Dancing with the Wolf (2)
For reasons Lee Jun couldn't begin to fathom, he ran straight into Seo Yoon wandering the sixth-floor corridor.
No, wait. Seriously, why was she here?
"Why? Is something the matt—"
"…Get in."
Thud—
Lee Jun shoved Korob back inside as she tried to slip out again and shut the door behind her.
Every misunderstanding in this situation would spring from that woman, so best to stow her away first and deal with things in order.
"…Boss?"
"……."
Lee Jun started by studying Seo Yoon's expression.
It was her usual blank mask, but beneath it he could detect a faint flusteredness, and a sliver of… anger…?
Granted, with the gate operation mere days away, seeing him like this… it was entirely capable of being misread.
Of course she'd be angry.
"So, um… Seo Yoon?"
"Yes."
Her voice was ice.
I need to explain myself, and fast….
But… however he spun it, this was a dangerous situation.
It wasn't exactly something he could blurt out—'That HR manager of HIM is secretly an executive of Liberation!'
And claiming he'd just come up to talk didn't hold water either. That woman's outfit had been suspicious as hell, after all.
'Seriously, why do you insist on pulling these pointless stunts…!'
His feminine wiles?
Like that would work.
"……."
At that moment, Lee Jun was racking his brain as desperately as he had at any handful of moments in his entire life.
Some way to break out of this situation…
"…Hm?"
Come to think of it, something was odd.
How had Seo Yoon found this place?
He'd left without saying a word—normally, wouldn't anyone assume he'd gone outside the building?
And yet she'd run into him at the far end of a hotel corridor on the sixth floor, of all places. How was that possible?
As if she'd read his thoughts, the answer came before he could even ask.
"I was worried, so I went looking for you."
"Worried…, you say?"
"Yes."
Come to think of it, Seo Yoon's breathing was a little ragged.
Looking closer, beads of sweat had gathered at her neck and forehead.
Don't tell me… had she searched every floor from the top down?
"…Let me ask, just in case."
"That's right."
"Sorry, what?"
"What you're thinking, Boss… is correct."
Seo Yoon had guessed the exact question forming in Lee Jun's head.
The perks of having studied under him for so long, perhaps.
Either way, she'd answered every question in his mind before a single one had left his mouth.
Then she added this:
"I believe it's best to be cautious. That woman is suspicious."
"Of course, I'll keep that in mind…."
Huh?
Suspicious?
"…Seo Yoon, you know her?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Ah, the HIM HR manager. I never introduced you, so."
"That is…."
After a moment of fidgeting, Seo Yoon led Lee Jun toward the emergency stairwell.
Evidently she worried the conversation might carry through the room door.
Hotels these days had cranked their soundproofing all the way up to match hunter-grade hearing, but still.
"Ahem. She won't hear us from here."
"…Just to be certain."
Having shut the stairwell door tight behind them, Seo Yoon spoke to Lee Jun carefully.
"When I was in Seolwon, serving as Information Bureau Chief… do you remember that, sir?"
"Of course I remember."
Wasn't it because of that he'd been eating and sleeping in the Seolwon headquarters in the snow country, homeless as he was?
That whole situation was why Lee Jun's home had since been reborn as a shared dormitory for the management agency.
While Lee Jun was dredging up such memories, Seo Yoon picked up where she'd left off.
"The Information Bureau itself was run by a skeleton crew, and in the end, everyone resigned except for me, the Bureau Chief."
"Because they couldn't pay you officially, right? The accounting audit would have flagged it as embezzlement."
"Yes, exactly."
It pained him to think of her working under such miserable conditions.
Most of her duties, too, had been the kind where she was used like Lee Hyeon-ah's personal lackey.
But he'd never heard the full details of what her main work had actually been back then.
Presumably, that's what she was about to tell him now.
And just as Lee Jun predicted, Seo Yoon began to speak about her duties from her Bureau Chief days.
"My primary assignment at the time was investigating the senior executives of other major guilds."
If that was the nature of it, he could understand why she was being this careful.
If it ever got out… Seolwon would be thrown into complete upheaval.
And if that happened, retaliation could come down on Seo Yoon from Seolwon itself or from any of the guilds she'd investigated—which was why she had no choice but to make sure no ears were listening.
But Seo Yoon still seemed to have more to say.
She hesitated over what came next even more than she had over admitting to the guild background checks.
"And… um…."
"Um…?"
Uncharacteristically fumbling, Seo Yoon squeezed her eyes shut and pressed on.
"It's, it's because of a… scent…, you see."
"A scent?"
"……."
A rare sight—her thoroughly thrown off balance.
No, 'flustered' barely began to cover it.
That Seo Yoon, stammering. Really, you live long enough, you see everything.
But… what scent…?
"…Let me correct that. A fragrance."
"That's not much better…."
"My sense of smell has become… rather… sensitive since I awakened. As I searched the building, I caught your fragrance in the sixth-floor corridor, Boss, so…."
Ah.
So that's why she'd come all the way down the corridor.
And then seen him stepping out of the room.
'Did I underestimate hunter senses that much…?'
Thinking about it, if she'd set her mind on finding him, she probably could have.
Just as Seo Yoon said, she could have tracked him by scent, or by reading his footprints.
With a hunter's senses, this much was child's play.
But… why burn hunter-grade senses on this?
That's overinvestment, that is.
"In any case… I'm relieved you're safe, Boss."
"Haha, obviously. Nothing happened to me, so don't worry."
That woman had her own agenda anyway—what could she possibly pull here?
This hotel sat right next to HIM's branch office.
One botched move, and in the worst case she'd be hauled in on the spot.
Besides, the woman knew Lee Jun had beaten Kaufman.
The risk was far too high for any reckless gamble.
"Honestly, what could possibly happen here?"
Right. Exactly.
Except.
Apparently, something else could happen.
[Busan Metropolitan City] This is an advisory that a Gate Break has occurred at the A-Class Gate located at Gori, Jangan-eup, Gijang County, as of 21:30 today (the 7th). All nearby residents and visitors are advised to evacuate the area immediately.
"……?"
"What's…?"
Familiar. Far too familiar.
A sound he never wanted to hear again. An utterly dreadful sound.
Lee Jun stared down at his phone, the disaster alert siren blaring from it at full volume.
"What…?"
Busan. Gijang County. And… Gori?
An A-Class gate, at that?
"…Son of a bitch?"
Was this for real?
Lee Jun sent Seo Yoon up to the room to gear up alongside Choi Jeong-hyeon and come back down, while he himself headed for the first floor via the emergency stairwell.
Plus, of course, an anger-laced phone call to Korob.
"Hey, you little—! You said the Break was more than a week out!"
"Oh, oops… so it did…? The readings definitely said so…?"
"I swear to god…!"
Right. If the readings said a week… that was probably accurate.
After all, that measurement hadn't been done by this woman personally—it had been taken by HIM directly.
And Kim Seong-hyun hadn't dropped him any hint either, so… this was a pure, unforeseen emergency.
"Sooo~ heading to the site now, are we?"
"Obviously. You get your ass out here too, right now!"
"Hmmhm~ well, let me think. I'm a Liberator, you see? A villain~ And the first rule of being a villain is not getting involved in these little crises—just sit back and watch~"
Goddammit.
She was, at the end of the day, a member of Liberation.
He'd trusted too much in the idea that she wasn't fully gone over to the dark side yet.
She was currently wearing the face of HIM's HR manager, so he'd naturally assumed she'd help stop a Gate Break too.
Was this all just an act she could quit whenever she pleased?
"…Dammit."
Click.
Lee Jun ended the call and stepped out into the hotel lobby.
As expected, it was pandemonium.
"Phew…."
Lee Jun made straight for the front desk.
The staff there were just as rattled, clearly unable to manage the situation properly.
He approached them directly, holding out the Association ID he'd thought to bring along just in case.
"I'm with the Association. Who's the highest-ranking person here right now?"
"Th-that would be me."
A gaunt, stick-thin man edged hesitantly forward.
"The General Manager?"
"No, I'm the Deputy General Manager… the GM position is currently vacant…."
"Then I'll be taking operational control of this situation. Any objection?"
"N-none at all…!"
{Oh? And here I thought you hated being called Vice-Chairman. How surprising~}
There was no better disguise for moments like this.
Nothing here was under control right now.
Someone had to do it, and it might as well be him.
{Hehe, figures. This is a man who has no business retiring.}
…Quiet down.
Having silenced Silhouette, Lee Jun got himself briefed on the current situation.
The hotel hadn't received any contact from HIM yet either.
HIM was apparently still in the middle of assessing and organizing the situation on their end.
Whatever had happened, it seemed to have caught them completely off guard.
"…Tch."
Still, he wasn't particularly worried about whether the rescue teams could arrive in time.
A reputation as one of the Four Great Guilds wasn't won by playing games.
If they couldn't manage a response of this scale, what was even the point of them.
Better to trust HIM on that front and focus on handling things here.
Setting aside his concerns about the rescue effort, Lee Jun gave the hotel staff their list of immediate priorities.
"First, make a general announcement gathering all guests into the lobby so they can evacuate to a safe location with the HIM hunters who'll be arriving shortly. Then have the Rooms and Facilities departments sweep each floor for anyone who hasn't evacuated yet, and have every other department keep the people in the lobby firmly in place."
"A-and after that…?"
"From that point the situation gets handed off to HIM. Your people just need to get through this part. Understood?"
At those words, the hotel staff gave small, unanimous nods.
After all, the hotel manual surely had contingency protocols.
Service-industry workers were routinely drilled on how to behave in emergencies like this.
It was a dangerous world, after all.
The point was to be as thorough as possible, for as much as anyone was able.
"Phew…."
Once he'd relayed every last procedure, Lee Jun stepped outside the hotel.
A glance around showed things were still peaceful out here.
But the site of the Gate Break wasn't far from this spot at all.
Factoring in the lag before the disaster alerts even fired… the monsters would come flooding into this area soon enough.
And then—
A familiar nasal voice drifted over from behind him.
"Well, well, aren't you dashing~? Ahaha, is this what they call the sex appeal of a man doing his real job~?"
"……."
At some point she'd come down—Korob was standing beside him, dressed in the same crisp outfit as yesterday.
She whined at him with perfect composure, her nasal drawl fully intact.
"So mean~ What kind of man hangs up on a lady mid-call?"
"…Ha."
Apparently the unexpected situation had overheated his brain more than he'd realized.
Right. This woman had no reason to cut and run now.
Throwing away the cover identity she'd worked so hard to build, becoming an open enemy of his? Setting aside any question of persuasion, that would be an absolute worst-case move even from her standpoint as a Liberation executive.
"Right. I got a little too worked up there."
"Worked up? Ahaha, so my feminine wiles did work on you after all? I knew it~ Called it~"
"……."
Did this woman have a serious bone in her body?
Well… she wasn't so weak that this level of trouble would scare her off, granted.
Still, Korob agreeing to cooperate with this side was a tremendous boon.
"Ahem. So. What's the plan?"
"Plan?"
"Yeah, the plan. You're the brains type, aren't you? I'd love a taste of that head of yours~"
"……."
A plan.
A plan, huh….
"There's no plan."
"Huuuh? Really?"
Whoever he'd heard it from, Lee Jun's strength had never actually been drafting meticulous plans.
Improvization, on the fly, every time.
That was simply the direction his mind worked fastest in.
"First, we head for the Break site."
"Okay? And then? You're not seriously telling me that's the whole plan? I'd rather not walk to my death~"
"…We close it."
"Eh? The Gate Break?"
It was possible.
Nobody knew it yet, not at this point in time.
A Gate Break could—artificially—be closed.
"Cooperate with me. I can't do it alone."
"…Mm, I like that. Hearing that… has made this genuinely interesting."
Korob licked her lips and grinned.
Yes—interesting.
A good word for it.
Lee Jun, too, found this whole situation intriguing.
So then… would they manage to close it this time?
"Either we close it, or there's no answer at all. You know that, right?"
"Of course~ I know it too. I am the HR manager, after all? There's hardly anyone in Busan right now—hardly anyone at all~"
If a Gate Break wasn't closed early, the consequences turned dire.
It was the tail end of a holiday weekend, but even so, nearly all of the heavyweights were stationed in the capital region.
In other words, there weren't enough hunters in the region to contain a Gate Break here on their own.
Which meant it had to be done.
"Phew…."
He steadied his breathing.
Good.
What choice was there, anyway?
All that remained was to try.