The Number That Demanded Silence
The phone rang longer than the steady beep of an EKG.
It cut off, then started ringing again.
The night lights still cast a dim blue glow across the hallway.
Inside the cafeteria, nurses were finally grabbing a bite of warm soup, while the screen next to my hospital room door quietly scrolled through my remote vital signs.
I had thought it was a night where nothing would move.
But on the bench in front of the counseling room, Park Min-seok was clutching his phone with both hands.
His face, looking barely past twenty, was pale, and the guardian band on his wrist trembled.
Park Eun-hui sat beside him.
Her fingers, wrapped in burn bandages, reached out to hold her son's hand, only to hesitate and stop.
The ringing cut off again.
Three seconds later, it rang once more.
Min-seok accidentally pressed the speakerphone button.
A mechanically friendly voice drifted out into the hallway.
"Is this the guardian of the victim, Park Eun-hui? We are calling to expedite the process for your medical expense support."
"Who is this?" Min-seok asked.
"We are the partner counseling center. You have a statement scheduled for today. If you cooperate quietly, the support will be processed much faster."
Quietly.
That single word seemed to freeze even the clattering of dishes from the cafeteria down the hall.
The counselor continued to tighten the noose, their voice dripping with apologetic concern.
"If you mention specific hunters or guild names, the verification process could take a long time. The victim is already going through a difficult time, so there is no need to make things noisy, is there?"
Min-seok's face drained of color.
"Are you saying... our medical support will be delayed if we don't?"
"We are not saying that. However, if you cooperate with the procedure—"
I gripped the bed rail.
This time, Cha Yu-ri did not press down on the back of my hand.
Instead, she opened the hospital room door a bit wider.
She wasn't clearing a path for me to go out, but rather creating a gap so I could see.
"It's not your turn this time, Tae-san," she said softly.
"Watch who needs to speak first."
Yun Seo-ah was walking down from the end of the hallway.
She did not look at me.
She stopped in front of Park Eun-hui, and Min-seok almost reflexively held out the phone to her.
"Hunter, please take this for us," Min-seok pleaded. "If I say the wrong thing, my mother's treatment..."
Seo-ah did not take the phone.
Instead, she pulled up a chair and sat down next to Park Eun-hui.
She didn't stand tall like a hunter from a prestigious family.
She sat down with the posture of a guardian who had been waiting up all night.
"If I speak for you, your words will just be erased again," Seo-ah said.
Min-seok's hand froze.
Seo-ah looked at Park Eun-hui.
"Keep the speaker on. Don't hang up. You should be the one to speak, Eun-hui. If it gets too hard, you can take a break."
"Is there someone else with you? We need to verify the identity of the victim herself."
Park Eun-hui took a deep breath.
She forced her mouth open with great effort, like someone whose throat wouldn't move properly.
"I am Park Eun-hui."
A faint rolling sound echoed from the end of the hallway.
A gray case slowly slid out from under the bench next to the counseling room.
It looked like something someone had discarded, but the light inside it flickered in sync with the phone's ringtone.
Mun Chae-won, who had just arrived from the workshop, narrowed her eyes at it.
"It's a Relay Case," Chae-won said.
"What's that?" Baek Ha-rin asked.
"A device that makes the call look like it's coming from an internal hospital number. The call originates from the outside, but the pressure is amplified from right here."
"Ma'am, if you cooperate quietly, your treatment support will be processed quickly—"
Park Eun-hui cut the caller off.
"I will not be quiet."
Everyone in the hallway heard her.
Park Eun-hui clutched the phone with her bandaged hand.
Her fingers shook, but her voice carried more strength than before.
"I saw it," she said. "When the gate debris fell, Hunter Kang Tae-san stood in front of us, and Oh Min-hyeok's party backed away. I was told that if I said this, my medical expenses would be delayed."
"We never said that. This call is being recorded, so please be careful with your—"
"That is why I am saying it," Park Eun-hui said, closing her eyes.
"Please record it. I will not be quiet."
At that moment, the Relay Case under the bench vibrated louder.
Whirrr.
"Retrieve the device on-site. Now."
Before the words even finished, a man in gray overalls rushed out from the end of the hallway.
He tried to grab the case and slip away.
I didn't get out of bed.
However, the moment the case was about to pass my hospital room door, I lightly nudged the call button cord on the floor with the tip of my foot.
The cord caught on the wheels of the case.
The case spun around, and my hand reached out past the threshold.
Cha Yu-ri immediately spoke up.
"Your wrist."
"I'm not grabbing it," I replied.
I placed my palm on the top of the case.
The force of the man trying to pull the case away registered beneath my hand.
It was a weak, dirty kind of force.
Not the kind of strength used to drag a person away, but the kind used to suppress a person's voice.
I didn't push.
I simply redirected that force back into the case.
Click.
The lid of the case locked shut.
The man in the gray overalls froze, still holding the handle.
The case refused to budge, as if glued to the floor.
The speaker inside screeched once, then blasted the counselor's breathing throughout the entire hallway.
"Send the support suspension notice again. If the victim speaks up herself, redirect the pressure to the guardian."
It wasn't a synthesized voice.
It was a real, raw voice.
Every single victim in the hallway heard it.
Min-seok's eyes widened.
Park Eun-hui stared down at her phone, then looked up for the first time.
"Hang up! Turn off the device!"
But the case did not turn off.
A sheet of paper slowly slid out from beneath the lid.
It was a counseling script.
[Phase 1] Encourage quiet cooperation.
[Phase 2] Mention the possibility of delayed support.
[Phase 3] Induce anxiety in the guardian.
[Phase 4] Restrict statements naming specific hunters.
I took my hand off the case.
"You told them to be quiet," I muttered.
The speaker inside the case was still broadcasting the counselor's heavy breathing.
"But your voice is the loudest one here."
Baek Ha-rin let out a short laugh.
"I actually liked that one."
Cha Yu-ri immediately grabbed my hand.
She opened my palm and checked my wrist.
Her gaze was cold, but her fingertips were steady.
"Pain level."
"Two."
"If you lie, I'm going to tape you to that case."
"Two point five."
"That's more like it."
Han Mi-rae's expression hardened as she looked at the script that had slid out of the case.
"The call center's account is mixed with the name of the Mirae Group Support Center."
"Is it mixed, or was it intentionally blended?" Lee Na-gyeong asked.
Mi-rae didn't answer right away. Instead, she scrolled further down the screen and bit her lip.
"They blended it."
Lee Na-gyeong took photos of the case, the script, and Park Eun-hui's phone screen all at once.
"Relay device for coercive calls secured. Script restricting victim statements confirmed. Immediately blocking all contact rights of the counseling center."
Her words were brief.
But the conclusion had already spread through the hallway.
The number that demanded silence had blared its own voice for the entire hallway to hear.
Yun Seo-ah didn't take Park Eun-hui's phone for her.
She simply sat by her side until Eun-hui ended the call.
Eun-hui spoke one last time.
"I will make my statement."
And she hung up the phone herself.
Click.
This time, the phone did not ring again.
Min-seok took his mother's hand.
Only then did Yun Seo-ah stand up.
She still didn't look at me.
But this time, she wasn't running away.
She had stood her ground until the victim finished speaking.
Cha Yu-ri applied a small cooling patch to my hand.
"Let's keep it at two point five for today."
"Eun-hui spoke up," I said.
"Yes."
She looked over at Park Eun-hui.
"So you don't need to say anything more, Tae-san."
The locked Relay Case remained on the hallway floor.
The script sticking out from the lid trembled slightly, even though there was no breeze.
The number that demanded silence had exposed itself in the loudest way possible.
Even after the Relay Case was sealed, the people in the hallway couldn't bring themselves to move for a long time.
Even though Park Eun-hui had finished speaking, everyone touched their lips as if checking their own voices.
The demand for silence had come through a phone, but it wasn't just one person's voice that had been suppressed by it.
Kim Do-sik was the first to pull out his phone.
"I received a call from the same number."
Mun Ok-ja followed, holding out her old phone.
"They told me things would get hard for my son."
Han Jae-o's guardian said with red eyes,
"They said if Jae-o stands at the front again, we won't get any support."
Lee Na-gyeong's terminal screen quietly filled up with data.
The numbers were different, but the routing path was identical.
They spoofed the caller ID to make it look like an internal hospital extension, then routed it through the Relay Case to make it sound like an official consultation.
Han Mi-rae bit her lip.
"At this point, it's not a counseling center. It's a hush-money center."
Baek Ha-rin looked down at the case.
"Can I smash it?"
"It's already broken as much as it needs to be," I said.
She glanced at me.
"You've been saying that a lot lately."
"You're the one who said winning without breaking things is harder."
Ha-rin couldn't find a retort.
Instead, she lightly tapped the floor next to the case with the tip of her scabbard.
She was drawing a line.
Ensuring no one could cross it to take the case away.
Yun Seo-ah didn't take the victims' phones one by one.
Instead, she pulled empty chairs into a circle.
"You can hand them to me directly, or you can just tell me. I won't write it on your behalf."
She looked at Park Eun-hui.
"Just like we did just now."
Park Eun-hui nodded.
Her hands were still shaking, but she did not hide her phone.
Just then, a brief voice leaked out from the sealed case one last time.
"In the event of exposure on-site, shift the blame to the victim—"
Click.
The case shut down completely on its own.
The expressions of everyone in the hallway hardened instantly.
I let out a low chuckle.
"Shift the blame to the victim?"
My palm began to heat up again.
But Cha Yu-ri's hand came down on the back of my hand first.
"That's enough."
"They aren't done talking yet," I said.
"Yes, they are. That machine just finished it with its own mouth."
She was right.
The voice trying to blame the victims had cut out right in front of them.
No greater counterattack was needed.
Min-seok asked hesitantly,
"So... we can speak now, right?"
Cha Yu-ri answered,
"You may speak."
Lee Na-gyeong added,
"I will record it."
Yun Seo-ah spoke last.
"And if anyone tells you to be quiet behind the scenes next time, give that number to me first."
She still didn't look at me.
But she didn't turn her back on me either.
Sitting among the victims, she was filling the holes left by the number that demanded silence, one by one.
I leaned back into the hospital room.
The heat in my palm didn't rise past two point five.
Yu-ri's patch felt cool between my fingers, and the phone in the hallway no longer rang.
It wasn't that the phone had gone quiet.
It was that the people refused to be silenced any longer.