The Bombshell Reward
The demon's heart and horn. Along with those, I dug out every other material I'd collected and laid them all out on the workbench.
"Will these materials do?"
"'Will these do,' he says! These are demon byproducts, you brat! From a Noble, on top of that!"
The moment the old master laid eyes on what I'd brought out, he very nearly screamed. And then there was the fact that the core materials—the demon's horn and heart—had belonged to a Noble, no less.
So he does know about them, after all.
Demons and celestials wouldn't enter public knowledge for several years yet. But with the news having reached the SS-ranks this time, I'd suspected a few people might already know about demons.
"Where on earth did you run into a high-ranking demon like—"
"North Korea. This is the heart and horn of the one who ruled over that place."
I'd taken the horn and heart by hunting the creature down myself, so there could be no doubt about their provenance. And just in case, I handed over other horns and hearts as well.
"Byproducts from demons below the Noble rank."
"You... no wonder your Unique-grade armor shattered."
Hearing that I'd hunted a Noble-rank demon, the master finally understood the state my armor had been in.
"And the stronger enemy you mentioned—those would be the seven you're planning to face, I take it?"
"Six, now... but yes, more or less."
I slipped in the correction, but the master didn't spare it a single thought. Instead, he sank into deep contemplation of how he would forge my new armor.
"Don't disturb him. Let's go."
"Is it really all right to leave him alone?"
"He'll be fine. Come along."
Worried as I was, I'd wanted to stay a little longer, but the secretary's hand hauled me out. The moment we left the smithy, dragged along by her brisk stride, she rounded on me and began her cross-examination.
"Did you actually fight a Noble demon?"
"Uh... yes."
It had abruptly turned into an interrogation room, but I answered meekly enough.
"Why would you do something so idiotic!"
"Because it needed doing?"
"And then—did you fight other demons too?"
"I... did?"
"And is it also true that at the Envy subjugation, you took on Envy nearly single-handedly?!"
"By the way... would you happen to know why I'm the one getting put through the wringer here?"
I worked up the courage to ask, but—
"Just answer the question!"
"Yes, ma'am! It's true!"
Cowed by her shout, the answer came tumbling out of me. I had no idea why she was doing this to me, but instinct was pounding one warning into me, loud and clear: do not cross this woman.
"Why on earth are you fighting things like that? And today of all days you come waltzing in with not one but two women!"
"Hold on, what's this about two women—"
"Quiet!"
I tried to steer the conversation off course however I could, but one sharp rebuke shut my mouth again. If I'd pushed any further, she'd have hit me. And getting hit by her would not have ended with mere pain.
Like the pain Mom had left behind....
Huh? Wait—why do I know that?
I'd been acting on it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but there was no basis for that knowledge anywhere in my memory. And yet it had felt perfectly natural.
With an unsettled feeling, I studied the secretary. No answer was forthcoming.
"Try pushing yourself like that one more time and I will kill you!"
"That's what I'm saying! Why do I have to suffer like this?!"
I shot back at her, reproachful, but she just tossed her head with a "Hmph!"
I was speechless, but I couldn't quite work up the nerve to argue the point. My instincts had warned me not to cross her, after all.
"Ha... fine, forget it. Let's hurry up and go see the Guildmaster."
At my words, she went on up ahead without so much as a reply.
Now she won't even answer me?!
I vented my grievances internally and absolutely did not let a single one past my lips. I'll say it again: my instinct was holding me back.
"Who on earth is that woman?"
Won-ae murmured, gazing down toward the forge where the master and Han Jin had just descended. Everything about the woman's manner toward Han Jin—her bearing, her tone—had been strictly business. And yet a woman's intuition was sounding the alarm: that woman is dangerous.
It wasn't the little kid I should have been watching out for.
Seeing how freely those two treated each other, she could feel it: the one to guard against most was that secretary. And the little kid beside her had surely reached the same conclusion.
"Looks like we weren't supposed to be wary of each other."
"No kidding."
Each of them had believed that her own history with Han Jin put her in the stronger position. But just now, both of them had sensed that this wasn't so.
The one to watch out for is that secretary.
That single thought filled both their heads. And yet this much, at least, was certain: they, too, were special to Han Jin.
"Somehow, we'll just have to find a way."
And so the two of them set about searching for their own respective paths.
"It's been a while."
"It has, Guildmaster."
Guildmaster Han Min-joon and I exchanged greetings and took our seats. The pleasantries were pure formality; neither of us gave them a second thought. We were too busy taking each other's measure.
Now I can see it clearly. This man is far stronger than I estimated.
He's grown several times stronger in the meantime, hasn't he.
Having read one another, the two of us shared a wry chuckle. I felt that above the summit, there was yet another summit; Han Min-joon, for his part, felt a hollow disbelief at my growth.
Before my regression, I'd scraped by on technique alone... but this man's body is strong before technique even enters the picture.
It was a physical realm I had never reached in my past life. If we had actually fought, I would have won—but I could never have afforded to look down on that body.
And from this point on, I have to aim for that body. No—for a body beyond it.
Strengthening the body left me no choice but to lean on stats. And since I was raising mine with elixirs, that meant I needed more elixirs. Many, many more.
If I stand still... I die.
Thinking it through like that made my goal feel sharper somehow. Just then, Guildmaster Han Min-joon spoke up.
"So what exactly did you do to get that strong?"
"You fight a Noble demon."
It was a fact, not a lie. To a man who already knew about demons, there was no call for deception.
"A demon bearing a Noble title, hm... If you're sitting here in one piece, I take it you won?"
"I did."
"As you were then, even against a Baron—the lowest of their peerage—you'd have lost nine times out of ten..."
"Then I suppose I won on the strength of that one chance in ten."
Guildmaster Han Min-joon's assessment was more generous than my own. I'd put my odds of defeat at ninety-nine out of a hundred, yet he was granting me a full ten.
"Breaking through that one-in-ten and winning, hm. Yes—strong enough to do that would be about right, given the state of you."
"I'm relieved it makes sense to you."
That Guildmaster Han Min-joon wasn't pressing me about North Korea right now was its own form of consideration. And I decided to accept that consideration for what it was.
"By the way, I never dreamed the master you brought along would be Jincheol."
"You know him, Guildmaster?"
"Know him? Even this hammer of mine was forged by that old rascal."
The weapon Seo Jincheol wielded himself was not well known. When he'd fought Envy, he'd used a sword, but that could hardly be called his main weapon.
"Ah, and for the record—my weapon is a War Hammer."
A War Hammer. The weapon most suited to destruction, bar none—a hammer that churns through the battlefield and shatters everything that catches its eye. And picturing Descent of the Sun King layered on top of that made my head swim.
Come to think of it, no one's ever disclosed what grade of skill Descent of the Sun King actually is, have they.
Its effects were famous enough, but its precise grade had never once been stated. The media had never used the words "S-rank skill" to pin it down, not even once.
There might be... a lot more strong people out there than I thought.
I had assumed SS-ranks would be few in number. I revised that assumption. It occurred to me that their ranks might run far deeper than I'd imagined. Quite a few rankers had skills whose grades had never been made public. If those skills were in fact SS-rank...
At the very least, it'd be safe to bet that most of the top hundred rankers are SS-rank.
There would no doubt be plenty beyond that hundred as well, but I had no room in my head to worry about them too.
"Ah—I never did give you your reward for granting my request, have I?"
"Your request?"
I had never been asked anything by Guildmaster Han Min-joon. So I voiced my confusion honestly, and the answer that came back was the last thing I expected.
"The Envy subjugation. I'm talking about that business."
"The subjugation...?"
Nothing came to mind. Following the commander's orders mid-battle had been a given, and since Han Min-joon had been the commander, I'd done as I was told. Among all of it, there wasn't a single thing you could call a "request."
"Your very participation in the subjugation was, for all intents and purposes, you doing me a favor."
"...Sorry?"
"Honestly, I saw your potential and pushed rather hard to get your participation approved. Without even giving you a say in it, I might add."
Come to think of it, I did have memories of being strong-armed into that operation, courtesy of the stone-faced secretary standing over there. I could have refused, of course—but the decision to participate had been my own.
"Whatever the original intent, I participated of my own will. I had the chance to refuse, after all."
"Even so, it's also true that if I hadn't forced your name forward that day, you'd never have needed to endure what you did."
He was probably referring to the ten-odd minutes I'd spent fighting Envy alone. I hadn't known it still weighed on him.
Now that I think about it, he never once approached me directly after that.
Not just in person—contact through his secretary had dropped off sharply, too. He must have been carrying a guilty conscience toward me all this time.
Might as well take the reward now and be done with the whole business.
Drawing this thread of sentiment out any longer would do nothing good for our future relationship—of that I was certain. So I simply decided to accept the reward.
"If you feel that strongly about it, I'll take the reward."
"I'd be much obliged."
"So what is the reward?"
At my question, Guildmaster Han Min-joon turned to look at the secretary beside him.
Is she the one holding it?
But when we'd been walking around earlier, she hadn't been carrying anything that looked like a reward. And then, at long last, the bomb went off.
"From this moment on, she will be not my secretary, but yours, Han Jin."
"My name is An Yu-jin. I look forward to working with you."
"...What?"
At those words, my brain stopped dead. Personal? Secretary? Why? How? This is the reward? Countless words flashed through my head, but one thing was certain.
I have to refuse.
Even now she was nagging at me nonstop. If she became my personal secretary, that nagging would follow me everywhere, forever.
Even a tsundere type gets exhausting if you're stuck with her around the clock.
I like people who come right out and say what they mean. So I moved to refuse—and then a second, far bigger bomb went off.
"Ah, and for the record—your parents have already given their blessing. We've prepared a house for the two of you to live in together."
"...Huh?"
At those words, my brain detonated a second time. And I have no memory of what was said after that.