7. Security Dispatch Mission (3)
“Guild Master, why are you like this?”
“Ah, no. I just felt like smoking a cigarette for a moment.”
Smoking was illegal outdoors, but cigarettes weren’t. Unlike tobacco, the smoke carried only a faint herbal scent.
Yu-ri’s hand trembled. She hid it from everyone else. Ever since graduation she had lived with anxiety, so she relied on cigarettes to quiet it.
She had been with Minsu, so the withdrawal symptom had crept up without her noticing.
‘Did Minsu notice my weak side?’
She didn’t want to show him that fragile side of herself.
Flame Guild existed because of the Eins tragedy. It had been built to atone for her sins, yet the true purpose had always been to welcome Minsu back one day.
That was why the name was Undying Butterfly’s Flame Scale—Minsu’s own flame spell.
‘Undying Butterfly’s Flame Scale. And I, the guild leader, must never waver. I have to bring Minsu back to us.’
If it were Minsu, he would surely return to the hunter path and hunt the Red Lake the moment he could. Yu-ri knew that better than anyone.
‘Without S-rank, I can’t even reach the smallest trace of the Red Lake.’
In just two short years she had pushed herself to the limit. She had gone straight to the grand duke she despised most.
And to secure guild funds she had knelt before him.
Minsu was meticulous and quick-witted. From the last dispatch mission it was clear he was an outstanding talent who extracted peak efficiency with the right equipment.
So for the day Flame would need him, she had poured an enormous budget into gear that even a new guild could never afford.
Even Team Leader Seo Duho, who had once earned an S-rank hunter salary at Manseong, had been scouted.
‘No… that’s… not a big deal… for Minsu.’
Yu-ri barely managed to slip the cigarette between her trembling fingers.
At Eins she had never shown such weakness. Anyone who knew her might have been startled.
‘But that doesn’t matter. In front of Minsu I must keep up the perfect image.’
She didn’t want to make him anxious. Yu-ri took a breath. The trembling had been only momentary. Probably Minsu hadn’t noticed.
“Would you like some fire?”
“No. If it’s a lighter, this…”
Just as she reached for the necklace, Minsu spoke first.
“Anyway, we’ll have to use mana more often to get familiar with it again. I’m fine.”
And Minsu lit the end of her cigarette. He always did that—unconsciously caring for others. He was simply kind.
The guilt that had tightened around her for what she had done to such a Minsu loosened the moment the smoke reached her throat.
‘No matter how I apologize, that incident won’t disappear…’
Now Minsu was inside Flame. If there was anything he wanted to achieve there, she wanted to help with anything.
Even if her limit line dropped to the bottom. After the cigarette calmed her, she unconsciously realized how close she had become to him.
No, they had simply been sitting side by side on the bench. Thinking about the distance of the past two years, the physical closeness felt the same as the psychological one.
And perhaps the calming effect had been too strong, because the love-guide content from earlier suddenly resurfaced in her mind.
- If the gift you received from your ex-boyfriend wasn’t given to anyone else but only to you, it can be considered a positive signal. Of course, it’s not about reviving old feelings, just that you don’t dislike him…
The moment that sentence appeared, the cap hat on her head and the sunglasses hanging from her shirt suddenly felt unbearably conspicuous.
‘I don’t think I gave this to anyone else. Still… could I think of it even a little positively?’
But on the day she received that gift she had casually given him a necklace that stirred old memories. According to the guide, that was something that absolutely should not have been done.
Recently Yu-ri’s body and mind had been exhausted from overwork. She didn’t realize it, but she kept thinking only positive thoughts.
- But if you and your ex are somehow tied in a work relationship, you must not attach any special meaning to the gift. It’s not a gift, it’s a business necessity because…
She had read the exception clause, yet
‘I am the guild leader… and Minsu is an intern… but gifts aren’t only for work…’
So Yu-ri erased the words “business necessity” from her mind.
She was already treating the gift from Minsu as something special.
She kept fiddling with the brim of her cap.
“Then shall we move to the next area?”
“… Yes? Yes… Let’s do that.”
Startled by Minsu’s words, she shot to her feet. Minsu rose with her, and the necklace she had given him still hung around his neck.
‘What does this mean… no way?’
According to the guide it was clearly a positive signal.
Yu-ri felt her heart pounding without realizing it and followed behind the leading Minsu.
***
Yu-ri and I moved to the new patrol area.
Through the earpiece came Team Leader Seo’s instructions.
- There seems to be an event at the nearby outdoor stage. The association has already placed security hunters, but additional personnel were requested.
So the two who had come here were the ones closest to the site—Dong-hyuk and Arin.
Urban park. An outdoor stage had been set up exactly as Team Leader Seo had described.
Above it, a performance was already underway.
“Idols have arrived. They say they’re quite famous.”
Yu-ri’s usual cold expression showed the faintest flicker of interest at the word “idol.”
“Ah, I know that idol too. They have decent popularity overseas. I’ve received multiple security requests from the association and taken the job. The pay isn’t bad…”
The thought of being guild leader naturally surfaced. In fact, she had heard a glimpse of Flame’s internal situation from Team Leader Seo Duho.
- In fact, it’s a miracle that Flame has maintained S-rank until now given its size. The results of successful missions are highly evaluated, but instead, it used so much budget.
So Yu-ri’s inability to take a break recently was also that. And the limit line he had told her was already down to 60.
‘At Eins, Yu-ri’s limit line didn’t change much…’
And she saw Yu-ri’s hand holding the cigarette tremble for a moment. Clearly she was relying on the cigarette.
Instantly, Yu-ri’s thinner silhouette than anyone else entered her vision. The tired appearance was more pronounced than usual, her shoulders looking fragile.
The feeling she had always carried toward Yu-ri at Eins unconsciously revived without her knowing.
Yu-ri always pretended to be perfect, but her inner self was like a window made of ice—she was fragile.
‘Enough. Now I’m working.’
She stopped the unconsciously reviving feeling. When she stayed silent, Yu-ri tried to break the awkwardness with a joking tone.
“Anyway, that female idol over there. Minsu, are you not interested? There are so many people here who came to see that idol.”
As Yu-ri said, the crowd was packed. I was still twenty-two. If I were an ordinary man, being interested in an idol wouldn’t be strange, but of course I felt nothing.
‘If tied to a villain, maybe, but…’
So I answered flatly.
“I’m not familiar with that idol. But with so many people, it must be famous.”
The performance had already started, and the sound of the song drifted over. Naturally, it was a track I had never heard before.
“… I see. Minsu doesn’t watch TV much, I guess.”
Yu-ri’s expression relaxed. Then she suddenly turned her head away from me. I said,
“According to Team Leader Seo, we just need to wait around here until the set time.”
“Yes. We’re not official security personnel, so we naturally blend into the crowd.”
As Yu-ri said, there was no need to reveal that we were hunters.
“Then shall we have a simple meal? It’s already lunch time.”
“Yes…? Yes. I’ll do that.”
The special event held in the city. So at the right moment there were many food trucks nearby.
“Then I’ll go buy something simple.”
Just as I turned to move, Yu-ri hurriedly took out a card and handed it to me.
“Me. This is a corporate card. Since it’ll be processed as security anyway, if Minsu wants to eat anything…”
“Yes. Let’s do that. I’ll buy some for the guild leader too.”
“Me… I’m fine… No, if you buy, since it’s during the mission, something simple…”
But seeing Yu-ri’s thin body, I grew even more worried. I took the card and headed to the nearby food truck.
‘Flame said the budget was insufficient.’
Food trucks offered various kinds and expensive items, but unconsciously Team Leader Seo’s words came to mind. Yu-ri’s words too. I decided to buy something simple.
‘Actually, Yu-ri has a short mouth too.’
It happened that most food trucks were red. Those spicy foods that made the Scoville index skyrocket to suit Korean tastes.
At the right moment a suitable menu appeared nearby.
‘By the way, Yu-ri liked this quite a bit.’
I chose the food and handed the corporate card.
***
The fierce winter wind blew across the outdoor space. Maybe in such an outdoor setting, warm soup would naturally come to mind.
Both before and after the regression I had been Korean. Like a Korean who finds cup noodles even in Swiss Alps, I bought two and came back.
‘This way, it’s not burdensome.’
More than anything, I knew Yu-ri’s taste well. When I returned with water, Yu-ri’s expression changed dramatically.
“Cup noodles, huh. This…”
At Eins, unlike So-so, Yu-ri with a short mouth didn’t eat Korean food well, but this was different.
“… This reminds me of the taste of home. Thank you.”
The food I bought was square cup noodles. I told the food-court staff to add plenty of sliced sausages and pour mayonnaise generously on top.
Truly Russian-style. Of course Yu-ri’s motherland was the Slavia Kingdom, not Russia, yet somehow the square cup noodles were popular even there.
‘At Eins, when Yu-ri and I ate cup noodles on the rooftop often.’
Actually, she never bought cup noodles from the vending machine while managing her image, but when just the two of us, Yu-ri ate them with great relish.
She couldn’t eat anything too hot, but now it was winter outdoors and Yu-ri wore only a windbreaker even in casual clothes. She looked radiant.
I pressed the camouflage cap hat I had given her firmly onto her head and ate busily with chopsticks.
‘Design is not great, but that hat is used quite well.’
Watching Yu-ri eat, I also ate the meatball-soup-flavored cup noodles I had bought.
“I was going to buy drinks too, but there were only beers, so I came back. During the mission, alcohol…”
“Ah! If it’s beer, it’s not alcohol, so it should be fine to buy. That’s a drink.”
By the way, in the Slavia Kingdom beer was not treated as alcohol at all. Suddenly that culture came to mind.
Hunters in uniform walked around the park.
‘Association dispatched hunters.’
Given it was a big event, many hunters had been sent from the association level. Places crowded with ordinary citizens were excellent hunting grounds for villains.
I checked the boundary condition around the area through the earpiece.
‘2nd level.’
2nd level meant caution. One level higher than normal 1st level. The association’s monitoring system calculated real-time villain threats.
Like a weather forecast. It announced the alert level by predicting previous terror cases and villain mindsets.
‘Desire thought…’
The biggest difference between ordinary awakened and villains. Desire thought. Villains constantly heard the whispers from the desire thought rooted in their mana heart.
That desire was diverse for each villain. But generally, when it evoked negative human emotions, the fluctuation of that emotion interfered with the villain’s mana heart, leading to extreme pleasure.
‘Like drugs, right.’
Like Doubtful Monster. The S-rank villain had manipulated the students at Eins to create the worst results.
By then Yu-ri had eaten all the cup noodles. The warm cup noodles had cooled quickly in the cold, but because of Yu-ri’s weakness to heat, her usually pale face was flushed red.
“More… thanks to you, I ate well.”
“No. I just calculated with the corporate card.”
“Th… still…”
Just as Yu-ri was about to say something more, a new notification window appeared in the field of view from the earpiece.
A 3rd-level alert has been issued in the vicinity.