Crash!
At last, the door was broken down. The believers who had been smashing the door with hammers all rushed into the room at once.
“Come out, Lee Arin… cough, cough!”
But their moment of triumph lasted only briefly. The room was filled with thick smoke; and it wasn’t ordinary smoke. Choi Miyeon immediately recognized what it was. It was an item called Sandstorm, used by Hunters inside dungeons when fleeing from monsters. Choi Miyeon herself had participated in the development of this item.
That was back when she still believed in her own talent and tried to grow as a Hunter, before she’d been reduced to little more than a water balloon.
“Lee Arin, that lunatic, actually stole items from the lab.”
“Is she seriously insane? After all the favors she’s been given!”
The others quickly realized what the item was as well.
After all, most of the people gathered here to monitor Jeong Daon were not only members of the Truelight Sect, but also officially registered Hunters in a guild. Of course, since Jeong Daon’s visit had been sudden, the people stationed here had been gathered hastily, so their overall stats were low, mostly around C to D rank.
“She thought this through. If you spread the smoke around the central garden of the building, it’s hard to disperse.”
“But even so, where can she go? If she climbs the outer wall, she’ll only reach the roof. Go down and it’s just the garden.”
“Looks like she’s trying to scale the wall and escape outside. Where’s the nearest police station?”
“Even the closest one’s more than ten minutes away by car. Let’s block off the parking lot instead.”
“Does anyone know where Lee Arin parked her car?”
Still, they were not a force to be underestimated, as everyone was thoroughly familiar with the layout of the Truelight Sect’s building.
Just as they were about to pour out of the doorway after quickly settling on a response, a sharp scream rang out, “Ah! What the hell?!”
“Why is there a cat here?!”
Without making a sound, sharp claws began slashing mercilessly at people from within the smoke.
Choi Miyeon, who had been quietly observing the situation, cried out in alarm, “No, Nabi! Come here! Over here! It’s just a stray cat, don’t hurt it!”
She thought the stray cat she had left with Jeong Daon earlier had been startled by the smoke and was attacking people at random.
But that misunderstanding was shattered in an instant.
“Aaah! Th-this isn’t a cat! It’s a monster!”
“Wh-what did you say?!” Hearing someone shout from within the smoke, Choi Miyeon was horrified.
And they were right.
“Ah!”
A black shadow briefly visible through the smoke completely took down one of the believers. Something wet spread across the floor. Judging by the way their feet stuck to the ground, it was blood. This was not something an ordinary cat could do.
Panicking, Choi Miyeon staggered backward. “Wh-what on earth is this…?”
“Choi Miyeon, snap out of it!”
Someone smacked Choi Miyeon sharply on the back. Turning her head, she saw it was Jeong Suyeon, someone she had known well since childhood.
Because their names were similar, Jeong Suyeon used to joke that the two of them were practically sisters. Though she had almost no ability as a Hunter, her uniquely dependable personality made her something like an older sister among the older youths in the sect.
“S-Sister Suyeon.”
“That crazy damn cat bastard!”
And that influence had not changed even now. With a murderous look on her face, Jeong Suyeon shouted, “Even if it’s a monster, it’s small. It’s not going to kill anyone anyway. Everyone, just get out!”
“Y-yes!”
“What about the person who’s down?”
“Leave them for now and get out!”
Everyone was in a state of confusion, but they soon followed Jeong Suyeon’s orders and filed out of the room.
In the meantime, Choi Miyeon, who had only just regained her senses, crawled through the smoke and managed to close the window. Since the Sandstorm item had been deployed outside the building, centered on the central garden, once the window was shut, the sand that had been blocking their vision slowly began to settle onto the floor.
“Where did that damn cat bastard go?!”
Even though the obstruction to their vision was gone, the cat that had been attacking people so ferociously just moments ago was nowhere to be seen. It seemed it had already escaped the room. All that remained on the floor was a single believer sprawled out, the back of his head smashed open and blood pouring out.
Jeong Suyeon ground her teeth. “Wasn’t that not a stray cat, but a monster Jeong Daon brought with her?”
“N-no. I found it in the central garden.”
“That’s when you got fooled! Idiot. Why would you pick up something like a cat? You should’ve just thrown it out!”
“…I’m sorry.”
Given the outcome, Choi Miyeon had nothing to say. When she lowered her head deeply, Jeong Suyeon’s expression softened slightly. “…I know you like animals. But given the situation… you understand, right, Miyeon?”
It was a soothing voice, one she had heard since childhood. After her mother passed away early, Jeong Suyeon had taken care of Choi Miyeon like a real blood relative, and her words carried weight in any situation. After all, Jeong Suyeon was the one who had comforted Miyeon both when she received an A-rank evaluation and when she collapsed during Hunter training and became a “water balloon.”
“Yes… but, Sis.”
“Hm?”
Still, there was one doubt that refused to settle.
“What Lee Arin said earlier…wasn’t true, right?”
That remark about how everyone but her knew what kind of treatment her father was receiving. At first, she hadn’t paid it any mind. But when she saw the other believers standing outside the door fall silent for a moment, Choi Miyeon felt a chill run through her chest. What exactly had that silence meant?
“There’s really nothing wrong with my dad, right?”
This time, fortunately, the answer came immediately.
“Of course not!” Jeong Suyeon let out a sigh as if it were ridiculous. “Miyeon, Lee Arin’s lost her mind and just saying whatever. How could you fall for that? It’s obvious she was trying to shake you since you were the only strong Hunter outside the door.”
“Right? Yeah, I guess so.” At the words of the older sister she had grown up with, Choi Miyeon finally felt relieved. “The executive and my dad are really close, after all.”
Her father often stayed out late, saying he had to drink with the executive even after getting off work. They spent more time together than with their own families—if something had happened, he would have told Miyeon long ago.
There was no such thing.
There couldn’t be.
“Exactly. And you let yourself get shaken over nothing, so we ended up having to break the door ourselves, like a bunch of civilians. If you’d broken it sooner, we would’ve caught both of them already.”
“Ah… I’m sorry.”
She apologized, but a question suddenly welled up. Even though Choi Miyeon still had stats, she was in no condition to use brute force recklessly. Her body had weakened too much to bear it. Forcing her abilities would bring unbearable pain. Still, she chose to let it slide. If it was Jeong Suyeon, maybe she was deliberately avoiding mentioning Choi Miyeon’s water-balloon condition out of consideration.
No, she must be. Jeong Suyeon was practically real family.
“Still, this is bad. If she climbed over the building and got away…”
“Lee Arin doesn’t have anywhere to go anyway. She’ll be back soon.”
They understood better than anyone because they were in the same situation.
There was nowhere that would accept a Hunter in this condition. A water-balloon Hunter would quickly die unless they were prescribed potions that reinforced the body at least every six hours. And those potions weren’t covered by insurance and were generally too expensive to afford. The only place that provided such potions free of charge to Hunters who couldn’t even clear dungeons was the Truelight Sect.
Whatever had upset Lee Arin, she would soon realize that going outside left her with no options, and she would return to the sect.
“The real problem is Jeong Daon. If we let Jeong Daon slip away like this, things are going to get noisy for no reason.”
The Truelight Sect was already prone to being misunderstood by the public, and if Jeong Daon went to the media while harboring misconceptions, it would only stir up even more trouble.
However, in response to Choi Miyeon’s concern, Jeong Suyeon shook her head. “That’s not the issue. We were supposed to bring Lee Arin before the cult leader today. He’s already arrived at this branch, what are we supposed to do now?”
“What, Lee Arin?” Choi Miyeon’s eyes widened in shock. “Why would someone like her meet the Father in person?”
It was only natural for her voice to sharpen. Even though she had been born and raised in the Truelight Sect, Choi Miyeon had met Father Lee Manbok in person only once, after her latent potential was evaluated as A-rank, right before she left for basic military training.
So why Lee Arin?
“Sister, didn’t you hear what she was saying? Talking about killing the Father and all that? She even made it sound like our contributions to the sect were some kind of illegal human experimentation…”
“That’s not for us to decide. If the Father says he’ll meet her, then he meets her.”
“That’s… true, but…”
“She’s been acting out lately, but A-rank water-balloon Hunters with that level of latent potential are rare, so we needed to keep hold of her. Damn it, everything’s gotten so tangled. What do we do now?” With an anxious expression, Jeong Suyeon began biting her nails. “The Hunters in this branch were under my supervision, and I let this happen… damn it.”
Choi Miyeon closed her mouth. She kept feeling like the conversation was somehow off.
Why would they need to keep hold of an A-rank water balloon?
Even as that thought crossed her mind, Choi Miyeon forcibly suppressed the strange sense of discomfort.
Jeong Suyeon had risen to a fairly high position within the sect over the past few years. Unlike herself, who had failed as a Hunter, Suyeon handled everything with confidence and meticulous care. Given that it was Big Sis Suyeon, there must be some circumstances she didn’t know about.
No matter what, Jeong Suyeon was a good person, and the Truelight Sect, which had saved someone like her who had failed, was a good place.
This was the only place where she belonged. That was an absolute truth for Choi Miyeon, one that could never collapse. And she wanted to resolve Jeong Suyeon’s predicament.
So, having made up her mind, Choi Miyeon opened her mouth. “But Sis… does it really have to be Lee Arin? I’m also A-rank.”
"Huh?"
At first Jeong Suyeon looked surprised, but then she took Choi Miyeon’s hand. It was a hand Choi Miyeon had liked since childhood. The warmth of her body temperature soothed her.
“Thank you, Miyeon. That option existed!”
“Everyone’s probably going to think we left the building right away.”
“That would be the obvious conclusion for anyone.”
I brushed off my hands, which had gotten dirty from climbing up the outer wall.
Instead of escaping the building by scaling the wall, Lee Arin had climbed up about two floors and then reentered the building through a window that had already been left open.
Seeing me panting for breath, Lee Arin smiled. “And honestly, Jeong Daon, you looked far too frail to climb over the building with just your body.”
“…I’m a mage.”
On top of that, I was still only a low-tier mage, and I’d poured most of my stats into mana, so my physical strength was honestly only slightly better than an average person’s. Even with items, my body wasn’t properly trained, so climbing buildings was incredibly difficult. If Lee Arin hadn’t helped me, I might have fallen.
“And this way is more interesting anyway.”
After taking a moment to catch my breath, I looked around the room. I’d been curious since Lee Arin had led me here as if it were planned, and sure enough, it was practically a fortress.
“It’s an abandoned storage room that I remodeled. I bet no one even imagines it exists. I added another layer of wallpaper on the outside to hide the door, too.”
Earlier, the women’s dormitory had a normal wooden door, but this room had an additional sturdy steel door installed.
The walls were plastered with newspaper clippings about the Truelight Sect. Every article featuring Father Lee Manbok’s face had red pencil scribbles of profanity scrawled across it; it looked like she’d vented her anger by defacing them whenever she got upset.
But what shocked me most were the firearms lined up by the window.
They were among the most powerful weapons in modern society, but since the system had appeared, they weren’t commonly used among Hunters. As seen with the shadow ghosts last time, some enemies didn’t even have physical bodies.
On top of that, civilian gun ownership was still illegal in Korea.
“Where on earth did you get guns?”
“3D printers are pretty good these days,” Lee Arin replied casually as she picked up one of the guns and checked it. “They circulate quietly, but they’re fairly common weapons among low-tier Hunters. Sometimes they’re faster than magic or swords.”
“Against monsters?”
“No, of course not. These wouldn’t even pierce a monster’s hide. Obviously, they’re for people.”
She said something chilling as if it were nothing.
“There are more Hunters who’ve killed people more times than monsters. Dungeons are a new gold mine, and ownership of a gold mine isn’t decided yet. Of course wars break out. And once a dungeon is cleared, the bodies inside disappear without a trace; what is there to hesitate over?”
Click.
As I watched Lee Arin chamber a round, I sank into thought.
…If I tried to escape on my own right now, would she shoot me?