The Guild That Vanished Overnight
Park Jaehyun woke not to his phone alarm, but to the relentless buzz of vibration. It was 7:14 in the morning when he finally pried one eye open and checked the time. There was still an hour before he needed to be at work, yet his phone showed no sign of letting up.
When he switched the screen on, seven missed calls and more than twenty messages glared back at him. All of them from the Management Department's internal network.
What the hell? Did something happen?
A chill ran down his spine as he scrolled through the notifications. The Hunter Management Department ran on chaos and improvisation at the best of times, but contact at this hour could only mean one thing — disaster had struck somewhere.
Yet instead of calling in, Park Jaehyun opened a browser window. Even if he answered, it was only sensible to figure out what was going on first.
Park Jaehyun froze mid-article. Blood Bird Guild meant Guro — and Guro meant the face of the man he had personally escorted to that neighborhood just recently floated up in his mind.
No. No way. It can't be.
Still reading, he opened the Awakened community app out of habit. For getting a handle on incidents like this, the community was always faster and more accurate than the news. And the app's real-time feed was already buried under an avalanche of posts about the Blood Bird Guild.
But wait, if they're gone, do I still have to pay back my loan?
The photo attached showed the Blood Bird Guild headquarters completely deserted. And beneath it, naturally, the comments had piled up in droves.
"One person wiped out the entire Blood Bird Guild?"
Community posts were never worth trusting, but the more of them Park Jaehyun read, the harder it became to shake the feeling that his suspicion was exactly right.
Just then, his phone rang again.
"Ah, sir. I'm sorry—"
"Hey, you little punk! Didn't I tell you to keep your phone on at all times? Did you or didn't you?"
The moment he picked up, the department head's tirade came pouring through the receiver. Park Jaehyun's face scrunched up instinctively, though no working adult could afford to let it show.
"What's happening this early in the morning—?" he asked, feigning ignorance of the situation.
"Have you seen the news? Something went down in Guro. I'd bet money it's that man you brought in causing trouble. Contact him and confirm it. Now."
Apparently the department's internal guess matched his own. Come to think of it, it was obvious. Other than that Korean returnee who'd come back from China, nobody in the country could have pulled off something like this.
The Blood Bird Guild had, after all, been a B-rank organization that effectively ruled Guro. Its regular membership numbered in the dozens, and more than ten of those were C-rank Awakened or higher. Guildmaster Oh Pilsang was currently rated as a semi-A-Rank Awakened, and thanks to that, no clash with any neighboring guild had ever left them on the losing end of a one-sided beatdown.
No — the way things ran in Korea these days, guilds clashing with each other simply didn't happen anymore. Each one reigned like a king over its own claimed territory. Which meant that, a few special zones aside, there was rarely anything worth gaining from picking a fight with another guild in the first place.
"I'll confirm it immediately."
Park Jaehyun delivered the line, hung up, and dialed the number Lee Jaeseong had left with him. As the call rang, he reviewed what he'd learned about the man the day before.
Lee Jaeseong. Missing in 2026, entry 189 on the Gate-related missing persons list. Returned after ten years, a returnee from the world of Murim. Brother-in-law of Choi Taemin and younger brother of the missing Lee Minhee, with family living in District 3.
He didn't seem like a dangerous man.
The memory flickered up unbidden — Lee Jaeseong asking for food to be sent to his niece and nephew. But this was also a man who had annihilated a mid-sized guild in a single night. Caution was the only sensible posture. The grim truth was that a government affiliation shielded you from absolutely nothing when you stood in front of Awakened.
"Hello?"
Park Jaehyun tilted his head at the voice coming through the phone. It was far too relaxed for a man in the middle of this uproar. If anything, it almost sounded like the man was pleased to hear from him.
"Ah — hello. Mr. Lee Jaeseong? This is Park Jaehyun."
On paper, the name Hunter Management Department sounded impressively grand. The reality fell somewhat short. True, the building sat in the middle of Seoul, but it was old and shabby to the point of embarrassment. Honestly, even the Blood Bird Guild headquarters that Oh Pilsang had put up looked far more the part.
"Mr. Lee Jaeseong! Over here."
I gave a light nod to Park Jaehyun as he came out waving at me. He was neatly dressed in a suit, but the shadows under his eyes were dark. He'd clearly been busy since the small hours of the morning — and if that was because of me, I felt a flicker of guilt about it.
"You came. This way, please—"
Park Jaehyun's manner had shifted noticeably from our first meeting at Incheon Airport. Word of what I'd done to the Blood Bird Guild had evidently done its work. Not that I blamed him. Back in Murim, whenever I introduced myself as the Young Cult Master of the Blood Cult, the way people treated me changed just as completely.
Park Jaehyun led me to a meeting room. Though "interrogation room" would have been the more honest name for the space — I could feel, plain as day, the presence of the people watching me from behind the wall.
"No need to be nervous. I already know there are people behind the wall."
I said it to Park Jaehyun, whose fingertips were trembling almost imperceptibly. He wasn't deceiving me out of malice, after all, and considering the kindness he'd shown me last night, this much I could overlook a hundred times over.
"Haha. Th-then, may I first ask about last night's... incident?"
I nodded slowly. His sudden summons of me, the people hiding behind the wall to observe this conversation — it was all because of that incident.
"There's nothing complicated about it. I had a debt and a grudge with the Blood Bird Guild, and I settled them in my own way."
"Ah... I see."
"Tsk."
I clicked my tongue lightly at Park Jaehyun, who was staring blankly at my face in obvious bewilderment. Ordinarily I'd have left it at that, but the situation was a little more involved. Every last asset of the Blood Bird Guild was now set to pass to Seo Yeon and Seo Jun — that much had to be made ironclad.
It had been the same in Murim. Driving a sect out of a region wasn't enough; you had to announce to everyone in the surrounding area that the territory was now yours. Naturally, with a suitably honorable justification attached.
"Choi Taemin. My brother-in-law was a co-founder of that guild. But after my brother-in-law vanished, the guildmaster started piling debt onto my niece and nephew and bleeding them dry. So I cleaned it up. I simply took back everything that was owed."
"...And by 'took back,' you mean—"
"All of it. The assets, and payment for everything they'd done along the way."
Park Jaehyun was looking at me with an expression half-drained of its soul. With the entire internet already buzzing about the Blood Bird Guild's dissolution, he could more than fill in the blanks.
"...Th-this could still become a problem later on."
"It won't."
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh Pilsang isn't in any position to raise objections. And wasn't this a country where you could do whatever you liked as long as you had the strength? When the Blood Bird Guild was squeezing and tormenting children, nobody lifted a finger to help them, did they?"
Park Jaehyun had no answer to that. Unless he was a fool, he couldn't have missed my pointed jab at the government of the Republic of Korea.
"Understood. I take note of your position. For now, I'll look into whether there's anything the department can do, administratively, to help with the transfer of the guild's assets."
"Much appreciated."
From there, Park Jaehyun began walking me through the fine print — the things an ordinary returnee was expected to do, the paperwork involved, the works. Awakened registration was naturally among them. However feeble the Korean government had become, registering Awakened was still one of the duties it clung to.
"So does that mean I can enter those Gates now?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Then can I enter the Yeouido Gate as well?"
That was the moment Park Jaehyun's face went rigid. There was exactly one Gate in the country known by that name.
"You... you would be permitted to, yes. But may I ask why?"
"I heard my brother-in-law might be in there."
Park Jaehyun's brow furrowed. It wasn't as though he wouldn't know the name Choi Taemin. No one working for the Hunter Management Department could fail to know it — and as it turned out, my brother-in-law had been even more remarkable than I'd realized.
"Mr. Choi Taemin was declared dead four years ago, during the third raid attempt. That's the official record, at least—"
"That official record could be wrong."
Park Jaehyun's mouth opened and closed a few times before clamping shut. His face said he had plenty more to say, but he'd evidently concluded that saying it would accomplish nothing.
"We can grant you entry authorization for the Yeouido Gate on our end."
"Good."
I said it with a smile at his firm answer. The department probably had no real reason to refuse anyway. They had all but written the Yeouido Gate off entirely, and whether I cleared it or died trying, it cost them nothing either way.
"However — before that, there is one Gate we'd like you to handle for us."
"Me?"
I frowned at Park Jaehyun, who had suddenly attached a condition. I'd fully intended to look into what kind of place a Gate was at some point, but I had no intention of dancing to someone's tune for nothing.
"It's actually a Gate the Blood Bird Guild was contracted to clear, but given the... circumstances..."
Reading my expression, Park Jaehyun trailed off with a hapless look. And I let out a short laugh at the sight of him. If there'd been no reason behind it, that would be one thing — but if the mess existed because of something I'd done, then handling it myself was only right.
"Fine, I'll take it. But Yeouido comes first."
That was my answer to Park Jaehyun.
"Ah, that's not how you do it, I told you!"
"You — I mean, Uncle, this is your first time with a Gate too, isn't it? Then you should listen to what I say!"
And so, the next day.
I could do nothing but sigh inwardly as I watched Seo Yeon rattle off her lecture in front of me. Who would have guessed that after my sister, I'd end up getting nagged by my niece as well?
Of course, it didn't take long for that nagging to boil over into something louder still.
"Uncle, this is just cheating, no matter how you look at it!"