They Say It's Ruined
Somewhere, a man who had been hunting for the core of the seal focused on the news, eager to learn how the plans of his operatives in America had turned out.
"Whoa—tanks, choppers, the whole works. They really went all-out, huh?"
He clicked his tongue at a force that looked, from every angle, like it belonged to the family, then shook his head.
"At this rate, the team we sent to the States is wiped out."
He had already guessed the dispatched unit's annihilation, so the blow did not hit as hard as it might have.
"Still stings, though. Thirty percent of our strength just evaporated. The old fogies are going to throw a fit."
The thought of the coming headache twisted his face. Grumbling, he turned his attention to the other reports, curious how the family planned to bury something this flashy.
Yet the only narrative circulating was this: "Foreign mercenaries hired at great expense by Senator Richard Evans, founder of Nova, to pass judgment on the corrupted organization."
"You're kidding me—people are buying that flimsy excuse? The family's Gaju flew straight to New York! No one's even questioning that?"
Anyone with half a brain could connect the dots: Richard had gone to Lumen, and that was why Jeong-Hoon, Lumen's chairman, had met him in New York. The idea that this kind of smoke-and-mirrors cover could work had never even crossed the man's mind.
"Let's see… Lee Jeong-Hoon, chairman of the Lumen hotel chain, critically injured after being caught in a terrorist attack during a business trip to New York?!"
He had thought something felt off, but the family had prepared a different cover story entirely. A senator who chaired the Awakened Committee—and a leading contender for the next presidency—had been staying at the New York branch. Jeong-Hoon had rushed there to make contact and gotten swept up in the attack. In other words, he had gone on a business call and become a victim. The public never linked Lumen to the mercenary company that had nearly turned the incident into a civil war.
"Oh, come on—use your heads! Then what the hell was Diana about?!"
Venting his frustration on another article, he uncovered yet another excuse.
"According to an anonymous source, the mercenaries who suppressed the New York attack and the company that appeared at Diana are the same organization, and—yes, here it is! …Senator Richard is said to have asked Jeong-Hoon, chairman of Lumen, to introduce him to that company. What? That's it? Just that?!"
He had been reading the piece aloud with rising excitement; in the end he raked his fingers through his hair and gave up looking any further. The family had already prepared an exit for every possible angle.
"Damn it. An entire unit evaporated, and the only upside is that the family's attention has shifted to America. Total loss."
On top of that, the American influence they had secured through Nova had vanished along with it. His scowl refused to ease. It was a complete defeat for the Organization.
The New York branch of Myeongil Hospital.
One might wonder why a hospital had a New York branch at all, but Myeongil was the world's premier medical facility specializing in Awakened patients. At the request of various governments, it established special branches. In a private room of that New York branch, Jeong-Hoon finished preparing for discharge and changed out of his patient gown into a suit.
"Whew. Hospital life is finally over."
"You have worked hard, sir."
It had been a full month of malingering. Once they announced he had been critically wounded, he could hardly walk out a few days later. After a month of hospitalization, most of the suspicious glances aimed at Lumen had faded.
The problem was the reporters who monitored his every move. Even in the land of lawsuits, they came charging without a care. So for a month Jeong-Hoon had been effectively trapped in his private room, unable to leave properly. The only times he had stepped out were when summoned for the official investigation of the incident.
"I suppose I won't be able to meet Senator Richard anymore?"
With the sense that everything had come to an end, Jeong-Hoon thought of the one thing he still wanted to do before leaving America.
"He is still on trial, so it would be difficult. There is no reason to risk revealing any connection to you, Gaju."
Senator Richard Evans, who had confessed to founding Nova, was currently in custody and standing trial. Considering the crimes Nova had committed, a death sentence seemed likely. Jeong-Hoon let out a long sigh. Richard bore responsibility for leading the organization astray, yet he had done everything he could to own that responsibility. That made him a regrettable figure.
"Even after the verdict, a visit can be arranged if you wish."
"…Before they execute him, you mean?"
"Not at all. Senator Richard Evans was arrested in New York. New York has abolished the death penalty. And Arizona, the state that elected him, effectively no longer carries out executions either."
When the chief butler explained in careful detail, Jeong-Hoon nodded in relief. Richard would spend the rest of his life in prison—something he himself had accepted—but knowing he would not face the death penalty eased Jeong-Hoon's heart.
"Where are Lord Fernandez, Professor Jeong, and Min-Ha?"
"They are outside, searching for any reporters who might still be hiding."
"Surely not even now?"
"The suspicion directed at Lumen has not completely disappeared."
There was no hard evidence, only strong circumstantial grounds, so people still watched Jeong-Hoon. The chief butler kept his guard up and waited for word from the three outside.
"Then I suppose we wait a bit."
He had finished every preparation to leave only to be told he still had to stay; the disappointment was real, but after enduring a month, a few more hours were nothing.
"America's resilience is impressive, though."
"…Its resilience, sir?"
"They went through something that could easily have become a civil war, and yet it was sealed up surprisingly fast."
The family's intervention had reduced it to a mere terrorist disturbance, but it had been a genuine crisis on the brink of civil war. Once the dust settled, however, America's chronic discrimination against Awakened began to recede at remarkable speed. It helped that not every Nova member had committed terrorism—some had fought to protect civilians despite belonging to Nova. The Awakened who stepped forward even though they were not part of Nova had helped as well.
"It is not solely thanks to a positive image, but the fact that the conflict has been mended is certainly a good thing."
Jeong-Hoon nodded silently at the chief butler's words. The improved perception of Awakened was not simply because they had done good deeds. The original incident itself had been sparked by Nova, an Awakened organization. Other Awakened performing heroic acts should not, by rights, have shifted public opinion so dramatically.
Yet it had improved—because the public had learned, deep in their bones, that an Awakened without a gun was still more dangerous than a human with one.
"Nothing works quite like fear."
"Does that include the people still pretending not to know the family's true nature?"
At Jeong-Hoon's counter-question, the chief butler nodded. Circumstantial evidence existed; hard proof did not. Even so, no one openly sniped at Lumen. The reason was much the same as the improving view of Awakened in America. Here was a power capable of dropping a large military force into the heart of the world's strongest nation in an instant. Unless one intended open hostility, crossing them brought nothing good.
"Well, America ended on a good note, so now it's time to head back and properly prepare to build the PS Association."
Jeong-Hoon shrugged and cut the topic short, thinking of everything that had stalled for a month while he killed time. The PS Association, consolidating the businesses into a group, and rooting out the family's traitors. Because he had been locked in the hospital for a month, the family's official external activities had ground to a complete halt.
"Speaking of the PS Association, Gaju—do you remember the Saturn Guild?"
"Saturn? One of the Ten Great Guilds. No reason I wouldn't remember."
The Ten Great Guilds were not limited to Korea; they spanned the globe, so a hunter otaku like Jeong-Hoon could hardly be ignorant of them. He gave the chief butler a puzzled look. The man sighed softly and shook his head.
"From your reaction, you had completely forgotten. When we cleared the Orc Lord's dungeon, they refused to cooperate, and you handed down a punishment, did you not?"
"…Ah. Right. Three months have passed, so it slipped my mind. What about Saturn?"
Recalling Choi Jae-Yeon, the guild master who had demanded the family's martial arts in exchange for cooperation, Jeong-Hoon clapped his hands lightly.
"They say it's ruined."
"What???"
"Completely bankrupt. The guild has been dissolved, and Choi Jae-Yeon has switched to free-hunter status."
"You're joking."
Jeong-Hoon could not believe that one of the world's ten most prominent guilds had collapsed in three months—until he saw the chief butler's expression, which looked nothing like a joke. His mouth fell open in a daze.
It had been three months since Choi Jae-Yeon of the Saturn Guild had indirectly refused Lumen's request and been deployed to the Frontline.
What had once been called the armistice line was now the Frontline—the zone that held back the monsters pouring down from North Korea, which had become a monster world. With the rotation cycle conveniently aligning, Saturn was thrown into the Frontline as Lumen's retaliation and began its steady decline.
Lumen's revenge had consisted of nothing more than a tax audit and the Frontline deployment. Choi Jae-Yeon therefore believed he only needed to endure the three-month rotation. He dismissed Jeong-Hoon, Lumen's chairman, as a brat—a kid throwing a tantrum and taking out his anger once he failed to get his way.
But the moment word spread that Saturn had been marked by Lumen, a freefall began that no one would have believed possible for a Ten Great Guild. Leaving a guild during a Frontline deployment was legally forbidden—yet the instant the rumor of Lumen's grudge took hold, countless hunters filed withdrawal requests. Even bank loans were cut off, on the grounds that being targeted by Lumen made financial security uncertain.
"Puh-huh-huh! Damn it all!!!"
Drinking alone in a nearly empty bar, Choi Jae-Yeon could no longer contain his rage and slammed his glass down hard.
Crash!
The glass shattered, shards flying everywhere, yet Choi Jae-Yeon's hand remained unscathed. The hand of an S-class hunter was not so fragile that mere glass could cut it.
"Sir, you've had quite a lot."
"What? Do you know who I am?! You think an S-class hunter would get drunk on this cheap swill?!"
As the employee cleared the broken glass and spoke, Choi Jae-Yeon grew even angrier and thrust a card from his wallet forward.
"I'm renting this whole place tonight, so swipe it as much as you want!"
"…You've already rented it out, sir."
Even an S-class hunter, after pouring that much alcohol into himself without driving it out with mana, got drunk. Thoroughly intoxicated, Choi Jae-Yeon had forgotten he had already taken over the bar and simply shook his head.
"…You're no ordinary employee, are you?"
"Haha. That obvious?"
Sensing that the employee was Awakened, Choi Jae-Yeon burned away the alcohol with mana and his eyes gleamed.
"Honestly, Lumen went too far, don't you think? Just for refusing one request, they destroyed Saturn."
"…Lumen's retaliation was only the Frontline and the tax audit. Nothing beyond that."
Speaking carefully to the man who seemed to be keeping him company, Choi Jae-Yeon scanned the surroundings. Inside the bar, there was no one but the two of them.
"Haha. That's the point, isn't it? They calculated that that much alone would make everyone else, eager to stay on Lumen's good side, finish Saturn off for them."
"Are you Lumen's assassin? You seem to be testing me. I hold a grudge, but I have no intention of revenge, so you can rest easy."
The thought that only Lumen could plant someone in a shop an S-class hunter had rented out made Choi Jae-Yeon speak cautiously. The other man shook his head.
"Nothing of the sort. I am an enemy of Lumen—more precisely, of the organization led by Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon."
An organization whose goal was to completely unseal the world and restore it to its original form. Revealing himself as the leader of that group born from the family's traitors, the young man smiled and extended his hand.
"Won't you join me? I can give you the power for revenge."
Looking at the hand the Organization's leader offered, Choi Jae-Yeon realized it was a devil's temptation. The moment he took that hand, he would cross a river from which there was no return. So he shook his head from side to side.
"I refuse. Only a fool who doesn't understand Lumen's power would take that offer. I'm not so stupid that I'd go looking for my own grave."
A refusal cut clean, leaving no room for compromise. The opponent was simply too strong to attack out of spite. What Choi Jae-Yeon needed now was not revenge but to find some way—any way—to beg forgiveness.
"What a shame. You looked just dumb enough to take the bait, but you turned out smarter than expected. If you're this clever, why did you ever make an enemy of Lumen?"
"What?!"
Shhk!
About to explode in rage at the young man's mockery, Choi Jae-Yeon instead coughed blood as pain lanced through his pierced heart.
"Guh—hack!"
"Once you rejected the offer, I had no choice. If you ran to Lumen and informed on me, I'd be in trouble. You understand, right?"
"SSS-class…"
He had known the man was Awakened, yet the carefully restrained mana had hidden his rank. Reading it now, Choi Jae-Yeon grimaced as he spat blood.
"Ah, I should tell you the skill name. It's called Jan-sal. Personally I'm more used to Paseong, but I can't exactly blow up the whole bar, can I?"
Pulling his hand free of the heart he had run through, the young man offered a shameless smile and looked down at Choi Jae-Yeon, who had collapsed without even closing his eyes. He let out a long sigh.
"I even ruined Saturn so he could burn with hatred toward Lumen, and he turns out to be more of a coward than I thought."
The recruitment of an S-class he had expected to succeed had failed. Absorbing Nova remnants across the world for a month after the destruction of Nova's American leadership had been a solid achievement. Yet failing to secure an S-class who could actually become combat power left him disappointed.