Media (2)
I’d gotten so worked up over the thought that I was being played by that bastard that I could barely see straight.
Looking back on it, that was probably exactly right.
At the time, I was definitely past the point of rational thought. I couldn’t properly read the situation, and I didn’t have the presence of mind to pay attention to the expedition’s mood, either.
While he was busy shaping public opinion, I had done nothing at all. Pride was about all I’d managed to protect.
No wonder I couldn’t keep my head on straight.
The way he spoke—calm enough to irritate you into a frenzy—and the occasional gesture of wiping his lips with his tongue made it feel as if he were gouging directly at my heart.
Honestly, I was almost grateful I hadn’t driven the dagger in my hand into the back of his neck.
Just imagining it was enough to make blood seep from my clenched fist. I swear, in all the time I’d lived on this continent, I’d never even seen, let alone heard of, a man like him.
That despicable bastard.
Judging by the amount of mana he radiated and the class he held, Lee Kiyoung was unquestionably the kind of man this continent classified as weak.
The kind of man who ought to be rolling around in the slums, begging for scraps. A man who lived one day at a time and ate one day at a time. The kind of bastard who couldn’t even find a party and had to loiter around from place to place.
It was absurd to see a worthless piece of trash like that shamelessly running wild just because he had a powerful backer.
His face must have been thicker than steel.
He kept saying sorry, sure, but the expression on his face told a completely different story.
Not just me, either—the rest of the party who had gone on the expedition with him probably remembered that face, too.
It felt like he was looking down on us, ignoring us, goading us into anger.
The moment I thought about that expression again, the heat started boiling up inside me before I even realized it.
“Damn it…”
I was lying still, trying to cool myself down when I heard voices from outside.
“Sister Yura?”
“How’s the situation?”
“I-it’s the same. There still hasn’t been any real news…”
“Ha…”
“They said it’s still too early to file a formal complaint…”
“How much time has passed, and they’re still saying they need to figure out what happened? Does that make any sense?”
“B-but still…”
“Since when did our guild start worrying about other people’s faces? There was definitely some kind of connection between Red Mercenary and Blue. At this point, we should be turning the whole thing over! And what exactly is the guild even for? A major guild, my ass… we’ll end up being nothing more than Red Mercenary’s lapdogs anyway.”
“They told us not to act rashly and to stay quiet for now. They think we should move only after we’ve confirmed the facts… and, well, we can’t exactly ignore Cha Heera’s opinion.”
“Who the hell cares what Cha Heera thinks.”
“The guild’s executives seem to be meeting with Red Mercenary.”
“What more facts do we need? It’s exactly what we wrote in the report, isn’t it?”
“W-well, yes, but…”
“And what’s the point of investigating the facts together with the very bastards who started the whole mess in the first place? Anyone can see Black Swan is bowing to Red Mercenary, so do they even realize their image in Lindel is going to hell? What are the other major guilds supposed to think of us? To be precise, we’re not even bowing to that whore Cha Heera, are we? We’re being dragged around by one fox riding on the back of a tiger! Fucking hell. That bastard Lee Kiyoung, I mean.”
“W-what can we do? The rumor’s already everywhere that man is Cha Heera’s lover… I don’t know the details, but I heard they’ve known each other since they were on Earth. Supposedly they were that close… If even Cha Heera is willing to hang herself for him, then that’s the end of it. Red Mercenary and our guild are in a kind of symbiotic relationship anyway, so… I-I think this is just the way things are for now. I understand how you feel, sister, really, but…”
“What?”
“For now, it’d be best to keep watching the situation a little longer. I’m sure there’ll be a chance to pay them back.”
“Right. That’s how it should be.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not just going to stop at giving back what I received. I’m going to make him suffer until he’s crying and begging me to spare his life. He probably thinks Cha Heera will protect him forever, year after year. Let’s see how long that faith lasts…”
“Y-yes, exactly.”
“A lot of accidents happen during expeditions. Right?”
“Yes. B-but right now…”
“I know. It’s just… hard to hold back.”
“S-sister, I’m sure you’ll do what you want in the end. Besides, just looking at the items that arrived this time, I don’t think they’re completely ignoring us. Maybe we should even take it as them trying to smooth over the trouble inside the dungeon.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. There were a lot of rare-grade weapons, and they put in more materials than I expected. Looking at the item list we were assigned, it feels like we may have even received a bit more than Blue…”
“Good, good. Pfft! No matter how much they’re Red Mercenary, they can’t completely ignore us.”
“It feels like they showed at least a minimum of sincerity. I-I know this is sudden, but why don’t we go out and eat somewhere? I think we could use a change of pace…”
“Fine.”
“I heard a pretty decent restaurant opened up. Come on, sister.”
I followed along as if I were indulging her.
In truth, I’d already been thinking I needed a change of pace.
All I’d do if I stayed cooped up in my room was think about that slick-faced bastard, and I knew damn well that no amount of rage was going to let me do anything about it right this second.
Opportunities always come.
No matter how much Blue had formed a strategic alliance with Red Mercenary, they weren’t stupid enough to cut off Black Swan, a major guild, just to save face.
In other words, the smarter move was to lean this way.
That realization put me in a better mood almost immediately.
If what Park Eunhye was saying in front of me was true, then Red Mercenary had at least shown some minimum courtesy, which meant my own interpretation might not have been entirely off.
Before long, I’d stepped out of the guild house, and the outside world rushed in all at once.
Something felt louder than usual, but it was still the familiar scenery of a free city.
That was when I noticed a crowd gathered around the plaza.
“Ugh… do they seriously exist, these trashy bastards?”
“What do you expect? You can tell what happened without even looking, can’t you?”
“Tsk.”
The voices drifting from here and there weren’t exactly friendly. The glances being thrown my way weren’t, either.
The one thing they all had in common was that everyone was holding a newspaper.
It wasn’t a familiar sight.
The press didn’t have much power inside Lindel.
At best, it reported on new monsters or news from the Holy Empire, and most adventurers in Lindel never even bothered with other media.
For everyone to be clustered together, reading newspapers, was definitely strange.
Curiosity was inevitable. Even though I had a bad feeling about it for no particular reason, I had no choice but to reach for the daily paper sold at the shop.
“S-sister…”
“This is…”
Blue Guild’s first dungeon expedition, led by Kim Hyunsung—the party they recruited for an enormous sum—has ended in success. Everyone still remembers the party that broke through the Tutorial Dungeon the fastest with just four members. This party, known as Kim Hyunsung’s party, left Lindel several weeks ago alongside the Magic Guild, Red Mercenary Guild, and Black Swan Guild, apparently to flaunt its connections with other major guilds.
Amid growing criticism and concern that they were being indulged too much, the Magic Guild’s dungeon conquest journal has been made public, causing a massive uproar.
What’s been revealed is the excessive abuse of power by a man identified as Jeong M.O., a member of Black Swan Guild inside the dungeon.
There had already been whispers that something was wrong with the expedition when the group arrived back in Lindel separately, but now that rumor has been proven true, delivering a shock to members of other guilds as well.
The truth behind the rumor is that Jeong M.O. (29), who had been causing conflict within the party from the very beginning, threatened I M.O. of Blue’s party.
Testimony from multiple sources has confirmed that Jeong M.O. of Black Swan Guild was putting excessive pressure on Blue, leaving everyone disgusted.
While the victim himself, I M.O., has been careful with his words as though wary of the perpetrator, rumors are spreading that he may have been subjected to physical coercion.
Experts speculate that the cause may have been a dispute over contribution and item distribution inside the dungeon, but nothing has yet been definitively confirmed.
As Blue and Black Swan both remain tight-lipped, all eyes are on where this incident will go next.
These days, dungeon raids carried out through cooperation between guilds are an entirely familiar story in free city Lindel.
Of course, disputes over item distribution and contribution are just as familiar. Everyone knows that most incidents are born from that kind of greed.
The fact that major guilds pressure medium and small clans has become so deeply woven into daily life that no one even blinks anymore, but now that free city Lindel has been established for so long, shouldn’t the major guilds be the ones leading a healthier dungeon-raiding culture?-Lindel Daily, Reporter Kim Seonggyeong
What the hell is this.
And that wasn’t all.
One provocative headline after another kept stabbing into my eyes.
There was nothing I could do but stare, stunned, at the feeling that the world had been overturned in a single morning.
My hands were shaking violently.
I still couldn’t properly understand what the hell was happening.
Of course the face that came to mind was that slick bastard’s. Voices rose all around me.
“Ahh, I went in with them once before… it was probably all true. At least it’s Blue, so it ends up in an article like this. If it had been people like us, they’d probably have found us as corpses somewhere.”
“Damn woman. It’s because of bastards like these that Lindel never develops.”
“Keep your voice down. What if…”
“No, tell me I’m wrong.”
“Even so…”
“Hey, over there… is that really Jeong Yura?”
“Shh. She can hear you.”
Y-you little—
Only after some time had passed did I finally understand.
I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t finished this.
You bastard…