Chapter 108

Chapter 108

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After the eventful and turbulent dispatch to England came to an end, what awaited me was, predictably enough, a mountain of backlogged requests.

Starting with a weapon adjustment commission from America’s number one ranked hunter, Champion Emma Miller, followed by an accessory adjustment commission from the so-called conglomerate hunter Bill Tennant, and then eight more adjustment requests from all over the world.

As if my return to Korea had been in vain, I had to spend about a week in my private workshop at the guild, processing the piled-up commissions.

After repeating the cycle of meeting clients, verifying and confirming their requests, planning, and reporting for an entire week, I finally managed to secure three days of short-term freedom.

And on the first day of that hard-earned three-day break, I was spending it meeting an old acquaintance for the first time in a while, with an escort in tow. I let out a deep sigh, holding an iced chocolate from the café I used to frequent back when I was working as a C-Rank hunter.

“Maybe I should have just pushed myself and drunk mana potions while working after all…”

“Ugh, don’t say such nonsense. Drinking more than the recommended amount of mana potions is serious trouble.”

Jeong Soyeon, who had been noisily slurping her iced Americano, waved her hand dismissively. She set down her Americano, which had zero sugar and was practically “for awakening purposes,” on the table and said,

“I heard there have been a lot of people getting hospitalized for potion addiction lately. I mean, other potions are less addictive, but mana potions aren’t like that.”

“Ugh, right. I heard they treat potion addiction like alcohol addiction these days.”

“Ughhh…”

She had a point. Once potion addiction came up, I had nothing to say. After all, the fact that I was limited to exactly one bottle of mana potion per day, which in turn limited the number of commissions I could handle to two per day, was due to Guild Master Kang Mujin’s strict orders, worried about potion addiction.

‘If you ruin your health while working, that’s putting the cart before the horse. You need to take care of your health first and then work, Hunter Yoon Seohee.’

‘Kang Mujin’s absolutely right. Don’t push yourself, take it slow. The clients who commissioned you didn’t set deadlines on purpose, right? They know you can’t use your skills as freely as you’d like.’

I let out a deep sigh, recalling Guild Master Kang Mujin’s stern, stone-faced warnings and Jeong Seojin’s added remarks from the side. They were a hundred, a thousand times right, so I couldn’t argue back at all.

I took a long gulp of my iced chocolate, which was my share, and stared at Jeong Soyeon and Jimin, who were sitting to my right and left respectively.

Jeong Soyeon, sitting on my right, was a B-Rank hunter I had worked with during the clearing of the ‘4th Dungeon’ for clearing the Group Assignment tutorial quest. Jimin was from even earlier—back when I was at my previous workplace, the one that had filed for bankruptcy without a word after giving me a five-day paid leave notice.

Sharing the same café table with these two, who seemed to have no connection whatsoever, was entirely thanks to them. I had kept in touch with Jimin continuously since the Red Chimera dungeon incident, even though we hadn’t met in person since then, and Soyeon and I had stayed in contact, occasionally checking in on each other after the 4th Dungeon clearing …

‘Who would have thought that the hospital where Jimin’s younger sibling is admitted is the same one Soyeon frequents…’

While chatting with Jimin on KakaoTalk, I had briefly mentioned Jeong Soyeon. Thanks to that, Jimin, who had gone to the hospital to visit their sibling, happened to recognize Soyeon, who was there for a health checkup. And after a short conversation…

“Honestly, Seohee, you really don’t take care of yourself, so people around you worry even more. Remember that time you insisted on working even while suffering from a high fever? You even collapsed in front of your house back then.”

“Oh my. You had that happen too, Seohee? I mean, these days, you have to take care of yourself!”

They had apparently hit it off and become close like this. I deliberately brought up another topic to avoid the subject of my health and potion overuse.

“Oh, by the way, how’s your sibling these days? Have they gotten much better?”

“Ah, right. I should have mentioned that. My sibling is doing much better now. With consistent medication and treatment, they’ve definitely improved. Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll ever repay the kindness you showed back then… The place I recently got hired at pays better than my last job. Give it a month or two, and I think I’ll be able to pay you back for what you helped with, Yoon Seohee!”

At least it was a relief that her sibling’s condition had improved. Back when she worked at the same company as me, Jimin’s sibling had been in a pretty dangerous state because treatment had been delayed for so long due to financial reasons. I nodded as if to say that was good news, but I casually added one more thing.

“You don’t have to pay me back for that back then. It’s not like I lent you money anyway—I just split a bit of that month’s performance with you. Besides, neither you nor I work there anymore.”

“Oh, come on, don’t talk nonsense! How is that ‘just’ performance? I saw how much that jerk—ah, no, I mean—*ahem*—how much that supervisor hounded you because of me.”

Was she really calling that supervisor a “jerk” just now? I recalled the supervisor who had given me all sorts of “righteous advice” when I’d handed over my performance to Jimin. Everything he said to me back then was technically correct, so I just nodded along, but honestly, he wasn’t exactly someone who only said the right things.

‘He even said some… pretty unpleasant things to Jimin back then.’

Things like, “Your sibling is sick because you didn’t build up enough good karma in your past life,” or, “Can you really take responsibility for your sibling’s illness while working like this? Are you sure you don’t actually have no intention of curing them?” …Come to think of it, he really did say a lot of awful things.

And every time he did that, I’d deliberately cut into the conversation to change the subject, or sometimes, when I felt it was really too much, I’d speak up directly. And well… hmm. Actually, there was probably another reason he was so harsh with me when I gave up my performance to Jimin. I guess I was… already on his bad side.

“Hmm… this is just my personal opinion, but Yoon Seohee, you must have had… a really hard time living in this world.”

“Huh?”

“That’s right, Soyeon! It really is like that. I feel weird saying this since I was the one who received help, but Seohee really… there are times I think she just doesn’t know how to live an easy life.”

I had no idea how the conversation had rolled all the way here. I’d clearly asked about Jimin’s sibling’s well-being to steer the topic away from my potion overuse, so why had it circled back to how I lived my life?

“No, I didn’t really do anything…”

“I just don’t get why you’re so lacking in greed. Doing good things is fine, but take care of yourself first. Honestly, watching from the sidelines makes me nervous. Like, what if you just collapse and keel over one day?”

Was she seizing the moment? Jimin immediately launched into a long spiel about how much she’d worried about me, how anxious she’d been watching me. But really, a low-level C-Rank hunter is basically a freelancer or mercenary hired by a specific organization—performance isn’t nearly as important as it is for regular office workers. So she really didn’t need to feel this indebted just because I’d given up a bit of performance.

“Still, from what I hear, it seems like you’ve got someone looking out for you these days. And an S-Rank hunter at that.”

Right then, Jeong Soyeon suddenly brought up Yoon Juyeong and Jeong Seojin. I flinched like someone who’d stepped on a Lego while walking without thinking, staring at the two of them.

“Well, I mean… you’ve got Yoon Juyeong, who you were close enough with to spark a dating rumor, and lately I hear you’ve been hanging out with that ‘Sword Emperor’ a lot too.”

“Ah, no, that—why are Yoon Juyeong and Jeong Seojin coming up here…?”

“Why wouldn’t they? You’ve been spotted in two-shots with those two a lot. While you were in England, the Hunter Daily even ran an online article with a photo of you and the Sword Emperor.”

That happened while I was in England? I urgently asked Soyeon where the article was from. But the answer came from Jimin, not Soyeon.

“Ah, that article was probably deleted? It went up and then disappeared after about an hour, so on the hunter forums people were saying it was a hundred percent Heewon Guild pulling strings.”

“Well, Heewon Guild wouldn’t just let a rumor like that slide. They’re ruthless about handling rumors and malicious comments.”

It was a story that left me unsure whether to be embarrassed that such an article had come out while I was away, or relieved that Heewon Guild had handled the situation so quickly.

In the end, feeling an emotion somewhere between flustered and relieved that words couldn’t quite describe, I let out a big sigh and sat back down in the chair I’d jumped up from in surprise. Soyeon and Jimin seemed to find my reaction hilarious—they exchanged glances and burst into giggles. Then they immediately started asking questions that were clearly full of teasing intent.

For example, things like, “So what exactly is your relationship with Yoon Juyeong? Huh? When did you two get so close? I thought you two were just on nodding terms when you worked with me!”

Or questions like, “When you were clearing the Fourth Dungeon, it almost seemed like Yoon Juyeong was unilaterally clinging to you. What do you think, Seohee?”

In the end, it took about ten minutes for Jimin and Soyeon to get their sudden burst of laughter somewhat under control. I got up from my seat, my face utterly drained from enduring their teasing questions.