Chapter 90

Chapter 90

Poke, poke. Hunter Joo Minju’s finger jabbed at my cheek. I was momentarily flustered by her overly familiar gesture, my eyes going wide as I stared at her.

“Ah, yes?”

“Do you really need to do that?”

“…Need to do what?”

“I’m asking if there’s a need. I mean, realistically, the only S+-Rank in this world is Adam Rogers, right? Whether he lives or dies, gets hurt or not — that’s got nothing to do with us. We’re just here to report and then we’re done.”

I couldn’t find the words, just staring blankly at Hunter Joo Minju. Whatever she made of my expression, she leaned a little closer to me and spoke in a low, almost whispering voice.

“Well, if Hunter Yoon Seohee had some personal feelings for him, that’d be different. But that’s not the case, is it.”

“Huh? I’ve never had any such feelings—”

“I know, I know. That’s why I’m asking. Why bother worrying so much about someone you’ll see once and then never again?”

I kept my mouth shut for a moment, saying nothing. Not because I had nothing to say, or didn’t want to say anything.

Rather, it was because I understood perfectly well why she was saying this.

After the Dungeon incident, the world had become even harsher. People used to say modern human society was as cold as it gets, but that was when they couldn’t imagine a threat to their lives right under their noses.

This was a world where, anywhere I lived, worked, or played, something could snatch my life away at any moment. If you were lucky enough to live in a well-managed area, you could at least maintain a daily routine. But if you weren’t? Where the government’s oversight didn’t reach, or a sudden incident broke out. Either way, there were far too many people in this world who could barely even sustain a normal life.

That was the kind of world it was.

People had moved past the era when experts on TV chattered about how modern society was cold as a joke, and created a truly harsh era. To survive in a world with dungeons and monsters that could casually take your life or your loved ones’ lives at any moment.

To do that, people became a little more selfish, a little more indifferent to others.

So I couldn’t blame or scold Hunter Joo Minju for speaking so casually about indifference toward others. After a long, sigh-like silence, I opened my tightly shut eyes and looked at her.

“Hunter Joo Minju.”

“Hm?”

“But still, I think this is the right thing to do.”

I slowly steadied my breathing, making sure my voice wouldn’t tremble.

“Like you said, whether Adam gets hurt or not, it really has nothing to do with me. He and I have no connection. But still. Even though he’s someone with no connection to me, and never will be.”

She was right — Adam Rogers had nothing to do with me.

But still. Even if he was someone with no connection to me, as she said, wishing for that person to be a little happier, to live a slightly better life, and not to be unhappy — that was never wrong.

“Still, if that ‘person with no connection to me’ can gain something because of my choice… that’s not a bad thing, is it?”

“…You really think that?”

“Yes. And it’s not like it’ll cause me any harm.”

“You never know. You might avoid the immediate hassle, but you could end up dragged into a fight between this country’s S-Ranks later.”

“That’s also something we don’t know yet.”

I didn’t want to be afraid or annoyed over things that hadn’t happened yet, and miss out on a small chance to help right in front of me. Carefully, I untangled my arm from Hunter Joo Minju’s. Then, as if to replace it, I grabbed her hand.

“Rather than worrying about things that haven’t happened, I want to do what I can right now.”

“…Well, suit yourself, Seohee. I wasn’t trying to stop you anyway. I was just curious.”

Hunter Joo Minju draped her usual playful smile over the serious, humorless atmosphere from just a moment ago. She smoothly pulled her hand free from my grip and linked her arm through mine again.

“Since our Hunter Yoon Seohee has decided, we’d better strike while the iron’s hot and head straight for that S+-Rank knight bastard!”

“Uh, wait, that title—”

“I saw where he was headed earlier! This way!”

“Whoa, w-wait, huh?”

True to her word, Hunter Joo Minju immediately started dragging me toward the hallway opposite, heading straight for where Adam Rogers was. Or at least, she tried to. She would have, if the sound of a door opening from the room across the hall hadn’t stopped us.

“Huh?”

*Click.* The door swung open, and a man stepped into the doorway, staring at us with a very surprised expression. Like anyone caught off guard by an unexpected situation, his eyes went wide for a moment as he looked us over, then he tilted his head slightly.

“I had prepared to welcome a precious guest… but it seems an uninvited one has crashed the party.”

Under the bright light cast by the chandelier, the man’s pale skin gleamed like white porcelain. I knew it was completely inappropriate for the situation, but the moment I saw his face, a sound of admiration slipped out of me involuntarily.

Beneath the multicolored glow of the chandelier, his white skin shimmered like porcelain. His features were as delicate and graceful as if a master painter had rendered them with fine brushstrokes, and among those harmoniously arranged features, his strikingly blue eyes were as deep as a midday lake.

With a fluid, graceful gesture, the man tapped the earpiece settled at his ear, his gaze alternating between me, Hunter Joo Minju, and Hunter Lee Yoomyeong.

“He tells me to just be ready to ‘negotiate’… and then pulls this kind of stunt. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected that bastard to do things properly.”

As the man closed and opened his eyes, his eyelashes fluttered; as he opened his mouth to speak, his lips parted and closed again. It was a perfectly ordinary motion anyone could make, but performed by someone who seemed like the most beautiful person in the world, it felt extraordinary. I stood frozen, like someone witnessing a figure from the world’s most famous painting come to life, waiting for him to continue.

“Well, nothing to be done about it. I’ll just have to clear out the uninvited guests and welcome the precious one.”

And the moment I heard those words, I snapped back to my senses as if struck by lightning.

“Yoon Seohee, don’t get too far — step back a reasonable distance!”

With Hunter Joo Minju’s abrupt shout, something silvery flashed from one end of my vision to the other. Two wolves, appearing from nowhere, were lunging at the necks of Hunter Joo Minju and Hunter Lee Yoomyeong.

“A preemptive strike right off the bat? British bastards and their so-called gentlemanly manners!”

Hunter Joo Minju had already drawn her silver long gun and immediately retaliated. One shot, two shots, three shots at the wolf charging at her. Three mana bullets were fired. The wolf dodged the first and second by tilting its body sideways, but couldn’t avoid the third. *Bang, bang, bang.* With a report that didn’t sound like a gunshot, one wolf was knocked down.

While Hunter Joo Minju was hunting her wolf, Hunter Lee Yoomyeong wasn’t idle either. He transformed his own body into dozens, hundreds of bats, scattering in all directions. As the wolf, suddenly losing its target, hesitated in confusion, the hundreds of bats took advantage of that opening to surround it from behind and then resumed human form. And then—

*Squelch.* Unlike the sharp report of Hunter Joo Minju’s gun, the curse Hunter Lee Yoomyeong used was quiet and stealthy. Thin, sharp, blood-red crystals sprouted from the floor and pierced the wolf in an instant. After withdrawing the hand he had been extending toward the wolf for the curse, Hunter Lee Yoomyeong immediately began his counterattack.

“Receive the price and grow, Aleph.”

With a voice so calm it was hard to believe he was in combat, he finished the incantation, and from the spot where the man stood, something like dark red tree roots shot up. The roots wrapped around the man in an instant, as if they possessed a will of their own. Hunter Lee Yoomyeong didn’t stop there. He had already summoned a book bound in some unknown purple leather into the air and launched a second attack.

“Receive the price and serve, Beth.”

*Flutter, flutter.* Suddenly, the sound of bat wings filled the air from all directions. It was the sound made by the bats endlessly spewing from Hunter Lee Yoomyeong’s shadow. So many bats that it was impossible to count them all. The moment Hunter Lee Yoomyeong pointed at the man across from him, they all surged toward him at once.

Beasts with fangs as sharp as blood-red eyes charged in unison at the man, who was still bound by the tree roots and unable to move.

“I see now. So you’re the vampire who refused our offer.”

*Crunch.* A sound like a carnivore tearing into living flesh rang out. At first, I thought it was the sound made by Hunter Lee Yoomyeong’s bats. But it wasn’t. All the bats that had been charging at the man were falling to the ground without even managing to bare their fangs properly. The wings of the falling bats bore the teeth marks of some beast. Furthermore, the tree roots that had been firmly binding the man just moments before followed the bats’ fate, also falling to the ground with beastly bite marks carved into them.

“I heard you refused our offer, acting all high and mighty, just because you’re proficient in all sorts of spells and curses… Should I have just crushed you back then, after all?”

*Bang, bang, bang.*

With a firing sound that didn’t seem like a gunshot at all, the long rifle in Hunter Joo Minju’s hands spat fire toward the man repeatedly. Even though bullets with monstrous power were being shot directly at her, the man showed no sign of panic whatsoever. He waved his hand gently, like a conductor leading an orchestra.