The Cost of Trusting a Successor
The dial tone rang out through the silence.
I began to feel a twinge of real concern — wondering, for a moment, whether Na Jiseon might actually be dead after all.
The old grudges between us still hadn't been settled. That didn't mean I wanted her dead.
No… if anything, I needed her to stay alive. I needed her to pay, in full, for every scrap of suffering she had put me through.
If you've run off to the next world like this… Na Jiseon… I really won't forgive you then. If you've done wrong… you stay alive and make it right.
My grip on the phone tightened without my realizing it.
Then—
"He… hello…?"
After that stretch of anxiety, a familiar voice came through the receiver. A deep relief washed over me, and I let out a small sigh.
"Hah… Na Jiseon. It's me."
"Tsk…"
A soft click of a tongue sounded from beside me. Right then, though, I had no capacity left to wonder what it was.
Because—
"Hic… uugh… uwaaah… O… Oppaaaa!!!"
A raw, heaving sob tore through the line. I stood there in blank bewilderment, unable to say a word, just holding the phone and listening to Na Jiseon cry for a solid ten minutes.
"Hic… uugh… uwaaah…"
It was the kind of weeping that sounded like the world itself had come down.
When it finally began to subside, I asked her in a calm voice:
"Have you calmed down a little?"
"Sniff… Y… yeah… S… sorry… b… but…"
"I heard the rough outline. Allied casualties were… pretty severe, right? Are you okay?"
"Y… yeah… I… I wasn't feeling great, and I still had that favor you asked me to take care of, so I sat this operation out. S… so the other three went in my place… but… but…"
Her voice threatened to break again. I pressed her with a touch of urgency.
"B… but what happened? Don't tell me… something happened to the others too? Th… the guild members… are the hunters of the 28th Guild safe?"
In that moment, my mind held no concern whatsoever for the S-class hunters.
What I worried about most were the A-, B-, and C-class hunters of the 28th Guild. Even though we'd parted ways when I was discharged, I had still been their commander for four years. I desperately hoped that, if no one else, at least they were safe.
But—
"Hic… hic…"
My hopes were dashed as only Na Jiseon's sniffling continued through the receiver, and my face gradually hardened into ice.
"…D… don't tell me… don't tell me… really…"
"Uugh… Th… they're dead… All of them… all of them… L… Lee Sena recklessly insisted on pursuing the enemy… th… they followed her and then…"
"…."
The moment those words hit me, a wave of dizziness took my legs out from under me.
And then—
"Ji… Jinhyun-ssi!"
Lee Are caught me. Her warm hands wrapped around my body, but I had no room left to notice any of that.
"D… dead… they said… all of them… every last one…"
I barely managed to keep holding the phone, murmuring in a trembling voice. Hearing me, Na Jiseon went on through her grief.
"Y… yeah… St… still… Sena and Yujin somehow made it back alive… but other than those two, I heard there's no one left alive among the 28th Guild members… E… even Jiyun… she held the line against the enemy at the end and then…"
"Damn it… Goddammit!!!!"
I could no longer hold the feeling down. The roar tore out of me raw.
Death in war was inevitable. That didn't mean you could ever treat those deaths as something natural — especially not when the people who died had once laughed and struggled through hardship right beside you.
I stood there for a while with tears falling, unable to hold myself up. Seeing me like that, Lee Are and the others grew solemn as well.
I… I was too complacent about the situation… No matter how capable the replacement was… I shouldn't have just left them and walked away…
The hunters of the 28th Guild, wiped out because of Lee Sena's reckless judgment.
Knowing full well what a hopeless person she was, I had always expected her to cause a major disaster someday. Even in ordinary times she had repeatedly ignored my command and caused problems large and small, and I had always had to plan and execute operations accounting for the fact that she would act on her own — impulsively.
In fact, that had been one of the hardest parts of working as an adjutant.
Having those S-class hunter women dump busywork on me or snap at me was something I could endure on my own. But that kind of problem in actual combat could put not only the rampaging Lee Sena but the other A-, B-, and C-class hunters in real danger. Since lives were on the line, I had to plan and execute operations accounting for every possible variable.
That had been my greatest concern when I was suddenly discharged from the hunter guild. Even so, I had decided to trust the elite adjutant who was supposedly coming in.
Unlike me — who had only formally trained in strategies against human armies, and who had been cobbling together operations based on the meager Abyss data I had collected myself — they had received thorough, formal education. I figured their skills would clearly surpass mine. And with that level of ability, I believed even Lee Sena would lower her tail somewhat and follow orders.
But—
My expectations proved worthless. Things had blown up just like this.
The annihilation of the 28th Guild… in the worst way I had feared.
I floated for a while in a storm of chaotic, dreadful feeling, unable to collect myself. Then, stepping in for me, Lee Are took the phone that was barely still in my hand and spoke in her characteristically calm voice.
"Pardon me. Jinhyun-ssi has taken such a severe shock that a normal conversation may not be possible right now."
The voice of that beauty from back then came through the receiver.
Na Jiseon's mood soured further for a moment, but given the situation, she decided not to show it. As the woman said, Lee Jinhyun would certainly have been hit hard by what he had just heard. In a situation like this, having the person next to him take the call was the right call.
Na Jiseon wiped the tears from her eyes and began to settle her emotions. Then the woman's voice came through again.
"However… would it be possible to get a more precise account of what happened? From our position, with no knowledge of the internal circumstances, there are quite a few things that simply don't add up."
Even without Lee Jinhyun, the current situation — not just the 28th Guild but other guilds getting swept up and suffering a crushing defeat all at once — was more than strange enough to warrant questions.
"Well… about that…"
Na Jiseon kept her emotions as steady as she could and, in a calm voice, began to relay everything she knew — the detailed account of the situation she had heard directly from Yujin.
Retreat. Feints. Ambushes.
The Abysses' strategic movements — something they had never once shown before.
Meanwhile, as she listened, Lee Are — and Lee Jinhyun, who despite his turmoil was managing to catch the conversation from beside her — felt a cold, hard emotion settle over their faces in place of grief.
I was afraid of this… but has it really come to this? …So those Abysses have made it this far…