Chapter 32
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Why Would I Abandon You?
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Snap—
Beep beep beep—
I yanked hard on the cord, feeling a faint resistance at the pager's end.
Suddenly, an out-of-place beeping echoed through the tense office.
"What the hell is this? You trying to mess with me or something?"
Ha Chang-hoon turned away from the bristling Kang Chan-seong, his pride wounded, and strode toward me.
"I can take out trash like you before the cops even show up. How dare you—"
Cops? Oh, right. Pulling the security alarm must alert the police...
Unfortunately, what was coming wasn't the police.
Whoosh—
Boom—
"Brüüüüüel!"
No sooner had I caught my breath than the floor exploded, and a pitch-black shadow burst forth.
"Lady Su-hyeon!"
...She always found me without me having to call.
I'd shouted for nothing.
My head was spinning...
Brüel, who had smashed through the floor to make her entrance, quickly scanned Su-hyeon's condition.
She was swaying a little, but there were no visible injuries.
The moment she confirmed Su-hyeon was unharmed, she swept her gaze around the room.
Aside from Su-hyeon, there were four men and women standing there.
Two were familiar faces to Su-hyeon, and the woman in glasses had been with her since she got in the car earlier.
That man was a new face.
Someone she hadn't seen entering the building with the group.
And the man who had protected Su-hyeon at the exhibition hall was bleeding from his arm, facing off against this newcomer.
All this in 0.2 seconds.
Brüel grasped the situation in the blink of an eye.
Chang-hoon was momentarily flustered by the stranger's sudden appearance, but the ridiculous sight deflated his tension again.
What the hell? I tensed up when she smashed through the floor, but...
Why's she wearing a motorcycle helmet?
Chang-hoon snorted derisively.
Or rather, he tried to.
"What the—"
Crack crunch smash
With the sound of something shattering, Chang-hoon flew through the wall.
Crunch crack
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
Brüel seemed to hover in midair for a moment before swiftly approaching Su-hyeon to check for injuries.
She spared not a glance for the flying Chang-hoon.
"Y-yeah. You saved my life. Thanks."
"Hee-hee, ahem. I was just doing my duty."
The helmeted woman had overwhelmed the room-dominating Chang-hoon in an instant, forcing him out, and now frantically inspected every inch of Su-hyeon's body.
Everyone stared in stunned silence.
Clatter clatter
Guild members rushed in at the commotion.
They must have heard the noise from Brüel's entrance.
"What happened, Big Brother!"
Everyone except Brüel tensed and turned toward the roughly flung-open door.
Then...
"...Huh?"
A dumb sound escaped at the unexpectedly bandaged guild members.
Every single one rushing in had at least one limb wrapped in bandages.
Those with just a cast on one arm were the lucky ones.
Necks in braces and both arms in casts were standard, along with people on crutches or clutching their sides.
Was this a hunter guild or an ICU?
I half-expected someone with casts on both arms and legs—probably still in the hospital...
"A-aaah!!"
They scanned the office, spotted Brüel crouched down, and began screaming like they'd lost their minds.
Only then did Brüel react to them.
"Appearing before me again? Was my warning not enough?"
She muttered in an irritated tone as she slowly rose and turned to face them.
"H-heeek!!!"
The man with bandages on his jaw was the first to hobble away in terror.
The others followed suit, shrieking like schoolgirls.
"Kyaaah!"
"Hieee!"
"T-together...!"
As the limping patients fled at a snail's pace, Brüel spoke.
"Shall I pursue?"
"N-no, it's fine. Let's catch that guy from earlier first."
"Understood."
I had no idea what happened, but seeing them so terrified, I felt a twinge of pity.
A short while later, Brüel chased Chang-hoon outside the building but couldn't help being stunned.
'Gone...?'
There was no trace of him anywhere.
She activated every function of her helmet and scoured the surroundings thoroughly, but nothing.
'No way...'
She urgently requested her colleague to check nearby CCTV footage, but he hadn't shown his face anywhere.
Maybe because his nose was smashed.
"Tch! Damn it!"
Crash—crack
Her fist slammed into the guild building's wall in rage, cracking it all the way to the roof. Glass shattered and rained down, but she ignored it.
It was First-Class Agent Brüel's first mission failure.
And it was a direct order from her lady...
"I'm sorry..."
"No, you've already saved us. That's more than enough."
Su-hyeon comforted the dejected Brüel.
"As expected, I'm not fit to serve at your side... I'll contact headquarters and arrange for a more capable agent within the next few days."
"What? No no no. That's not necessary! It might've just been unavoidable. Things happen beyond anyone's control sometimes."
"Guh—"
Su-hyeon's attempt at consolation hit Brüel like, 'Your skills weren't up to par, so you couldn't fulfill my order, but oh well.'
"I'm sorry. I'm just too inadequate... As expected, I..."
The same loop as before.
'What a hassle...'
"...Haa—"
Su-hyeon's heavy sigh made Brüel's shoulders flinch.
"Brüel."
"Yes..."
"I'd like you to stay with me."
"But..."
"Don't you want to stay with me?"
"Absolutely not! If anything—"
Brüel jumped in vehement denial.
"Then stay. We've finally gotten close, and I don't want to part ways now."
"L-Lady Su-hyeon. Uh-hee, sn-snuh."
Brüel buried her face in Su-hyeon's tiny belly and burst into tears.
With the helmet, it felt like a watermelon was glomping her.
Su-hyeon stroked Brüel's helmet, thinking.
'Adapting to another unknown elf would be such a pain...'
Her inner thoughts differed slightly, but good was good.
"Um..."
As things quieted, Ga-eun and the lawyer approached.
"Who’s that...?"
"Mm, my bodyguard-slash-secretary...? Something like that."
"Uh, uh-huh...?"
Ga-eun's mind swirled with fresh confusion about Su-hyeon's identity.
'Pretty well-off family...? But she seems so ordinary usually... No, what am I thinking? That's rude.'
Later, the belatedly arriving police apprehended the gang, but Chang-hoon remained unfound.
Chan-seong went to the station as both victim and key witness.
His arm had mostly healed already; it’d be fully mended in another hour or two.
"Here, let me help too."
"It's fine. You've helped enough, and you must be shaken—go rest first."
"No, Chan-seong almost got misunderstood earlier just because we were in the same guild. Better to have a professional handle this."
Attorney Yi Da-hye insisted on accompanying Chan-seong to the station to assist.
Despite assurances to rest, she stubbornly tagged along.
Ga-eun narrowed her eyes at Da-hye's behavior.
"Unnie..."
"...W-what?!"
In the end, Da-hye followed Chan-seong, face flushed, practically dragging her feet.
...Looks like that'll sort itself out.
Whoosh— whoosh—
Chang-hoon was elated right now.
His face was caved in, so every breath whistled like air escaping, but the 'higher-up' who saved him had gotten him away from that monster woman.
'I wasn't abandoned after all...!'
"What's this?"
"We were watching recent elf movements and saw one burst out of that building. Figured you might know something, so we grabbed you."
The pair who brought Chang-hoon conversed casually.
"I-I'm Ha Chang-hoon! C-rank hunter and Pitbull Guild Master! I pledge my full loyalty to the descendants of the stars—!"
They didn't recognize his smashed face, so he hurriedly recited his credentials.
Only then did the woman tilt her head, something clicking.
"Wait, didn't you die in that department store terrorist attack?"
"...That was my subordinate."
"Oh, you got lucky as hell? Handing that off to a lackey?"
"Ha, haha..."
"So, uh, Sang-hoon...? Jang-hoon...? Wanna tell us about that elf? Oh, you don't know what an elf is?"
"Th-the one with the helmet...?"
"Yeah, that's her! You charged at her and bolted, right?"
It wasn't charging; he'd been one-sidedly crushed.
He felt a bit wronged but lacked the guts to retort against the strong. The pair before him were unregistered Awakeners equivalent to A-rank.
(Hence 'equivalent'—not officially A-rank.)
"I-I stumbled upon a rare healer by chance, and..."
On his knees, Chang-hoon detailed his ordeal.
His broken shoulders and throbbing face ached, but that wasn't important now.
He wasn't dumb enough to spill everything verbatim.
Chan-seong's father—Kang Chan-sik, was it?
A worthless worm who couldn't even raid Gates had opposed them.
Fear trumped gratitude and loyalty like tissue paper.
He'd threatened those Chan-sik saved to isolate him.
Then used otherworldly plants from his 'higher-ups' to wreck his home.
Thus forcing Chan-sik to rely on them, whom they exploited and mocked before staging a Gate accident to dispose of him.
Finding Chan-seong was pure coincidence.
But Chang-hoon framed it all as meticulous planning.
He especially exaggerated his role in the healer's growth and discovering the brat who cured magic poisoning for delivery.
"Hmm—really? Got it."
Huh?
"So it was tied to the elves. Seed—no, sapling, maybe."
Despite his lengthy, pitiful life story...
The reaction was lukewarm at best.
"Those guys find us Star residents like ghosts, no matter what."
"Don't call traitors that. It's just coincidence from their numbers."
They even acted like they already knew about Su-hyeon.
The weird vibe left him grinning dumbly.
"Heh, hehe..."
He'd touted his loyalty, but they couldn't even remember his name.
More like surprised he was still alive.
During the department store terror, he'd already been discarded.
"Yi Jang-hoon? Kim Jang-hoon?"
"Ha Chang-hoon."
"Right, whatever. Good work."
"Th-thank you...!"
"You wanted to pledge loyalty, so I'll use you as material specially. Useful even in death, right?"
"Ha, ha... Wait! Waaaait...!"
Grrrrrrumble
Chan-seong was seized by the head by something massive crawling from the darkness and dragged away.
The same fate as the victims he'd so despised.