The Emptiness After Goodbye
Even though I had spent such a long time as the vice guild master of Onhwa Guild, wrapping up my life there took only a single moment. I didn’t have that many personal belongings stored there anyway. Strictly speaking, I should have stayed until the next vice guild master arrived, handled the handover properly, and then left. But when you’re being kicked out on the spot, what’s the point of any of that? The thought just left me feeling hollow.
“Vice Guild Master, sir…! Are you really quitting?!”
While I was packing up my few personal items and clearing out the vice guild master’s office, countless guild members came to see me. One after another.
“Without you, how is Onhwa Guild even supposed to function?!”
“That’s right! This is ridiculous!”
I had felt it before, but our guild members—well, the members of Onhwa Guild—were genuinely good people. The fact that they were evaluating me this highly proved it.
“What am I, that the guild would rise or fall because of me? Even without me, there are plenty of talented people.”
I forced a smile and kept talking. But that wasn’t how I really felt. I wished it wasn’t true. I wanted to hear that I was someone they absolutely needed. If only she would come down right now and grab onto me…
It was pathetic, I knew that. But if she did, I might even forgive her again.
Still, I knew better than anyone that something like that would never happen. Because I knew Yu Hyejeong better than anyone else.
“Everyone knows you were the one handling all the work behind the scenes, Vice Guild Master…”
“Haha, well. Someone better will come along soon and fill the spot. And when the master tells me to leave, what can I do?”
That’s right. In a guild, the master’s word is usually absolute. Most guild masters are top-tier S-class or A-class hunters, after all. They have the power and the authority. Knowing that, the guild members couldn’t say anything more. They could only bite their lips in frustration.
“Then I guess I’ll be going. Thank you all for putting up with someone as lacking as me all this time.”
“You were never lacking at all…”
“That’s right. To us, you were the best vice guild master there ever was…”
At least it seemed I hadn’t lived my life completely in vain. Not when there were people willing to hold me back like this and call me the best. Of course, those were words I had wanted to hear from someone else entirely. But I had no regrets.
There wasn’t even a proper farewell party. And so, the daily life of Han Junho as the vice guild master of Onhwa Guild came to a rather empty, anticlimactic end.
The emptiness truly hit the next day.
On the actual day I left, it hadn’t felt this bad. It had almost felt like I was just going home after work. But when morning came and my eyes opened automatically at the usual time I used to prepare for work, only to realize I had nowhere to go, a crushing sense of emptiness and hollowness washed over me.
“Ha… Is this really how it ends? This pathetically?”
It had been three years. I met her when I was twenty-two, still young. I fell in love. After awakening as a hunter, I used my ability to make a desperate confession, and together we built a guild and came this far. We had started everything together and led it side by side.
Yet my place had vanished, and she remained there.
How could you do this to me?
No… honestly, I had known from the very beginning, hadn’t I?
But how was I supposed to live without Hyejeong?
Should I have just gotten on my knees, begged for forgiveness, and said I was sorry?
Wait, what did I even do wrong? The one who did something wrong was Yu Hyejeong.
All sorts of emotions began to clash violently inside my head.
“…Let’s stop this.”
What was the point of arguing now about whose fault it was? This wasn’t like me at all. I wasn’t this kind of person. No matter how difficult things got, I was someone who always carved out my own path.
“That’s right. I can’t stay buried in my feelings forever.”
Setting everything else aside, now wasn’t the time to just sit around feeling sad and resentful.
“Anyway, as long as I’m alive, I have to keep living.”
And to keep living, I needed money whether I liked it or not.
With a bitter smile, I opened my banking app. The moment I saw the balance, my mouth twisted even more.
“After working for three years…”
The amount in my account was so pathetically small that it was impossible to believe it belonged to someone who had served as vice guild master of one of Korea’s top guilds. I hadn’t even received a proper salary. I had only taken the absolute minimum needed to survive and poured everything else into the guild. Severance pay? There was no way that would exist.
What was even more ridiculous was that, as vice guild master, I had nothing to prove that I had ever worked for Onhwa Guild in the first place.
“I should have at least written up an employment contract.”
If I had known things would turn out like this, of course I would have. But there was no contract, and I wouldn’t be able to get a certificate of employment either. The feeling that my three years had simply vanished into thin air threatened to drag me down again, but I barely held it together.
I logged into a hunter job board and filtered for E-class hunters. A huge number of raid party recruitment posts popped up. But I already knew what would happen.
Ah, you're an E-class? Then could you tell me what skills you have or how much dungeon experience you possess?
I didn’t have any combat skills.
Your skill is… non-combat type? And your dungeon experience…?
For an E-class hunter like me with no dungeon experience at all…
…Ah, I’m sorry. If you don’t have any dungeon experience, that’s going to be difficult.
The opportunities given to me were extremely limited.
I’m sorry. You need to have at least some experience…
I don’t even understand how a non-combat type thinks they can join a raid party.
We’re already full.
At this rate, I would barely be able to afford next month’s rent. I needed to find work immediately, but no one wanted an E-class hunter with a non-combat skill and zero experience. In reality, there were already far too many combat-type E-class and F-class hunters out there.
“Ha…”
To be honest, what good was being E-class? I knew perfectly well that a combat-type F-class would be more useful than a non-combat type like me.
“Raid parties… aren’t going to work.”
No matter how many more messages I sent, the replies would be the same.
I kept scrolling through the site for a long time until a new post appeared. It said “Rank irrelevant! As long as you’re an awakened hunter, you’re welcome!” I quickly moved my mouse over it. Posts like this usually had few openings and tons of applicants, so you had to apply fast.
When I clicked on it…
It wasn’t a raid party looking for members. They were looking for miners.
Miner. The term referred to people who entered gates after hunters had defeated the monsters, before the boss was taken down, to mine mana stones and clean up the byproducts. Most guilds maintained professional mining teams specifically for this purpose. Back when I worked at Onhwa Guild, I had personally selected decent people and organized a mining team, assigning them to dungeons every time we went in.
“You’re an E-class hunter?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
But I had heard that when operating as an independent raid party rather than a large guild, profits were lower, so instead of maintaining a professional team they usually hired daily workers. And now here I was, sitting in an interview for one of those daily miner positions.
“Most E-class hunters usually apply for raid party spots rather than mining. Is there any special reason you’re applying here?”
“I’m E-class, but I have a non-combat skill.”
“Ah, I see. Understood. Then could you come to the dungeon this afternoon right away?”
Normally daily workers were hired once a raid was confirmed, but apparently someone had suddenly flaked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Mining work isn’t that difficult. Even if it’s your first time, you should be able to handle it just fine.”
“Thank you.”
“Then I’ll see you at the site later.”
Since it was such a last-minute recruitment, it seemed there hadn’t been many applicants. The interview itself felt very perfunctory.
“Still, I’m glad I have work today.”
I had been worried about how I would pay rent if I kept getting rejected like this. I wasn’t completely without fear about doing an entirely new job, but it was okay. I knew from experience that people eventually adapt to anything once they start doing it.
And that was how I learned that gates were far more terrifying in person than I had imagined.
I had only ever seen gates through the media or heard about them from guild members. I had never been to an actual site before.
“Rookie! What are you doing standing there with your mouth wide open?”
“Ah, this is my first time seeing a gate in person.”
“What? First time entering a gate? You must have awakened pretty recently then.”
Well… I actually awakened three years ago.
“Anyway, it’s no big deal. We only go in after the raid party has finished everything.”
The man who seemed to have been doing mining work for quite a long time spoke with such confidence that I just stood there quietly and listened.
“Some people throw up the first time they see monster corpses. Watch yourself, rookie. They’ll dock your pay if you do.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
I had never processed corpses myself, but I had seen countless unprocessed byproducts from monster bodies back at the guild.
“The raid party members are coming out! Everyone get ready to enter!”
While listening to the middle-aged man’s various tips and warnings, the color of the gate began to change. One by one, the raid party members started walking out. They were covered head to toe in blood and mucus, but their expressions weren’t bad. It must not have been a particularly difficult fight.
“…I’m still analyzing them out of habit.”
I was doing something that was no longer any of my business. Back when I was vice guild master, I had been somewhat involved in managing the mental state of guild members, so carefully observing their expressions had become part of my job.
“Alright, rookie! Let’s go! It’s our turn!”
It didn’t matter anymore.
The gate I finally stepped into was exactly as the uncle had described—nothing special. All the monsters had already been turned into corpses. After finishing my first task without any issues and coming back out, it was completely dark.
“Everyone worked hard today!”
“Work wrapped up pretty early today! Should we all go grab a drink?”
“We have work tomorrow, what are you talking about?!”
Even though they were daily workers, since they often applied to the same places and met each other, it seemed they had built up quite a bit of camaraderie.
“Hey, rookie, you coming with us?”
“Ah… I’m sorry. Maybe because it’s my first time, but I’m really tired.”
“Haha! Everyone’s like that on their first day! Alright, head on home then! Oh, and if you have time, join this group! It’ll make finding work a lot easier.”
The rather nosy uncle handed me a business card before leading the others away. On it was the address for a miner community.
“Miner community?”
When I turned on my smartphone and accessed the site, I found countless daily miner job postings that hadn’t been on the regular hunter job boards.
“So this is where they recruit from.”
It was a typical community with boards for rating different raid parties, socializing, and more. I had been wondering where I would find work tomorrow, so this was perfect. I made a mental note to thank the uncle properly next time I saw him and began carefully looking through the daily job postings.