Chapter 109

“Oh my, hello.”

Yet there was something distinctly unusual about this Awakener—something that made the word rookie seem entirely inappropriate.

For one thing, he was under extraordinary suspicion of having slain an S-class monster with a single sword strike.

For another, his composure bordered on the unnatural.

“This is sooner than I expected. It’s good to see you again, Hunter Kim Kiryeo.”

At the president’s greeting, the young man seated opposite him raised his eyes.

Dressed entirely in black, like an Imoogi cloaked in darkness, he radiated an inexplicable sense of menace.

“...”

Clink.

A moment later, two cups of coffee were placed on the table.

“I can’t drink coffee. Please bring me something else.”

Kim Kiryeo spoke while looking down at the cup that had been set before him, but the employee’s response was far from encouraging.

“I’m sorry. Coffee is all we have available at the moment. Shall I go out and buy you another drink...?”

“Oh, why go to all that trouble? We won’t be talking for long. Just bring him some water.”

When the employee explained the situation with an awkward expression, the Association president immediately intervened.

Kiryeo looked at the man who had ordered water on his behalf without so much as asking his preference and muttered under his breath.

“You’re rather stingy with refreshments. At this rate, you may regret it later.”

The conversation began on that peculiar note.

Then Kim Kiryeo turned to the man across from him and asked a simple question.

“Let me ask you something first.”

“Hmm?”

“What exactly does the Association want from me?”

The president of the Association felt a surge of satisfaction.

Until that moment, he had assumed the young man had finally decided to yield and cooperate.

“Oh, we don’t want anything unreasonable! You simply need to follow the proper procedure.”

“...”

“So just admit that you’re S-class, as I told you before.”

The president spoke eagerly, but Kiryeo’s response remained perfectly calm.

“Would that benefit the Association?”

“Excuse me?”

“If I declare myself S-class, what exactly does the Association gain from it?”

The question that followed was unexpectedly direct.

“Ah. Prestige. So that was why you went to such lengths?”

Kim Kiryeo had listened quietly until then.

But now, his demeanour changed.

“W-what did you say?”

“What do you mean, you don’t understand? You’ve been leaking my personal information all along.”

He tilted his head and continued.

“Are you pretending not to know? You’ve been handing my private information to anyone who would take it.”

“...”

“You even sent your preferred reporters after me, created a public spectacle, and then flooded the media with articles using my name.”

“...”

“It must have worked well enough in the past. High-ranking Awakened or not, most Hunters are still young people in their twenties or thirties.”

“What are you—”

“They lack social experience and a solid support network, yet they are deeply familiar with the internet. Naturally, media pressure would be difficult for them to escape.”

His next words carried absolute confidence.

“But it was rather bold of you to use the same method against a potential S-class Hunter. Did the Association never consider what might happen if an S-class went rogue?”

The Awakener asked the question while slowly rolling his pale, three-white eyes.

“...Did Jung Haseong go through something similar?”

Kiryeo’s accusations came disturbingly close to the truth.

“You applied gentle pressure to that easygoing man until he began doing what you wanted, so you thought you could use the same method on me?”

The president could no longer remain silent.

He hesitated before forcing out a reply.

“D-don’t accuse me of spreading rumours! I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about!”

The response he received was cold.

The young man’s eyes held no warmth whatsoever.

“Really? Then shall we simply let the matter go?”

Surprisingly, he did not pursue the leak any further.

Instead, he moved on to an even more serious issue.

“Then let’s get to the point. First of all, I have absolutely no intention of giving you what you want.”

“What did you say?”

“If I become recognised as a high-ranking Awakener, I’ll be expected to obey the Association’s orders during dungeon breaks.”

If he refused, he would lose access to the Hunter Market and face countless other inconveniences.

Kiryeo covered his mouth with one hand, muttered to himself, and then looked up.

“But why should I?”

What followed was a question of pure, genuine confusion.

“Why should I obey people who can’t even do their jobs properly?”

Although he left several thoughts unspoken, the meaning was obvious.

Kim Kiryeo was stating quite clearly that, under the present circumstances, he could not accept the Association’s authority.

“Ha... haha. Isn’t that unavoidable? During a disaster, someone has to take command.”

What astonishing insolence.

The Association president clenched his fist, looking as though he might explode at any moment.

But the other man acted before his anger could erupt.

With a dull thud, Kim Kiryeo placed his mobile phone on the wooden table.

‘A phone?’

The president instinctively lowered his gaze.

A recording began to play.

[...Look at this. Most of the missing bosses share similar traits. Either their numbers increase if they are left unchecked, or they grant buffs to the enemy upon death.]

[So this is evidence that they are raising an Imoogi?]

[There’s much more. I organised the remaining information on the following page.]

[But why did you bring this here? Something like this should be reported to the police...]

[No. The investigation department said that boss monsters were outside their jurisdiction and sent me here.]

[Is that so?]

Then another voice emerged from the speaker.

“Hrk!”

A mid-level Association manager standing with his arms crossed in the corner of the room drew a sharp breath.

[...I thought you might say that, so I also traced the coordinates where the dungeon break is expected to occur. Seoul, District ##, ##-ro, 163...]

Last October.

An appraiser had repeatedly warned the Association that the Rakshasa Temple was planning a terrorist attack using the missing boss monsters.

Yet, as everyone present already knew, the report had ended like this.

[You’ve gone to considerable trouble. But honestly, there’s nothing we can do until the actual Imoogi appears.]

[You’re saying you won’t do anything? Even under these circumstances?]

The Association president’s face stiffened instantly.

“I’ve always had a habit of keeping records.”

Kim Kiryeo continued speaking as though he had not noticed.

“I handed you the evidence on a silver platter, yet you took no action. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”

The Inevitable Malice had not been an unforeseeable disaster.

The threat had been identified in advance.

The resulting damage had grown only because the Association had ignored repeated warnings.

And now they expected him to obey their orders?

That was the essence of what he was saying.

“T-that person who submitted the report... was you?”

“And don’t pretend the president knew nothing simply because his subordinates handled it.”

“...!”

“You received a report from the department head that very day, didn’t you? I know because I was lying in the hallway demanding that it be delivered.”

“Ah, that...”

“And even after hearing it, you left the Association building.”

Kim Kiryeo sneered as he recalled the events of that day.

Naturally, no one from the Association dared to speak.

The fault was undeniably theirs.

“Since we’re discussing this, let me make one thing clear. No matter how many people insult me on the internet, it means nothing to me.”

He spoke casually, dismissing the Association’s efforts to destroy his reputation as utterly ineffective.

“But public opinion must matter greatly to someone like you, doesn’t it? After all, you represent a national institution.”

“Tsk. In any case, how could the president of the Association spend his time playing golf while such a major disaster was unfolding...?”

The moment the word golf left the Awakener’s mouth, the president could no longer conceal his alarm.

“Where did you hear that?!”

But Kim Kiryeo’s reaction remained unchanged.

The man who had abruptly become a candidate for S-class maintained the same bland expression throughout the exchange.

“Hunter Esther.”

In a dry tone, Kiryeo dropped the revelation like a bomb.

“I personally asked her to investigate the matter. She was extremely eager to help me, so I thought she might prove useful for something like this...”

An F-class Hunter.

And yet he had a close personal connection with Seo Esther, one of South Korea’s S-class Hunters?

“I never truly believed it myself, but apparently the Association really did cooperate with reporters in order to slander me.”

He paused briefly.

“When Esther discovered that, she became rather upset.”

“...”

“Do you really think it’s wise to upset a curse-user?”

Until now, the Association president had remained calm because he assumed the young man would never uncover his methods.

Ahn Yoonseung, Kang Changho, and even the man seated before him were, from society’s perspective, ultimately individuals with little institutional influence.

But the truth was entirely different.

Kim Kiryeo possessed the backing of the guild master of the Korean Magic Tower.

Worse still, he had obtained evidence exposing the Association’s failures in connection with the Inevitable Malice incident.

The president could no longer conceal his shock.

And the psychological blow was hardly minor.

‘This is absurd.’

In truth, the supposedly F-class Awakener had nearly collapsed from fear before entering the meeting room.

“Besides, how dare you presume to give orders to an S-class?”

On Alphauri, those born without mana—or those incapable of wielding magic—were treated as though they suffered from a severe disability and were effectively pushed to the margins of society.

Yet on Earth, Awakened individuals were the rare exception.

And somehow, people incapable of magic were attempting to control those born with it.

‘This world truly is upside down.’

Kim Kiryeo regarded those without mana with open contempt.

To an outsider like him, a social structure in which the non-Awakened occupied positions of authority was almost impossible to comprehend.

“Y-you...”

But regardless of how things had worked on Alphauri, this was another world.

This was Earth.

And its existing power structures were unlikely to disappear within the next few years.

“So what exactly are you trying to say?”

The president’s voice trembled.

“A-are you suggesting that you intend to cause a disturbance with your Awakening abilities merely because you’re angry about what I did?”

“Yes?”

“Are you threatening us?”

As expected, the president brazenly tried to intimidate the man before him.

“We are not entirely incapable of restraining an S-class Hunter. If you endanger innocent citizens, the international community will never allow you to escape punishment—”

“No.”

What a loud voice.

“The idea of using an Awakening ability against ordinary citizens is frightening indeed...”

Of course, an S-class Hunter truly going berserk would create a catastrophic situation.

But S-class Hunters were still human.

Without an extraordinary reason, they rarely committed grave crimes such as slaughtering their own kind.

The official was most likely testing how far he could push the young Hunter with a little pressure.

“Don’t worry. Why would I harm innocent people?”

Kiryeo answered readily.

“You are the only people I dislike.”

Yet somehow, every word that followed carried a distinctly murderous edge.

“Only the Association that sold my personal information and ignored every warning I gave!”

The man gestured sharply towards those sitting before him, moving the borrowed muscles of the corpse he inhabited.

What came next inspired a far more immediate fear than the vague fantasy of an S-class massacre.

“What do you think would happen if I released every recording I mentioned, along with proof that you mobilised reporters against me?”

The Association officials visibly recoiled at the threat of having their incompetence exposed.

Only then, near the end of the conversation, did Kiryeo finally arrive at the subject he had intended to raise from the beginning.

“But I’m willing to give you an opportunity to negotiate.”

A person’s fear could sometimes be converted into money.

“I won’t quietly play along the way a certain someone did.”