Chapter 88

Chapter 88

I fiddled with the cup in my hand and glanced behind the man’s ear. A pitch-black earpiece. It was the same model as the one the man who’d come to fetch Hunter Joo Minju earlier was wearing, but a different model from the silver earpieces Adam Rogers and the British officials I’d met before boarding the plane had been wearing.

“Um, can’t you do this after Hunter Joo Minju comes back? I think she’ll be flustered if I’m not here when she returns.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s urgent… It won’t take long, so you just need to come with me for a moment.”

“Hmm.”

I deliberately furrowed my brow as if thinking it over, scanning my surroundings. The café’s front door was closed, and the back door was closed too. And from the looks of it, the windows seemed locked as well. The café employee… was sitting on a stool at the counter reading a newspaper, as if to say they knew nothing. I might need to suspect this café too. No, maybe I should suspect this entire hotel.

I withdrew my gaze from the café employee and carefully observed the man in front of me.

“Then can you explain it over the phone?”

“Huh? Ah… I’m sorry, but… that person, um, can’t wear a Dungeon translator.”

“Huh? Can’t wear one? Do they have something like Mana Rejection Syndrome?”

I asked innocently, pretending not to know, while gauging the man’s demeanor. I couldn’t see clearly because of the pitch-black sunglasses, but I had a vague idea of what the eyes behind them might be doing. Probably darting around aimlessly.

“…That’s what I understand.”

“Huh? Is that so? That’s strange… I’ve never heard of someone with Mana Rejection Syndrome having a rejection reaction to the item itself.”

I had a hunch, and sure enough, it seemed like a lie. I set down the cup I was holding and looked toward the window. It didn’t look like reinforced glass; I could probably break it and escape if needed. The problem was… if this person was a higher-ranked hunter than me. Without turning my head, I rolled my eyes to sneak a glance at the man’s demeanor.

‘Ah.’

This was hopeless. I clicked my tongue quietly to myself. Even from a brief look, the man seemed to have already realized he couldn’t persuade me with words. He was clenching and unclenching his hands with a menacing air, as if ready to subdue me at any moment.

‘I never thought they’d pull something like this with the British government’s eyes right in front of them.’

No, maybe they were in on it too. On the surface, they’d try to hide it as much as possible, but as Jeong Seojin said, a production-type hunter was a very precious ‘resource.’ At the very least, there was plenty of reason to target me outright. I forced down the sigh rising to my throat. I needed something, anything, to get out of this situation…

‘Hm?’

The shape of the shadow at my feet seemed strange. At first, something about it felt familiar, reminding me of Mr. Yoon Juyeong’s ability, but I soon realized it had nothing to do with his power. That made sense, because a bat-like shape was flickering within the shadow at my feet.

I finally felt a faint sense of relief and slowly rose from my seat.

“You don’t have to look so menacing.”

I said to the man, who looked ready to knock me out at any moment. Of course, I made sure to feign calmness so he wouldn’t sense anything unusual.

“It seems like it’s urgent, so I’ll stop joking and follow you. Where do I need to go?”

“…Thank you for cooperating. It seems I got a bit impatient since it was a very urgent and important matter.”

He said that, but the vibe he gave off was sharp, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t moved as he wanted. If I provoked him wrong, I might get physically subdued right then and there. To show I had no intention of resisting further, I deliberately gave him a small smile.

“Follow me.”

Naturally, it had no effect. With an icy demeanor, the man turned abruptly and walked toward the door. Of course, even then, he seemed suspicious I might run, never straying more than a certain distance away. For a kidnapper, he sure was paranoid. I pouted my lips for no reason and followed behind him.

Once out of the café, the man immediately led me toward the hallway across the way. As I followed him, I secretly hoped we’d run into someone, but of course, there was no one. I checked the bat wing poking out of my shadow again. As if to tell me it was okay to relax, the bat wing fluttered slightly, barely noticeable.

“It’s here.”

Perhaps because I was so tense, the hallway felt unusually long. At the far end, there was a door with a conspicuously crude design compared to the other doors around it. The man stood behind me, as if preparing for any resistance I might put up, and gestured toward the door with his chin.

“Go inside.”

There wasn’t a single trace of an intention to coax me gently anymore. I swallowed the sigh that had risen to my throat, pressing it down again.

Click, the door opened. And at the same time,

“Ugh?!”

A scream came from the man who had been guarding my back. I turned away from the scene beyond the open door — no matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like a hotel at all, though I had no idea what trick had been used — and looked once at the man who had led me here, now collapsed behind me, and once at the person who had taken him down.

He was a man with rough facial features, as if a calligrapher with a fierce temperament had drawn them in a single, sweeping stroke. He had skin so pale and white it looked like he’d never seen sunlight in his life, and with the deep shadows under his eyes, he gave off a very gloomy impression. I met his dark, reddish-black eyes, which suited that gloomy impression, and smiled faintly.

“Hello, Hunter Lee Yoomyeong.”

“…Hello.”

Flutter, the sound of bat wings scattered through the air. I looked at the bats circling around the man and the man collapsed at my feet.

“Fortunately, it seems he never caught on to your presence until the end. Phew…”

“That’s because I didn’t put my name on the official escort list this time.”

As he said, Hunter Lee Yoomyeong had come here as a kind of hidden card, unlike the other hunters. While people like Jeong Seojin protected me just by the weight of their names, Hunter Lee Yoomyeong was, conversely, a counter prepared for those who would come after me upon hearing his name.

Hunter Lee Yoomyeong used the bats flying around him to shove the man sprawled carelessly on the floor into a corner of the hallway. I watched quietly and asked a question.

“So the target was kidnapping me, after all, right?”

“Yes. And… it seems they sent someone with a high-level spatial movement ability for that purpose.”

Lee Yoomyeong’s dark gaze turned toward the door I had just opened myself. Beyond the door, unlike this hotel with its relatively simple design, there was a space decorated so lavishly that anyone would think it was over the top. As he said, it looked like they had used a spatial movement skill to connect the hotel to another place.

I stared blankly at the other side for a while, then, struck by a sudden thought, looked at Hunter Lee Yoomyeong.

“Oh, right. Since when were you hiding in my shadow? I was really surprised when I noticed earlier. I had absolutely no idea when you got in.”

“When Joo Minju left her seat, she used some method to send me a signal. She asked me to protect Hunter Yoon Seohee.”

As he said that, familiar footsteps began to sound from afar. Compared to others, the footsteps were noticeably muffled, yet they seemed deliberately made so as not to startle the other person.

“Hunter Yoon Seohee, are you safe?”

Appearing from around the corner at the far end of the hallway was none other than Hunter Joo Minju. Hunter Joo Minju was dragging one foot of the man who had taken her away earlier, claiming he had business, as she approached this way.

I looked at the two men in suits, now sprawled on the floor in an instant, with a subtle expression. Honestly, it wasn’t that I felt any misplaced sympathy for them since they had just tried to kidnap someone, but it was because the combination of their burly builds and black sunglasses reminded me of Hunter Kim Seongmyeong.

“I’m perfectly fine, not a scratch. More importantly… where were these people planning to take me?”

“Ah, I did a little interrogation on the way here.”

Thud, Hunter Joo Minju carelessly dropped the man she was holding next to the already collapsed one.

“It seems like an S-Rank hunter from this side… I couldn’t find out exactly who, but it looks like someone pretty high up pulled this off. And they teamed up, too.”

“An S-Rank hunter… So the target was my ability after all?”

“That’s highly likely. Any hunter crazy enough about fighting would covet Hunter Yoon Seohee’s ability.”

Hunter Joo Minju said that and lightly dusted off her hands. Then she quickly came up beside me, linked her arm through mine, and stared at Lee Yoomyeong.

“Hey, Lee Yoomyeong. Give him a check. Anything on him?”

“I already did. But there’s a basic protect…”

“Don’t use technical terms.”

“…A mental defense skill is placed on him. A high-grade one, at that. It seems the one who sent these guys applied it uniformly.”

Why would a mental defense skill come up here? I blinked blankly, looking back and forth between Hunter Lee Yoomyeong and Hunter Joo Minju.

“Ah, it’s nothing special. That’s his ability, his ability. As you can probably tell from how he looks, he’s a guy who handles curses well.”

“Curses…? From what I know, he uses blood-related techniques, matching his nickname…”

“More precisely, he consumes blood to use a lot of different kinds of curses.”