Emergency Meeting
Han Seon-yul, an S-rank hunter, had fallen to an unidentified assassin.
His death landed on the entire nation of Korea like a physical blow.
Who was Han Seon-yul, after all?
A guardian who had stood between Korea and the Rifts. Time and again he had thrown himself onto the front lines and, alone, neutralized the tears in the world that threatened humanity. A man every person alive respected. A man every person alive longed to become.
A legend.
And in a single night, that legend had been snapped in two — discovered as a cold corpse inside his own home.
A few days after he died, his funeral was recorded as the largest in Korean history. A procession of mourners packed the heart of the city and spilled past it, a line that seemed to have no end. The entire nation was mourning him.
"I can't believe Seon-yul's just... gone...!"
Among them were his comrades. His closest friends.
"I never thought Hyung would end up like this... I know the world's a harsh place, but still."
"Han Seon-yul, you idiot..."
They looked up at his memorial portrait and wept. He had pulled them out of danger more times than they could count, and that was precisely why the guilt sat so heavily on them now — that they had not been there in the one moment that mattered most. As if to speak for the grief they could not, the rain refused to stop.
The memorial ended quietly. When it was over, they slipped away on their own and gathered in one place.
"Hey. Don't tell me you two are planning to just leave it at this."
Baek Cheol-min, Han Seon-yul's close friend, spoke in a low voice.
"We're going to have to take revenge."
"Obviously. If we leave it like this, our Seon-yul won't be able to rest in peace."
Lee Hae-jun and Shin A-hae clenched their fists, fury burning in both of them. All of that rage had a single target: the assassin who had killed Han Seon-yul.
The Rift Management Bureau felt the gravity of the situation no less keenly.
"So. What is your assessment of the present crisis?"
The question came from an elderly man with a fierce, tiger-like countenance. Yoo Jong-hyun, Chairman of the Bureau.
In the span of a single week, two S-rank Rifts had torn open, and on top of that had come the death of S-rank hunter Han Seon-yul. Shocking events had stacked one atop another until Yoo Jong-hyun could no longer stand by and watch. He invoked his authority as Chairman and convened an emergency session.
Gathered there were six Stars in all, excluding Han Seon-yul's party. Among hunters, those who stood at the very forefront were sometimes called the Stars.
"One thing is certain. These are not going to be easy times."
Among the hunters seated at the table, one who looked unusually young spoke up.
"The S-rank Rifts are problem enough, but assassinating Han Seon-yul? It's so shocking I barely have words for it. He was one of the strongest hunters in the world — strong enough to contend for the very top."
His name was Hee-jun. Among hunters, they called him the Little Prince. A bead of sweat traced its way down his face. Like it or not, there was no choice but to admit it.
"If that assassin felt like it, they could probably kill everyone in this room."
The assassin's strength was off the charts. The hunters summoned to the meeting did not want to concede the point — and nodded anyway, almost against their will.
One of the reasons Han Seon-yul had been so strong was his unmatched physical enhancement. The sensory detection that came with it had been beyond anything ordinary imagination could reach. And if someone had still managed to kill him, that could only mean the assassin's stealth sat even higher.
Hee-jun had barely finished speaking when another voice exploded across the table.
"Ha — so what, we could just get assassinated walking down the street and nobody would even notice? I don't want to die! You people need to come up with a plan!"
A man with a long tear at the right corner of his mouth clutched his head and shouted. Lee Han-soo, nicknamed the Survivalist. Of everyone in the room, he was taking the present crisis the most personally.
He doesn't even think before he opens his mouth, and the Chairman is sitting right there...!
Kang Yoo-ra, who had been watching quietly from beside him, clicked her tongue and looked away. In her view, an S-rank hunter representing the nation ought to carry themselves with a certain dignity. Lee Han-soo, as the days went by, seemed less and less concerned with dignity at all — and more and more concerned with nothing but his own skin.
Though I understand it, at least a little.
S-rank hunters were not invincible. Their numbers were simply small. Statistically, every country lost at least two S-rank hunters a year holding the Rifts at bay. Even an A-rank Rift could turn into a matter of life and death if you put a foot wrong — and now an unidentified assassin had murdered an S-rank hunter. It was enough to drive anyone out of their mind.
And the Rifts that opened this time are both S-rank... two of them. If we don't prepare for every possibility, half the hunters in this room could die.
Even Kang Yoo-ra, called the Ice Queen, was sinking under the weight of the present chaos when a new voice cut across the table.
"All right, all right, eyes on me! We can't just sit here conferencing forever, so why don't we tidy this up~!"
A man in a neat business suit, a monocle over one eye, rose from his chair. Bae Yoon-seok, the Clown. The atmosphere, which until that moment had been heavy as gold, shifted the instant he stood.
"If we add up everything we have so far: two S-rank Rifts appearing, the death of S-rank hunter Han Seon-yul, and on top of that an unidentified assassin. That sound right?"
The Chairman nodded at Bae Yoon-seok's question.
"Good, good. Then the next and most important question is — who on earth is this unidentified assassin!? Except the investigation still hasn't moved an inch."
Bae Yoon-seok flicked the documents he had been reading with one finger and shifted his gaze.
"What? Something wrong?"
At the end of that gaze, hunter Shin Joo-hee was slouched in her chair with a prickly look on her face.
"No, no. You're good at finding this kind of thing. Just asking, you know."
She let out a long breath and spun her chair in lazy circles with one foot.
"Obviously I checked the scene. The Chairman asked me to."
"And?"
"...I don't know."
She crossed her legs tightly and went on, almost groaning the words.
"I could see the assassin entering Han Seon-yul's residence, no problem. But the middle of the assassination itself? Gone. It just jumps straight to the scene of him dying."
"So no process — just cause and effect?"
"Yeah. Like someone covered it up on purpose. And the assassin who killed him vanished from the spot without a trace. Didn't even touch the housekeeper staying at the residence, or any other witnesses."
"So it was an assassination aimed at Han Seon-yul and Han Seon-yul alone from the start."
The more they investigated, the deeper the case sank into a labyrinth instead of opening up. And then, just as it seemed no further information would come —
"As for the assassin. The odds are low, but there is one possibility that comes to mind."
"Is that true, sir?"
The Chairman, who had kept his silence until then, spoke with care.
At the word the Chairman had set on the table, every hunter in the room flinched.
A terror no one could forget. How could they? Those monsters had once dragged the entire world down into hell.
"Chairman. Are you saying the assassin was actually a Witch?"
"It is only a possibility."
"But if it was a Witch, that would explain why Joo-hee couldn't get a clean look at the past."
Bae Yoon-seok agreed with the Chairman — and still felt a chill crawl down his spine. If that assassin truly was a Witch, everything that had happened until now would fall into place. Two S-rank Rifts appearing. The death of S-rank hunter Han Seon-yul. A chain of events so absurd it was hard to believe they had all taken place inside a single week.
A scenario where the Witches who worship and praise the Rifts return... Just hearing it is enough to make my skin crawl.
Bae Yoon-seok straightened his monocle.
And then there was Im Seol-hwa — an S-rank hunter who had attended the meeting and, until that moment, had not truly taken part in it. She toyed with the sword sheath at her waist and murmured, very softly.
"A Witch... a Witch?"
Memories flashed through her mind. Her parents' deaths. The fall of her family. The deaths of her friends. In a moment when nothing rose to the surface but despair, she smiled — with a face that looked as if it were about to cry.
While her mind was still caught on that single word, Bae Yoon-seok brought the meeting to a close.
"All right, then, let's lock in our conclusions. The investigation into Han Seon-yul's case will continue. Even if we find the culprit, no one is to engage them rashly! We'll also put together a vanguard to clear the S-rank Rifts. Each of you will pull personnel from your own guilds."
He finished and clapped his hands together.
"That concludes this session. Bae Yoon-seok, your squad leader for the evening. Thank you!"
"Heh heh. Feels like I'm back in my school days."
The only person who clapped along and played the part was the Chairman. Everyone else either ignored him or had already stood and vanished from the room.
"You people are seriously the worst."
The Rift Management Bureau's emergency meeting wrapped up reasonably well. No perfect plan had emerged — but if each of them did everything they could from where they stood, a good result would surely follow.
Meanwhile, in a cramped studio apartment, a girl sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her phone.
The screen was nothing but her.
"Wow."
The girl was impressed.
"I got famous."
Just a few days ago, her whole life had been sitting on the Hunter Gallery, seething with jealousy while other people awakened. Now the entire nation of Korea was talking about her. The contents, of course, were uniformly vicious.
"If it's this bad, doesn't infamy still count as fame?"
It was a thought of truly shameless proportions.
She scrolled further, and this time a flood of posts rating her appearance poured down the screen.
"......"
The girl's expression hardened.
"Okay, that one's actually annoying."
Being called a murderer barely registered. She had no memory of the thing anyway. Appearance critiques were a different story.
"They've got a lot to say about someone else's body."
She set the phone down. Then, without quite meaning to, she looked toward a corner of the room.
A black scythe. Along its enormous blade, a red stain still lingered.
The girl stood, walked over to it, and brushed the red mark lightly with one finger.
"...Is this Han Seon-yul's blood?"
There was no answer. But if she put the version of herself caught on CCTV together with this scythe, the conclusion was obvious. The woman in the footage was her. The scythe in the room was hers. And Han Seon-yul was dead.
"Hm."
She thought about it for a moment.
"So I really did kill him, then."
It was an absurdly calm conclusion. The cause had been a contract with a mysterious voice, after which an entire week of memory had been carved out of her. She did not know why she had become a woman. She did not know why she was holding a scythe like this. She did not know why she had killed Han Seon-yul. She also had no intention of bursting into tears and denying any of it.
"It's a shame, but if I killed him, I killed him."
She looked at the scythe.
"The wicked me killed him. The righteous me didn't."
It was a logic excessively generous to herself. That did not mean she was going to sit quietly and accept reality, though. People who need to live, live.
"And besides."
The girl sat back down on the edge of the bed.
"That isn't even what matters right now."
There were far too many problems that needed solving immediately. The money in her account was draining by the day. Her ID was still the old one. If she went outside, someone might recognize her face. And more than any of that, she was, for all official purposes, a person who did not exist in Korea.
"...What am I supposed to do?"
That was when one person surfaced in her mind.
Head Mod. An administrator of the Hunter Gallery. Someone she had talked with now and then, for a while now.
At first it had been nothing. She had posted a vent after failing to awaken, and they had left a comment. After that they had traded a few private messages — everything from completely pointless chatter to questions about hunters. Strangely enough, Head Mod never brushed her off, no matter what nonsense she sent.
At the time, she had written it off as something that just sounded nice. She did not think that anymore.
"...If it's Head Mod."
The girl picked up her phone. She had no family. No friends she could trust. Even less anyone in the real world she could ask for help. Of the people she actually knew, this was the one closest to being a hunter — and the one who had taken her seriously, more than once.
"Nothing to lose."
She sent the message without hesitation.
For a moment, no reply came. Then, a few minutes later —
The girl's eyes went wide.
"For real?"
She answered at once.
"That'll work."
Things were falling into place more easily than she had expected. The girl started getting ready to go out at once. Covering her face, of course, was not optional. There could not be a person left in Korea who did not know what she looked like.
Wrapped from head to toe, she stepped out of the apartment.
And at the meeting place, after she had been waiting for some time, someone spoke to her.
"Um... LoveMuscles, by any chance?"
"Yeah, Head Mod? Wait... huh?"
The girl froze. The person standing in front of her was nothing like what she had pictured.
A beautiful woman, with a gentle, innocent face.
"Why are you all bundled up like that?"
The woman tilted her head.
"It's not even that cold."
Then she smiled, bright and easy, and asked,
"So. What kind of false charge did you say you were under?"
S-rank hunter Im Seol-hwa.
The one person the girl had believed she could trust — Head Mod.