Hell's Handbook

Wu Chen and Kang Ze immediately guessed that these two women were the witches, but they were puzzled as to why Su Jin did not kill them and brought them out instead.

“What’s going on?” asked Wu Chen.

Su Jin knew what he was really asking, so he explained, “I meant to kill them, but they said they could help us to find the other evil creatures, so I spared them for the time being.”

Wu Chen and Kang Ze didn’t look puzzled anymore. It was true that their biggest problem right now was to hunt down those evil creatures. If these two witches were able to help them do that, that would make their job a lot easier.

“I fought 20 ogres just now. Mr. Kang, could you check your Handbook and confirm if they’ve really been killed?” Su Jin said to Kang Ze.

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Kang Ze quickly opened his Handbook, checked the numbers, then nodded. “That’s right. All 20 ogres have been taken out.”

In order to make sure his efforts didn’t go to waste, Su Jin had made sure to crush the hearts of each ogre earlier on. It seemed like the weakness of ogres was indeed their heart.

“Ogres, witches, demons. We’re left with shapeshifters, werewolves, and vampires.” Su Jin rubbed his chin. Vampires and werewolves were usually creatures of the night, according to legend. Based on how the Handbook usually conducted Challenges, it was probably too hard to locate them in the daytime even with the help of the witches. So, he was only left with the shapeshifters.

When it came to such evil creatures, Su Jin felt that shapeshifters were the most difficult to deal with. Once they had hidden themselves in a crowd, it could be almost impossible to locate them. That’s why he accepted the witches’ offer to help his group instead of killing them.

“Shapeshifters. We want to locate shapeshifters now. Help us to find them,” Su Jin said to the witches.

The two witches quickly whipped out their crystal balls and a bag of green powder. When they noticed the suspicious look in Su Jin and Wu Chen’s eyes, they quickly explained, “This is powder made from the bodies of shapeshifters. With this, we will be able to find out exactly where they are.”

Su Jin and Wu Chen were rather taken aback. Witches really had the craziest things on hand – these two even had powder made from the bodies of shapeshifters. They were evil creatures, alright.

The witches poured the powder onto their crystal balls and started chanting mysterious words. In no time, the two crystal balls showed a place and seven faces.

“Shapeshifters can change their outer appearance as they wish, so it’s not very helpful to only show us their faces, right?” said Kang Ze.

The witches replied, “Shapeshifters can change their outer appearance to whatever they wish to, but there are limits. They can only change their appearance once every hour, so we just need to get to them as soon as possible. Even if they change their appearance again, they’ll not be able to change again within the next hour, so if we help to search for them again…”

“Then the shapeshifters’ advantage is as good as useless.” Wu Chen nodded.

“Do you know what place this is?” Su Jin asked as he looked at the image reflected in the crystal balls.

“That looks like the central market, which isn’t too far from here,” replied the knight who came with them.

They quickly made their way to the market, and once they arrived, Su Jin got Wu Chen to guard the exit with the two witches and Kang Ze, while he went in with the knight.

The market wasn’t too busy. After the evil creatures had attacked the city, the market was no longer as crowded as before. Most people preferred to hide themselves at home rather than risk going out, unless they really didn’t have enough food to eat at home.

Su Jin and the knight took their time to stroll through the place, like they were choosing what to buy. Su Jin quickly arrived at a shop selling rice. The shop front made Su Jin raise an eyebrow. He remembered seeing this shop in the crystal ball earlier. There were supposed to be two shapeshifters here.

Once they walked into the shop, two people nodded and smiled at them. One of them looked like the boss and came forward to welcome them as he said politely, “Welcome to the shop, sirs. How can I help you?”

“Besides selling rice, what else does this shop sell? Shapeshifters?” Su Jin smirked at the boss.

The boss froze for a moment, then scowled at Su Jin. “So, you’re not here to buy rice. You’re here to make trouble.”

Su Jin wrinkled his nose and frowned. “The smell of blood was so strong, I thought this shop sold fresh meat. Or… is the rice you sell blood flavored?”

“Go to hell!” The boss gave a low shout, grabbed a pole used for carrying rice by the side and swung it toward Su Jin’s head. The other shapeshifter turned and ran toward the back of the shop in a clear attempt to escape.

Su Jin thrust a finger through the boss’ throat and the boss started convulsing violently. Su Jin grabbed him by the collar and dragged him as he ran to the back. The other shapeshifter had climbed up the wall behind, but Su Jin took White Ash out and fired several shots at his back.

The shapeshifter fell from the wall and let out a screech. Su Jin ignored his screeching and punched his heart so hard that it exploded. Then, he picked up that second shapeshifter by the collar and dragged them out of the rice shop.

When the shapeshifter screeched, the other shapeshifters in the market quickly changed their appearance and got ready to run.

Su Jin didn’t bother trying to find them in the market. Instead, he walked out and said to the two witches, “Help me to find them again.”

The witches didn’t dare to refuse his request, so they quickly repeated the chants they did earlier and the faces of five shapeshifters appeared in the crystal ball. Just then, thick smoke billowed out from the market, followed by shouts and screams as people started running out from the market.

“Hoping to escape in the chaos?” Su Jin and Wu Chen both chuckled. Su Jin threw the two shapeshifters to Wu Chen, then held up White Ash as he kept his eye on the only exit. He had memorized the faces of the five shapeshifters, so once they came running out, he would be able to find them immediately.

Bang! As one person dashed out from inside, Su Jin pulled the trigger and hit that person in the heart. That person fell to the ground and stopped moving. Su Jin and Wu Chen ignored him and continued watching the exit.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Su Jin fired three more shots and each shot took his target down immediately. Everyone else stared at Su Jin in horror, afraid that he might shoot them. That thing in his hands that fired white light seemed very formidable indeed.

“There’s still one last one. Is he so scared that he’s going to let himself burn to death inside the market?” said Su Jin with a snort.

“Could he have escaped from elsewhere?” asked Wu Chen.

The knight said, “That’s not possible. The castellan was the one who wanted this market to be built, so the design includes extremely high walls around the entire place, and this is the only exit. Unless…that person knows how to fly.”

“Or he could also climb!” Wu Chen glared at the knight like the knight was dumb.

But those remarks made Su Jin look up at the surrounding wall of the market. Just like what the knight said, the wall was very high and looked like it was at least ten meters high. It would be impossible for an ordinary person to climb such a wall, but could that shapeshifter have transformed itself into something that could climb a wall?

Su Jin decided not to take any chances and jumped onto the wall from the ground. The eyes of the knight, witches, and Kang Ze were as wide as saucers as they watched him do that. They couldn’t believe a human could be capable of jumping that high up. Unfortunately, the thick smoke from inside the market made it too hard for Su Jin to see. He couldn’t really see anything.

He leaped off the wall and shook his head sadly. The witches’ crystal balls also showed that the last shapeshifter wasn’t here and had run a long way off.

“That was a clever one. He might have tricked his companions into starting a fire so that they could escape amidst the chaos, but turned around and went over the wall himself,” said Su Jin.

Wu Chen agreed that that was a possibility. They both sighed deeply. Now that one had managed to get away, it was going to be difficult to catch him again. They just hoped that the shapeshifter would be too frightened and leave Mo City.

They proceeded to throw the bodies of the six shapeshifters they caught into a bonfire. Before long, the creepy howls of the shapeshifter could be heard from within the flames. These shapeshifters were a really strong race. Despite having their hearts damaged beyond repair, they didn’t die. They had to be burned to ashes to be considered truly dead.

Kang Ze’s Handbook also showed that there was only one shapeshifter left to wipe out. Su Jin instructed the knight to return to the castellan’s residence, while he returned to the church with Wu Chen, Kang Ze and the two witches. He decided to chase them out just before the Challenge ended. He had made a deal with them earlier and they had been of great help, so he decided to offer them a way out, assuming they didn’t try anything funny along the way.

Once they set foot inside the church, Su Jin and Wu Chen froze in shock. The church was a complete mess, as though a huge fight had broken out here.

“What do you mean by ‘as though a huge fight had broken out’?! There WAS a huge fight here just now. That servant you sent here with food turned out to be a werewolf who started wreaking havoc the minute he got here. It took us quite a lot to take him down,” snapped Situ Jin before pulling the werewolf’s body out to let Su Jin have a look.

The werewolf’s head was detached from its body and the newbies’ Handbooks indicated that he was already dead. The werewolf was three meters tall and much larger than the ogres. His bulky limbs had muscles bulging from them, and a large part of his torso looked like it had been burned. That was probably Kano Mai’s doing.

“I didn’t expect to get so much out of today’s battles. If everything goes well, we might be able to end the Challenge tonight,” said Wu Chen with a smile. The only ones that were a threat to them were the remaining vampires and werewolves.

“We’re very hungry!” Bo Ya and the other two ladies called out to Su Jin. They had gone an entire day without food. At least Kang Ze managed to eat quite a bit at the castellan’s residence.

“Where’s the food that was delivered?” asked Su Jin.

Kano Mai took the food out. There were five boxes of food in total and they were filled to the brim. But Su Jin put the boxes in front of the witches and said with a smile, “I’m afraid I have to trouble the both of you, since you’re my human-shaped poison testers!”