REAPER SCANS
Legendary Returner’s Survival Guide
[Translator – TinTin ]
[Proofreader – Harley ]
Chapter 36
It was pointless. Not only was he too close, but he was also too fast.
Byeong-min vanished through the Gate before anyone could act.
Inside, Byeong-min thought it was no big deal. He was confident in his survival, and uncovering anything that sparked his interest was his specialty.
He knew his worth. He had 4.5 million subscribers, which was greater than the population of Busan, the second-biggest city in South Korea.
He was an international influencer with personal connections to the Busan mayor, as well as several politicians who looked after him.
There was a reason for his behavior. He had more than just one safety net to fall back on.
Go in, film what’s going on, release if boring, edit and profit if interesting. Simple.
‘Damn Byeong-min, you brilliant bastard. Not only are you a fast thinker, you also take decisive actions,’ he basked in self-praise.
Yet as soon as Byeong-min stepped through the gate, he immediately crumpled to the ground.
“What the…?”
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There were blinding flashes of light.
Jin Shi-hu, the younger brother of Jin Song-yi, the Non-Awakener, and third-rate Author, was soaring through the air, battling three monsters with horns.
Battling? Was that even the correct way to describe it? He was witnessing it, but he couldn’t comprehend it.
Fire and ice danced together. A furious storm raged.
Goosebumps prickled his skin.
Then, a flash from the sky, brighter and larger than anything he’d ever witnessed, exploded.
At that instant, Byeong-min felt it. Emptiness in his right shoulder followed by an agonizing pain.
“Ah… Aaaah…”
He didn’t even notice it happening, but his right arm was severed at the shoulder.
Stumbling back, he finally took in his surroundings. This place, which looked like it was originally a forest, was now a wasteland of craters, as if bombarded by hundreds of missiles. The splintered remnants of trees littered the landscape. Further off, strange corpses could be seen.
They looked like monsters. No, they were definitely monsters.
Another flash in the sky.
KABOOM!!
A monster plummeted to the earth. The monster wasn’t moving in the slightest. It was probably dead. But apparently that wasn’t enough.
Shi-hu dropped down from the sky, white smoke curling from his body.
He slammed his fist into the monster’s head.
SMASH!!
The impact made a crater in the ground, at least ten meters wide and far deeper.
The monster, buried deep, continued to remain still.
Byeong-min was shaking in fear when another monster landed beside him, grabbing him by the head.
Panic surged. Forget the pain, this was all wrong. He didn’t want to be a part of this.
“W-wait… I have nothing to do with this. Just… just let me go, please,” Byeong-min pleaded.
The monster responded, “You. Shut up.”
He instinctively closed his mouth, but something was familiar about that voice.
“…Shi-hu, stop right there, you damn monster! If you move, I’ll rip this guy’s head off…”
Recognition struck Byeong-min like a bolt of lightning, “Are you big bro Honam… the general director at Busan City Hall?”
The monster, with its spiraling horn, frowned at the interruption, “I told you to shut up.”
“No, big bro Honam, it’s me, Byeong-min! Why do you look like that…? Nevermind. I really don’t know anything. Just let me go, please. I beg you.”
The monster that was presumably Honam smiled strangely, asking, “Why are you begging me? Beg Shi-hu over there.”
The situation was simple. Byeong-min was a hostage.
Shi-hu laughed, baffled by the situation, “Do you guys have no shame?”
* * *
Reaper Scans
[Translator – TinTin ]
[Proofreader – Harley ]
Join our discord for updates on releases! https://dsc.gg/reapercomics
* * *
Jeong Honam—no, the 167th Apostle—wondered where things had gone wrong.
Actually, this was a pointless thought. It was from the beginning. He was arrogant and miscalculated.
148th Apostle, Ma Jinno.
159th Apostle, Lim Kyeongtae.
By combining their forces, they thought the three of them would certainly be able to kill Shi-hu.
That was a natural thought to have. The Apostles wielded great power.
No matter how amazing an Awakener was, there was a limit to the power they could obtain. This is because the energy used by Awakeners was simple ‘Mana’.
Apostles, on the other hand, used ‘Natural Ki’. The two energies had an immense difference.
Mana, also called Ki, was a power created by refining the energy floating around in nature. Natural Ki, on the other hand, referred to unrefined, pure energy.
Apostles used Natural Ki by itself, without any refinement.
This made all the difference. This raw energy carried overwhelming potential, and Apostles were capable of using said energy to obliterate anything within their sight.
But in addition to that, they could use an even greater power—Transcendent Ki, the power of the soul.
That was why they were so confident.
But the moment they clashed with him inside the gate, all three were struck in the blink of an eye.
Albeit a little late, they drew out their full attributes into a combined assault.
The earth split, a hurricane swirled across the entire inside of the gate, and inextinguishable flames enveloped the hurricane.
The bastard was at the center of their combined attack.
However… a hole was blasted through the hurricane, and he leaped out from the hole.
The earth settled. The hurricane dissipated. And when the ‘inextinguishable’ flames were put out like they were no more than matches, Lim Kyeongtae died after merely two blows.
Honam couldn’t believe it. He was shell shocked.
Then he saw a familiar face enter the Gate.
It was Byeong-min, the Streamer. He had something like 4 or 4.5 million subscribers or something like that.
He had been useful to Honam in his role as a Director General, so they hung out a few times together.
Honam never liked the streamer’s arrogance, but that arrogance finally came to use. He grabbed Byeong-min without hesitation.
He told Shi-hu to stop if he wanted the streamer to live.
Honam was racking his brain. Shi-hu was strong, so why did he bother to summon the Apostles to this gate?
It was obvious. He didn’t want a scene. In other words, he cared about public opinion. Now, what would he do with an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire?
Honam thought Shi-hu would stop. It was the only logical move. Any normal person would stop if an innocent bystander was suddenly involved.
‘I need to negotiate. Fighting isn’t the answer. It’ll end in a disaster,’ Honam thought.
However, Shi-hu’s response was beyond all expectations.
“What a buzzkill,” Shi-hu grunted.
“…What?” Honam was confused.
Shi-hu asked, “Hey, was your name Byeong-min?”
Byeong-min quickly replied, “Yes, that’s correct! My name is So Byeong-min, Mr. Shi-hu! I’m a huge fan! I own all your books! I won’t tell anyone about this, so please, just save me! Please!”
“Why did you come in here?” Shi-hu asked.
“…Uh… Just because.”
It was the honest truth.
Just because.
Those two words were normally like a magical phrase. A blanket answer.
Byeong-min really did come in ‘just because’.
So Shi-hu answered simply, ‘just because’. “In your next life, if a situation clearly seems dangerous, just don’t do it.”
“Yes, thank y—huh?” Byeon-min froze.
At first, he thought he’d heard ‘next time’.
But no.
Shi-hu had said ‘next life’.
That’s right. And he meant it.
Shi-hu extended his right hand.
The moment Shi-hu took the pose, the two surviving Apostles felt an overwhelming presence. A presence Shi-hu had never displayed before, a presence they had felt only once before.
The King of the Apostles had been exactly like this.
“I’m kind of disappointed. I expected those who've reached a certain level of power to act accordingly, yet to stoop so low…”
There was no point in further discussion.
Shi-hu’s eyes flashed as he clenched his outstretched hand.
It happened in an instant.
The world seemed to recoil. It felt like time had slowed down, and a tear had been created in the world, sucking everything into it.
It was a feeling that was difficult to describe, but that was what Jeong Honam, the 167th Apostle, felt.
《White Lotus Cult - Seven Seals of the Holy Flame
2nd Technique - Seven Hidden Night Strings》
Seven transparent lines formed as if being painted onto reality.
They appeared in a flash.
Honam and Byeong-min could only stare. The feeling of seeing such clear lines being drawn into the world was beyond explicable with words.
It was mystical and awe-inspiring.
It was interference with the very balance of the world—no, it transcended the world’s will entirely.
Slice!!
They did not feel the cutting sensation.
Honam’s gaze tilted, and then his body also started tilting.
His upper and lower body separated. To be more exact, his abdomen was sliced into dozens of pieces.
He couldn’t move his arms. Thankfully, he could still move his eyes, allowing him to check his arms. His arm was falling to the ground. His head landed on the ground, and he could feel everything.
His limbs and his body were all sliced apart. And oddly enough, he wasn’t regenerating.
Honam felt nothing but despair.
Shi-hu slowly walked forward, first approaching Byeong-min.
“My condolences,” he said.
Honam’s body had been sliced and diced. There was no way that Byeong-min was okay. Byeong-min was split exactly in half.
Bleeding, he choked out, “You… bastard…”
“Such vulgarity. So, did you record that? All of it?”
Though near death, Byeong-min was still alive. He realized something.
Since entering the gate, he hadn’t stopped recording. Like the professional streamer he was, with his 4.5 million subscribers, he continued filming Shi-hu and the Apostles throughout the entire ordeal, even as it became a shitfest.
“So you did. Tsk, tsk.”
Shi-hu stomped on Byeong-min’s, bursting his head.
Squish.
Shi-hu then crushed the camera that Byeong-min was holding into. He turned it to dust, leaving no traces of it.
He then raised his head, his eyes meeting Honam’s.
“Don’t get it twisted. I made sure he didn’t feel any pain,” Shi-hu explained.
“…Y-you’re a madman. Completely unhinged.”
Shi-hu walked over to Honam and crouched down.
“Hey, Honam. You’re having a tough time, right?”
“…How did you do this?”
“What do you mean how? If you could understand it by me explaining it to you, wouldn’t you be at my level?”
It was a valid point. Honam had no response.
And thus, Shi-hu swung his foot down.
Splat!
Honam’s head burst.
Jinno, the 148th Apostle, gulped, having been spectating this entire situation.
Shi-hu told him, “I want to talk with ‘That Person’. You said there was a way to communicate with them directly, right?”
“…No there is not.”
“Don’t play games, man. You think I was born yesterday? ‘I can talk to That Person directly.’ It was written all over your face earlier.”
“......”
“Listen. Do you honestly believe you can make it out of here alive?”
Jinno was skeptical that Shi-hu would let him live.
He glanced back. There was no Exit Gate. This Gate hadn’t been cleared yet, meaning there was no chance of escaping.
Shi-hu continued, “Think about it. What if I talk to ‘That Person’ and the conversation goes well? You’ll have earned some merit, won’t you?”
It sounded plausible.
“If it goes well, do you think I’d kill you? Of course not. We could cooperate. A token of peace. You know, the more I think about it, the better it sounds. You’d be the hero who ended the war between me and the Apostles. What kind of reward would you get? Power? Money? Women? I don’t know. My imagination is kind of limited.”
Shi-hu leaned closer, Jinno staring at his gently smiling face in a daze.
“But you know, don’t you? What kind of gift they would give you. Just imagining it makes your heart race, doesn’t it?”
“......”
“So, tell me. Can you connect me to ‘That Person’ you guys speak of right now?”
“…It is possible.”
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