Chapter 117
Two people were seated in the minister’s office.
Minister Hwang and Bae Soo-hyun.
In front of them sat the green tea the secretary had brought in.
Minister Hwang, seated in the place of honor, rubbed his belly as he drank the tea.
It was still hot, steam rising from the cup, and he sipped carefully for a while before suddenly breaking into a snicker.
The tea he was drinking spilled over the rim.
Minister Hwang wiped the green tea that had run down his chin with the heel of his hand.
“What’s so funny?”
“Ah, I was just suddenly reminded of something Baek Do-woon said.”
“Something Baek Do-woon said?”
Bae Soo-hyun tilted her head.
The conversation had continued through the meal.
It had been a conversation about memories from the past and plans for the future.
Most of the memories belonged to Minister Hwang and Han Jin-hwan.
They had simply spent so long together.
And most of the plans for the future belonged to Jo Joo-hyun.
Like someone aiming to become Hunter Rank 1, he had been practically brimming with ambition.
And while that conversation went on, Do-woon kept throwing out unexpected remarks.
Remarks more than enough to fluster everyone there, including her.
Which one had he remembered, and found funny?
“Which one...?”
Bae Soo-hyun asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
The one that had stuck in her memory most vividly was his reply to Jo Joo-hyun saying that Han Jin-hwan was his goal.
“Do your best? Fighting? Let’s go, let’s go.”
Minister Hwang clenched his fist tight and said it aloud.
He was imitating the face and voice Do-woon had used with Jo Joo-hyun.
It seemed they were thinking the exact same thing.
He shook his clenched fist as he chuckled.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect him to say something like that there...”
“Exactly.”
Bae Soo-hyun answered at once, as if agreeing wholeheartedly.
She pictured Do-woon’s face in her mind and shook her head.
All she had seen then was laziness.
He’d looked like someone who had no passion, no drive whatsoever.
“Jo Joo-hyun Hunter could’ve taken it as disrespect and gotten angry.”
“Well, he couldn’t exactly get mad with Jin-hwan, the very target of his goal, sitting right there. The way he just stood there with his mouth hanging open was hilarious. I bet Jo Joo-hyun had never seen anyone say something like that straight to his face before.”
“...I honestly don’t understand how that man’s mind works.”
“Hmm?”
“No, it’s like he doesn’t even think before he lives.”
“......”
Minister Hwang looked flustered.
He had not expected such a cutting remark to come out of Bae Soo-hyun’s mouth.
She had always been careful with her words in front of her superior.
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down. You really hate Baek Do-woon that much?”
“Huh? Ah, no. It’s not that I hate him, exactly, it’s more that...”
“He’s just hard to deal with, right? Because you can’t make sense of him. I get it.”
“......”
He was right.
To Bae Soo-hyun, Do-woon was a species of human she had never encountered before.
Even after she had thoroughly read every bit of information available on him, he remained an enigma.
Enough that she would say she didn’t understand how his mind worked.
As far as she could tell, he was someone who wanted nothing.
Like a man who was just living because he happened to be born.
She could not feel in him the sort of goal or hunger that Jo Joo-hyun possessed so plainly.
Even when he had forced his way into becoming an A-class Hunter, his expression had amounted to little more than, “Oh, I’m an A-class Hunter now?”
Even after reaching a rank other hunters could only dream of, his emotions hadn’t stirred in the slightest.
Nor did he seem to want money or fame.
If that had been what he wanted, he would have been clearing Association quests or grinding A-class gates nonstop.
But the only notable things Do-woon had done so far were winning the exclusive rights to the E-class dungeon in Muju and going there once.
And burying some trash in the ground on a moonlit night.
“...Surely there isn’t a person in this world with no desire at all.”
“Yes...?”
Bae Soo-hyun looked at Minister Hwang.
Rather than answer at once, he took a sip of the warm green tea.
He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, deciding how to continue.
She waited quietly for him to go on.
Clink.
After setting down the cup of green tea, Minister Hwang resumed.
“...Even someone who’s given up on everything still remembers a happy past now and then. Even an accomplished monk who tries to empty himself of all desire will let a little greed slip through from time to time...”
“......”
“Baek Do-woon isn’t a man who has given everything up, and he isn’t a priest struggling every day to empty himself either. Something he wants? Of course he has one.”
Of course he has one?
Bae Soo-hyun could not accept that easily.
During lunch today, Do-woon seemed more absorbed in his smartphone game than in talking to anyone.
In a normal meal setting, that would not have been a problem at all, but...
Today was not a normal meal.
Minister of Hunter Affairs Hwang Jeong-hee.
Hunter Rank 1 Han Jin-hwan.
Jo Joo-hyun, ace of Maine Guild, Korea’s largest guild.
It was a meal shared with those three.
It was absolutely not the kind of place where someone should be pulling out a phone and idly playing games as if bored.
Especially not if they had something they wanted.
Those three were people who had the power to grant it.
“Yeah, he did seem like he had nothing...”
Minister Hwang nodded as though conceding the point.
But the nod was brief and did not linger.
“Looking like you have nothing doesn’t mean you actually have nothing. It just means you didn’t see it.”
“...Pardon?”
The words made her head tilt on its own.
She didn’t see it?
Then had Minister Hwang seen what Do-woon wanted?
“......”
Maybe he had.
She thought so.
If anyone could have noticed, it would have been Minister Hwang.
As Minister of Hunter Affairs, he had spent years dealing with hunters so unruly they would have made anyone else tear their hair out.
No, it wasn’t just that he had dealt with them.
He had, in his official capacity, been in charge of people like that.
So she thought that even if she had not seen it, he might have.
And that judgment was correct.
“What Baek Do-woon wants.”
“......”
“It’s just ‘that kind of thing.’”
“...Pardon?”
Again, Bae Soo-hyun tilted her head.
She could not understand what he meant.
That the thing he wanted was just “that kind of thing”?
“Of course, for Baek Do-woon it isn’t just some meaningless thing. It’s the kind of thing worth staking your life on, worth staking your whole life on. But...”
Minister Hwang looked directly at Bae Soo-hyun.
Not the way he usually looked at her.
He met her eyes squarely.
“...to you, it’s just that kind of thing.”
“To me...?”
“Yes. You wouldn’t be able to understand what Baek Do-woon wants. Probably...”
For the rest of your life.
Minister Hwang let the end of the sentence trail off.
Because of that, silence settled over the room for a moment.
While it lasted, Bae Soo-hyun tried to think about what it might be that Do-woon wanted.
Nothing came to mind, of course.
“...Then was the reason you pushed for Baek Do-woon to be included because of that?”
She broke the silence slowly.
Minister Hwang answered back as if asking what on earth she was talking about.
“Pushed for him to be included?”
“The way you bulldozed past the opinion that said Baek Do-woon should be excluded.”
“Ah, that...”
“Were you perhaps doing it to grant his wish...?”
“What?”
He laughed, as though the idea was absurd.
Waving his hand back and forth, he strongly denied it.
“No, no. I’m no saint. Why would I bother granting Baek Do-woon’s wish?”
“Ah...”
“That wasn’t why I pushed for Baek Do-woon.”
“Then for what reason did you do it...?”
“Just because.”
“Pardon?”
“I thought it might be fun, so I just went ahead with it.”
“What? Because it seemed fun?”
“I’m telling you, yes. Think about it. The core members of Baekwooncheon all had to go out to greet him, didn’t they?”
“Core members? Baek Do-woon isn’t a core member.”
The core members of Baekwooncheon were Lee Tae-cheon and Baek Do-hee.
If one were to name a third, Han Jae-im, the guild’s de facto number three, might qualify.
Do-woon had been an executive while he was in Baekwooncheon, but only the head of the extermination team management division.
But then Minister Hwang said something else.
“He is a core member.”
“Pardon?”
“He’s the core of the core. Without Baek Do-woon, there is no Baekwooncheon.”
“What do you mean by that...?”
Bae Soo-hyun frowned, genuinely baffled.
It was one of her usual expressions when she was stuck on a problem that refused to yield an answer.
Baek Do-woon.
What exactly about him made Minister Hwang say there would be no Baekwooncheon without him?
In contrast to her, Minister Hwang looked light and at ease.
“Now I think I finally understand what kind of people Baekwooncheon really are.”
“Pardon?”
“All this time, I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were doing.”
“Ah...”
“They looked like a bunch of kids chasing dreams without restraint, just carried away by youth, and then at other times they were terrifyingly cold-blooded about reality...”
“......!”
Bae Soo-hyun was startled.
Because Minister Hwang was thinking exactly the same thing she was.
She, too, could not quite pin down what kind of guild Baekwooncheon really was.
And now Minister Hwang, who had clearly had the same thought, was saying he finally understood why.
How on earth...?
She found herself wanting to hear what he would say next.
“Like a coin, with two different faces... that’s what they were.”
“......”
“A bunch of people you could never tell how to take, no matter which way you looked at them.”
“That’s true. And...”
She was about to ask, And isn’t that still the case now?
But she swallowed the question.
She had given him the floor.
Minister Hwang looked like a man who would not be able to stop himself once he started talking.
“I thought that way because I had never seen their true nature.”
“Their true nature?”
“Exactly. The true nature of Baekwooncheon. The center of Baekwooncheon! Since I couldn’t see that, I couldn’t understand them all this time!”
“......?”
“Until now, I thought the center of Baekwooncheon was Lee Tae-cheon and Baek Do-hee.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
Those were the members that came to mind when people thought of Baekwooncheon.
Even just now, Bae Soo-hyun had thought of those two.
If she added one more, it would be Han Jae-im.
Some people did think of Lee Yeon-ji from time to time.
She was a genius mage who had become the youngest-ever A-rank Hunter, after all.
But it would be a stretch to call her a core member of Baekwooncheon.
She had only joined the guild recently.
And she was still a minor.
“We were wrong from the very premise!”
“Pardon? The premise was wrong?”
“Yes. The center of Baekwooncheon is not Lee Tae-cheon and Baek Do-hee!”
“......?”
“Baek Do-woon!”
Minister Hwang extended his right hand.
Only his index finger was raised.
Then he extended his left hand, which had been clenched into a fist.
“And Lee Tae-cheon, Baek Do-hee.”
With each name he spoke, he unfurled another finger.
The fist he had clenched in his left hand now showed his index and middle fingers.
He shook the three extended fingers vigorously.
“That was Baekwooncheon.”
“......?”
“Only now have I realized how stupid we’ve been... Because we weren’t looking at them properly, of course we couldn’t figure out what kind of people they were.”
After saying that, Minister Hwang looked thoroughly relieved.
Bae Soo-hyun, however, was still frowning.
The problem with no answer was still continuing.
Baek Do-woon.
And Lee Tae-cheon, Baek Do-hee were the core.
She could not make sense of it.
What exactly was Baek Do-woon...?
That thought kept circling in her head.
“You look unconvinced.”
“Yes... I d- do.”
Bae Soo-hyun slowly admitted it.
Even now, the image in her head was of Baekwooncheon still running just fine after Do-woon had quit.
She even remembered how useless Do-woon had been before he resigned.
“Keep watching Baek Do-woon from now on. Then you’ll understand what I mean.”
“...Yes. I will.”
“And maybe...”
“......?”
“You might even figure out ‘that kind of thing,’ too...”
After that, Minister Hwang picked up the cup of green tea.
The tea that had once been steaming was now lukewarm.
“......”
Bae Soo-hyun stared down at the cold tea and fell into thought.
Do-woon’s face from their spar flashed through her mind.
That sly, grinning face she had wanted to slap clean across the cheek.
That man was the core of Baekwooncheon?