Chapter 352 – Part 2 – Kogo’s Past

‘His mother?’

Choi Seong-min looked at the face of the sleeping old woman.

Now that he looked, they did seem to resemble each other.

‘But to erase all her memories? And of his own birth mother at that…’

At Kogo’s unreasonable request, Choi Seong-min spoke with a troubled expression.

“Excuse me… Lord Kogo? If I didn’t mishear, are you asking me to erase all of your mother’s memories?”

“That’s right. You heard correctly.”

“Do you understand what it means to erase all memories?”

Erasing all memories meant turning someone into an idiot.

Not only would they be unable to speak, but they would lose their very identity.

In short, it was no different from turning them into a living corpse.

“When she wakes up later, she won’t even recognize you as her son. Do you understand?”

“I know. That’s why I’m telling you to erase them.”

‘To make such an insane request even while knowing…’

It was absurd, but there was only one thing Choi Seong-min could do.

‘I have no choice but to do as he says.’

If he didn’t want to die fighting Kogo here.

‘Of course, I could run away if I set my mind to it. My movement speed is faster. If I cast invincibility on Kogo’s mother and flee, I could escape without any damage.’

But the problem was that transformation would be released if he was attacked.

‘Well, since I’m wearing a black mask, my identity wouldn’t be revealed, but… the real problem is that my transformation ability would be exposed.’

If such an ability was revealed, it would become difficult to disguise himself in the future.

‘What if Kwak Min-cheol heard that news and attacked me while I was transformed into Song Chi-hyeon under the pretext of testing?’

Not only now, but even future Great Hero conquest plans could fall through.

‘That can’t happen.’

He had to resolve this without causing friction with Kogo as much as possible.

“Phew… I understand. Please don’t resent me later.”

Choi Seong-min placed his hand on the old woman’s head to grant Kogo’s request.

He had no choice.

“How long will it take to erase the memories?”

“I can finish within 10 minutes.”

He could finish in 1 second, but he deliberately said it would take longer.

There was nothing good about revealing information to an enemy.

Soon, after 10 seconds of closing his eyes and placing his hand on the old woman’s head.

Whoooooosh-

‘This is…’

Images passed before his closed eyes like a panorama.

‘The old woman’s memories?’

From when she was very young until recently.

He could freely view all the memories stored in the old woman’s mind.

‘Since she’s lived a long life, there are many memories?’

Time slowed down when checking memories anyway.

Even if he played memory footage equivalent to a movie, less than a second would pass in reality.

There was no chance he couldn’t see them due to lack of time.

‘I’m curious, should I watch a few?’

Maybe he could peek into Kogo’s life and it might help in dealing with him?

With that thought, he skimmed through the videos classified by date.

If they were memories that had to be erased anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to watch some.

‘Should I start watching from here? From 22 years ago when Kogo awakened.’

Manipulating the memory footage wasn’t difficult.

If he set his mind to it, he could do anything – select, play, rewind, skip, etc.

So there was no need to watch everything from beginning to end.

‘I should just roughly skip through and watch the necessary parts.’

Since it was such a vast amount, he quickly skipped parts that could be skipped.

‘It was a harmonious family. I can see him being happy about becoming a hunter too.’

Kogo, who lived with his parents, awakened as a hunter at age twenty.

His joy at receiving an S-rank trait was no different from any other young man.

‘How did such a guy become a bloodthirsty murderer?’

With that thought, when he had been searching through footage for what felt like 30 minutes.

The reason was revealed.

His father, who had failed in business, borrowed money from gangsters to try a new challenge, but failed again.

Unable to repay the mountain of debt, he ran around until he was caught by gangsters and had his organs harvested.

His mother, who had to watch this from the side, collapsed from shock, and his father eventually died.

‘Insane… for such a thing to happen…’

All of this occurred during the 4 hours when Kogo, who was a C-rank hunter, had entered a dungeon.

‘Fortunately, his mother was rescued in time, but…’

His father died with all his organs harvested.

That’s when it started.

When the smile disappeared from Kogo’s face.

When he became an emotionally worn-down killing machine.

‘……’

Choi Seong-min silently skipped through the subsequent memories.

After watching for quite a while, he reached recent memories and continued his thoughts.

‘Now I understand. Why Kogo became a crazy murderer. Why he asked to erase his mother’s memories.’

Learning that gangsters were involved in his father’s death, Kogo ran out of the house.

When he returned at dawn, his son’s appearance was miserable.

He looked like he had bathed in blood.

The son told his mother.

He had avenged his father, so she shouldn’t worry anymore.

He thought he could live peacefully with just his mother, but it wasn’t so.

His mother, who had been kidnapped with his father and witnessed the organ harvesting process, suffered from PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

His mother suffered for years because of this.

She was so tormented that she self-harmed to try to die.

Kogo stopped her suicide attempts several times.

The reason his mother was in the intensive care unit was because she had fallen into a coma after drinking pesticide to commit suicide.

‘The request to erase memories was because of this. Because he didn’t want to see his mother suffering anymore…’

He could roughly guess why Kogo killed gangsters too.

‘He also has PTSD. From the shock of losing his father.’

Since losing his father and his mother’s condition were all because of gangsters, the stress about them would be extreme.

‘So that’s why he goes around massacring every gangster like crazy?’

He recalled Kogo massacring dozens of people at the club earlier.

No emotion could be felt from that expressionless face.

‘He must have repeated indiscriminate massacres until now, so it’s understandable he’d feel no excitement.’

He could understand the process of him becoming a murderer.

He acknowledged that there was a tragic past.

‘But killing innocent witnesses isn’t right.’

Choi Seong-min agreed with killing gangsters, but touching civilians crossed the line.

That was the difference between Choi Seong-min and Kogo.

‘If it were me, I would have arranged for customers to leave before killing the gangsters, or taken measures to prevent innocent casualties.’

Perhaps because of that, while the story was tragic, he felt no sympathy.

Either way, massacring civilians was unacceptable.

‘Still, I agree with erasing the memories.’

It’s best not to recall bad memories.

It would be good to eliminate them using this opportunity.

Especially if she had been suffering for years because of those memories.

‘I’ll delete everything as requested. Even memories with her son, without leaving anything.’

As he wished for this, the images that had been floating like a panorama were erased one by one.

Happy memories, painful memories, all of them without exception.

Only after all the memory footage had completely disappeared did time return to normal.

But Choi Seong-min still kept his eyes closed and let time pass.

‘There’s no need to let him know I can erase in 1 second.’

Only after about 5 minutes had passed did he finally open his eyes.

“Is it finished?”

“Yes.”

“That was fast.”

If he thought 5 minutes was fast, how much more so if he had said 1 second?

Perhaps he would have looked at him with suspicious eyes again.

“You completely erased all the memories, right? Without leaving even one?”

“That’s correct.”

Kogo quietly examined his mother’s face.

His mother’s brow, which had always been furrowed, was now smoothly relaxed.

-She suffered so much, but now she seems at peace.

Relief lingered in Kogo’s previously indifferent expression.

‘He could make such an expression?’

While he was inwardly surprised, Kogo looked at him.

“So you really could erase memories.”

-Honestly, I was half-doubtful.

“Of course. Who do you think I am to lie in front of you?”

-If it had been a lie, you would have died here.

Kogo’s thought gave him a chilling feeling, but only briefly.

-I’m in his debt.

Reading his thoughts, he could tell he was inwardly grateful.

‘Fortunately. He won’t kill me right away.’

He had worried that he might kill him since the objective was achieved.

Fortunately, Kogo was pleased with Oh Gwang-taek’s ability.

He even looked at Choi Seong-min, who had relieved him of a lifelong worry, with friendly eyes.

“Actually, I wasn’t without thoughts of killing you.”

“Pardon?”

“Since you helped me, I’ll spare your life at least.”

At Kogo’s magnanimous gesture, Choi Seong-min gave a bitter smile.

“Haha… th-thank you.”

“You may go back now.”

‘Damn bastard. You say you’re in my debt but you just use me like this and that’s it?’

Curses came out inwardly, but Choi Seong-min had no choice but to act grateful and bow.

“Then I’ll be going.”

“Right. Don’t go around talking about what you saw today.”

“How could I? I’ll keep today’s events secret until I go to my grave.”

As he said words he didn’t mean and tried to leave the hospital room, Kogo’s words followed.

“Ah, check your phone frequently. I don’t know when I might call again.”

“Yes, then.”

Thud-

Choi Seong-min, who had left the hospital room, let out a sigh of relief while furrowing his brow.

‘In other words, he’s saying he’ll use me again?’

Though he had followed Kogo around for about 2 hours doing free service, it wasn’t completely without gain.

‘Kogo views me favorably. I’ve made connections with a Great Hero.’

This meant he had broken down Kogo’s guard and created a situation where he could let his guard down.

‘It’ll be easier to ambush him when we meet next time.’

He didn’t know when that would be, but he had to build up his strength until then.

Enough to assassinate Kogo.

* * *

“Damn!”

Kwak Min-cheol irritably struck his desk.

Crack-!

It split in two because he couldn’t control his strength, but that wasn’t important.

‘There’s no evidence, no evidence!’

He had looked at CCTV and investigated whether there were witnesses, but nothing came up.

No matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find evidence that Song Chi-hyeon had killed them.

‘That bastard is definitely the culprit…’

He was certain he was the main culprit who massacred Yang Baek-du and his family, but there was no substantial evidence.

All he had was circumstantial evidence.

‘The butler bastard I planted on him isn’t helping either, tsk.’

The spy he had planted for times like this was completely useless.

‘I didn’t know that bastard Song Chi-hyeon would be so thorough…’

When he had visited before and loudly told him to handle any evidence he couldn’t clean up, he had really cleaned it up thoroughly.

‘I never thought he’d kill the Team Crush members that very day.’

According to the report from the butler, Song Chi-hyeon had called cleaners and there were Team Crush corpses.

‘He killed them. To eliminate witnesses.’

He hadn’t known until now, but it seemed the Team Crush members had evidence.

Otherwise, there was no reason he would have killed them outright on the very day he warned him.

Most importantly, reasonable suspicion was possible given that they were Yang Jo-young’s team.

‘Moreover, his direct subordinates have disappeared somewhere and can’t even be found.’

He had tried to find them to interrogate them, but whether they had ascended to heaven or descended into the earth was a mystery.

‘Does it make sense that not a single trace of them can be found?’

No, one could be found.

His subordinate who was diligently going to work at the Association.

‘Choi Seong-min, was it?’

Something might come out if he investigated him.

Kwak Min-cheol immediately made a phone call.

To the Hunter Management Department Team 1 leader position.