Trouble in Busan
Busan Gate
"Huh? He's not in Korea? What is that supposed to mean? There was no record of Hunter Lee Jaeseong leaving the country."
Park Jaehyun couldn't help but ask with a flustered face.
However weak the government's grip might be, Lee Jaeseong was currently one of the most important individuals in all of South Korea. If a man like that had gone abroad, it should have been a given that information about his departure would have reached Park Jaehyun.
But the answer he received strayed far beyond his expectations once again.
"Ah, well, he didn't take a plane, so it's a little hard to explain... Well, I suppose there's no real need to hide it from you, Jaehyun."
Choi Taemin scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed expression and began laying out the general situation. In short: Kang Samsik had acquired the special ability that Kuroda Sho used, and through it, Lee Jaeseong had headed to China.
"Why on earth China, of all places?"
And Choi Taemin's ensuing explanation only made things worse.
From what he gathered, the subordinates Lee Jaeseong had taken under his wing before crossing over from Murim had apparently appeared within China — and their number was said to be over a thousand. Not all of them would be as strong as Kang Samsik, but with genuine Murim masters mixed among them, conflict with China was as good as inevitable.
Japan is already a headache, and now China too?
Park Jaehyun frowned, clutching his aching head.
No matter how formidable Lee Jaeseong was, and no matter how many of his subordinates had crossed over, China was not an opponent to be taken lightly. Its overwhelming population meant an enormous number of Awakened, and on top of that, it possessed a considerable force of returnees from Murim, just like Lee Jaeseong himself.
Of course, that didn't mean he lacked faith in Lee Jaeseong. He at least believed that if anyone could find a way out of China, it would be him. And with a spatial-movement ability user attached to the man, he'd calculated that the immediate situation would manage itself somehow.
The problem was the aftermath.
Considering China's insufferably arrogant attitude, it was entirely possible to picture them using Lee Jaeseong as leverage to pressure the Korean government.
And naturally, Park Jaehyun had concluded that Lee Jaeseong had to be protected. After all, the powerless Korean government couldn't do a thing to him in the first place, and he believed that Lee Jaeseong alone was the only card that could somehow save the answerless country Korea had become.
But there was no telling how the old, lazy, greed-soaked brass at the top would react. No — honestly, if China applied even a little pressure, they'd abandon any protection of Lee Jaeseong without a second thought.
When Park Jaehyun thought about how he was supposed to handle that, everything simply went black before his eyes.
"So, what's the matter?"
It was that question from Choi Taemin that snapped Park Jaehyun back to his senses.
Lee Jaeseong's situation was certainly a concern, but the urgent matter at hand was the S-Rank gate that had appeared in Busan. And his counterpart here was, after all, Choi Taemin — one of Korea's S-Rank Awakened.
"An S-Rank gate has opened in Busan."
"What? An S-Rank? Then why hasn't there been a single word about it on the news—"
"Because the Hunter Management Department only found out ourselves a short while ago. There was deliberate concealment on the Busan side. And Japan is suspected of being behind it."
Park Jaehyun could see Choi Taemin's expression harden at those words. Any reasonable person would have reacted exactly the same way.
"The current forces in the capital region can't handle that gate. That's why I came looking for Jaeseong-nim—"
"Ah. My brother-in-law left his phone behind. But if you just send word, he can come back right away."
"Understood. For now, I'll try to establish contact somehow through our embassy in China."
Park Jaehyun said this while hiding his anxious expression. Nothing changed just because you rushed things.
It was at that very moment.
"Perhaps I could be of some help?"
Choi Taemin was gazing straight at Park Jaehyun's face as he asked.
Park Jaehyun couldn't help but find the offer tempting. Hard to compare with Lee Jaeseong or Kang Samsik, perhaps — but he was an S-Rank Awakened all the same. And behind Choi Taemin stood the Blood Heaven Guild, which meant Kang Iseol and even Seo Jinwoo, the Iron Wall himself, might be mobilized.
If Hyeolcheon, the power that had just seized dominance over Seoul, made a move, the Busan guild alliance would inevitably have to watch its back as well.
But Park Jaehyun slowly shook his head. He knew all too well how dearly Lee Jaeseong cherished his family, and he judged that if anything happened to Hunter Choi Taemin, the fallout would be impossible to manage.
Of course, that wasn't the only reason.
"No. I'd ask that you stay here and wait for Hunter Lee Jaeseong to return—"
"Oh, he can just leave a memo. If my brother-in-law comes back, he'll go home anyway. And if things blow up in Busan, there'll be damage here too, won't there?"
"...Then, shamefully, I will ask for your help."
Looking at Choi Taemin, who said this to him so readily, Park Jaehyun could only bow his head slowly. With the situation so desperate that he'd have borrowed a cat's paws if he could, refusing Choi Taemin's help wasn't an option.
Naturally, he didn't intend to leave it all to Choi Taemin alone — he planned to accompany him as well.
The pier at Busan Port, shrouded in thick sea fog.
A space that should have been bustling with cargo ships loaded with import and export containers was now sealed off so thoroughly that not even an ant could be seen. Only Park Chilgu, chairman of the Busan Guild Association, and the representatives of the large guilds that ruled the region stood in a line along the pier.
"Now, now, no need for everyone to be so tense. Let's relax. Relax."
Park Chilgu flashed an easygoing smile at the guild representatives around him as he watched the ship approaching in the distance. Of course, he had already aligned himself with the Japanese, but he had no intention of groveling as if he'd offer up his very gallbladder for them.
He had decided to join hands with Japan in the first place only after weighing everything and concluding it was clearly in his interest. And even a mongrel eats boldly on its own turf — they had to show off their scale to command a proper price.
In other words, this was nothing less than a display of armed might.
"Are you sure about this? We've already received quite a lot."
"Don't twist my words. If we hadn't opened the road for them, how would those Japanese have gotten in here at all? There's nothing to be nervous about. It's a relationship of mutual aid, not us taking from them one-sidedly."
Park Chilgu said this to the guildmaster who'd asked. It was just then that the unidentified large vessel docked at the pier.
A heavy gangway came down, and soon Awakened from Japan began to emerge one by one, draped in black coats.
Then it happened.
Bursting out from among the Japanese Awakened with the blaring sounds of a handheld game console came a singularly strange man. Wearing a baggy t-shirt plastered with garish magical-girl characters, nose buried in his game, the man looked like an otaku at a glance.
The strange part was that the other Japanese Awakened seemed to be deferring to that otaku.
Huh. That guy's supposed to be elite? Did I back the wrong horse here?
A flicker of doubt crossed Park Chilgu's mind, but he quickly summoned a smile. Having already committed to the Japanese side, there was no need to invite trouble from the very start.
"Thank you all for making the long journey. I am Park Chilgu, chairman of the Busan guild association—"
Tap.
Just before Park Chilgu could finish, the last person stepped down from the ship. And with his appearance, a suffocating pressure swept over the pier, as if the very air had turned thick and adhesive.
Hollowed cheeks, grotesquely protruding blood vessels, and eyes stained red.
"...A m-monster?"
Someone's muttered whisper was audible. The aura radiating from the man was so ominous that the Busan guild representatives instinctively reached for their weapons.
But Park Chilgu alone had no choice but to recognize who he was. He had researched a great deal before defecting to Japan, after all. Though his impression seemed somewhat different from what he remembered, this was unmistakably Sato Kenji — the onmyoji Japan so proudly touted.
"Sato Kenji-nim? That's you, isn't it? It's an honor to finally meet—"
"Shut up."
BOOM.
Sato Kenji hadn't made a single move. He had merely spoken — and yet Park Chilgu's body flew backward as if it had struck something invisible, slamming into the wall of a shipping container.
"Kghk... khk."
Park Chilgu rolled across the ground vomiting blood, unable even to scream. In an instant, several guild representatives reflexively drew their weapons, but not one of them could bring himself to charge Sato Kenji. Like herbivores standing before a natural predator, they merely trembled with their weapons in hand.
They couldn't even determine how he had attacked Park Chilgu, and they understood that the other Japanese Awakened were beyond what their own strength could handle.
Sato Kenji, meanwhile, didn't spare so much as a glance at Park Chilgu moaning against the wall. No — the humans gathered on that pier simply didn't register in his eyes at all.
"Whoa, whoa, Kenji-san. You can't go causing incidents from the get-go. Nobody here speaks Japanese, you know?"
It was the otaku youth with the blaring game console who cleaned up the situation. Folding his console lightly and tucking it into his pocket, he turned to the tense Busan guild representatives and asked:
"I-I can speak it."
"Ohh, perfect. Then from now on, you'll stand in for that old guy — what's-his-name, the chairman — and in exchange, guide us to the gate. Our Kenji-san seems to be in quite a rush about something."
One of the guildmasters who had raised his hand could only nod with a dazed expression. Even in the midst of it all, the man who had sent the chairman flying was still breathing hard.
"Well then, shall we go? Kenji-san, let's move!"
Only the oddly cheerful voice of that otaku man — so out of place for the scene — echoed along the harbor front.
"So, you'll be staying here for the time being?"
"Yes, I believe that's for the best. We need to hold the area around the gate for now, and those we drove out won't simply sit still either."
I gave a rough nod at Hyeolnoe's words.
The negotiations with the Chinese side had wrapped up more easily than expected, but that didn't mean everything was finished. The Murim-born returnees who had scattered in every direction certainly wouldn't remain quiet, and the matter of the Blood Heavenly Cult members still crossing over ahead remained to be resolved.
Besides, even China couldn't afford to leave a gate unattended, so it was only right that a certain number of martial artists stay to guard this place.
Still, I never expected them to make use of the Forbidden City.
Thanks to that, I'd even had the novel experience of sitting on the throne the Emperor supposedly occupied — though honestly, to me it was nothing more than a rather gaudy wooden chair. Considering convenience, using some other building would have been better, but from the Blood Heavenly Cult members' standpoint, this place was perhaps more familiar and comfortable.
"Right. Then I'll leave it to you. By the way, where's that fellow Gwanghyeoljon?"
"Ah, he heard there was a gate nearby and went in."
I let out an incredulous laugh at Hyeolnoe's answer. Partly because it was amusing that the old man couldn't wait even a few days before diving into another gate — and partly because I could guess the reason: just like Samsik, he was after a new power.
"Well, with Gwanghyeoljon and you, Hyeolnoe, this place should be more than covered. Samsik will be coming with me, and—"
"Of course, Cult Leader!"
At my words, Samsik replied with a vigorous expression.
For this return, I intended to keep the numbers to a minimum. Bringing a large group would leave us nowhere proper to put them up, and a small enough force could more than build the environment I wanted.
"Yuk Jurim. You and ten Blood Shadow Squad members come with me."
"As you command!"
At my call, Yuk Jurim emerged from the shadows and knelt. Beyond covert intelligence gathering, his combat capability itself was nothing to scoff at, so I calculated that bringing a single squad of the Blood Shadow would be more than sufficient. Above all, they were tight-lipped men with faint presence, so they were unlikely to cause any problems.
"Samsik, open the door."
At my words, Samsik summoned a shabby sliding door into the middle of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. I rose from my seat and left Hyeolnoe with instructions to contact me if anything came up. Of course, Hyeolnoe had no way to reach me at the moment, but Samsik would be flitting back and forth regularly for the time being.
"Let's go. Home."
With those words to Samsik, I was able to return home in an instant.
The problem was that when I arrived, there were some decidedly unexpected people there.
"What the — what are you two doing here?"