The Welcome Squad
Baek Do-hee called me. She wanted me to come to the Minister’s office at the Hunter Administration Bureau around evening.
For a second, I got nervous, wondering if something had come of last night’s mess.
Minister Huang, Baek Do-hee, and Han Jin-hwan were already in the office.
As soon as I sat down, Baek Do-hee said, “The two of you have been reassigned. You’ll be part of the welcoming delegation, not the security detail.”
Thank God.
So that wasn’t why I’d been called in.
I let out a breath of relief without even meaning to.
Han Jin-hwan and Minister Huang both tilted their heads at the sight of me like that. Only Baek Do-hee, who knew exactly why I’d reacted that way, just shook her head.
To steer their attention away from me, I asked, “Why the change?”
“Because the situation changed.”
“The situation…?”
“Yes. Originally, Aladin Miller was supposed to enter the country secretly with her research team. But….”
“That’s not the plan anymore, is it?”
“Ah.”
Just as she said, things had changed.
This had become an event where every S-class hunter in the world would gather.
It had also become something the government was promoting on a massive scale.
“Even though it’s a welcoming delegation, what the two of you have to do won’t change much.”
“So, on the surface, it’s a welcoming delegation. But the real job is security, right?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Hmm….”
“Heh.”
Minister Huang gave a short laugh.
It was enough to draw the eyes of all three of us.
Why was he laughing all of a sudden?
He was looking at me as he laughed.
Did I get something on my face?
He pointed a thick finger at me.
“The moment it was named the welcoming delegation, there was talk that Do-woon should be excluded….”
“Huh? What? You were trying to leave Do-woon out?”
“Seriously? That’s a little harsh.”
Jin-hwan and I each tossed in a remark.
Minister Huang immediately waved both hands.
“No, I said there was talk.”
“There was talk….”
“So that means it was in the past tense.”
People had brought it up, but it hadn’t been adopted.
Huh. Looking at how pleased Minister Huang seemed to be bringing it up, I figured… he must have used some influence.
He’d bulldozed right through the argument that I should be excluded.
“At the meeting, they said there wasn’t enough evidence that you’d been properly vetted in a lot of ways, so they wanted to leave you out.”
“Hmm….”
That wasn’t exactly wrong.
I hadn’t really done enough as a hunter yet.
I’d managed to accomplish one thing that anyone would recognize as an achievement, but right now it wasn’t the sort of thing I could go around boasting about.
All the eyes of the world were fixed on this place.
Leaving that aside, I hadn’t exactly built a long list of accomplishments I could proudly talk about.
Compared to the other A-class hunters on the rankings, it was fair to say I had almost nothing.
Minister Huang curled in his pointing finger and raised a thumb.
His thick finger pointed at himself.
“But I pushed it through.”
“You did, Minister?”
“Yeah. I kept ignoring everyone who wanted to leave you out.”
He was talking with a kind of self-satisfied pride.
Anyone listening would think he was telling some heroic war story.
It wasn’t exactly persuasion so much as plain old ignoring people, so I didn’t think it was something he should be bragging about.
Still, since the man himself was puffing up with pride, I decided not to poke at it.
“Until one by one, they got tired and dropped out.”
“…….”
Hah.
I just stared at Minister Huang, who even burst into hearty laughter after saying that.
Why had he pushed for me like that?
If the proposal to exclude me had passed, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal.
The assessment that I hadn’t really been vetted in enough ways was pretty accurate.
I’d have been annoyed, sure, but I would’ve accepted it for what it was.
Situations like this changed people all the time.
“Ha, ha… hmm, hm!”
Maybe because I was staring so hard, Minister Huang finally stopped laughing.
He must have read the meaning in my eyes too, because he nodded.
But… he still didn’t say a word.
He just chuckled again and again.
Which meant he had no intention of telling me why he’d done it.
What is this guy…?
“There’s one more change.”
While Minister Huang and I just stared at each other, Baek Do-hee cut in.
She let out a short sigh and continued.
“The welcoming delegation has grown.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
It was only natural.
The United States, Russia, and China were all scheduled to enter at the same time.
Just Jin-hwan and me wouldn’t be enough people to greet them.
Jin-hwan asked curiously, “Who’s joining?”
“First, Lee Tae-cheon and Baek Do-hee from Baekwooncheon will be participating.”
“Oh?”
“As for those two… ah, I suppose I don’t need to explain. You both know them well enough.”
“That’s true.”
Of all the people in the world, I knew those two best.
Hearing someone else explain what kind of people they were would be an insult to me.
But I still had to ask, because I genuinely didn’t understand.
“Do-hee and Tae-cheon agreed to do this?”
“Pardon? Yes.”
“How did they agree to it?”
“Pardon?”
Baek Do-hee tilted her head.
Without meaning to, I tilted mine too.
Baekwooncheon was unbelievably busy right now.
No, I should correct that.
Baekwooncheon was always busy.
It was rarer for them not to be.
“Baekwooncheon isn’t in a position where it can afford to take on something like this.”
“Not in a position to afford it?”
“Right. They’ve got to do A-rank guild work with a small number of people. Aside from the two of them, there are only about ten A-class hunters.”
“Ah….”
Han Jin-hwan nodded as if he sort of understood.
A guild made up of an elite few.
Those guilds often sweated blood just trying to keep up with everything expected of an A-rank guild.
If they failed, their rating would drop.
The work itself wasn’t all that difficult, actually.
Managing the gates around the guild building and handling the quests assigned by the government and the Hunter Association was about the size of it.
The problem was that Baekwooncheon simply didn’t have enough people.
More precisely, they didn’t have enough people capable of handling the quests assigned by the government and the Association.
“Still. Once you become an A-rank guild, you really do end up with too much to do.”
“That’s been brought up a few times, but….”
“I think it’s fair, actually. No, I think if you can’t even handle that much, you shouldn’t be an A-rank guild in the first place. Just look at how much the government and the Association give you.”
“Yeah. That argument makes sense, which is why it keeps getting shut down every time.”
“If they don’t have enough people, then they should hire more. Baekwooncheon’s one of the most popular guilds in Korea, so they should be able to recruit plenty of talented people.”
“Well… yeah, that’s true.”
I agreed readily enough.
Jin-hwan tilted his head. “Then why not just hire more? Why don’t they?”
“Because… Baekwooncheon has something it’s prioritizing right now.”
“Prioritizing? What is it?”
“Skill… no, that can’t be it.”
“And it’s not personality, either.”
“Hmm? Why do you think that?”
“If it were personality….”
Baek Do-hee trailed off.
But since she kept glancing at me, I knew exactly what she wanted to say.
She wanted to say my personality wasn’t very good.
Well, I’d be the first to admit that the way I’d been acting up until now wasn’t exactly great.
Hadn’t I just shown them last night how I’d been caught by the Association?
And on top of that, I’d buried some trash in the ground, too….
“They’re prioritizing people from orphanages.”
“What?”
“Pardon?”
Minister Huang and Baek Do-hee both asked back at once.
Their eyes went round, like they truly hadn’t known.
“Do-hee said she wanted to do that. She wanted to give jobs to people from orphanages, just like us.”
“Huh… so that’s what it was. That’s why there were such strange hires….”
“As expected of the White Saint….”
Baek Do-hee murmured the title.
Her eyes were slightly dazed, and I could tell she was genuinely impressed.
Our Do-hee really is kind, isn’t she?
Hehe.
Because of that, Do-hee and Tae-cheon were always buried under an insane amount of work.
So if the two of them had agreed to this, it could only mean one of two things.
They’d finally found a little breathing room, or they were already overworking themselves.
Han Jin-hwan tilted his head again. “Wait a second.”
“……?”
“You knew your little sister was that busy, and you still left the guild?”
“Haha. Isn’t it a universal truth that a good younger sister’s older brother is a bad older brother?”
“What?”
“Classic little-sister-backbreaker behavior….”
This time, Baek Do-hee muttered my nickname under her breath.
The way her brows were pinched made it clear she truly despised me.
On the other hand, Jin-hwan looked at me with the corners of his mouth lifting, like he’d just heard something interesting.
Had I said something funny?
Why was he staring at me like that?
“Then maybe I should apply to join Baekwooncheon too.”
“Pardon?”
“What?”
Baek Do-hee and Minister Huang both shot back at him.
Their eyes widened in shock.
This time I was surprised too, and my eyes went wide just like theirs.
Apply to join Baekwooncheon?
“Are you serious?”
“I’m from an orphanage too. I figure I could get picked on priority.”
“…….”
Priority….
If Han Jin-hwan actually came, he’d be top priority without question.
What insane guild would turn down Han Jin-hwan if he said he wanted in?
Still, judging by the lifted corner of his mouth, he was obviously joking.
Minister Huang chuckled and shook his head too, clearly catching on.
“Anyway. That’s why I was asking how they agreed to it. It feels like they’re pushing themselves too hard.”
“Don’t worry about that. Since we were the ones making the request, we planned to accommodate them.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess it’ll be fine.”
“Tell your little sister to ask for whatever she wants. Just ask. Don’t hold back.”
Han Jin-hwan cut in.
“Ask for whatever she wants?”
“Yeah. The government needs your sister right now. And your friend too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This.”
With that, Han Jin-hwan tapped his smartphone and held it out.
On the screen, a Black woman was speaking with a warm, friendly smile.
“That’s Miller, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s the video of her doing a video interview with KBC today.”
“Heh, an interview with Miller…? How’d they pull that off?”
“Miller asked for it herself.”
“Miller did? Why?”
“Because of this. Look.”
Jin-hwan nodded at the screen.
I lowered my gaze and looked again.
The interviewer was asking Miller a question.
[Next question. Is there anyone in Korea you’d like to meet?]
That came out of nowhere.
That was what I thought, anyway, but Miller, the one being asked, smiled brightly.
Clearly, it was a question she’d been waiting for.
She must have requested that they ask her in advance.
Miller answered right away.
Text appeared at the bottom of the screen, translating her words.
“I’d like to meet the White Saint, Baek Do-hee.”
What.
Miller wanted to meet Do-hee?
“Man. You really do have an amazing little sister.”
“So Tae-cheon’s participation was because…?”
“Yeah, your guess is right. The Smirnov guy left an interview with SBC saying he wanted to meet Lee Tae-cheon.”
“This is turning out in an interesting way.”
Miller had said she wanted to meet Do-hee, and Smirnov had said he wanted to meet Tae-cheon?
Like Jin-hwan said, the government needed those two badly right now.
If they left those interviews hanging and didn’t invite the two of them, it would become a huge scandal.
Well then… in that case, this might actually work out.
The government and the Association would be handling the A-rank guild work for them, after all.
“...Also, the Mine Guild will be participating. They made it clear they wanted to take part directly, so we couldn’t ignore them.”
As Baek Do-hee said that, she watched my face carefully.
The Mine Guild….
“Yes. They’re the guild that may have tried to assassinate Baekwooncheon—no, Do-woon.”
“…….”
“That’s not confirmed, though.”
She was right.
Something that “may have happened” can never become something that “did happen.”
There was no evidence and no witness, so no crime could be established.
If there had been, Baekwooncheon and Mine would never have ended up in the same place.
Either Baekwooncheon would have been left out or Mine would have been.
“And the Mine Guild is… I’m sorry to say this, but.”
Baek Do-hee paused for a moment before continuing.
“A guild we can’t ignore.”
“…….”
Can’t ignore it….
Right. Of course.
The Mine Guild was the strongest guild in Korea.