It Won't Hurt, Honey
A sudden thunderous boom echoed through the air.
Lee Hyun-ah shot upright from his sleep, heart pounding.
“W-what is that? Heechae!”
“You caught a cold, didn’t you?”
“It’s a bit creepy out there. But what was that sound earlier?”
“Who knows… The only thing that makes noise like that near Oryukdo…”
“Kalid…”
“Yeah, Kalid. Cough. But is it the flu? It’s giving me the creeps.”
The sound came from exactly that direction.
Kwaaah!
“Hah…”
“Why?”
“Kalid came out onto land.”
Through Oculus’s eyes, Kalid had left the water and stood on dry land. The creature that always stayed submerged in shallow pools and kept so quiet had finally come ashore.
But Kalid looked strange.
He kept slamming his own chest into the ground again and again.
Kwaaaang!
— Kwoooo, kheh. Khehheek!
Kalid thrust his long neck high out of the water, coughing violently. The wet, phlegmy sounds were terrifying.
The hunters at Oryukdo Gate, who had been waiting for something else to happen, all rushed toward Kalid without hesitation.
“What is this? Let’s go check too.”
“Eetche. Yes.”
“You okay?”
“I don’t know. I overdid it…”
This was weird.
Outside Kalid’s range, the hunters in Oryukdo gathered and started murmuring.
“What the hell is happening? Cough.”
“Why is Kalid acting like that?”
Kwaaaang!!
Kalid kept pounding his chest into the ground.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this.
Kwaaang!
Every time the ground shook from the impact, another earthquake rattled the area.
“Why is he doing this? Is Kalid about to go berserk?”
“Cough. Damn it, I can’t do business because of that Kalid noise! Hunters can’t even rest. If this keeps up, business will be over.”
The owner of “The Shelter for the Moist Breeze,” a motel in Oryukdo, complained bitterly.
“But it’s gotten cold lately, right? Eetche. And my nose is running.”
“The flu is going around. Cough cough.”
Huet! Cha!
Right on cue, Kalid sneezed too.
“Kalid must be sick too?”
“Is Kalid really sick?”
“Did the monster catch some kind of plague? Heechae!”
“Then this is our chance! When Kalid is weak, we can all attack together and clear the gate!”
A young hunter stepped forward.
Shield on his back, spear in hand. He looked like a tank.
“You want to catch Kalid? You’re barking up the wrong tree…”
“There’s a difference between what a person can and can’t say. What? Catch Kalid? That stinking bastard. Cough.”
“Ah, why are you cursing like that?! Kalid is a legendary or mythical item at the very least! We should be excited!”
I was annoyed too.
They wanted to kill my honey stomach?
But I couldn’t do anything.
I just watched in silence.
“If Kalid dies, the entire Oryukdo commercial district disappears! The biggest hunter business in Korea will vanish!”
“These young ones are so selfish. They never got any proper parenting.”
“Eetche. It’s not just the gate. You idiots don’t even know that Kalid is Busan’s southern district mascot!”
“The moment Kalid dies, house prices in all of Busan will crash! You idiots. I’ll remember this.”
The young tank let one slip and got scolded so hard he couldn’t even recover his money.
“I was wrong. Sorry. I was too quick with my thoughts, seniors. Please forgive me…”
He even teared up and apologized to everyone. Most just clicked their tongues and left, but a few added more words.
“Kalid isn’t even a monster, eetche! He’s a ghost! Are all Korean hunters idiots? They let a B-grade boss run around for over twenty years!”
“My thinking was too short… Cough.”
‘Ghost and honey stomach…’
Khehhehheluk!
Kwaaaang!!
Kalid coughed again and slammed his chest into the ground with a thud.
‘Don’t hurt yourself, honey stomach.’
I and Hyun-ah headed back to [Steel’s Breath].
But someone was already waiting.
“Hello, Hunter Lee Doosik.”
“Who…?”
“Ah, I’m from Babylon Headquarters…”
“Babylon?”
Eh?
Yesterday.
[Seoul Namsan Gate – Babylon Headquarters]
If you line up the guilds in South Korea, the number one is Babylon Guild.
Babylon. An IT company that runs the Hunter’s mecha hunting platform and a truly powerful guild with over 500 hunters ranked B or higher. Naturally, that number is even higher when C-grade is included.
Babylon was also the only guild to have its headquarters building inside a gate.
A place no ordinary person could even approach.
Even the janitor there was an awakener.
[Seoul Namsan Gate]
When you step through the Namsan Gate with its blue sky and vast fields as the backdrop, you face towering high-rise buildings. That was Babylon’s headquarters, the Babel Tower.
Knock knock.
A secretary knocked on the chairman’s office in the penthouse of the Babel Tower.
“Chairman.”
Chairman Noh Jang-cheon.
“Hm. Come in.”
He was one of the representative first-generation hunters of the Republic of Korea, along with Baek Jong-doo and Ahn Seong-jin.
The secretary approached him with soft steps.
“Um, what is it?”
Noh Jang-cheon sat cross-legged, shirt open, surrounded by swirling mana orbs of every color.
He was an elementalist.
“Chairman, the head of the Future Strategy Planning Division, Director Jang Jae-wook, requests an audience to present his analysis report on the current market situation and competitor trends.”
“Let him in.”
With a snap of his fingers, the mana orbs vanished as if they had never been there.
Chairman Noh Jang-cheon put on a long coat that shimmered like a king’s robe and sat on the sofa, waiting for Director Jang.
Clack clack.
Low thud.
The secretary’s heels gave way to Director Jang’s footsteps.
Assistant Kim set out fragrant round tea and left. Director Jang bowed his head.
“Chairman, it’s a pleasure to see you looking so robust today as well.”
“Sit. How is the outside world?”
Director Jang began his report on market conditions.
“First, four gates were cleared in Korea this month.”
“Hoo, those fools always slit the goose that lays golden eggs. Just clearing the boss won’t do. We have to look toward the future.”
“Wise words, Chairman.”
“Everything inside the gates is resources and money. Isn’t that right?”
The hunter world was divided into two factions: the Maintain faction, which wanted to keep the gates open, and the Eliminate faction, which wanted to clear them.
Babylon was the leader of the Maintain faction.
“That’s correct. However, the voices of the Eliminate faction are gaining strength due to the volcano eruption caused by the failure of the hidden quest in Penang, Malaysia.”
“Tsk tsk tsk, many people died, right?”
“Yes. Penang Gate was a twenty-two-year-old semi-permanent gate. Suddenly a hidden quest occurred last week.”
“Has something like this happened before? Why, Russia.”
“Yes. It was the second natural disaster-level quest after last year’s Moscow Gate. The academy has already accepted as fact that leaving a gate uncleared for a long time causes such catastrophes.”
“That’s all nonsense. A twenty-year-old gate… What about Oryukdo in Busan? It’s fine.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Even this Namsan Gate! How many years has it been?”
“Nineteen this year.”
“See? It’s all conspiracy nonsense. What’s next?”
Director Jang continued with news that the Wooju Association would hold a company-wide meeting at Seoraksan Gate on the fourteenth.
Wooju was Babylon’s rival guild.
Chairman Noh Jang-cheon looked visibly displeased.
“Those hooligans just swarm around. There’s never peace in the country… What’s the real purpose?”
“It seems they want to seal the boss monster and privatize Seoraksan Gate.”
“Just like we made Namsan like this? Tsk tsk, Hwang Tae-san. He’s always been jealous of me.”
Chairman Hwang Tae-san of Wooju was also one of the representative first-generation hunters.
Wooju began as a guild for hunters who drank on rainy days — “Boo” and “Ju” from “Bi O Neun Nal Sul Masineun”.
“What should we do?”
“Do nothing. Let them. We were once on the same side. Again?”
There was a certain romance in that generation that had experienced the apocalypse. The romance of everyone uniting to save the world.
“There’s also the Mir Guild. It’s minor, but it’s strange…”
“Tell me.”
“Mir Guild Master Choi Kang has been hunting hunters under the nickname ‘Skeleton Ping’.”
“Skeleton Ping? For what purpose?”
“It looks like recruitment.”
“He’s issuing a bounty on guild members to scout? Haha, clumsy. So who is Skeleton Ping?”
Skeleton Ping was a Hunter platform nickname. The problem was that the Hunter platform was operated by Babylon.
The monopoly of information through the Hunter platform was the reason Babylon had grown so explosively.
“An awakener named Lee Doosik. He awakened not long ago and is E-minus grade.”
“E-minus and Mir Guild Master directly intervenes? Hmm…”
Chairman Noh Jang-cheon tapped his fingers on the sofa armrest in rhythm while thinking.
“There must be something if the Mir Guild Master is getting involved personally. Let’s approach first and recruit him. Even if we don’t know what Choi Kang saw, there must be a reason. You go personally and recruit him.”
“Understood, Chairman.”
“Choi Kang is still young, so he has a somewhat crude side. He’s leaking personal information everywhere. Any other news?”
“The Dawn Guild tried to challenge the S-grade Skeleton King Gate in Sokcho again and failed. The damage was huge, so the gap between Mir Guild and Dawn Guild will widen…”
……
Zzeeeeng!
At that moment, lightning struck the boss, the Wyvern Queen Bergos, locked in the top cage of the Babel Tower, signaling noon.
Kwaaaa!
Kwaaaang!
[Steel’s Breath]
“Eh? Babylon?”
“Yes. I’m Director Jang Jae-wook of Babylon’s Future Strategy Planning Division.”
I received a business card in a daze.
A golden card. Luxury radiated off it.
Of course it was Babylon when it came to money.
Not pure gold, right?
I could bite it once.
But why was I suddenly being sought by Babylon?
I already knew Mir Guild was looking for me, but I never imagined Babylon would be involved. The number-one guild and the number-one stock market company in Korea?
Then.
An unexpected figure appeared.
“Kkuk, I knew if I leaked information, Babylon would find you.”
A deep male voice.
No, I had expected it…
But not today.
“Riverchoi…”
Mir Guild Master Choi Kang himself.
A giant suddenly appeared.
I was taken aback by Babylon’s executive Jang Jae-wook, but Choi Kang?
His shoulders were twice as wide; the pressure from his presence was overwhelming.
‘I heard he was like a bear…’
He really was a bear.
A massive, flaming-bear-sized build.
And the equipment he wore…
‘Mythic…’
From head to toe.
It was insane.
How strong was he?
“Nice to meet you. Skeleton Ping, I mean Hunter Lee Doosik? I went through a lot looking for you.”
Director Jang Jae-wook from Babylon was flustered by Choi Kang’s entrance.
“Cough… So you intentionally leaked the information…”
“Babylon can find Skeleton Ping through the Hunter platform in no time. Khehheh! Eetche! Sorry, my mistake.”
‘You look like a bear but you’re sly.’
“But is the flu going around lately? I feel a bit feverish too… I feel kind of creepy.”