Chapter 246 – The Revealed Truth

“Let’s see, your name is…”

Min Do-jun glanced at the information window that appeared through his Weakness Detection.

It was information he had seen before.

[Adam Bishop]

– Description: Hunter born in 1990. Current level is 3,831. Master of Overlord Guild, profession is One-Handed Sword Warrior.

– Combat Style: Doesn’t have much of a combat style to speak of. Simply slashes enemies from top to bottom.

– Weakness: Without companions and items, his combat ability is nothing special.

“Adam Bishop, right? Nice to meet you, Master of Overlord Guild.”

Adam flinched at Min Do-jun’s words.

While he might have recognized his face, he hadn’t expected Min Do-jun to know his identity.

He certainly hadn’t expected him to track him down to his guild.

“Why so frozen? Relax, I’m not here to kill you. I just came to talk.”

“…”

“So, this is the famous Overlord Guild?”

Min Do-jun looked around the guild master’s office as if it were his own home.

Then he spotted the plaques hanging on the wall.

“Oh, what are all these awards for?”

Looking closer, they were plaques received for preventing dungeon breaks worldwide without any casualties.

“Overlord Guild prevented this many dungeon breaks? You’ve done a lot of good work.”

Min Do-jun smiled.

Of course, it wasn’t a smile with good intentions.

“To think that the master of such an excellent and world-renowned guild would kidnap Korean hunters… Truly astonishing, don’t you think?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ah, so you’re going to deny it because there’s no evidence?”

“Coming here without notice and saying strange things. What’s with this rudeness? Please leave immediately.”

“Alright, alright. So you want me to show my hand first?”

Min Do-jun suddenly showed the back of his hand.

“See what I’m wearing? Do you know what this is?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Let me tell you then. This is an overpowered item called the Twin Vampire Ring. You can get a set effect by wearing one on each hand, but that alone doesn’t make it overpowered. It truly becomes godlike when worn by actual twin brothers. Aren’t you curious about its ability?”

“I’m not interested in that. Just leave now…”

“It’s the ability to teleport-instant movement. Twin brothers wearing these rings can move to each other’s locations. It’s an overpowered ability with no cooldown, no distance restriction, and even allows them to bring along anyone they’re holding-perfect for kidnapping.”

“…”

Though he tried to appear unfazed, Adam was inwardly surprised.

‘He knows about teleportation…?’

Teleportation was an ability unknown to anyone except twin hunters.

The reason it hadn’t become public knowledge was because twin hunters kept it strictly secret.

Of course, it would eventually be revealed in the future.

‘I only learned about it after mentally dominating twin hunters. How does he know it in such detail?’

Not knowing that Min Do-jun was a returnee, Adam found this difficult to understand.

But that wasn’t the only surprise.

“There aren’t many twin hunters in the world. And S-rank twin brothers are extremely rare.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Jin Weibai and Jin Weizheng, the Chinese twin brothers. James and David, the American twin brothers. They’re all your subordinates, right?”

Adam was shocked but managed to maintain his poker face.

‘He even knows about my twin subordinates!’

Too surprised to answer, Adam remained silent as Min Do-jun continued.

“Those are the only S-rank twin brother hunters in the world. Well, there were some in Korea too, but they’re dead, so let’s skip them.”

“…”

“Anyway, you used the twins’ teleportation to kidnap Jeong Hye-won and Kang Hyuk-su. The Chinese team did the actual kidnapping, and the American team was used for your transportation, right?”

“What are you talking about…”

“You keep denying it, but who was that person making eye contact with me at the set? The one with the halberd next to you was definitely James.”

“You must have seen wrong. There’s no way I would kidnap anyone.”

“Right. You still have room for denial. But I know too much for that to work.”

“What do you know…”

“Mind control. That’s your trait, isn’t it?”

“…”

“Otherwise, twin hunters wouldn’t listen to you. That’s also why Kang Hyuk-su suddenly changed and followed your orders.”

Adam made a face of disbelief.

“Mind control? How could such an ability exist in this world…”

It looked like acting to deny the accusation, but he was genuinely surprised.

He hadn’t expected his trait to be exposed so easily.

“I don’t know the exact ability. But I could tell it controls people’s minds from watching Kang Hyuk-su.”

“Ha… You’re saying I have mind control abilities? Please, if I had something like that, I would have controlled everyone in the world by now.”

Though he maintained his expression of disbelief, Adam had made a mistake.

He had inadvertently revealed his true thoughts.

“Aha, so you want to control everyone in the world? That’s your ultimate goal?”

“Wh-what are you saying…”

Seeing Adam genuinely flustered, Min Do-jun smirked.

“I know. That it’s impossible. Surely such an incredible ability must have restrictions? If not, as you said, you would have controlled everyone in the world by now.”

“…”

“This is just my guess, but it seems mind control requires specific conditions. For example, the target must have committed murder.”

Adam let out a hollow laugh.

But this was evidence that Min Do-jun had hit the mark.

“I’m not speaking without basis. The fact that you expected Kang Hyuk-su to kill the dark mage and deliberately placed him there, the fact that the original scenario was for him to kill Jeong Hye-won. You wanted Kang Hyuk-su to commit murder. Most importantly, what you said just before controlling Kang Hyuk-su.”

“What did I say?”

“That if he hadn’t committed murder, he wouldn’t have become a puppet.”

“…”

Adam’s eyebrow twitched.

He hadn’t expected Min Do-jun to have heard their conversation.

“How’s my deduction so far?”

“I’ve heard your story. It sounds like a bad novel.”

“After all this, why not just admit it?”

“You should limit your nonsense.”

It seemed he had no intention of admitting anything.

“Fine. I wasn’t going to mention this, but…”

Min Do-jun asked directly.

“Are you planning to stage a coup in Korea?”

“…”

Too shocked to maintain his poker face, Adam was visibly flustered.

“Judging by your reaction, I’m right. I suspected it, and sure enough, you’re the mastermind behind the coup.”

“C-coup? What are you…”

“Still trying to deny it? In front of someone who already knows about the coup?”

“…”

Adam couldn’t deny it anymore.

If Min Do-jun knew about the core objective of a coup, it was safe to assume he knew everything.

“I know everything. That Justin Walker is in on it too. Probably controlled by that precious ability of yours.”

“…”

“It was you who used the Association President to gather Korean hunters in one place, right? Not Justin Walker’s will.”

“…”

“Now I understand. Why Justin Walker gathered the hunters but didn’t take any action.”

Min Do-jun grinned.

“You were there, weren’t you? When the Korean hunters were gathered.”

“…”

“You probably infiltrated using stealth. With your high combat power, no one would have noticed.”

The reason Adam had gathered Korea’s S-rank hunters was obvious.

“You were trying to control all of them mentally. Right?”

“Yes.”

Adam finally admitted it.

He even dropped the formal speech he had been maintaining.

“I was there. To mentally control the Korean hunters.”

“Why? What were you planning to do after controlling them?”

“You already know, so why ask?”

“I want to hear it directly from you.”

With that serious attitude, Adam opened his mouth as if thinking Min Do-jun was quite strange.

“I was planning to stage a coup with the Korean hunters. Satisfied?”

[One target on your revenge list has been deleted, and a new target has been registered.]

[Current targets: Monster, Justin Walker, Adam Bishop.]

Shin Kyung-min was deleted, and Adam Bishop took his place.

‘So the mastermind behind the coup wasn’t Shin Kyung-min, but this guy.’

Min Do-jun had never understood why Shin Kyung-min and the other hunters had staged a coup.

How they had all unanimously decided to overthrow the country-he couldn’t comprehend their reasoning.

But now he did.

‘Now all my questions are answered.’

Adam Bishop.

The current master of Overlord Guild was the culprit behind everything.

The mastermind who had controlled Korea’s S-rank hunters and destroyed Ye-rin and his happiness.

‘Unforgivable.’

Min Do-jun’s anger was directed at Adam.

Adam shuddered at the sudden change in atmosphere.

‘D-damn. What kind of murderous gaze is this…?’

If looks could kill, Adam would have died hundreds of times in that brief moment.

“Answer me. Was the reason you called the absentees, including me, to the Castle of Absolute Darkness raid to control our minds?”

“Yes. Since I didn’t see you at the gathering.”

“But you ran away as soon as you saw me. Why?”

“Because your combat power was absurdly high.”

“Judging by your ability to see combat power, you must have the Absolute set effect.”

Adam looked surprised.

“Don’t tell me you have it too?”

“Can’t you tell by looking?”

Adam belatedly examined Min Do-jun’s attire.

The crimson sword, the pitch-black armor.

Every piece of equipment he wore was far from ordinary.

“Are those all legendary items? Enhanced with Magic Cores?”

“The same goes for you, right?”

They were both wearing sets of enhanced legendary items, which were notoriously difficult to obtain.

It was surprising, but Adam’s reaction was particularly strong.

“H-how did you get them? It couldn’t have been easy to complete a legendary set by yourself? Oh, could it be that the legendary sword Justin couldn’t recover ended up with you? Wait, even then, it wouldn’t be easy…”

“If you could complete a set, why couldn’t I? Ah… wait.”

Min Do-jun realized why Adam was so surprised.

“Don’t tell me… you’ve been monopolizing legendary items? Using hunters under your control?”

“…”

Adam didn’t answer.

His silence was a tacit admission.

‘If you can control minds, you can make them farm for you and take their items.’

So that’s where Overlord Guild’s wealth came from-stealing items from hunters.

‘Wait, if Justin Walker is Adam’s subordinate, what about the other guild members?’

There was no guarantee they weren’t under his control too.

“Tell me. Which hunters in your guild have you controlled?”

“All the S-ranks.”

“What?”

“Every S-rank hunter in my guild is my puppet.”

Out of the world’s top 100 ranked hunters, 20 were members of Overlord Guild.

That meant he had 20 S-rank subordinates under his control.

“So those legendary items you completed were obtained by your S-rank hunter subordinates through hunting?”

“That’s right.”

Min Do-jun suddenly had a thought.

Perhaps the reason legendary items weren’t widely available before his regression was because of this man.

‘I see now why he wasn’t concerned about losing the legendary sword. He already had plenty of them.’

But not all his questions were answered.

“How did you control the S-rank hunters? Controlling 20 S-rank hunters from around the world couldn’t have been as easy as you make it sound.”

“Controlling them isn’t difficult. I just lure them in with huge signing bonuses and then control them.”

“But there’s a condition, right? The condition that they must have committed murder.”

“Hmm, should I tell you this? Or not?”

After a moment of contemplation, Adam decided to spill everything since it was all exposed anyway.

“Strictly speaking, murder isn’t the condition.”

“What?”

“I can see a value called Karma. Good deeds lower it, evil deeds raise it. This Karma needs to reach a certain level for me to control someone’s mind. In other words, the more evil deeds they’ve committed, the easier it is to control them.”

“So you’re saying you don’t necessarily need murder to control someone’s mind?”

“That’s right. But it’s not easy to accumulate Karma through other means. For mind control, making them commit murder is the best. Just killing one person fulfills the condition immediately.”

“What about Korea’s S-rank hunters? How many did you control?”

“One.”

“Just one?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, except for a guy named Seo Jin-cheol, there was no one I could control.”

Seo Jin-cheol had committed murder after becoming a hunter.

That must be why he was susceptible to mind control.

“Don’t tell me the kidnapping of Shin Kyung-min’s sister was your doing too?”

“Oh, that? I ordered Seo Jin-cheol to do it. Kidnap the sister, rape and kill her, then disappear. That way, Shin Kyung-min would be enraged and kill Seo Jin-cheol’s brother in return.”

As it turned out, it was Adam’s scheme to make Shin Kyung-min commit murder so he could make him a subordinate.

“Tsk, but it all went wrong. What’s with Korea having so few people with high Karma…”

Of course there wouldn’t be many.

Such trash were all targets of Min Do-jun’s revenge, and he had already cleaned up most of them.

“There is just one person… with an incredibly high Karma value.”

Adam’s gaze turned to Min Do-jun.

“You, how many people have you killed to have Karma like this?”

“…”

“To think there would be a greater murderer than me right here.”

Adam was no longer afraid of Min Do-jun.

While answering his questions, he had been subtly closing the distance between them.

Within range to use mind control.

“Hey, Min Do-jun. Let me ask you something too.”

“Go ahead.”

“Knowing my ability is mind control, what gives you the confidence to stand right in front of me? Even giving me this distance!”

Adam’s eyes turned purple.

He made direct eye contact with Min Do-jun.

‘Got it! It’s over!’

Adam smiled with satisfaction.

‘I’ve finally made Min Do-jun, with his 8 million combat power, my subordinate!’

But his joy was short-lived.

A message suddenly appeared, freezing Adam’s expression.

[Unable to control the target’s mind due to their trait.]

[Debuff nullified.]

The message appeared to Min Do-jun as well.

‘As expected, it’s blocked by the Strong Mind trait.’

It was a trait that had nullified even the possession of the named boss Bathory.

It was only natural that it would block mind control as well.

“I-impossible. This has never happened before…”

While Adam was in shock, Min Do-jun stepped forward with a smile.

“I’ve learned well that you’re the true culprit behind the coup.”

Wooong-

At the same time, a rainbow aura erupted from his sword.

“Now it’s time for you to die.”