Chapter 94
“Especially if you’re with me, I think it’ll be that much easier to hold them back.”
“Me? All of a sudden?”
“Right. So, will you come along?”
Tap, tap.
My fingers moved before my mouth did.
My right thumb tapped the screen again.
I was clawing my way out of the pit of my own embarrassment.
What an outrageous thing to say, and with such a straight face, too.
I’d only been here because I lacked the authority, and just now I’d been told to step aside.
So how was I supposed to go out with him?
“Don’t say ridiculous things! Hunter Baek Do-woon is B-class, B-class! What are you even asking him to go there for?”
“The bureau chief is right. It would be too much for Do-woon to go out in that position. Unless it were as a friend.”
“We’re separately looking for another hunter to accompany us.”
“That’s right. We’re looking for someone with an excellent record, so-”
“Don’t even think about it. Not a chance.”
Well, that reaction was only natural.
I’d been thinking it myself, after all.
Still, hearing everyone else blow up like that made me feel a little off.
“…….”
Maybe they’d noticed my stare.
The woman called the bureau chief and Kim Tae-seok both started gauging my expression.
They must have realized they’d gotten a little too heated with me standing right there.
The bureau chief dipped her head slightly.
Kim Tae-seok, standing beside her, followed suit and offered an apology.
“...My apologies.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. They’re not wrong.”
Like they said, I was currently a B-class hunter.
I was confident my real ability belonged at the A-class level, but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was the fact that I was currently classified as B-class.
It was perfectly reasonable to think I was too low-ranked to send to a place where an S-class hunter was being received.
To them, I wasn’t a hunter fit to escort the minister and the association chairman alongside Han Jin-hwan.
Choi Hee-seok raised his hand.
His huge hand immediately drew everyone’s eyes.
“I’m against it too.”
“Hyung?”
Han Jin-hwan looked up at Choi Hee-seok as he called out to him.
He seemed not to have expected Choi Hee-seok to oppose the idea.
Neither had I.
“I like Do-woon just as much as you do.”
Choi Hee-seok spoke evenly.
That calm tone took control of the atmosphere inside the tent.
As the eldest person here.
As the senior who had been in the field the longest.
“He may be ranked B-class, but I also think he has the ability of an A-class hunter. The very fact that he’s able to carry out a quest with you proves as much.”
“Then why are you against it?”
“Because, as the two of you already said, he lacks the qualifications.”
“Lacks the qualifications...?”
“That’s right. Do-woon doesn’t have the kind of achievements that would persuade the people above us.”
Lacks the qualifications?
If I really wanted to argue the point, I had those.
Aladin Miller was coming here because of me, after all.
I was the one who had turned Hwayeomsan Dungeon back into its original state, so how could I possibly lack the qualifications to participate?
By the same logic, I did have achievements worthy of persuading the people above us.
But.
I had no intention of saying that outright.
If word got out that I could restore a dungeon to its original state...
There was no question it would become a monumental pain in the ass.
No, “pain in the ass” would be putting it mildly.
There were plenty of countries that wanted the dungeons removed from their land, and those countries would come crawling to me, asking me to wipe them out.
Countries like China or Russia, in particular, might even start planning to kidnap me.
They had huge territories, which meant they also had a lot of neglected places they couldn’t properly manage.
Africa went without saying.
It had long since become a place where gates and dungeons outnumbered countries themselves.
If Europe hadn’t stepped in for the sake of global appearances, it would have turned into one vast monster habitat.
“Sorry to put it that way.”
“No, I understand. I’d think the same thing.”
Choi Hee-seok apologized politely.
From their point of view, I was nothing more than Baek Do-hee’s one and only older brother, or Lee Tae-cheon’s closest friend.
On top of that, I was a smartphone-game addict, the man who’d killed Kim Mu-yeon after his rampage, and a hunter currently working an association quest with Han Jin-hwan.
In other words, a hunter with very little career to speak of.
It made sense they’d say I couldn’t be taken to the place where an S-class hunter was being received.
Han Jin-hwan was the strange one for asking me to come along.
Of course.
Being told again and again that I lacked the skill or the qualifications was irritating.
So I said,
“I’m going.”
I let my resistance show exactly as it was.
Why did everybody keep saying no?
People sure loved being negative.
“Oh.”
Han Jin-hwan gave an impressed sound, then grinned as if he liked that answer.
He was the one who’d asked me whether I wanted to go with him.
He’d offered to take me along even though he must have known I was short on qualifications.
That was only because he could.
“Hunter Baek Do-woon! This is no place for a mere B-class to interfere!”
“That’s what he says.”
“Then you should start by raising the rank, I guess.”
“Wh-what did you say?”
The bureau chief looked at Han Jin-hwan with a flustered expression.
He ignored her and pulled out his smartphone.
He immediately tapped the screen and called someone, then started talking.
But... the content of that call was far from ordinary.
“Yeah, it’s me. Why else would I be calling? I need a favor. There’s a B-class hunter named Baek Do-woon. You know him? Then I don’t need to explain. Promote that kid to A-class. Right now.”
Promote what?
Did I hear that wrong?
I wasn’t the only one stunned.
The bureau chief stepped in to stop Han Jin-hwan.
“Wait, wait a minute!”
“…….”
“You can’t just raise someone’s rank that casually. That’s abuse of authority-”
“Why are you worried about that? I’m the one who’ll take responsibility anyway.”
Han Jin-hwan said firmly to the person on the other end of the call.
But the eyes he spoke with were fixed on the bureau chief.
Exactly.
He’d been speaking to the person on the phone when he asked why she was worrying about it, but he was also saying it to the bureau chief, whose eyes he’d met.
If something went wrong with this, he was declaring that he’d take the blame for it.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks. I’ll buy you a meal sometime. Got it, man.”
Click.
He ended the call.
Then he shifted his gaze away from the bureau chief and toward me.
Was he looking at me now?
His eyes landed not on my face, but on the smartphone in my right hand.
Buzz.
The phone vibrated under his gaze.
Had he sent some kind of electric current through it?
That thought crossed my mind as I looked down at the screen.
The smartphone had vibrated because a message had come in.
B-class hunter Baek Do-woon has, as of today, become an A-class hunter.
[Hunter Management Team 2 Chief Kang In-jae.]
The message was terse, containing only the matter at hand and the sender.
But the content itself was anything but terse.
My rank as a B-class hunter had been raised to A-class.
“Holy hell...!”
The stunned words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
He changed a hunter’s rank with a single phone call?
Without even conducting a test?
I wondered if that was really possible, but the answer was right there on the screen.
It had to be possible, or this message wouldn’t have come through.
“There. Baek Do-woon is an A-class hunter now. Rank problem solved, right?”
“Why wouldn’t there be a problem? I absolutely cannot accept this! Since when does the world work like this, where someone just gets promoted to A-class like that?”
“Right here, apparently.”
“Right here, apparently, my ass! I’m filing an official complaint with the association over this!”
“Go ahead.”
The bureau chief protested, but Han Jin-hwan looked utterly unconcerned.
Well, shouldn’t he be concerned?
He was a government official, after all.
“Are you really sure this is all right?”
“What?”
“What if you cause trouble by raising it like this?”
I asked in a worried voice.
At that, Han Jin-hwan frowned as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, then laughed.
“It’ll be fine. I already checked your ability myself.”
“Hm, is that so?”
“What do you mean, ‘is that so,’ like you’re pretending otherwise? You yourself were confident you’re at least at the level of an A-class hunter.”
“…….”
Huh. Had I been that obvious?
Apparently I’d been wearing a rather smug expression without realizing it.
I scratched the back of my neck, feeling awkward.
“Then now the-”
“The achievements problem remains.”
“Yeah, that. You mean Baek Do-woon doesn’t have any notable career to speak of, right?”
“Mm.”
They were right.
Being raised to A-class only put me at the starting line.
There were hundreds of A-class hunters in Korea.
If I was the one going out instead of them, there had to be a reason.
A reason the people watching would acknowledge and accept.
Kim Tae-seok hadn’t said he was looking for someone with an impressive record for nothing.
I needed an achievement that would stand out enough to keep people from arguing.
“You haven’t done anything, have you?”
“Done anything?”
“Yeah. Something everyone here would recognize. Especially...”
Han Jin-hwan tilted his head toward the bureau chief.
Seeing that, she narrowed her eyes and glared at me sharply.
Why was she glaring at me when he was the one who’d pointed at her with his chin?
“Hmm. Something people would recognize... I did catch the hunter-hunting bastards Kim Jeong-cheol and the wanted fugitive Lee Jeong-geun.”
“And Kim Jeong-cheol was with the Crowd. Lee Jeong-geun was being controlled by the Crowd.”
“The Crowd? So this whole incident too, huh? You really do have bad blood with them.”
“It happened that way.”
“And?”
“And...”
I decided not to mention the Yong Du-sik affair.
It had been the reason my relationship with the Crowd had turned properly rotten, but it wasn’t my issue alone.
I might have to talk about Yu Jae-i and Woo Yeon-hoo, too.
“Ah! I once took down a serial killer from an orphanage.”
“An orphanage? Are you talking about the arsonist who committed a string of orphanage fires?”
“That’s the one. Or maybe I should say that bitch? Since she was a woman.”
“Is that true? I never received a report about it.”
“Because I didn’t report it.”
“Why not? If you’d reported it, you would’ve been rewarded. Your hunter evaluation would have improved too.”
“Well... because I took care of it?”
Thwack.
Choi Hee-seok struck my forehead.
He’d realized the implication hidden inside the word took care of it wasn’t exactly pleasant.
Han Jin-hwan waved a hand.
“Forget that bastard. Anything else?”
“I’m currently working on the Two Fingers Project.”
“...That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm.”
Han Jin-hwan and Choi Hee-seok sank into thought.
One crossed his arms; the other scratched the forehead he’d just hit.
Was this still not enough?
The bureau chief, who had been standing beside us watching, quietly lifted the corners of her mouth.
It was as if she were saying, Hmph. I knew it.
And just a moment ago she’d been surprised by everything I said I’d done...
Should I just tell them I’m the one who restored Hwayeomsan Dungeon to normal?
No, forget it.
Saying it would only make things more troublesome for me.
I’d have to prove to them that I really could do it.
Choi Hee-seok was the first to speak.
“I think... I can persuade them.”
“Oh, really?”
“Mm.”
Choi Hee-seok smiled faintly and nodded.
Seeing that smile, the two men reacted in opposite ways.
Han Jin-hwan grinned, while the bureau chief clicked her tongue.
“If hyung thinks you can do it, then you can.”
“…….”
“So we’re good now, right?”
The question was thrown out.
Everyone’s eyes shifted to the bureau chief.
She didn’t answer right away, but looked at me for a moment first.
After about three seconds, she slowly opened her mouth.
“...No. I need to verify his skill for myself.”
“You’re persistent. I told you, you don’t need to. I already verified it.”
“I’ll verify it with my own eyes, personally.”
“If you really want to, I won’t stop you.”
No, I hadn’t agreed to this at all.
Why were they carrying on without me?
“How are you going to do it?”
“A sparring match, obviously.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking.”
“……?”
She tilted her head as if asking what I meant.
I had taken her for one of those too, so I looked at Han Jin-hwan.
He pointed at me with his index finger.
“Besides me and hyung, this guy here is the strongest one present.”
“……!”
“Do you think the lot of you can actually verify the skill of someone like him?”
And in that moment, every pair of eyes under the tent converged on me.
These were the same kind of looks Saessak had noticed.
Annoyed looks.
Looks that seemed to say, That guy?
Saessak sensed the glances that were irritatingly fixed on Baek Do-woon.
Ha. Long time no see, that sort of look.