Rookie Hunter Jeong Jae-ha (4)
Su Seong-min, scout for Saetbyeol, smiled with deep satisfaction in her office.
"You look like you're in a good mood."
"I am. Landed Athlete Jeong. He starts the day after tomorrow."
"Congratulations."
"Said he wanted Saetbyeol from the start. I worried myself sick for nothing."
Guilds that had struck it rich mining mana stones spent the way crypto-FIRE types did, draping themselves in designer labels. Mid-level managers were given offices of their own, complete with a secretary and a driver. The economy had been tottering ever since the Gate Crisis, so elite talent flooded the hiring market — which was why even her secretary was former staff at a conglomerate anyone would know by name.
"Are all of this batch of recruits going to the Demon Realm?"
"Yes. If you look at the middle of the report, the fill rate—"
"I'm sure you handled the numbers just fine, unnie. You know me. I don't do that stuff."
Su Seong-min stamped the report her secretary had put in front of her without properly reading a word of it.
"I just hope they all manage to stay alive a little longer."
Paper documents and seals were a culture that had clawed its way back after the Gate Crisis. Every record was now kept in a form that could still be read if the power died. Not that Su Seong-min was any better at reading the electronic versions. A guild HR team leader's work had never been paperwork to begin with. It was ramming the conclusion of that paperwork through — by awakened ability, if that was what it took.
"You brought in Athlete Jeong and a few others this time, didn't you?"
Call it a cow stepping backward and squashing a mouse, if you liked. An accident. She had still been the one to bring Jeong Jae-ha in, and that was why a standout who had made section chief at a major corporation in her early thirties, before the Gate Crisis, could serve as secretary to a Su Seong-min young enough to be her baby sister and voice no particular complaint about it.
"Right. But the Demon Realm is brutal. The demon bastards alone — and if even one lava earth-dragon crawls out... Plus Team Leader Choi is stationed there."
"Is he still like that?"
"Way I see it, that bastard stays like that till he drops dead. If he lays a hand on Jeong Jae-ha too, I swear I won't sit still. We'll see who dies first. Me, or him."
"It would probably be you, Team Leader. Team Leader Choi is A-Rank."
"Fuck."
She did worry about the state of the Demon Realm gate, of course.
"The rookies from Murim, Angel, and Iron Blood will be starting in the Demon Realm too, won't they?"
"Yeah. Yields are the best there these days."
The colossal Demon Realm gate was not Saetbyeol's private mine. Saetbyeol, Murim, Angel, Iron Blood — four major guilds locked in ferocious competition, every one of them needing to send even one more hunter and haul out even one more kilogram of mana stone. And the team leader supposedly strongest at that branch was beating the personnel they had gone to the trouble of sending to death, on the grounds that the man was a thug and therefore wouldn't do. For HR, it was enough to make you lose your mind.
"Just thinking about it pisses me off."
"Still, Athlete Jeong might be a little different, don't you think?"
"I'd like that too."
It was, of course, a problem with no answer, however long the two of them turned it over.
"What's HunterNet saying? You posted again, didn't you?"
Hoping to lift Su Seong-min's mood at least a little, the secretary brought up HunterNet — her hobby.
"Obviously."
HunterNet was the largest hunter community in the country. Rank and workplace showed beside every nickname. Hunters working at the so-called new guilds, and hunters who had never awakened at all, were looked down on even there, while hunters from the major guilds, the conglomerates, and the public enterprises were given preference.
"Oh! The comments really piled up. Want to look?"
"Yes."
The secretary turned to the thread, hoping Su Seong-min's mood would ease.
Sitting neatly together at the very top were comments from hunters who were, in all likelihood, the scouts of the three guilds that had competed with Su Seong-min.
"Those sons of bitches!"
Su Seong-min spat the curse.
The gymnasium at the training institute.
"—!"
I drew a breath as I faced Hunter Ji In-hwi's golems.
"Hoo. Ha."
Every stray thought sheared away as if cut by a blade, and my mind went still as a swimming pool with no one in it. Ever since Chae-ha hurt her hand, some corner of my heart had never stopped being anxious. Not anymore. Chae-ha was somewhere inside Saetbyeol Guild, and now neither she nor I was so weak that a stray misfortune could simply sweep us under. Once I grew strong enough to carry that child's secret, I could see her again.
"Waaaaaaah!"
The golems howled and came crashing in.
"Ha!"
I kicked off the floor with my right leg and drove forward. The leg had recovered completely. I wasn't merely back to where I had been before the injury — I was putting out a performance past my prime.
Jeong Jae-ha — Unique Skill
Attaque composée
I stamped my advances hard enough to break the gymnasium floor and unleashed one continuous assault.
One, two, three. Thud, thud, thud! I ran the first goblin through the brow, crushed the first orc's eye, and smashed the second goblin's upper lip to ruin.
Thud, thud, thud! Four, five, six. I sheared deep into the third goblin's skull, opened a hole in the second orc's throat, and tore through the inside of the jack-o'-lantern's head.
Thud-thud-thud! Seven, eight, nine. I poured the rest of the assault onto the last three without holding anything back.
With a dry hiss, golems large and small folded as one and returned to sand.
"Hoo."
I caught my breath and let a satisfied smile show. Nine in a row. Back in the tutorial, even four thrusts in a single breath had been difficult. Even in the days when I was making my name as a champion, I had never strung more than six consecutive attacks. The human body simply isn't made to go all out more than twice in one breath. Awakening had reinforced mine, but the enemies I had to face had grown tougher as well, so the relative force each thrust demanded was the same as ever. Which meant this was purely the result of my own skill having grown. I could still become stronger — and unlike before, I didn't even have to worry about ordinary injuries. The fact of it was almost too much to hold.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Congratulations."
Hunter Ji In-hwi came over, applauding. One look at his face told me this was more than the usual thanks for a hard session. He had something else to say.
"I suspect I shall remember you for a very long time, Athlete Jeong."
He offered his hand.
"Thank you."
I took it lightly.
"People who run camps always say that. Then the next class comes in, and they forget every one of them."
In my experience, a line like that came out on its own, as automatic as breathing — the same as my thank-you.
"But there will not be a coach who forgets you."
Ji In-hwi, though, was telling me he meant it, just as I had meant those words a few days before.
"Manager Hong — no. Director Si-yu, of the Training Institute, is of Saetbyeol."
"Sorry?"
"I myself am of Iron Blood."
"..."
"We were all ignorant, in those days. What passes for common sense in the industry now was merely the experience of a few. And so the ignorant and the bold were wont to scorn it."
He smiled faintly and reached a hand toward his golems.
Crack, crack. The sand that had formed them surged up in the shape of an enormous estoc, then compressed solid with a sound like bone twisting.
"Among the children who died in the Pumpkin Forest, there were some I knew. And you, Athlete Jeong — no. Hunter. You raised a great explosion in that Pumpkin Forest and slew demonic beasts without number."
Before long the surface had been polished smooth, and it was a true estoc.
"Thank you. You have avenged my comrades."
Hunter Ji In-hwi held the estoc out to me. I looked at the translucent orange blade, and thought of my own coaches — so many of them forced to quit competing by injury, every one of them cherishing me as if I were living out their dream in their place. This felt like that, and far more aching. How glad a thing it was, to be able to grant someone's long-cherished wish so lightly.
"I'll use it well."
I accepted the estoc with care. Even with my strength as it was now, the thing was heavy enough to feel substantial in the hand, and yet so finely balanced that it wasn't a burden at all. A cross-star curve had been worked into the blade's cross-section, giving a true edge to an estoc thick through the center, and that too was perfect. So this is the weight of the thanks one hunter gives another.
"It ought to serve you better than issued gear. Use it until you have real custom equipment made."
"I'll kill still more demonic beasts."
I bowed deeply to Hunter Ji In-hwi and left the gymnasium. We had met with me as his student, and we parted with me as his junior in the trade. The next time we met, I would be the finer hunter — the way I had always been, in my days as an athlete. I washed up quickly, gathered my things, and came down to the lobby.
"There he is."
"That's the bastard who dropped both Gang-o and Yeong-jun, right?"
The Scorpion remnants lowered their eyes the moment they saw me. Of them, Hong Si-yu had said they had no direct tie to the Scorpion Crew, having been in prison, but that they were preparing for a reunion. If I wanted to catch the tail, I had to leave them alive. If there was any fortune in it, one of the awakeners among them had joined Saetbyeol. Jeong Ho-min.
His face was calm, but his eyes were gone, and he handled a longsword well.
"Hyung-nim!"
Every thought of those wretched men blew away the instant I heard that voice, brisk as a sea wind.
"Hae-il."
Lee Hae-il.
"I made Saetbyeol too, sir!"
She had volunteered for Saetbyeol as well. Her posting was the same as mine: the Incheon branch.
"Wouldn't you be better off just going to the police, or a big company?"
"Aw, c'mon. No matter how well you do over there, you're still just Member A, aren't you, sir? A hunter who gets on TV and lives it up is way better."
"Hunters who've climbed that high are a handful."
"A genius like me, failing to climb that high? Not a chance, sir."
She had been a fairly popular internet streamer, she said.
"I'm shooting ads again and getting back on TV, sir!"
Just as I had no choice but to hunger for the glory of victory, maybe she had no choice but to hunger for the spotlight.
"All right. Let's go, then."
We left the training institute and headed for Incheon. The buses ran poorly, and the trip alone ate an entire day. I missed Su Seong-min's luxury sedan. We arrived late at night and took a room near the bus terminal.
"This place looks ready to fall down."
The lodging might as well have been a statement on the present condition of the country.
"H-Hyung-nim. That just now was a cockroach, wasn't it, sir?"
Even during the training camps when the crooked coach had eaten through the entire budget, we had slept somewhere better than this. I crossed yellow linoleum that stuck to my soles and peeled away with a tacky sound, and sat on a bed furred with dust.
"First thing tomorrow, we find a place. The guild starts covering rent next month, so we only have to endure a few days. A two-room will run a bit expensive, but I've got what I made coaching, so a month shouldn't be a problem."
I would sooner sleep on the street than stay in this.
"Uh, that's—"
"Anyway. You all right sharing a room with me?"
"Hyung-nim! Am I that hard to look at, sir?"
"No. The shower stall here is glass."
That wasn't the only problem. I looked at Lee Hae-il and tapped my Adam's apple.
"You're a woman."
"Yes, sir. That I am."
Lee Hae-il looked at me as if she couldn't see what the issue was.
For a moment I honestly wondered if the kid was out of her mind.
Lee Hae-il, meanwhile, was looking at me as if I were the crazy one.
"Um, Hyung-nim. You've never watched any internet streams, have you, sir?"
"Internet streams? What, like a bedroom broadcast or something?"
She clapped once at my answer, and her face said she finally understood.
"No, sir. Internet streaming. Didn't I tell you I used to do that?"
"I know the things exist. I've just never watched one. I was never much good with computers to begin with."
"You can watch them on your phone, though... Anyway. I was pretty famous among those streamers, sir."
"For what?"
"A little of everything, sir. Games, talking to chat, dancing, reactions, taking missions — ah, I'm wandering off again. That's not the point. My concept was dressing up as a guy, sir."
Lee Hae-il launched into a long, tangled explanation. She had often done collab streams with other women, and dressing as a man for the bit had landed well. Viewers hated the idea of their favorite female streamer actually getting together with a male one — and yet they very much liked watching that same favorite get flustered, heart aflutter.
"It's the feeling of watching a romance movie with the actress you like in it, sir."
So she had filmed a great many faux-romance videos, and that was how she had made it.
"Every one of my viewers knew I was a woman and still treated me like a man, sir. The whole concept of the broadcast was built that way."
"So you weren't really trying to fool anyone."
"It's a little embarrassing to say this in front of you, Hyung-nim, but I was kind of well-known among people my age... Yes. I just assumed you'd know who I was too, sir."
It was a little hard to follow, but I got there in the end.
"I get it."
"Really, sir?"
"There are fight promotions where every athlete builds a character and comes out in a mask. You crossdressed in that kind of spirit, right?"
"No, sir. That's completely diff— Yes! Correct, sir! You've got it exactly! That's the one, sir."
Lee Hae-il looked as if she had taken a punch, then nodded like mad. What followed was a story I already knew.