A Parent's Scolding
What on earth... is going on here?
—Hey, are you out of your damn mind? Are you in your right head? No, of course you're not. No sane woman would pull a stunt like that, right? RIGHT?
Yeongwol's furious voice came crackling through the phone.
"C-Could you maybe... lower your voice a little?"
—Lower it? Lower WHAT? Are you shitting me?! There's a limit to how much a person can take! The guild master herself bails on her own interview and runs off—how the hell do you expect me to stay calm?!
...Yeongwol was never like this, was she?
From her voice down to her manner of speaking, everything about her was different from the Yeongwol I knew—so far removed from the calm, composed, intellectual woman she always presented herself as.
Is she just different around old friends?
...Well, I suppose my own public face and the one I wear around my comrades aren't exactly the same either.
"F-Fine, I get it... I'll, uh... I'll go back and take my lumps."
—Shut it! The moment you show your face I'm going to kill you. You suddenly announce you're going solo, charge into a gate all by yourself, and then what—you just bolt off somewhere else? How many lives do you think you have, huh? Ten or something?
...I'm sorry, what?
"Th-That's—"
Before Arang could say another word, I leaned toward the phone.
"Hello there."
—...Huh? Wh-Who—
I flashed a smile and held out my hand to Arang.
"Ah..."
"Hand it over, dear."
"......Yes, ma'am."
Faced with my polite little request, Arang surrendered the phone with the expression of someone who had accepted their fate.
"...I'm just going to step out to the bathroom for a bit," Hayeon said, rising from the sofa, but that wasn't the important thing right now. "You haven't heard this voice before, have you?"
—Ah... could this perhaps be... Uncle Sihyeon...?
"Yep, it's me. Hard to believe, I know."
—N-No, not at all. Arang told me about you, so I'm aware of the situation. It's just that... I had no idea Arang was THERE, of all places...
Yeongwil's voice was flustered to the point of stumbling over itself.
Which made sense. Friend or not, she'd just cursed out someone's child right in front of their parent.
And on top of that, she must have felt the mortifying sting of having her ugly side exposed.
...Under normal circumstances, I would have just stayed quiet and let it pass.
"Mind if I ask you just one thing?"
—Y-Yes! Yes, of course, absolutely anything!
Yeongwol's tension came through loud and clear over the line.
"That thing you mentioned just now—about her 'charging into a gate alone.' Could you tell me more about that?"
—Ah... well, I did use some, uh, colorful language, so—
The profanity doesn't matter.
I let a few words slip whenever I'm with my comrades too.
Even Yujin swears, and Yujin's practically famous for it.
Hunters who never curse simply don't exist in this line of work.
"No, that's all fine. What I want to know is—was it true? She really went into a gate alone?"
—I'm sorry...? Ah... yes. Yes, she did.
Yeongwol's voice grew smaller and smaller.
"...I'd like to hear the details, if you don't mind."
—Well, you see... it was supposed to be a full guild raid at first, and then...
At my question, Yeongwol finally began to explain everything I'd asked about.
"I see... and then?"
—Yes, and... so at that point, Arang...
And what came pouring out of Yeongwol's mouth was more than enough to stoke my fury into a full blaze.
"I understand. Thank you for telling me."
—...Yes, that's, um... that's about the size of it.
"...Right. Thank you, Yeongwol. You have it rough, don't you."
Putting up with an insubordinate guild master is exhausting work.
I knew her struggles well—I'd put people through the very same thing myself, once upon a time.
—N-Not at all...! W-Well then, I'll hang up now!
"Of course. As for Arang... I'll have a proper talk with her."
—...Ah, yes. U-Understood.
Click.
The call ended.
"...Arang. Care to explain how this happened?"
"......"
Perhaps she understood her own wrongdoing, because Arang, who had already slid off the seat beside me, was now kneeling on the floor before my eyes.
Fuming, I glared down at her.
"I'm fairly certain I told you, over and over, that acting alone is dangerous."
"Yes..."
"And then this happens. Care to explain what that was about?"
"W-Well... I, I thought I... I could clear it on my own...?"
Arang's pupils were shaking wildly, darting every which way.
Whether from guilt or desperation, she was clearly scrambling for any excuse she could find.
"...You went into an A-rank gate. One we'd agreed to clear as a full raid. Alone. And your reason is... that?"
"......"
Gates.
People had said many things about them over the years. A passage linking one world to another. A stepping stone for ruined worlds to devour the present one. A place where the beings of ancient myth and the creatures of ghost stories truly existed. And the attempts to define them went on and on.
But among all those descriptions, there was one saying that I believed captured the truth of gates better than any other.
'The Graveyard of Arrogant Hunters.'
No one can know what lies beyond a gate.
It could be a being out of myth, a horror from some old ghost story, or a monster from a world we've never even heard of.
Even if you've scouted the interior, you must never assume that what you saw was all there is.
It is a place where you must be prepared for anything at any moment, where even the strongest among us have to stake their lives.
That was what a gate was.
"And if something had happened to you in there, what exactly were you planning to do about it?"
Originally, I'd only meant to give Arang a brief word of warning and be done with it. And that would have been fine—had her choice been a strategic call made as a guild master rather than pure whim. But what I'd just heard was a decision made on impulse, driven by nothing but emotion. Even granting that she was a grown adult, this was something I had to call out—as her parent, and as her teacher.
Still, if she showed genuine remorse for her mistake...
"B-But I did make it out alive, didn't I...?"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
In that moment, I felt the last frayed thread of my reason snap clean through.
"N-No, wait, that's not what I—!"
Arang realized her mistake at once and flailed her hands, trying to walk it back, but it was already far too late.
"You made it out. Alive. Is that so...?"
I hadn't wanted to come down on her this hard. But there was no helping it now.
I rose to my feet.
Arang, still kneeling with her head bowed, flinched hard at the movement.
"Follow me."
That was all I said to her, my voice thick with anger,
"Y-Yes, ma'am..."
and Arang, pulling herself up from the floor, trailed into my room on leaden feet.
BANG—!
I slammed the door shut behind us.
Roughly five hours later,
"...You're an adult, so I won't scold you any further."
"......Yes, ma'am."
Arang's eyes were dead.
No light in her pupils, none of the bright energy from earlier anywhere on her face.
"Let's go out now."
"Yeees..."
Had I completely crushed her spirit?
...Compared to the old days, that barely counted as a scolding, though.
The longest I ever chewed someone out was... what was it, eighty-four hours?
One of my guild members had been gambling with their own life, after all. Unfortunately, I'd collapsed before I could say everything I wanted to, so that was as far as it went.
Click.
I opened the firmly shut door.
"Oh, there you are."
As the door swung open, Hayeon, who had been sitting on the sofa scrolling through her phone, turned her gaze toward me.
And there, standing at the doorway, was a black-haired woman.
Her hair was a complete disaster, and her suit and coat were slightly rumpled, as though she'd only just thrown herself back together—yet somehow, her composed bearing made her look perfectly calm all the same.
I greeted her warmly.
"Ah, Yeongwol, it's been a while. Good to see you."
"...It is an honor to see you."
The black-haired woman bowing to me was Han Yeongwol, Vice Guild Master of the Black Lion Guild.
"Haha... this is the first time you've seen me looking like this, isn't it?"
"Y-Yes... that is... correct."
Flustered by my appearance, Yeongwol stammered over her words, a faint flush rising to her cheeks.
"But... weren't you avoiding meeting people...? Are you certain it's... all right for me to see you like this...?"
Yeongwol had been one of the visitors during those three months.
She and Arang had come together at the very beginning, but it had only been a few days since my transformation, and I'd turned them both away.
...I was rather brusque about it at the time.
Back then, I hadn't wanted to show this changed form of mine to anyone. I'd even gone so far as to drink a voice-altering potion so the people who came looking wouldn't catch on to my condition.
"It's a little embarrassing, but... there's no way back now, so."
"Ah..."
"Don't worry about it. ...I've gotten more or less used to it."
Three months, it turned out, could dull a person more than I'd expected.
In the beginning I'd been almost afraid to look in a mirror, but by now, I felt nothing at all when I did.
"Ah—though I doubt you came all this way just to say that. Sorry for keeping you standing."
"Not at all! It's, it's perfectly fine!"
Arang, meanwhile, was still standing there with her spirits thoroughly flattened, apparently not even noticing that Yeongwol had arrived.
"Arang? Time to go, isn't it?"
I called out to her.
"Y-Yes, ma'am!"
She jolted upright and answered.
"...Thank you for everything."
"Ah, well, I only gave her a moderate talking-to, so... hm... could you go a little easier on her than you were planning?"
Logically, I knew she deserved to be torn into the moment she got home. But looking at Arang standing there so utterly deflated, I just couldn't leave it at that.
...Not that I can stop her if she decides to scold her anyway.
However much I thought of her as my own child, Arang was still her disciple—and meddling in the affairs of that disciple's guild was a line I had no business crossing.
"Yes, I think Arang has... more than reflected on what she's done by now."
"......"
Arang remained completely vacant-eyed.
"...Might I take her home with me?"
"Mm... sounds like Arang's not in any state to be alone right now. She's all yours."
"Thank you very much."
With a deep bow to me, Yeongwol hoisted Arang up over her shoulder.
Lightweight as she was, Arang went up without the slightest resistance.
"...Then, I apologize for the intrusion."
"Bye, Mom... see you tomorrow..."
Even while dangling over Yeongwol's shoulder in a daze, Arang gave me a little wave.
"There's a guild event tomorrow, you see...?"
"Ah. Right."
"...Let's talk more later, then."
With those words, Yeongwol gave a final bow and stepped out of the house.
I saw the two of them off under a bit of a chilly night wind.
"...Did I go too hard on her?"
...No. Anyone who gambles with their life and struts around like that deserves a proper dressing-down.
...She's not a little kid anymore, but still. Maybe I could have softened it a bit.
The image of Arang, so thoroughly deflated, kept flickering before my eyes.
"...Haah. I should give her a call later, or—"
Whoosh—
Then, someone wrapped their arms around me from behind.
And then, pressing close to my ear—so near I could feel her breath—she whispered, soft as a secret.
"Now... it's just the two of us again, isn't it?"
"Wh...?"
Ah. Right. Her.