F-Class Hunter Seo Jin-ho (2)

In answer to my question, Kwon Hye-ri came back with a counter of her own, delivered in a voice like something out of a dream.

"Hunter Seo Jin-ho... are you familiar with Siren?"

Siren was the name of the dungeon raid team she captained.

"Of course. There's no way I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wouldn't know Siren—the finest raid team in the country."

It was also a top-class squad built exclusively of elite B- to A-class hunters, the kind of team an F-class like me couldn't dream of joining in even my wildest fantasies.

"Allow me to skip the preliminaries and get straight to the point. I've come to take you onto Siren as a member of the team, Hunter Seo."

At a declaration that landed like a bombshell, I nearly dropped my glass.

The other patrons began murmuring among themselves as well, each wearing a look of open disbelief.

"Could there be some sort of mistake...? Siren has no need for an F-class like me."

"If you were an ordinary F-class hunter, that might well be true. But Hunter Seo Jin-ho is different."

She paused for a moment and raised her glass to those red lips.

Gulp, gulp. Even the sound of the alcohol sliding down her throat rang out like a beautiful melody.

Then, a faintly provocative smile curving her mouth, she spoke as though whispering directly into my ear.

"We've gone over every record of your career from the past ten years."

"I'm sorry... my career record?"

She edged her body closer with subtle, deliberate movements, until the distance between us had shrunk to almost nothing. Every time she spoke, that sweet breath of hers slipped past my nostrils and down into my lungs.

I felt as though I could get drunk without touching a single drop.

"Surviving ten years as an F-class in this brutal industry is no small feat. No—for someone like me, it's simply beyond imagination."

The years gone by flashed before my eyes like scenes on a spinning lantern.

"I'm sure the team will have plenty to learn from you as well, Hunter Seo."

Before I knew it, my throat had gone tight.

Hearing a hunter as renowned and capable as Kwon Hye-ri shower me with praise like this, I couldn't shake the illusion that all my grueling years were finally being repaid.

"Our team needs a seasoned veteran like you, Hunter Seo Jin-ho."

Gulp. Gulp. My throat kept clenching up on me, absurdly, and only after dumping a harsh mouthful of whiskey into my mouth could I bring myself to answer.

"'Needed'... no one... no one has ever said that word to an F-class like me. Not once, in all this time."

The expression on her face as she listened was difficult to read.

"Then, Hunter Seo Jin-ho—will you become the tenth member of our team?"

There was no reason to refuse. No—it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

Besides, Kwon Hye-ri, the team's own leader, had come to me in person. That much sincerity deserved an answer.

"I'll throw myself into it body and soul and give it everything I have!"

That evening, the news that an F-class—me—was joining Team Siren dominated the front pages of every major portal site. Kwon Hye-ri was one of the most beloved and closely followed hunters in the country, and the comments on the article blew past twenty thousand in the blink of an eye.

Her reputation had always been spotless, so the responses were overwhelmingly supportive. But skeptical voices existed too.

It wasn't just netizens, either. Among hunters—especially the low-ranked ones like me—jealous backbiting was making the rounds as well.

I wasn't blind to those looks either. In a way, I really had been parachuted in, so this came with the territory—it was mine to swallow.

"I can't let anything stain the reputation of the woman who trusted me and chose me."

If my ten years as a hunter had been a desperate scramble to survive, then the year after I joined Siren, I lived for one purpose alone: never putting a single scratch on Kwon Hye-ri's good name.

I analyzed dungeons harder than anyone, and the moment battle began, I was the first to step up and raise my shield.

I respected Kwon Hye-ri, leader of my team, from the depths of my heart. And I stood behind her good influence.

……

No—I had. Right up until what happened today.

"Kgh...!"

Bright ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠red blood heaved up and poured out of me. My hunter's suit was already soaked through with it. Something sharp jutted from my chest. Not a monster's claw—a titanium dagger. A hunter's weapon.

……

Step. Step. Footsteps broke the dead silence of the cleared boss room.

A woman of ageless beauty approached me—a half-dead wreck slumped against the dungeon wall—and stopped short.

Her full breasts swayed above a smooth, sculpted set of abs, and her glossy, skintight suit set off her enormous hips and cinched waistline all the more. It seemed as though her pheromones were radiating straight through her hunter's gear.

"I'm sorry, Jin-ho."

That cloying, seductive voice from a year ago. It was Kwon Hye-ri.

"I had no choice but to pick the option that would cost the team the least... You understand, don't you?"

The moment Siren had entered the dungeon, they cleared it in the blink of an eye—a performance worthy of a top-class team, without question.

That is, if it hadn't come at the price of my life.

They had chosen a strategy of handing me to the boss monster alive and cutting it down in the opening that bought them. Thanks to that, my body now hung in ribbons, its life draining away by the second.

……!

I looked up at her with eyes full of mingled fear and fury. For all the pity dripping from her voice, her face was busy curving into crescent-moon smiles. A hollow, practiced smile that gave nothing away.

In that instant, gooseflesh raced across my entire body.

Kwon Hye-ri was not the selfless, kind-hearted hunter people made her out to be. Beneath the mask sat a textbook psychopath.

And it only took me until now to figure that out... God, what an idiot!

She crouched down beside me, pale, smooth thighs folding beneath her, and her scent—that voluptuous allure all her own, laced with something sweetly carnal—drifted up to the tip of my nose.

For a moment, pain and all, I felt myself intoxicated by it.

"You've been through so much, all this time."

A face so girlish it bordered on contradiction, attached to a body that was the very pinnacle of mature allure, drew close to mine.

For one instant, I felt myself bewitched by the woman who had betrayed me so vilely.

"Teehee."

If not for the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠giggle trailing at the end of her words, I might have stayed sunk in that dreamlike haze until death took me.

I wrenched my eyes open toward the source of the laughter—and saw eight faces gazing down at me, indifferent.

Every last one as flawlessly beautiful as a top-tier idol or actor.

Those faces belonged to the members of Siren.

Every one of them had shared a year of blood and sweat with me, yet not one seemed to feel the slightest sympathy or guilt at watching me die by their own betrayal. If anything, they were too busy snickering at the laughter leaking out of them.

Step. From among them, a strikingly handsome young man—towering well past 190 centimeters, broad-shouldered and powerfully built—walked forward.

Clad in green compression tights, his square-jawed face looked for all the world like the hero of some righteous superhero drama transplanted into reality.

Park Hyun-woo!

True to those looks, he loved being hailed as a hero who fought for "justice." He was also, at this very moment, the owner of the dagger jutting from my chest.

Looking at that face so brimming with self-certainty, I felt his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠two-facedness turn my stomach all the more.

His booming voice resonated through the dungeon.

"Captain Korea. Feeling pretty cheated?"

He called me Captain Korea—a nickname he'd coined after watching me take point at the very front of our formation, drawing aggro with the top-grade shield Siren had issued me.

"You spent a whole year sucking honey off our team as a mere F-class. I'd say you've got nothing worth feeling cheated over."

At his words, the remaining seven beauties burst into ringing laughter, as if in agreement. The irony of it—faces like angels, laughing like demons at a man dying before their eyes.

Becoming a hunter generally rebuilt the body, leaving most people better-looking than before—but even allowing for that, the members of Siren were all excessively, impossibly attractive. Probably the result of Kwon Hye-ri's tastes, given her obsession with outward value.

They never once thought of me as a comrade, did they. No—do they even think of me as human?

I'd never considered my own face particularly ugly, but standing among the members, I couldn't help feeling like an orc dropped into the land of the elves.

It wasn't just the gulf between the lowest rank and the elite. Our very appearances had carved an invisible divide between them and me. A shallow standard, sure—but in Siren, it was the one that counted.

"An F-class actually thought he belonged on the same team as us? Hilarious."

A voice as clear and lovely as its owner's face mocked me.

"Moron. Then again, thanks to this guy we did bag the title of 'the Siren team that pulled off a perfect clear,' so maybe that's a win? Haha."

Another voice.

"Seo Jin-ho, you know what? Every time I watched you strutting around up front with that shield, it took everything I had not to sprint over and beat you to death."

The last one was the voice of a junior I'd privately thought of as a younger sibling.

Watching them calmly spew mockery and disgust over me as I lay dying, I felt my blood come to a boil. I wanted to unleash every curse I knew, to scream it in their faces until it felt clean.

"Khh...! Fwoh... fwoh..."

But my vocal cords, carved deep by the blade, produced nothing where the curses should have been—just the wheeze of a punctured balloon.

At the sight, the members of Siren dissolved into another long round of cackling.

Kwon Hye-ri, that seductive smile still curled around her crimson lips, laid a soft hand near my carotid artery, where the blood was still pumping out of me.

"You poor thing... May your final moments be peaceful ones."

……

"Let's go."

With that, Kwon Hye-ri whirled on her heel. The rest of the team cut their chatter short and fell in behind her.

Through my dimming vision, I watched her hips—thrust out to their fullest—sway as they receded into the distance. Her sweet scent evaporated before me.

Damn it all...!

In the boss room, all that remained was their giggling—what in the world was still so funny?—echoing with their footsteps until both faded into nothing.

"Ugh...!"

I tried to move, but strength wouldn't come to my shattered, pulped hands and feet.

I can't die like this! Not cheated like this!

I tried to grit my teeth, but all that did was confirm most of them had already been knocked out.

I swear I'll make those bastards pay!

But that final vow was nothing more than a hollow echo ringing inside my own skull.

Revenge was out of reach. I was going to die here, having done nothing at all.

"Ah..."

Having bled out like a fountain, my consciousness was slipping away.

I'm sorry, Mom.

At the very end, it was my mother's face that rose before me.

Ji-a won't be able to manage the hospital bills alone...

Worry for the family I was leaving behind wouldn't let me close my eyes in peace.

Regrets for the life I'd lived came flooding in right behind them.

I never once held a woman's hand in my entire life...

I had lived like a money-making machine, dry and colorless, and it had never once occurred to me, even past thirty, to find someone.

And now, in this moment of death, of all things, the fact that I was dying a virgin came home to me as a piercing, bitter ache.

If I'd known it would end like this... I should have fucked my fill while I still could!

That was my final thought. The light drained rapidly from my pupils, left staring into empty air, and within moments they had clouded over, dull as a dead fish's eyes.

……

Pop.

Before Seo Jin-ho, a status window materialized like a 3D hologram.

But Jin-ho, his consciousness already gone, never saw it.

The window, indifferent to his state, went on displaying new messages.