The Birth of the Special Division
“Are you all right?”
How long had it even been since I’d contacted him?
Boss Baek came rushing over, coffee cart in tow. Uijeongbu wasn’t exactly close.
“I stepped on it a little.”
Boss Baek’s eyes swept quickly over my entire body.
“No injuries, I see.”
“Yeah, well.”
“A Wave-type, of all things. I was worried.”
Somehow it felt exactly like my mom’s reaction back when I’d broken a window with a ball.
“I don’t do the fighting. My minions do.”
“Next time, at least give me a heads-up.”
“It’s your day off, Boss.”
“Don’t you need a team to collect the monster byproducts? That much overtime is fine.”
As if on cue, the recovery crew was already hauling out the raptor corpses.
“You have to tell me these things if we’re going to prevent mishaps like this.”
“Ha, haha.”
“Raptors are a primitive species. I know Hunter Park is exceptional, but this was recklessness.”
Boss Baek spoke with an unprecedentedly firm expression.
Ugh. Sorry.
“If you’re going into a gate, you must tell me!”
“Yes, sir.”
Boss Baek let out a short sigh. If I tried something like “Everyone made it out fine, so it’s okay, right?” I was pretty sure I’d just get more of an earful.
“Anyway, I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
“By the way—when a gate’s rank goes up, do variants get more common?”
“No. Statistically speaking, they don’t.”
Strange. Same as with the last gate break. Encounters with variants had been spiking lately. If this gate hadn’t had a variant boss monster, my life wouldn’t have been hanging by a thread either.
When I mentioned it to Boss Baek—
“A variant?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s odd.”
He made no effort to hide his puzzlement.
“I’ll put in an inquiry with the Rift Bureau.”
I doubted an inquiry would yield any special answers. Better to just chalk it up to bad luck.
I was chatting idly with Boss Baek, waiting for the site to be cleaned up, when the Phoenix Guild hunters approached with awkward, hesitant steps.
“Um… um… uh…”
“Park Minho. Not ‘um.’”
“Well, the thing is…”
The big hunter who’d picked a fight at the gate entrance kept glancing left and right. Why the long wind-up? Was he about to chew me out for snatching their assigned gate?
“Anyway, the gate monopoly’s over—”
“Th-thank you!”
Huh?
“If we’d fought the boss ourselves, a few of us definitely would’ve died.”
The big hunter bowed at a full ninety degrees.
“I apologize again for the harsh words earlier, and… thank you!”
“Thank you!”
The Phoenix hunters behind him bowed as well. Their ways of expressing it differed slightly, but every one of them felt sincere.
I took him for a petty man, yet he knows courtesy.
He apologized, even if late. I was ready to thrash him otherwise.
True enough. Hunters from the domestic Top Five were all prideful to a fault. It made sense. Just passing a guild interview was considered enough to place you in the top one percent of Korean hunters—that was the Top Five’s reputation. High rank or low? Didn’t matter. A hunter’s growth ceiling arrived sooner or later at C-class. Even reaching the level cap of 150 meant nothing if you failed to gain enlightenment and pass the promotion exam. That was why C to B was called the hellish wall.
Being scouted by a Top Five guild meant you had a high chance of breaking through that plateau. And those high-nosed types had come to me first to apologize?
Well. That left a strange feeling.
“You’ll find yourself in situations like this more and more often from now on,” Boss Baek said with absolute conviction.
Anyway.
“You worked today, so take tomorrow off.”
“I’m fine.”
“I felt my shortcomings pretty keenly this time.”
The Armed Zombie Warrior had been destroyed, and I’d been in real danger myself. Half of it had been self-inflicted, sure.
I beg of you—do not overexert yourself next time.
’Tis bad for the heart. Mean you to slay us twice?
They didn’t even have anything resembling a heart. Pointing that out, though, would have been terrible timing. It was true I’d taken reckless risks to bring down the blue raptor.
“I did clear the support team’s schedule, but—”
“Ah. Perfect, then.”
Dame Isra. You said you wanted to put those friends of yours through their paces, didn’t you?
“I’m planning training for tomorrow. Tell them to join us.”
Knock, knock—
Director Jeong Seungil of the Counter-Abnormal Bureau knocked and waited a moment.
“Come in.”
“Excuse me.”
Jeong Seungil eased the door open and stepped inside. The edge of the nameplate on the desk—
Choi Jiung, Commissioner of the Rift Management Bureau
—caught the sunlight and flashed a sharp gleam.
“What brings you, Senior?”
“Please speak formally. Hierarchy will collapse.”
“Come on, it’s just the two of us. Isn’t that a bit stiff?”
“What must be observed must be observed. Maintain your attitude as a superior.”
Commissioner Choi Jiung let out a short sigh and shook his head.
“Still as rigid as ever, Senior.”
Director Jeong Seungil made no reply and simply stared. His attitude made it clear he would not speak until the word “Senior” was dropped. Choi Jiung was the first to raise the white flag.
“Sigh. Fine. Enough of that—let’s talk business.”
“Yes.”
The two men sat facing each other. As the word “Senior” suggested, before becoming commissioner Choi Jiung had been Jeong Seungil’s junior assistant.
This seat should have been Senior’s to begin with.
Because Jeong Seungil had stayed put as Director of the Counter-Abnormal Bureau, Choi—then head of Department 1—had rocketed past the director rank straight to commissioner. Within the Rift Bureau, the Counter-Abnormal Bureau held the strongest position. As the actual combat arm it commanded a large budget. Even with Choi’s unprecedented promotion, major internal backlash had never materialized—thanks to the existence of an outlier like Jeong Seungil.
His achievements would have made commissioner long ago. No—higher than that; he was the sort who should have been wearing a badge in the National Assembly. Yet he refused any promotion above director specifically so he could keep working in the field. And he never overstepped his authority either. Even now, look at him.
Calling him Senior, and what does he say?
Honestly. “Maintain your attitude as a superior.”
Holding back another sigh at his old mentor’s rigidity, Choi finally spoke.
“You’re here about founding the Special Division, right?”
“Yes.”
Jeong Seungil answered at once, as if he had been waiting for the question. The Special Division—the name of the new organization planned by the Counter-Abnormal Bureau.
“Recently the frequency of variant monster appearances has increased by dozens of times.”
“Yes. I’ve already reviewed the contents of the report.”
“The Guui-dong gate break was also caused by a variant monster.”
An evolved Predatory Ghoul. A C-class boss emerging from a D-class gate. Every hunter who had entered had died. The mana distribution had spiked sharply, and the situation had deteriorated into a full gate break.
“Fortunately there have been no other incidents besides Guui-dong.”
“We were lucky.”
He meant it. The interior of a gate was isolated from the outside world. Even when an accident occurred inside, grasping the situation and cleaning it up took considerable time.
“In just one month there have been six confirmed variant appearances. The fact that there were no other casualties besides Guui-dong is practically a miracle.”
“We cannot rely on miracles forever.”
“So you’re saying we need the Special Division.”
“With only the hunters of the Counter-Abnormal Bureau, we cannot respond to every variable that arises in every gate across the country.”
The Rift Management Bureau—more precisely its subordinate Counter-Abnormal Bureau—had always lived with a dilemma. As an agency of the Republic of Korea government, its budget was limited. Treatment? It was good, actually. Perhaps because Korea’s hero hunter, Jeong Seungil, had held the director’s seat for so long. Welfare, equipment support, and more for Counter-Abnormal hunters went far beyond what one would expect for civil servants. And yet the biggest piece could never be filled.
“Low pay, right.”
Commissioner Choi answered with a sigh. Base salary was higher than that of ordinary civil servants, but it still fell short of the average hunter’s income. That was only natural—the state took forty percent of all income earned from gates. Ordinary hunter fees were ten percent, so the government was extracting four times the usual cut.
“If it hadn’t been for Senior—no, for Director Jeong—I never would have joined the Rift Bureau.”
It wasn’t all downsides. There was a solid welfare system. Once a week you could receive personal guidance from Director Jeong Seungil. There were other advantages to civil-service status as well. The problem was that they were all overshadowed by that crushing forty-percent fee.
“If the Special Division is founded, the Counter-Abnormal Bureau will have breathing room.”
“True. Since we’d be outsourcing.”
The core of the Special Division was the employment of external personnel. Hunters active in guilds, teams, or as independents could hold dual affiliation with the Special Division. They would enjoy all the benefits while never having to transfer their primary affiliation. In effect, they would be mercenaries mobilized only in emergencies.
“But won’t recruitment into the Counter-Abnormal Bureau plummet?”
Choi’s point was valid. Same benefits as Counter-Abnormal membership, yet the government fee would be the same as for ordinary hunters? It was a dangerous experiment that could hollow out the Counter-Abnormal Bureau itself.
“We’ll raise the hurdle.”
It would not be a department that accepted anyone who simply wanted in. Only hunters who passed the strict standards set by the Counter-Abnormal Bureau would be allowed into the Special Division. For example—
“You’re talking about the Guui-dong necromancer.”
“Yes.”
A D-class hunter who had slaughtered a variant C-class boss monster. Someone like Minho was exactly the kind of talent the Special Division needed.
“There’s also the matter of Hunter Jeong Sinho’s transfer.”
“Damn it.”
Commissioner Choi’s face twisted sharply.
“Because of that bastard I had to sit through a National Assembly audit.”
“Wasn’t it just a formality?”
“Want to try it yourself, Senior? Sitting there listening to assemblymen blather on just makes you furious—ugh.”
When Choi vented his feelings, even Jeong Seungil—who had insisted on not being called Senior—said nothing more. Everyone knew it hadn’t been the Rift Bureau’s fault. Even so, once an incident occurred, responsibility had to be assigned. Recalling the audit, Choi finally managed to cool his anger.
“We’ll have to approach it as dual management of talented personnel.”
The Special Division would become a mark of a gifted hunter—or of national recognition. At the same time, it would serve as a dual safeguard to keep powerful hunters from being poached by other countries.
“I’ll report it to the President.”
At Choi’s answer, Jeong Seungil smiled.