Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Yunhee, who had been eyeing me with suspicion, went outside, leaving just me and Lee Sehee.

“The recovery potion performs well.”

“Coming from its most frequent user, that’s the most reliable testimonial there is. Thanks for the compliment.”

“It’s a fair assessment.”

“......”

“You came because you have something to say to me, don’t you?”

As expected, Lee Sehee was quick on the uptake, which made her easy to work with. Though she was sharp enough that she seemed to read meaning into everything.

Today was the first time I realized my own actions had that kind of calculation hidden in them.

“I’d like to make a request.”

“What kind?”

“I understand Shinseong Pharmaceuticals is the best in the country. And that its competitiveness is world-class.”

“That’s right. The recovery potion you use, Junho, is one of our results. The U.S. is solid, but their prices are far too high—ours has the edge in cost competitiveness. Is your request about recovery potions, then?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to commission the development of a recovery potion that can reattach severed body parts.”

“......”

“Is that too difficult?”

It was obvious Lee Sehee couldn’t keep her expression in check.

It wasn’t an unreasonable idea. Anyone might think of it once.

“I took a moment to imagine what you must be thinking, Junho. Um, so—it must be for when an unexpected accident happens during combat, and you want to be able to salvage the situation, right?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s possible, but I’m not sure how practical it’d be. It can be done through surgery anyway, and even if you reattach it, you can’t jump right back into combat.”

“But it can correct a broken balance. If you switch your sword to your other hand, your combat strength drops, but the loss is minimized.”

“That’s true, but......”

To the hesitant Lee Sehee, I threw out the bait.

“I’m not asking you to do it for free. I’ll fund the research.”

“Research funding?”

“And you know something that’s effective for reattaching severed parts.”

“Then we could cut the research time down enormously.”

“Will you do it?”

“If the hints you give me are reliable.”

Just like that, I succeeded in securing Lee Sehee’s cooperation.

Lee Sehee assumed I meant reattaching severed arms and legs, but that wasn’t the truth. My thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

If it came down to it, I might have to take someone’s head off. Crushing a skull with an Arc Mine would leave no room for excuses, but if I cut it off and then reattached it, I could minimize the consequences.

Appearances matter, after all.

Though—when it’s reattached, does the cut mark disappear?

*

Late at night, Cheon Myeongguk and Jung Juho met. The two drank soju with mussel soup and grilled fish as side dishes at a shabby old-fashioned tavern.

“Sorry for calling you out so suddenly.”

“No, it’s fine. When the Director calls, I come. Besides, with the huge incident today and all... I figured a meeting like this might happen.”

“Haha.”

“...Are you all right?”

Jung Juho was worried about Cheon Myeongguk, who let out a dry laugh.

“I’m fine. I have to be.”

If he were in Cheon Myeongguk’s position, what would he do? Jung Juho thanked God that he was nothing more than a mere Director.

“I pushed hard for Choi Junho’s contract.”

“I was right there, so I know well.”

“As you know, a regular contract runs seven years. Whether it’s Choi Junho or our government, the relationship has to continue for seven years.”

“......”

“And yet on the very first day, an incident blew up. Just one day into the contract with Choi Junho. Keuhaha! That leaves six years and three hundred sixty-four days. That’s two thousand five hundred fifty-four days, and since it’s ten o’clock now, in hours, that’s a hundred and seven thousand two hundred seventy hours remaining.”

He had to care for Choi Junho for a hundred thousand hours? Just hearing it made him dizzy. The words “just kill me” crawled up to his throat.

Once the specific numbers were laid out, he understood why Cheon Myeongguk was knocking back drinks.

“Director Jung, did you know Choi Junho was this kind of person?”

“If I said I didn’t, I’d be deceiving you. I knew. Choi Junho has always been that kind of guy. But did I think he’d cause a scene like today? No. That guy always surpasses imagination.”

Watching Cheon Myeongguk silently raise his glass, Jung Juho clinked his against it.

In that moment, at least, the two were of one mind.

“I can see plainly how much you’ve suffered all this time, Director Jung.”

“Mine was only half a year, after all.”

“I see. For me, it’s six years and three hundred sixty-four days. A hundred thousand hours... Hah!”

Cheon Myeongguk, having filled his glass to the brim, downed it.

“Come to think of it, I doubt I’ll even still be in this position by then. But if I step down, who’ll control Choi Junho? No—can he even be controlled in the first place? If we lose even the barest reins of control we have, that situation terrifies me more than anything.”

“Why are you already thinking that far ahead?”

“Because I’ve done wrong. Director, what am I supposed to do from here? I asked to meet tonight because I wanted to learn from you.”

“......”

Jung Juho didn’t answer and instead toyed with his glass. Cheon Myeongguk poured himself another drink and downed it in one go.

“This is a filthy thing to bring up, but after the incident, I started passing bloody stool. They say it’s from extreme stress. Just three months ago I was clean. I’ve been healthy my whole life, and in a single day it came to this. Through all my years as a Hunter, even when I was routed by monsters, even when I was stranded alone abroad, I never despaired. But now... I’m reduced to shitting blood. Phew!”

Jung Juho took the bottle from Cheon Myeongguk’s hand and filled his glass. Then he raised his own in a toast, and their glasses clinked.

After a brief hesitation, Jung Juho made up his mind and spoke with a resolute expression.

“Director. I’ve been losing hair because of that guy for quite a while now.”

“Something that terrible happened to you......”

“You have to accept it. He’s already been officially recognized as Level 8 and even obtained immunity from arrest. The more you try to control him, the more he bucks. The one saving grace is that he has a firm sense of his own justice, so he doesn’t go charging in no-brakes on every single issue.”

“So we have to figure that out.”

“Still, a disaster you can predict is less stressful, wouldn’t you say?”

“...So it means we can only grasp it, not stop it.”

“Yes.”

It felt like being a patient handed a terminal diagnosis.

Not preparation, but mental readiness—that’s what was required.

Cheon Myeongguk shook his head.

“Still, once you get close to him, you can start to predict how he’ll move. Occasionally, rare as beans sprouting in a drought, he even listens to opinions. I recommend you hold out until then.”

“Director, just what kind of battle have you been fighting all this time?”

“Keeping that guy from becoming a villain is the greatest achievement of my life.”

“I respect you. To Director Jung Juho.”

“To Director Cheon Myeongguk.”

The two men, now sharing the pain of bloody stool and hair loss, became sworn brothers at the old-fashioned tavern.

*

As agreed in my conversation with Oh Jongyeop, Oh Jongsu showed up for work.

“Hyung, hello. Thanks to you, I’ve got my life back. I’ll work hard so it isn’t wasted, and pay you back.”

“Welcome. Things are still a mess, so could you tidy up and install the computer programs?”

“Yes!”

In the brief time I stepped out, Oh Jongsu had finished organizing the desks and even set up the computers. He’d also brought over the documents that had arrived for me.

“What should I do now?”

“I’ll sort the documents, and you organize them. There’ll be things to handle today, things to handle within the week, things to handle within the month, and things to reject. They’ll be divided that way.”

“I’ll pull myself together and do my best.”

“Also, your main job is sorting the contacts that come to me.”

Starting with direct calls, then emails, messenger messages, and so on. If I didn’t filter them myself, work would pile up at the National Guard Bureau, so I’d brought Oh Jongsu in to handle things at my level.

If he falls short of expectations, so be it. If he does well, it’ll be another opportunity.

“I’ll do my best. Huh? There are already a lot of invitations. Special invitation from the Awakened Academy, public service Hunter training invitation, a special lecture at a large guild, a roundtable too......”

“You decide the priority of each item.”

“Me?”

“It’s just for reference. Your decisions won’t be reflected exactly, so treat it as gaining experience.”

“Yes!”

Just as Oh Jongsu was getting into the work, Jung Juho—who had shown up late with a face full of hangover—called for me.

“So what happened with that reporter?”

“I made sure the judgment of the law could take its course.”

“Will he be punished?”

“Even if he isn’t, he won’t be able to strut around like before.”

“True. Since you’ve classified him as a villain, if he draws attention again... I’d honestly recommend he just kill himself. Anyway, so that’s the end of it.”

“It was an appetizer. I don’t intend to take it all the way.”

Honestly, I don’t expect much from legal punishment. Making someone neither able to live nor die would be more certain.

Some people see it as vigilante justice, but I disagreed.

Level 8 transcendents have summary judgment authority. I’m just using it a bit more broadly. There’s no problem.

“...Sometimes I think about where the ‘end’ you talk about actually is, and my blood runs cold. Please, at least use your turn signal when you come in. Do you know how many people’s lifespans are being shaved down because of you?”

He’d grumbled about losing hair, and before I knew it, he was talking about lifespans.

But Jung Juho was the only one who complained like this. Lately, even when he gripes, he seems to be enjoying the situation.

I decided to take his grumbling as exaggeration.

“I’ll try.”

“So what’s the next plan?”

“Now that my Level has been recognized, I intend to produce results that will engrave the fact that I’m a transcendent. First, I’ll sort through the various invitations and official schedules that have come to me and decide what to attend, then subjugate the organizations involved in the Incheon villain uprising.”

“Ooh! You’re going to do that?”

“It’s partly because of the League, after all.”

“The higher-ups will love that. Yeah, how nice would it be if you took on things like that for us? Hahaha! Our National Guard Bureau will back you up, so go wild.”

If it’s the National Guard Bureau, I can definitely leave the cleanup to them.

“Thank you. Though it looks like you drank a lot last night.”

“When you’ve got someone who shares your pain, the drinks go down easy. I’m fine, but that person’s having a rough time—probably because he was riding high before hitting the brakes. I feel bad for him too. Tsk tsk!”

“I hope he recovers.”

“That’s probably impossible. The source of his stress is running wild as we speak.”

“That’s a shame.”

“It is. Eventually it gets pitiful.”

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but Jung Juho looked right at me as he said it. There are things in this world that are simply impossible to overcome, after all. The best way to manage stress is to set your mind at ease.

I decided that once I went to Incheon before long, I’d draw up a detailed plan, and then I stepped outside.

On my way back to my office, I saw Jung Dahyun lingering in front of the door. I brought her into the office.

“I wanted to ask you for advice.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’ve been feeling stuck lately. Watching Yunhee improve, I want to do better too, but it’s hard to find my footing. I wanted to ask you for advice, oppa.”

“Are you using your Intuition in daily life?”

“Yes. I try to keep it active twenty-four hours a day.”

“If you want your Intuition to grow further, you’ll need to develop it to the level of conviction. That requires a variety of experiences. What you need most right now is real combat experience.”

I’d never seen training that brought as much enlightenment as real combat.

Being careful not to get hurt is, honestly, child’s play. A duel where blood and flesh spray and lives hang in the balance—that’s the true ground for enlightenment.

Usually it was my opponent’s blood and flesh that sprayed, rather than mine.

“Real combat. Experience.”

“For that, catching villains is the best. Not low-level ones. Ones on a similar level, ones that can create tension—that’s ideal. Level 6 would be about right.”

“I’ll have to go looking for them myself.”

“Intuition instinctively distinguishes between enemies I can handle and those I can’t. If you refine it further, you’ll be able to tell apart villains you might beat or lose to depending on the situation. Once you develop it that far, you’ll be ready to open the path to the next step. Can you do it?”

Jung Dahyun had mostly handled arresting villains in the city.

City villain arrests were the cushy assignment everyone wanted—the villains weren’t high-level, and it came with media spotlight.

Jung Dahyun was the flower and icon of the National Guard Bureau, walking a solid path of flowers. And all the while, diligently training so she could reach Level 7 in the future.

I know that if time passes as it should, Jung Dahyun will improve. But she herself isn’t satisfied with that.

This job involves facing villains outside the city. There are high-level villains who roam alone, villains who’ve committed heinous crimes, and villains who overwhelm by sheer numbers.

It’s work where you have to rack up results in places where you never know what variable might pop out.

“I happen to need to hunt monsters too, so I can at least go outside the city with you.”

“I’ll give it a try.”

“Good.”

I encouraged Jung Dahyun as she steeled her resolve. Once we made the rounds of the outskirts, we’d surely run into a few.

*

Lately, Jung Dahyun had been feeling a thirst.

Everyone around her was growing.

Her friend Lee Sehee, not far behind her as an Awakened, was thriving in a key post at Shinseong Guild. And Choi Junho’s younger sister, Choi Yoonhee, was showing just what shining talent looked like as she grew by leaps and bounds.

And then there was Choi Junho.

A genius officially recognized as Level 8 at the age of twenty-five.

This man, once her assistant partner, had soared off to a place she couldn’t reach.

Watching that process, Jung Dahyun felt keenly how lacking she was. If she’d been a little more diligent, a little more fierce, she would have been somewhere higher than she was now.

Being left behind is never a pleasant experience. That’s why she sought advice from Choi Junho, wanting to pull ahead.

“If you want to stand beside me, you need to catch villains.”

So Jung Dahyun left the city with Choi Junho and went searching for villains.

*

“I thought I was going to die.”

Han Sangmin, a Black Agent of the Foreign Cooperation Management Bureau, had recovered from his injuries not long ago and was able to return to duty at the front lines.

It had been hard days because of his injuries. On Director Yeom Gicheol’s orders, he’d posed as a villain to gather information on them, but that day’s experience was a horrifying moment he never wanted to relive.

“That lunatic was Level 8? I should count myself lucky just to have survived.”

Recalling the grueling moments of his rehabilitation, Han Sangmin shook his head.

At the time, he’d thought he’d been bitten by a mad dog and cursed endlessly, but looking back now, being able to return like this was a blessing.

Where on earth did a guy like that come from?

He’d lived both lives—public service Hunter and villain—and he’d never seen the type before.

Having withdrawn from the field due to injury, he could no longer head to his old base. Han Sangmin decided to stop by the black market first to buy what he needed, then make contact with the villain organizations and let them know that Blink, Na Gyeonguk, was still alive and well.

After a stop at the black market, he was walking down a quiet street when a sense of unease washed over him. Last time, too, he’d been ambushed by Choi Junho in a situation just like this and been put through hell.

“Déjà vu? No, surely not.”

Would a Level 8 transcendent—someone that precious—show up at the black market? Dismissing it as paranoia, he was about to leave the area when he sensed a presence behind him. His face went pale, and he dropped into a defensive stance.

“Found you. Level 6.”

“You’re Jung Dahyun?”

It was Jung Dahyun, the flower of the public service Hunters—a woman more famous for her beauty than her genius-level talent.

She had a somewhat rigid personality, but she was fair and upright, overflowing with a sense of justice, and the other public service Hunters called her a light. What was she doing here?

Wasn’t she mainly tasked with arresting villains lurking in the city?

Right now, she was giving off an aura so chilling it made his skin crawl.

She had the eyes of a predator staring down its prey.

“Level 6 villain, Blink, Na Gyeonguk.”

“W-wait? Hold on!”

Han Sangmin’s face went pale as he watched Jung Dahyun approach with her sword drawn.

*

Jung Juho was in a good mood thanks to his meeting with Cheon Myeongguk the day before.

At last, someone had gotten a taste of Choi Junho. When he thought about how he’d borne that god-awful taste all alone until now, it felt like a stubborn knot in his chest was finally coming loose.

“Bloody stool, of all things. I do hope he recovers.”

But the taste of Choi Junho was only just beginning. How long would Cheon Myeongguk hold out against the coming tidal wave of Choi Junho flavor?

What a blessing it was to be standing one step back from the fallout.

Now, even if that bastard caused trouble, he wouldn’t be the one held responsible. He could pretend to apply the brakes from the sidelines, lend the operation a bit of support, and claim credit for the results.

Still, since he’d decided to treat him as an older brother, he supposed he ought to brew him a good tonic for his bloody stool.

He was grinning away, thinking only of how it wouldn’t be his problem, when his smartphone rang loudly. It was a call from his friend and rival, Yeom Gicheol, Director of the Foreign Cooperation Management Bureau.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“You crazy son of a bitch!”

“What’s with you all of a sudden? Did you have a fight with your wife yesterday?”

“Ugh, eek! You insane bastard, are you having Han Sangmin critically injured the moment he returns to duty?! He got the mission today and deployed, you lunatic!”

“I’m telling you, what are you talking about?”

“Can’t you even manage your own subordinates anymore? Huh? Your subordinate critically injured Sangmin! You’re telling me he needs a year to return to duty!”

At the sound of Yeom Gicheol’s voice starting to crack, Jung Juho realized something was seriously wrong.

But Jung Juho was innocent. Choi Junho, who had a 99.99% chance of causing an incident, knew Han Sangmin’s face. And knowing that he was a villain who’d infiltrated for an operation, there was no way he’d touch him.

More than anything, Choi Junho wasn’t his subordinate anymore.

“Aren’t you mistaken? There’s no way Choi Junho would go after him again. And you seem to be under a misunderstanding—Choi Junho has established a cooperative relationship with the National Guard Bureau, he’s not my subordinate.”

“It’s not Choi Junho.”

“Then who?”

“Jung Dahyun.”

“Who?”

“Your niece, Jung Dahyun, turned Sangmin into a half-cripple! You crazy bastard!”

“Come on, surely not. It can’t be.”

“Are you really sure about that? Really?”

In that moment, he felt his blood run cold. Jung Dahyun—his niece. She’d been famous as a genius since childhood, and with her upright convictions and righteous character, she’d handled her work excellently.

Jung Juho had believed without a doubt that she would become a Hunter who would bring glory to South Korea.

He’d believed that even if she was influenced by Choi Junho, she would use it as nourishment to break past her own limits.

No. Jung Dahyun would never do such a thing. But then why couldn’t he tell Yeom Gicheol definitively that she hadn’t?

Having thought that far, Jung Juho found himself tearing at his hair—and then he startled.

“Oh, no. This can’t be!”