Chapter 188

"Huff, haah…!"

Deep in the night, with everyone else asleep, my eyes flew open under a horrific pressure crushing my whole body.

"Nngh, mmph…!"

Every breath scorched my lungs as if I'd swallowed lava, and a pain like every joint shattering piled on top of it.

[But if you use your ability too much you'll get sick, so be careful about that too!]

…This is what Myu meant?

She'd said using the ability would make me hurt — but she hadn't said it would hurt like this!

Terrified the kids would wake to my groaning, I bit down hard on the edge of the blanket and clamped it in my mouth to muffle the sound.

I gnawed at the blanket, fighting down the pain leaking through and pouring cold sweat, but the intensity only kept climbing.

Pushed to the limit, I staggered out of the bed.

Carefully tucking the blanket back over the little ones, I fled from the Director's office as if crawling out on my hands and knees.

Slumping down against the cool corridor wall, I fumbled a high-grade healing potion out with trembling hands and downed it in one go.

"Haah…"

The burning in my gut settled and the tearing pain eased, just a little.

But heat was still rolling through me in waves and my vision was spinning.

I need to get some air.

Bracing my dizzy head, I headed for the indoor garden.

The place — brought into being by an ability — had a real-feeling cool breeze and a fake moon hanging overhead, which was exactly what a stifled chest needed.

Sitting still, working the heaving in my stomach back down, took a while — but eventually the dizziness ebbed.

Haah… I might just live after all.

Eyes closed, drinking in the cool fake wind — that was when it happened.

Rustle.

A small stirring in the quiet garden.

Right at the center of the moonlit garden, a large shadow wandered like a ghost.

Inho.

"Inho."

At the call, he startled hard and turned around.

"D-Deputy Guild Master…"

Inho's face had gone pale as chalk.

Over it, the report Number One had brought me yesterday laid itself in my mind.

Along with the name of the guild he'd been in before, written on it.

Cheonun Guild.

The very guild belonging to Cheon Sangcheol — the man who'd driven Choi Jiyeon and Yeon Minjun to their deaths.

"Director, I'm telling you, these Cheonun Guild bastards are the worst of the worst."

Lee Jinwoo's voice, seething as he flipped through the report, still echoed in my ears.

The reality of Cheonun Guild was a loan-sharking racket dressed up as a guild.

The targets: rookie hunters who'd just awakened and joined up on the strength of the Cheonun name alone.

At first they'd play the family angle, lend money at low interest, and dress the whole thing up nicely — offering to knock the debt off the settlement money.

But in practice it was a living hell.

Mandatory potions and gear got force-sold at absurd markups over market rate, and operations were rigged on purpose to sabotage clears.

Instead of profits, consumable costs snowballed until the hunters were sitting on a mountain of debt in no time.

Once the debt piled up high enough, the mask came off and they'd hit you with settlement rates from hell.

A demonic scheme designed to reduce you to a guild slave who'd never, ever pay off the debt.

Inho had been one of the victims caught in that vicious trap.

He'd pushed himself too hard trying to pay it off, lost his arm, and been thrown out — and finally drifted all the way down to the Colosseum.

The kicker was that even while he was dancing on the edge of death in the Colosseum, that monstrous interest had been ballooning, unchecked.

The uninvited guest who'd tracked him down at the gate the other day had been a collector, come to squeeze that snowballing interest out of him.

I didn't have to see it to know.

They'd have leaned on him hard, using that astronomical debt.

"Deputy Guild Master. Please… would you cancel my contract? Whatever the penalty is, I'll pay every last bit of it."

Even in the face of that desperate plea, I kept steady and just watched him, quiet.

"…I can let you go, if that's what you want."

"Y-you mean it?"

"Yeah. If it's really what you want."

A small tremor ran through his eyes.

I stepped a bit closer and drove the nail in.

"Not because those Cheonun bastards are twisting your arm."

…!

Sucking in a breath, he stammered out the words.

"H-how…!"

"Truth is, I had somebody look into it."

"What? Someone looked into me?"

At his baffled look, I shrugged shamelessly.

"You didn't know I'm a piece of work? Anyway. Cheonun's threatening you over the rest of your debt, right?"

At the point-blank hit, Inho chewed his lip and then let out a resigned sigh.

"Haah… yes. What's the point of hiding it when you already know. It's true."

"How much is the debt? I'll pay it."

Barely had the words left me before he startled hard and shook his head, fierce.

"You can't! You've already given me a prosthetic — how could I dump a debt that huge on you on top of that? I absolutely can't do that!"

"Who said anything about paying it off for free? I won't charge interest — you'll just have to work it off in our guild, ground down to the bone. Better me than some vicious loan shark, right?"

He seemed to take my sincerity as a joke and gave an awkward smile.

"I'm not joking. I really will pay it off. In exchange, I've got one favor to ask."

"What is it?"

"There's an item I desperately need to get my hands on, and to get it I need a strong, trustworthy hunter. You ever heard of a refined Chaos Mana Stone?"

"No, first I'm hearing of it…"

"That'd be right. It only drops when you take out the boss of an overload gate."

Overload gate.

At those words, his face went hard.

"Depending on how you look at it, this might be a bad deal for you. You could lose your life just trying to pay off the debt. But if you promise to get this for me — I'll wipe out your debt entirely."

A heavy silence fell.

Inho bit his lip and said nothing.

Well, life's on the line — he'll need some time to think it over.

Just as I was thinking that and about to step back to give him some room —

Bang—!

Before I could even open my mouth, Inho sprang up from his seat like a spring.

The brown eyes, adrift and shaking just a moment ago, now blazed with the ferocious fighting instinct that only hunters had.

"You're giving me back the arm I lost and pulling my life out of a gutter — what would I hesitate for? If you'll trust me to do it, I'll bring it back on my life."

Firm, unwavering.

I nodded, satisfied.

"Good. Deal, then. When the gate opens, I'm counting on you at the front. Don't worry about the debt — I'll wipe it clean."

"Thank you… truly, thank you."

Face gone bright, he was bowing his head over and over when his expression suddenly hardened.

"Come to think of it… when the Cheonun Guild people came for me, they said something that's been sitting wrong with me."

"What is it?"

"They said, if I couldn't pay the money back, to bring you in, Deputy Guild Master. Failing that, they said they'd wipe out the debt if I abducted any one of the kids."

Just like that, my brow furrowed hard.

Why is everyone around here so desperate to kidnap us?

The Awakened Liberation Front was already a nightmare, and now Cheonun Guild on top of that?

"I refused, obviously, but the look in their eyes was no joke. Please, be careful."

"Thanks for telling me. One more thing on the watch list now."

After that, we sat side by side on the bench a little longer, trading pointless jokes and small gripes about guild life — nothing of any weight.

Maybe it was the crushing weight of the debt lifting off him — but Inho's face was lit up, worlds away from the one I'd found in the garden earlier.

The next morning.

Bzzzt— bzzzt—!

A vibration pounding right at my ear pulled my eyes open.

The kids had clearly gotten up already and headed to training; both sides of the bed felt empty.

Without so much as properly opening my eyes, I fumbled at the nightstand and hit the answer button.

"Hello…?"

[The sun's high and you're still asleep? Talk about lazy.]

Sleep vanished in an instant.

The voice of a boy coming through the speaker.

Arrogant, insufferable, but somehow oddly prim in tone…

"…Leo?"

I shot bolt upright in bed and stared hard at the device screen.

"How the hell did you get my number in the first place — and how did you know I just now—"

[Hmph! Never mind that, just turn on the news right now.]

Getting cut off flat like that would normally have set me off, but knowing him, I couldn't even work up the anger.

The news, huh.

Keeping the call live, I turned to the wall of the Director's office.

Where a large wall-mounted TV should've been, there was only empty wall staring back.

Back when I couldn't see, Number One and Number Two had teamed up and hauled the thing right off the wall.

I'd told them any number of times to put it back up now that my eyes were fine, but they kept dodging with one excuse after another.

"Hold on a second."

In the end I walked over to the desk and switched on the computer.

The moment I logged onto the live news channel Leo had mentioned, a flood of shutter clicks and murmuring poured out.

Dead center on the screen, bathed in a barrage of flashes, stood a blond woman.

Julia Morgan.

[Guild Master Julia! What is the purpose of your visit to Korea?!]

Then, on screen, Julia opened her mouth.

[Veritas Guild has come to Korea to meet with the three Guild Masters of Korea's top guilds and with Deputy Guild Master Chae Junhyeok of Nest Guild.]

?!

Her bombshell turned the press conference into instant pandemonium.

[Why Korea, of all places — not the UK, not China, not Russia?!]

[What on earth is the meeting for?!]

[Why are you asking for Deputy Guild Master Chae Junhyeok?! He isn't even a ranker!]

My thoughts exactly! Why in the world are you dragging me into this?!

Sitting there dumbstruck, mouth just hanging open, I heard Leo's smug laugh come through the device.

[You heard her? Make sure you show up.]

"Wait, why would I go to something like that—!"

Before I could even push back, Leo let out a snort and tossed a sweet piece of bait right at me.

[Just come. Julia said she's got something really incredible to give you.]

"…Something incredible?"

[Yeah! It'll be way more than you're imagining.]

Something "incredible," handed over in person by the world's Rank One hunter.

For a second the hook set hard, but I couldn't answer on the spot.

I still hadn't heard anything concrete from Han Jewoon about Veritas or Julia.

I'd tried to get hold of him several times, but he was still deep in a gate, out of contact.

According to Seo Jihyeok, even his showing up at the sundae-gukbap joint the other day had happened because, right before entering a gate, he'd suddenly gotten a "bad feeling" and swerved off to come find me.

But I can't just sit around waiting for Han Jewoon to come back either.

With no way around it, I let out a deep sigh.

My naturalization was already tangled up in it, and if all three of Korea's top guild masters were going to be in one room, Han Jewoon would obviously be there too.

"…All right. I'll go."

[Great, see you then!]

Objective in hand, Leo hung up on me without a shred of ceremony.

Looking down at the dark screen, I steeled myself.

I'd better go in fully prepared.

Three days later, in front of the Korean Awakened Management Bureau's main building.

The reason the world's eyes were now fixed on this particular spot as the venue was simple, and childish.

The top guild types had gotten into a mad staring contest over whose home turf to meet on, and had finally compromised on neutral ground — the Bureau.

Looking up at the massive building, I scowled.

Maybe because it was where I'd once come to see Bureau Chief Chae Ganghyeon — for some reason my stomach turned and my right arm started to ache.

Nothing bad even happened last time — why does it feel this wrong.

Shaking off the queasy feeling as best I could, I stepped inside.

Barely had I walked into the lobby when a man who looked like a Bureau staffer came flying up and bent himself over into a ninety-degree bow.

"Deputy Guild Master! Welcome! It is a true honor to meet the hero!"

…Hero?

I blinked, thrown.

Why am I the hero? I haven't done anything in particular…! Ah.

The reason for the over-the-top flattery was obvious.

Because I was the Bureau Chief's son.

"I'm not some hero. I'm just here for a meeting."

"Y-yes, yes! Right this way, please!"

Guided into a private elevator, I casually sounded him out on Chae Ganghyeon.

"Come to think of it, is my father…?"

"Ah, unfortunately, the Bureau Chief is currently on an overseas tour. He's been arranging a rushed return since he heard, but exactly when he'll arrive is still…"

"Ah, is that so. What a shame."

Out loud it was regret; inside I was crowing.

Come to think of it — a full-blown human-trafficking case had just broken, and Chae Ganghyeon had been suspiciously quiet.

What is this? Does he not know I was tangled up in it? No — even if it wasn't in the press, that man has always been watching every move I make.

The nagging feeling wouldn't go away, but the problem right in front of me came first, and I shook the stray thoughts off.

The elevator arrived at the top floor, and I soon stood at the tightly closed door of the VVIP conference room.

Just as Number Three — trailing along as my escort — moved to follow me in, a staffer standing guard at the door blocked his path, courteous but firm.

"I apologize, but attendants must wait outside."

At the staffer's block, Number Three silently stopped and looked down at him without a word.

A heavy gaze without a speck of emotion in it.

Under that dry, heavy pressure, the staffer's face went white in an instant.

I raised a hand to hold Number Three back.

"Wait here. I'll go in alone."

Creak — clunk.

The heavy door opened, and the wide conference room came into view all at once.

And inside —

Two familiar faces and one I didn't know, all turning toward me.