The Word with the Best Value for Money

Tch...

Clicking my tongue, I swiped past the message Lee Junho had sent me. Honestly, giving this much of my time to a trip down memory lane had already been more generosity than he deserved.

If I had any regrets, it was only that I hadn't beaten him a little harder at that guild event back then. One-on-one fights were always where I had the biggest advantage, after all. Sure, my emotions were involved, but I'd held back out of some misplaced mercy — I shouldn't have. Maybe I really should have broken a bone or two. Shattered his skull, even.

Well, at the time my thinking had been to not make enemies among the guild members and let things slide nicely. There was no point rehashing it now. Yes — the past matters, and it doesn't. What counts is doing well from here on out.

Next time I see him... no, ideally I never lay eyes on him again. But if we do get tangled up somehow, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'll just handle it then. For now, this message deserved nothing more than a casual dismiss — because I had zero expectation of having a rational conversation with someone who could snap into a lunatic that fast. No matter how sane the content looked, I had no intention of dealing with him.

The next message that arrived left a far worse taste in my mouth than Junho's had. At least that guy kept up appearances. This one, though... informal speech was just the baseline — demanding an apology out of nowhere on top of it was flat-out absurd.

Who even is this person? Hunter name... Catherine? Oh. So it's that ajumma. The bossy old-timer who never opened her mouth without barking orders — do this, do that. Do this because it's good, do that because that's good, bulldozing everyone with unsolicited lectures.

Plenty of guild members had been driven up the wall by her meddling, so I remembered stepping in as a middleman now and then. Eventually her target rolled my way, and I ended up swallowing every last bit of her nagging myself. Still, as a veteran hunter, I could let that nonsense slide right off me — better me than some poor rookies suffering. Not that I didn't have to clamp down on my own temper pretty hard to manage it.

Either way, Catherine here was one of the people who gave me a fresh revelation in life: getting older does not automatically make anyone graceful. No, wait — if this is all the grace aging bought her, how insufferable must she have been in her younger days? She seems thoroughly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gifted at stressing people out with a single line of text, at least.

But she'd reached out personally because she wanted an apology from me, so my plan was to oblige her — bow my head as much as she wanted. These days everyone believes that bowing means losing, that it costs you something. But it all depends on the situation. I'm now, in a sense, the weak party — a lone minority standing against a massive majority. If I'm the one who apologizes first and tucks my tail, then when that majority turns around and persecutes me anyway... well, that hands me a perfect justification. An apology offered at just this moment beautifully lays the groundwork for that excuse later. Yes — a posture of concession can be a devastating weapon in a war of public opinion.

Even knowing all that, I refused to grovel over a baseless apology. I packed my reply with as much brusqueness as it could hold. Even if bowing was a weapon. Even if it improved my position. At the very least, I deserved to know why I was supposed to be sorry.

Ah... the moment I looked at the screen, I understood exactly what she wanted to pick at. So her feelings got hurt because I didn't give her the respect her age deserved. But naturally, I had never been rude to my elders. Never treated them carelessly either. The banmal at the Whirlpool Gate came out because the situation was a life-or-death emergency — as raid leader, I had to issue orders fast, and there was no way around it. Better me speaking informally than people dying, no?

On top of that, I'd politely smoothed everything over the second the raid wrapped up. Sorry if I sounded too sharp today — my apologies to anyone who found it uncomfortable. Because you never know how things might come back around. I've always been meticulous about designing my life that way, and in fact, no senior had ever so much as hinted at discomfort by seizing on that incident. No one except this ajumma, Catherine.

Ugh, but honestly — if we're all adults, we're all adults. Splitting hairs like this is just childish. Still, if she's dead set on being treated as an elder... if she's tripping over herself to extract an apology from me, then matching her rhythm isn't hard.

I had no intention of academically defining what age officially makes someone an ajumma. I don't go around calling older women ajumma out of nowhere myself, after all — regardless of whether that's polite. I simply didn't want to pick fights using words I knew would sting. But when the other party is already this hostile toward me? That's a different story. Then I don't hold back. I hit back without mercy.

Hunter society mostly calls for smooth, oily diplomacy, sure. But sometimes you have to charge straight in instead of dodging. And besides — it's not like "ajumma" is inaccurate, is it? She's the one begging to be treated as an elder. She's campaigned so hard about her seniority. Being called ajumma might actually be a compliment at this point.

Bzzzz—

An incoming call. Naturally, I didn't answer. I had no desire to hear a middle-aged woman's rage-cracked screeching through my speaker.

"Pfft..."

Watching her get so worked up she was firing off typos, I couldn't hold in a laugh for a second. It's not that I enjoy arguing... no, I don't particularly like fights in general. But the rush that comes from dismantling someone this cleanly and logically? That was genuinely thrilling. And really, she had no room to rebut anything, did she? She'd paraded her age around like a medal, which amounted to demonstrating with her whole body that she wanted to be called ajumma.

I'd heard the word "ajumma" was the most cost-effective way to get under someone's skin, but I hadn't realized it was this efficient. Didn't know it could reduce a person to spouting the most predictable lines imaginable, either. Well, that's a new fact for the books. Guess you really do learn something every day. They were right — learning never ends.

Anyway, so the rumor that I'd robbed the guild warehouse really had spread through the guild. When in reality I'd just packed up my own things and left. Honestly, it works out better for me. I can't help laughing — and not just at this woman having a seizure over the word ajumma. Everything is falling into place exactly as I predicted, and that alone puts me in a good mood.

So I sent a lighthearted reply and blocked Catherine.

After skimming through the texts, what I checked next was my missed call log. Quite a lot of them. Most were from my old guild, naturally. But sadly, apart from Catherine — the one who picked this fight — I couldn't answer a single name on that list. Talking to me directly could end up hurting whoever was on the other end.

So instead, I called a completely uninvolved third party.

"Aigo, Jina. I told you not to scream when you're on a call with a privacy-kit on. It shreds the audio."

The kid I call Jina. A close younger friend I've known for ages. And yet, close as we are, I don't know her real name. I know she's younger than me, but I couldn't tell you her exact age. We know precisely nothing about each other's personal details. And still we're close. Strangely so — we know nothing about each other. No, more accurately: we never ask anything, and that's exactly why I can say with certainty we're close. The proof is how genuinely she's worrying over me right now. She left a hundred and fifty-seven missed calls, all by herself.

Frankly, that's a little terrifying — but hey, it means she cares about me that much, so I couldn't feel bad about it.

Anyway, according to her, a post about me apparently did go up on the Incident Archive this morning. Something about me being the warehouse thief, probably — written up, then hastily taken down once Minhyuk and the others clued everyone in on the truth. I didn't need to see it to know how it went. No, honestly, it was so predictable it bored me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for a second. But that sour feeling faded fast. Because thanks to this whole mess, I'd just gained another weapon to hold over them.

"It's nothing like that. I'm fine. Just... the usual kind of trouble that happens when hunters live crammed together, that's all."

"More importantly, Jina. Did you happen to save it? It only stayed up for a minute before coming down."

That's Jina for you. Even if it weren't her, someone would have screenshotted a expose post like that, and I could've hunted one down eventually. But if I can get it easily from someone I know — someone I trust completely — why would I bother? Well, that pretty much completes the puzzle. Now I understand why Lee Junho reached out in such an uncharacteristically civil, courteous tone. Every last mystery clicking perfectly into place.

"No, doesn't seem like it."

I see. So more people don't know the story than do. That's why they're over there pretending nothing happened, papering it all over with willful ignorance — so few witnesses, after all. Which means Junho texting me was a little fishing expedition to probe whether I knew about it or not...

Ha. Honestly, in this day and age, you think stuff like this stays quietly buried? And if someone tried to smear a person with false accusations, they obviously have to answer for the fallout. Ha...

From the guild's perspective, of course they want to quietly wipe their mouths and move on. But as they say, a gun that's already been drawn deserves at least one shot — and letting it fizzle out like this would be a waste of a fine piece. Not that I could go spraying that precious bullet around carelessly.

So I decided to bury today's events somewhere deep in my chest. Ah — buried does not mean forgotten. I mean I'll bury it with care, knead it into something truly thorough later, and then fire it.