The Way of Life for a Terminal S-Class Hunter - C12
$12
“Hiding information like this and snatching away dungeons that have already been awarded is not right. There should be penalties or sanctions!”
Voices rose again. With people agreeing from here and there, the voices only grew louder.
“Let’s stop this.”
When Seo-heon raised his hand to intervene, silence fell.
“Since you say penalties are necessary, let’s have us take charge of the contaminated area exploration this time.”
The contaminated area was something that small and medium-sized guilds avoided like passing a hot potato. When dungeon conquests fail and time passes, the area slowly rots with the poison of monsters. Therefore, it was an area that needed constant management to check if the damage was spreading to surrounding areas.
It was natural for small and medium-sized guilds with chronic manpower shortages to be reluctant to take on a task with no benefits and only troublesome work. This contaminated area exploration had also been pushed back and forth, so the responsible guild hadn’t been decided yet. Seo-heon was now offering to resolve this.
“This should be enough of a penalty. We’re being quite accommodating here.”
It was an excessively arrogant attitude to call it accommodating.
“Are… are you trying to escape with just that?”
Although I called it passing a hot potato, in truth, for a large guild like Ihwa, exploring contaminated areas wasn’t a big problem.
For large guilds that always keep emergency personnel ready, it was just a bit of a hassle. Unless the contamination was so severe that entry was difficult, or there were rumors of S-rank monsters appearing, but there were no such reports for this area.
“Hmm. The association judges that Ihwa Guild did acquire the dungeon conquest rights somewhat aggressively this time. However, selling without grasping the information seems to be the mistake of the three guilds. Therefore, we judge that wrapping this up by taking on the contaminated area, as the Ihwa Guild leader suggested, should be sufficient. However, please be aware that if a similar incident occurs again, Ihwa Guild may receive a warning.”
Seo-heon nodded once while listening to the verdict. The people from the association, seemingly accustomed to this attitude, passed over it without comment.
“Understood.”
The other guilds, unsatisfied with the verdict, were protesting, and Vladi Guild left first, glaring at us.
“Shall we get going too?”
“Wait here for a moment. I’ll be right back after making a quick call.”
Seo-heon answered my question. The first part was directed at Mi-yeon, and the latter part was for me.
It was unusual for him to leave to make other calls, so I thought it must be something important. As I was waiting, the association representative who had chased away the remaining guilds came to greet us.
“Good work. Actually, you could have ignored it and moved on, but by suggesting a compromise, things ended early. We appreciate Ihwa Guild’s cooperation.”
“Not at all. We’re the ones who should be grateful.”
“Please deliver this to the guild leader.”
“Yes.”
What he gave me was the verdict document. Usually, it’s sent by registered mail, but today it seemed the association had prepared it in advance.
It really was a fight where winning was predetermined.
“I’ll go find Kang Seo-heon.”
I stood up, needing to deliver the envelope and not wanting to keep Mi-yeon waiting indefinitely. I heightened my senses to the maximum, like when entering a dungeon, to track down where Seo-heon was.
But as Seo-heon’s presence grew closer, a fishy smell stung my nose. My feet moved faster and faster until I finally started running.
“Kang Seo-heon!”
I arrived at the end of an alley where the scent of blood was strongest.
Drip, drip.
Along with the sound of water droplets falling, Lee Jung-hwan, covered in blood, came into view. He was pinned to the wall like a specimen.
“You’re here?”
Unlike Jung-hwan, who was pinned alive, Seo-heon smiled brightly without a single scratch. As if he hadn’t expected me to come, the movement of his hand removing his gloves was awkward. If asked to pinpoint exactly what was unnatural, it would be hard to pick just one thing, but my instincts were telling me.
“Stop causing trouble.”
“There’s no reason to avoid a fight that comes to you.”
It seems Jung-hwan couldn’t control his temper and picked a fight again.
With injuries to that extent, he’d need treatment from an A-rank or higher healer, which worried me. Yet Seo-heon remained confident even after being caught at the scene.
He usually pretended to be gentle when appearing in the media, leading some people to mistakenly think that Ihwa’s guild leader was moderate. However, in reality, if you were to mold the word ‘belligerent’ into a human, it would be Kang Seo-heon. He always repaid any provocation that came his way, by whatever means necessary. If needed, he wouldn’t hesitate to provoke first. He just had the ability to package it inconspicuously.
“Still, you should do things in moderation.”
Jung-hwan hadn’t regained consciousness. He’ll probably be in a daze for about a day even after receiving treatment.
“If I go easy on him and he comes at me again, it’s troublesome. It’s better to settle things cleanly in one go.”
He’s a famous hunter in his own right, but to be beaten this badly in less than thirty minutes.
He’ll probably be quite subdued for a while.
Even knowing that he provoked this, seeing him injured to this extent makes me feel sorry for him.
Fortunately for Ihwa Guild, such a huge difference between guild leaders is humiliating and means a public defeat in the power struggle between guilds, so it won’t be publicized. Moreover, Jung-hwan will have an instinctive fear of Seo-heon ingrained in him, so he won’t dare to challenge him again.
Seo-heon, saying he’d had enough of looking at such a person, grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to return to the hall.
“So who’s going to do this contaminated area inspection?”
I asked while contacting a specialized hunter hospital, keeping it hidden from Seo-heon.
“You and me.”
It was a question I had asked thinking ‘surely not’, but my expectation was correct. Contrary to the straightforward answer, I was burning up inside.
“Is that part of the persuasion too?”
“Think what you want.”
Contrary to Seo-heon’s intentions, nothing he does could change my mind. If he wanted my corpse, I would have thrown it to him, but a corpse has no use value, so he wouldn’t need it. It was troublesome to keep receiving requests that I couldn’t fulfill.
“Do you have a lot of free time these days?”
“It’s not that I have a lot of time, I’m making time to be with you.”
I was at a loss for words. Seo-heon occasionally said and did affectionate things that might make others mistake him for being in love with me. Because of this, people around us often misunderstood our relationship, and I used to have expectations.
Your intermittent kindness eats away at me.
“Even without that, I have to do it myself to avoid giving those guys any excuses.”
As he said, if we just sent several B and C-rank hunters, there would be articles criticizing us for just filling numbers to complete the mission, and if we sent two or three A-rank hunters, there would be articles criticizing us for just going through the motions with minimal personnel. In that sense, if Seo-heon and I went, there would be nothing to criticize no matter how much they tried to find fault. So while Seo-heon’s words made logical sense, I felt uneasy for some reason.
“Won’t Kwon Ho-jun feel lonely if you’re only with me like this these days?”
Seo-heon’s gaze traveled from my head to my toes.
“Why are you saying such upsetting things?”
Seo-heon asked in a voice like a low breath, his lips slightly hardened. I shouldn’t have asked. Feeling exposed, I moved my feet quickly. I felt incredibly embarrassed, as if I had forcibly crammed Seo-heon into the cramped room of my heart.
“Just… Before I submitted my resignation, you were always with Ho-jun, but lately it seems like you can’t meet him because of me. That’s why I said it.”
“When I’m not with you, I see him as needed, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
So when you’re not with me, you go to see Kwon Ho-jun. And I don’t have the right to care about those meetings.
Though everything he said was correct, I didn’t understand why I felt so deflated. I scratched my cheek and replied “I see,” and Seo-heon didn’t add anything more.
After walking quietly for a while, I opened my mouth, pretending to be casual.
“Kang Seo-heon.”
“Yes, Woo-hyun.”
“Do you remember the day we decided to become hunters together?”
It was actually a question I had wanted to ask for a long time. It seemed like a day like today, where I could ask casually, wouldn’t come easily again.
“I remember it like it was yesterday.”
So you remember it too.
After that, we walked without conversation and soon arrived at the hall.
“Where did you go? You said you were going to deliver documents, but you came back together.”
Only when Mi-yeon pointed it out did I remember the documents dangling in my hand. I had completely forgotten my original purpose while engaging in various conversations.
“Ah, I’m sorry, Mi-yeon. We kept you waiting for a long time. Let’s get back to work.”
“Yes. By the way, who are we sending for the exploration? Lee Han’s team has been busy lately.”
“The two of us will go.”
Mi-yeon’s eyes widened as she assessed the situation for a moment.
“Is there really a need to go that far? We’re not a guild whose image would be damaged by a few bad words. Besides, there won’t be many people talking nonsense.”
As a capable employee, she quickly grasped the situation. I agreed with what she said, but since Seo-heon had already declared he would do it, he wouldn’t change his mind.
“We need to do things thoroughly when we do them. We’ll be gone for 3 days starting tomorrow.”
“Starting tomorrow?”
Even when I stared at Seo-heon accusingly for this unagreed-upon plan, there was no additional explanation. If Seo-heon was the wind, I was a willow branch.
Even as I swayed helplessly after he passed, I tried to follow.
“Won’t you be tired, Woo-hyun? It hasn’t been long since you returned from your business trip.”
“What kind of hunter would be tired from this much?”
I just nodded.
“If I give too much time, it seems like you’ll create an escape route, so I can’t.”
I felt a pang of guilt because it was true that I had been thinking about how to keep my distance from Seo-heon.
“Then I’ll see you at nine tomorrow.”