The Letter
“GRAAAAGH! That piece of absolute shit!”
Yoo Sung-wook kicked the table over. It shattered on impact and collapsed in a heap.
“You dare talk to me like that? Some leftover trash of a family?!”
Heat surged up from his body in waves. He felt like if he didn't get his hands on that bastard right now and grind him into a pulp, the fury would never subside.
That bastard, of course, being—
“Lee Tae-hyun…!”
The dullard who had swallowed whole every ounce of attention that should have been his. The man had come back from clearing an A-rank gate, no less, yet the cameras were pointed at some completely different guy.
If a new rising star had appeared, he could have crushed him underfoot somehow. But Lee Tae-hyun was a child of Cheonseong. He was practically handed everything on a silver platter — approach him carelessly and you'd only float yourself up to the surface for everyone to see.
No, wait.
Honestly speaking, even that wouldn't have mattered. Lee Tae-hyun's image was tyrant, degenerate, trash — while Yoo Sung-wook was the blockbuster rising star, an idol, practically sacred territory hailed as the hope of the Korean hunter world.
“How the hell did that bastard even…!”
A variety of articles and comments glowed on Yoo Sung-wook's tablet.
Back when Yoo Sung-wook had entered the gate, Lee Tae-hyun's reputation was at its absolute worst. A violent temperament and a pleasure-chasing degenerate — if someone had come forward claiming they'd beaten him to death, a petition demanding their innocence would likely have gone up.
It flipped overnight?!
Yoo Sung-wook rapidly combed through everything Lee Tae-hyun had done in the interim. Cleared a C-rank gate with a new record, cleared his own name of false accusations, unveiled a new technique. Each one was an event that would have made global headlines on its own.
He'd detonated all of them within the span of a single month.
“Damn it! Damn it!!”
Infuriating. So infuriating he couldn't stand it.
“And until just recently, he was my stepping stone!”
The incident where Lee Tae-hyun had struck Yoo Sung-wook over the head — almost no one knew the full story behind it. For instance, that Yoo Sung-wook had—
"Honestly, do you realize how pathetic you are? Rather than going on living like that, why not write a will and die in front of your little brother? That'd probably help Cheonseong more… Ah, wait — Cheonseong's past its prime anyway, so just hand the whole thing over. To China or the States."
He had deliberately picked a fight with Lee Tae-hyun, that was all.
'You dense little bastard.'
'Wh… what did you say?!'
Enraged, Lee Tae-hyun had lost control of himself and smashed a bottle over his head — but Yoo Sung-wook hadn't taken so much as a scratch. He was an A-rank awakened, after all. An ordinary person's attack carrying not a trace of mana couldn't possibly get through.
'AAAAAGH! Why would you suddenly do that?!'
But he had faked the pain. He had deliberately wounded his own head and shed his own blood.
[Cheonseong's Eldest Son, Lee Tae-hyun. Goes on a Rampage Against 'Rising Star' Yoo Sung-wook!]
And with that, he became the subject of infinite attention. The future of South Korea, assaulted and abused by the eldest son of a chaebol family! What a beautiful picture it made.
Mentioned alongside Lee Tae-hyun, Yoo Sung-wook's name spread ever wider. Thanks to that, he'd been able to secure an unrivaled position within his guild, and it was also how he'd been able to safely clear an A-rank gate by throwing a pack of debt-ridden hunters out in front of him as human shields.
I thought this A-rank gate would launch me even higher.
In reality, every last drop of attention had gone to that damned Lee Tae-hyun. He'd rushed around trying to track down where Lee Tae-hyun was, hoping to snatch the reporters' attention—
'If you're going to use me, you should have done it more cleverly.'
It had failed. And spectacularly, hideously so.
“EIIIII! That trash bastard!”
His trembling fist slammed into the lounge wall. Even though the wall was made of reinforced material, a single punch punched clean through it.
“S-Seong-wook….”
Just then, a man opened the door and came in. It was Hak Jin-cheol, a member of the Seongun Guild and Yoo Sung-wook's manager.
“Let's just calm down for now….”
“Calm down? Does this look like something I can calm down from? That bastard just robbed me!”
The attention Lee Tae-hyun was receiving was supposed to be his. The reporters should have been writing articles about him, not that bastard!
“Jin-cheol hyung, doesn't this piss you off too? This isn't just a loss for me — it's a loss for the entire guild!”
“Well….”
Hak Jin-cheol could only swallow dryly. The reason the Seongun Guild had paid a fortune to bring in Yoo Sung-wook was, obviously, to create a flagship hunter. That was why they'd been funneling fame his way.
The loss is real, though….
It amounted to an entire project they'd poured their hearts and money into collapsing at once.
“…Fine, I've decided.”
“Decided what?”
“I'll do it too. Solo-clear a gate.”
“Wh… what? Are you serious?”
“So he's B-rank, is he? Then I'll solo an A-rank!”
“No! You'll get yourself killed!”
While barely managing to calm down Yoo Sung-wook, who had long since abandoned any pretense of rational judgment, Hak Jin-cheol pulled a letter from his pocket.
“F-first, just take a look at this!”
“…Huh? What's this. A letter? Another fan letter?”
Yoo Sung-wook's face crumpled the moment he saw it.
“Ugh. I told you not to bring fan letters to me — just throw them out. Who even uses this antiquated crap these days….”
“It's a letter, but not a fan letter.”
Hak Jin-cheol deliberately placed the letter right in front of Yoo Sung-wook's eyes.
“I don't know who left it, but I figured I still had to pass it along since it came addressed to you.”
A single sentence written in white ink on pitch-black paper.
[To. Yoo Sung-wook]
“Ha… what a pain.”
It had, after all, been delivered directly to the guild's headquarters. In this day and age, who wrote letters anymore if not fans?
[Greetings, Yoo Sung-wook. First, allow us to express our admiration for the many strides you have shown.]
[Enough with the preamble — let us proceed to the matter at hand.]
[We know you well.]
[Yes, very well indeed.]
[That you dream of becoming a shining star.]
[That you long to stand above everyone else.]
[And also…….]
[…That you despise the sight of any star shining but your own.]
Yoo Sung-wook's eyebrows twitched.
[We can make you shine for eternity.]
[A star hanging alone in the night sky, glittering in solitude.]
[And the power to become that star — we would gladly grant it to you.]
“….”
Yoo Sung-wook read the rest of the letter.
[We will await your answer at any time.]
[With anticipation — from the 'Advent Cult'.]
“…The Advent Cult?”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing at all.”
Seong Ju-ah, seated in the seat beside mine, asked out of the blue.
“Something just came back to me, that's all.”
Yes — now I remembered.
Yoo Sung-wook.
The guy who had awakened in the middle of training to be an idol and ended up becoming a hunter instead. With a handsome face and A-rank potential on top of it, he'd shot straight into the spotlight —
He'd gone around poking at gates far above his proper tier and died for it. There had been a great public outcry — the loss of a national-treasure-level talent, the fall of Korea's star — but afterwards:
After he died, exposés kept coming one after another, and in the end his records were quietly erased. An utter piece of work — rampant abuse of power, sexual harassment, and even habitual school violence back in his student days. His guild's image, which had been propping him up, was smashed to pieces along with him.
I don't particularly care.
Criminals were a dime a dozen in this world. He did have a direct connection to me, but I had no intention of passing judgment on every one of them. I wasn't aiming to be a hero.
Still, digging the memory up does feel satisfying.
Major events stuck vividly in memory, but trivial garbage like that lay far beyond the horizon of forgetting. Human recall has its limits, after all.
“Anyway, this works out nicely.”
Seong Ju-ah struck up conversation as I gazed out the window at the open sky. This was inside an airplane. A scheduled B-rank gate happened to be on Jeju Island, so we were on our way there now.
“As it happened, the B-rank gate opened up a slot, so there was no need to push the schedule back.”
“You're just having me clear out the backlog of gates sitting on Jeju, aren't you?”
“…Ahem.”
Hunters, at the end of the day, enter gates to make money. From that standpoint, a gate popping up in a place that takes time and travel to reach is a considerable headache — it eats up transport costs and hours alike.
“A truly efficient way of conducting business. Yes, nothing could be more characteristic of the Hunter Bureau.”
“Th… if that's how you saw it, then I apologize….”
“I'm joking.”
“Wh… uaaaah….”
“What are you so startled about? Now I just feel awkward.”
“…You really do need to be aware of the weight your own words carry, Tae-hyun-ssi.”
Since Seong Ju-ah seemed genuinely about to apologize, I gave her a smile on purpose.
“Someone has to do it, after all.”
Jeju Island was short on hunters. It was an obvious fact — in an era when hunters were treated as critical human resources, who would stay stationed out there in hunter status? Everyone flocked to Seoul to join a guild.
And yet.
Gates still opened on Jeju Island.
It's fine for now. But.
Later, when Mutation Gates ran rampant and the liberation-type gates emerged — the kind that spewed the monsters inside out into the open world — that was when real hell would begin. And the place hit hardest by that devastation had been Jeju Island itself.
“If someone has to do it, then there's no reason that someone shouldn't be me.”
“….”
Seong Ju-ah stared at me with an expression of surprise. The sparkle in her eyes was seriously uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of.
“Wh-what is it?”
“Nothing. It's just… it made me realize all over again that rumors truly cannot be trusted.”
“…Is that so.”
In that case, I had plenty to say too.
'The youngest-ever Bureau Director, Seong Ju-ah.'
The rumors I'd heard about her before the regression went something like—
'An utterly cold-blooded, merciless woman.'
And yet the person in front of me now—
“An airplane with nobody else aboard is magnificent. Somehow romantic, even.”
“Aren't planes normally flown by one or two people in the first place?”
“…The senses of the ultra-wealthy and ordinary people really do exist on different planes.”
A perfectly ordinary person, through and through. Even granting that she kept her professional and private lives strictly separate, it was surprising that not a trace of her pre-regression self showed anywhere.
[This aircraft will be landing shortly. Please fasten your seatbelt and remain seated….]
With the landing announcement, the plane began its preparations to touch down on Jeju Island.
“First, the moment we arrive, we'll get straight into a car and head for Seogwipo City.”
Seong Ju-ah immediately switched back to her crisp, measured tone and laid out the schedule.
“You'll make your light preparations in front of the gate, then enter it together with the hunter currently being staged there.”
“By the way, who is this hunter accompanying me? I haven't heard a single word about them until now.”
“Th-that's nothing you need to concern yourself with. They're a high-tier expert exceptionally skilled at concealing their presence, so it won't interfere with the broadcast either.”
“Hmm, is that so?”
Seong Ju-ah's voice seemed to tremble slightly, but—
'They're probably just Bureau personnel anyway.'
There was nothing worth fretting over. I only needed to focus on my own task.