Chapter 56

Chapter 56

“If it were the story of someone called a sociopath… someone ‘bad’ who was fair to everyone, I might understand. But it was the exact opposite. It’s not like she’s some saint.”

“You said she’s in her late twenties now… when she dated that employee, it must have been during her school days or college at most……”

“Apparently it was from middle school. Anyway, he also told me how they broke up afterward. He said he couldn’t stand that Yoon Seohee was special to him, but he wasn’t special to her. But he made it sound like she wasn’t a bad person.”

“Seems like she’s got a disposition that doesn’t make for an easy life, that kid.”

Not that a child without even the bare minimum roof of parents could live comfortably, but even just hearing it like this, it was clear Yoon Seohee’s life had been a thorny path of considerable difficulty.

And in reality, her life truly had been a journey through the very heart of a viciously sharp thornbush.

Louis narrowed his brow slightly, recalling information he’d obtained through an ‘illegal’ route that he couldn’t tell Kim Miju about.

‘Whether she was cursed in life or what. She’s had stalker-level obsessive bastards latch onto her three times, and on the flip side, she was hated and bullied with bizarre intensity at least four or five times during her school years. Plus, she’s been caught up in ridiculous schemes, misunderstood, or swept into random assaults nearly ten times.’

It was a life that made you vaguely wonder if this was what someone beloved by misfortune looked like.

Of course, Yoon Seohee’s life wasn’t entirely stained with unhappiness, despair, and suffering.

As you could tell from her ex-boyfriend who still worried about her even after they broke up, it wasn’t that no one had ever cherished or loved her.

But even so, no, perhaps ‘because of that,’ it was even harder to understand.

How could an ordinary person, nothing special, living in an environment piled high with human garbage who tormented and hated her as if it were natural, bloom a flower called goodness?

And how could she treat everyone around her equally without weighing their worth?

To be honest, when Louis learned all of Yoon Seohee’s past, he thought she was a truly strange person.

No, in fact, Yoon Seohee really was a strange person. What kind of person assigns the same value to someone who torments them and someone who loves and cherishes them?

If she had been emotionally dry and apathetic, he would have understood. Or if she had grown up in an environment of abundance and never had the ‘need’ to hate anyone, then he could have understood that too.

But no.

Yoon Seohee grew up in an environment of utter lack, and she wasn’t emotionally dry or apathetic. She clearly grew up in an environment where, in some sense, she had the ‘need’ to hate someone just for her own survival.

But she didn’t hate. Likewise, she didn’t loathe, despise, or rage — she just lived. It was, it was like……

“I wonder if she’s a child whose negative emotions have gone numb.”

“…You startled me. You weren’t reading my thoughts, were you?”

“Why would I bother reading your thoughts? It’s not like you’re the kind of person who only thinks about good things.”

“Ah, uh, yeah… Our guild master should live only thinking, hearing, and seeing good things……”

“I plan to, even without you telling me. Anyway, you were thinking something similar to me, weren’t you?”

Kim Miju said that and settled her body into the massive chair placed beside the small desk specially made for the Dragon King.

The chair Kim Miju was now sitting in, which looked enormous even at a glance, was specially made for her larger-than-average build.

“Well, yeah. Honestly, it’s hard to understand without thinking that, right?”

“……”

“Of course, what Hunter Yoon Seohee’s personal character is really like, or how twisted her life has been, doesn’t have much to do with us. But… it does spark my interest. After all, she has a special ability herself, she’s tightly connected to two S-Rank hunters, and now she’s even affiliated with the Heewon Guild.”

Yoon Seohee would probably end up at the center of all kinds of commotion from now on, whether she wanted to or not.

That wasn’t a guess — it was a certainty. A certainty that a person with that kind of personality, that kind of nature, couldn’t possibly hide herself quietly in a situation like this.

“I think I should go meet her myself when I get the chance.”

“Huh? You want to meet her in person?”

“Yeah.”

Kim Miju, who had been keeping a strange silence for a moment, let her gaze drift toward the window.

The hunter who had been talking with the Dragon King in this room a little while ago had already left Nuri Guild’s territory entirely in a car with the person who came with her, so now all that met her eyes was the garden, as green as ever, no different from usual.

But as if she were looking at something in that ordinary scenery, she stared into the empty air with a sharp gaze and continued speaking.

“If I meet her and talk to her in person, I’ll be able to understand a little more. What kind of person she is, and what kind of life she’ll go on to live.”

* * *

After my meeting with Louis ended, I immediately got into the car Avan was driving and headed to Heewon Guild. The purpose was, of course, to report my meeting with Louis to Guild Master Kang Mujin.

I firmly cut off Avan, who asked if he could come into the guild master’s office with me for a private audience, left him in the waiting room, and then went straight into the guild master’s office to face Kang Mujin.

Leaving Avan behind with a face as pitiful as a puppy abandoned in the rain was by no means easy, but still, it couldn’t be helped — it was my creed that public and private matters had to be clearly separated.

“It seems your meeting with the Dragon King fortunately wasn’t a particularly unpleasant one. That’s very good for you, Hunter Yoon Seohee.”

“Unlike sending a request out of the blue, he wasn’t that rude of a person.”

“He must know well enough that there’s nothing good about getting on the bad side of someone with a skill like yours and the potential it holds.”

As Guild Master Kang Mujin said, when I met him in person, Louis brought up my future potential as an Equipment Adjuster and showed a relatively cooperative attitude.

I nodded in agreement with Guild Master Kang Mujin’s words, while also mentioning another reason Louis had shown a cooperative attitude toward me.

“But I think he also knew that I’d already talked to you about this matter, Guild Master. After all, no matter how rare my skill is, I’m fundamentally just a C-Rank hunter. If I didn’t have the background of being affiliated with Heewon Guild, someone who’s the vice-guild master of a major guild… well. He might have come at me a bit more aggressively.”

“…I won’t deny that possibility, but it’s also true that your future potential as a hunter can’t be ignored.”

It’s true that there are many combat-type hunters who directly participate in dungeon raids, but the number of hunters or awakened ones who support them is infinitely small.

Guild Master Kang Mujin spoke of the reality of the current hunter industry with a flat expression.

Certainly, I couldn’t say for sure about other things, but it was true that while combat-type hunters were overflowing in the current hunter industry, production-type hunters were infinitely scarce, or even nonexistent.

‘It’s obvious just from the fact that there isn’t a single production-type S-Rank hunter right now.’

Actually, this part couldn’t be helped, because the biggest factor in determining a hunter’s current rank was the hunter’s own combat power.

In other words, until this tutorial quest was announced, no matter how capable and talented a production-type hunter was, if they didn’t have a certain level of combat power, they couldn’t be assigned a high rank.

‘The Administrator’s actions are still infuriating, but still, the point that production-type hunters needed a new place to step forward, and that a standard for production-type hunters needed to be included in the current ranking system, is correct.’

Of course, considering that the Administrator of the ranking system — the ‘system’ itself — is the Librarian, the latter point is nothing more or less than spitting in her own face.

After thinking that far, I set down the coffee cup I’d been fidgeting with the whole time.

“Um, Guild Master. Is the offer you made last time… still valid?”

“…If you mean the offer from last time, are you referring to the matter of the Equipment Adjuster?”

“Yes. After going through this incident with Hunter Louis and thinking about it from various angles… I think trying out the Equipment Adjuster work wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“Of course, it’s still valid. If you wish, I intend to support you so you can work as an ‘Equipment Adjuster’ anytime.”

That was welcome news to hear.

Especially since, even though I’d been thinking I wanted to try equipment adjustment using the Ruler’s Garden skill, I hadn’t decided anything about how to start or what to do in the subsequent process.

With a bright expression on my face, I looked at Guild Master Kang Mujin.

“Then, well, it’s a bit late, but… I’d like to accept the offer you made. To be honest, aside from wanting to work as an Equipment Adjuster, I didn’t have anything concrete figured out about what to do or how to go about it.”

“If you truly wish to work as an Equipment Adjuster, I can prepare everything needed for you to work within the guild — the necessary space, related procedures, and even security for your safety. On top of that, if you wish, I can also help with selecting which requests to accept, profit distribution, and tax processing.”

“Then, if you’ll pardon my boldness, may I ask for that? Ah, of course, I’m not asking with empty hands. As for the benefits I can offer from my side… let’s see. I could give priority on equipment adjustment requests to hunters affiliated with Heewon Guild, or let the guild take a certain portion of the profits I earn…”