It began with a handful of social media posts.

[Spotted Shin Jung-woo and his daughter at Gangneung Beach. There was a shark summon too.]

└ Shin Jung-woo doesn’t have a shark summon. If you’re going to lie, at least do your research first.

It was peak vacation season, and travel-related posts were flooding in by the second.

Nestled among them, sightings of Jung-woo and his new summon began popping up like wildflowers.

But the online world was awash in fake news, and these claims failed to gain any real traction.

What shifted the tide was the official video channel of Haeparang, Gangneung’s regional defense guild.

[Gate Reset with Hunter Shin Jung-woo’s Third Summon! Gangneung Is Safe Again This Summer!]

The video thumbnail featured a shark with daggers strapped to its fins, striking a heroic pose. Beside it, Jung-woo laughed with a carefree “haha.”

Hard to call it fabricated when it came from the official channel of an active hunter guild.

A few curious souls clicked play.

And once they confirmed there wasn’t a single frame of manipulation, they spread the word online with the fervor of converts sharing their testimony.

[Holy shit holy shit holy shit it’s real???]

└ No way lmaooo what the hell is a Shark Tornado????

└ Did the physical faction just rise up lmaooo

[Wow… awakened for one season and already has three summons. Looks like another S-Rank. Is this growth rate even real?]

└ Told you the guy’s insane fr

└ Upvote if you’re an S-Rank Champion trembling at the thought of the North Korea meeting lmaooo

└ I’m an S-Rank Champion and this checks out…

[But Shin Jung-woo’s parenting is wild lmaooo. If you compare just Dad with a summon entertaining the kid, what would you pick lmaooo]

└ Honestly though, if it’s [Just Dad vs. Shark Doll That Builds You a Renaissance Medieval Sand Castle], I’d probably pick the latter too…

In the video, Jung-woo’s shark doll spent the daytime sculpting sandcastles and playing with Se-gi (footage Jung-woo himself had shared).

Then night fell, and they entered the gate—where the shark proceeded to demonstrate its combat prowess, unleashing an astonishing display of avatar abilities to annihilate every beast in sight.

In this era, hunters were idols among idols, celebrities among celebrities.

A video weaving together news of their new abilities and glimpses of their daily life—how could it possibly not go viral?

Number one on the real-time trending chart was a given.

Beyond that, the story caught the attention of mainstream media, exploding across every news outlet until it became the talk of the nation.

Call it a side effect, perhaps.

[Gangneung pilgrimage. Please let me awaken this time. Please let me awaken this time. Please let me awaken this time…]

└ What’s the deal with the knife kalguksu restaurant that shows up seven times in the video? Is it run by the Haeparang guild master’s mom????

└ I’m going just for that knife kalguksu honestly…

[This year’s vacation destination: Gangneung.]

└ You too?

└ Lmaooo the video is so well-made I’m genuinely curious. And if Shin Jung-woo personally handled the gate reset, it’s probably safe.

Amid the self-evident and haughty current of “Beaches are Busan, swimming is Busan,” Gangneung emerged as a travel destination like an awl piercing through a pocket.

And so, with the entire nation’s attention shifting toward Gangneung—

What was the man at the center of all the rumors doing?

“Just sign it. I’ll handle the rest.”

“Chairman, what exactly are goods to you that you’d go this far?”

“My grandchild’s lifelong wish.”

“That’s… remarkable. Truly.”

It wasn’t exactly a celebration party for the birth of his third summon…

He was being hounded by Chairman Ho-jong to sign a merchandise business contract.

The Korean Hunter Association was swamped.

Dozens of documents daily—far more than that—had to be reclassified to fit the new organizational standards, and the frontline staff were being ground down processing them all. That was the daily grind.

The management tier wasn’t much better off.

If anything, they had it worse.

As the decision-makers responsible for buttoning the first button of a new organization, their days began with being summoned to meetings and bickering over every detail.

By the time they dragged themselves back, already drained, the work hadn’t stopped piling up.

Then came the reports from subordinates and approval requests waiting to be processed.

It was bad enough that department heads were openly complaining about stress-induced hair loss.

In the midst of all this, a few people had more breathing room than the rest.

One was Jung-woo, who cherry-picked only the tasks he needed and handled them within that narrow scope.

The other, surprisingly, was Ho-jong—the man who should have been the busiest of them all.

Just how idle was he?

“Done, all done. This should cover the merchandise, right?”

The fact that he was summoning people at every waking moment to pester them about summon merchandise spoke volumes.

Jung-woo let out a hollow laugh.

“I never imagined getting a single signature would be this difficult.”

“There were more pressing matters. But Chairman, you did process all the other documents before fixating on this, didn’t you?”

The Chairman had no shortage of issues requiring his attention.

In fact, at this stage, nearly every document needed to pass through Ho-jong’s hands before it could be considered fully approved.

For a man in his position, Ho-jong was far too relaxed.

Why?

If pressed, Jung-woo did know of a reason.

There was someone nearby to handle the tedious processes for him.

ttok ttok—

“May I come in, Chairman?”

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

Jung-woo let out a deep sigh.

Ho-jong answered.

“Ah, come in.”

The door opened, and a man stepped through.

A middle-aged man with an amiable face and a sturdy build.

But beneath that exterior lurked a schemer more cunning than anyone else in the room.

Former director of the Nowon-gu Management Bureau.

Now…

“Ah, you were with the Disaster Management Department Head.”

“…Vice Chairman, you’re working hard.”

“Haha, ‘working hard’ is hardly the word. It’s all for the country.”

Vice Chairman of the Korean Hunter Association.

That was the seat Kim Shin-wook now occupied.

He arrived cradling a stack of reports in his arms.

He arranged them neatly on Ho-jong’s desk in the order they needed to be approved.

Why had he been appointed Vice Chairman?

One reason: Ho-jong had personally selected him.

—”The more suspicious the bastard, the closer you keep him.”

—”Are you sure about this? He’s the type to stab you in the back when you least expect it…”

—”You think he doesn’t know we’re onto him?”

—”Of course he knows.”

—”Exactly. That’s the whole point.”

Ho-jong had an exceptionally good eye for people.

Good enough that even Jung-woo could acknowledge it, and the reasoning behind it was something Jung-woo could accept.

—”That man doesn’t care about means or methods when it comes to his goals. But that doesn’t mean he always climbs up by doing things the dirty way.”

—”Meaning?”

—”In an environment where backroom dealing isn’t necessary—where playing dirty would be poison and playing straight would be an advantage—he’s the type who’ll gladly wear the mask of an honest man. And right now, he’s in the latter situation.”

Kim Shin-wook was a man for whom the process didn’t matter.

He had goals, and to achieve them, he would take the most rational course of action, transcending the boundary between good and evil.

So when under suspicion, rather than resorting to backroom schemes, he would choose to build trust within the organization.

That was the logic—and so far, it had proven entirely accurate.

Even the documents now being presented were proof of that.

“These are files regarding the gate inspection system under the regional Management Bureau’s jurisdiction. From the left: Gyeongsang Province, Jeolla Province, Chungcheong Province, and Gangwon Province…”

He was exceptionally competent.

If nothing else, the fact that the Association’s takeover and reclassification of Management Bureau operations had progressed this swiftly was entirely thanks to him—would that suffice as an explanation?

His insider knowledge from his former position as the head of the Management Bureau, combined with his outstanding administrative abilities, made him an invaluable asset to the Association.

Ho-jong, for the most part, simply skimmed the documents Shin-wook explained and scrawled his signature.

Wasn’t the Association being eaten alive from the inside?

One might worry, but not a chance.

‘If that kind of trick had worked on him, the Management Bureau wouldn’t have fallen in the first place.’

Fifteen years.

The tenacity of a man who had hidden a blade for that long, all to avenge the hero Chun Jun-ho’s death, was not something to be taken lightly.

Someone of Kim Shin-wook’s caliber would have certainly accounted for that.

He wouldn’t even attempt anything underhanded.

As for Jung-woo, his concern stemmed purely from Shin-wook’s track record. He had never personally suffered any harm from the man, so he harbored no private grudge.

Besides, in the corruption registry of the Management Bureau that Jung-woo remembered from before his regression, nothing about this man’s name had stood out in particular.

No cause for concern, then. All was well.

Moreover, Chairman Ho-jong seemed genuinely fond of Shin-wook, so Jung-woo had no reason to object.

“Our Mr. Kim really does excellent work.”

“Haha, it’s all thanks to your leadership, Chairman.”

“Good at flattery, too.”

What kind of farce was this?

Jung-woo couldn’t help recalling a remark Ho-jong had once made while evaluating Shin-wook.

‘A greater cause… was that what he said?’

—”He’s a man possessed by a greater cause. It’s closer to consequentialist justice, but handled well, he’s the most reliable type there is.”

Jung-woo didn’t know what Shin-wook’s ultimate ideal was.

He had asked Ho-jong once, but the Chairman had only replied that it was “difficult to put into words” without elaborating further.

In any case, this was the dynamic that had emerged.

Ho-jong was comfortable, Jung-woo was mildly wary, and Shin-wook was on his best behavior.

‘I should get going.’

He’d been summoned for the merchandise contract signature and had already lost too much time.

If he wanted to clock out on time today, he needed to power through the remaining work fast.

“I’ll be heading out, then. Have a good evening, gentlemen.”

He bowed and was about to turn—

“Ah, Disaster Management Department Head.”

“Yes?”

“Since you’re here, there’s something I need to relay to you.”

Jung-woo tilted his head at Shin-wook’s words.

“What is it?”

It was rare for Shin-wook to address him directly, so the curiosity was natural.

The answer that came back was this:

“An audience has been scheduled.”

That was something Jung-woo had been waiting to hear for quite a long time.

“Hunter Park Soon-ae of the DMZ. She has awakened.”

Jung-woo’s eyes flew wide open.

Before Jung-woo’s awakening, Korea had five S-Rank hunters.

Three of them—Kwon-seung of Cheon-hwa, Park Tae-woon of Black Moon, and Jin Hae-seo of Athens—were guild owners.

One was the first bureau chief, Chun Jun-ho, who was now effectively dead.

So who was the remaining one?

The answer to that question was Park Soon-ae.

One of the longest-serving figures in the Korean hunter community.

A hunter who lived in the DMZ, divorced from the power struggles of the hunter industry, dedicated solely to national defense.

And…

‘The single reason gate erosion from North Korea hasn’t crossed into South Korea.’

It had been a few days since Shin-wook’s report.

Jung-woo had skipped his morning commute to the Association and driven straight to Cheorwon.

From there, if you turned your gaze northward, something was visible even to the naked eye.

Tree trunks soaring to the height of buildings, as if cleaving the world in two.

Those massive, intertwined trunks forming a colossal wall were no ordinary trees.

‘The World Tree.’

The main skill of the Nature Realm aptitude belonging to S-Rank hunter Park Soon-ae.

A defense system that fed on mana permeating the ground to grow, and upon detecting a designated entity approaching, would autonomously pursue and impale it with its branches.

Because of that, Korea remained untouched by the gate erosion originating from North Korea.

The magical energy seeping from the gates was absorbed into the ground, only to be consumed and erased by that tree—how could any miasma possibly push further south?

Decades of that cycle repeating had allowed the tree to grow to its current colossal size.

‘It’s a wall we’re grateful for, but it’s also a wall that makes advancing north a real problem.’

The time had come to send a large-scale force beyond that wall for the reclamation of North Korea, but the wall didn’t only attack magical beasts.

The Wooden Palisade’s defensive targeting was “all living things with biological signatures that move.”

It had been designed that way to prevent erosion-corrupted animals and insects within the DMZ from migrating south. Imagine trying to pass through in this state.

Hunters would be shredded by the palisade’s defenses before they ever reached North Korean soil.

That was why meeting the palisade’s owner to establish a safe corridor through it was the first priority.

Beyond that, Hunter Park Soon-ae’s cooperation was an indispensable element of the North Korean reclamation effort itself.

‘We’ll need to rebuild the palisade. After reclaiming Pyongyang, we move it above Pyongyang. After reclaiming that territory, we rebuild it along the new border.’

That was the purpose of this meeting.

The final step before the reclamation operation could begin.

It should have been the very first problem to solve, but because Hunter Park Soon-ae slept 330 days out of the year to sustain the World Tree, everything had to wait for her to wake—and so the timing had landed here.

Jung-woo adjusted his tie and headed to the DMZ observation post.

There, he met the companion who would accompany him to visit Hunter Park Soon-ae.

“Hello, Chairperson Jin Hae-seo.”

“Yes, nice to meet you, Hunter Shin Jung-woo.”

tododok. Jin Hae-seo, who had been tapping away at her smartphone, looked up.

Pitch-black hair, porcelain-white skin, drowsy eyes with deeply sunken pupils.

She spoke.

“I’m honored you chose me this time.”

It wasn’t his imagination that her words carried an edge.

After all, hadn’t he heard what Geun-ho had said during the major guild meeting?

—”Jin Hae-seo? She’s still sulking because you rejected her guild’s application when you were looking for a guild to join. Petty, isn’t she?”

He shouldn’t have formed preconceptions, but standing face-to-face with her now, they were confirmed.

‘So it was true.’

Whoever said Jin Hae-seo had an unreadable face clearly hadn’t been looking closely enough.

That jiiii— persistent, piercing stare and her sullen expression were broadcasting the sheer volume of things she wanted to say loud and clear.

“Well, shall we go?”

Jung-woo smiled awkwardly.

He suddenly missed Se-gi.