Chapter 75

Twelve people had already gathered at the Nasin Hotel bar. There was a slight awkwardness as those who had only exchanged greetings as S-grade and S-grade met face-to-face after a long time. Among them, Hanna Joo, who organized this alumni gathering, was in the middle.

“Hey, you’ve got some nerve. You talked so much trash about Cho-i Hyeon when we were in college, and yet you thought to contact her?”

Jukyeong Na, who could be considered her closest friend, was already sipping champagne and said this to Hanna Joo. Hanna Joo frowned slightly at the remark, then quickly smiled broadly and replied to Jukyeong Na.

“That was all when we were young. Whatever else she is, she’s definitely pretty, isn’t she? I was just a little jealous, that’s why I cursed at her for things like that. You all cursed at her that much too.”

At her words, everyone cleared their throats and quietly averted their gaze. Cho-i Hyeon, mostly known as Hyeonchan An’s girlfriend, certainly had a vulnerable side. They said all pretty girls had a price, but Cho-i Hyeon was nothing like that. She would grant any request, stammer when she spoke, and couldn’t even express herself properly—she was a half-wit. So people often made fun of her words and actions.

“Even if she seems that way, isn’t she not completely clueless if she chose a rich boyfriend?”

“I heard she kept contacting Hanyeong Senior to get introduced to Hyeonchan An. Hanyeong Senior must have been tired.”

“She deliberately seduced him, didn’t she?”

“She’s pretty, though. What man wouldn’t fall for her?”

These words were mild. Delving deeper, there were dirty stories exchanged among men that couldn’t even be uttered. Whether Cho-i Hyeon herself knew or not was unknown.

“But I didn’t expect her to say she’d come here?”

“She thinks she’s doing well now, too. By the way, is anyone in contact with Hyeonchan An?”

“I don’t think anyone’s really been in touch since college graduation? He awakened at twenty-one and barely attended university.”

“Cho-i Hyeon awakened around the same time, but she attended school quite consistently, didn’t she?”

“Well, with a personality like that, how could she be a hunter? Besides, I thought she was C-Rank? When did she grow to S-Rank?”

Hanna Joo interrupted the people’s snickering.

“Can’t you tell at a glance? It’s obvious she got that far just by her looks. I hear even the Paehyeok Guild Master confessed to her and got rejected? This is why pretty girls always have a price. She probably picked and chose what she wanted and then dumped him.”

Just then, someone said indifferently.

“If she wanted to exploit him, she would have dated him. Why would she reject the Paehyeok Guild Master?”

At that, Hanna Joo turned towards the source of the voice. Cho-i Hyeon was walking in through the bar entrance. Hanna Joo was slightly flustered and put down the glass she was holding.

“Oh, Cho-i. It’s been so long.”

She greeted her with a brazen smile.

“Oh, for someone caught badmouthing, that’s a very ordinary greeting. Hello?”

Cho-i, dragging her slippers, sat down in an empty seat in her tracksuit. As the situation was what it was, everyone watched her awkwardly, while Cho-i arbitrarily took someone’s champagne and drank it. Hanna Joo, watching her, broke the silence.

“You’ve gotten much better since I last saw you.”

“What do you mean by ‘better’? My face? My face was always good.”

Hanna Joo laughed awkwardly.

“No, before, you were so timid, I worried if you could even function in society….”

“I functioned just fine back then, so mind your own business. Oh, though I was a bit sad because of Hyeonchan An.”

“Oh, really? Is Hyeonchan doing well?”

Cho-i Hyeon emptied her champagne and said,

“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”

“Huh? What?”

“Looks like you two really haven’t been in contact. Well, given Hyeonchan An’s personality, he probably wouldn’t have kept in touch with useless people.”

“What are you talking about? That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?”

“What you two were just talking about was rude.”

Cho-i put down the glass she was drinking from and pulled over someone else’s glass from the next seat. She didn’t listen at all to the other person’s ‘Hey, that’s mine.’ Anyway, the people here were all unfamiliar faces, and she didn’t remember their names.

“Hyeonchan An is dead.”

A moment of silence fell at Cho-i’s words. Then everyone shut their mouths and started exchanging glances. ‘Did you hear anything?’, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never contacted him.’, ‘There’s probably no one here who’s contacted him.’ Such whispers were exchanged. Cho-i savored her champagne, muttering, ‘Hmm, not bad,’ before speaking properly.

“No one even went to his funeral? He really didn’t have any friends, did he?”

“He, why did he die? Suddenly? He was a hunter. Did he die in a dungeon?”

“Yeah, he died in a dungeon.”

“How? Because of a monster?”

“Hmm, was it because of a monster?”

Cho-i emptied about half of her champagne and set the glass down. Drinking more than one glass was getting tiresome. She thought so.

“I killed him.”

Cho-i smiled brightly as she said it. Another moment of silence. Someone laughed awkwardly.

“Don’t make weird jokes.”

“Why do you think it’s a joke?”

“You killed him? Then why are you here?”

“Good point, why doesn’t anyone know?”

“What, did you, did you stab him to death or something?”

Hanna Joo asked. Cho-i shook her head.

“Oh, I wouldn’t have killed him in such a boring way.”

“Then how did you kill him?”

Hanna Joo pressed her for details. It was a bit bewildering. This was supposed to be a fun gathering where they called Cho-i Hyeon, but the atmosphere was starting to stiffen, and Cho-i Hyeon, who used to stammer and get flustered, was now smiling brightly and making unfunny jokes. From Hyeonchan An being dead to her confession of killing him.

“A monster trampled him to death, didn’t it?”

“Then you didn’t kill him?”

“Oh, well. That’s how it happened.”

Cho-i Hyeon seemed like a crazy bitch. She also seemed like someone who just blurted out whatever came to mind. But the problem was that she said such things so calmly that it made you wonder if it was true. Cho-i Hyeon suddenly looked around, searching for someone. She thought the bastard who introduced Hyeonchan An to her was supposed to come. Come to think of it, wasn’t that bastard a senior? Instead of looking for the matchmaker whose face she couldn’t even remember, Cho-i decided to grill Hanna Joo, who was smiling ambiguously in front of her.

“Where’s the bastard who introduced Hyeonchan An to me?”

“That senior hasn’t arrived yet. It’s an alumni gathering today, and it was awkward to call him separately. But since you said you wanted to see him, I called him.”

“I do want to see him. Very, intensely.”

Cho-i returned the empty champagne glass to its original owner, as if annoyed. The people who received the champagne glasses back simply held the empty glasses, looking dumbfounded. Hanna Joo was staring at Cho-i Hyeon with an expression that was hard to tell if she was slightly flustered or bored.

“But your personality has really changed a lot.”

“Didn’t I just say that? That I look good?”

“That’s true. But I’m wondering what happened to make you change like this. Is it because of Paehyeok, after all?”

At that, Cho-i Hyeon stared intently at the other person. Then she smirked.

“Do you want to join Paehyeok?”

“…”

“You’re a hunter.”

At those words, the people around them murmured. Hanna Joo appeared in a neat dress and a moderately priced bag. It meant that she looked like an ordinary office worker no matter where you looked. But Cho-i had known from the moment she entered. There was no way she wouldn’t know. Civilians and hunters could be distinguished the moment you saw them.

“Were you trying to cozy up to Hyeonchan An if I didn’t show up? Wouldn’t it be more of a Scythe to cozy up to me? If you want to cozy up to a dead guy, you’d have to go to hell first.”

“…”

“Indeed, you talked a lot of trash about me because of Hyeonchan An when you were in college. Hey, if you liked him, why didn’t you just say so instead of talking behind my back, making yourself look pathetic?”

“Oh, you knew?”

Hanna Joo smiled and clasped her hands together.

“Of course I knew. You never intended to hide it in the first place.”

Cho-i suddenly recalled her college days. Bad rumors about her circulated by word of mouth, but no one ever properly asked her about them. She knew that Hyeonchan An was running his mouth, but when people passed on the stories, they inevitably became exaggerated. And Hanna Joo spread those exaggerated stories without hesitation.

“I was foolish back then.”

At that time, she thought that if she kept her mouth shut about it and remained quiet, it would pass. Cho-i didn’t have the courage to step forward alone.

“Did you come out here today to correct those rumors?”

“Not really?”

Cho-i tapped her finger, looking at her short-clipped nails. It was a gesture she used when ignoring what the other person was saying.

“You called me. Did you forget you invited me yourself?”

“You came out just for that? You must have something you want to show off, too.”

“I have a lot to show off, but there’s nothing I particularly want to boast about.”

Cho-i leaned towards the table. The people around them fell silent for a moment, watching the two women’s confrontation. Were those two really that hostile towards each other? In fact, if you thought about it, it was more like Hanna Joo unilaterally disliked Cho-i Hyeon. Cho-i had never once responded to her attacks.

“Shall I boast a bit? Well, that I’m Paehyeok, that I’m S-Rank, and that I get an amount of money you guys can’t even imagine for one job.”

“…”

“Among all that, what do you envy the most?”

Hanna Joo’s smiling expression twisted slightly.

“Or something else? A man? Taehyeok Sa? Dongju Kim? Or Gihyeon Park? Or all three?”

“…What are you talking about?”

“You always get so fired up when you see what I have. And Hyeonchan An too. Hyeonchan An, why didn’t you just take him. Then who knows?”

Cho-i burst out laughing.

“Maybe the S-Rank sitting here wouldn’t be me, but you?”

I was abandoned in that damn hidden dungeon.

“I’ve never once envied you.”

“That’s what you think.”

Hanna Joo clenched her fist under the table. She had never once envied Cho-i Hyeon. Cho-i was just an orphan with a pretty face who was so poor she could never properly attend a gathering with friends. And yet, she had a successful boyfriend she always stuck by. Hanna Joo was confident that she was far better than someone like that.