The Dreaming Electric Sheep (2)
"…Difficult? What exactly do you mean by that?"
"[It's… well, it's complicated to explain….]"
The thing answered in a voice that sounded like someone sweating through every syllable.
The explanation stretched on for a full ten minutes.
Condensed down to its bare essentials, it went something like this:
"So you're saying the guilds leaned on the Association? That there might have been corruption in my auction process?"
"[Exactly. That's it.]"
"Something like that shouldn't even faze someone at your lev—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Because something caught in his throat.
Some might wonder: why would someone of the Technical Bureau Chief's stature need to tiptoe around anything? After all, she was more than capable of holding that kind of weight on her own shoulders.
In truth, her abilities soared far beyond anything a single organization could hope to contain.
And yet she had her own weakness.
It was a form of trauma endemic to the Initial Awakeners—a shared affliction of everyone who had weathered the age of chaos on the front lines.
She had two taboos. Two things that must never be touched.
One was her hometown.
The other was…
"…You're still tied down because of me? You're afraid that if people start pointing fingers at that auction mess, the fallout will reach you?"
Dependency.
Without someone to lean on, she probably couldn't last more than a few days.
Lee Jun knew she was the same as him. The single word comrade had sunk its teeth into her ankle, too.
The only difference was the direction they pulled.
He endured by cutting the cord; she endured by clinging to it with everything she had.
And that was precisely why she carried a debt of the heart. Right now, his greatest weakness was her. So she followed his words to the letter, granted whatever he wanted.
That had been the deal from the very beginning.
"[I'm not tied down.]"
"You know better than anyone. We use each other, and in the end we say things like this just to console ourselves."
"[…I stayed with the Association by my own will.]"
"And even that was my design."
Lee Jun and the Technical Bureau Chief had made a bargain. Everything stemmed from a mutual understanding. Back then, they had needed each other—for entirely different reasons.
"You used me to find stability, and I used you to find mine. Different reasons, same direction."
Every secret between them was folded away, never to be examined. Neither interfered in the other's affairs. They simply used each other.
And so Lee Jun installed CCTV in his home, and she became the Technical Bureau Chief. One person, to find stability in her own heart. The other, to give stability to an organization called the Association. Those threads wound around each other, and around again, until they led here.
"[I like it now. I like it, so that's why I'm here.]"
Deeply rooted trauma makes a person fragile.
She had deceived herself, talked herself into it, and become the Technical Bureau Chief. She had smothered the urge to run and held her ground—because Lee Jun had it harder.
He was the one who indulged her tantrums, so she had to give something in return. At least, that was how she saw it.
"[But….]"
"There's no need to wear shackles anymore. I broke the promise first."
Lee Jun's retirement. And his resignation as Vice-Chairman.
When she had first heard the news, her heart had very nearly stopped.
"[…But. But.]"
"So you have no reason to stay tied down either."
"[You… you didn't leave. That's why I stayed. I stayed with the Association by my own will… by my own choice.]"
"…"
She insisted, over and over, that everything was her own decision.
But Lee Jun knew. Her dependency had long since outstripped her own awareness.
Though… I'd be lying if I said the same didn't apply to me.
That was probably why Lee Jun could never quite fix his habit of talking to himself. These days Seo Yoon had helped pare it down somewhat, but whenever he was alone, he slid right back into old patterns. In his past life, ten more years had stretched ahead like this… he'd likely carry it to the grave.
"[Part of me wants… to come over to your side. But that would be pure greed on my part. So… I'm staying here.]"
"Why go that far?"
"[Because the Association is everything you ever built.]"
Having said that much, she let a brief silence pass before drawing out her next words. And then… she spoke. In her own true voice, without a single trace of machine static woven into it.
"[I want to protect it to the end. You may not be the Vice-Chairman anymore… but I'm still the Technical Bureau Chief.]"
She remembered it clearly. The day the Association received its official permit and that towering building began to rise in the heart of Seoul—he had been smiling. A smile she'd never once seen him show before. The Association, which had made his most precious comrade smile during the darkest stretch of their lives… she could not bring herself to abandon it.
"…"
For a moment, Lee Jun felt as though a hammer had come down on the back of his skull.
No—that wasn't it. Even when he'd genuinely been decked, it hadn't hit this hard.
"You…"
When had it started?
Lee Jun had long since stopped placing much value on the Association. It was an organization he had bled and scraped to build—so why? Was it when the rumors of his decline began circling? When he'd been shoved and jostled until he finally set down the Vice-Chairman's seat? When he'd retreated to some ceremonial post to clean up after his successors?
Honestly… he couldn't remember exactly. His heart had simply gone cold somewhere along the way. It was those memories of his past life that had let him hand over the Vice-Chairmanship without a shred of hesitation. His heart had drifted away, slowly.
But no one knew of his regression, and everyone could only voice their bewilderment. And through it all, she had fought to protect the Association. The moment Lee Jun declared his retirement, the Technical Bureau Chief had more than enough pretext to resign as well. With her abilities, she could have found better work and better treatment anywhere.
"[I'll be honest. You know it already—I can't go anywhere else. And if I have to stay in this country anyway, then I'll remain where the most of your traces are. And that's this seat.]"
Those words were sincere.
Having watched her for so long, he could tell. So then—what answer could he possibly give to that sincerity?
Even that, he… didn't know.
"…Hoo."
He steadied his breathing. Whenever his heart wavered, he exhaled like this. It felt as if stray thoughts caught the outgoing breath and were carried out of his head. That was how he gathered himself.
Right. Let's just gloss over it this time too, same as always. Brooding never suited his temperament. It was the same mask he'd always worn. He could just… put it back on.
"…"
But the words wouldn't leave Lee Jun's mouth. He simply sat on the sofa, head bowed, staring at nothing but his own feet.
He stole a glance toward Seo Yoon. What would she think? She'd followed him around calling him Boss this and Boss that, and this was the sorry spectacle he showed her in return. Had she lost faith in him?
"…"
"…"
Silence settled thick over the room. Even though the place sat far from the city center, the sound of passing cars drifted in clearly. Perhaps the heavy air had sharpened every sense.
It was in that atmosphere that Seo Yoon finally forced her mouth open—bearing both of their gazes, feeling as though someone had to say something.
"I… don't know what I should say. I'm not an Initial Awakener, and I know nothing of what happened between the two of you back then."
She couldn't know.
She knew Lee Jun had spent roughly the first year overseas, but no one alive knew what had happened during that time. To be precise… those who did know had never intended to speak of it.
"But there is one thing I do know."
Even she knew this fact. It was probably something every hunter in Korea knew.
"As Vice-Chairman… you truly shone, Boss."
He possessed a power unlike anyone else's. A hunter with no mana. A hunter who couldn't even see his own status window. Yet no matter how high-flying, how formidable the hunters of the upper ranks were, in the end they all bent the knee before him. His confidence seemed as though nothing in this world could break it. Even if it was, in truth, a mask—at least every hunter believed it was.
"And I believe you'll carry it off this time too."
Seo Yoon had watched. Not as some distant observer, but as his closest aide.
She still remembered everything Lee Jun had shown at the auction house. One could argue the memory was vivid because a mere three days had passed—but no, she knew she would never forget it, whether a year went by or ten.
"…"
Lee Jun was, for a while, at a loss for words.
How long has this person been watching me?
He couldn't say for certain, but it probably hadn't been that long. And yet she sent this much faith his way—so why couldn't he believe in himself?
Even looked at objectively, his accomplishments were nothing short of monumental.
The founding of the Korean Hunter Association. The enactment of the Hunter Special Act. Recruiting Freya and the Technical Bureau Chief to aid in rebuilding a collapsed Korean society. Checking the tyranny of the mega-guilds. Putting an end to certain large dungeons being treated as private hunting grounds. Legislating gate distribution. Introducing the auction system. Regional assignments by guild, along with enforcement and audits.
Even now, the various guilds kept him at the very top of their watch lists. That had been true from the moment he founded his management agency, and it continued still, nearly two months on. And surely there were those eyeing him for recruitment, like snow falling in a drift.
That was how vast Lee Jun's influence in hunter society was—as an individual, no less. Set aside his direct combat power, and he was still an eminently useful hunter.
And yet.
And yet why—why couldn't he believe in himself this much?
"[…Even now. Are you still hung up on what happened back then?]"
The words burrowed into his ears. Tore at his eardrums. Raked through his brain.
"Hah… hah…"
Lee Jun's breathing grew ragged.
A vicious trauma. The Bureau Chief's robot clamped down on his wrist, where cold sweat was sliding.
Hard plastic, textured with an anti-slip finish. The material carried no warmth—but the feeling reached him all the same.
"…Goddamn it."
Lee Jun squeezed his eyes shut.
What am I supposed to do this time?
"…"
And then, opening his eyes again, Lee Jun spoke quietly.
"…This time, you just watch."
"[What?! After everything I just told you, this is what you took from it?! I—]"
"That's exactly why I'm telling you to watch. You're the Technical Bureau Chief."
Good. Decided.
"It's called a management agency, isn't it? I don't belong to the Association, or to any guild. So this is the right way to go about it."
He realized he'd spent all this time failing to get his bearings. He was, after all, a man who walked his own path. His ties to the Association had kept him tethered to it for too long.
"Let's do this as a business, Madam Bureau Chief."
Lee Jun was twenty-three. Counting his regression, his mind was thirty-three.
And yet even at that age, he felt he hadn't fully matured. But now, something that had been gnawing away at a corner of his mind ever since gates first appeared in this world felt, at last, a little loosened.
"I'll show you. Why I'm S-Class."
Lee Jun's strength did not lie in direct combat.
Everyone knew that. His strength existed outside the battlefield—and he would exercise that talent to the fullest.
Every S-Class hunter possessed at least one exceptional domain. One had received a mind from the System; another, a body; another, psychic power.
But exactly one man—a single human who had never even been granted mana—had clawed his way through that hell on nothing but his own strength.
So this time, too, Lee Jun would go his own way.
Having settled on that, his first move was a thoroughly calculated one.
"Hoo…"
Several days after the conversation with the Technical Bureau Chief—
Lee Jun quietly lifted his head and gazed up at the building before him.
— Korean Hunter Association —
Yes. A head-on confrontation it was.
And the opening move would be public opinion.