Chapter 75
"You're the World Tree, aren't you!"
World Tree, aren't you, World Tree, aren't you...
Hong Su-jeong's voice echoed faintly through my head.
What the hell kind of insane nonsense was that?
Even Saessak had sent me a message like this:
The sapling is expressing confusion.
Agreeing with Saessak's assessment, I let my own bewilderment show.
"There's stupid, and then there's that."
The words came out harsher than I'd intended.
I cleared my throat once and went on. "Don't you think that's a little too absurd?"
"Isn't it?"
"Then do you think that ridiculous line of nonsense is right?"
"Really?"
"Yes, really. No, it isn't."
"Eeee..."
When I flatly denied it, Hong Su-jeong slumped as if all the air had been let out of her.
If she drooped any further, she'd stick to the floor like a heat-melted slime.
Her disappointment was written all over her face.
I felt a little guilty, since I was the one who'd disappointed her, but not enough to care much.
After all, this whole thing had started because she'd jumped to a completely absurd conclusion.
I had assumed she'd ask whether I'd cultivated the World Tree or found the place where it had grown.
I never dreamed the words "the World Tree" would come out of her mouth as a question like that.
Could it be that Yu Jae-i also thought of me as some kind of World Tree?
...I should hope not.
Muttering to myself, I pulled the shackles for ability users out of my inventory.
They were something Choi Hee-seok had handed me when he left. Once locked around the wrists, they interfered with mana circulation by absorbing mana directly.
If the person wearing them had too much mana, the shackles were practically useless, but someone like Lee Jeong-geun could be restrained without any trouble.
I slung the man over my shoulder.
I was taking him to the Hunter Association.
Choi Hee-seok had asked me to bring Lee Jeong-geun to the Association after restoring his body to normal.
"All right then. Good luck with the report."
"Yes..."
Hong Su-jeong looked even more deflated than I'd expected.
She seemed like she might collapse into the floor.
I considered saying something to comfort her, but nothing came to mind, so I just decided to leave.
"Ah, right. Do-woon."
Hong Su-jeong called me back just as I was about to leave the workshop.
When I turned around, she was lying where she'd left Lee Jeong-geun sitting.
She looked like a discharged battery.
When had she even lain down there?
"I'm thinking of selling the potions to the government."
"The government?"
"Yes. High-grade potions are in short supply across all of Korea, so it seemed like the most appropriate choice."
As she said that, she looked at me quietly, trying to gauge my reaction.
She was probably wondering whether I wanted her to sell them to a guild instead, since that would fetch a higher price.
But selling to a guild came with one problem.
The potions wouldn't necessarily reach the other A-class hunters properly.
That wasn't what I wanted.
If it had been, I would have taken them straight to Baekwooncheon or the Il-Dae Group and sold them there from the start.
I would've gotten a high price easily, without even haggling.
So I gave her a subtle smile.
She responded exactly the way I wanted her to.
"Then should we sell the next batch straight to the government too, once it's finished?"
"Yes, please."
After that, I left Crystal Workshop and headed for the Association.
Before I set out, I texted Choi Hee-seok to say I expected to arrive within the hour.
On the way there, Lee Jeong-geun groaned and woke up.
"Ugh..."
The bastard, who'd been stuffed into the back seat, slowly sat up.
He shook his head hard, as if trying to clear his senses.
Then his gaze met mine in the rearview mirror.
"...Who the hell are you?"
He threw the question at me.
He had no idea why he was sleeping in the back of some car.
Was it Park Woo-hyun?
Of course he wouldn't understand; he'd been under that Crowd bastard's mental domination.
From his point of view, he'd probably just woken up in the back seat of some stranger's car.
He wouldn't even know he'd turned into a monster and been brought back again.
"Baek Do-woon."
"Did I ask for your name?"
"Didn't you?"
"You bastard, you want to die?"
"No way. I'm a man who wants to live very badly."
"Heh. Keep messing with me and I'll- huh?"
Lee Jeong-geun raised his arm and noticed the shackles locked around his wrists.
He frowned and glared at me.
"What's this?"
"Can't you tell by looking? Shackles."
"No, I mean why are they on my wrists?"
"Idiot. Because I put them there, obviously. Why else would they be there?"
At that, Lee Jeong-geun gaped at me.
He looked utterly dumbfounded.
That made sense. A man who'd played at being a guild boss in the back alleys of the world had probably never been treated like this before.
But he'd have to get used to it now.
I had already tampered with the mana in his heart.
Lee Jeong-geun could no longer live as a strong man.
"What the hell is this? Why is it like this?"
There was fear in his muttering.
He was trying to channel mana to break the shackles, but it wasn't gathering properly.
That wasn't because of the shackles for ability users.
If it had been the shackles, he would have shown signs of his mana being absorbed.
"Why isn't this working, you bastard!"
Right now, Lee Jeong-geun couldn't gather mana.
It had nothing to do with the shackles; his body simply couldn't accept mana anymore.
He had become someone who could no longer properly circulate it.
He couldn't even use the simplest skill now.
I knew exactly what kind of terror that would bring him.
Experience spoke.
"Gah! Why, why isn't my mana..."
The man was barking like a dog.
A frightened dog barks.
But,
"Hey."
I didn't want to keep listening to that.
Lee Jeong-geun stared at me with a face twisted by fear.
I didn't feel sorry for him.
If Ji Sang-wook had ended up like this, I would've felt pity. He was an annoying bastard, sure, but he wasn't a criminal.
Lee Jeong-geun was different.
He was a wanted criminal with a government and Association bounty on his head.
Not just any bounty, either. Two point nine billion won.
He wasn't a dog. He was a son of a bitch.
"You're noisy, so shut the hell up."
"......!"
He widened his eyes and glared at me, but soon clamped his mouth shut.
The man who had once ruled as a strong one had lost everything.
Overnight, he had become weak.
So how would he behave?
He could either struggle to become strong again, or lower his tail.
"......"
He chose to become a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.
Thanks to that, I was able to enjoy the silence as we arrived at the Association.
Choi Hee-seok was waiting in front of the building with a man wearing a mask.
A mask...?
I parked in front of the building and got out, and the two of them walked over.
"You're quick."
"The roads were empty at night."
As I answered, I took Lee Jeong-geun out of the back seat and handed him over.
The man was still slumped over, his spirits thoroughly crushed.
It had only been a short while since he'd realized he'd lost his power, so that was only natural.
"Why's this guy so deflated? Do-woon, did you do something to him in the meantime?"
"I didn't do anything."
"......"
Holding Lee Jeong-geun, he stared at me intently.
Was it because of the size difference?
He looked like a bear holding a dog by the scruff of its neck.
"Well, it's not that important."
"Hey, but-"
"Hm? What is it?"
Before I could ask my question, Choi Hee-seok spoke first.
The man in the mask had smacked him on the back with his palm.
When I stared at him, Choi Hee-seok hit himself on the forehead.
"Ah, I'd forgotten."
"Hoo."
"This here is a colleague I'm partied up with. I told him about you, and he said he absolutely had to meet you, so he came along."
"I see. Um-"
Could I ask the masked man for his name?
Wasn't I wearing a mask myself because I wanted to hide who I was?
As I stood there blankly, he extended a hand first.
"I'm Kim Ho-won."
His voice came out low from behind the mask.
It was an obvious forced change.
His name was probably a fake too.
"I'm Baek Do-woon."
I took his hand.
And then,
The World Tree sapling expresses admiration for a man whose mana is as pure as lightning.
Lightning mana.
In our country, there was only one person who possessed mana of that attribute.
Korea's number one hunter, the Thunder Emperor, Han Jin-hwan.
...This guy's not normal either.
***
"Hoo..."
Choi Hee-seok shut the door behind him as soon as he entered the room.
It was a room the Association had prepared for its ace, and not just anyone could come and go as they pleased.
So Hee-seok didn't bother holding back the frustration boiling up inside him.
He let out a long, heavy sigh.
"What now, did the old men start up again?"
A familiar voice came from inside the room.
It was a room not just anyone could enter, but it wasn't a forbidden zone no one was allowed to set foot in. Friends and colleagues came and went freely with his permission, and sometimes even without asking.
Hee-seok pressed the switch beside the door and turned on the light.
As the room brightened, he saw a man sprawled on the sofa, eyes closed, lazily waving only his left hand.
"Jin-hwan?"
"Hee-hyung, long time no see. You been doing well?"
Jin-hwan looked like he'd just woken up, his hair still tousled.
Even with his eyes closed, his face tracked Hee-seok's movement as if he could see him.
Hee-seok sat on the sofa opposite him and asked, "What have you been up to that nobody's seen your face?"
"You know the Crowd?"
Hee-seok's eyes widened.
He was startled that such a word had come from the mouth of the younger man he was close to.
Jin-hwan mistook his silence for surprise at not knowing and kept talking.
"They're the ones mostly active in the U.S., but they came into Korea a while ago, right? I've been keeping them busy so they can't do anything strange."
"......"
"Even the higher-ups came in all at once, so it looked like they were plotting something big."
"I was actually planning to talk to you about that if we met."
"Huh? About what?"
"I don't know their objective yet, but I've found out what they're doing right now."
Jin-hwan, who hadn't opened his eyes even once, now opened them.
His bloodshot eyes looked tired.
He didn't look like someone who'd spent his time "keeping busy."
Still lying on the sofa, he looked up at Hee-seok.
"You found out? How? I couldn't even figure it out."
"I didn't find it out myself. I heard it from someone who did."
"Oh, that's impressive. Who?"
"Baek Do-woon."
"Baek Do-woon... Baek Do-woon.... Never heard that name before."
"He's an interesting guy. He's getting a lot of attention lately, so go look him up."
"Hm?"
Jin-hwan tilted his head.
The words that had just come out of Hee-seok's mouth felt familiar.
They were very close to something he'd heard exactly two years ago.
An interesting guy who's been making waves lately.
If he remembered right, the name had been Lee Tae-cheon.
"You said the same thing around this time two years ago. I waited and waited for that guy, and then he just vanished without a trace."
"I apologize for that. I didn't realize Hunter would be nothing more than a means to him. Even that doesn't seem to interest him anymore."
"What are you talking about?"
"Lee Tae-cheon was only doing Hunter work for his friend's sake. That was why he went so far as to buy exclusive rights to the Naksan Gate."
"The Naksan Gate... wasn't that where the main material for recovery potions that restore physical regeneration comes from?"
"That's right."
For his friend.
The Naksan Gate, where the main material for recovery potions came from.
The purchase of exclusive rights.
In Jin-hwan's head, the pieces arranged themselves neatly.
He drew a conclusion quickly.
Lee Tae-cheon had bought the exclusive rights to the A-rank Gate for the sake of an injured friend.
"But why'd he lose interest? Did his friend die?"
"Healthy."
"Then what?"
"That's where the interesting guy comes in."
"...Baek Do-woon is Lee Tae-cheon's friend?"
"Yes."
"So his friend and him are both interesting guys? That's possible?"
"That's not all. He also has a younger brother-"
Wooooong.
Hee-seok broke off midsentence and closed his mouth.
The smartphone he'd left in his pants pocket was vibrating.
The message had come from Baek Do-woon, the very man they had been talking about.
"He says he's on his way to the Association."
"He is? Perfect, I was getting bored. I'll go see his face."
Jin-hwan sat up from the sofa.
Then he rummaged through his magic pouch and pulled something out.
It was a plain white mask, the kind you could buy anywhere.
Jin-hwan's face was bright as he held it up.
Hee-seok, by contrast, looked burdened with concern, just as he had when he first came into the room.
"Hoo..."
He let out another deep sigh.