gyeong," he glanced at the pond and the floating dead fish before adding dryly. "And get rid of this filth."

* * *

Major General Han Gyeong clicked his tongue after the call ended, his face scrunched into apparent distate. It was just for a second, however, before he went expressionless again--cold, rather.

How annoying. Just one phone call and he had to move no matter what. All because his useless firstborn was also gone missing when their operation’s documents were compromised.

"This is why I said we only need one archive," he muttered dryly, standing up from the dining table of his hotel suite. "And what? Han Joon?"

He shook his head. They thought that dull boy was the one who caused the chaos in that place and stole the documents in the Horin’s mansion? How ridiculous.

Although...that useless brat’s disappearance did very much coincide with the disturbance in the system.

Han Gyeong sighed. To disappear on his own and create extra work; what a disgrace. He couldn’t believe that all of his children were an utter disappointment. If he knew things would turn out this way, he would have chosen his wife himself rather than following his parents’ arrangement.

With a begrudging feeling, he left his unfinished breakfast and called his adjutant to get him his car. When he arrived at the hotel lobby, his car was already waiting for him--at least, his assistant still useful somehow. After checking on the time in his commlink, he set the destination on the navigation system to the heart of their operation.

As soon as the plain black car with a military plate number rolled onto the road, a customer of the restaurant attached to the hotel lobby typed on their commlink.

[He’s on the move]

The short message was sent to several accounts spread around the Rexon, and another one, all the way in Althrea.

* * *

Placing the square formation sheet on the pillar, Han Joon made sure to secure it carefully and recheck the calibration on the magic lines and runes before finally moving out of the room.

He had to do it swiftly before his mana trace accumulated enough for the building’s security system to pick up. Watching the clock in his watch artifact, he counted the seconds when the corrupted hounds usually made their rounds in the corridor, taking the chance to catch his breath.

Right after seeing Radia, he came back to this dungeon immediately; the eternal dungeon that became the shelter for the [Kronos] system’s server--a wicked system that calculated someone’s potential and future power, not to make sure they could be nurtured, but to make sure they could be nipped in the bud. And it wasn’t just selecting targets, but also devising plans to get rid of them as naturally as possible.

If he didn’t find that report by accident during his visit to his father’s office...

Han Joon was early that day, and his father had left the tablet where he received the target report. To this day, to that second when he counted the time, he could still remember the rage and the dread filling him, gripping into his gut, seeping into his bone. He would have killed his old man then and there if it could solve everything.

But Han Joon wasn’t stupid. He knew nothing would change unless he got rid of the system itself. So he made his plan, even if he had to part with Radia, even if he had to be hated.

Didn’t matter. He would no longer let his old man, or anything else in this world, take what was precious to him.

He just didn’t think it would take this long, although he knew it would be difficult. Getting the report so he could counter the attempt made to his darling was easy enough, but finding out where the system’s core and server were not so much. Servers.

Yeah, he didn’t think there would be seven of them. It took him ten years just to figure out where they were, because investigation and infiltration was a hard thing to do when you were also a soldier in active duty. That was on top of thwarting every attempt made on Radia.

He wanted to have a more thorough operation where he could move more swiftly in destroying everything, but again, things never really went according to plan. Because of the reclamation project, the attempt on Radia was tripled, so he had no choice but to move immediately, disturbing the servers one by one inside those eternal dungeons.

But because he had to do it one by one at separate times, they became more vigilant, tightening security that it became harder and harder for him to move. Especially in this one, where the main core system. How many days had it been since he lived in this dungeon, coming to the building several times each day to plant those formation sheets all over the place?

But each day, he got used to the ’guards’ movement and could move with more and more ease. Tomorrow...

Yeah, he’d do it tomorrow. He got all the data and documents that he needed from the system’s core, so the only thing left was to destroy the system once and for all before they could fix it.

He took a deep breath and lowered his body heat even more to avoid detection as a couple of corrupted hounds passed the corridor. Taking those hounds wasn’t a problem, but the moment he fought one, the other, several dozen hounds spread in the building would immediately come to him. Also, killing them would alarm the owner of the system even more. That was why he just ran the last time, even though he had to get bit and scratched until he was all bloody.

He didn’t mean to unnecessarily make Radia worry, but...oh, well.

He counted to forty before slipping out of the room and crossing the corridor, climbing the pillar into the upstairs railing. He just needed to go past another three rounds of hound patrols, and he would be out. One of the corridors put him past the core’s room, and he would move quickly around there each time because he always got itchy to just came inside and made a mess.

Patient, Han Joon. Patient. He told himself each time and walked past.

Or so he would, if he didn’t hear the sound of conversation from inside the core’s room.

"Are you done?"

"Shut up! This system is not easy to maneuver,"

Han Joon peeked inside the room, and watched two people in front of the archival device located below the pedestal holding a pitch-black core, bickering slightly. He recognized them as the people who were tasked to guard the entrance to this dungeon.

"What are we looking for anyway?"

"We need to check for disturbance," the grumpy operator replied while moving his fingers furiously. "There’s a suspicion that someone might have come and do something."

"Huh...is that why the people who guard the other place had been restless?"

"Yeah," the grumpy one replied. "The devices there had been breaking down, but since there was no sign of clear tampering, and the guards swore there was no one coming inside, they thought it was a maintenance problem. You know how old these things are."

"So why are we suddenly checking for this?"

"How would I know? They told us to check, so we are checking," the operator clicked his tongue.

"What are we going to do if someone really sneaked here and tampered with the system?"

"What else? We’ll have to scour every nook and cranny to check for rats and any suspicious things. If we do find something, we’ll probably move all of this to a new dungeon--we have lots anyway."

Han Joon clenched his jaw. Ah, fuck--things truly never go according to plan.

With that thought, he entered the room and closed the door.