Hae-na (1)

Since coming back to life, I had been truly shocked a total of three times.

The first was when I realized I'd awakened in Maeng Su-ho's body; the second, when I laid eyes on the status window that had appeared before me.

And the third was…

"You're telling me it's 2034?"

Ten full years had slipped by since the day I was murdered.

For a moment, I wasn't even sure this world was the same one I'd always known. You know — like that multiverse business that keeps showing up in superhero movies.

But when I searched my own name, there it was, fat and unmissable: an article from the day I died, ten years ago.

So at the very least, this was a world that shared my history right up to the incident that killed me?

I scrolled down, skimming the headlines of the articles clustered around my death.

Grrr.

Seeing the photos of the Siren members so serenely playing the mourners over my death twisted my guts into knots.

Whether this world was another dimension or not no longer mattered. If I didn't make the Siren members who had betrayed me so vilely pay for it, I doubted I would ever close my eyes in peace — not even in death.

From that point on, apart from the sex with Lim Yeon-hee whenever she came by my hospital room, I poured myself into tracking the traitors' movements and building my plan. Sticky notes crowded onto the revenge notebook, one after another.

And of course, at the center of that plan sat Kwon Hye-ri.

"Kwon Hye-ri made S-Class?"

The article was dated November 2024 — less than a month after the day I died.

Was that really a coincidence?

Seventy-three thousand comments. Set against the measly two-digit handful of memorial comments on my own death article, the gulf in public attention was staggering. And sure enough, every last one of them was pure praise for Kwon Hye-ri.

The public has no idea what Kwon Hye-ri's real face looks like.

I felt something close to a mission take hold of me: I would tear that mask off her face if it was the last thing I did.

Then I dug into how the other eight Siren members were faring.

Park Hyun-woo, Kim Ra-hee, Hong Ye-ryang, Go Kang-min, Cha Ga-yoon, Ma Hyuk-do, Han Yu-ra, Jang Yi-soo.

Murmuring the names I could never afford to forget until my revenge was done, I googled every one of them.

But the articles on Siren stopped dead around nine years ago.

"So Siren was disbanded nine years ago…"

Right around half a year after my death.

I propped my chin on my hand and reasoned it through.

"Why would they disband?"

By now they'd all be somewhere between their mid-thirties and early forties — an age, and a résumé, more than fit to step out of fieldwork like dungeon raids and into a guild's senior ranks without raising an eyebrow.

I studied their careers on the wiki.

Most of them had become guild masters or executives of the Four Major Guilds.

One of the bastards had even gone into politics and seated himself as a two-term lawmaker.

With a lineup like that, the word on the street — that the Siren Cartel had Korea's hunter industry wrapped around its little finger — hardly sounded like an exaggeration.

And yet among them, one man's circumstances stuck out like a nail hammered in crooked.

Jang Yi-soo.

Jang Yi-soo had ended up the head of an organization that reeked of the underworld at a single glance.

What happened to Jang Yi-soo after Siren disbanded?

Black hats.

People gifted with abilities were lumped together as hunters, but they split broadly into two camps. Those who acted for the public good were called heroes, or white hats; those who chased nothing but self-interest and trampled law and morality like a joke were called villains, or black hats.

White hats enjoyed the public's cheers and respect, while black hats were treated as vermin to be stamped out.

Promising rookies and hunters confident in their skills mostly aimed to walk the sunlit road as white hats — partly because it was an honorable path that earned citizens' admiration, but mostly because the pie itself, the sponsorships and the money to be made, was overwhelmingly bigger out in the light.

Which was why the black hats working ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the shadows were, in most cases, people who had drifted down there hiding some unspeakable story: a hunter who'd committed a crime like murdering one of his own and been expelled from the industry; one whose declining skills dragged him into nothing but cowardly tricks until the rumors turned sour; or one whose skill was so perverse it crossed the line of what society would tolerate.

And I had a fair idea why Jang Yi-soo, while every other member was living large in the sunlight, had been kicked down into the shadows.

Given the man's track record, I could picture it well enough without digging through his background.

Looks like he made one hell of a mess.

He must have stirred up trouble far beyond what he could handle, and Kwon Hye-ri had thrown him away for it.

Jang Yi-soo's perverted sexual tastes and his despicable temperament were famous even back then.

It might sound ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠laughable now, but right up until the day I was murdered, I was on decent terms with the Siren members. They always dealt with me wrapped in a layer of pretense, so at least on the surface, we kept up a pleasant relationship.

But there was exactly one exception — one man — and that man was Jang Yi-soo.

The bastard wore his own mask in his own way, but even so, his vile nature bled through the hypocrisy and gave off a nauseating stench. I'd hated him from not long after I joined the team.

And that same Jang Yi-soo was now the chieftain of the underworld.

A title that suited the bastard perfectly.

What's more, his base of operations wasn't even far from where I stood now.

A man whose ties to the other members had been severed — there was no denying he was the fastest revenge available to me at this point in time.

I'll be coming to see you soon.

Blade of vengeance tucked against my heart, I pulled up Jang Yi-soo's social media.

My goal was to find anything that might help the plan to take him down.

And by sheer coincidence, among the people gathered at his side, there was a face I knew.

Hold on — that woman?

A woman stood close at Jang Yi-soo's side in an easy, familiar posture, a soft smile on her lips.

The instant I saw her face, a plan assembled itself in my head.

A woman in a leather jacket and jet-black sunglasses exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke.

Her golden bob and pale face were beautiful as a painting, but what seized the eye even harder was her body — supple, opulent, impossible to look away from. The woman's name was Hae-na.

Hae-na strolled down the street flanked by the black suits swarming at her side.

Citizens scrambled to give them a wide berth; one look was enough to tell the men reeked of the underworld.

But a few fearless young bucks snuck sidelong glances at Hae-na's figure, heaving awed sighs.

"Boss lady, those punks keep giving you looks that are anything but innocent. Want us to kill them?"

"Leave them be. Hardly the first time."

The black suits were members of the Yisu Gang.

Officially, the gang's business was protecting nightlife establishments in an era of rotten public safety, for a fee; behind the scenes, they were the kind of men who committed every dirty deed there was — robbery, fraud, murder.

And the jet-black outfit Hae-na wore meant that she, too, was one of the crows feeding on the city's carcass.

Then her hunter's sense caught a single, skin-crawling gaze — from somewhere far off, as though someone were boring holes through her.

"Who's there?!"

"Want us to kill them?"

"No, not that — I just get the feeling someone's watching me."

"Huh?"

"Just now, someone over there was definitely watching me…"

Hae-na pointed down a pitch-black alley. But there was no one there.

"Boss lady, aren't you being a little high-strung? Who on earth could sneak a look at you without tripping a C-Class hunter's senses?"

The black suit was speaking with Hae-na's C-Class rank in mind.

"Who's to say? Maybe some higher-ranked hunter's been bewitched by your beauty, Boss lady."

The black suits broke into raucous laughter.

And not just today.

For the past several days, she'd been sensing a gaze whose owner she couldn't place. She'd found no physical evidence, but a hunter's instinct kept insisting all the same.

Throb.

She pressed a hand to her temple.

Not again…!

Lately, the headaches had been getting worse by the day.

Nerves worn thin, maybe. Could be…

Her beautiful face scrunched into a scowl. But even that had a style ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all its own.

"Boss lady, the job's done — care to join us for a beer?"

"Hey, dumbass. Boss lady's got to go see the Boss, did you forget?"

"Oh, right, that's today. Sorry 'bout that, Boss lady."

The moment she heard the word Boss, Hae-na felt her headache sharpen.

The grounds of Garam Hunter Hospital housed a swimming pool the size of a soccer field.

It had been built for hunters in rehabilitation, but since opening to the public, anyone could use it — hunters and local residents alike.

For a week straight now, I'd been "commuting" to this place.

All because I was yearning for a certain meeting dressed up as coincidence.

Basket of swim gear in hand, I headed to the counter to buy my admission ticket.

Women flitted in and out of the entrance to the women's changing room — mostly the type who took their looks and figures seriously, and at this hour the crowd ran thick with young, gorgeous MILFs.

Having spent recent days enjoying sex with a fresh woman every single day, I felt my cock respond on pure reflex at the sight of all that young, bared skin.

As the front of my pants swelled, I caught a few sharp-eyed women trading their gaze between my face and my crotch.

"That'll be 6,000 won!"

I paid briskly and stepped into the men's changing room.

Between the pot-bellied, middle-aged bodies that brought aliens to mind and the musty stench of male saturating the locker room, my cock wilted in no time, as if to say it had never stood at attention at all.

Flop.

I stripped off my pants to change into my swimsuit.

Even shaved bare, the monster that swung into view swayed heavy and huge — bigger than most men's with a full bush.

The men around me, feeling their own inferiority, quietly drifted away.

Call it the reward for all that diligent fucking — my level had now broken past 7.

I'd grown past 180 centimeters, and my weight was closing in on 90 kilos.

My cock had grown bigger as well, and in the clinging swimsuit, the silhouette of my monster showed through with almost shameless clarity. And the cock was one thing — my balls, those pouches of testosterone, were several times the size of an ordinary grown man's. The suit fit like I'd crammed something enormous down the front of it.

I stepped into the pool area.

As I walked toward the water, I felt the gazes of the women in the pool land on my crotch and stick there.

Ugh… this is pretty mortifying.

The walk to the water had never felt so long.

One middle-aged woman even nudged the person beside her and tipped her chin in my direction.

Should've bought a baggier pair.

I'd bought these at the swim shop attached to the pool, and this was all they carried.

Cursing that shop in my head, I quickened my pace and plunged into the water with a great splash.

I was idling away the time with a lazy swim when I felt every man's gaze in the pool snap toward the same spot at once.

Following those stares, I saw it: even here, where beautiful hunters were spotted all the time, an exceptionally gorgeous young woman was walking in.

Her face alone would have turned heads, but her body in that black rashguard stood out even more.

She clearly swam often — the sculpted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shoulders and sensual line of her figure were captivating.

There she is!

And she was the very person I had been waiting for.