The Intern Program's First Field Trip (1)
I answered Soso.
"Go ahead, Team Leader Yeon Soso."
She was a friend, but at Flame she outranked me. I turned from the monitor and spoke with due courtesy.
Our eyes met. Soso looked terribly flustered, but she still didn't look away. After a brief hesitation, she spoke.
"Minsu. Should we stop at a rest area, would a snack please you, or a meal?"
"Pardon?"
The question came so far out of nowhere that I blinked. I recovered quickly.
"It's nearly lunchtime, so a meal would probably be better."
"Th-that so. I see. A meal, then."
She turned as if nothing had happened and put the same question to Arin in the back seat.
"And you, Arin. Which would suit you better?"
"A meal for me too, Team Leader Yeon!"
Team Leader Seo Duho caught the exchange and chimed in, weary as ever.
"Ah. Team Leader Yeon must be getting hungry. About that time, isn't it. Dong-hyuk — let's stop at the rest area after next. Hunters can eat separately at the VIP restaurant on the second floor."
"Got it."
The van fell quiet again. Soso flicked a glance at me, then lapsed back into silence. Only then did I understand why she had spoken up so suddenly.
Ah. So that was it.
We hadn't really talked since I'd joined the guild. Any excuse would have done. She had just wanted to speak with me.
That's so like her.
The look and the mannerisms were a hundred and eighty degrees from the gloomy outsider I used to know — but underneath, Soso didn't seem much different from the girl who had walked the halls at Eins.
And that's why her Limit Line looks like this.
I glanced back at the graph I'd been studying: Soso's mission record, the one Seo Duho had handed me. Surprisingly, in her early days at Flame, her Limit Line had been remarkably high. Unlike the fragile-nerved Soso I remembered, it had sat at a full eighty-five.
She had a clear purpose then.
Flame had been founded around a shared goal — the destruction of Red Lake. Yuri couldn't have been easy for Soso to work with, but in those days she would have had a fierce will driving her.
At least until I was still unconscious.
For the Soso who had awakened the Blood Demon, the only way to wash the guilt from her hands — while I lay insensible, with no telling if I would ever come back — would have been to throw herself into Yuri's plan.
The trouble started the moment I woke. The me of that time had taken one look at Yuri and Soso in my hospital room and fallen into a full-blown panic. Watching a fit that violent would have shaken Soso to her core.
Her Limit Line told the rest of the story. From that point on it traced a steady downward curve. This wasn't some outside clinic's paperwork, either. It was Flame's own record, compiled with Professor Seong Chaerin's latest theory. The reliability was high.
So like her. She's probably blaming herself.
The responsibility for waking the Blood Demon had been mine. She had taken that blame onto herself instead. Which meant I had an obligation to put her Limit Line back where it belonged.
Yes. I'm the only one who can.
Professor Seong Chaerin's latest theory hinged on a primary factor: Relationship. If Soso had already decided that whatever lay between us was a wreck beyond salvage, then I simply had to set it right. No — I had to.
For a moment the thought felt so hypocritical it bordered on self-loathing. But if the friend I had been was what Soso needed, then that was what I would have to be.
A friend. Right... a friend, a colleague at Flame. A subordinate, at most.
Anything beyond that was impossible. I knew it. I had sworn it. Not just with Soso — with Yuri, and with Arin too. I would not cross the line that ran past friend and senior.
I'm going to disappear from this world anyway.
A man on borrowed time had no business becoming anything more to the people who would go on living long after everything was finished.
The van reached the rest area before long.
The group settled in on the second floor. As Seo Duho had said, the upper level was reserved for hunters, and the restaurant was crowded with people who looked the part. No surprise there. This rest area sat on the road to our destination — the Southeastern Contaminated Zone.
Dong-hyuk and Seo Duho talked over their food.
"Lucky this is a place I've been through plenty of times. For freelancers looking to clear dungeons, you won't find better — so long as you pick the right ones."
"Well, Dong-hyuk's got the right of it. Dungeons of any real danger don't tend to spawn there, and the Association keeps the zone well managed. Perfect for the intern program's first field assignment."
A contaminated zone was a peculiar stretch of land that appeared after a high-risk gate expanded into a dungeon and poisoned the surrounding area. The Southeastern Contaminated Zone sat near Ulsan. An S-Rank dungeon had formed there once, but it had long since been cleared. Residual demonic energy still lingered, though, and a fair number of small dungeons remained across the old site. Flame's interns were scheduled to take their first field mission among them.
"Ugh... isn't this place crawling with thugs? It's filthy loud."
Arin had it right. Most hunters were thugs in all but name. The Hunter Association exercised a degree of control, but these were not soldiers answerable to the hard authority of a state. They were ruffians who moved strictly according to their own self-interest. Unless you were talking about the top-tier guilds that actually cared about public image, or the Association's own affiliated groups, plenty of hunters were no better than neighborhood punks.
"Ah, fuck! I'm telling you, I've been inside an AA-Rank dungeon before, yeah? Cleaned up proper that time, so now I just knock around this contaminated zone for pocket money."
"Tone down the bullshit. If a punk like you cleared an AA-Rank dungeon, I'd already be an A-Rank hunter. My ass."
"The hell? Why's this pork soup so bland? Hey! Waitress! Bring this back and do it right!"
Hunters like that filled the place, carrying on as if they were at a street market. There were quieter ones too, eating in silence — but even those had the eyes of hungry predators.
This is the world it was.
I'd snuck out here for side jobs even back when I was at Eins. After nearly a year away from the industry since waking up, the scenery felt almost welcome.
Arin's right, though. It is loud.
So I answered her without thinking.
"It is filthy loud, yeah. Can't a person eat in peace..."
That was when Soso looked at me. She set her spoon down with a sharp click.
"Is it loud?"
"Huh? Well, not so loud I can't eat, but—"
"I asked if it was loud."
Her expression was so serious that I told her the truth.
"Yes. For a restaurant, it seems far too noisy..."
Soso was silent a moment. Then she stood up from her seat all at once, and shouted.
A heavy voice, thick with mana, filled the restaurant. Bowls rattled on every table. The aftershock of that single rebuke hung in the air for a long moment, and the whole place went still.
In the silence that followed, hunters belatedly took notice of Soso and began to mutter.
"Wh-what the hell? Who's that woman? What's her problem?"
"Young thing's already lost her mind?"
"Who does she think she is, yelling like that..."
That was when several rather vicious-looking hunters started walking toward our table. Not the loudmouthed punks still carrying on in the back — these looked like they actually had skill.
Here to pick a fight?
No — Soso had been the one to act first. Plenty of hunters wouldn't swallow a provocation like that. I was already getting to my feet, ready to talk them down, when the hunters suddenly brought their fists together and bowed at the waist toward Soso.
"We pay our respects to the Young Cult Leader!"
It was an exceedingly formal greeting. Soso, apparently well used to this sort of thing, raised a hand as if it were only natural.
"Very well. Be silent, then. I dislike noise while dining."
"Understood. Please enjoy your meal."
They withdrew. They must have been hunters of some standing in the region, because a single glare from them was enough to quiet the restaurant at once.
"This should suffice. We can eat in peace now."
She said it evenly enough, though she did sneak a look at my face. Only then did I realize the outburst had been for my sake.
Because I said it was loud?
Seo Duho, a beat late, offered the interns an explanation.
"A common enough occurrence. As you know, Team Leader Yeon's family commands enormous standing among hunters — melee dealers especially. Once they recognize her, they come over to pay their respects like that quite often."
Soso was the Young Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult. And as Seo Duho had said, the various clans of Muguk held considerable status. They maintained enormous hunter guilds organized around blood and regional ties — Clans — and they also transmitted a unique combat discipline: martial arts.
The unorthodox clans, especially, are more popular among hunters than the righteous ones.
The orthodox clans — the so-called righteous path — had adapted thoroughly to Earth's modern capitalism. The cartel they had built was ironclad. Without considerable money or social standing, you simply could not learn their martial arts.
"But as you're aware, the doctrine of the Heavenly Demon Cult is that anyone who desires power may, at any time, be given the chance to learn their arts."
The Heavenly Demon Cult. Their ultimate aim was absolute power, dominion over all people — and their doctrine held that anyone had the right to seize that power. When awakeners couldn't afford the steep tuition of an academy, many of them enrolled instead at the Cult's far cheaper training halls.
Soso was the Young Cult Leader of that Cult. In time, she would sit at its head.
So even if I'm gone someday, Soso will be fine.
She had that kind of future waiting. She was the Heavenly Demon. She could take flight whenever she wished.
And yet Soso flicked another glance at me, and somewhere along the way the corner of her mouth had curled up, just slightly.
The group finally arrived at the contaminated zone.
Before the zone proper, a cluster of offices and amenities had sprung up along the approach. We headed for the Hunter Association's field office, where people from the various guilds participating in the Association's intern program had already gathered.
"I'm sorry — these are really the only dungeons we can enter?"
Seo Duho's expression, as he spoke with an office official, was not a good one. The conversation continued.
"Intern program or not, dungeons this low-grade are what academy students run. A guild clearing places like this is a net loss."
"Well, you see..."
The official explained. The Association's office had already finished its reconnaissance of the contaminated zone and assessed every dungeon's threat level. Among those, the dungeons that would give interns worthwhile experience — and that could easily raise a guild's evaluation score upon being cleared — had, apparently, already been swept up by the conglomerate guilds.
"So the big guilds cleaned them out."
Dong-hyuk had it right. There didn't seem to be any dungeons left that would do Flame any good.
"You run into this all the time, working a contaminated zone. Those bastards have connections with the Association's higher-ups, so they get first pick of anything worth running."
That went for their interns as well. Dong-hyuk went on.
"Which makes this a bit of a problem. Flame's finances lately don't seem as healthy as you'd hope."
Soso's face tightened at that. He wasn't wrong. Flame's raid team was currently missing its main dealer — Soso herself. They couldn't take her on missions with her Limit Line in free fall. However gifted Yuri and the rest of the members were, they couldn't match the output of a conglomerate running multiple raid teams at once.
Dong-hyuk leaned in and murmured at my ear.
"Word from Flame's operations team is the guild evaluation might drop to A-Rank next quarter. That's why this intern program matters more than you'd think. It's an Association system, so if the interns put up good numbers, the guild evaluation goes up with them."
The evaluation record from this first field assignment would be posted the moment the three-day trip ended. The guild's pride was on the line.
Flame's current guild evaluation was S-Rank. A drop to A-Rank would not be good. A-Rank was still a high grade, and fine for ordinary missions —
But it puts limits on your freedom. Especially overseas.
For Flame, which devoted itself to villain subjugation more than any other guild, that would be a serious loss. Red Lake was an international terrorist organization. They didn't operate in Korea alone.
Arin spoke up.
"Tch. Something's off. Flame runs a lot of villain subjugation — the kind the conglomerates hate. Shouldn't we be getting more authority, not less?"
"Well. The hunter industry is tangled up in more than just politics and business. International interests are in the mix too. That's the kind of restriction they like to impose."
Seo Duho finished with the official and came over, scratching furiously at his head.
"I told operations this would happen, but ordinary sales work doesn't seem to cut it. Those damn conglomerate sales teams. They must have poured some truly excellent liquor down the Association higher-ups' throats. Damn it."
A three-day trip, of all things. That part seemed to be eating at him.
"Calling in the intelligence team to find a new dungeon at this point... we haven't got the time. Even if we found a good one, the other guilds' interns would clear three or four in the meanwhile."
At that, Soso's expression grew still more complicated. She was holding it in because the interns were watching — but the Soso of Eins would already have been in tears.
The situation was a problem for me as well. Ruby, standing in for my mana heart, couldn't channel mana at present. To properly assess her condition I needed a dungeon that could provide a real stimulus.
Nothing left here is going to help.
And then a thought struck me.
"Team Leader Seo. Why don't we find a dungeon ourselves, just among our own guild members? That would solve it, wouldn't it?"
At that, the others all turned to look at me.