The Interview
Morning. In a rundown villa.
Im Yunchan saw his children off at the front door.
"Both of you, have a good day at school."
"..."
His second child, Seoyun, now a middle schooler, left the house without a word.
"Dad, what about this month's academy fees? Am I the only one missing the special lectures?"
That was his firstborn, Minwoo.
Im Yunchan had no answer.
As if he had expected as much, Minwoo slammed the door and stormed out.
"Honey, don't take it too hard. The kids are just sensitive these days because of puberty."
"Yeah... seems so. Haha."
Im Yunchan forced a laugh in reply to his wife's words.
A short while later, after finishing his preparations, Im Yunchan stepped out of the house as well. He was dressed in a clean, well-pressed suit. His mother and wife were waiting for him at the entrance.
"Yunchan, you'll ruin your health. Don't push yourself too hard."
His elderly mother took his thin hand in hers. His wife adjusted his collar with a gentle smile.
"We're fine. We don't resent you for holding to your convictions. Go out there with your head held high."
"Thank you, honey. Mother, thank you. And... I'm sorry."
Im Yunchan left the house.
He was a legal elite, a former prosecutor. His subsequent career path had been excellent as well. Even if it was not one of the top ten guilds, he had been scouted into the legal team of the major-league Hwangryun Guild.
When it came to magic stone and magic metal refining technology, Hwangryun was the undisputed number one guild in the country. His future had looked like a smooth, paved road.
The true nature of Hwangryun Guild, however, was far from clean. It had been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese capital.
At first they had simply leaked Korea's magic stone refining technology to China. Once the Chinese guilds surged ahead technologically? Hwangryun became their hands and feet—acting as the vanguard for Chinese guilds to devour the Korean market, and they were still doing exactly that.
And the royal family? They had pocketed hundreds of billions in technology leaks and rebates. They had committed every kind of crime. Even the harmful byproducts generated during magic stone refining—substances that, if left unattended, could cause mana sensitivity and other illnesses in ordinary people—there were clear signs they had been dumping them without authorization.
In reality, countless cases of damage had already occurred. But a legal battle between a major guild and ordinary citizens? It simply could not stand. They demanded evidence, yet how were ordinary people supposed to obtain internal guild documents?
He had seen people screaming in despair. He had seen people dying.
At first Im Yunchan had tried to persuade the guild leader. It was never going to work. Instead the guild leader had only scolded him to stop making a fuss.
In the end, as a legal professional, he chose to become a whistleblower.
But what returned was not justice.
Vicious harassment. Blacklisting. Dishonorable discharge.
Moreover, Hwangryun Guild used every means at their disposal to crush him financially as well. Money sources dried up one after another. Eventually they lost their apartment and the family was driven into a villa neighborhood.
And that was not all he had to endure.
They're here again today.
As Im Yunchan stepped out of the entrance to the shabby villa complex, a cold gaze stabbed into his back.
Across the street sat a black sedan. Men in sunglasses were smoking cigarettes with feigned indifference. They were hunters from Hwangryun Guild.
After already burying him in the industry with every vicious method imaginable, they had attached twenty-four-hour surveillance just in case Im Yunchan might still leak other evidence.
I did nothing wrong.
He steeled his heart. What allowed him to keep enduring was his father's dying wish. He still remembered that day when the Dungeon Impact had erupted.
Father...
It had been the day he was accepted into the law school of a prestigious university, and the whole family had gone out to celebrate together.
A Dungeon Impact erupted and citizens were thrown into danger. High-rank hunters would need time to arrive. That was when his father stepped forward. Im Yunchan's father was a hunter still actively working in his middle age.
"Yunchan, take Mom and go far away. Dad will be right there."
Those were the last words.
His father had recklessly stood in front of the magic beasts. Yunchan later learned that his father's rank had been nowhere near enough to stop the Dungeon Impact of that day. As a hunter himself, his father must have known that fact perfectly well.
Yet he stepped forward. He probably had not gone out intending to die. He had probably meant to save people as best he could and then pull out. But faced with the danger those people were in, he had overdone it.
In the end, his father returned as a cold corpse.
Young Yunchan had resented his father to some degree, yet he had also respected him. Especially when the media ran articles praising his father as a hero, he had felt proud. But even that did not last long.
Public interest cooled quickly. National compensation? They threw him a consolation payment roughly the size of funeral expenses and promptly forgot him.
After that, Im Yunchan made a vow. He would not live like his father. He would seize power and authority so that he would never be ignored again. When he became a prosecutor and sat in a key position at a guild, he thought he had achieved his goal.
But the moment he faced the true face of Hwangryun, he realized the truth. Monsters who sold the nation's technology to Chinese capital. In a way, was this not the very country his father had protected? And these were the ones ruining it.
"Yunchan, a person cannot live without convictions. If you only chase money, you're no different from a beast in the end."
That was why he had chosen to whistleblow. Im Yunchan smiled bitterly.
This is the last time. I'll try just once more, and if it doesn't work, I'll simply join the legal team of the overseas guild that already scouted me.
And the place Im Yunchan was heading today was the Veteran Guild—thanks to a recommendation from Seo Jihun, his high school classmate.
Yunchan stepped into the lobby. Behind the reception desk, his old classmate Seo Jihun came out to meet him.
"You made it, Yunchan."
Jihun's eyes were sharper than usual.
"A guy who used to be a chief prosecutor looking this nervous?"
"I'm meeting the office manager of a top-ten guild. Of course I am."
"Haha. You should be more worried about impressing our guild leader than me."
At the words "guild leader," Yunchan carefully asked,
"About the previous Veteran Guild leader, Park Isaac..."
"Don't worry. The current acting guild leader is completely different from that piece of trash."
"Is that so?"
Jihun nodded firmly.
"Yeah. He's someone special."
"I see. Whew."
Im Yunchan adjusted his tie. The heels of his worn shoes clicked clearly against the marble floor.
"Then I'll see you in the interview room."
"Yeah."
After parting with Seo Jihun, Yunchan followed a staff member's guidance into the interview room.
Several people were already inside. S-rank Hunter Baek Hayan, his classmate Seo Jihun whom he had just seen, and one more man seated in the center—Acting Guild Leader Kang Hanul.
Yunchan swallowed hard.
So this is the acting guild leader Jihun has been praising so highly. Younger than I expected.
"Good morning."
He calmed his nerves, offered a greeting, and surveyed the room again. Only then did he notice one more person.
Completely out of place in an interview room, a young girl in a gothic dress was wandering around freely. She was no illusion. Yunchan deliberately pretended not to see her.
"Then let's begin the interview."
"Yes!"
The Q&A that followed was led by Baek Hayan and Seo Jihun.
"A former prosecutor and legal team leader of Hwangryun Guild. Your résumé is impressive."
"Thank you."
Baek Hayan asked a few formal questions. In contrast, Im Yunchan answered like the expert he was, citing legal knowledge and actual applications of Hunter Law.
"Mr. Im Yunchan, what do you consider the most fatal legal risk in guild operations?"
Seo Jihun set aside any personal feelings as a classmate and asked a practical question.
"It may be a sensitive topic, but I believe it is owner risk. In the case of guilds especially, the tendency for the guild leader and royal family to treat the organization as private property is strong..."
Im Yunchan answered without hesitation. The insight and conviction of a seasoned professional were clearly on display.
"I'll ask one as well. What do you consider the best thing you've done in your life?"
In the middle of the interview, Hanul finally spoke.
"I believe it was inheriting my father's convictions. My father was a hunter..."
Hanul simply listened and did not dig any further. He already knew the words were not empty. Through Seo Jihun he had heard that this man had become a whistleblower for the sake of the people of this country. And those convictions had been inherited from his father, a national meritorious person.
"I like him."
Barely any time had passed since the interview began, yet Hanul smiled faintly. Beside him, Hatchery clapped her hands and laughed.
"Waaah! Looks like Master likes him~yong! Ajo-ssi, congratulations~yong! You passed!"
"Pardon? Already?"
Hanul rose from his seat.
"Start work tomorrow."
"Wh—yes!"
"And let me make one thing perfectly clear. As long as you stay loyal to me, I take good care of my subordinates. So if you ever face any injustice from outside, you come tell me right away. No exceptions."
For a moment Im Yunchan was completely stunned. In all this time, people had only abandoned him. When had anyone ever said they would look after him?
While he stood there dazed, Hanul walked past him and left the room.
"Office Manager Seo, assign this guy a position."
"Yes, understood. Thank you for your hard work on the interview!"
Seo Jihun bowed. With that, the interview was over.
"You bastard, starting tomorrow we're officially eating from the same pot. See you tomorrow."
"I'm Baek Hayan. Looking forward to working with you."
"Ah, yes. The pleasure is all mine."
Only a dazed Im Yunchan remained in the room. It was absurd. At every other guild interview the same questions had always followed—his history as a whistleblower, the sneering remarks about how they were supposed to trust a traitor.
There was no way the Veteran Guild did not know that history. Yet they had not asked a single word about it.
No... he even said he would protect me. As long as I stay loyal...
If that was the case, then he would work here with the resolve to bury his bones in this place. Im Yunchan steeled his determination.
Hwangryun Guild headquarters.
Across from Guild Leader Cho Taehyung sat a secretary from the Chinese embassy and executives from the Black Dragon Guild.
On the table between them rested a metal lump radiating a blue glow—a Magic Ingot. If the semiconductor had defined the previous era, then in the Hunter era it was this Magic Ingot that reigned supreme.
Korea's unique Magic Ingot manufacturing technology, however, had already been transferred to China through Hwangryun. One of the chief culprits was none other than Hwangryun's guild leader, Cho Taehyung. And even now he was still colluding with China.
"That Kang Eunha bitch has been getting quite defiant lately. The counselor used to put her in her place beautifully, but ever since he went missing she's been getting more and more insolent."
The secretary spoke with open displeasure. Cho Taehyung smiled thinly.
"Tsk. She's still young. She doesn't know how scary the world can be."
"The recent mysterious deaths of Black Dragon Guild hunters, and the dungeon that appeared above the embassy—the timing is far too convenient to call coincidence."
"Are you suggesting the Korean government might have deliberately orchestrated those incidents?"
Guild Leader Cho Taehyung. He was Korean by nationality, yet he was already speaking on China's behalf no less than the secretary himself.
"Headquarters is considering that possibility as well. Since then the Dungeon Management Department's stance has only grown harder. Orders have come down to tighten the reins at this point."
"Tighten the reins how, exactly?"
The secretary leaned forward slightly, as if about to share something confidential.
"These are directives that came down from the home country through the ambassador. Reduce the supply volume of Magic Ingots to the Korean market by thirty percent."