Because You Told Me to Believe!
The Baekho Guild headquarters was a sprawling hanok village nestled within Seoul.
It was far more than a simple guild facility. It served as a residential complex where Baekho hunters and their families could live at relatively low cost if they wished. For outsiders, it stood as a symbolic landmark displaying the history and prestige of Baekho—one of Korea’s four major guilds.
The village, where the elegant eaves of traditional hanoks mingled strangely with cutting-edge security systems, had even become a popular destination for foreign hunter tourists.
But today, an entirely different clamor flooded that normally serene hanok village.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Dozens of footsteps. The relentless click of camera shutters. And the sharp questions hurled by reporters.
“Hunter Yun Mija! Is the rumor that Hyeonmu is absorbing Baekho true?”
“It’s been said that Baekho and Hyeonmu maintained a friendly relationship for decades. Was that bond nothing but preparation for this takeover?”
“When exactly did you learn that Guild Leader Han Yura was no longer in normal condition?”
The moment Yun Mija’s limousine stopped at the village entrance, the reporters surged forward like predators scenting blood.
Today could very well be a day that would be recorded in the history of Korean hunters.
Geumseong of Gangnam. Baekho of Gangseo. Hyeonmu of Gangbuk. Cheongryong of Gangdong.
The day the delicate balance maintained by Seoul’s four great guilds might shatter, reducing them to three. No reporter worth their press pass would miss a scoop like that.
Yun Mija stepped out of the limousine wearing her usual gentle smile.
Inside, however, she clicked her tongue.
This isn’t the picture I wanted.
The original plan had been to finish everything quietly. She would enter the main Baekho building, present the transfer documents to Han Sora, and receive her seal. Ideally without any reporters or outsiders witnessing it. Hyeonmu would embrace Baekho before the guild could be ripped to shreds. That had been Yun Mija’s ideal outcome.
Yet what was all this noise?
Overnight, reporters had swarmed in, treating Hyeonmu’s absorption of Baekho as an established fact. Cameras pushed deep into the village, exposing the faces of Baekho guild members and their families in what had become a full-blown spectacle.
Someone had deliberately set the stage.
And Yun Mija quickly identified the culprit—the woman walking beside her, pretending to be a Hyeonmu guild associate. A middle-aged woman with silver hair neatly braided over one shoulder and an outwardly gentle appearance. But her smile was too thin, and behind those narrowed eyes lurked the cold gaze of someone who viewed people only as numbers.
The Korean Branch Director of the International Reproductive Resource Management Agency.
Seomun Hui.
While still smiling at the reporters, Yun Mija compressed her voice with mana and sent it directly to the woman.
“You’ve done something quite cute, Director.”
A telepathic message ordinary people could not hear. A private exchange only hunters above a certain level could use.
Seomun Hui’s expression didn’t flicker.
“Revealing so much killing intent could damage your image, Hunter Yun Mija.”
“Image?”
Yun Mija’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. She was smiling, yet it was not a smile.
“You create this mess and then lecture me about image?”
“On the contrary, this seat was prepared for your benefit, Hunter Yun Mija.”
“What?”
Seomun Hui glanced at the reporters’ flashing cameras.
“This is a historic moment—the reorganization of four major guilds into three. If it were to happen in complete secrecy, it might stay quiet at first, but far greater suspicions would follow later.”
“…!”
“Hyeonmu represents Korea’s traditions. If people believe such a guild secretly swallowed Baekho, every kind of conspiracy theory and agitation will erupt.”
Her words… were not wrong.
Hyeonmu’s true weapons were tradition and image. A guild that had endured for generations. One that never missed national events. The hunter guild most familiar and friendly to the public. If such a guild had quietly devoured Baekho in the shadows, the world would immediately begin searching for reasons. Had money changed hands? Were there threats? What had Baekho been hiding? Questions about how far Han Yura’s condition had deteriorated would multiply endlessly.
“Therefore it is better to proceed openly. Let them see that Hyeonmu has absorbed Baekho head-on. That it has brought a weakened guild into a greater order. That is how it should appear.”
“How very plausible.”
Yun Mija continued smiling at the reporters, but the voice she sent through telepathy was as cold as a midwinter blade.
“Do you really think I don’t know the true reason behind this?”
“……”
“You’re making sure I cannot withdraw, even if sentiment pulls at me.”
The corner of Seomun Hui’s mouth lifted faintly. Her silence was answer enough.
“By enlarging the stage like this, you leave me no room to step back. If Hyeonmu retreats now, Geumseong and Cheongryong will pounce immediately.”
“Interpret it however you wish.”
“You cunning creatures. You intend to force me to trample Baekho today no matter what.”
Beyond the wall of reporters, the faces of Baekho guild members were visible. Beneath the eaves of the hanok village. Between the alleyways. Along the path leading to the main building. They simply stared in silence. Some burned with anger, some trembled with fear, and others already wore faces of resignation.
Even if absorbed by Hyeonmu, their careers might survive. Their lives might be protected. But the guild they had devoted their entire lives to was disappearing. The name they had dreamed beneath, bled for, and raised families under would be erased overnight. How could that possibly feel good?
Yun Mija walked past those gazes and arrived before the Baekho main building.
Then she stopped.
Because in front of the main entrance—where the space should have been empty—a woman stood waiting.
“Please turn back, Guild Leader Yun Mija.”
“Sora…?”
Yun Mija’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly. The girl should have been inside. Whether crying over the documents or burning with rage, she should not have been in any condition to appear before the reporters.
Yet Han Sora had not fled. Instead she stood alone before the main building of Baekho, as if she were the guild’s representative and its final gatekeeper.
All cameras swiveled toward her at once. Reporters began to murmur. Seomun Hui’s narrowed eyes tightened a fraction more.
Receiving every gaze without flinching, Han Sora declared clearly:
“Baekho will absolutely not be absorbed by any other guild.”
At those words the murmuring exploded.
“What did she just say?”
“She’s refusing absorption?”
“Is Hunter Han Sora really going to oppose Hyeonmu?”
Camera flashes detonated. Real-time broadcast drones began bathing her face in light.
Baekho—believed to have collapsed after Guild Leader Han Yura’s injury. Its successor had just rejected absorption in front of the Hyeonmu Guild Leader.
Reckless stubbornness? Final pride? Or did she possess an unrevealed countermeasure?
Countless interpretations flashed through the reporters’ minds simultaneously.
Yun Mija, meanwhile, studied Sora for a moment. A faint light crossed her eyes, but it vanished quickly.
After all, she is still only A-class.
Even that—the name Baekho is far too heavy for a girl who has only just reached A-class to bear.
The Baekho led by Han Sora could not endure. They might buy time through an information war. They might sway public opinion. But in hunter society, the force that ultimately decided the outcome was always raw power.
Without an S-class, Baekho was already a beast with its fangs pulled. Therefore it had to be broken here. Thoroughly defeated. Only then, before other beasts could tear it apart, could it be placed inside Hyeonmu’s fence—at least after being properly tamed.
Step.
Yun Mija advanced one pace. In that instant, her usual gentle aura vanished completely. The kind grandmotherly smile and the dignified composure she always displayed before the public were gone. What remained was only one thing:
Korea’s longest-serving hunter. The living legend of the Korean hunter world. And for the first time, that legend regarded Han Sora as an enemy.
With that single short command, the air around them grew oppressively heavy. The reporters’ voices cut off. Even the tiny mechanical whir of the filming drones receded into the distance.
Cold sweat beaded on Han Sora’s forehead as she stood directly before her. Breathing alone felt like her lungs were being crushed. Everyone present instinctively understood why the term S-class was always spoken in the same breath as the phrase that it could change a nation’s prestige.
But—
“I… cannot move aside.”
Yun Mija’s eyes widened by a fraction. Han Sora was not retreating. Though she could not hide her trembling fingertips, both feet remained planted firmly in front of the gate.
“My god…”
“She’s really facing Hunter Yun Mija…”
“Is she trying to fight?”
The reporters’ murmurs spread again, yet no one dared raise their voice. The scene itself was simply too surreal.
But this had never been a fight she intended to win.
It’s already the second day.
Two days had passed since Seo Jihou entered the underground medical ward. He had not yet emerged. That could only mean one of two things: the surgery had failed, or it was still underway. Han Sora had chosen to believe the latter.
Because that man had told her:
There is no reason for you to die. There is no reason for your mother to have to die. From now on, I will make sure such things do not happen.
Therefore the only thing she needed to do right now was one thing—to stand here as the face of Baekho. To prevent even a single person from entering this door until Seo Jihou awakened Han Yura.
Han Sora swallowed her trembling breath. Then she shouted so that the reporters, Yun Mija, Seomun Hui, the Baekho guild members—everyone in the village—could hear.
At that moment, the name of Baekho—which had seemed on the verge of collapse—lifted its head once more before the main gate.