Exam Season
Exam season—especially year-end at the Seoul Hunter General Center—was, to put it bluntly, like a packed open-air market.
About as chaotic as the old college entrance exams.
In some ways, it mattered even more to the students, because the test being held there could shape their entire future.
That was why the entire center was worked to the bone, physically and mentally alike.
The people coming to register were no different.
Students. Guardians. Teachers and related staff.
And even active hunters who normally went out of their way to avoid this season, but had no room to do so this time.
Inside the center, where all of them had gathered, the friction between Kim Seonwoo and Ma Eun-woo had been nothing more than a storm in a teacup.
At least, it was—right up until Ma Eun-woo smashed his face spectacularly into the floor.
Crash!
"......"
"......"
The noise around them froze solid.
Once something stopped being a mere argument and turned into an actual physical incident, the situation changed completely.
That frozen atmosphere would only last for a heartbeat.
Everyone could feel the rage boiling off Ma Eun-woo like a volcano after he had planted his face into the ground.
In the next moment, he looked ready to explode and start lashing out like a beast.
And Seonwoo looked down at him with darkened eyes.
Avoid the clash?
He had never intended to.
Even if he moved from the shadows, he would still take control of the situation himself.
And if that wasn't necessary, then he'd stand at the very front.
Seonwoo had already made up his mind, and Ma Eun-woo wasn't the kind of villain who required subtle maneuvering.
Hoo—
So it was just as Seonwoo drew in a deep breath.
Hoooo......
Suddenly, a presence rolled in from outside.
It swallowed the entire space.
It wasn't threatening in the least, yet it was heavy. Vast.
As though there was no need for it to threaten anyone in the first place.
That predator-like pressure completely changed the atmosphere inside.
"......"
It even forced Ma Eun-woo—who had been a split second away from exploding—to suppress his temper and regain his reason.
If he caused a scene now, he wouldn't get out of it unharmed.
By presence alone, they had restored Ma Eun-woo's sanity and seized control of the entire area.
And Seonwoo knew exactly who they were.
Step. Step.
People entered dressed in immaculate suits.
From the outside, they didn't seem visibly armed, but every single thing they wore was in fact top-tier equipment.
They were the A3 Security Team.
Bodyguards belonging to Changseong Group.
"Wow......"
"So that's Changseong Group's security team."
The people around them murmured in hushed voices.
The Changseong Group security team.
Every single member was a special ability user, and they protected high-value figures even inside dungeons.
And among them, the especially elite unit was Team A.
If the one being escorted by A3 was someone important enough to warrant that much protection, then—
Tap.
A girl wrapped in a kind of distinction that silenced the entire area once again.
Tap.
It was Kang Han-na.
A girl so exceptional that even the luxury brands she wore seemed faded by comparison.
Step.
And beside her, walking together without having her presence overshadowed in the least—
astonishingly, in some ways, even more striking than Kang Han-na—was another girl.
With long straight hair and red eyes more vivid and beautiful than any jewel, her name was Seo Eun-yu.
She was known as one of the most talented students in all of South Korea.
So there they were—Flame and Hero.
The two said to be the next S-ranks who would one day lead Korea.
Their presence spread outward, erasing even the pressure of the security team itself.
Impressive.
Seonwoo felt it anew.
Nothing else mattered.
Kang Han-na and Seo Eun-yu could turn everything around them into mere background by their presence alone.
Special people born to save the world.
In Goddess Saga, they had only been characters, but in this world made real, even their aura was different.
Someone like Ma Eun-woo lost all meaning as a spectacle the moment those two entered without bothering to conceal themselves.
Tremble, tremble......
With the two of them present, he didn't even dare make any more of a scene.
All he could do was shake and back off.
But Seonwoo, who had been confronting Ma Eun-woo, was different.
"Ah."
Because one of those special people—Kang Han-na, made even more extraordinary by the backing of Changseong Group—turned her gaze to him.
"Hello, Senior."
Kang Han-na approached and greeted him with a smile.
For an ordinary person, being addressed in that moment—with everyone's attention on them, and after having just stood at the center of the disturbance—would have been enough to make them freeze on the spot.
"Yeah. Hi."
But Seonwoo accepted the greeting as though it were nothing.
Even in a situation like this, faced with that Kang Han-na, there wasn't the slightest trace of burden or embarrassment in him.
Crunch—
At the sight of Seonwoo like that, Ma Eun-woo started trembling again, grinding his teeth.
I can't even get a glance.
I don't even dare step forward.
So why the hell does Kim Seonwoo get to—!
Of course, Ma Eun-woo's jealousy and rage never reached Kang Han-na or Seonwoo.
"You here to register?"
"Yes. You too, Senior?"
"Yeah. I'm here with my junior."
"Ah, h-hello."
Following Seonwoo's gaze, Kang Han-na's eyes landed on Seol Yun-ri.
Yun-ri flinched, then quickly gave a proper greeting.
Kang Han-na recognized her and wore a thoughtful expression for a moment, but soon smiled and greeted her back.
"Yeah, hi."
"We're busy, so we'll get going. Good luck on the exam. You too, Eun-yu."
"......Yes. Thank you."
Seo Eun-yu, standing beside Kang Han-na, blinked once and then gave a slight bow.
"Take care, Senior."
Just like that, Seonwoo left cleanly, and Kang Han-na and Seo Eun-yu finished registering beneath countless staring eyes.
Unlike Seonwoo, not a single person there was able to treat Kang Han-na naturally.
And once they were inside the car, out of sight, Kang Han-na grinned and said to Seo Eun-yu,
"You were watching Senior, weren't you?"
The senior she meant was, of course, Seonwoo.
To Kang Han-na's slightly teasing question, Seo Eun-yu simply replied,
"Yeah."
She nodded calmly.
Already used to her friend's blunt and unexciting personality, Kang Han-na wasn't disappointed and kept asking.
"Why? It wasn't because of what happened before we came, was it?"
Someone as capable as Kang Han-na or Seo Eun-yu would never miss the commotion inside.
Ma Eun-woo was no back-alley thug. He was a top student at Seoul Hunter Academy, already active as an official hunter.
And the fact that Seonwoo had subdued him—Ma Eun-woo, whose physical stat was a full C-grade—was certainly surprising in an ordinary sense.
But just that much wasn't enough to hold Seo Eun-yu's interest, not when she was the sort who sometimes felt like someone living her second life, so little did outside stimuli move her.
And yet from the moment they entered the center, Seo Eun-yu had fixed her eyes on Seonwoo and seemed to have no intention of looking away.
From Kang Han-na's point of view, that was unusual enough to be impossible not to notice.
Why had she been watching him?
Seo Eun-yu thought for a moment before answering.
"He caught my attention."
"What about him?"
"...I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Yeah. I don't know why. But even now, he keeps catching my attention."
"...Love?"
"Not that."
At that immediate answer, Kang Han-na let out a soft laugh.
She had only said it as a joke, but since the denial came so fast, apparently it really wasn't that.
And that only made her even more curious.
What exactly was it about Senior that had caught Seo Eun-yu's interest when ordinary things couldn't stir her at all?
Kim Seonwoo.
Kang Han-na was already certain on instinct that he possessed something utterly unlike the boy she'd known in school.
As absurd as it sounded, she had even wondered whether he might be the one who had obtained information about the Elf Auction and passed it to Changseong Group.
Even though that should have been absolutely impossible for Seonwoo—a boy who, even if he had reawakened, came from a level so low he couldn't even qualify as a hunter, and who had no background no matter how deeply one investigated.
And yet, if that were true, then what had happened today didn't quite fit either.
Someone who had delivered that information to Changseong Group and flipped Sihyeok Group upside down while keeping their identity impossible to guess—would that same person really cause a public disturbance like this?
I seriously don't get it.
No matter how much Kang Han-na thought, no answer came.
...Interesting.
And so, her interest rising sharply, she grinned.
On the way back.
"You were cool back there, Yun-ri."
"......Pardon?"
At Seonwoo's words, Seol Yun-ri tilted her head in confusion, the gesture almost cute.
She had no idea what he suddenly meant by saying she'd been cool.
"You fought hard. Against Ma Eun-woo."
"...But I couldn't do anything."
"No. Even though you were scared and hurting, you didn't run. You stood and fought. That was courage, and it was definitely cool."
Courage wasn't fighting recklessly.
Courage was facing fear.
But Seol Yun-ri couldn't accept that.
"Still... I couldn't even say anything. I can't think of someone like me as cool."
"Yeah. I get why you'd think that. For now."
There had been no result, so she couldn't praise her own courage.
That was the kind of thinking born from wounds and trauma.
She'd had talent, but she couldn't summon spirits.
She'd found courage, but in the end she still couldn't look Ma Eun-woo in the eye with pride.
Seonwoo understood Seol Yun-ri all too well.
He, too, stood atop a distant expanse of time and challenge in which, despite countless failures, he had still never reached a happy ending.
Even so, he had kept moving forward—and along that path, there had also undoubtedly been emotions piled up like cold snow.
Of course those weren't things one could overcome all at once.
But.
"Still, before long, you'll start thinking you're cool too. Right?"
Seol Yun-ri would soon be rewarded for her efforts.
"......Yes. I'll try to change."
At her answer, Seonwoo smiled softly.
Gymnasium.
Bang—!!
Ma Eun-woo was pounding away at a striking dummy like a madman.
It looked less like training and more like outright violence.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuck!!"
Bang—!!
Otherwise, he simply couldn't endure it.
Even as the mockery toward Ma Eun-woo spread, interest in Seonwoo—the one who had opposed him—was growing in a positive direction.
And the more interest in Seonwoo grew, the more the ridicule of Ma Eun-woo swelled with it.
"That fucking bastard—!!"
Bang—!!
"That pathetic piece of shit... acting like he matters...! Hah... hah..."
Even just remembering how Seonwoo had casually spoken with Kang Han-na and Seo Eun-yu—seniors to whom Ma Eun-woo himself needed enormous resolve just to say a single word—made his blood boil.
Kim Seonwoo, of all people!
The worm who wasn't even worth being treated like a proper senior in the first place!
Ma Eun-woo had never once in his life not been strong.
When he first entered a dungeon as a licensed hunter, he had been a little intimidated.
D-grade Physical (100) has increased to C-grade Physical (101).
But after just two gate clears, that rise in his physical stat had told him everything he needed to know.
I really am special.
I'm a strong one—something fundamentally different from all those lesser trash.
Ah. So that's it.
Recalling that moment, Ma Eun-woo thought:
If that's how it is...
Then he'd have to produce an even more overwhelming result than he'd originally planned.
In Korea's hunter world, hierarchy was enforced with brutal strictness.
But even that had one exception.
Overwhelming skill.
Hunter rank and accomplishments.
No matter how much someone was your senior, if they were crushed by you in those things, then they had to follow the orders—the commands—of their junior.
The relationship reversed.
You lowly bastard.
I'll show you the difference between us.
With that thought, Ma Eun-woo clenched his teeth hard.
And at that very same time, in Elvenheim—
Hm.
The gap was larger than he'd expected.
Seonwoo was thinking exactly that.