#4
‘Nameless’ Guild.
This guild could be explained with just two sentences. First, it was currently the number one guild in the Republic of Korea. The Nameless Guild, which had appeared like a comet a few years ago, had climbed up rapidly from the moment it was established, and was still firmly holding the first place position.
Second, was the existence of Cha Do-hyeok, the Republic of Korea’s only S-rank hunter. He was currently the only hunter who had awakened as S-rank, and it was also that Cha Do-hyeok who had created Nameless, the current number one guild.
“Ah, I’m late.”
Kang Won-hyeok, the vice guild leader who followed Cha Do-hyeok and served as another pillar of Nameless, hurriedly got on the elevator.
“They’re going to give me an earful again.”
Today was the day for the regular meeting within the guild. Regular meetings were held once a week at most, or biweekly if there was nothing special. All the team leaders of the guild and guild members in executive positions attended this meeting.
Won-hyeok could already imagine it. The voices of team members who would be teasing Kang Won-hyeok for being late, saying things like “Why isn’t the vice guild leader coming?”, “Does it make sense for the vice guild leader to be late?”, “If this is how it’s going to be, tell him to step down from the vice guild leader position.”
“Sorry I’m late, sorry. I lost track of time writing a report.”
So Won-hyeok immediately executed the strategy he had thought of in advance as he opened the meeting room door. First, confess honestly and slip away smoothly like an eel.
Actually, the report thing was all bullshit. Won-hyeok hadn’t come from doing such a mission-driven public work, but had been browsing communities to see if any posts about himself had been uploaded, and coincidentally discovered a post written by a malicious commenter. He had lost track of time writing earnest rebuttal comments there.
“Oh, has the vice guild leader arrived?”
“Come sit down quickly.”
“Would you like some coffee?”
But the atmosphere was completely different from what he had expected. Even though he had used the technique of slipping away like an eel while adding a little lie, the team members didn’t even bring up the letter ‘L’ for late. Normally, jeers should have poured out the moment he entered. Then there was only one possibility he could think of. Either those bastards had all eaten something wrong collectively, or there was someone even later than Won-hyeok.
“What, Cha Do-hyeok isn’t here?”
Looking at the atmosphere, it seemed to be the latter. Won-hyeok looked around the inside of the meeting room and sighed when he saw the head seat at the very back was empty.
“No, he sometimes gets really late to meetings like this. Despite being the guild leader.”
“Isn’t that the same for you, vice guild leader-nim?”
“Be quiet, man. Today I came earlier than that bastard.”
Won-hyeok lightly knocked the head of the team member who added a comment, then went to sit in the vice guild leader’s seat.
“So has anyone contacted our guild leader?”
Then everyone was silent. Even if they contacted him, there was a high possibility that Cha Do-hyeok wouldn’t answer. The team members knew this too, so they probably didn’t even think to contact him.
“Then let me change the question – how many minutes do you all estimate?”
Won-hyeok asked, propping his chin with a serious face.
“Won’t he come soon?”
“Hey, you don’t know the guild leader that well. I’m betting at least an hour.”
The team members each got heated about inferring how many minutes Cha Do-hyeok would arrive. From team members who firmly believed he would come soon, to team members who said it would take about 23 minutes with very detailed timing – it was really diverse.
“What about you, vice guild leader-nim?”
“Me? I’m betting he won’t come.”
When Won-hyeok spoke with a completely serious face while twitching his eyebrows, the inside of the meeting room instantly became solemn.
“I’ll bet on that too…”
“Me too…”
It was also the only moment when the Nameless guild members, each with different personalities and abilities, united. Everyone nodded weakly, agreeing with Won-hyeok’s opinion. The atmosphere in the meeting room, which had been lively just moments before, suddenly sank.
“Geez, this unpredictable bastard.”
Won-hyeok, who couldn’t stand it anymore, hit the table and shook his head. Since it was a meeting held after two weeks, everyone would have come fully prepared, but who would have thought the guild leader who should lead the meeting wouldn’t come? Won-hyeok was flooded with regret that he should have sat in Cha Do-hyeok’s room monitoring him and brought him along, instead of fighting with malicious commenters in the community.
Right. It was because that malicious commenter saw Won-hyeok in the top 10 of the Hunter Appearance Ranking – Male Edition and said it was rigged or whatever. Won-hyeok clapped his hands, vowing to definitely catch that malicious commenter even if he had to trace their IP.
“Well, since Cha Do-hyeok isn’t here, it seems we can’t hold today’s meeting. Let’s schedule it again next time.”
“Yes.”
Fortunately, the guild members seemed to quickly accept and resign themselves. Well, it wasn’t the first or second time Cha Do-hyeok acted strangely, and these guys who had shared joys and sorrows while building the guild together couldn’t not know that.
“Ah, wait, I have something to ask.”
Then Won Hye-seong, the team leader leading Team 3, raised his hand.
“Has anyone seen my documents that were placed on the meeting room table?”
“Documents? What documents?”
“The application I wrote to send our team kids to the Jongno 3-ga dungeon that was scheduled to open today. I put it there to get approval later, but it’s gone.”
Currently, there were two ways gates opened. Either you could predict when gates would open, or you couldn’t. As civilization and technology developed, it became possible to infer roughly when and where gates would open, and what grade they would be. So in this case, it was common to compile predictable gate information and send the most suitable team to the dungeon.
But it wasn’t possible to predict every scenario. Naturally, gates opening unexpectedly was also common.
“I didn’t see it.”
Everyone shook their heads. And Won-hyeok suddenly felt something sharply stabbing the back of his neck. It was a kind of intuition. He had no particular basis, but a premonition that it might be so.
“Huh? I think it’s here?”
Then a guild member picked up documents from under a table placed on one side of the meeting room.
“It must have fallen.”
Won-hyeok felt a strong intuition once again. If earlier the stabbing was weak because there was no basis, now that intuition was strongly poking at the back of his neck. The spot where the guild member picked up the documents was definitely the head seat where Cha Do-hyeok sits.
What if he hadn’t not come to the meeting room, but had come uselessly early and was waiting? What if he had been lying there slacking off and discovered those documents?
“Hey hey, give me those documents.”
Won-hyeok quickly reached out and received the documents. Then he slowly read from the top. It was an ordinary application form with Won Hye-seong’s name in the applicant section, and the usual phrases in the application reason and content sections.
“Ha, really…”
However, the big problem was that someone had crossed out that content with a black pen and rewritten it.
Cha Do-hyeok’s name was written over Won Hye-seong’s name, and in the application reason and content section…
“This crazy bastard.”
<I was bored waiting.>
A brief sentence was written there.
* * *
<A gate is scheduled to open today, so traffic is temporarily prohibited.>
What greeted Ha-seong when he arrived at Jongno 3-ga was none other than a traffic prohibition sign. Today he hadn’t come to sell items, but because he remembered the boss of ‘We’ll Sell Anything’ telling him to come work part-time at the store on days when there was no work or he was resting.
The boss considered Ha-seong a true young person of this era who lived tenaciously while working as a purifier, so he tried to take care of everything for him. Of course, the fact that the store had hit it big thanks to Ha-seong also played a part. Today he only had one commission, and based on his long experience, he had a feeling that no more commissions would come in.
He had been thinking about resting for a long time and getting some good sleep when the boss’s words suddenly came to mind, so he came straight to the item street. Right, what would he do by resting? Since the boss was trying to take care of him, it was much more beneficial for Ha-seong to work part-time to earn pocket money and also gather information about what weapons and items were popular among hunters these days.
“So that’s why you didn’t reply to my text.”
Ha-seong opened his messenger app and stared at the conversation window where no reply had come to his text saying he would come to work part-time today. Since a notice about the gate opening had appeared, the boss was definitely resting today with the shop closed.
“I came for nothing.”
Ha-seong turned around to go back, sighing that he should have just gotten some good sleep, when he saw some figure wandering around at the entrance to the street.
He thought it was quite a familiar face, and sure enough, it was the boss of the shop next to ‘We’ll Sell Anything’. One of the bosses who had turned Ha-seong away when he first went to sell items.
“Hey! You!”
The resentment from that time remained, so he was going to just ignore him and go, but the door-slamming boss who had spotted Ha-seong urgently waved his hand and approached.
“Me?”
Ha-seong looked around pretending not to know. But it was a useless act. Right now, due to the traffic prohibition, Ha-seong was the only person around this area.
“Yeah. Who else would it be but you?”
“Ah, yes. But why?”
“Are you by any chance in contact with Boss Kim?”
Kim Seok-pal. That is, Boss Kim was the name of the boss of ‘We’ll Sell Anything’.
“No. Why?”
“Really? I thought maybe you came here because you had some contact with him. Then what the hell is going on…”
The boss who had called Ha-seong over stamped his feet with an anxious face. Seeing that, Ha-seong’s long experience told him to just quickly leave this place. That nothing good would come from getting involved now. This long experience had never once led Ha-seong down the wrong path.
“Ha, who should I tell this to…”
Don’t ask. Just pretend to be busy and leave.
“…What’s wrong?”
But Ha-seong eventually couldn’t hold back and opened his mouth. Then the boss looked around with a serious face and suddenly lowered his voice.
“Actually, the Hunter Management Bureau sent a guidance text saying that this street is also included in today’s gate range, so don’t do business and evacuate.”
“But.”
“No, that’s… Boss Kim suddenly said he had to go see because he had left important items out in the store. I naturally said it wasn’t allowed. But, well, that man said there was still some time until the gate opened and just left.”
Ha-seong turned his head to look at the street with no one around. Maybe it was because there was nothing on the street but rolling flyers, or maybe it was because he heard the gate would open. He felt a strangely desolate atmosphere.
“He probably went home safely on his own.”
“I went to Boss Kim’s house too, but no one was there. He won’t answer calls either, really…”
This country has a system that can roughly predict when and where gates will open. But that system would also have a margin of error. Therefore, the Hunter Management Bureau prohibited traffic in a certain range centered on the location where the gate was expected to open. The expected time was the same. Even if Boss Kim had entered the street avoiding the notified time, there was also the possibility that the gate had opened much earlier than the announced time.
‘Ha… why does this damn head work so well?’
Ha-seong’s mind was already naturally inferring the possibility that Boss Kim had gotten caught up in the gate.
“No, what should I do about this…”
What do you mean what to do? You should report it to the Hunter Management Bureau. But then some thought suddenly flashed through Ha-seong’s mind.
If Boss Kim had really gotten caught up in the gate, that would mean he had violated the evacuation order. From the Hunter Management Bureau’s perspective. In other words, he hadn’t followed the law, and if the management bureau found out about it, they might impose legal punishment on the boss and the store.
‘Then who am I going to sell stuff to?’
Where else would treat him as well as ‘We’ll Sell Anything’? Moreover, wasn’t that the only place that had comforted Ha-seong’s heart, which had been hurt from being turned away?
‘Ha-seong, this is something my wife made, so take it home and eat it.’
‘Ha-seong! If you don’t have work, come here and work part-time. Man, if you just work hard, everything will work out. Don’t get discouraged! Come find me anytime if things get tough.’
That wasn’t all. The voice that had genuinely encouraged and cared for him. Ha-seong eventually let out a deep sigh.
“You should go back now too, sir, since it’s dangerous.”
“Huh?”
His instincts still told him not to get involved in this matter, to just report it to the management bureau according to principle, but.
“I’ll look for Boss Kim.”
Ha-seong wasn’t the kind of person who could ignore someone who had shown him kindness just because of such an intuition.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
