The Way of Life for a Terminal S-Class Hunter - C63
$63
Incomprehensible questions poured in. Looking back, Kwon Ho-jun, who had been walking far behind, was backing away as if he was about to re-enter the dungeon.
“Wh-What is this…!”
The reporters, no different from a school of piranhas, didn’t miss the opportunity to question even as they saw people becoming flustered.
“I have a question for Ihwa Guild Leader Kang Seo-heon. How long have you known about Congressman Kwon’s true intentions? How did you decide to expose this?”
“Vice Guild Leader Baek Woo-hyun, we’d like to hear your thoughts on your parents’ names being cleared.”
It was complete chaos. Moreover, Congressman Kwon, my parents’ false accusations – these were words I had never once imagined and were difficult to accept. Dizziness overwhelmed me.
“Please wait a moment.”
It was Seo-heon who stopped the reporters. He was the only one in this place maintaining his composure without being surprised.
“Everyone is exhausted right now. We’ve already prepared the relevant materials, so please wait. As you can see, this was a dungeon of a level never before experienced in Korea, and there are injured people. Please make way.”
After saying this much, even the reporters had no choice but to back off. Although they didn’t retreat easily, hoping for an exclusive, they weren’t as aggressively pushy as before. If word spread that the guild that had just difficultly dealt with a dragon was being harmed by reporters, the public wouldn’t leave the reporters alone.
Only Ho-jun and I were still dazed, not knowing what to do.
“Seo-heon, what… what’s going on?”
“Ask your father.”
Seo-heon answered in a tone that was almost cold. After responding so coolly, he carefully placed me in the backseat of a vehicle prepared by the guild.
My mind was blank. Only Seo-heon seemed calm in this chaos, as if he had anticipated everything. That was what worried me the most.
“I told you to wait, didn’t I?”
Seo-heon, sitting next to me, brushed my sweat-soaked hair. The cold fingers touching my forehead gave me goosebumps.
“Wait for what…?”
“Now, we’re going back to the right place. The truth, and you too.”
How could I explain that what I wanted wasn’t the truth?
“I’ll tell you everything. Let’s go to the hospital first. Ihye is at her limit now, so it’s difficult for her to treat you further. Until then, get some sleep.”
As if the words “get some sleep” were a command, my eyes closed smoothly. I knew it was my mind escaping due to overload. Nevertheless, I wanted to rest now.
***
When I opened my eyes again, Seo-heon was looking down at me, bathed in moonlight. His tired expression, seeming about to melt in the moonlight, made this situation feel like a dream.
“Are you awake?”
The question that came a beat late told me this wasn’t a dream. I opened my mouth to answer, but no sound came out. I cleared my throat, which was painfully hoarse.
“Where is this?”
I could tell it was a hospital, but not one that the Ihwa Guild usually visited.
“It’s a hospital we prepared in advance in the suburbs.”
“Why?”
My words became short due to my sore throat. I fumbled to grab the water bottle on the table.
“Reporters are swarming in front of the hospital we usually go to and in front of the guild. It’s not a comfortable place for injured people to rest.”
So Seo-heon had indeed anticipated this situation. No, if I was right, he might have even orchestrated this whole thing. As I tried to hide my confusion and open the bottle cap, my vision was blurry and my hands wouldn’t listen.
“Give it here.”
Seo-heon casually took the water bottle, opened it, and placed it in my hand. I, who had been blankly holding the bottle, realized my sore throat again and drank the water. The pain eased considerably.
“Are you going to tell me now what happened?”
My words were slow, like stretched tape. It wasn’t as if I had just woken from anesthesia, but all my movements were sluggish.
I wonder if this is all due to the penalty.
“Where should I start explaining?”
Seo-heon tapped the table with his fingers, pondering, then took out a printout from his bag. As if knowing what I was curious about, he handed over the document without hesitation.
“This is…”
[Shocking, Was Congressman Kwon Myeong-gun Involved in ‘That Incident’ 10 Years Ago?]
The newspaper headline was sensational. As I stumbled through reading the content, I couldn’t focus at all.
“That person’s misdeeds weren’t just one or two, so once we started taking him down, it couldn’t have been easier. Right before that incident called a terrorist attack, Congressman Kwon was aiming for re-election, and for that, he tried to collaborate with our father’s company. In the midst of that, when father discovered problems including corruption and prepared to expose them, he planned the incident to silence him after noticing.”
“What?”
How long had Seo-heon known about this? And why hadn’t he told me?
Nothing made sense. It would be more believable if he said it was a dream. And what about Kwon Ho-jun then?
“Father probably never imagined he would be caught. That’s because Congressman Kwon had secretly employed people with special skills. Well, rather than employment, it would be more accurate to say he kept them as his own limbs.”
However, Seo-heon only listed facts that I wasn’t particularly curious about.
“That guy, while sponsoring an orphanage for a long time, quickly found children with the abilities he wanted. There were three people with special skills that he used to hide his corruption or gather information.”
Seo-heon paused briefly and observed my reaction. He seemed to be checking if I was understanding well.
“One has the ability to transfer someone’s skill to another person, one can read other people’s memories, and one can transform into any desired person. All three skills were so rare that you might find one person with such abilities in 10 years in our country, so in a way, it’s natural that the victims couldn’t trace the connections.”
Even Seo-heon, who always spoke coherently, continued his story somewhat disjointedly this time.
“Your parents became the target for media manipulation as culprits because they knew we were close to your family. Congressman Kwon had actually met your parents before, and it was perfect for spreading in the media.”
For a moment, a stone dropped in my chest. The image of my parents left lonely in the columbarium flashed by.
“The one who set the fire was one of the special ability users who had transformed into your father. He received the ability to use fire, and was transformed into your father. It’s estimated that he primarily survived the explosion using protective items and escaped using the second transferred ability, teleportation.”
“…”
“Such abilities weren’t well-known, and the Kwon family was so good at manipulating the media at the time that everything went according to plan. As soon as the incident happened, they released pre-prepared CCTV footage, spread materials related to our house and your house, sent reporters to your house… He was someone who knew very well how to use the media and the public. During that chaos, the third ability user read your father’s memories and used that to destroy all the evidence.”
The feeling got stranger as it went on. There was a time when I thought I would feel relieved and the knot in my chest would unravel if I learned that my parents, who were always criticized, had been falsely accused. However, when Seo-heon actually delivered the truth, it didn’t feel real. Perhaps because it was too shocking, it felt like I was listening to a story that had nothing to do with me.
“Our, my father, it was a false accusation?”
“Yes.”
“You knew about this?”
“Our mother probably knew too. We couldn’t confront them without solid proof. Of course, Congressman Kwon had erased all the evidence, and at that time, just protecting the company was overwhelming enough. Pathetically so.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
My heart was pounding crazily. Even to my parents, I’m sorry but this was… yes,
It was betrayal.
“Would you have believed me if I had told you then? You, at that time, were only thinking about dying right away.”
Seo-heon let out a light laugh.
“No. Even if you had believed, you might have run away from me. You might have said you couldn’t stay by my side because you felt guilty towards your parents. Of course, you ran away without even knowing the truth, so it would have been pointless.”
“What are you talking about?”
It was overwhelming to follow Seo-heon’s thoughts. What was the big deal about me running away that he hid such a thing?
“Then what about Kwon Ho-jun…?”
“Congressman Kwon is a vile and thorough person. He wouldn’t just let the child of someone who had uncovered his corruption approach him. So we needed a way to approach that inflexible man in a way he couldn’t imagine.”
So Seo-heon was calmly telling me that everything that had happened over nearly ten years was a lie. My mind went blank.
“Then why did you deceive me again? You could have told me at least then. Did you think I wouldn’t believe you?”
“The first reason is that I had difficultly retrieved you from that damn hunter group and didn’t want to lose you again, and secondly, I thought you might tell me to stop at some point because you’re not good at acting and have a weak heart.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t bear it without refuting.
“Even so, there must have been opportunities to tell me.”
Seo-heon’s fingers stopped abruptly. He slowly closed his eyes and then looked straight at me.
“Yes. Maybe they’re all excuses.”
There was a faint heat in his voice.
“The truth is, I was angry. You tried to abandon me. You tried to die just because of guilt. Several times.”
“What?”
To my confused questioning, Seo-heon stood up from his seat and looked down at me. For the first time, a huge desire I had never seen before raged fiercely on his shadowed face.
“You, from the beginning, were mine. We were supposed to belong completely to each other.”
Seo-heon’s eyes flashed like a madman’s. He stretched out his arms and trapped my body.