A Sly Proposal
"A favor?"
Oh Hyeon-seong asked back, dumbfounded.
What kind of favor could a big shot from the National Security Bureau possibly have to ask of a hunter who was already retired?
But Baek Ji-soo nodded without so much as blinking.
"Yep. A favor."
He was momentarily at a loss for words.
This woman. Still as shameless as ever.
"What kind of favor could you possibly want from a washed-up hunter recuperating out in the countryside?"
"An ordinary washed-up hunter wouldn't have to worry about it. He'd be the only one left to protect his own precious pride. Anyway, it's freezing out here — wouldn't it be better to talk inside?"
"...Fine. Let's go inside."
At Baek Ji-soo's brief glance toward Ju Ji-hye, Oh Hyeon-seong nodded. Clearly, this wasn't something to be discussed in front of her.
Ju Ji-hye hesitated, looking worried, but he gently sent her off to the annex and soothed her concerns.
And so the two of them sat facing each other in the living room. It was Baek Ji-soo who spoke first.
"You live here? It seems awfully big for just one person."
"Which is probably why the house keeps filling up with people."
"Amazing. That Oh Hyeon-seong — the man himself — came down to the countryside and lives like this."
"Does it look that shabby to you?"
"Hardly. Did you forget the kind of places we used to crawl around in back in the day? If it had a roof attached, it counted as a five-star hotel."
At her words, Oh Hyeon-seong let out a hollow laugh.
Sadly, she had a point.
During the countless operations they'd run back then, they'd seen more than their fair share of truly unwatchable sights. There had been no room for modesty about whether someone was a man or a woman.
"What happened to the scar on your face?"
Oh Hyeon-seong asked, looking at the left side of her cheek.
A long scar that hadn't been there in the past remained there now.
High-tier hunters, with their exceptional natural healing, almost never bore scars — wounds closed up far too quickly for that. Which meant, looked at the other way, that a scar remaining at all was a sign of an injury that had come close to death itself.
"From the Queen Subjugation. Maybe not as bad as you, Senior, but I had a pretty rough time of it back then too."
Baek Ji-soo said with a cold smile.
She had taken part in that operation as well, but while she hadn't been assigned to the strike team that faced the Queen directly — the team Oh Hyeon-seong had been on — she'd been deployed to another front.
Still, the Queen's subjugation hadn't been the whole of that mission. Even with Korea's finest forces gathered in force, it had been a catastrophe of an operation — one with an overall survival rate in the single digits.
Baek Ji-soo had been one of its survivors.
In the end, she, too, was a comrade who had shared life and death with him.
Just like Han Su-yeon. Just like Choi Jeong-il.
But that fact alone didn't resolve everything. Even among comrades who'd shared life and death, some became lifelong friends, some became enemies, and some became objects of a bitter, tangled love and hate.
"Let's get to the point, then. I'd like to hear what that favor is."
Oh Hyeon-seong said, and she nodded.
"A few days ago, an S-Rank-scale pulse was detected in this village. During the investigation, a lurker-type monster was found — you know all about that, Senior?"
"I was evacuated myself. No way I wouldn't know."
"You handled a lurker-type without a single casualty, so it's no wonder the media wouldn't shut up about it. Thanks to you, the president's approval rating went up over the 'triumph of rapid response,' and everyone's had a good laugh. Except... there's one strange thing about it."
She tilted her head as she continued.
"The lurker-type monster and the pulse we detected had absolutely nothing to do with each other."
Lurker-type monsters had a particular trait: they hid inside other gates, evaded the hunters' eyes, and slipped out unnoticed. After that, they grew their strength in total secrecy, burying themselves out of sight. The Bureau's observation equipment, which only picked up the pulses of gates, could never have caught them.
"I read the reports. Nobody even bothered to check whether the detected pulse was just equipment malfunctioning — they brushed it aside, papered over it by tucking it under the lurker incident. That's an issue Han Su-yeon personally verified, and by her usual standards, work that sloppy is simply impossible."
Baek Ji-soo continued.
"By protocol, someone should have confirmed whether whatever the equipment picked up was 'something enormous' on par with an S-Rank gate... And as it happens, you just happened to be living here, Senior."
"So what exactly are you trying to say?"
"Grimhell. That's the thing you killed, isn't it? Did it recover its strength or something?"
Blunt as a hammer.
Her manner hadn't changed one bit from the old days, and Oh Hyeon-seong let out a quiet chuckle. Apparently, she'd already figured the whole thing out before coming here.
Well, of course. If the National Security Bureau set its mind to digging into an incident that size, nothing would stay buried.
That said, he saw no need to give her a straight answer, either.
"So this favor of yours — is it asking me to come back to the field? Now that it looks like my strength has returned, work for the country again?"
"No. You retired back then. Do I really look like enough of a heartless bitch to ask that of you?"
Baek Ji-soo said with a shrug.
"I just want to borrow your name. Those three characters of it."
"My name...? What on earth do you mean?"
"Both the Hunter Management Bureau and the National Security Bureau keep civilians — non-awakened — as their heads, all in the name of 'civilian control.' You know that, right?"
"As if I could forget."
While various political systems still coexisted across the world, nations of a type that could only be seen in this era — countries where hunters had seized power — were far from few. In those nations, the strongest hunter with the greatest following rose all the way to head of state and ruled with an iron fist as a dictator.
And Korea, perhaps having inherited its venerable tradition of developing itself by grinding up its own people despite having no natural resources, had an unusually high ratio of high-tier awakened relative to its population. To the established powers that must have felt like an even greater threat — because those powerful awakened could just as easily have reduced everyone else, non-awakened included, to second-class citizens.
"It's a farce so transparent you can see right through it, but it's also a necessary evil. The problem is that with those policies repeated over and over, resentment has been piling up inside. We're the great hunters who walk into gates and risk our lives — why should we take orders from non-awakened civilians and get micromanaged over every little thing? That's the gist of it."
"Judging by your face... I take it you're on the other side of that argument?"
"My personal opinions aside, my job is to round up the unstable elements inside the country and set their hearts straight. The problem is, among those seditious little seeds is a junior of yours."
"Who are you talking about?"
"Kang Seok. That lunatic bastard."
Baek Ji-soo said with a cynical smirk.
"A few criminal organizations and radical terrorists are running wild, scattering assassination threats around — total chaos, sure. But the real problem isn't those small fry. It's the enemy within."
"Hold on. You're saying Kang Seok is that enemy within?"
"The Special Operations Command is already in his hands — you know that, right? The frontline hunters are seething with resentment. Who knows what they're so bitter about; they look just about ready to stage a coup before long."
"Ha. Don't be absurd. He would never do something like that."
"Did you forget what you taught me, Senior? There's no such thing as never."
Baek Ji-soo said.
But Oh Hyeon-seong wasn't naive enough to take her words at face value. Shaking his head, he rose from his seat.
"Senior. Join the National Security Bureau."
"...What?"
"I'm not asking you to return to the field, or to play politics. We'll create a figurehead position for you — you just keep your name attached to it. No commuting, and a salary paid on the dot. It's a dream job. What do you say?"
"I don't understand. What would that possibly accomplish?"
"Anyone who knows your name won't dare try anything funny. That alone will be enough."
"Anyone who actually knows me would know me as the cripple who crawled back from death with a ruined leg."
"And even so, it would work. The sheer symbolism those three characters of your name carry. The only one who fails to understand their true worth is, ironically, you yourself. At least among the 1st Generation hunters."
Baek Ji-soo looked at him steadily as she spoke.
But Oh Hyeon-seong frowned in reply.
"I'm a retired man. Don't drag me into your political games. Eat something and go home."
Oh Hyeon-seong turned his back and headed for the kitchen.
But he stopped at her next words.
"If a favor won't do it... how about a deal?"
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Choi Jeong-il made his way down the lane.
He had just loaded all the samples he'd brought over in advance onto the research vehicle that had arrived a short while ago. The moment they reached the laboratory, research on the samples would begin at once.
But right now, something else weighed on his mind far more.
What on earth was that about?
Oh Hyeon-seong had abruptly headed home after receiving a sudden text. He'd said it was a strange message from Ju Ji-hye. If she had come straight here the moment her schedule ended, there would have been just enough time to make the round trip — but what could possibly happen out here in the middle of nowhere?
"Hmm?"
Choi Jeong-il stopped in his tracks as he neared the house.
On the road a short distance from the gate sat a black car he had never seen before — tinted so dark it was practically a rolling vault. Even from a distance, the men inside did not look like villagers.
Knock, knock!
"Excuse me — who parked their car here?"
Choi Jeong-il strode up and rapped on the window.
The two men flinched at his sudden appearance, without so much as a sound of footsteps to announce it — then, upon seeing his face, they nearly jumped out of their skins. This was none other than Choi Jeong-il, the CEO of Aegis himself.
The man in the passenger seat hurriedly rolled the window halfway down and gave a small bow of his head.
"Our apologies, sir, but we can't disclose that. Please just go on your way."
"Answer before I drag you out and make you answer."
Choi Jeong-il asked, his voice gone cold.
The two men flinched, exchanged a brief glance, then nodded. They had apparently judged it wiser to cooperate to a degree than to raise a ruckus out here.
"We're with the National Security Bureau."
"The Security Bureau? Why would Bureau agents be here?"
Choi Jeong-il was momentarily taken aback as they produced their agent credentials. Their sudden appearance was the last thing he'd expected.
He tried to press them with a few more questions about their purpose, but the men clamped their mouths shut. From here on out, they clearly intended to say nothing no matter what he did.
A reason to suddenly show up at Senior's house... Don't tell me — Baek Ji-soo?
At the thought of Baek Ji-soo, Choi Jeong-il glanced back over his shoulder.
Given her personality, she would never come all this way just to see a friendly face. If she had truly come here, something was certainly up her sleeve.
And in that very moment—
CRUUUUNCH!
The car crumpled in on itself, every panel buckling at once.
The startled agents had already scrambled out of the vehicle on reflex — but at the same instant, a crushing pressure descended on them, and they collapsed to the ground.
GRUUUUMBLE!
"Gah... gack!"
Every inch of their bodies was pinned flat. They couldn't twitch so much as a finger.
And there, before them, Han Su-yeon appeared, killing intent rolling off her in waves.
"Where's Baek Ji-soo?"