The Great Showman (2)
Use every element available.
That had always been the guiding principle of Lee Jun's life, and at this very moment he was following it with meticulous devotion.
"……"
Yoon Seol simply met his gaze and said nothing.
Neither affirmation nor denial. With someone whose expressions were so notoriously hard to read, he couldn't begin to guess what was going through her mind right now.
So, are you taking the deal or not, Yoon Seol?
She had been the one to open negotiations with him first, and Lee Jun had answered. But dancing on someone else's palm didn't suit his temperament, so he'd amended the terms — in his own favor, of course.
To any outside observer, it would still look like a fight Lee Jun was losing. But as long as the stock option called regression existed, he could occupy ground a dozen times more advantageous than anyone else. An information gap had always been the strongest power of all.
By this point, Yoon Seol was probably thinking something like: Ah. I got played.
Well, those likely weren't words she'd actually use, but the general sentiment would be about right.
"We've already settled matters with Seolwon. If we win the bid, we intend to share the entry pass with them."
"Then the reverse—"
"The reverse, naturally, does not apply. We can only enter on the condition that we win the bid."
Lee Jun laid particular emphasis on that point — no exceptions. If S-Class Hunter Management won the auction, Seolwon could join them; if Seolwon won, Management would be excluded entirely.
For a deal that borrowed Seolwon's name purely for PR, the asymmetry looked heavily weighted against his own side. On top of that, Lee Jun had revealed the gate's fluid theme, locking the judges in his grip — the implication being that he'd hold the advantage even without Seolwon at his side.
And yet he had still brought Seolwon in. The reason, naturally…
Because I need to pocket the artifact.
Styx's Shard. For that alone, he needed to enter the gate alongside the guild he'd wagered with.
And besides, he'd needed to bring in some other guild in the first place. No matter how perfectly he had memorized the clear strategy, clearing an S-Class gate with just one rookie hunter — Seo Yoon — was beyond him. Better Seolwon than dragging in some strange unknown quantity.
The truly insidious part of this deal was that, on the surface, it looked like the better end of the bargain belonged to Seolwon. If Lee Jun won the gate, they could simply follow him in — but never the other way around. With the candidates narrowed to two, Seolwon had a near-one-hundred-percent chance of entering the gate.
But.
Lee Jun knew it was no benefit at all. Strip away the hidden piece, and this S-Class gate was practically a dud. Mediocre byproducts, experience points laughably small for an S rating. There were so few monsters to begin with that its S-Class measurement bordered on absurd. Being generous, it was worth an A.
To anyone who didn't know about the hidden piece, that was exactly what it would be worth.
"……"
"……"
Now then.
Seolwon. How will you respond?
"Hmm… in a case like this…"
The emcee was visibly flustered by the first real complication of the auction. To be fair, two or more guilds splitting a winning gate wasn't especially rare. It had simply never happened at S-Class before.
Normal people just didn't do this. Who in their right mind would carve up an S-Class gate?
"For now… does Seolwon have any objection…?"
At those words, every eye in the auction hall — split between the two parties until now — swung toward Seolwon. Toward Yoon Seol, to be precise.
Despite the long stretch of focused attention, she answered with the same unchanged expression she'd worn all evening.
"It was my proposal."
"…I see. If both parties consent, it does not violate regulations, however…"
Once Yoon Seol had said that much, the emcee had no grounds to intervene. And no reason to want to, either.
Though there was, in fact, one person with both grounds and reason to spare.
"U-Unnie…! What is the meaning of this?!"
Lee Hyeon-ah cried out, her gaze darting between Yoon Seol and Lee Jun. Her voice was cautiously restrained, yet for words addressed to Yoon Seol, pitched remarkably high.
Wait — she proposed this without even consulting her vice-guildmaster?
"Hyeon-ah, calm down."
"C-Calm down, now…? Whew… haah… Fine, Unnie. I'm calm. So — what exactly does this mean? I never heard a single word about any of this."
"It was decided just now."
"…Decided when, exactly?"
"About twenty minutes ago."
"……"
Yikes. Must be exhausting serving under a boss like that.
Not that he felt sorry for her. Entirely self-inflicted, that. Maybe she should have tried keeping her temperament in check once in a while.
The two exchanged a few more words and quickly reached their own agreement. By the sound of it, they'd decided to defer to Yoon Seol's judgment. Well, a vice-guildmaster deferring to her guildmaster — as it should be.
"Then we have confirmation of Seolwon's consent. Honored judges, please take note of this as well."
Excellent.
Just as Lee Jun was silently cheering —
It finally came. The thing that had to come.
"I have a question."
Freya. The one who had kept silent all this time raised her hand.
Haah.
What an insufferably tiresome little brat.
Freya watched Lee Jun holding court down there on the floor. That one was hopeless at being straightforward. Not a single endearing bone in his body.
Just look at him now. Always burying what he actually wanted to say, winding people up in a labyrinth of words and herding them exactly where he pleased.
One by one, the judges had obligingly walked into every trap Lee Jun had laid. And what remained, in her estimation, was one.
Should she help him with it, or not? It was a genuine dilemma.
If not for that time, I'd never have gotten tangled up with him this deeply…
"Leaving now is impossible. Absolutely. I will not let you go."
What if she had ignored those words and walked away back then? She'd probably be living a life a hundred and eighty degrees removed from this one.
A short year, if you called it short — but to Freya, that stretch had felt terribly, terribly long.
"And if I decided to leave, how exactly would you stop me?"
"Somehow or other… I suppose that's all I can answer."
"Somehow? You — with power as pathetic as yours — against me?"
How had that boy answered her then… ah, right.
"…Haah."
That's it. That's what he'd said.
"'Somehow' doesn't only mean strength, you see."
"Shall we make a wager, Lady Freya?"
"I will change this country for your sake. Ten days, no more. What say you? Does it interest you?"
And how had she answered that…
"……"
"Hoo."
Yes. Damned to all depths — she had been interested.
And that brat had gone and pulled it off. Won the wager against her, Freya herself.
"What the eye sees… is apparently not all there is."
Freya had a habit of trusting her eyes above all else. Call it fortunate that she'd corrected that before it cost her something worse. Or perhaps it was a record that would stand unbroken for the rest of her days.
Either way… what an absolutely damnable little brat.
"I have a question."
Fine. It was decided.
She'd humor his tune for as long as it took.
But in exchange —
You'd better keep me entertained just as long, boy.
The question Freya threw out was a simple one. No — if you actually thought it through, it wasn't simple at all.
If the theme shifts to lava terrain, how could Seolwon possibly hold an advantage in that gate?
Seolwon's high score so far owed itself to the many ice-attribute mages who thrived in oceanic zones. If the fluid theme turned Seolwon's strength into a weakness, how would they outmaneuver every other guild and clear this gate?
The final question Lee Jun had been hoping for.
A total tsundere, honestly.
She knew the answer perfectly well and still laid out the stage for him — wasn't that just how she was?
Lee Jun answered the last question with utter simplicity: it didn't matter whether he had an advantage here at all.
I'm the one who revealed the fluid theme in the first place.
Ordinarily, uncovering something like that earned you a higher score. And lava terrain was among the easiest themes to overcome with the right equipment. Lee Jun, on the warmest of terms with the Chief of the Technology Bureau, possessed a truly enormous stockpile of exactly such devices. An enormous stockpile, truly.
And there was more. Seolwon was a guild that didn't care what the theme was. Yoon Seol went without saying, and — though it grated on him to admit it — Lee Hyeon-ah was skilled enough that theme matchups barely touched her performance.
The higher the gate rank, the more overwhelmingly the outcome hinged on a handful of top hunters — which made this a point important enough to shrug off theme disadvantage entirely.
And with that, Lee Jun had done everything within his power.
Perfectly, flawlessly.
"That concludes the presentations. We ask the judges for a fair and impartial judgment."
Clap clap clap clap—
As the PR ended, applause poured down. This was a little different from the perfunctory clapping these events always produced.
For one, the presentation had been spotless. He'd named Samhwa — a genuine major conglomerate — and dragged Seolwon, likewise a giant, into the deal… and dunked Lee Hyeon-ah's head underwater in the process.
Granted, the Seolwon arrangement was a win-win, but Lee Hyeon-ah's reaction had been delicious enough that he'd count it as pure spite won.
And most important of all — S-Class Hunter Management was, by any measure, a small-to-midsize company. Honestly, it wasn't even that size yet; it had simply leveraged its CEO's name value and scraped by.
Watching that underdog flip the table like this had to have been thoroughly entertaining for the audience. Especially for the other small and mid-tier guilds.
Not that the results are in yet.
Anyone watching might think Management had already won the bid.
Well, of course. The results —
"Truly. Truly, you've worked so hard."
Seo Yoon greeted Lee Jun looking faintly overwhelmed. Her usual expression was thin as paper, but right now even a stranger could have read the elation on her face. Watching that auction unfold must have sent a genuine thrill through her.
"Nothing to it. Every move had grounds behind it — that's why I attempted it, and that's why it worked."
There had been no upset in the judging. Even without Seolwon's cooperation he'd have had a fifty percent chance; in the current circumstances, it was a hundred. After all, if Seolwon was going in regardless, tagging along with the former Vice-Chairman was the safer bet — that must have been their calculation.
Splitting the profits with him? As if the judges knew anything about that. Besides, most of them belonged to other guilds — profits getting divided up would suit the rest of them just fine.
"Well then, shall we head back?"
Today, Lee Jun had won exactly one lot at this auction house. But if you had to name the single greatest victor of an auction that ran over five hours… it would be this one.
A two-member organization winning an S-Class gate? That was a record that would likely stand for a hundred years. After all, the only people capable of breaking it wouldn't belong to a two-member organization to begin with.
Ha, that's actually pretty airtight logic.
Sadly.
Just as the two of them, savoring the lingering afterglow of the auction, moved to step outside —
Someone snatched at Lee Jun's wrist from behind. With an S-Class hunter's reflexes, he slipped the grab with ease.
Chomp—
…No. He tried to slip it.
She'd caught him.
"What now?"
The owner of that rough grip was Lee Hyeon-ah. Apparently she'd sent Yoon Seol on ahead and stayed behind.
"If you've got complaints, take them up with the auction house, not me. Or what — you planning to pick a fight with a decision your precious Unnie made herself?"
"Ha. I have no idea what kind of sleight of hand you used to talk Unnie into this. But fine. I'll admit it. I lost this round."
Huh? Why is she conceding so cleanly? That's not like her.
"Then what's with the wrist-grabbing, if you're admitting it?"
Smack—
Lee Jun wrenched his hand roughly out of her grip. Seo Yoon stepped in beside him.
"Please refrain from any further use of force."
"…Did you two plan this together to piss me off today or something?"
A boss really does have to show competence. He pulled that off, and now look — his hunters' loyalty is climbing.
Keheh. That's the stuff.
Lee Jun signaled to Seo Yoon that he was fine, then turned his gaze back to Lee Hyeon-ah. This one, apparently, had actually come to talk. His wrist stung a bit, but considering her usual manners, that made her practically a saint.
"You've got the face of someone with questions. Say your piece and clear the way, would you?"
"That's what I'm here for."
Lee Hyeon-ah's brow creased once. Then she exhaled a long sigh and got to the point.
"You. What would you have done if I'd opposed you to the very end?"
"Gone with Samhwa."
Judging by the vice-guildmaster's reaction during deliberations, Samhwa Group had been eyeing this gate pretty hungrily too. If Seolwon talks fell through and he'd gone to Samhwa, they'd have accepted him — Lee Jun had patched up every one of the weaknesses in their own PR during his own presentation, after all.
He had calculated for that contingency too, but thanks to Yoon Seol giving a decisive answer, it never descended into the mud.
"Looking at it that way, guildmasters really do all have sharp eyes. No wonder you're second-in-command. Right?"
"…Spare me the compliments that make my skin crawl."
"You're the one who usually says that stuff. Did it sting?"
Grrr—
Lee Hyeon-ah ground her teeth. But there was nothing more she could do about it.
This was the historic, time-honored Korean Central Auction House, and any hunter who threw a tantrum here got their guild blacklisted along with them. Losing access to the auction house amounted to proof of extinction in hunter society.
"Let's be civilized about this. You won this time."
"……"
That's right. Lee Jun had won.
Seolwon had lost. Every guild that had bid on the final lot had lost.
"Should've prepared more thoroughly, hm? Am I wrong?"
Always. With the conviction that this — and only this — is all I can do.
Thoroughly. That's the only way preparation keeps you alive.
"Let's call today a lesson learned. I shouldn't have had to pay tuition on top of snagging an S-Class gate — feels like quite the profitable trade, honestly."
With that, Lee Jun turned and left the auction house. Seo Yoon's footsteps fell in behind him. He didn't look back. It would probably infuriate her a little more that way.
"See you at the raid."
Do simmer down nicely until then.
Of course, the moment they met again he'd be rubbing salt in the wound all over again. But then — who told her to pick a fight with me in the first place?
Thud— thud—
Click— clack—
Outside, the moon was already riding high. Lee Jun drank in the cool night air and let a pleasant little tune hum through his nose.
"My, what a killer moon."
By now the reporters would no doubt be hunched over their articles about the auction. He'd go home, sleep blissfully, wake up, and read every last one of them.
What a mood-ruining day that'll be for them.
"Haah…"
In this moment, Lee Jun felt it with absolute, unwavering certainty.
Really.
Retiring was the right call.
