The First Recruit (1)
Ten years from now, in the war against Those Things.
Even on a battlefield where everyone gambled their lives to survive against those entities, Yoon Sol's presence stood out.
A rare lightning-attribute awakened.
Krakoom—
Lightning coiled around every fist she threw, and the moment one of her kicks connected with a monster, thunder shook the heavens and the earth.
Wrapped head to toe in an aura of crackling voltage, she looked nothing short of a thunder god reborn.
Except there was one problem: that dazzling lightning was slowly devouring her body from the inside.
I learned that fact by accident, after wandering into the medical bay and witnessing Yoon Sol writhing in agony on a cot.
"Aghh—AAAAGH!!!"
Her whole body twisted as she screamed in torment.
Stunned, I forgot why I'd come and simply stood there watching. When the fit finally passed, she saw me, gave me a crooked grin, and said,
"Saw all that, did you? You Underwatch scrub."
By the time I joined the resistance army, we'd already been fighting side by side, and when we first met there she'd shouted boisterously, 'Forget the past, let's start fresh! Looking forward to it!'
Her warmth was such that, during my time in the resistance, the two of us grew close enough to honestly call each other friends.
So what on earth was going on? Worried, I asked her carefully.
"Ah… it's nothing, really. Just the side effects of being a lightning-attribute user."
She answered with a bitter smile.
"I feel a little awkward saying this myself, but I'm a pretty decent fighter, right? Even so, I never made S-Rank before the war started. Just stagnated. Because of these side effects."
Lightning abilities are powerful. The raw firepower of lightning plus its speed—a dream ability for a damage dealer.
But there was a catch…
"Every time I cycle electricity through the mana circuits across my whole body and discharge it, some of that current bleeds into my nerves—which, as it happens, also run on electrical signals."
"…So your nerves end up absorbing more current than they were built to handle. And the signals your nervous system normally exchanges are nothing but microscopic currents to begin with."
"Oh, look at you, all smart. Yeah, the doctor who diagnosed me said something similar. The more I use my ability, the more the electricity-attribute mana erodes every nerve in my body."
"There was no surgery or equipment that could stop the side effects?"
"There was. The problem is… by the time a fix existed, I was already past saving. Lightning users are so absurdly rare that nobody caught the side effect early."
The solution arrived only after I—having known nothing—had driven my body past the point of no return.
Yoon Sol said it matter-of-factly, but her tone couldn't hide the bitterness underneath.
And ten years before that—the present.
Yoon Sol is still a rookie hunter who has only just climbed to B-Rank.
Compare her track record from my previous life—the one I dug up after learning about her symptoms—with the file I'd pulled on her now, and the picture is clear.
Her short golden age is coming.
Shortly after her promotion to B-Rank she'd be scouted by a famous guild, then reach A-Rank within a year.
But her soaring momentum would stall, suddenly and inexplicably, two years after that.
Less and less activity. Vanishing from the media. Eventually, cut loose by her own guild.
She wouldn't resurface until five years from now, when the invasion of Those Things descended upon Korea.
And like every other hunter, she would fight to the very end—and die on the battlefield.
I still remember it.
"Hey. That promise we made… to play Underwatch together someday. Looks like I won't be keeping it. Sorry."
Those were her last words—breathed into my arms as her eyes closed for good.
"Executive Director? Are you listening to me?"
"Ah—yes. Yes, of course…"
I blinked, and the scene shifted once more. From the battlefield where Yoon Sol met her end, back to my office.
"Where exactly did your mind wander off to during a meeting?"
"Sorry. I was thinking about something for a moment…"
Ever since regressing, I'd developed something like a… condition? A habit?
Whenever the conversation drifted to the people around me, memories of my past life with them would surface without warning.
Just like when I first faced my father, I'd nearly been swept away by pointless nostalgia. Focus. Stay in the present.
"Please continue. I read the report on Yoon Sol you sent me, Seo-hyun. Very clean—only the essentials, all well organized."
On the tablet sitting on the table, the report Seo-hyun had sent yesterday was still open.
"Age twenty-two. Currently enrolled in Hanmyeong University's Department of Physical Education. Awakened two years ago. Unusually assessed as C-Rank right at registration, then promoted to B-Rank after two years of steady tower climbing and clearing numerous 3rd- and 4th-grade gates."
Seo-hyun recapped Yoon Sol's profile in a tidy summary.
"At the moment she's famous less for her work as a hunter than for her looks—but the industry has already started taking notice of her growth curve. Proven skill combined with the rarity of a lightning attribute."
"In plain terms, she's a rising prospect."
"Exactly. If our guild could secure Yoon Sol as its first hunter, it would be an enormous asset—both for our track record and our public image."
Seo-hyun's eyes, which had been scanning the documents expressionlessly, suddenly cut through me like a blade.
"That said, her current impression of you is presumably the worst it could possibly be. So while I can't imagine how you intend to recruit her…"
"Well, that is the biggest problem, isn't it."
After the hyeonpi incident, she probably thought of me as nothing more than a pathetic loser.
"Setting aside your history with her, Yoon Sol is unquestionably a perfect recruitment target. But… does it have to be her?"
"Yes."
"…Frankly, I don't see it. Even apart from the trouble between you two—she's already on an upward trajectory. I don't see why she'd sign with a brand-new guild that hasn't recruited a single hunter."
A fair point. That's how it would look to anyone.
"I still think the approach I suggested before is better—recruit new hunters first and grow the guild step by step."
Seo-hyun's proposal was reasonable. If I didn't know the future, I'd have chosen the same path.
But there was a five-year time limit hanging over me—over this whole world.
Unless hunter standards rose beyond those of the worldline that collapsed five years from now, unable to stop the fall of the towers, the same ending would simply repeat itself.
And there was one more reason.
Yoon Sol's condition remains undiscovered at this point in time.
If I failed to secure her and let her slip to another guild—if I couldn't be the one looking after her—
She would once again be tormented by side effects no one could name, and ruin her life all over again.
But even if I told Seo-hyun all this, she wouldn't believe me. So…
"We have to go on the offensive. Dragging our feet like that, we'll never catch up to the guilds the other groups are running."
I had no choice but to soothe her with reasons far from the truth.
Seo-hyun let out a long sigh.
"Understood, for now. It's about time. If you don't want to be late for your meeting with Yoon Sol, you need to leave now."
"Is it that late already? Then I'll be going."
Just as I stepped toward the door, her voice caught me from behind.
"…You really can recruit her, right?"
"Trust me."
"'Trust me.' Do you have any idea how many times that phrase of yours has come back to bite me in the neck?"
"Haha."
It'll be different this time.
I didn't say it out loud. The time had come to show her with results, not words.
The moment I walked into the café where I was to meet Yoon Sol, I spotted her immediately, sitting in a corner.
She was wearing the same tracksuit she'd had on the day we'd thrown down for our hyeonpi.
And yet even in that utterly ordinary outfit, her beauty was more than enough to stand out from the café's crowded tables.
A physique radiating athletic vitality, and an androgynous beauty that played perfectly against her short haircut.
Seeing her with my own two eyes, I finally understood why she was already going viral for her looks on social media—even before she ever reached A-Rank. And at the same time, a faint ache bloomed in the corner of my chest.
So this is what Yoon Sol looked like in her twenties.
The face of the Yoon Sol I remembered from ten years from now overlaid itself across hers, and a strange nostalgia washed over me. Oh, here we go again. Enough with the daydreams.
As I approached her table, she noticed me and looked up.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Yoon Sol. First of all, thank you for responding to our guild's request—"
"Apologize."
Before I'd even taken my seat, Yoon Sol cut me off with an icy expression.
"I'm sorry?"
"You said you wanted to apologize? Then start with a proper apology. Otherwise I'm not listening to a word you have to say."
"Ah…"
I'd called the contact number we'd settled on for this meeting, again and again.
"You—what a royal pain in the ass! Now what?"
When she finally picked up, Yoon Sol blew up on the spot, and it took no small amount of coaxing and cajoling before I could even get a word in.
"A guild recruitment? …What kind of nonsense is that supposed to be."
She was lukewarm at best about the offer.
Still, I refused to give up, clinging desperately and begging her to at least hear me out…
"You—ever since our hyeonpi, all you've done is use your goons to shut me up. You've never once apologized to my face. This time, apologize properly. In person. Do that, and I'll hear what you actually want."
And with that, she hung up.
"That's right. Apologize."
I rose from my seat and stood squarely in front of her.
"I am sorry, Ms. Yoon Sol."
I bowed deeply.
A textbook-perfect ninety degrees, straight out of an etiquette manual.
"For the disrespectful things I said to you in-game that day, and for showing up in person afterward flanked by bodyguards in an attempt to intimidate you—I sincerely apologize."
"Compensation was already paid once, but if you'd like any further steps taken, I will gladly comply."
After reciting what even I had to admit was a flawless apology, I held the bow in silence for a moment.
…Did it work?
Slowly, I lifted my head and looked at Yoon Sol again.
"…"
She just stared at me, blinking blankly, as if this was the last thing she'd expected.
That's an unexpected reaction.
She demanded an apology, I delivered one—so why does the person who demanded it look blindsided?
"Uh, hm. Fine. You can sit down now."
I did as I was told, sat across from her, and observed. Yoon Sol still flustered, sipping at her americano through a straw, pointlessly picking up her smartphone and putting it back down, fidgeting without rest.
Just as I was wondering whether I should speak first, she opened her mouth again.
"I—huh. Honestly? I did not expect you to actually apologize."
"Oh. Really?"
"Think about it, would you? You pick a fight in-game, it escalates to a real-life brawl. Then you show up to the brawl with bodyguards. And after you got your ass publicly handed to you, you hid behind other people and never even considered cleaning up your own mess."
"I see…"
Hearing a firsthand account of my trash-fire past from her own mouth, I realized all over again just how pathetic I'd been back then.
"So when you call out of nowhere all this time later, babbling about recruitment and whatnot, my thought was: he still hasn't learned a thing. I didn't for a second expect a real apology. Figured the best I'd get was another stack of excuses."
"That's fair."
"So my plan was to tear into you face-to-face and walk out…"
"Do you feel any better now?"
When I asked with a broad grin, Yoon Sol faltered for a moment, then…
"…It's enough. We're good now. Looking back, it was over a game, and I got all worked up about it. I'm sorry too."
She bowed her head in turn and offered me her own apology.
"And, uh—the bodyguards I knocked around. Are they okay?"
"Yes. Thanks to your excellent restraint, they all came away with minor injuries only. Naturally, their medical bills and settlements were covered on my end."
"Oh. Good…"
And then, another awkward silence.
"—Argh! This is so disorienting, seriously. Everything's going the exact opposite of what I expected. Especially you."
Something about her grumbling, pouting expression made me smile before I could stop myself.
Seeing her prickly, apology-demanding front, I'd wondered for a moment whether this Yoon Sol was really the Yoon Sol I knew.
But at her core, nothing had changed.
A woman who spoke her mind with brutal directness and never held a grudge—open, easygoing, and utterly without pretense. That was Yoon Sol.
By the way…
"Me? What exactly were you expecting?"
"I did a little digging on you after the incident."
"Oho. And what did you find?"
"Baek Do-hyun. Third child of the chairman of Baekmyeong Group, one of Korea's top chaebols. And… hmm."
"You already know what my reputation looks like, so feel free to be honest."
"…'Third-generation chaebol delinquent.' 'The stain on the Baekmyeong family.' Things like that, in the articles. Apparently you racked up quite the list of incidents."
"I did. Do you happen to know which incidents, specifically?"
Why would you even ask that? The appalled look on Yoon Sol's face seemed to say.
"…The one that stuck with me was the bar fight. You got into it with the guy at the next table, went on a rampage, and got tased by the responding officers. That one."
"Ah, right, that did happen. Man, the memories."
Come to think of it, that happened too, didn't it.
Was I twenty at the time? From my perspective, nearly fifteen years ago now.
That taser genuinely hurt, though. I'd describe it as… comparable to taking one of Yoon Sol's punches, maybe.
"'Memories'? …Is something wrong with your head?"
Oops.
"Ah, well. You know. It was a memorable incident for me too, in a way. That's all. Anyway."
Ahem. I cleared my throat and reset the mood.
"—So, with the old grudges between us officially settled, shall we get down to business?"
When I shifted into a serious tone, Yoon Sol straightened her posture in kind.
"Ms. Yoon Sol, I have recently founded a new hunter guild. Its name is Revenant."
"A guild, huh."
"Yes. And as its very first hunter—I want to recruit you, Ms. Yoon Sol."
