01010 Omnibus – Queen Of Silhouette
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The Web.

It’s the name given to the unique network of traps and boundaries characteristic of the Salmun clan, centered around Neul Seol-yeong, who wields the secret class known as the String Artificer.

Neul Seol-yeong’s primary weapon is the string—a magical thread with unusual properties. When the thread connects to an opponent’s body, it can transmit sensory information to or from the user or others linked to it. While it doesn’t allow direct conversation or shared vision, it faithfully conveys reactions related to hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

In other words, it’s like a spider’s web spun from Neul Seol-yeong herself.

Assassins have many ways to hunt their targets. But when the opponent is another assassin, the options narrow drastically.

This was the source of the great confusion gripping the Salmun clan.

The moment the attack began, Kim Soo-hyun vanished as if swallowed by smoke.

He disappeared so cleanly that no one could track his trail afterward.

How could the Salmun clan’s top assassin fail to locate a single close-range opponent?

And this was their own home turf!

It was utterly baffling.

Yet the seasoned Salmun Lord quickly accepted reality.

Without knowing where Kim Soo-hyun was, stealthy pursuit was impossible.

The only option was to lure him out by revealing themselves first.

That role fell to the man whose wrist had been torn off in the initial strike.

Injured and unable to fight at full strength, he was perfect as bait.

So, the web of traps spread across the entire hideout, slowly and quietly expanding its reach.

Then, suddenly, the man who had been moving silently with his position exposed stopped in his tracks.

His face twisted in pain.

He had just received a signal through the string connected to his back.

One of the threads had snapped.

That meant someone had already been taken down.

The bait wasn’t the target.

It was hard to believe, but there was no reason to doubt Neul Seol-yeong.

The hideout was a complex maze, like an anthill.

The break in the thread wasn’t far from here.

The man playing bait slipped cautiously into the shadows.

Gripping a dagger with his remaining hand, he moved silently but swiftly, stepping into the darkness.

A faint, unpleasant noise suddenly drifted through the air.

A metallic scraping, like a blade against a wall.

Just as he was about to move again after pausing—

A sharper, more piercing sound rang out.

Clenching his teeth, the man instinctively heightened his senses, scanning his surroundings.

Then, a different faint sound reached his ears.

Tap… tap…

Light footsteps on the ground.

Or perhaps the sound of something bumping against a surface.

Following the noise, the man pressed himself against a corner.

Peeking cautiously around it, he saw a dim space.

In the center of the chamber lay a man wearing a hood, buried up to his waist in the ground.

His face was slack, sleeves hanging loose, and his torn chest soaked with blood.

His severed arms lay scattered on the ground.

The gruesome scene was unmistakably one of their comrades who had just been attacked.

There was no way a Salmun clan member had accidentally fallen into a trap.

All the mechanical devices in the hideout had been set up by their own hands.

It was clear the victim had been killed and then deliberately placed in the trap.

“Is this his trap?”

It was a question worth considering—why else would the victim be left in a mechanical device?

Tap… tap…

The faint noise came again, slow but rhythmic.

The man hesitated.

It felt like the sound was being made intentionally—a trap.

At worst, they might already be targeted.

Resolving his thoughts, the man stepped out from the corner without hesitation.

By now, other comrades were likely closing in, tightening the net.

His role was simple: act as bait to draw Kim Soo-hyun out.

Step by step, he moved forward, stopping at the center.

The sound persisted.

Eyes sharp with tension, he scanned the area.

Then, beyond the opposite corner, his gaze caught something.

“!”

It had been a blind spot from his previous position.

The source of the tapping was there.

Taking a few cautious steps forward, he saw clearly.

A figure hung from the ceiling, neck bound by a whip.

The limp body swung back and forth like a pendulum.

Each time it swung forward, its toes struck the wall with a sharp tap.

Most strikingly, the arms were missing.

Before he could process it fully—

“…?”

Suddenly, before he even looked down, a burning sensation flared around his ankle.

At the same moment, his vision tilted and skewed.

“Mu…!”

The last thing he saw was a stiffened sleeve snapping open, a hand shooting out.

Then, the hood was thrown back, revealing the cold, smiling face of the man trapped inside the device.

*

Another thread snapped.

Two men appeared from opposite directions, exhaling in frustration.

All they’d found were a corpse hanging from the ceiling and another impaled on iron spikes.

Kim Soo-hyun had vanished again like smoke.

They had been sure they had him surrounded, but it was like chasing a ghost.

The two stared solemnly at their impaled comrade.

His face, already rough, was twisted in agony—his hips pierced through.

Four things were clear:

Their fallen comrade had been toyed with.

A direct confrontation was hopeless.

The enemy knew how to use mechanical traps.

And for some reason, the bodies were deliberately displayed like trophies.

Just as they pieced this together, the temperature around them dropped sharply.

The air grew taut, making their hairs stand on end.

Though undetectable, their accumulated experience sounded an alarm.

Though their thoughts raced, their decision was swift.

They exchanged a glance and dashed off in the same direction.

It was a good call.

A sharp, piercing whistle sliced through the air.

But a good decision didn’t guarantee a good outcome.

A flash of red light flickered, and the man running ahead suddenly bled from his back.

It happened less than a minute after they started running.

“Ranged attack?”

The Salmun clan member behind accelerated, passing the fallen comrade.

For the first time since becoming an assassin, he felt his guts twist in fear.

Please, let the information have been transmitted…

And not too late…!

At that moment, another sharp whistle cut through the air, shaking the atmosphere.

Biting his lower lip, the man bent low and slammed his foot into the ground with all his might.

Even though there was only a solid wall ahead.

Then, in an instant, something incredible happened.

A woman suddenly appeared a short distance ahead, stomping so hard the ground dented beneath her feet.

Krrrkkk!

And then, something miraculous.

A large, square crack formed in the wall, spinning like a revolving door.

The man who had leapt forward shot through the rotating gap like an arrow.

Almost simultaneously, a dark figure followed, bouncing in pursuit.

The next moment—

Just before the revolving door closed, the man who went in first managed to slip out.

Thud!

As the door shut, the woman stepped forward.

Then came a terrifying metallic screech.

“Aaaaaaah!”

From inside the wall came a pitiful scream.

The woman with short black hair sneered coldly.

“Fools. They fell for their own trap. Did they really think we couldn’t turn it against them?”

“Damn it, Hyun-woo got hit. I almost died too.”

The man wiped his forehead as if he’d just escaped death.

The woman winked.

“Shall we check?”

“Wait a moment. Just in case…”

But before he could stop her, she moved on her own.

She stepped again, then halfway lifted her foot, causing the revolving door to jerk and halt.

The man hurriedly stepped back but then straightened up.

What lay inside was beyond horrific.

Sharp iron spikes densely packed, smeared thickly with what looked like human flesh.

Above, a man hung, torn to shreds from the chest up.

His organs dangled grotesquely.

“See? We succeeded.”

The woman carefully approached and lifted the corpse’s chin with her finger.

She gasped, drawing in a sharp breath.

Because she recognized the face.

More precisely, it was one of their own—Hyung-woo, one of the men who had run with them.

“Ah, he was the one attacked earlier…?”

A strange sound came from behind.

Turning around, the woman’s mouth dropped open.

The neck of the comrade she’d been talking to was twisted 180 degrees.

Not only that, it creaked as it spun two or three more times before finally snapping off and falling to the floor.

“The one thrown inside there… was your comrade.”

I stared blankly ahead when a chuckling voice pierced my ears.

“Just so you know, I was still alive back then.”

Kim Soo-hyun appeared out of nowhere, snapping the bloodied hand of his off with a sharp clap.

He was standing exactly where the woman had appeared earlier.

There was no room left to be surprised anymore.

As soon as Kim Soo-hyun pressed down on the floor in the same way, the terrified woman tried to escape by turning invisible.

But her timing was off.

“Caw—!”

Thud! The heavy rotating stone door slammed precisely into the woman’s body as she was halfway through.

Unluckily, she was caught dead center.

Grrrkkk, grrkkk!

The door struggled fiercely, as if annoyed by the foreign object stuck in it, trying to snap back to its original position.

Bit by bit, the gap narrowed, and the woman’s body was crushed and compressed vertically.

“Ugh… hngh…!”

Her eyes widened in agony, trembling wildly as she stared at her attacker.

At that pitiful gaze, Kim Soo-hyun briefly lifted his foot.

Of course, no sooner had he done so than he pressed down hard again.

The stone door spun fiercely once more.

Thud!

“Aaaaargh!”

The crushed part of her body was slammed again, and the woman finally let out a scream she could no longer hold back.

Thud!

“Gag, gaggh!”

Thud!

“Rrrrkkk…!”

Thud!

“Ugh…!”

Five loud crashes echoed in total, and then the woman’s screams gradually faded.

Her body, battered and smashed against the stone, was reduced to only half, blood streaming down the floor.

Kim Soo-hyun smirked quietly before disappearing into the darkness.

Meanwhile, at the same time—

“……”

Nul Seol-yeong, left alone at the center as the core, was in a foul mood.

The net was certainly a useful formation, but it wasn’t without flaws.

One, the threads had a limited length.

Two, if any connected thread snapped, there was little that could be done.

And just a minute ago, three more threads had been severed.

Not long after two had been cut, now five were broken.

Considering the number of people in Salmun, that was no small loss.

Of course, a broken thread didn’t necessarily mean death.

But every signal that had come back so far after sending information was that a corpse had been found.

Given this, it was no wonder a growing sense of unease gnawed at her every moment.

“What on earth are they doing?”

Nul Seol-yeong muttered softly in frustration.

Suddenly, another thread snapped.

“Again?”

Her eyes, which had been narrowing, blinked rapidly.

Nul Seol-yeong’s face froze in disbelief.

If she wasn’t mistaken, the threads were breaking one after another.

Then—

Snap, snap, snap snap snap snap…!

Without warning, the threads began to break chaotically, snapping left and right.

“Huh…?”

Her drooping eyes suddenly widened like lanterns.

Even as this happened, the magical threads connecting them fell one by one, helplessly.

“W-what… what is this…?”

For the first time, a look of shock and fear flashed across Nul Seol-yeong’s face.

—————————= Author’s Note =—————————

Sorry for the delay…

I barely managed to keep up…

ㅇ>-<

P.S. Next chapter will come with a warning message at the top, so please be sure to take note, dear readers…