And Yet the Association Goes On (1)
Lee Jun studied the man standing before him.
A hulking, muscle-bound frame, a ruggedly masculine face, and—though it didn't show much yet—a hairline that was quietly, steadily retreating.
Go Seok-gu, Chairman of the Korean Hunter Association.
"You're thinking something rude right now, aren't you?"
"Surely not, Chairman."
The man let out a long sigh as he looked at Lee Jun, who had come to visit for the first time in nearly two months.
"So. I hear you pulled off something big at the auction house recently."
"You flatter me."
"Flattery my ass. What the hell did you do to win that bid?"
"All thanks to my own talents, of course."
Go Seok-gu's face scrunched up at the utter shamelessness of it.
Right. This was the kind of man who could convince you he could brew bean paste out of red beans that never existed. Come to think of it, it was a miracle he'd only managed something that small.
This was a man who could make people believe the Han River was an ocean and Mount Taebaek a mere hill.
"Haaah…."
Go Seok-gu groaned from the depths of his soul. In a world like this, did sustainability even exist as a concept?
"Keep sighing like that, Chairman, and your hair's going to fall out strand by strand right along with your breath."
"…You want to die?"
"Not at all. It's all for your own good."
Lee Jun chuckled and held out a single sheet of paper to Go Seok-gu. Across the top, in large, bold characters, was the word OFFICIAL MEMORANDUM.
"What's this?"
"A formal cooperation request. Under Article 12 of the Hunter Special Act, concerning the formation of hunter organizations—specifically Clause 4. This is an official request for mediation pursuant to that clause."
"…No, seriously, what is this?"
"Oh, come on. What's the point of building an entire body of law to help people when no one even knows it exists?"
Of course, he'd expected as much. Hunters were people who killed monsters and conquered gates, not people who spent their days parsing legal statutes. That sort of thing was delegated to legal counsel.
And the Hunter Special Act was among the most convoluted, sprawling pieces of legislation ever written—there probably wasn't a single hunter alive who had memorized the whole thing.
Except one.
The man who had drafted the law with his own hands—Lee Jun—excluded.
"Article 12, Clause 1 of the Hunter Special Act: Hunters may freely form alliances, and the general designation of such alliances shall be uniformly termed 'guilds.' However, organizations formed for special purposes may have their designation adjusted by mutual agreement."
"Mm."
"Clause 2: The supreme body vested with the authority to mediate all disputes and controversies among hunters, including adjustments relating to Clause 1, shall be the Korean Hunter Association."
"Ah, right, and Clause 3—I remember that one too. What was it again… you know, that thing. Where they set up some new deliberative body."
"…When a body superior to the mediation authority is required, a special deliberative assembly shall be convened, and decisions shall be made by majority vote. All guild leaders of every guild in the Republic of Korea may freely participate in this assembly, and its chair shall be the Chairman of the Hunter Association."
From where he sat, Lee Jun recited the Hunter Special Act from memory, article by article. Honestly, even now, he was confident he could recite all thirty-three articles without pause.
"You still have that whole thing memorized?"
"Do you have any idea what I went through in the National Assembly to get it passed back then?"
"You twisted bastard."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It *is* a compliment, you idiot. Things are easier now because of you—that's just a fact."
Back in the era of chaos, Lee Jun had personally taken up the banner, erecting a bulwark against every manner of monster that sought to exploit hunters for private gain.
Legislation had been the surest weapon of all—so he'd buried himself in legal study he'd never wanted in his life.
"So. What's this Clause 4 you keep talking about?"
"'In the event of a dispute between organizations, the disputing parties shall have the right to request mediation from the Association. The Association may exercise its right of refusal over such a mediation request; the organizations placed in mediation shall possess no right of refusal.'"
Exactly what it said. Lee Jun was now planning to request mediation from the Association.
And then—
"I'd like you to refuse it."
"What?"
"Refuse the mediation request."
"Then why the hell did you come here in the first place?"
Go Seok-gu snatched the memorandum from Lee Jun's hands and read it over. There wasn't a single flaw to be found in it.
It documented the various suspicions that rival guilds had been raising about Lee Jun's management agency winning the bid on an S-Class gate, and formally requested mediation on the matter.
"It's well written—so why do you want me to refuse it?"
"Because the whole thing is theater."
If the other side kept staging performative protests, then this side would simply answer the performance with a play of its own.
Lee Jun intended to quietly signal that relations between himself and the Association had grown strained.
It was a farce, of course—but wasn't that how these things always went? All he had to do was plant the seed of doubt. *Could it be…?* If that suspicion took root, the play was a success.
Go Seok-gu looked at him, genuinely awestruck.
"In a past life, you were probably a snake or a raccoon dog."
"Then I suppose you were a bald eagle, Chairman."
"……"
*Pop.*
The veins were beginning to bulge on Go Seok-gu's forehead. If he pushed the teasing much further, he might well find himself hurled out that window.
This was hard-earned experience talking.
"In any case—convene an internal meeting over this matter and have the Association come down on me hard."
"You want us to hold a whole meeting over it?"
"That way it spreads further inside the Association, and from there it reaches the ears of the guild plants too."
"Plants? We rounded up all of those already. There are more besides the ones you deliberately left in place?"
"You think you ever catch them all? Mosquitoes, cockroaches—give them a hole the size of a pinhead and they'll wriggle through it. You know that."
Back when Lee Jun was active, he'd plugged as many of those holes as humanly possible. But beyond the personnel the rival guilds had planted, there were a hundred cracks through which information could leak.
On the small end, Association staff getting bribed. On the large end, outright wiretapping.
Not that the mechanical approaches stood a chance—the Chief of the Technology Bureau had shut every one of those down.
Bribery, though—that, even Lee Jun couldn't do anything about. National hunters and Association staff were paid peanuts, after all.
The emergence of gates had since upended the board, but for the twenty-first century, money had been the supreme value on Earth. These were people born into that era, and the world had only changed three years ago. The temptation of cash was a hard thing for them to resist.
The Association had nothing to offer but honor—and even that honor was thin gruel.
So Lee Jun had chosen to exploit it. He'd root out only the egregious cases, and deliberately leave the petty ones in place as controlled channels for leaking information.
"So, tell me. Anyone who looks like they've been bought lately?"
"Bought, huh… no one's shown their hand, at least."
"Hmm. Honestly, this time around, I'd rather they go wild passing information along. It's all fake anyway."
"You're the one who told me not to purge them in the first place."
"That was when they only had honest men to work with. And frankly, I can't predict how bad it'll get now that I'm gone."
To everyone in the Association, Lee Jun had been a de facto deterrent.
In the Association's earliest days, corruption of every stripe had run rampant. It had only died down after he'd made examples of a handful of ringleaders and gutted the rot in one sweeping purge.
The cold ruthlessness he'd displayed back then was still branded into the minds of the Association's senior officials. That was the only reason.
But now the deterrent would be gone. They'd start feasting with gusto.
Go Seok-gu's head ached precisely because he foresaw it.
"I'm dying without you. We hired a fair number of new staff this time, and who knows how many plants got mixed in."
Lee Jun's departure had left a massive operational vacuum at the Association. Naturally—he'd been doing the work of half a dozen men on his own.
And in hiring replacements, who could say what had slipped in with them?
"On top of that, the ones you left in place to use—those I can't manage anymore either."
The guild spies Lee Jun had deliberately left unprocessed as conduits for disinformation. Controlling them, too, was growing harder by the day.
Why he hadn't cut every plant and spy from the beginning. Why he'd tolerated a certain level of lobbying and bribery.
All of it had been Lee Jun's design.
Merely managing those people and keeping them fed was already a considerable financial burden on the guilds. And the money flowing beneath the surface—Lee Jun would catch it through audits and use it to squeeze the guilds dry.
That was exactly why he'd left them be.
More than that, he had been capable of controlling them perfectly.
The problem was… after Lee Jun left.
Everyone at the Association had come to rely on him, because they'd trusted he would never actually walk away. And frankly, that suited the Association just fine.
The more Lee Jun worked, the more efficient everything became.
"Honestly, I'm struggling. I'm not cut out for a seat this big. I only took the Chairman's job because you refused it—originally I was just going to quietly run a little guild of my own."
"Stop bellyaching. You ran a major corporation as CEO back in the day."
"Hey, that was nothing like this! And it got merged out from under me within a year, remember?"
Go Seok-gu ran a hand over his aching head and leaned back into the sofa.
"Haaah… the old days were better."
"Which old days? The era when your wife fleeced you at every turn and your daughter walked all over you?"
"Hey—why the hell would you bring *that* up!"
"You're the one who keeps saying being Chairman now is comfortable, plenty of perks. Where was all that back-slouching confidence when your shoulders were up around your ears?"
"Heh… you know what, you're right. Back then it was just… good."
Go Seok-gu found himself remembering the day the Association was first founded.
Back then, there had been only three of them.
Chairman. Vice-Chairman. Chief of the Technology Bureau.
And from there, they'd made it all the way here.
It was something to be proud of, no question… but it was also a burden that no one could carry alone—not without Lee Jun.
"…Any thought of coming back?"
"Hmm. I do have a household to look after now, you see."
"It's *one* person. The Association can manage one person."
"……"
Go Seok-gu sounded utterly sincere. It had only been two months, but apparently he'd been through quite a lot in Lee Jun's absence.
Still, Lee Jun could not accept the offer.
What was the reason he'd left the Association and founded a management agency in the first place?
To blow fresh air into this calcified Korean hunter establishment. To raise hunters with his own hands, check the power of the guilds, and do the things that couldn't be done under the Association's banner.
And… to seize the things that had slipped tragically through his fingers last time.
"I'm not going back. Not until… I've done everything I can do with my own two hands."
Lee Jun carried many regrets. Most of them predated his regression—but a fair number belonged to the years still to come.
He would seize all of them.
He would not let the story flow the way it had before. That was precisely why he'd chosen his current freewheeling position over the Vice-Chairmanship.
"…I see."
Go Seok-gu could claim to know Lee Jun well. Excluding the Initial Awakeners, he'd probably watched the man longer than anyone.
Barely two years, you could say. But those two years had been an age in the history of humanity—one year ravaged by monsters, and the long counterattack that followed. Having watched him steadily through it all, Go Seok-gu probably understood Lee Jun better than anyone else in Korea.
So he could say it.
That man… yes. He had earned the right to set some things down now.
He had shouldered far too much, for far too many people.
So… a lighter seat wouldn't hurt him.
"Besides, the whole reason I built the agency was to train hunters. Anyone worth having won't join while I'm sitting inside the Association."
"Then *make* them join, damn it. You already fished one out of that snowfield, didn't you?"
"That was hardly a typical case. That was luck."
Seo Yoon had been beyond anything he'd planned for. There was no guarantee such fortune would keep smiling on him.
It was simply easier to remain a free agent, able to headhunt as he pleased.
"And I'm not going back to the Association no matter how much you promise to let me do things my way. That job is hell on earth."
"I'm *doing* that job right now, in case you forgot."
"Honestly, hasn't the Vice-Chairman been carrying everything up to this point? Time to do some real work, Chairman. You've been sipping honey long enough."
"……"
*Pop.*
The veins stood out on Go Seok-gu's forehead again.
Oh dear. All that heat rising to his scalp—it couldn't be good for the hairline.
"Hoo… fine. Fine. So—is that everything you came for?"
"That's about the size of it. Shall we get going?"
"You come all this way and you can't even… stay for a meal. Haaah… now that you're with some other outfit, I can't even see your face without watching my step."
"Can't be helped."
He couldn't go scattering ash over public opinion he'd worked so carefully to control. A pity, but they'd see plenty of each other once they were both retired.
By then, they'd have to see each other whether they liked it or not.
There was only one hunter sanatorium in the entire country, after all.
"I'll come visit again."
"Don't."
"Come on, you like it when I drop by. You always get home so late."
"You say that in front of my wife and you're a dead man."
"Yes, sir."
And then, just then—
The moment Lee Jun's hand touched the doorknob on his way out of the Chairman's office, a staff member's frantic voice rose from outside.
—S-sir…! You can't just… barge in like—!
The voice came from somewhere close by.
The secretary's office… perhaps?
What now?
"…Hm?"
*Pat pat pat pat—*
Light, quick footsteps. Something was sprinting toward them from far down the corridor.
And the sound drew closer, and closer—
"……?"
Lee Jun instinctively took a step back from the door.
And that was the right call.
*BANG—*
Someone kicked the door clean open and stormed inside.
"Black-haired whelp! Why in all the realms is it so damned hard to catch a glimpse of your face!"
A shorty who called *him* a shorty… there was only one person that could be.
"…And what brings the Head of the Craftsmen's Union to these parts, may I ask?"
Freya.
Korea's beloved curiosity—a dwarven master craftsman, in the flesh.