The Line That Must Not Be Crossed
When Ja Hayeon opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the dull ache in the back of her neck.
She'd been knocked out cold with a karate chop, after all.
She'd always assumed that technique belonged strictly in dramas—never imagined she'd be on the receiving end of one.
Or, no... perhaps he had simply brought his hand down without the slightest mercy.
It had hurt that much, and more to the point, she found it hard to believe the man in front of her had held back out of any consideration for her.
"Oh, you're awake?"
A man greeted her revival with a bright, beaming smile—when on earth had he even found the time to check on her?
She caught herself glaring at his face with open hostility, yet his expression didn't so much as flicker.
...Better than provoking a kidnapper, she supposed, but his attitude suggested he was utterly indifferent to how anyone reacted to him.
That grinning face of his was less a smile than every other expression carved away, leaving only the smile behind—a creepiness that clung to it. It was too crude to be called a mask; it felt like a photograph of a smiling face printed out and pasted over his features.
Either way, she could not bring herself to believe that the man before her was smiling in earnest.
"What on earth is going on here?"
"Hm? Pretty calm, aren't you? Or have you just given up, figuring there's nothing you can do anyway?"
It wasn't an unfair read.
Green as she was, Ja Hayeon was still a hunter.
And—
Though he'd never told her outright, lest it breed complacency, Park Woochan privately judged that in certain specialized fields, Ja Hayeon was on par with a D-Rank hunter.
D-Rank, by the numbers.
Objectively speaking, hardly an impressive level.
But considering it had been less than half a year since she'd even become aware of her own status as a hunter, her growth was nothing short of exceptional.
And—
The man before her had abducted her at a speed she couldn't react to at all.
He was not an opponent against whom halfhearted resistance would work.
There was nothing she could do right now anyway.
Which meant the wisest course was simply to wait until Park Woochan came to rescue her.
Settled.
The moment she reached that conclusion, her heart grew calm.
Park Woochan would come for her without fail.
And he would flatten this man in an instant.
No problem. No need to panic, either.
Forcing down the turmoil churning in her chest, Ja Hayeon resolved to believe exactly that.
"Anyway! Friend, there's something I'd like to ask you."
"I'm not your friend."
Even snapped at so bluntly, the man showed no reaction whatsoever.
Instead, he calmly took her words in stride and replied,
"That's why I'm giving you the chance to become one now~"
He rubbed his hands together with a glib, breezy air.
He looked for all the world like a fly, and before she knew it, Ja Hayeon let out a short, involuntary laugh.
At the same time, she took stock of her body.
She already knew, but her hands and feet were bound tight with rope.
She'd heard he had restraints designed to nullify mana—perhaps this rope was one of those.
Weren't those normally used on criminals with hunter backgrounds?
She couldn't tell whether this rope was one of them, but for now, all she could do was wait in silence.
He wasn't an opponent she could beat by slinging a few curses.
It would only sharpen his vigilance.
A wise judgment. Even as she thought so, her shoulders slumped before she could stop them.
The image of Yoonha being abducted not long ago floated up in her mind.
Back then, it had never once crossed her mind that she might end up in the same position.
"See, when I fought him last time, I realized something—that Park Woochan fellow seems to know about my ability."
"Hah."
"Well, it's the Association's sneaky trick, isn't it? Those bastards, going out of their way to interfere in a duel between men."
Of course, Park Woochan had never once considered his fight with the man a fair duel.
Neither had Ja Hayeon—and the man almost certainly hadn't either.
"So I decided I had no choice but to meet the conditions myself, you see?"
Redundant behavior.
And yet, cunning and meticulous all the same.
That was how Ja Hayeon assessed the man before her.
His words still lacked all logical coherence.
Even so, he had an uncanny, almost demonic grasp of exactly what he needed.
The information gap.
He was likely trying to claw back, even now, the concept Park Woochan had hammered home again and again in class.
...It felt like conversing with someone from an ancient age.
The conversation didn't add up. Their ways of thinking were fundamentally different.
But—
The man before her was, without question, a warrior.
What was needed to fight, how to kill an enemy—
In all matters of combat, he was relentless to the point of incomprehensibility, and more barbaric still.
"So tell me—what's Park Woochan's hobby?"
This question was no different.
The man hadn't asked about Park Woochan's ability. He hadn't tried to dig out his tactics.
No meal is ever finished on the first spoonful, after all.
It wasn't a question that would earn an answer just because he asked it now.
Perhaps he had already confirmed it during that "previous battle" he'd mentioned.
Not that there'd been any need to ask about a hobby even then.
Which is why the reverse deduction came to her easily.
The question was small talk designed to erode her guard, a probe, and at the same time reconnaissance into Park Woochan as an individual.
Park Woochan was strong.
The man couldn't win against him—no, that wasn't certain either—but he was hardly an opponent who could be beaten easily.
Then why would there be any need to fight honestly?
Why would he bother fighting fair?
Analyze the situation. Read the flow. Mix in provocations to shatter composure.
Then, methodically, one step toward the opening you forced into being.
What it takes to end a life is not a flashy ability, but a steady, unerring single strike.
The man—Kim Minchul—knew this.
"Sure, I can tell you that much? I just want to be friends with that Park Woochan kid~"
Ptooey.
And so—
Rather than answer Kim Minchul's question, Ja Hayeon spat in his face.
"Impressive."
Kim Minchul nodded inwardly.
This is going to be quite difficult, isn't it~
"Well, anyway."
I got annoyed, so I decided to go with confidence instead.
Thwack!!
"Kgh...!"
With a sickening sound, Kim Minchul's kick buried itself in Ja Hayeon's abdomen.
The impact—even the academy uniform of specially woven material couldn't absorb it—wrenched her organs.
Bile surged up before she could stop it, and she doubled over, curled in on herself.
Kim Minchul seized her by the hair and hauled her head up.
With his other hand, he slapped her full across the face.
Crack—a dry, sharp sound rang out.
"My, my. Whatever gave you the confidence to be this bold?"
"Ugh...?!"
"Ah, no—I actually do know. You think he'll come save you, don't you?"
"Hah... hah..."
"Well, you're not wrong. Why, back during the Great Invasion, there were plenty of people like that~"
"What... what on earth are you talking about...?"
"People who, having lost the one they truly wanted, satisfied themselves with a substitute instead. You know—family, a lover, that sort of thing?"
At Kim Minchul's words, Ja Hayeon's eyes flew wide open before she could help it.
Giggling with evident satisfaction, Kim Minchul drank in the sight.
"For me, it's truly an incomprehensible story. Wouldn't you agree? Bonds and love are precious things. There's nothing in this world that can stand in for them, is there?"
Her violet eyes trembled.
Beyond the blue hair he had wrenched toward him, he held her gaze with his own.
"That's why I'm going to such lengths here, all on my own, to try to understand. Hm? Won't you help me out a little?"
But still, there was no answer.
At this rate, even Kim Minchul let out a long, deep sigh.
It looked like this would be a rather lengthy conversation.
To put it simply, bringing Tiamat on board had an effect far beyond excessive.
Because in the small hours of this morning, Hayeon—who had left for school ahead of me—had simply vanished without a trace.
About that, I could only say it was my oversight.
If the opponent were a monster, I could sense it across the entire city without fail.
Even against a hunter, unless they were some specialized mana-detection type, my senses wouldn't fall short.
In numerical terms: every monster, without exception; and for hunters, anything A+ Rank and below, I could pick up with certainty.
But—
A hunter's abilities are, in the end, merely a subset of their physical capacity.
They fluctuate with condition; using them doesn't guarantee the same result every time.
Say, for instance, there hadn't been any monster attacks lately.
Or that this particular incident seemed to have nothing to do with Hayeon.
On a day when you let your guard down in that fashion, a gap opens up just as surely.
Of course, even with a gap, I could filter out any middling hunter—the problem was that Kim Minchul was no middling hunter.
To state the conclusion: Kim Minchul had abducted Hayeon.
And once that conclusion was reached, the rest of the story moved quickly.
"This won't do."
It had been nothing more than a convenient lie—a whole day of him prattling about leniency—but I decided to kill Kim Minchul.
No, really.
It was almost startling, actually.
What the hell is going on in that bastard's head?
How does he manage to get under my skin in precisely the worst possible ways?
At first, I'd thought it was entirely about Tiamat.
Then, though it still creeped me out a little, being human, I leaned somewhat more toward Kim Minchul than toward Tiamat.
Who knew he'd come to kill me, of all people—but still, I had my reservations about murder.
However.
He crossed the line, three strikes and out.
"Yeah, this won't do."
This wasn't a man who'd respond to redemption or repentance or any of that.
First he nursed murderous intent over something as trivial as who got to pour Tiamat's drinks, and now he was reaching for a girl with no connection to him whatsoever.
Worse, there was no guarantee this would be the last time.
Hayeon was a hunter, sure, but next to Kim Minchul she was a spring chick.
The moment he laid hands on a girl like that, who could honestly guarantee he wouldn't do the same to ordinary civilians?
No—by his own logic, Hayeon and the boarding house landlady were exactly the same to him.
Neither one someone he knew personally, right?
And yet he had reached for Hayeon without a moment's hesitation.
...Everyone has a line drawn somewhere in their heart.
In that sense, the line I'd drawn for myself was truly simple.
Do not harm others for your own sake.
Do not wield power over others for the sake of your own desires.
That was the iron rule I'd set for myself in this era, to live as a hunter rather than a butcher.
And—
He had crossed exactly that line.
The moment he did, the judgment was made: this bastard had to die, or there was no resolving it.
Therefore—
After submitting to Choi Seungjun what amounted to a vacation notice rather than a request, I walked out through the academy gates.
"Now, just a moment!"
Tiamat came rushing after me.
But right now, I had no room to spare.
Frankly, if Kim Minchul had been a monster, I might have lost my mind entirely.
Ironically enough, what was preserving Kim Minchul's lifeline in this very moment was not the love of the goddess he'd clung to so desperately, but nothing more than the bloodline inherited from his adoptive mother.
I slowly turned my gaze toward Tiamat.
I have no idea what expression I was wearing.
One thing was certain, though: at that moment, there wasn't a single thought in my head about friction with the Association, or anything of the sort.
If Tiamat had said even one word in his defense, I would have severed her neck where she stood.
Even if it meant going to war with the Association.
She flinched, trembling under my gaze.
Even so, the goddess spoke with composure.
"I shall follow as well."
"Get lost."
It wasn't that I was hoping to spare Kim Minchul's life, but as it happened, I had no magnanimity left to accommodate this woman's demands.
Frankly, I was on the verge of blowing my lid.
Granted, Tiamat could fight in her own right.
By my assessment, her true body was roughly S-Rank.
Her avatar possessed ability on par with about A+ Rank.
"You're in the way."
A monster fidgeting beside me mid-fight was nothing but a nuisance.
I'd be far more tempted to kill this woman first, before Kim Minchul.
No—that had been true until just now.
The only reason I wasn't lopping off this woman's head at this very moment was a single fact: she, too, was a victim of Kim Minchul.
Fellow sufferers, you might call it.
But still—
"Can you even fight in the first place?"
"That is..."
"Think carefully before you answer. I'm asking whether you could bring yourself to kill your adopted son—your first devotee."
True to form, Tiamat could not answer that question either.
But soon, in a voice like a mosquito crawling across the wall, she spoke again.
"I will not interfere. I can be of help to you."
"You?"
"Aye. Have you forgotten? He is a hunter upon whom I bestowed my blessing."
A scoff almost slipped out of me, but Tiamat answered calmly.
It wasn't wrong.
And honestly, I was in a bind.
For all my charging out the door, I had no way to locate Kim Minchul.
No matter what, back-tracing his position from the flow of mana across this New City was impossible.
I wasn't a professional detection-type, after all.
"Then explain."
"Hm. You will know this already, but a hunter who receives a Constellation's blessing enters into a covenant of sorts with the Constellation that grants it."
I knew the story.
A Constellation's blessing was never free.
In exchange for power granted to their thrall, a Constellation demands devotion from the hunter who becomes one.
Sometimes, faith.
Sometimes, the expansion of their influence.
And sometimes, the role of a hammer—fulfilling the will of the god they serve, striking down the enemies of that faith.
According to one theory, the heroes of various myths—the demigods, the avatars of gods—may have been the same.
In other words, those chosen by a Constellation gain power beyond ordinary humans.
And in return, they face trials that call for exactly such power.
Thanks to this, those with a Constellation could grow stronger far faster than other hunters.
For one, the Constellation only selects those with talent to begin with—and unlike other hunters, who had to grow by banging their heads against a brick wall, the Constellation arranged trials suited to them.
The final destination might be the same, but the speed of arrival was a different dimension entirely.
Kim Minchul was surely one of that number.
And what he was invoking now was precisely this covenant between Constellation and hunter.
In short—a so-called oracle, or the conduit through which such oracles descend.
Considering that a Constellation is a monster, it might be something close to the network an alpha male holds as leader of the pack.
"You're going to use that?"
"Aye. Through it, I can learn his location."
"...Will that thing even work?"
But—
My own doubt lay in exactly that place.
Could a conduit left abandoned for—what, several years?—still be used at this point?
"No problem. I have verified it many times before."
"Ah. Right."
To my skepticism, Tiamat responded with a bitter smile.
Frankly, I didn't much care.
As I've said time and again, he is not some tragic victim.
Whatever Tiamat may think of him, to me Kim Minchul is nothing but a lunatic who crossed the line and then kept on crossing it.
I had no interest in a long-winded recitation of his sob-story past, not now.
I didn't want to empathize with him any more than necessary, either.
"Fine. Let's go."
"Are our odds good?"
Probably because she knew the outcome of our last fight.
The goddess seemed to want to add a few more words, but instead of opening her mouth needlessly, she simply asked that.
Odds. Odds, she says.
There's no such thing.
From the start, the time I'd been given was truly short.
And my opponent was an S-Rank hunter.
Not someone to be taken lightly.
But—
"Ah."
That was assuming I intended to subdue him.
If I simply meant to kill him, the odds had been in my favor from the beginning.
Mind you, it wouldn't be easy.
But—
As it happened, right now, I wasn't in the mood to hold back on my methods.