Demon Slayer (3)

A team meeting was called at the Demon Realm branch of Saetbyeol Guild.

From Choi Jong-hyeok of Hunting Team 1 down to the junior team leaders in the double digits, more than a dozen awakened gathered around the long table, and the support leads arrived with them—Finance, Medical, Legal, and the rest.

"The Branch Director is entering."

"No need to get up. Sit, sit."

When the Branch Director came in last of all, the meeting was complete. She was a C-rank hunter, gentle in the face and worn thin with fatigue. A precious healing-type awakened, she was treated above her rank at any guild she might have chosen, and she was a founding hero besides—once a party member of the Demigod, Ban Hae-jin, in the early days of the Ruin Era.

"So. Team Leader Choi let everyone keep their heads today, did he? I only say so because nobody even called me in."

To land even a light jab on an A-rank Earth Mage like Choi Jong-hyeok, you had to be someone of that standing.

"They were merely people with more sins to repay by living than any sin worth dying for."

Choi Jong-hyeok, of course, answered without so much as a tremor, steady as the rock he commanded.

"Let's not speak of it."

The Branch Director gave a bitter smile and looked to Yeo Baek, leader of Team 2.

"Everyone did excellently. Jeong Jae-ha goes without saying, and Lee Hae-il, Jeong Ho-min, and the rest were all perfectly solid on average."

Yeo Baek delivered the report in a voice bright with excitement.

"It looks as though every team will be able to take on one or two awakened members."

Cheers and whistles burst from every side of the table.

"Finally! At last! About time!"

"So I don't have to charge in alone anymore, right?"

"Quantitative growth, even out here!"

Team Leader 3 added his piece with a pleased smile.

"For those rookies you mentioned, it might be wise to pull their support forward. Settling them in at the start is what matters, isn't it?"

"Quite right. Let's get them body armor quickly, and see to the rent subsidies early. Is that possible?"

The Branch Director nodded, and the Finance Team Leader consulted his tablet.

"What we've lacked is people, not money. Awakened equipment and spare inventory are both plentiful. We'll issue them!"

Another whistle went up. Yeo Baek spoke as if something had just occurred to her.

"Finance Team Leader. Now that I think of it, Hunter Jeong Jae-ha contracted under the top-recruit privilege, with no probation period. Isn't that right?"

"He did, didn't he?"

"Then the C-rank demon he killed today has to count toward his kill count. He should get the bonus."

Gasps rose here and there around the table.

"A Demon Slayer on his first day?"

"So it was true he killed a pumpkin wyrm in the tutorial?"

The Finance Team Leader's eyebrow twitched.

"The... the money itself isn't the issue, but today is simply impossible, no matter how you look at it. He isn't even registered in the database yet."

Yeo Baek clicked her tongue inwardly at the support staff's trademark love of administrative convenience.

Couldn't they just wire it to a CoffeeTalk account? How long have we even been a major corporation, that we're fussing over something like this?

Still, it wasn't that they were refusing to pay—only that it would take a little time—and that made it awkward to press.

"Isn't same-day settlement the standard for a Demon Slayer bonus?"

Then supporting fire arrived from a quarter no one had expected.

"A good deed must be done, however small, and an evil deed must not be done, however small it seems. If the contract was made that way, then payment must be made that way."

Choi Jong-hyeok regarded the Finance Team Leader with the face of a stone guardian.

"Is that not what a contract is?"

"Y-yes. We'll do it that way."

The Finance Team Leader nodded with the air of a man prepared to wire the sum out of his own pocket if he had to.

Well, now. That's new.

Yeo Baek let the gasp out only on the inside. And fair enough—having seen that spectacle today, even Choi Jong-hyeok must have been convinced. Jeong Jae-ha would surely be at the front when Saetbyeol swallowed the Demon Realm gate.

It's almost a shame we met him as a rehabilitation hunter.

She wanted him on her team. Badly.

If I pin them or wound them with telekinesis, and then Athlete Jeong steps in—stab!—wouldn't most demons be finished in a single shot?

As it happened, their abilities complemented each other rather well.

"Then let's move on to the assignments."

Yeo Baek drove the meeting forward almost impatiently.

Team Leader Choi will refuse, of course.

She felt no anxiety that Choi Jong-hyeok might snatch the boy away.

The moment someone arrives he either puts them through some absurd entrance trial, or if they cause trouble on another team he kills them himself—that's the problem. He isn't a man who enjoys harassment for its own sake.

What he had just done nagged at her, being so unlike him, but he was someone who disliked rehabilitation hunters to begin with.

And he doesn't need anyone in the first place.

Besides, Team 1 was already overstrength with Team Leader Choi alone.

"Team Leader Choi. Is there any rookie you'd care to take?"

So Yeo Baek's question was purely ceremonial.

"Jeong Jae-ha and Lee Hae-il. Those two would do."

"None, then—what? No. Pardon?"

She had never expected Team Leader Choi to ask for rookies.

"......"

Silence settled over the conference room.

Why? Why on earth?! Is that why he backed the bonus?

Yeo Baek felt like screaming.

"Team Leader Choi."

Even the Branch Director was looking at him with worry.

"I don't believe you've taken rookies before. Natural awakenings, artificial awakenings, rehabilitation types—you turned them all down, didn't you?"

"That is correct."

Choi Jong-hyeok answered slowly.

"But after hearing the other team leaders this morning, it seemed to me I ought to learn how one works alongside awakened teammates."

"Does it have to be Hunter Jeong Jae-ha?"

"He was very different from me."

"Yes. From what Team Leader 2 said, he certainly seems to be..."

"Which is why I wish to see more of him."

"S-see what, exactly?"

The mood in the room was turning into nothing short of a funeral.

Team Leader Choi spoke as slowly as the groan of a great boulder.

"Is that so?"

In that instant the Branch Director's eyes narrowed. No one saw it.

We're finished.

Yeo Baek sighed inwardly. Team Leader Choi's will was absolute. He was an A-rank hunter and the leader of Team 1, yes—but he had also yielded teammates without fail until now. And in this age steeped in misfortune, he could say he had suffered a greater tragedy than anyone.

"......Teams that already have awakened members, please lead them without any territorial hazing. Teams that didn't, please set your positions carefully between the rehabilitation hunters and the non-awakened."

She pushed through the rest of the announcements, thoroughly deflated.

"Reports of disputes between rehabilitation hunters and N-rank hunters are being compiled from across the country."

"That's right. A few have already broken out in the Demon Realm."

"It can't be helped. N-rank hunters were never people who did this kind of work to begin with, were they?"

The moment a fresh topic surfaced, the team leaders grew engaged again.

"They were all perfectly ordinary employees who became refugees after the Cataclysm and ended up doing this, while the rehabilitation types are all ex-convicts. Bad blood is inevitable."

"A hazing ritual we could overlook, but once people start dying, the problem gets far too big."

It was one of the hunter industry's pressing issues at the moment.

"For now, please fit the firearms with sensors so no one can put a round in the back of a teammate's head... As for the rest of the hazing, team leaders will handle it as they see fit... We'll meet again the day after tomorrow..."

And as with every important problem in the hunter industry, there was still no definite answer. The whole affair merely creaked along, improvised from one moment to the next.

The team leader meeting came to an end.

"Everyone get home safely. Oh—Team Leader Choi, stay and speak with me a moment?"

"Yes."

From Yeo Baek of Hunting Team 2 down to the junior leaders in the double digits, every hunting team leader headed downstairs to prepare to leave. Even the Finance Team Leader, mouth stuck out a mile over a scrap of overtime, returned to his own floor, and the vast conference room was left to Team Leader Choi and the Branch Director alone.

"Team Leader Choi. No—Jong-hyeok."

The Branch Director called him with a sly smile. In it lived the old cunning of a hunter who had watched Choi Jong-hyeok since the days when Saetbyeol was merely one of the survivor gatherings in Seoul.

"What is it you mean to say, that you call me by name?"

Choi Jong-hyeok arched a brow theatrically, already looking tired.

"Thinking of trying again?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"The executive promotion."

"......"

"I still think your heart's set on it. You know that, don't you? You were a hundred times the man that gangster bastard was."

"Everyone has a burden they must carry for a lifetime."

But at the words that followed, even Choi Jong-hyeok had no choice but to let his face truly harden.

"Your teammates said they didn't care if the man was a gangster or a dog—they liked whoever ladled more gravy into their mouths. What were you supposed to do about that?"

Across the ink-wash darkness of his eyes, the memory of betrayal passed like a rough brushstroke.

"You're stonewalling me now, too?"

"I will take my leave."

"You turned that gravy down and picked two of the kids who went to prison."

"......"

"Si-yu sent me this."

"Is it permissible to use a retired Association executive as a company spy?"

The Branch Director brought the résumés up on her tablet.

"Si-yu? She hasn't resigned. We planted her there to coordinate this and that with the government."

The detailed case files Hong Si-yu had received from the Ministry of Justice appeared on the screen. After Jeong Jae-ha exposed the match-fixing scandal, an Association official had once offered him a deal: ten billion won in cleanly laundered coin, and an Association executive post that guaranteed a salary in the hundreds of millions of won a year merely for having his name on the roster. Jeong Jae-ha refused without hesitating a single second. Lee Hae-il, likewise, had been promised an enormous sum in cash by the Scorpion Crew in exchange for helping them launder money, and she refused.

"Try trusting them one more time."

The Branch Director smiled, fond and aching.

"You're someone who can."

"I will be going."

"Sweep the Demon Realm clean, and go to headquarters with these kids."

"......"

Choi Jong-hyeok let out a deep sigh and rose.

"You want to. Don't you."

To the very end, he didn't shake his head.

My first day as a hunter came to an end. It had been more astonishing than I expected, and more fun than I expected. I hadn't thought there would be a chance to show this much on day one. As ever, when it came to the thing I was truly good at, I had to know how to put it on display.

And thinking it over, it made sense that the non-awakened hunters out there had carried themselves like such lowlifes. In the end, hunter work was athletics too—the sports kind, specifically. The people shooting commercials, climbing into executive seats, and turning up on variety shows had always been the top 0.001 percent, the very peak of the rankings. If you could so much as scrape a living in your field, that counted as success. Everyone else just became a grown-up with a good body. And wasn't it common enough for athletes who failed to go pro to slide down the wrong path?

With that thought, I came back to Lee Hae-il's place.

"Hot, and sleepy, and hungry, hyung-nim."

"We've gone full beggar."

"I absolutely reek of sweat right now, hyung-nim."

Neither of us waited on the other. We dropped into the chairs.

"Let's wash up and eat right away. Should we order in?"

"Yes. Something delicious, please."

"What's delicious?"

"Order whatever you think is best, hyung-nim."

While Lee Hae-il washed, I cleaned the place a little more and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠put in an order.

"Damn it!"

Correction. I tried to put in an order. They'd said ordering food was easy—so why was it this hard? Installing something called a delivery app and registering a card, I nearly hurled the smartphone more than once.

"Just use mine, hyung-nim. I've got auto-pay set up, so you won't even need a password."

"Thanks."

"You're good at everything. Why do you turn into an idiot the moment you touch a machine?"

"Beats me."

In the end Lee Hae-il came out mid-shower with a towel wrapped around her, held out her phone with every bit of the registration finished, and went back in.

"You ought to wash up too, hyung-nim."

A little later she emerged, toweling her hair dry.

"Ah, take that off here, hyung-nim. We're tearing it up and throwing the whole thing out."

"Yeah."

"This is going to happen a lot. Starting tomorrow I should just go in a T-shirt and dolphin shorts, hyung-nim."

"You even owned clothes like that?"

"Concept matters. But you can't let the concept eat you alive."

With her help I tore off the tactical combat suit plastered to my body. The body itself had recovered, thanks to the regeneration that came with body enhancement, but the clothes were burned past saving and would never be worn again. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Replacing a set like that every day wouldn't come cheap. It was a fresh relief that the guild was covering it.

"......"

Lee Hae-il stared openly at my body.

"What?"

"I'm freshly aggrieved, hyung-nim."

"About what?"

"I'm a body enhancer too, for whatever I'm worth, and I don't understand why our bodies are this far apart."

"You're solid enough. Hunt a little longer and you'll have a better physique than Jeong Ho-min."

"Hearing that from a man whose lower traps are split clean down his back is just gaslighting, hyung-nim."

I went into the bathroom and stood before the big mirror. Of the burns I'd taken earlier, not even a scar remained. If not for the difference in color between the new skin and the old, I could have claimed I'd been injured and no one would have believed me. At this level, it was practically super-regeneration.

I washed up and came out to find Lee Hae-il had already taken in the delivery.

"What did you order, hyung-nim?"

"Extra-large galbi-tang? Short-rib soup."

"What?! I said I wanted something delicious!"

"I was torn between spicy pork stir-fry with soybean-paste stew and short-rib soup, and figured the soup would be better on a day we sweated this much."

"No! When a girl says she wants something delicious, you're supposed to order something like a cheese-waterfall brisket mala tteokbokki, aren't you?!"

"Cheese what?"

She looked utterly blank for a moment, then let out a low sigh.

"I should have known the moment you didn't have a delivery app, hyung-nim."

"If you don't want it, don't eat it. I'll take both bowls."

"I'm hungry, so I'll at least fill my stomach."

We popped the lids and each lifted a spoonful.

"Wh-why is this so good, hyung-nim?"

Lee Hae-il's eyes went round the instant she took a bite.

"Not bad, right?"

"You ordered perfectly."

Her spoon moved so fast it looked nearly as quick as the way I swung a blade. I couldn't believe it. We emptied our bowls of short-rib soup in a flash.

"Stomach filling up at all?"

"No?"

"We're going to have to order more."

If anything, we seemed hungrier than before we had eaten. At first I simply figured we'd been good and hungry today. But we put away a jumbo order of bossam, buckwheat noodles, that cheese-waterfall whatever-it-was, and fried chicken on top of it, and when we were still hungry I became certain something had gone seriously wrong.

"I think it's because we ranked up, hyung-nim."

"What?"

"Body enhancement doesn't mean you've learned to handle inner energy. It means the muscles and bones themselves change so they can put out greater force. Right?"

"So it feels like bulking up at an insane speed?"

"Yes. They say that on the day you rank up, or on a day you kill a lot of magical beasts, you can get ridiculously hungry, hyung-nim."

"I feel like I heard something about body weight back at the training center."

Lee Hae-il looked something up on her phone and explained it to me. Fortunately, it didn't seem as though anything was actually wrong with our bodies. If anything, we were brimming with strength. Every bit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of food we had just eaten was breaking down by the second and pouring into bone and muscle. The only problem was that if we kept eating like this, we would go bankrupt.

"Guess we'll have to buy protein tomorrow."

Lee Hae-il probably had a bit of money, but she was already letting me sleep here. Mooching meals on top of that would have been shameless. The hunger had eased enough. Time to be satisfied with that.

A chime.

Right as I thought it, a notification arrived from the banking app.

A text message arrived as well.

I counted how many zeros were attached to that kill-count bonus, and my eyes went wide. Even if I thought of it as a monthly salary rather than a bonus, it was a great deal of money.

"Hae-il."

"Yes?"

"Want to go out for meat? I saw earlier the restaurants stay open late. We already washed up, though—is it too much of a hassle?"

"Hyung-nim, you've only got three million won, don't you? Save it."

"A little more just came in."

"What?"

I showed her the deposit record. Lee Hae-il's eyes went huge.

"I like beef, hyung-nim."

She grinned and threw on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a jacket. We let the owner ply us with extras again and again, finished a long meal, and came back. On the way we stopped at a warehouse mart and bought a heavy-duty scale, plus two tubs of protein powder and two of calcium supplements.

If muscle and bone had changed through the rank-up and my weight had climbed with them, then the number on a scale ought to let me back-calculate that growth.

So. How much had I gained?