Did You Apologize?
"Kim Yejin. Get some rest. Take leave tomorrow and head down to your hometown for a while."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, Battalion Commander."
Citing acute psychological instability stemming from Hunter Seo Yeongcheol's death, Kim Yejin had already put in for leave. The request was granted. She waited with tearful eyes and the carefully composed expression of someone who'd taken a devastating mental blow, watching until the battalion commander disappeared. The moment he was gone, her face twisted into pure irritation as she pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
"That son of a bitch just had to go and die. This is so fucking ridiculous. My entire military career is completely screwed."
She raked her hands through her hair in a frantic mess, short strands whipping roughly back and forth. She took a long drag, exhaled hard, and only then felt the irritation and anxiety start to settle.
With this, her military career was thoroughly ruined.
But what choice did she have?
Since it was already a disaster, she figured she might as well go somewhere comfortable, recuperate a little, watch how things played out, and return once the noise died down. This was South Korea, after all. No matter how sensational an incident, the country always forgot and moved on given enough time. Her case would be no different.
"It'll blow over. It's not like this is the first time."
The frame of a woman unjustly persecuted simply for being female was, even she had to admit, a perfect shield and spear all at once. A delightful defense that turned the attacker into the one who got hurt.
Squeeze out a few tears. Leak to the press that she was seeing a psychiatrist. Wear a haggard expression a couple of times, and the whole thing would pass. The investigation itself was already likely to steer clear of her.
Being a woman was the best.
She sucked desperately on her cigarette, turning over and over how to salvage her future and her career. In that furiously spinning mind of hers, not a shred of guilt over the dead Hunter Seo Yeongcheol existed.
"Aaaah. Why the hell did he have to die, seriously."
Nothing but irritation. And while she was grinding her brain trying to claw her life back into shape, a spectacular explosion tore open the sky and a single wyvern came plunging toward the ground, vomiting rage-fire across the entire area and turning the vicinity into a wasteland.
"What the fuck is that?! There was no rift warning — where the hell did that thing come from?!"
Kim Yejin burst out of the barracks and fled in a blind panic.
A rift.
Unlike a main gate, a rift was an extremely unstable passage that, the moment it formed, scattered mana in every direction. Within a certain radius every car would explode, electronics would go dead instantly, and explosives and gunpowder would detonate on the spot, producing massive damage.
And because rifts announced themselves so noisily with those precursor symptoms, the government had never had much trouble issuing warnings before a rift fully formed — evacuating civilians and deploying soldiers.
But not this time.
Without a single rift alert, a wyvern had simply appeared over the military base. Following Lee Yeonghak's quiet instructions from where he was tucked tightly between its legs, the wyvern began spewing fire in every direction, continuing its rampage of destruction.
"Don't attack the enlisted. The officers are our main enemy, so roast them. Better to blow up cars, buildings, and supply warehouses than people."
At Lee Yeonghak's command, Yongil tore around the area in a frenzy, destroying everything in a mad rush. The building that stored the CCTV records melted and burned to the ground. Vehicles in the parking lot erupted in brilliant fireworks. The ammunition depot and supply warehouses liquefied under the enormous heat, transforming into a fireworks show of their own. While people screamed and ran, Lee Yeonghak and Yongil spent a solid two minutes on their rampage before banking toward the female officers' quarters.
"People running everywhere. If I'm going to pick out one specific person from that mess, I'll need to drink this."
Lee Yeonghak cracked open another can from his pocket — a stamina potion this time — and downed it. It didn't flood his mana as instantly as a mana potion, but he felt the energy slowly circulating through his body.
Combat was out of the question, but simple reconnaissance skills were within reach.
"Eye of Discernment — activate."
Eye of Discernment has been activated!
With the skill active, Lee Yeonghak had no trouble locking onto one particular figure among the officers fleeing in chaos.
"That's the bitch. Dive down, grab her in your mouth without killing her, and get us back into the rift fast."
Yongil executed the order with perfect precision. The beast plummeted from the sky, snatched Captain Kim Yejin clean out of her escape, wheeled around, and shot straight into the gate. And just like that, a raid that was short if you called it short and long if you called it long — about three minutes total — came to an end.
"Now that's refreshing. Nice work, Kim Wyvern! Go wreck that base!"
Lee Yeonghak snickered as he watched the outpost wreathed in roaring flames. Hunters were tearing down the walls in pure fury, while Yongdul and Yongsam streaked through the air, melting every building they could find into fire.
After savoring the apocalyptic scene inside the gate with open satisfaction, Lee Yeonghak smiled and roughly flung Kim Yejin — still frozen stiff in Yongil's jaws — onto the ground.
"Yejin. Long time no see."
"L-Lee Yeonghak?"
"You recognize me? Well, I've caused enough trouble that you ought to."
"You went to America! Being here is a violation of international law, you bastard!"
"Yeah, I decided to just break the law. Anyway. Yejin. I heard you worked Yeongcheol to death with disciplinary punishment."
Lee Yeonghak was smiling.
He was smiling so brightly, so cheerfully — and Kim Yejin could not find a single scrap of warmth in it.
Only then did she realize she had been caught by the wrong man.
She glanced around anxiously. The burning base. Hunters tearing down the walls. Wyverns spewing fire without mercy, turning everything into a sea of flame.
She scrambled for something — anything — that might get her out of this.
She fabricated words as desperately as she could.
"L-Lee Yeonghak, listen. Seo Yeongcheol's death was—"
But Lee Yeonghak had no intention of hearing her out. His eyes were already blazing full of rage.
"Yejin. Cut the bullshit. If I have to listen to your crap, I might just cut you down right here."
He drew his blade and made a casual slashing motion. Kim Yejin's mouth snapped shut. Inside a gate. A place overflowing with mana. The monster standing in front of her had survived more than ten years eating blade-work for a living in a place like this.
"Yejin. I want revenge on you. I want to do something truly cruel and disgusting to you. But before that, there's just one thing I want to confirm."
Lee Yeonghak crouched down so their eyes met. His burning gaze locked with her terrified one.
"If you did just this one thing, I won't do anything to you. I'll send you back outside. You can go home and spill everything about what we did here. I'll guarantee your safety absolutely."
Her eyes went wide.
There was a chance she could live!
"W-what is it? I'll do anything. Please. L-let's not do this."
"It's something really simple. The kind of basic, fucking elementary thing that shows up in a first-grade ethics textbook."
Lee Yeonghak stroked her cheek and smiled.
"Seo Yeongcheol died while you were putting him through disciplinary punishment. His entire musculature melted. Yejin. He died cruelly and horribly. Forget police investigations, forget court rulings — I just really want to know this."
The smile at the corner of his mouth deepened.
It was a smile that carried a chilling dread that made pure rage and shouting seem preferable.
"Yejin."
"Y-yeah?"
"Did you apologize to Yeongcheol?"
In that instant, Kim Yejin realized a faint thread of mana was circulating through the hand caressing her cheek. A physical-ability specialist with senses honed to the extreme. A man who possessed an actual skill called Sixth Sense, who could casually dodge supersonic attacks coming from behind — a monster of perception standing at the absolute peak of that craft.
And that Lee Yeonghak was reading her emotions and thoughts through her cheek.
"Did you at least go to his funeral and pay your respects?"
"……"
"Aaaah! Right! Skip the funeral! You might get beaten by the bereaved family if you showed up, so fine, skip that. Then at the very least — at the very least."
"Y-Yeonghak. P-please just listen to me. Please!"
"There wasn't just one or two reporters shoving microphones in your face. Couldn't you have grabbed even one of them and said: Hunter Seo Yeongcheol, I'm sorry. I was incompetent, stupid, lazy, and useless, and I failed to properly monitor your physical condition. I'm the bitch who killed you. I am truly sorry. I will cooperate fully with the investigation and accept my punishment. Couldn't you have at least said that?"
"Yeonghak!! Yeonghak! Wait! Please!!!!"
Kim Yejin sobbed and waved her arms desperately. But Lee Yeonghak did not stop. He did not wipe the smile from his face either.
It was funny.
His mouth was laughing, but his eyes were crying.
"Did you do that, Yejin? If you were a fucking normal adult who'd finished basic home education and public schooling, couldn't you have at least said 'I'm sorry' at a press conference? Did you? Huh? Yejin. Did you? It's so simple. All you had to do was flap your three-inch tongue. A person died, and if you'd just flapped that tongue and said you were sorry, you could have lived. Where else do you find a deal this good?"
"I-I'm sorry!! Yeonghak! I'm sorry!! Forgive me!! Please!!!!!!"
Kim Yejin sobbed and practically clung to him, begging. Lee Yeonghak shook her hands off.
"You didn't. So our Yeongcheol died a dog's death. The perpetrator never even apologized. What a fucking situation."
Lee Yeonghak lit a cigarette.
A long stream of smoke unfurled.
"This is so goddamn pathetic."
He grabbed Kim Yejin by the scruff of the neck and dragged her somewhere.
There was a building inside the base that was currently on fire.
The intensity of the flames was moderate.
Not hot enough to melt steel, but hot enough to burn wood.
"This temperature's perfect! Yejin! At this heat, you'll be able to scream and thrash for a good thirty minutes while you burn."
Kim Yejin's face went deathly pale.
She shrieked and thrashed.
"S-save me!!! Save me!!!!! Save me!! Please!!!!! I-I have a family!!! I have a family!!!"
"Wow! I didn't know that! But Yejin, let me tell you something interesting."
Lee Yeonghak stroked her hair.
"Yeongcheol had a family too."
He threw Kim Yejin into the burning building.
The stench of burning flesh and a scream so horrific it barely seemed possible for a human vocal cord to produce it tore through the air.
Lee Yeonghak watched and burst out laughing as if he were watching a comedy.
Every time Kim Yejin desperately crawled out of the building, he kicked her back inside. Over and over.
For nearly thirty minutes, demonic screams rang out spectacularly across the burning base.
Every hunter in the outpost crowded in and watched the spectacle in silence.
Not a single one of them.
Helped Kim Yejin.
And thirty minutes later.
"She's dead."
Lee Yeonghak muttered as he looked down at the charcoal lump that had once been Kim Yejin, collapsed on the ground.
"Died of a heat-related illness. How tragic."
He flicked his cigarette butt onto her body and gave Yongil an order.
"That corpse. Burn it until there's nothing left — ash. No traces."
Yongil did exactly that.
And with that, nothing inside the base retained any shape at all.
Leaving behind a wretched ruin with nothing remaining but ash,
"Let's go, you bastards."
Lee Yeonghak and one hundred thirty-four hunters mounted three wyverns and began flying toward American territory.
The steel baskets the United States had prepared for them were far larger and sturdier than the previous ones, and they held the hunters comfortably.
The flight of about an hour and a half proceeded quietly and without incident.