Chapter 354: Like Mother, Like Daughter (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 354: Like Mother, Like Daughter (6)
It was two days ago.
The day the prospective guild members, minus Han Ju-hee, gathered in the club room.
“Let’s pick a guild name.”
At Shin Yu-jeong’s words, a meeting began to decide the name that would represent them.
“Doesn’t the guild leader usually decide that…?”
Im Na-eun offered a very sensible objection.
In response, Shin Yu-jeong gestured with her chin toward Kim Do-jin, who was pouting with a look of utter dissatisfaction.
“This guy’s naming sense sucks. No, ‘sucks’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s catastrophic!”
“Ah, right, I see…”
Im Na-eun hastily backed down in the face of her domineering presence.
Regardless of whether Kim Do-jin’s face was now covered in scowls, the meeting began.
“Everyone, just say one name that sounds good.”
The first to raise her hand was Elena.
“What about Valhalla?!”
Judging by how she answered as if she’d been waiting, it was a word she held dear for one reason or another.
It was a decent name.
Shin Yu-jeong immediately typed ‘Valhalla’ into her smartphone’s search bar and hit enter.
“Ah, that guild name already exists.”
“Oh, ah…”
Elena slumped in her seat, dejected.
“Don’t you have any other names?”
At her follow-up question, Im Na-eun cautiously raised her hand this time.
“How about ‘Mir’…? It’s a native Korean word for dragon.”
“Taken.”
“What about ‘Mirinae’?!”
“That one too.”
“W-Wait, are there really that many guilds in our country?!”
“A lot. Ninety percent of them disappear before long, but for now, they’re in use.”
Guilds founded on youthful passion and lofty dreams of success often vanish without a trace.
This was because the guilds founded by those who had to learn things the hard way usually tasted like shit.
There was far more work to do than they had ever imagined, and for all that effort, there were no real rewards.
Those who despaired would pull out before they fell deeper into it, returning to where they came from.
To the embrace of the large guilds that had managed to succeed even after tasting that shit over and over again.
After all the names she had boldly suggested were shot down, Im Na-eun asked with a gloomy expression.
“Yu-jeong, do you have anything in mind…?”
“Of course, I do.”
Shin Yu-jeong answered with confidence.
As everyone looked at her with anticipation, she continued.
“Harem.”
“Uh…?”
Harem.
Though its actual meaning is different, it’s a word commonly used to describe a situation where one man is involved with multiple women.
Shin Yu-jeong grinned slyly and poked the side of Kim Do-jin, who was sitting with a sullen expression.
“Isn’t he the perfect example of a harem? Huh? There are tons of pretty girls like us, and he’s the only guy. Right? Huh?”
“Even so, isn’t that a bit… much for a guild name?”
“I agree, Yu-jeong.”
“I’m not too keen on it either…”
Im Na-eun, Elena, and Son Seo-yeon voiced their opposition in that order.
Shin Yu-jeong clicked her tongue.
“Tsk… really?”
It was a shame.
But she knew it too.
The word ‘Harem’ was hardly appropriate for a guild name.
The surprising fact was that she had chosen it fully aware of that.
Damn… it was a chance to scare off all those foxy bitches.
She figured that if they used this name, no other female guild members would even dare to join.
Doesn’t it sound like a name where the guild leader, Kim Do-jin, and the founding female members are all tangled up in inappropriate relationships?
What about the embarrassment of having such a guild name?
She’d thrown away that kind of shame long ago.
When you live in fear that even your own mother could become a rival, what’s a little embarrassment over a guild name?
…Still, it’s a pity, but I guess it can’t be helped.
She soon gave up.
She couldn’t just push it through when every other guild member was against it.
Afterward, Elena and Im Na-eun threw out a few more decent-sounding names, but it was all in vain.
“They’re all taken, every single one.”
It seemed every plausible name was already in use as a guild name.
Just as they were all growing weary, feeling as if they were facing an impregnable fortress they couldn’t breach no matter how hard they tried…
Son Seo-yeon, who had been quietly watching the three’s heated discussion, raised her hand.
“I just thought of something.”
“Oh, what is it?”
All eyes turned to her, a person who rarely asserted her own opinions.
The three slightly exhausted girls, and even Kim Do-jin.
She murmured softly.
“Twilight… how about it?”
The reactions of those who heard it were split in two.
One person’s face hardened as if they found something displeasing, while three others nodded, mulling over the name ‘Twilight’ with a good feeling.
“Twilight… not bad.”
Shin Yu-jeong, one of the latter, immediately typed the name into the search bar and then smiled brightly.
“Wow, and it’s not even taken!”
A guild named Twilight did not exist.
Which meant they could use it as their guild name if they wanted.
Elena, who liked the feel of the word itself, asked.
“But… what does ‘Twilight’ mean?”
The one who answered her question was not Shin Yu-jeong or Son Seo-yeon, but Kim Do-jin, whose face was still stiff.
“…Dusk.”
He made her understand instantly with the English word for twilight, his gaze then turning to Son Seo-yeon.
“Seo-yeon sunbae.”
“Yes.”
“That word… it could cause controversy.”
At that, Son Seo-yeon smiled bitterly.
“I guess… you’re right.”
As the two of them had a conversation only they understood, a bewildered Shin Yu-jeong asked.
“What, what is it? Why would using the name Twilight be controversial?”
“Twilight means the dim light around the time the sun is setting.”
“And?”
“The problem is… a guild with a name that has the opposite meaning already exists.”
“The opposite… meaning?”
You still don’t get it after I’ve explained this much…
Kim Do-jin smiled bitterly and added an explanation.
“The faint light when the day is beginning to break.”
A word that means the beginning of the day, unlike twilight, which means the end.
“Dawn.”
“……!”
“Ah…!”
As soon as the word was out, Shin Yu-jeong’s eyes widened as if they would tear, and Im Na-eun let out a gasp.
Dawn.
The power that word held was that immense.
Why?
“Oh… isn’t Dawn the guild led by Hunter Son Si-woo?”
The answer could be found in the words of Elena, who answered innocently, knowing nothing.
Son Si-woo.
Because it was the name of the number one ranked guild, led by the best Hunter in South Korea, the national Hunter himself.
What did that mean?
“The word ‘Twilight’ is highly likely to be seen as a declaration of war or a direct challenge, implying that we will end their era and take their place.”
The reason Kim Do-jin was so stiff-faced and opposed to it was precisely because of this hidden meaning.
“Come on… isn’t that a bit of an over-interpretation?”
One could argue that interpreting it that way based on a single word was a huge leap in logic.
However.
“It’s not a leap. At least, not to reporters.”
To reporters thirsty for a scoop, this was not a leap in logic at all.
And even if that wasn’t the intended meaning, so what?
The saying, “If you hang it on your ear, it’s an earring; if you hang it on your nose, it’s a nose ring,” didn’t exist for nothing. [T/N: An idiom meaning something can be interpreted in any way you want.]
If they claimed they wrote the article because that’s how they interpreted it, what more could be said?
“Ah…”
Shin Yu-jeong understood immediately.
Since becoming a Hunter, she too had come to grasp what kind of beings those with the job title of ‘reporter’ were.
Her gaze turned to Son Seo-yeon.
“Sunbae… you didn’t really mean it that way… did you?”
Faced with a slightly suspicious look, Son Seo-yeon smiled and shook her head.
“Of course not.”
Twilight.
She hadn’t held that word in her heart and spoken it aloud to surpass her father.
“A long time ago… when the guild was first being created, my dad said something.”
As a child, she had asked.
Why did you name the guild Dawn?
Recalling it now as an adult, her father back then had answered with a slightly bitter smile.
—It’s not what I wanted, but… your dad became the light that shines on South Korea.
That was the reason he named the guild Dawn.
To become the light that opens the world, just as the name implied.
Until the dangers lurking in this world disappeared.
Or until a new light of hope emerged to succeed him.
“He said the Dawn Guild would remain a light of hope until then.”
Back then, nestled in her father’s dependable arms, she had said.
—Then I’ll be the one to succeed you, Dad! I’m your daughter, so it’s right for me to do it!
She had wanted to become the new dawn.
But after growing up, she realized.
She could not become the dawn.
For a new light to rise, the old light must set, pass through the darkness, and rise once more.
That was why she changed her goal.
“The twilight that comes after the dawn… I want to protect that time.”
From the darkness that inevitably arrives when the light subsides.
“Until the day the light rises again.”
As she said this, Son Seo-yeon’s gaze was fixed on only one person: Kim Do-jin.
The new light of hope is you.
Her clear eyes were conveying that message to him.