The Empty Place He Left Behind
“Mom!”
It was before Kim Eunji had awakened as a hunter, back when she had only just turned ten. A gate outbreak had shattered her ordinary life in the space of a single breath.
“Eunji! Run!”
“No! Come with me!”
Tears streaming down her face, Kim Eunji shook her head at her mother, pinned beneath the rubble of a collapsed building.
“Get out of there! Mom!”
“Listen to your mother! Kim Eunji! Why won't you do as you're told?!”
“No!! Come with me! If you're gone, what am I supposed to do alone!”
While mother and daughter exchanged this heartbroken plea, the gate outbreak was spreading its carnage in every direction, monsters cutting down human beings without mercy.
“Kiririk!”
Then a two-meter-tall monster shaped like a praying mantis began advancing toward them. Even as she watched its shadow crawl across the ground toward her and her mother, Kim Eunji would not let go of the hand she was gripping with all her strength.
“If you die, then I'll die here too! I don't want to be alone!”
“Eunji! Please! Run!!”
Even her mother's screams could not change her mind. Crying as she was, she clutched those hands tight as if to swear she would never give up, straining with everything she had to free her mother from the wreckage.
“Kkikkik?”
At some point the shadow had grown huge enough to swallow them both, and with it came a grotesque cry the likes of which she had never heard in her life. The instant Kim Eunji squeezed her eyes shut in terror—
—a rustle of wind.
A pleasant breeze washed over her, as gentle as the kind spring wind that drifts through a park on a beautiful clear day.
“Are you all right?”
A boy's voice reached her, one not yet past the change of adolescence.
“Huh…?”
“Please take my daughter! I'll be fine!!”
Before Kim Eunji could even grasp what was happening, her mother shouted urgently. And the boy answered in that soft, gentle tone.
“It's okay now. The rescue team will be here soon. Don't worry.”
“Oh…”
The moment it was over, relief flooded through her and Kim Eunji collapsed to the ground. Her legs had gone completely numb, and she couldn't get a single word out—that was when she felt an unfamiliar touch on the top of her head.
“You did everything you could to protect your mom. Good job. That was really brave.”
A man's hand, the first she had ever felt. A tone that was low, but warm. Maybe that was why. Before she knew it, Kim Eunji lifted her head.
And there, looking back at her, was a hunter's face she had seen on the internet a hundred times.
“Lee Siwoo?”
How two lovers had awakened in the middle of a gate outbreak, thrown together in the most extreme of circumstances—a story straight out of a movie. It had plastered the news for days on end, so of course she knew it by heart.
“Huh? You know me? You're not supposed to do that, though…?”
The boy smiled with an air of mild embarrassment, then raised his index finger to his lips.
“Can you keep it a secret that I can fight?”
“Why?”
“Hmm… because if I don't, I'd be stealing the spotlight that belongs to my girlfriend.”
Kim Eunji, at that age, couldn't truly understand what he meant. She would later.
Parachute hire. A gigolo masquerading as a partner. So he had precious things he wanted to protect, even if it meant swallowing every accusation thrown at him.
And so, when Kim Eunji eventually awakened as a hunter, her goal was set from the very first day. She wanted to become a hunter who shone so brightly that she could support him—even if it meant giving up everything she had. That single conviction had driven every ounce of her effort ever since.
When I arrived at the office at the time we'd agreed on by text, a woman who looked to be in her early thirties and a girl in her early twenties were waiting. One of them was surely Guild Master Lee Miseon—but who was the other?
“It's Lee Siwoo.”
“Come in, have a seat.”
After trading greetings with Lee Miseon, I settled onto the sofa, and the moment my eyes met the other woman's—
“Hup!”
The girl with the black bob cut went wide-eyed at the sight of me and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Eunji?”
Lee Miseon's expression hardened as she fixed a stare on the girl called Eunji. Honestly, I was the guest here; a reaction like that to a total stranger was a bit much, wasn't it?
A moment later the black-haired girl met my eyes, and then suddenly cried out at the top of her lungs.
“H-hello there! I'm Kim Eunji, second-year hunter!”
Stunned by the abrupt introduction, I clasped the hand she'd thrust out at me, no doubt wearing a bewildered expression.
“Ah. Nice to meet you. I'm Lee Siwoo, ten-year hunter.”
“Yes! I know!”
Her face still flushed red, Kim Eunji promptly fell silent and began staring at me intently.
It was an unexpected situation, but then, girls that age do swing from one emotion to another. It happens. Kim Seolyeon used to be like that too, once upon a time.
“Shall we all take a seat first?”
Lee Miseon smiled as if to smooth things over and gestured me toward a chair. Well, nothing the girl had done was outright rude, after all.
“Sure, let's.”
Once I was on the sofa, a wry smile twisted inside me for a moment.
Those ten years had sunk their claws in deep. Kim Eunji's flustered behavior had dragged Kim Seolyeon right back to the front of my mind.
Even now, when I was trying to forget and live a new life, the memories surfaced like this—like a brand I could never burn away.
On top of that, my last meeting with Kim Seolyeon replayed itself and soured my mood, so I frowned and turned my gaze out the window.
Unusually bright sunlight was spilling through the glass and filling the office today, of all days. I hoped my own future might shine like this, too. By the time I'd steadied myself with that thought—
“Mr. Siwoo. I'm sorry about that. Shall we get down to business?”
Lee Miseon, now seated beside Kim Eunji, smiled and looked at me.
“The kind of work, and the pay. Those two things matter most, don't they? Right?”
“Guild Master Lee Miseon?”
“Oh, where is my head. It's been a while, Mr. Siwoo. I'm Lee Miseon, Guild Master of Saebit Guild.”
As I studied her face—eyes curved prettily as she handed over her business card—the memory finally clicked into place. Until very recently, she had been Deputy Manager Lee at the Hunter Association, the one in charge of processing gate raids.
“So you've left the Association?”
“Yes, that's right. We chatted briefly the other day, but you were so busy, it's understandable if it slipped your mind. Hoho.”
It had been more than five years since I'd taken over all the fussy clerical work in exchange for supporting Kim Seolyeon. Back then, external administration mattered far more than any help inside a gate.
I'd once watched guild after guild and hunter after hunter come crashing down over tax evasion charges and allegations of corrupt contracting, so I had learned to handle every piece of paperwork with meticulous care.
Thanks to that, Kim Seolyeon had risen to A-rank without a whisper of suspicion attached to her name.
She was an acquaintance I'd made while handling guild administration—come to think of it, I remembered our conversation at the Hunter Association's founding anniversary not long ago. Something about her starting a company of her own.
“I remember now. Thank you for reaching out to me.”
“Oh no, I'm the grateful one that you came.”
We carried on in that pleasant vein for a while—until the girl seated next to Lee Miseon spoke up.
“Did you come alone today?”
“Uh… yes. Just me.”
“Where's Hunter Kim Seolyeon? You two were always together.”
The moment Seolyeon's name left her lips, the memories I wanted buried came flooding back. Her face, which I had never seen before; the aching air that hung around her. Even the sneer of Kwon Dohyuk, the S-rank hunter who had looked down his nose at me.
The emotions I'd been certain I'd purged completely that day began welling up all over again.
“Ah…”
I could have endured losing an arm. I'd been through it enough times. Even the agony of torn innards, of my throat searing from the inside—those I could bear.
Ten whole years. I had sacrificed everything I was for her. For the promise we made that day ten years ago. I had backed her without reservation all the way to S-rank.
Not once had I doubted what we had. I believed a shining happy ending was waiting just a little further down the road.
And yet.
“Yes. I'm alone.”
Always together. That was what she'd whispered, and what I'd believed—ten years of it. A decade's worth of feeling doesn't dissolve in a single night.
Still, I had to live. Had to keep moving. Money was what put food on the table.
So here I was—still wearing the labels. Kim Seolyeon's partner. Parachute hire. Kept man. The shameless hunter who rode on a woman's coattails.
“But I'm actually pretty useful, you know. Give me a chance and see.”
I dragged the corners of my mouth up into a smile. These would be the coworkers I worked alongside from now on; I couldn't afford to show them anything weak.
“…Of course you are! Your work record speaks for itself, Mr. Siwoo!”
Sensing something off about me, Lee Miseon pivoted the mood with a bright, energetic voice. At that, the black-haired girl who had questioned me shifted her lips awkwardly.
“I know you're someone I can trust.”
She said it as though she already knew me well, and my curiosity stirred again—but I didn't press. We'd met for the first time today; it was far too early for personal questions.
“Then shall we start with the job?”
At Lee Miseon's careful, sidelong question, I nodded. Nobody in this world carries their history on their sleeve. I was just one more of them. I had no intention of broadcasting my sob story to anyone.
“Let's do that.”
“I so desire.”
Clouds of pure white breath spilled from Kim Seolyeon's lips. The world itself, reacting to her mana, began to shift at a terrifying pace.
“Open the white night and raise the ice palace.”
With an unsettled feeling churning in her gut, Kim Seolyeon recited the incantation she had chanted for ten years. What should have been a given on her skill list simply wasn't there.
“To all who enter my palace, even death shall never reach—!”
She had never once heard of a skill simply vanishing. It had to be some kind of mistake. She'd never heard of a system window throwing an error, either.
It couldn't be true.
“Why…?”
Nothing happened. And as Kim Seolyeon stood there frozen in confusion, her party members' voices rose to a panicked pitch.
“Boss! Hurry! We can't hold on!”
The boss of an A-rank gate—a tiger the size of a house—was driving the party back with lashing arcs of lightning, corralling them toward the edge of collapse.
Now, while her party members held its aggro just like this, Kim Seolyeon was supposed to manifest the White Night Ice Palace as she always did and bring the boss down.
“I so desire!”
All she'd ever needed was to speak the incantation, and she would ascend to a realm beyond her limits. Brief, yes—but that destructive power had outstripped even S-rank.
Other hunters hurled out their skills freely, no chants required—so why only her? That resentment hadn't lasted long, though. She wielded one of the most powerful abilities on the planet, one of a scarce handful in the entire world.
And yet, why.
“Why won't it activate—?!”
Kim Seolyeon had not yet realized the empty place Lee Siwoo had left behind.