Assassination Ends with Preparation
Back at Lumen, Jeong-Hoon stared at the hologram floating before his eyes and sank into thought.
"Head Butler, when did holograms get this advanced?"
"They've already been commercialized within the family."
Jeong-Hoon raised a hand to the hologram of the four-story building and made a magnifying gesture; the indicated section enlarged with perfect precision.
It was such astonishing technology that he twisted and turned the image this way and that, playing with it like a child with a new toy.
"Looking at tech like this, I feel like teleportation ought to be possible too."
"It is possible. In fact, it was built into the suit you were wearing during the terrorist incident, Gaju."
"…This is the first I'm hearing of that."
If he had known such magic existed, he never would have gone through the trouble of fighting a bloody escape battle against Nova.
The realization left Jeong-Hoon utterly deflated.
"It isn't technology—it's magic. As a precaution against the unforeseen, a single-use magic circle was inscribed so that if anything happened to your body, Gaju, you would be teleported here."
Jeong I-Yeong's voice brimmed with pride, utterly oblivious to Jeong-Hoon's feelings.
Thanks to that explanation, however, he finally understood why they had sent him alone to the party when none of the Twelve Vassals were present.
Even if a terrorist attack struck the venue, in the worst case they could still extract Jeong-Hoon safely by teleport.
"Then you could have just teleported me out the moment the attack started."
"We considered it, but at the time Nova was interfering with the entire hotel through their psychic powers, so there was a risk of an accident mid-teleport."
Nova hadn't known about the teleport and deliberately sealed it; the interference had been a side effect of the psychic field they had deployed to eavesdrop on communications.
They had cast the field so tightly that even Jeon Mun-Jae's telepathy had been disrupted enough to give Jeong-Hoon a headache.
On top of that, Jeong-Hoon was a Non-Awakened; if the teleport activated, the physical burden on his body would have been enormous.
It truly had been a last resort.
"…Anyway! So I have to send Baek Chef packing from this building, right?"
The terrorist incident he had thought was already settled rose in his mind again. Jeong-Hoon shook his head and deliberately changed the subject while looking at the hologram.
The reason he had returned without immediately tackling Flamma's second task was simple: the assignment could not be started right away.
Jeong-Hoon would spend a week installing traps in a building Flamma had prepared in advance for the trial.
Then, on the day itself, the examiner—Si-Hwan—and Jeong-Hoon would enter and play a thirty-minute game of tag.
If Jeong-Hoon stayed free for the full thirty minutes, he passed. If Si-Hwan caught him, he would have to spend another week setting traps and try again.
"Not send him packing—evade him."
The Head Butler gently corrected Jeong-Hoon's wording, which seemed to have misunderstood the purpose of the task.
Jeong-Hoon had not actually misunderstood.
But his phrasing had been far too vicious for someone who truly understood.
"Head Butler, do you honestly think I can run from an S-class Awakened—an acceleration-type, no less—for thirty minutes?"
"…I would like to say that with the traps it is possible, yet I cannot bring myself to lie to you, Gaju."
A thirty-minute game of tag after he had been allowed to set whatever traps he wanted.
On paper it looked overwhelmingly advantageous for Jeong-Hoon—yet the opponent was S-class.
And not just any S-class: an acceleration-type psychic said to be the strongest in pure speed contests.
There was a reason Jeong-Hoon had used such a grim expression as "send him packing."
"Even with traps, I'll need practice runs. Mock battles are impossible, I take it?"
"Predicting whether Baek Butler will fall for a trap and placing them accordingly is itself part of the assignment."
Even if he carpeted the place with traps, there was no guarantee they would work on Baek Si-Hwan, an S-class acceleration-type.
And mock battles were still forbidden.
Jeong-Hoon had to gather as much information as possible on his own and install only those traps Si-Hwan was likely to trigger.
"I really should have cleared Diana first before this task."
Diana was a corporation specialized in gathering and analyzing information.
Even though Lumen held data on the Twelve Vassals and the Head Butler knew about Si-Hwan, nothing could match Diana's capabilities.
Without Diana, Jeong-Hoon had no choice but to charge in blind.
With no information, he could not even guess how many failures he might rack up just trying to gather intel.
Frankly, the difficulty was enough to make him want to swear.
"Predict an assassin's movements, stop the assassin, and deepen your understanding of assassins. My uncle really put a lot of thought into this assignment."
Yet even as he grumbled, Jeong-Hoon nodded, acknowledging the importance of the task beyond its difficulty.
"Mock battles with Baek Butler are impossible, but there is someone near you, Gaju, who can provide a similar exercise."
Jeong I-Yeong, who had remained quiet until now, spoke up to the Jeong-Hoon who recognized the importance yet saw no clear way forward.
"Hunter Han Si-Eun is an S-class acceleration-type exactly like Baek Butler. And she is your friend, Gaju."
"What? Hunter Han Si-Eun?"
Jeong-Hoon looked startled at I-Yeong's words.
He wondered whether it was proper to ask a friend for help with a family assignment.
"There is no rule forbidding assistance from a friend."
I-Yeong's matter-of-fact tone shattered his preconceptions.
A four-story building on the outskirts of Seoul.
The site where Jeong-Hoon would take the trial in one week.
Prepared as a family safe house, it was fairly large.
Yet for someone who had to run from an S-class acceleration-type, it felt ridiculously small, and Jeong-Hoon let out a long sigh.
"Chairman, you're early."
Si-Eun, who had arrived first and been waiting, greeted the sighing Jeong-Hoon. He turned his head.
"…I should have been the first one here, but you got here early. How have you been?"
"I've been well. Have you been well too, Chairman? Oh—and Director Ju and the Head Maid as well!"
Receiving Jeong-Hoon's greeting, Si-Eun also greeted the Head Butler and I-Yeong; both bowed politely in return.
"Um, you really don't have to treat me like that…"
"Haha, how could I possibly be casual with the Chairman's friend?"
"We would prefer you treat us comfortably."
Si-Eun knew the Head Butler and I-Yeong, yet dealing with them still felt awkward.
Even though they were older than she was, they insisted on being excessively formal simply because she was Jeong-Hoon's friend.
"It's easier if you just give up. I already did."
Understanding exactly how Si-Eun felt, Jeong-Hoon shook his head and changed the subject; she averted her eyes from the two of them and spoke.
"Um, you seem to have been busy lately…"
"Hasn't Hunter Han Si-Eun been even busier than me?"
"Me?"
"It's been less than ten days since the terrorist incident, and you've already cleared another dungeon."
A quick internet search would turn up everything Si-Eun had been doing, so Jeong-Hoon answered immediately.
At his words, however, Si-Eun looked slightly surprised and murmured,
"…So you weren't joking when you said you were a fan."
Seeing how visibly startled she was, Jeong-Hoon scratched his head.
"Did I look like the kind of person who lies?"
"No, it's just something I hear all the time."
Understanding what she meant, Jeong-Hoon nodded.
In this day and age, famous hunters were treated like celebrities.
Having strangers declare themselves fans the moment they met her was ordinary small talk to her.
"Hmm. Shall I tell you the dungeon number of the first dungeon you cleared when you Awakened at sixteen, Hunter Han Si-Eun?"
"What?"
"Goblins appeared, with a hobgoblin as the boss. F-class. Total of fourteen monsters. Dungeon number 201…"
"W-wait a second, Chairman. What are you talking about right now?"
"You doubted me, so I'm verifying."
Jeong-Hoon's completely serious tone, not a hint of joking, made Si-Eun shake her head.
If left alone he looked ready to recite her entire hunting career from the moment she first Awakened until now.
"So what kind of training do you need me for?"
She brought up the main topic to change the subject. Jeong-Hoon shook his head, recalling his purpose.
"Ah, it's nothing much. I'm going to run a training exercise with my security team under special conditions, and this is like a practice run beforehand? Something like that."
Even if Si-Eun was a friend, he could not spill the details of the family assignment.
So he spun it as a full review of his security arrangements sparked by the terrorist incident and asked for her cooperation.
"So you need a virtual enemy. In that case, wouldn't Director Ju be a better fit than me?"
Assuming an S-class hunter as a virtual enemy was already unreasonable.
Si-Eun therefore wondered whether it would not make more sense to use an even more unreasonable powerhouse—the Head Butler, an SSS-class Awakened.
"No. The Head Butler is actually too dangerous."
The Head Butler could move at speeds rivaling an S-class acceleration-type.
But if he moved at a speed truly matching Baek Si-Hwan?
"If I step in, there's a risk the sonic boom will collapse the building."
Repeating what he had already said at Lumen, the Head Butler shook his head.
He was simply too strong. He had even been excluded from the structure-entry operation because of the risk that he might accidentally bring the building down while entering.
"Building collapse… Real SSS-class really is different."
"For Hunter Han Si-Eun, who possesses SSS-class potential—no, potential beyond even that—to say such a thing is rather embarrassing. Hahaha."
At the Head Butler's modest laugh, Si-Eun shook her head vigorously.
The family's assessment of Han Si-Eun's talent was SSS-class across every category.
The ranking system for Awakened topped out at SSS, so that was the label they used, but her potential was high enough that inventing a higher rank would not have been strange.
"Even that potential is only possible thanks to Lumen's support, right? So I'll think of this as repaying the favor and do my absolute best!"
"You don't have to push yourself. No—more than that, this request is as a friend…"
"Chairman, Hunter Han Si-Eun is a professional. Matters involving the use of psychic powers should be handled as work rather than friendship."
Jeong-Hoon, who had been approaching it with an ordinary-person mindset of "just help me out a little," scratched his head at I-Yeong's sharp observation.
"Uh, well. Is that so? No, you're right. We'll treat this as a commission from Lumen and provide appropriate compensation to Hunter Han Si-Eun and FC Guild."
He nodded, acknowledging that I-Yeong's point was correct. Si-Eun, however, shook her head instead.
"No. It's my day off, so I came with the feeling of helping a friend. Getting paid would actually be a problem! That violates the Hunter Act!"
When she cited the law forbidding hunters from earning income outside dungeon-related work, Jeong-Hoon shook his head.
"Hunter Han Si-Eun, does that mean you never took appearance fees whenever you went on TV?"
"…I did."
At Jeong-Hoon's single remark, Si-Eun answered in a tiny, shrinking voice and even fidgeted with her fingers.
She had plenty of arguments if she wanted to get into the weeds, but she did not assume Jeong-Hoon was ignorant of them.
And the more one dug into the Hunter Act, the more ambiguous gray areas appeared.
In fact, Lumen was already exploiting those very gray areas to pour enormous support into S-class and higher hunters.
"Still, I came to help a friend…"
They used honorifics that created a certain distance, yet they truly were friends, so Si-Eun pouted.
It was her protest that she wanted no payment.
"Then I'll just think of it as helping a friend's guild. Head Butler, what do you think of Lumen expanding into the dungeon-development industry?"
"Lumen and all its subsidiaries exist solely to achieve whatever the Chairman desires."
When he indirectly announced that if she refused payment he would simply purchase the mining rights to the dungeons owned by FC Guild at an outrageous price, Si-Eun's face went blank with disbelief.
"You're just going to waste money like that?!"
"Money's rotting away in piles anyway, so it's fine, right? Who knows—if Lumen starts developing dungeons, maybe some enormous paradigm shift will happen."
Jeong-Hoon chuckled and began walking into the building. Si-Eun shot meaningful glances at the Head Butler and Jeong I-Yeong as she followed.
The looks clearly asked why they were not stopping Jeong-Hoon's profitability-ignoring decision.
Instead, the Head Butler and I-Yeong simply shook their heads.
Their expressions said: the young master had found a toy that delighted him—why on earth would they interfere?
"Hunter Han Si-Eun! If an S-class acceleration-type entered this building intending to catch me, where would it be best to set traps?"
Si-Eun, who had kept sending eye signals, turned her head at Jeong-Hoon's calling voice.
"Uh… traps?"
She had clearly been told this was a practice run for a training exercise to re-examine the security system.
"But traps?" she thought, yet she had no intention of prying too deeply.
Jeong-Hoon was not merely the chaebol chairman of several corporations.
He was the mysterious guardian who protected the world from the shadows.
So, sensing that he intended to do something here under the pretext of reviewing security, she stepped forward.
"Against an acceleration-type, falling traps and the like are meaningless. Delayed traps that trigger behind them when they touch something in front are far more efficient."
Traps that activated instantly on the spot meant nothing to an acceleration-type.
Arrow traps flying from a distance were equally useless.
Acceleration was practically the natural enemy of the entire trap category.
"An S-class like me could escape even if this whole building collapsed."
The hotel Nova had occupied had been large enough that its collapse speed would have outpaced escape speed, making flight impossible—but this building was different.
"But acceleration isn't teleportation, so if you seal mobility somehow, you might be able to subdue them."
The moment she immersed herself, she seriously laid out methods of suppressing her own ability based on intimate knowledge of it.
Seeing Han Si-Eun in full hunter mode left Jeong-Hoon both reassured and uneasy.
That a hunter would earnestly analyze a strategy was deeply reliable.
Yet the sight of a friend candidly exposing her own weaknesses simply because he had asked still made him anxious.