Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: People Don't Change Easily
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Shin Jeong-hwa fled the team leader's office as if escaping for her life.
[Get out of here for now. I'll report this to the higher-ups, so keep that in mind.]
[T-Team Leader!]
[Get out now! Are you testing my patience?]
If word got back to the higher-ups that she was a birth discrimination advocate...
Her career path would be as good as over, but she didn't have the luxury to think that far.
'Why the hell did I say something like that?'
She'd managed just fine until now, hadn't she?
Why had she suddenly blurted out those thoughts she'd only harbored deep inside, hidden behind her mask so no one would find out!
Not knowing about Yoo Jun-hyuk's hypnosis, Shin Jeong-hwa could only curse herself.
'You stupid bitch!'
Discriminating based on someone's birth origin wasn't explicitly defined as a crime by law, unlike America's past racial discrimination laws.
At best, it might qualify as insult or defamation.
But it was an act that dealt a massive blow to one's image—far worse than being treated as a mere crime—and guilds treated it as taboo, separate from national laws.
Think about it.
Could you really trust your back to someone who mocked you for being factory-born?
That meant losing trust, and a team without trust faced higher risks inside gates where teamwork was crucial. Hunter guilds strictly prohibited such behavior and punished it harshly.
"Huh? Senior?"
As she raced mindlessly down the hallway, some junior hunters who'd just joined greeted her.
"Good morning! Have a great day!"
"Shut up, you factory trash."
"!?"
Even that greeting triggered her hypnosis, which interpreted it as a question, and the harsh words she normally felt toward her factory-born juniors spilled from her mouth once more.
'Fuck, fuck!'
She didn't even have time to stop and make excuses.
Only now did she realize it wasn't a mistake on her part—some unknown force was influencing her.
'What is this? I've never entered a gate with a monster that uses mental interference attacks.'
Had she been hit by some monster hiding unbeknownst to her?
But the only gate she'd cleared was before her vacation!
Or was it like a virus, latent until it activated late? No reports of monsters with delayed attacks like that!
A person's character and abilities are separate.
Even if her character was trash, Shin Jeong-hwa coldly assessed her situation and found a solution.
'Hospital—one that can cure mental contamination!'
If her hunch was right and this was truly mental contamination from a monster, then whether her words reflected her hidden true feelings or not...
She could shift all the blame there.
Freshly back from vacation, she skipped work without permission to visit the hospital.
If Yoo Jun-hyuk hadn't added extra hypnosis...
His hypnosis skill would have been discovered by the doctors at this point.
[All hypnosis effects, including this one, will be released upon visiting a hospital or receiving any medical treatment.]
"No abnormalities detected."
"W-What? P-Please run more detailed tests!"
The moment she set foot in the hospital, all hypnosis was lifted, and Yoo Jun-hyuk's traces vanished clean.
She underwent scans multiple times, but with repeated assurances of no mental contamination, Shin Jeong-hwa despaired.
"Then at least give me a diagnosis certificate! One saying I have mental contamination!"
"I'm sorry. That would violate medical law; we absolutely cannot issue it."
"Argh! I'll pay any amount, please!"
No doctor accommodated her unreasonable request.
Most hospitals, dealing frequently with injury-prone hunters, maintained close ties with guilds.
They had no desire to risk those relationships by issuing fake certificates and getting caught.
Of course, the doctors she visited being mostly conscientious ones helped too.
"Why was I spouting nonsense before, and now it's stopped?!"
It was enough to drive her mad.
In the end, unable to get even a fake certificate, Shin Jeong-hwa returned to the guild the next day and faced a horrific reality.
"Hunter Shin Jeong-hwa, do you admit to making birth-discriminatory remarks to Team Leader Kim Min-sol around 9 a.m. yesterday?"
"Th-That..."
"Please answer yes or no."
The guild's disciplinary committee.
As the accused, she had no choice but to attend.
"Suspension for 3 months, pay cut of 50% for 1 year, and exclusion from promotion reviews for the next 3 years. This concludes the disciplinary proceedings."
She ended up receiving severe punishment.
For someone always aiming high, the inability to promote for 3 years was more despairing than suspension or pay cuts.
Even after 3 years, could she really advance here?
Without achievements on Choi Yu-ra's level, her career was effectively dead.
"No way people still discriminate by birth origin in this day and age."
"That senior's nice act was all fake?"
"Nice? You know what she said? Called them 'factory trash bitches.'"
"Really? To who?"
"To all of us! Hee-yeon was hit hardest, right? You know she looked up to her? Burst into tears in the hallway right after."
Worse, her hallway outburst spread like wildfire among guild members.
Her carefully built image shattered completely.
"What a piece of trash."
A painstakingly built tower crumbles.
Hard to build, gone in an instant.
"How could she say something like that?"
One word repays a thousand nyang debt.
Conversely, she'd saddled herself with a thousand nyang debt in one utterance.
"Fuck..."
But who could she complain to?
Her words were all true sentiments, and Yoo Jun-hyuk's hypnosis had merely prevented her from lying.
It was all her own karma.
"Fuck!"
With nothing she could do...
All she managed was cursing alone in her home.
But that wasn't the end.
"Fuuuuck!"
Reporters with noses like bloodhounds had caught the scent of prey.
＊＊＊
[Guild elite hunter prospect disciplined for birth discrimination remarks.]
[Birth discriminators still exist. Urgent need for hunter ethics education.]
[Heroes Association officially recognizes No Face as villain. Designated B-rank villain.]
A boring weekend with no sign of Yu-ra noona returning home yet.
Lying in bed scrolling news, it seemed Shin Jeong-hwa had stirred up trouble.
"Sigh, all that fake piety, and her true colors never changed."
Of course, people don't change that easily.
Take Lee Seo-yeon—even after a week of hypnosis torment, she didn't change.
Only after treating her trauma-induced persecution complex by catching voice phishing scammers did she shift.
'In that sense, this was punishment, not rehabilitation.'
Sure, in wuxia novels, a trivial event might spark sudden enlightenment and change a person.
But that's reserved for protagonists with heavenly opportunities or absolute masters in those tales.
So rare it's practically nonexistent.
"Well, this should be enough, right?"
She must have realized how foolish her beliefs were.
How many factory-born hunters are there, and she discriminates against them?
"Plenty of factory-born colleagues she'd trust her back to. If she's gonna discriminate, she shouldn't have become a hunter."
If she weren't a hunter, it might not have blown up into headlines.
But she was. A hunter, where trust and teamwork among comrades are paramount.
Picturing Shin Jeong-hwa clinging to idiotic views despite knowing that world made him scoff involuntarily.
"Looks like the hypnosis I placed is all gone, so she can't connect it to me."
Time to wrap up the Shin Jeong-hwa affair and plan how to kill this dull weekend.
"Hm?"
Right on cue, a message arrived.
Opening it, it was from Lee Seo-yeon.
[Jun-hyuk, thank you so much for coming to the party last time. You have no idea how grateful I am. If it weren't for you...]
For a second, he thought he'd received a 5,700-character essay.
What could she have so much to say? But reading to the end, despite the length, the point was simple.
[If you're free this weekend, want to catch a movie together?]
A date invitation.
Though phrased as "movie," who takes that at face value?
Finishing the message brought a hearty laugh.
"Hmm, what to do?"
Seeing her often at the cafe and now this blatantly single message...
She came off pretty cute, bumping his fondness from acquaintance to friend in real time.
"Already bored anyway—might as well meet up."
She was probably fidgeting nervously after sending it.
Will Jun-hyuk oppa accept the date?
What if he rejects?
Stupid me, shouldn't have sent it!
"This one's obvious—no need to ask noona."
He hadn't asked Yu-ra noona yet if she thought polygamy was okay as a hunter.
But even without that, Lee Seo-yeon was just a friend, so no issue.
'Friends of opposite sexes can watch movies and grab meals sometimes.'
Not like some archaic "no mingling of sexes at seven" rule—why not meet?
Still, wanting to tease her a bit, he sent a curt reply.
[Sure]
Zero effort response.
What would she say?
Moments later, Lee Seo-yeon's reply came.
[Really? For real? Not joking? Should I book movie tickets right now? I will! So, what time tomorrow? Park? No, I'll pick you up at your place! Send your address! And if you're okay, let's grab a meal after the movie. You like cafes, right? There's this cat cafe I know...]
"Haha!"
Her second 5,700-character message brimmed with the joy and anxiety of a total singleton.
＊＊＊
"......"
At the very moment Yoo Jun-hyuk was messaging with Lee Seo-yeon.
In a dark room, Shin Jeong-hwa logged onto the internet.
Not the ordinary web for civilians, but a shadowy, sordid, illegal corner.
'Thinking about it, it's weird. Why would this happen to me? There has to be a reason.'
The site she accessed was the dark web.
Deeper and more secretive than the deep web.
The abyss of the network world.
'Someone with a grudge against me? Only Lee Seo-yeon, that bitch. Did she slip me some delayed-effect drug at the party? Or an artifact storing a mental skill? A skill that exposes true feelings? Sounds familiar.'
Drugs.
Kidnapping.
Firearms.
Illegal artifacts.
Even murder.
Countless crimes existed on the dark web, executed by villains, of course.
Some acted for ideology or pleasure, but most villains loved money, so they dominated the dark web.
'Whatever it is, it has to be that bitch Lee Seo-yeon.'
Gnawing her nails relentlessly, she entered a site.
She seemed familiar with it, having used it multiple times.
"That worm dares to do this to me..."
Shin Jeong-hwa was convinced Lee Seo-yeon was behind her predicament.
No evidence, and they hadn't even met the day before it blew up.
But among those she had grudges with, Lee Seo-yeon was the only recent encounter.
She had to believe that to endure the current hell, brainwashing herself and pouring all her rage into it.
Her current self was the epitome of trash—blaming the nearest easy target.
"That fucking bitch. I'll make her confess no matter what."
That way, she could overturn the discipline and restore her image.
But even via dark web commission, reaching for Lee Seo-yeon gave her pause.
'Millennium Guild isn't pushovers; they won't fall to villains.'
Non-hunter affairs handler or not, it was still Millennium Guild.
Screw up, and the villains get caught, leading back to her.
'But do I need to target Lee Seo-yeon directly?'
Threaten via someone precious, and you can get anything.
"Jun-hyuk."
Shin Jeong-hwa thought of Yoo Jun-hyuk.
Her ideal type crush.
"I'm sorry. You'll have to suffer a bit."
But for revenge and honor, she could easily abandon such things.