The Way of Life for a Terminal S-Class Hunter - C40
$40
He deliberately splashed into my calm lake again. I didn’t want to be shaken by Seo-heon anymore. I needed to clearly tell him not to cross the line of friendship.
“Let’s go in. It’s going to get busy soon.”
However, I chose to change the subject, finding it difficult to speak up now. Perhaps because I was troubled, I didn’t have the courage to speak to the deeply sunken Seo-heon.
I’ll speak when the opportunity arises.
It doesn’t have to be today. Seo-heon didn’t seem to want to say more either, as he quietly walked in step with me.
“Here.”
Then, as if he had forgotten about it himself, he let out an “Ah” sound and held out the cup he had been holding.
“What’s this?”
“You like buying hot coffee and letting it cool, right? I bought it since you said you were coming today.”
Right. It didn’t have to be today.
My resolve hadn’t changed, but it was hard to overcome the guilt and regret.
“Woo-hyun.”
“Why are you calling me like that?”
“I sometimes think about going back to our student days.”
I did too. But I thought Seo-heon wouldn’t.
“It would be nice if we could.”
There was silence afterward because both Seo-heon speaking and I listening knew it was impossible.
“Hello.”
“Oh, Vice Guild Master, have you finished the urgent matter you mentioned?”
The employees and hunters in the lobby greeted us with light nods and spoke to Seo-heon and me. It was awkward being with Seo-heon, but this was a relief.
“Yes. I should have said something earlier or spoken directly. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not the type to just skip out, Vice Guild Master. Actually, I don’t think anyone would have cared much even if you had just taken off?”
Many hunters were freelancers, and even those who weren’t often worked flexibly according to contracts, considering their generally free-spirited nature. Although it wasn’t stable and pay was determined by cases, they went out on missions more frequently, but despite that, more people chose freedom. The employee’s words were also a natural joke to make to hunters.
“Hearing you say that makes me feel a bit better.”
After finishing the light greetings, I headed to the office. The office felt like I hadn’t been there in a long time, as much as the time I had been asleep while sick felt very long.
It’s only been 3 days, but it feels like it’s been almost a week.
Unlike other hunters, Seo-heon and I had individual offices. Even though I had been away for a long time, there was someone who cleaned the guild interior, so my office was spotless.
On the other hand, Seo-heon didn’t even let the cleaning person enter his office. Of course, it was no less clean because he tidied it himself.
While some people just left important documents with the person in charge, Seo-heon didn’t even divide tasks with me, the Vice Guild Master. In particular, he handled the most important core documents himself, and installed a barrier item in his room to prevent anyone from entering while he was away.
He probably set up double and triple notifications to alert him if anyone entered.
Unlike his appearance and despite being a hunter highly skilled in combat, Seo-heon handled work like a perfectionist. As a result, the only documents I had to write were reports after business trips.
Thanks to that, I’m the only one who’s free. In other guilds, usually the Vice Guild Master does a lot of paperwork and the Guild Master fights on the front lines.
But it’s not like Seo-heon participates passively in combat either. Compared to other guild masters, he showed about average number of deployments. It’s just that because I travel a lot, including overseas trips and regional visits, I often heard comments like, “Ihwa is unique in that the Guild Master and Vice Guild Master roles are reversed. If I had as much power as the Ihwa Guild Master, I’d just participate in combat without doing work.”
“What’s the point of just sitting here. Let’s find some work to do.”
Feeling awkward just sitting and thinking, I looked around while talking to myself. As I looked around once and organized my desk, I suddenly noticed that the guild-exclusive device on my wrist was turned off.
Ah, I didn’t charge it, and it must have turned off because calls kept coming in.
I quickly connected the charger and turned it on to see a stream of missed contacts. There were work-related contents, but overwhelmingly many were from Seo-heon. As he said earlier, he must have belatedly checked my calls, as there were lots of messages after that time.
[I checked late, sorry]
[Where are you?]
[Not at home?]
[Are you hurt?]
[Where are you?]
[Where are you now, Woo-hyun?]
[Turning on location tracking for guild device.]
[Did you turn it off?]
[Contact me right away when you see this so I can check if there’s any problem.]
There were more messages than I had imagined. As I blankly watched the vibrations continue for a while, Seo-heon’s rambling words flashed by.
I guess he was worried about me.
It was an unwelcome realization. I selfishly thought it would have been easier if he had just acted coldly, as he had consistently done since dating Kwon Ho-jun. Feeling that reading all the messages would only increase my turmoil, I pretended not to know and checked the work contents.
[S-rank Dungeon Participation List]
Combat personnel: Kang Seo-heon, Baek Woo-hyun, Shin Lee-han, Kim Juhee, Lee Seokju, Park Gangui, Byun Gyeongju
Support: Halo Daniel
Healer: Kim Ihye
[Backup Candidate List]
Kim Jiseok, Seonwoo Minji, Park Jumi, Lee Junseok, Caitlyn
* There may be some changes later. If anyone on the list is deployed during the week before training begins, please try to match up with at least two people.
It was all understandable personnel. In the case of Minji on the backup list, although her skill with light-based abilities was excellent, it seemed she was put as a candidate because the Hetchling’s nest was dark this time. In Junseok’s case, he tamed monsters to attack, which was an advantage in being able to handle strong species, but there were times when he could inadvertently harm teammates, making it difficult to shine in times when coordination and focus were important.
This is just right as it is. Well, people who are good at this kind of thing made it.
I ran simulations in my own way, imagining how to fight.
Enhancing the power of Juhee and Gangui, who attack from afar, with Lee-han’s ability, and Seo-heon and I, who will be at the frontline, listening to Halo’s predictions…
The imagination stopped abruptly at Halo. I tried running simulations in other ways, but it invariably got stuck when it came to Halo’s turn. Having never fought alongside someone with precognition abilities, it was exceptionally tricky to predict how the battle would change.
We really need to practice together. Simulation is as important as combat practice. It’s just hard to imagine.
For other attackers or common support types, it wasn’t difficult to draw a rough blueprint.
[Am I just support? ;( Boring.]
After the dungeon participation list came, Halo left a message. Seeing that it was marked as a group contact, it must have gone to everyone. Honestly, seeing him contact like this without much regard for such things, he seemed like an exceptionally free-spirited person.
I wonder what he meant by what he said to me.
Being a prophet, his words somehow didn’t sound casual.
♩♬ A call is coming in, ♩♬ A call is coming in.
Along with the ringing notification sound, the message that a call was coming in repeated noisily. Worried that monsters might have appeared somewhere or that criminal hunters might be running rampant, I checked the device with concern, only to squeeze my eyes shut.
[Caller: Halo]
Why is this person suddenly contacting me…?
I felt preemptively guilty because I had just been thinking about him. While I was deciding whether to answer or not, the call sound continued loudly. As it didn’t seem like it would stop even if I ignored it, I finally raised the white flag.
[Hello! Woo-hyun-ssi?]
When I answered the phone, a cheerful voice greeted me. He was quite carefree in a different sense from Kwon Ho-jun.
“Yes, I answered the phone.”
[Let’s go out. I want to do some sightseeing, and I’d like you to be my guide. Please show me the most delicious restaurants in Seoul.]
I wish I hadn’t answered.
It might be rude to the other person, but I immediately regretted answering the phone upon hearing those words. It wasn’t uncommon for hunters who went on overseas business trips to travel in that region, but usually they would go alone or follow a guide provided by the guild. It was unusual to specifically pick out one guild member like this.
“If you need a guide, we can arrange one from our side. I don’t know any restaurants and I’m not familiar with many tourist spots that foreigners might like.”
I went on family trips occasionally when I was young, but that was a long time ago. Now, I wasn’t even sure if all the places we visited in the past still existed.
[Are you worried because of work? I asked if I could go with a hunter from here, and they said okay. Plus, I always include sightseeing in my contract conditions.]
[I didn’t say it was okay to go with the Vice Guild Master though.]
I heard Mi-yeon-ssi grumbling from the side. Halo’s sociability must be quite good, as there was a subtle but clear friendliness in Mi-yeon-ssi’s scolding tone.
He’s quite savvy too.
“Still, there must be someone more suitable.”
[Hmm… The message I got said to go with the people participating in this subjugation, right?]
It was a truly interesting way of thinking. Not that it was bad, but it was intriguing how different his thought process was from mine.