Chapter 108 — The End of the Long Holiday (2)
The next day.
Lee Jun welcomed Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon, who came down around evening.
The two of them unpacked in Rooms 1204 and 1205, right next to his.
Once everyone had gathered in Room 1203, Lee Jun shared what he had learned during the preliminary survey with Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon.
For an A-Class gate, it was quite small in scale.
When he'd accepted the commission, he'd honestly wondered whether three people could clear it at all — but the materials HIM had handed over really hadn't been exaggerated.
Three people would be more than enough.
"Looks like HIM figured as much when they handed it to us."
"That would appear to be the case."
"If it's as you analyzed it, Boss, we should be fine!"
Having heard Lee Jun's briefing, the two showed great enthusiasm for the raid. It was probably because this would be their first proper raid under Management.
Seo Yoon's previous engagement had been a joint operation with Seolwon, after all.
And frankly, all the two of them had actually done was face off against Silhouette… calling that a raid would be generous.
{Still, I had fun.}
That's because you had your fun and then got swept in one go.
{…I didn't lose. It was a draw.}
Thinking that way isn't bad for you.
For the sake of your mental health.
{I-it was a draw, for real! Want to go another round?!}
If she did, the oath of mana would shatter, and the ending would probably be Silhouette's dissolution.
Anyway — letting someone win once and then shouting you're garbage is the most exhilarating feeling there is.
And the next battle was never going to be possible in the first place, so she'd remain the final victor by default.
This is why you don't go around making oaths carelessly.
Lee Jun handed the analysis materials to the two of them and idled away the time chatting with Silhouette.
There was nothing complicated enough to warrant a full explanation, it turned out.
The target of this raid was probably the gate to which the word unremarkable best applied in the entire world.
Hard to believe something could be this utterly devoid of anything, really.
Still, from Management's perspective, that was a good thing.
The spoils would go to HIM, the commissioning party, and Management would simply take its fee. No fuss, no mess.
Compared to Antilek's Bonfire, the exchange rate didn't even come close to matching — not even slightly.
'But… they'd know all of this too.'
Lee Jun had conducted his survey yesterday with the HR team leader as his guide.
He'd personally observed and assessed the finer details, but she had already been well versed in most of the relevant information herself.
Not to mention the materials she had deliberately kept from him during negotiations for effect… that wad of paper had been quite thick in its own right.
'No matter how tight the raid schedule is, it's not so tight that it would actually be impossible.'
HIM is that caliber of guild.
A gate of this level could be cleared by even their second- or third-string raid teams with room to spare.
And you're telling me even those people's schedules are all packed?
Worst case, Kim Seong-hyun could bring a few team leaders or department heads and finish it off in half a day.
Why would they go out of their way to hand this to Management?
'Did they really just reach out to lay down a connection?'
The hypothesis: they'd given Management an unnecessary commission in order to create a point of contact.
Of course, by any conventional logic, that would be absurd.
The reward wasn't just anything — it was Antilek's Bonfire.
Burning a transcendent-tier asset on a single throwaway gate like this?
Yoo Ha-eul did have a tendency to rate Lee Jun rather highly… but wouldn't the math be catastrophically bad on that deal?
Still, that much was as far as he could reason for now.
Her true intentions — he'd have to hear them directly once Yoo Ha-eul returned to the country.
When a high-grade artifact like Antilek's Bonfire changed hands, the guildmaster would inevitably be involved.
He'd have a nice, calm conversation then.
…Though calm was a word that fit that woman about as well as anything could fail to.
{But… are you really sure about the raid?}
No problems at all.
The gate's far too cramped for any meaningful variable to even show up.
{What was it again — it could be one of those, you know. Shifting themes?}
Don't worry, gates with shifting themes all, in every previous cycle—
{…Every?}
"……."
In that instant, it felt as though someone had swung a hammer into the back of his skull.
Right. Shifting themes.
A gate's rank is measured with perfect fairness.
The Dimension System quantifies a gate's difficulty and displays it through a status window.
The ranks in common use today are nothing more than human labels — intervals carved out of those numbers and assigned letters of the alphabet.
In other words, a gate's grade isn't simply a human construct; it's bestowed according to some extraordinarily well-designed calculation.
If an A-Class gate is this absurdly easy, any normal person would suspect something.
The reason Lee Jun hadn't doubted it for a second was the memory of previous cycles.
There was no record of a shifting-theme gate ever appearing in this area, at this point in time.
He had simply failed to consider something he should have.
This gate… in any previous cycle, it would have been cleared weeks earlier than now.
A blind spot born of trusting in the regression itself.
'…Was I too complacent?'
Only two days remained until the projected gate break — but that projection was an estimate too.
He'd built in a margin of safety and calculated October 10th, which meant it could stretch out by another two weeks, give or take.
And if that happened—
"…I'll step out for a bit."
"I'm sorry? At this hour, sir?"
"It'll only take a moment. Something I need to verify about the gate."
"Then we'll come with—"
"No, I can go alone. You two need to manage your condition."
Lee Jun left behind the two who tried to follow and hurried out of the room.
There was no ambiguity about who he needed to see right now.
HIM's HR team leader.
Thinking of her, Lee Jun boarded the elevator as it stopped on the 12th floor and pressed a button.
Not the 1st floor… the 6th.
Most guild members lived in the capital region, where their headquarters stood, rather than in the territories they were assigned to oversee.
So what would they do when they had to come down to a branch office?
Naturally, they'd have no choice but to book lodging nearby.
Vrrrmm―
Ding―
"6th floor… 6th floor… 601, 602… next…."
Lee Jun walked down the corridor, reading the numbers on the doors.
That woman — more than anything else in the world, she was particular about her bedding.
Which meant she'd insist on the finest linens available, and this was the only hotel in the vicinity worth the name.
She didn't much care for heights, so she'd have picked the 6th floor, the lowest one with rooms… and knowing her personality—
"…Here we are. Room 625."
The room at the very end of the corridor.
The last number on the floor.
Knock― knock― knock―
Lee Jun rapped on the door in three short beats.
{Is she really going to be here?}
Certain.
{Really?}
…About seventy percent.
{Hm. Weirdly imprecise number.}
Still, if she's in this hotel at all, it'll be here.
Well… with that woman's money, she could have outright bought a place near the branch office, but then she'd be truly unfindable, so let's rule that out.
"……."
Lee Jun stared hard at the door marked 625.
But the door showed no sign of opening.
Damn it. Should he contact Kim Seong-hyun and at least get her number?
He hadn't taken her contact info on purpose, to keep up the appearance of disinterest — if he'd known it would come to this, he'd have exchanged numbers.
"Whew…"
Lee Jun let out a long sigh and turned away.
It looked like he'd have to either contact Kim Seong-hyun or head to the HIM branch office. Just as he was resigning himself to the hassle—
Creak―
"V-Vice Chairman?!"
The door edged open, carefully.
And from within, the HR team leader poked her head out.
"How did you know my room…?"
Lee Jun didn't bother answering the question.
There was no time, and with both sides still keeping their cards face-down, no explanation was possible anyway.
So he went straight to the point.
"The raid's tomorrow, and there are a few things I'd like to discuss."
Less than twelve hours until the raid.
Lee Jun had doubted nothing about this gate until this very hour.
But what about HIM?
And if they did know something… then why were they acting this way?
"Oh, um… c-come in…."
And surely — this person would know.
* * *
Inside the room, Lee Jun followed the HR team leader's guidance toward the table.
Even amid all this, he observed her closely.
Her hair was damp and a towel hung around her neck — staged to look as though she'd just finished a bath… but the scent of her shampoo sat oddly, faintly out of place.
There were other awkward details too.
A faint warmth still rose from her body as if she'd washed in hot water, yet the air around the bathroom remained barely warmed at all.
She must have realized Lee Jun was coming and hastily dabbed on water and fragrance at the last minute.
Lee Jun stood dumbly by the table and glanced around the room.
On the sofa, a scatter of clothing lay strewn about.
The moment the team leader noticed where his gaze had landed, she jumped.
"Oh, th-that's—!"
She dashed over and frantically swept the clothes off the sofa.
Hm. Right. That's the setup, is it?
He'd wondered why she took so long to open the door — apparently she'd been busy arranging every last prop.
"Um… p-please forget what you just saw…."
"Understood. Shall I forget that nightgown as well?"
"Ah…!"
A wispy, gauzy chemise dress.
Sheer enough to leave little to the imagination — a remarkably bold design, all things considered, for the character she was playing.
She must have prepared that one with care too. He should at least give it a mention.
"I-I'll go change…!"
"Yes, do go change."
Lee Jun said it with perfect equanimity, pulled out a chair at the table, and sat.
A few minutes passed.
The team leader came back flush-faced, having thrown on nothing more than a thin shirt over everything, and sat down across from him.
{But… what if this really is what it looks like?}
Not a chance.
You think I'd mistake this?
And she picked this exact room, after all.
{But if it were a coincidence…}
Then what…
I'd just become a lunatic, that's all.
{Your way of thinking is dangerous.}
And there is no possibility of being wrong. Not even a sliver.
Because there's one thing that can't be hidden, no matter what.
Having seen it, there's no turning back now.
Once he confirmed the team leader was seated, Lee Jun brought up the matter at hand without preamble.
He had no interest in wasting time.
"I have a few questions about tomorrow's raid. That's what I came to discuss."
"What would you like to… know…?"
In answer, Lee Jun laid out his thoughts, one by one.
His doubts about this gate.
Why the commission had come to Management at all.
Whether Antilek's Bonfire truly had to be staked on it.
Who exactly had pushed this whole arrangement forward.
Up to that point, he held nothing back, telling her everything without embellishment.
And the first thing she answered was the question of why the commission had found its way to S-Class Hunter Management.
"…You recommended us?"
"Yes, hehe… w-well, I do… have quite a bit of influence around here…."
Ah. So that's it.
That explains nearly everything at once.
He'd assumed she'd gotten involved at the stage of choosing who would guide the survey — no, this had been her handiwork from well before that.
Her manufactured persona looked so timid that he'd been underestimating what lay beneath.
"Then your opinion must have carried real weight. The commission did end up with us, after all."
"Y-yes…! The guildmaster and I argued for it quite strongly…."
So this one egged her on, and Yoo Ha-eul snapped at the bait.
That woman… once something catches fire in her, she goes all in.
If Yoo Ha-eul had pushed hard enough, even Kim Seong-hyun wouldn't have been able to bring himself to stop her.
"I see."
"Then… as for the other questions, I can tell you—"
The team leader moved to answer the rest, but Lee Jun cut her off.
"No. That's enough."
"I'm… sorry?"
No matter how brilliant a performance, the curtain comes down eventually.
Watching the play is entertaining enough, but a considerate audience also thinks about the one waiting for the curtain call.
"From here on, I'd like to have a somewhat more private conversation."
"A p-private… c-conversation…?"
What he was about to hear was not something to take from HIM's HR Team 1 leader.
He intended to take it from the real person hidden behind her.
Lee Jun rose from his seat and walked toward the door.
Then he moved his hand to the lock beside the handle.
"Now then, shall we talk seriously?"
Click―
"Korob."
Liberation — the twelfth of its twelve executives.
The hope left at the bottom of the box.
Korob (ко́роб).
"…Hehe~ So how on earth did you catch on?"
At the sound of her true name, she clicked her tongue playfully.
In an instant, the atmosphere between them inverted.
And with it… the air inside the hotel room turned heavy and changed entirely.
"There are ways of knowing."
"Hmm~"
His original plan had been to wait until she came to find him.
It deviated a little from the script, but—
Still.
An arrangement like this wasn't so bad either.
"Let's have that conversation. We're both curious about plenty, aren't we?"
Lee Jun was certain.
That this moment — was one of the most critical turning points of this cycle.