Chapter 86
Baekwooncheon Guild was near Yeoksam Station.
It was a six-story building, its exterior as plain and old-fashioned as any you’d see anywhere else.
In just two years, Baekwooncheon had gone from a D-rank guild to an A-rank guild.
For us, simply having a six-story building near Yeoksam Station as our headquarters was something to be grateful for.
Even that had only been possible because Do-hee and Tae-cheon were famous as A-class hunters, with enough reputation and trust to secure a bank loan.
If not for that, we’d probably still have been stuck in some two-story building, pretending it was a guild headquarters.
I parked in the lot and went into the main building.
“Team Leader Baek!”
The moment I stepped into the lobby, someone called out to me.
The owner of that familiar voice also had a familiar face.
It was Deputy Lee Seong-hun.
Even that irritating face looked strangely welcome after so long.
So this was the staff member he’d said he’d tell me about.
Since he was one of the people from Baekwooncheon I’d stayed close with, it was a sensible choice.
The others I’d been close to were mostly the old men from the salvage team.
At this hour, they were probably out at a gate dismantling monster corpses.
Lee Jae-uk and Kim Sang-cheol were probably watching over me from somewhere, too.
Ah, since I’d come into the Baekwooncheon headquarters, maybe they were resting.
“Whew, you finally made it!”
“Yeah. Long time no see?”
“Ah, no, I mean— not long time no see!”
Deputy Lee shook his head hard.
Then he muttered under his breath, “Hah, I almost got dragged in again by that shameless face.”
Shameless face?
Almost got dragged in again?
Was it because it had been a while since we’d met?
He seemed even less restrained than before.
“This isn’t the time for that. Right now, at the Master’s office—”
“Yeah, I heard. Han Jin-hwan’s there, right?”
I spoke casually and looked around the lobby.
There seemed to be more people than usual.
Groups of them were chatting excitedly here and there, and it was obvious Han Jin-hwan’s arrival was the reason.
The Thunder Emperor, Han Jin-hwan.
Of course the place would be buzzing now that a hunter with a nickname like that had come to visit.
“That’s not all!”
“Hm?”
From the way he was talking, it sounded like someone else had come with Han Jin-hwan.
All Tae-cheon had told me about was Han Jin-hwan....
Still, there was one person I could guess.
Because when I first met Han Jin-hwan, another man had been with him.
“Hunter Choi Hee-seok is here too!”
Just as I thought.
“Oh, really?”
“So hurry up! They’ve already been waiting for an hour!”
As he said that, Deputy Lee grabbed my wrist—the one holding my smartphone—and tried to drag me along.
I simply turned my wrist inward and shook off his hand.
He had been leading the way, but he stopped and tilted his head, looking puzzled.
The face he turned toward me seemed to be asking why I was acting like that.
I only shrugged, relaxed and unhurried.
“You’re thinking something weird again, aren’t you?”
“Nope.”
While I answered, I walked past Deputy Lee.
Han Jin-hwan was an uninvited guest.
There was no reason for me to rush around and make a show of welcoming someone who’d shown up out of nowhere.
They were the ones who wanted this meeting, not me.
As far as I was concerned, I’d be perfectly fine if they turned right around and left.
Deputy Lee fell into step beside me, still following.
Shaking his head, he said, “It’s not not weird. Don’t do this. We’re talking about Han Jin-hwan and Choi Hee-seok here.”
“I know, idiot.”
Still, Deputy Lee was right.
Han Jin-hwan was the nation’s, no—the world’s only hunter with an A+ rank, the number one hunter in Korea.
Choi Hee-seok was the veteran of all veterans, a man who had been active as a hunter for twenty years.
They were the kind of guests you couldn’t simply refuse and send away.
Their names carried that much weight.
And yet—
“We can take it slow.”
“Huh?”
“I came right away the moment I got the call. That’s polite enough already.”
Neither of them would have anything to say about the fact that I’d arrived now.
They didn’t really have the standing to complain, either.
If they’d contacted me beforehand, they could’ve grumbled about me being late, but they weren’t the ones who had reached out first and then come looking for me.
If I’d followed my original plan and gone into the gate, they wouldn’t have even been able to get through to me.
“But....”
“What I need to do now isn’t rush to meet them.”
“Then what?”
“It’s to receive them properly.”
“Ah....”
As if he’d just realized something, Deputy Lee let out a small exclamation.
He understood it too.
Receiving someone properly—that was something Do-hee and Tae-cheon were far better at than I was.
I wasn’t good at playing nice with people.
If I were the type to do that, there was no way I’d have forgotten Sister Cecilia, the nun from the orphanage I’d supposedly grown up in.
And I probably wouldn’t have had such a bad relationship with the early members of Baekwooncheon, most of whom came from that same orphanage.
The only reason I’d started paying attention to the people around me at all was after I became the guild’s management team leader.
Because that was what a team leader had to do.
I guess this was what they meant when they said the position makes the person....
“So I just need to show my face when it’s time for the main point.”
I said that as we stepped into the elevator.
Deputy Lee followed me in and nodded as if in agreement.
By now, the four of them were probably exchanging this and that, making conversation.
Most of it would be the sort of meaningless small talk that went nowhere.
Then, just as they were running out of things to say, I’d make my appearance.
As Deputy Lee pressed the button for the sixth floor, he asked, “But why did Han Jin-hwan come looking for you, Team Leader?”
“Hmm....”
Why had he come looking for me?
The answer I had for that question was obvious.
“No idea.”
“Huh? You don’t know?”
“Yeah. He just showed up out of nowhere. I don’t think he told me why.”
“......?”
At my honest answer, Deputy Lee tilted his head.
He seemed unable to understand why someone would just show up like that and not say why.
Still, I had a pretty good guess.
They were probably here because of Crowd.
More specifically, because of Bava and VP, the drugs distributed by Crowd.
Ding.
The elevator reached the sixth floor.
Once we got out, I headed straight down the hallway leading to the Master’s office.
“Whoa.”
The second we entered the hall, Deputy Lee froze.
I felt like doing the same.
So I stopped right there in the hallway, just like he did.
In front of the Master’s office stood a man wearing glasses.
Han Jae-im.
True to his nickname, the Prince of Frost, he was staring at me with cool eyes.
There was a chill in that gaze, like he’d used a skill without even moving.
Of course, that was just how it felt.
“......”
“......”
The look Han Jae-im gave me was a familiar one.
It was the kind of expression that seemed to say, If only you weren’t here...!
How did I know?
I couldn’t not know.
Because I’d looked at Han Jae-im with that same sort of feeling myself.
To me, that bastard—and all the other kids I’d grown up with in the orphanage—had all been in the way.
The bastard who tried to take away the time I spent playing with Do-hee and Tae-cheon.
The bastard who made it impossible to stand the sight of anyone trying to keep us apart....
“Ah, right!”
Deputy Lee, who had been standing beside me, clapped his hands.
Then he turned his gaze away from Han Jae-im and looked at me. When our eyes met, he gave an awkward laugh.
The corner of his mouth trembled slightly.
He was definitely about to come up with some excuse to get out of here.
“I just remembered I’ve got something to do!”
“You....”
“Ahaha, then I’ll be heading out now....!”
And with that, before anyone could stop him, Deputy Lee quickly slipped away down the hallway we’d come from.
Right after, I heard the elevator doors open, then close again.
He’d gotten in and left in the blink of an eye.
“...Hah.”
Seeing that, I let out a sigh.
I understood wanting to run away.
But did he really have to make it so obvious?
It’s not like I was going to throw a punch at Han Jae-im or anything.
“Baek Do-woon.”
A voice came from closer than I expected.
When I turned my head, Han Jae-im had already walked up right in front of me.
Jesus, that startled me.
“...What.”
“Do you know that Baekwooncheon’s been busy because of you?”
“Busy because of me...?”
“Yes.”
“You mean because of Kim Mu-yeon?”
“I’m glad your brain still works. Aegaeon has been picking fights over it constantly ever since that incident.”
“......”
At those words, I remembered Choi Dong-hun, who had blocked my path and waited for me.
He’d said ugly things like I’d “thrown away my last chance” and that I’d “regret it.”
He must have issued orders across all of Aegaeon to carry out what he’d said that day.
The members of Aegaeon, following his orders, would be picking fights with Baekwooncheon over trivial things and clinging to us like a parasite....
Still, the fact that Han Jae-im wasn’t getting openly worked up suggested they were only at the stage of causing trouble here and there.
That was at least a relief.
“That’s....”
I started to speak, then stopped.
It was a personal matter.
I wanted to excuse it that way, but that would’ve been nothing more than an excuse.
That’s how the world worked; things rarely went the easy way.
Something private becoming something public happened far too easily.
Han Jae-im’s irritation with me was justified.
If our positions were reversed, I’d have been giving him the coldest look I could manage.
Telling him that Do-hee and Tae-cheon were having a hard time because of him.
If anything, I’d have been even nastier about it.
“And that’s not all.”
“What?”
“Crowd suddenly started keeping tabs on us.”
“......!”
“Several guilds asked for cooperation because of those bastards. From what I heard, it seems they did it because of you?”
That was a little strange.
The trouble with Crowd wasn’t entirely because of me.
It had seemed like Tae-cheon and Do-hee were already hostile to them from the beginning.
And yet Han Jae-im seemed to think it was entirely my fault.
“......”
There was only one conclusion I could draw.
The two of them hadn’t only kept me in the dark about Crowd.
They’d kept the rest of the party in the dark too, including Han Jae-im.
In other words, they’d been dealing with Crowd on their own this whole time.
Even while leading Baekwooncheon as an organization.
Why had they done that?
I didn’t know, but for now, I should follow their lead.
“Crowd’s business is... hm?”
Before I could even offer an explanation, Han Jae-im turned away.
He stood there blankly, staring at the Master’s office.
“But why is it not me....”
Hearing him mutter that, it seemed he wanted to go in there.
And he probably should.
Right now, anyone could see that the one working hardest for Baekwooncheon wasn’t me but Han Jae-im.
Tae-cheon had even said, whenever something came up, “Guess we’ll have to ask Jae-im to figure it out.”
There was nothing strange about him being in there with the others.
Why was it....
The voice of Sister Cecilia from the Bangju Orphanage suddenly came to mind.
You don’t remember me, do you, brother?
Her face from all those years ago, the face she must have had after spending so much time together, still wouldn’t come to me.
All I could picture in my head was her current appearance in her nun’s habit.
That was because I’d been so indifferent to the version of her from the past that I couldn’t even remember her face.
It was probably for the same reason that things had gone sour between Han Jae-im and me.
When I was younger, I must have ignored him or insulted him somehow.
I’d treated the orphanage kids like nuisances and said I couldn’t stand the sight of them, so of course I would have.
I didn’t remember it, but....
“...I’m sorry.”
“......What?”
Han Jae-im looked at me in shock.
I’d only apologized, and he already looked like he wanted to ask, Has this guy lost his mind?
I understood.
To Han Jae-im, I’d be the hopeless bastard who’d never apologize for anything.
Just as Han Jae-im, to me, was the bastard who picked fights over every little thing.
If he suddenly apologized to me, I’d probably think, Has this guy lost his mind?
“I’ll admit it. Because of me, you’ve been having a hard time—no, all of Baekwooncheon has.”
“What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I’ll do my best to wrap this up as quickly as I can.”
“Y-you crazy....”
Han Jae-im stumbled back a step in shock.
His eyes widened until they were practically about to pop out behind his lenses.
He must not have imagined I’d acknowledge it and apologize.
I raised a hand and gave his shoulder a light pat.
“Hang in there a little longer.”
Then I passed him and walked toward the Master’s office.
As I was putting my smartphone away before opening the door, I heard Han Jae-im muttering behind me.
“Am I dying or something? Why the hell is he suddenly acting like a grown-up...?”
As I slid my smartphone into my pocket, I turned back toward Han Jae-im.
Our eyes met exactly.
“......”
“......”
For a moment, silence hung between us.
It was broken almost at the same time, by both of us moving.
Han Jae-im narrowed his eyes and pointed at the door with his index finger, telling me to get in already, while I nodded and reached out to grab the doorknob.
Click.
And just like that, I went into the Master’s office.
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