The Niece
The Government Complex in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
The atmosphere in the Cabinet meeting room was ice-cold.
Kang Eunha gripped a thick stack of documents and stared straight ahead. The title of Minister, shouldered at the age of twenty-eight, weighed heavier than anything. Even now, the barrage of fire was aimed squarely at her.
“Regarding this Yeoncheon Dungeon Impact matter.”
The Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs spoke at a leisurely pace. He openly toyed with a Chinese luxury watch on his wrist.
“I hear the Chinese Black Dragon Guild provided assistance. Why not take this opportunity to entrust northern management rights to them?”
Entrustment—a pretty word for tribute. He was telling them to hand over the dungeon interests that formed the very foundation of the nation, lock, stock, and barrel.
“Deputy Prime Minister, that is clearly the territory of the Republic of Korea.”
Eunha’s voice rang through the conference room. What came back were only sneering glances.
“What good is territory if we can’t even defend it with our own strength?”
“Exactly. There’s nothing to gain from ruffling China’s feathers.”
More than half the officials nodded. Men already bought by Chinese capital and mana stones. In truth, they were little more than spokesmen for foreign guilds.
The only reason the agenda had not passed immediately was a single one: opposition from those who had taken a different leash.
“China? You’re being hasty.”
The Minister of National Defense cut in. He maintained close ties with the American guilds.
“The American Free Knights are also showing interest. Japan’s Samurai Guild has put forward terms as well.”
The meeting room descended into chaos. Those eager to sell to China. Those lined up with America or Japan. Those watching Russia’s mood and waiting for their chance.
“······.”
Kang Eunha watched the disgusting spectacle in silence. As the nation teetered, hyenas were tearing off chunks of their own country’s flesh and selling them. Dogs wagging their tails for different masters. Ironically, that very rivalry was the only thing still staving off total collapse.
…It’s rotten.
Eunha clenched her fist hard beneath the desk. As Minister of the Dungeon Management Department, all she could do was buy time.
“Minister Kang, no opinion? How long do you intend to dig in your heels?”
“That’s right. You’re the Minister of Dungeon Management, aren’t you? Make a decision already.”
The seasoned politicians eyed her like prey.
Then—
“That’s enough.”
A low voice, heavy with authority. The President of the Republic of Korea, Namgung Hyun, opened his mouth. The chaotic conference room fell silent in an instant. He was a seasoned politician, a man who had walked a razor-thin tightrope between the great powers. Age had dulled him from his prime, yet a president was still a president.
“We will end today’s meeting here. Each ministry is to submit a revised proposal.”
At the flash of his sharp gaze, the corrupt bureaucrats quietly averted their eyes.
A de facto adjournment. The officials filed out, grumbling.
“Minister Kang, stay a moment.”
Only Kang Eunha remained. Namgung Hyun offered a kindly smile. He was the one who had appointed her—an unprecedented personnel move that placed young blood in the leadership to cut away the old, rotten networks.
The two of them relocated to the presidential office. Namgung Hyun gazed out at the Seoul cityscape beyond the window and let out a long sigh.
“Eunha, it’s hard, isn’t it?”
He had also been especially close to her father, Kang Junwu. Namgung Hyun had been Junwu’s professor in university, and through that connection he had discovered Eunha’s brilliance and spirit early on.
“I’m fine. This is the path I chose.”
“I’ve grown old. My strength isn’t what it used to be. I don’t know how much longer I can hold this seat.”
Namgung Hyun leaned heavily against the sofa. Deep illness and exhaustion were etched into his face.
“The country is in peril. Wolves circle outside, and worms gnaw from within.”
He clasped Eunha’s hand tightly. Warm heat passed between them.
“Next is your turn. On this precarious foundation I’ve laid, you must set this nation right.”
The words were almost a last will. Eunha’s chest tightened. She knew, because she had watched from his side.
The state of the country right now? It was as precarious as when Emperor Gojong had sold the nation during the Japanese occupation.
Even so, President Namgung Hyun was different from Gojong or the other leaders of crisis eras. He had worked harder than anyone for this country and somehow held on until now. The problem was that he could not go on much longer. A few years at most—no one could say.
“······I will work harder so that everything Your Excellency has done does not come to nothing.”
“Thank you, Eunha. And I’m sorry. For placing such a heavy burden on you.”
She left the office carrying that crushing sense of responsibility. Tap—tap— The corridor stretched long and dark. Her steps toward her own ministerial office felt heavier than usual.
“Minister, you’ve worked hard.”
At the end of the hall, her secretary Min Sehee approached with documents in her arms. She checked her tablet as she fell into step beside Eunha. One of the few confidants Eunha had, and a highly capable administrator.
“I’ll brief you on the afternoon schedule. At two o’clock you have the new dungeon-raid equipment exhibition at KINTEX.”
“Got it. Before that?”
Min Sehee hesitated for a moment.
“There’s a visitor booked for noon. A family member, apparently······.”
“Family?”
“A Mr. Kang Hanul. He says he’s your uncle······. According to the report Hunter Lee Seoyun filed yesterday.”
“Uncle? Ah, that.”
Eunha stopped walking.
Come to think of it—early this morning, Hunter Lee Seoyun of the Management Bureau had submitted a top-secret special report.
Report on the Occurrence of the 2nd Yeoncheon Impact and Contact with a Suspected Returnee
The name written there was Kang Hanul. A name she had only ever seen in her father’s old photo albums as a child. A bitter smile touched her lips.
“······All right. I understand.”
Suspicion and wariness outweighed any sense of welcome on her face. In times like these, for someone claiming to be family to seek her out now of all moments······.
The Minister’s office.
Eunha sat at her desk and pretended to review documents. Nothing registered.
Knock-knock—
The sound broke the silence. Secretary Min Sehee’s voice came through.
“Minister, Mr. Kang Hanul, your uncle, has arrived.”
She unconsciously straightened her clothes.
“······Show him in.”
The door opened slowly. A man in a black coat walked in. Exactly as he had looked in the photographs of his youth—no, carrying an aura far colder and deeper than that.
“First time seeing you in person. Eunha, was it? I’m your uncle, Kang Hanul.”
Hanul dropped onto the sofa opposite her as if it were his own living room, utterly at ease.
“······.”
The expression on Eunha’s face as she looked at him? Cold and settled. There was no joy. To her, “uncle” was nothing more than a stuffed name preserved in an old album.
“You’re my uncle, you say.”
Eunha let out a hollow laugh. She laced her fingers on the desk and stared hard at the man.
The minister’s seat was a poisoned chalice. Threats, bribes, and outlandish scams were daily fare. But this particular approach was a first.
Why? Because they had gone so far as to resurrect a dead man and set him right in front of her. If you were going to run a con, you should at least show the courtesy of doing some background research.
“Who put you up to this? China? Or America?”
“A scam? This isn’t a scam. I really am your uncle.”
“Ha! Do you honestly not know what happened to my uncle, Kang Hanul?”
Come to think of it, after I got swept into the mana storm, I don’t know much about what happened on Earth either.
“My uncle······ disappeared before I was even born. Into a mana storm.”
“That’s right. Only my spirit body. Now that you mention it, my physical body was gone. What happened to it?”
“Uncle returned from the mana storm as a vegetable.”
And in Eunha’s memories, her uncle had always been lying on white hospital sheets.
“For ten years. He never woke up.”
“A vegetable, was it.”
“Even so, Father never gave up. He poured every last bit of the family fortune into keeping Uncle breathing. But when I was nine······.”
A chill anger settled in Eunha’s eyes. The state had been cruel. Or more precisely, the guilds that rode on the state’s back. The guild Kang Hanul had last belonged to. Citing the revised Hunter Management Act, they had stripped the rights of the comatose Kang Hanul.
“The Veteran Guild said they would take Uncle away. Called him a research asset. They even brought Hunter Association staff with them.”
“The Veteran Guild, you say.”
For an instant, Hanul’s violet eyes narrowed.
“Father grabbed those Association bastards by the collar and fought until he bled, but it was useless. A guild backed by public authority was violent.”
In the end, Uncle Kang Hanul’s body was dragged off somewhere. That day, young Eunha had sworn to herself: she would stand at the very peak of this country so that such tragedies would never happen again.
“And after that?”
“A year later, Uncle came back.”
Eunha’s voice trembled. Hanul quietly waited for her next words.
“He was stitched together. Hacked apart here and there, organs harvested.”
Traces of human experimentation. Of course—how tempting must the body of an S-class Hunter have been? Waiting ten years was, if anything, restrained.
Even so, the ending was this: the living vegetable was returned a year later as a cold corpse. Her father—Kang Hanul’s older brother, Kang Junwu—had clutched that body and howled like a beast.
“In the end we cremated him. I was ten.”
For a moment her face seemed on the verge of tears, lost in the past. Then Eunha composed herself again, lifted her head, and glared at Hanul.
“And now you show up claiming to be my uncle? How does a dead body walk back in?”
At last Hanul understood. Why, when he returned to Earth, there had been no body left for him to settle into.
“Eunha······ was it? Hard as it may be to believe, my spirit body was dragged into the Demon Realm thirty years ago.”
Hanul smiled kindly.
“There I forced every Demon King, devil, and demonkin to their knees and came back. I am the master of the Demon Realm.”
The words themselves were anything but kind.
“That’s absurd······.”
“When I returned to Earth, my body was already gone. So this body is one I just made. I reconstructed it.”
Nonsense beyond common sense. A human becoming master of the Demon Realm. Creating a new body.
“Prove it. That ridiculous claim. If you can do something like that, you can do it right now, can’t you?”
“Of course. It costs a fair bit of energy, but I have to clear up my niece’s doubts.”
In that instant, Hanul’s perfectly solid body began to waver. Sssss— It turned into black smoke and scattered without form.
“······!”
Eunha shot to her feet in shock. She could not even scream. Watching a person dissolve into mist was something she had never seen in her life.
But the astonishment did not end there. The black smoke that had dispersed into the air gathered back into a single point. Veins rose. A skeleton formed. Flesh knit itself on. In the span of a breath, Hanul stood in the exact same place, looking exactly as he had a moment before.