Don’t Look for the S-Class Hunter with Retirement 6

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6

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‘Look at the state of this guild master’s office…’

Doun looked around. Just by size, it was a spacious office. However, it was a bit ambiguous to call it an office. Aside from two desks that seemed placed just for appearance’s sake, it was cluttered with miscellaneous items like sofas and tables, a large TV and speakers, a coffee machine, skateboard, and dumbbells.

After finishing his exploration with a disapproving gaze, Doun’s vision belatedly took in the person who had been in the office. It was a woman with short bobbed hair, large eyes, and lips that were somehow slightly parted and kept twitching.

“Jiyoon noona. Say hello. This is Magnetic hyung.”

“Uh… Oh!”

“Hyung, this is Choi Jiyoon. She’s our guild’s sub-guild master. Her nickname is…”

“Ahhh! Ah! Don’t say my nickname! Ahem, hmm! Hello? I’m Choi Jiyoon, sub-guild master of Yeoun Guild.”

Choi Jiyoon kicked Samin’s shin to cut him off and offered a greeting.

She could immediately tell it was really Magnetic himself. As Samin said, there wasn’t a single person among the top rankers who didn’t know Magnetic’s face.

Magnetic was like an idol among hunters. Though there were many hunters who envied and slandered him, there were countless others who admired him. Choi Jiyoon was one of them.

‘That crazy guild master bastard really brought him here. No wait, he came to destroy the place, right?’

When Jiyoon displayed her social skills and extended her hand, Doun briefly shook it then lowered his hand.

“…Ah, yes. Hello.”

After the brief handshake, Doun quietly blinked.

Guild Yeoun.

It seemed like an overall chaotic place. The guild master stalked people and sent messages, while the sub-guild master screamed in front of people then acted normal and calmly requested a handshake.

‘There’s no sanity at all…’

Even though he’d just been standing there, his soul felt drained. Samin couldn’t just leave Doun standing there blankly in front of the office, so he led him to the center of what looked like a plush sofa.

“Sit here, hyung.”

“…Okay.”

“We have capsule coffee and orange juice too. But it’s lukewarm… We have water too but that seems a bit too impersonal. Ah! Should we just order delivery from a cafe?”

“Just water is fine.”

“Aw, don’t say that. Let’s order delivery from a cafe. How about it? Jiyoon noona? You think it’s good too, right?”

“Huh? Of course! Well, um, since Magnetic-nim came all the way here, having him just drink water and leave would be too stingy, no wait, we’d feel bad about it.”

Choi Jiyoon, who had slyly sat on the opposite sofa, waved her hands while stammering.

Doun was bewildered. The guild executives he knew weren’t like this. Hunter guild executives basically took somewhat forceful attitudes and controlled things. When you risk your life conquering towers, if you entered towers with a hobby club-like atmosphere, you’d be wiped out.

‘Doun. You need to follow hyung’s words well. This is basic, you know. That’s how everyone can stay safe. Am I wrong?’

“The coffee here is delicious, you know? Other things are fine too. How about here?”

Over the rigid voice floating in his head, a low but friendly voice layered on top.

When he came to his senses, Samin had somehow taken the seat next to him and was holding out his phone. Doun glanced back and forth between Samin and Choi Jiyoon.

“…”

Looking at them like this, the guild master and sub-guild master had similar impressions. They looked scary but when you actually talked to them, they were utterly unreliable. Enough to think they’d managed to survive by establishing a guild among hunters who were like packs of hyenas.

“What’s on the menu?”

Doun slightly tilted his head to check the phone. He felt uncomfortable ignoring the sincerity of people who wanted to feed him something.

“Take a look.”

Samin obediently handed his phone to Doun. He’d managed to bring someone who had originally planned to go straight home all the way here. It felt like luring out a dog that was wary of people due to being hurt with treats, but that was fine by him.

His respected hunter was sitting right next to him – what more could he need? Every time those long, slender fingers touched the screen, Samin felt like his heart might burst.

He remembered the flashes and magic that burst from those fingertips. Though they were videos recorded by the system so the angles didn’t always match or the target sometimes appeared as a small dot, Magnetic’s battles had something overwhelmingly moving to a hunter’s heartstrings.

‘I’m done sleeping for today…’

While Samin quietly took a deep breath in a way that wouldn’t be noticeable, Doun read the menu that didn’t really catch his eye while lost in thought. This situation of putting heads together with a guy as big as a mountain and looking at a palm-sized phone didn’t feel real at all.

‘I just came to tell him to stop sending messages because it’s annoying… That’s what I came to say.’

“What will you have, hyung? Coffee? Smoothie? Tea?”

Doun absent-mindedly touched the screen a few times then pointed at one menu item. He’d read the menu several times but nothing else particularly appealed to him besides this.

“I’ll have this.”

“Oh. Peach smoothie.”

Strangely, right now he wanted to drink something so sweet his teeth might rot. Even though he didn’t usually like sweet things much. When the menu selection was finished and he handed back the phone, Samin extended both hands as if receiving some great treasure.

‘It’s his own phone though.’

Doun found himself smiling with a relaxed expression without realizing it.

“What will you drink, Jiyoon noona? Americano?”

“Yeah. Iced.”

“Of course it’d be iced. You think someone would order something hot in this weather?”

“Anyway, you could just say you understand instead of always having to add a comment.”

Choi Jiyoon scolded Samin while continuing to glance at Doun. She too was one of the hunters who had often watched Magnetic’s videos with admiration. Though she lived a daily life of bullying the domestic 2nd ranker who seemed tremendous to others, the man before her eyes was different.

‘Even though Kyung Samin worked like a dog, he still couldn’t catch up to that person’s one-year gap.’

Their active periods as hunters were different though. Magnetic was in his 3rd year since awakening as a hunter. Excluding the one-year absence period, his actual active period was 2 years. In comparison, Kyung Samin had lived holed up in towers like a crazy bastard for 1 year and 6 months.

After Magnetic’s disappearance, the rankings of hunters in the top 10 changed drastically day by day. There were countless cases where yesterday’s 2nd place became today’s 5th place. Fighting through that chaos, Kyung Samin had stolen the position of Doshi-tae, who was 2nd place 6 months ago. And he’d been defending that position until now.

And for 6 months, he’d been holed up in towers trying to drag Magnetic down to 2nd place, but the name written at the very top of the leaderboard still hadn’t changed.

“I finished ordering. They said it’ll take 30 minutes to arrive.”

“…Okay.”

“Then should we talk while we wait?”

Samin opened his phone’s memo app.

“Hyung. Do you have any favorite foods?”

“Why are you curious about that?”

“Just because. You’re supposed to ask things like this when you want to get close, right?”

Doun stared quietly at Samin sitting next to him. His completely unpredictable personality was just bewildering. Ever since he’d taken a taxi to the Yeoun Guild building in anger, everything had been thoroughly deviating from Doun’s plans.

Originally, he’d planned to give some warnings or threats about not sending messages, then return home with a refreshed mind, take his medicine, and sleep.

“I like… spicy food.”

“Wow! I’m totally weak with spicy food. I sweat when I eat spicy things.”

“…Is that so.”

He was answering trivial questions and waiting for the drinks to be delivered. And that too on the top floor of a building used as headquarters by hunters he never wanted to encounter again.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Oh. You really are my hyung. Even if you were younger than me, I would have called you hyung-nim anyway.”

“…You.”

He became increasingly curious about the delinquent who kept disrupting his daily life.

‘Don’t I look like a murderer to you? Don’t you think I’m an incompetent who couldn’t even save his colleagues? And really… are you my fan?’

He wanted to ask that, but.

“How old… are you.”

Doun swallowed all those questions and asked back about Samin’s innocent age instead.

“I’m twenty-four! My birthday is December 25th! Christmas is my birthday.”

If you asked one thing, at least two or three pieces of information would pop out. To Doun, Samin was like a vending machine with unknown contents. One of those fantasy vending machines that would pour out unexpected things just by pressing buttons without even inserting money.

“When’s your birthday, hyung?”

“What, are we on a blind date now?”

Doun replied curtly, trying not to get caught up in it somehow.

“Come on. I’m even buying you a smoothie, so it should be okay to tell me your birthday.”

“Ha.”

A laugh escaped involuntarily. Doun couldn’t push away Samin, who was cheekily bumping shoulders with him, and muttered.

“July 7th.”

“Oh. You have two lucky numbers.”

While responding with strange interjections, Samin diligently wrote down Doun’s birthday in his memo.

“But hyung, you did save my number, right?”

What’s this about now? Doun looked at Samin with an incredulous expression.

“Why would I?”

“What? You didn’t save it?”

“Do you save stalker phone numbers too?”

“But… you replied to my messages and came to meet me like this, so I thought you’d saved it. Please save it while we’re at it. Meeting like this is also fate, isn’t it?”

Could you really call meeting after coming to destroy a building “fate”? Doun chuckled and refused.

“No.”

“Come on, don’t be like that. While you’re at it, please add a heart after my name too. Where’s your phone, hyung?”

Samin persistently clung on, and Doun pushed him away in disgust.

“Min-ah. He’s uncomfortable. Stop it.”

When Choi Jiyoon, who couldn’t stand watching anymore, chimed in, Samin snorted.

“No way. Our hyung might look like this but he accepts everything.”

What kind of nonsense is that? Choi Jiyoon quietly observed the opposite side. Doun just pushed Samin away with a face that seemed to have given up on something, but didn’t seem to have any intention of throwing punches or using skills.

‘What? Is he really accepting that lunatic?’

She instinctively realized it. The fact that perhaps Magnetic might be weak to affection.