Drawing a New Line (4)
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— S-class Hunter Choi Eunho missing, believed to have been caught in dimensional distortion
— Hopes he will return from the Great Rift
"They let me go surprisingly easily."
The morning after the day I let Kang Juhyuk down.
I was watching the news about my own disappearance on TV.
The disappearance of an S-class Hunter—one of only six in South Korea... or five now.
With one of the nation’s top combat assets for dealing with gate incidents gone, it was hardly a trivial matter.
There would be noise everywhere...
Hyujeong, for that matter, wasn’t exactly unrelated to it either. If they dragged her into a press conference or something, it wouldn’t have been strange at all.
It would affect the Hunter Association’s credibility too... honestly, it probably hadn’t been an easy call to make public.
Either way, if it was going to come out eventually, they’d decided to announce it quickly and move on.
"Yes... since everyone at the senior levels of the Association already knows that Eunha-ssi is Choi Eunho-ssi, there was no real loss of fighting power. They said to adjust things to suit Eunha-ssi’s wishes."
Hyujeong, who had come first thing in the morning to report to me and was now sitting on the sofa beside me, added her explanation.
"I told them to keep their mouths shut, right?"
"Well... I didn’t really need to warn them. No one wants to make an enemy of an S-class powerhouse. Even people who don’t know the details are saying that immortal man can’t possibly stay dead, so the atmosphere isn’t bad right now. They’re saying he’ll walk out of the Great Rift on his own sooner or later."
"I was planning to get my original body back eventually anyway. This is actually convenient. When I go back to being Choi Eunho, I can just return that way."
Even if I disappeared inside a gate, the Great Rift connected to all outer dimensions in the end.
Ordinarily, I’d die, but as Choi Eunho... maybe I’d survive and come back. That was the story, apparently.
So the first problem was solved, at least.
I’d narrowly avoided the disaster of becoming Chae Eunha and losing everything I’d built up as Choi Eunho.
My social standing was gone, sure... but honestly, the bigger problem would’ve been the public finding out that Chae Eunha was Choi Eunho.
As long as only the Association executives knew, that was enough.
Those old men had risen to where they were by reading the room; they weren’t likely to come after me for no reason.
As long as I kept doing what I’d done as Choi Eunho under the identity of Chae Eunha, they’d keep giving me what they’d been giving me and keep their mouths shut.
They knew how miserable it would be to get on my bad side.
Even if I didn’t threaten them illegally, it’d be a headache for them if I just packed up, emigrated, and went to another country’s Hunter Association.
"What happened to my Hunter registration card? Ah, I mean Chae Eunha’s."
"Since everything had already been arranged in advance, we registered it as if I had brought you in through my recommendation. Your skill verification was handled with the gate dismantling operation a few days ago. There were quite a few Hunters who saw Eunha-ssi in person then, so... there weren’t any major problems."
"Good. What rank?"
"As you requested, you were registered as A-class. The Association would have preferred to register you as a new S-class Hunter, Choi Eunho-ssi’s replacement, but..."
"That’d be too conspicuous."
Chae Eunha was an identity that would one day have to disappear.
An S-class Hunter was practically a national representative.
If a person like that vanished one day and reappeared the next, anyone could tell something was off.
Chae Eunha needed to disappear as quietly as possible, without making a sound.
An A-class Hunter wasn’t low by any means... but it was still better than S-class.
"When I told them that was what Eunha-ssi wanted, they had no trouble transferring me to you as well."
"That’s a shame, isn’t it? Downgrading from S-class Hunter manager to A-class Hunter manager."
"Downgrading? Maybe an outsider would see it that way, but the salary is the same and the work is the same. I’ve never cared about other people’s opinions anyway. If anything, my stress has gone down."
"Hey. What do you mean by that?"
"Are you asking me that?"
Who do you think cleaned up after Choi Eunho-ssi’s womanizing?
Hyujeong looked at me with an exasperated expression.
But no matter how I looked at it, that sounded like an exaggerated complaint.
I wasn’t out there raping women on the street and sleeping with them for the hell of it.
Most of them were women I met at clubs or through random chats—women who were already into one-night stands.
And, true to the nature of that kind of arrangement, most of those ended cleanly.
All I did was sleep with them and part ways. A few only kept coming around because they knew I was a rich S-class Hunter.
Some of the prettier ones I saw a few more times, treated as playthings.
But they all knew it was a relationship with an uncertain end, and they’d been paid accordingly.
What more was I supposed to do? I’d used protection properly. If it didn’t happen sometimes, I’d even given them extra money to take pills.
If anything, the ones who’d clung to me crying that they’d been abandoned, threatened to kill themselves, or lied about being pregnant were the problem.
Those “a few” psychotic women had been the nuisance, to put it accurately—not me bothering Hyujeong, but them bothering Hyujeong.
It’s not like I’d met those women because I wanted a relationship... seriously.
From the beginning, those had been relationships with a line drawn clearly, the same way I treated Kang Juhyuk now.
"How is that my fault?"
"I can’t really understand that kind of casual relationship, so I think you did bring some of it on yourself."
"What’s sex got to do with it..."
I almost said she’d probably climbed that position by sleeping her way up with the Association’s upper brass too.
Honestly, until now I’d thought that way, but... I had no proof. It was just the kind of thing you think when you want to curse at someone.
And after what had happened between us back then, it had become a little harder to speak to Hyujeong carelessly.
She was still a mosquito of a woman, but the swearing no longer came with it.
"The account and the house too... well, the Association will handle all that. Use them however you’ve been using them."
"Of course they’re mine. I’ll use them however I want."
"Legally, you and Choi Eunho are different people... the Hunter Association may do illegal things, but it’s not exactly an organization that openly endorses crime. Don’t go around making it obvious."
I had that much sense, at least.
"Fine. I’ll keep it to ordinary daily use. You mean if I spend too much, it’ll stand out, right?"
"Yes. You’ve been fine lately, but until as recently as two years ago you were buying three cars a day. The wealth that used to belong to Choi Eunho will slowly be transferred to Eunha-ssi, but for now, spending tens of millions of won at a time will be a nuisance."
"...A nuisance if it’s tens of millions of won?"
"Why do you ask?"
...Hm.
I needed to buy equipment for Kang Juhyuk.
He wouldn’t be much help, but... still, he needed to be able to protect his own body.
So I’d been thinking of buying protective gear, medicines, recovery items... camp equipment for Great Rift expeditions, all sorts of things.
If I went cheap, maybe not, but if I had the gear custom-made and stocked up on recovery scrolls and camp equipment that wouldn’t be a pain to use, the bill would blow past that in no time.
"No, I mean I need to buy equipment too. As Chae Eunha, I’ll be—"
"You don’t use armor, do you? As for weapons, you can just use the ones Choi Eunho-ssi already used; the Association can bring them over. Even if you get new ones... it won’t be tens of millions, will it?"
"I’m going into the Great Rift. I’ll need camp equipment and things like that too. Maybe I could get into the tens of millions."
"Even so, I don’t think it’ll go that high... and the Great Rift? Why would you need to go there...? It’s not like you’re short on money. It should be enough to stay on standby as usual and only respond when the Association calls."
"I need to kill some monsters and blow off steam. I can’t think about having sex with women, so my body’s aching."
I offered the excuse I’d prepared, but Hyujeong didn’t seem to believe it at all.
Tch.
What were you going to do if you kept looking at me like I was suspicious?
When I held my ground and kept staring back without flinching, Hyujeong must not have had anything more to say either, because she finally nodded and went on.
"...Understood. I’ll ask them to support the card that will be issued to Chae Eunha-ssi in advance. Think of it as an advance payment. Use that card when you need to spend heavily."
"That’s funny. There’ll probably be a lot more in the original account, though. Anyway, fine. I’ll do that."
.
A man who couldn’t lie well because he didn’t pay attention to other people—what exactly was he hiding?
As Hyujeong rode in the car on the way back, that was what she thought.
The practical side of it had worked out.
The Association executives, too, had chosen cooperation after their panic over the disappearance of an S-class Hunter had been soothed by the truth that it was really only a body swap.
With Shin Jaecheol’s confirmation, proving it hadn’t been difficult.
In truth, even if they hadn’t believed it rationally, they might simply not have wanted to accept the fact that they had lost an S-class Hunter.
To the outside world it would be called a disappearance, but within the Association’s senior ranks, nothing changed if they were going to wield Chae Eunha as a replacement weapon.
What had been given to Choi Eunho would continue to be given to Chae Eunha. Situationally, there was nothing bad about it. Just a matter of maintaining the status quo.
If anything, the trouble Choi Eunho caused with women would disappear... from Hyujeong’s perspective, that might actually be a good thing.
But Choi Eunho—no, Chae Eunha—was still a headache for Hyujeong.
If Choi Eunho was someone she wanted to ditch because he was irritating, then Chae Eunha was more the kind of person she couldn’t look away from because she seemed too fragile to leave alone.
Yes. To be blunt, she was worried.
The reason was simple.
Chae Eunha was an easy woman.
She would deny it to the bitter end, of course...
But Hyujeong, who had dealt with the women tied up with Choi Eunho, could sense it.
There was something in Chae Eunha that belonged to the kind of woman who would give her body and heart to a man like Choi Eunho—someone who had no intention of taking responsibility—and end up ruining her life.
For some reason, no matter why, it was just a feeling. Something hard to explain in words.
She’d told herself it was only a baseless hunch, a rash leap... but today’s conversation had confirmed the feeling.
This was... this was bad. That was the kind of bad it was.
A person who didn’t even wear armor... suddenly talking about equipment worth tens of millions.
Was she the kind of person who used weapons with outrageous enchantments on them? No.
Choi Eunho had always been the type to say it was enough as long as the weapon didn’t break.
From the start, he was not someone who used expensive equipment.
The blessing of the sponsor he had contracted with had been his weapon and his armor.
So no matter how Hyujeong looked at it, this wasn’t spending for Chae Eunha herself.
What... had she met some kind of gold digger or hustler? Was she fixated on one of them? That was the thought that came to mind.
Becoming a woman, paying the price... the situation being chaotic. Being afraid of her own identity.
Then leaning on some strange person, giving up her body or her heart. Handing over everything she had...
Well, something like that. Something like that, she imagined.
Because that was the scent hanging around the current Chae Eunha.
Come to think of it, when she’d come out after dismantling the gate... hadn’t she been with that man?
Calling him Nuna... exchanging phone numbers. Exchanging? Handing them over?
After spending twenty-six hours in the gate under mysterious circumstances.
Back then... Chae Eunha had lost her pants and was wearing something like cloth wrapped around her like a skirt.
The lines that had looked oddly silhouette-like, as though she wasn’t wearing panties at all...
At the time Hyujeong had dismissed it as a disgusting fantasy.
But when Chae Eunha had been pinned down, the tears and the expression on her face.
It was too different to be Choi Eunho.
Could it be that with that man... something, anything...
No, but with Chae Eunha’s power, she shouldn’t have been forced...
So maybe the man had pried his way in through the cracks in her confusion...
No?!
Maybe...
Still.
Mm?!
And two days earlier, she’d said she had plans.
When asked if it was a man, she’d bristled and denied it, but...
Honestly, if you thought about how she’d suddenly been told to buy women’s clothes and learn makeup...
Even if she said she was “preparing to adapt because there’s no way back right now,” it was too much.
"Ah... why am I even thinking about this?"
I don’t want to think about it.
The possibility that a man and my former self might be sucking each other off somewhere.
Is this BL? Ah... I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.
Even so, Hyujeong remembered Chae Eunha falling asleep in her arms that day with tears still wet on her face.
Honestly.
Why did that one thing...
Why did that one thing make me...
Of course, the situation was a little different.
The women who’d been toyed with by Choi Eunho had, after all, been in a thoroughly unequal relationship in which Choi Eunho held all the power and money.
But this time... Chae Eunha was the one giving, not the one receiving.
If the other person was short on something, scared, they’d try to do well. That was how it should be.
"I need to know who the other person is..."
Still.
If the other party was...
just using Chae Eunha one-sidedly.
Then she couldn’t leave that alone either.
Watching Chae Eunha receive back exactly what Choi Eunho had done to others... she didn’t want that. She just hated it. That was all.
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