#18
Do-hyeok sat in the guild leader’s office, habitually tapping the desk slowly. In front of him, Han Shin-woo stood nervously.
“What time is it now?”
“Pardon? Ah, it’s 10 AM.”
“Then why isn’t he here?”
Do-hyeok frowned and stopped tapping the desk.
“Well, I’m not really sure about that either…”
Han Shin-woo wanted to say why the hell are you asking me that, but he didn’t have the guts. He had tried calling since morning, but all he heard was the notification that Do Ha-seong’s phone was turned off.
“Did you tell him the wrong time?”
“No. I definitely told him to come on time today…”
“Did he run away?”
Do-hyeok said something completely abnormal in a calm voice. Han Shin-woo also felt like he was dying from reading the mood. He was even thinking of just saying ‘I’ll go look for Do Ha-seong at his house’ and leaving.
“What should we do if he ran away?”
That won’t do. I even made bold promises to Yoon Woo-bin. Do-hyeok leaned deeply back in his chair while thinking of Ha-seong who wasn’t coming.
“Hey, Cha Do-hyeok!”
At that moment, Kang Won-hyeok burst open the guild leader’s office door and entered. That guy keeps opening doors without knocking again. Should I cut his salary in half every time he doesn’t knock?
“What.”
“A gate just burst on the road near our guild. It’s a place with a lot of foot traffic, but it’s on the road of all places, so it’s complete chaos right now. We also got a support request from the Management Bureau, so should I send a few guys who can go out right now?”
Do-hyeok nodded with a meaningful expression. If many civilians got caught up in a suddenly burst gate, it would definitely be an urgent situation. Won-hyeok, having received the guild leader’s permission, immediately disappeared like lightning again.
Han Shin-woo, who had been watching where the vice guild leader left for a while, suddenly thought of something.
“Actually, Guild Leader.”
“Yeah.”
“Could Do Ha-seong-ssi have gotten caught up in that too? If a gate burst on the road…”
Couldn’t that be possible? Of course, if he really ran away like Cha Do-hyeok said, that would be different. But if he hadn’t, and he couldn’t be contacted and wasn’t showing himself, there was a possibility he got caught up in an unexpected accident.
“…”
After hearing Han Shin-woo’s plausible words, Do-hyeok became quiet for a moment. But Shin-woo knew. That he was thinking incredibly hard right now. Though he didn’t know the reason. His eyes were flashing right now. After about a minute passed like that, Do-hyeok picked up his phone that was carelessly thrown on the desk and made a call.
“Kang Won-hyeok. Don’t send the guys. I’ll go myself.”
* * *
While Do-hyeok was gradually catching on to the full story of Ha-seong’s disappearance, that Ha-seong was still thinking about how he should act.
“What should I do…”
To quickly get out of this place, there was obviously only one way. Ha-seong killing the owner of this jungle and clearing the dungeon.
“No. That risk is too big.”
Ha-seong shook his head. If he did that, instead of getting closer to his dream of a leisurely rich unemployed life, he might get further away from it.
[Ha-seong-nim, you’re really good at talking to yourself.]
The pig was eating some unknown grass growing on the ground near Ha-seong. Still, maybe because it was originally a monster, it looked much more comfortable, far from feeling any sense of crisis. Just as he was about to tell the pig ‘the situation is what it is, so stop eating so much’…
Creak-
A sound like a door creaking was heard. It was a small and eerie sound that would be hard for an ordinary person to notice, but Ha-seong heard it. He quickly got up from his spot and looked around.
Is it a monster? But he didn’t feel such energy. If it’s a door sound, is it near the fallen bus? Ha-seong activated his search skill again.
“That’s…”
What appeared in his field of vision wasn’t a red dot indicating a monster, but a green dot detecting a human. Was there still someone conscious on the bus? Ha-seong slowly approached the bus.
And he saw someone’s silhouette behind the slightly open door. When he gently moved the door aside, there was an unexpected young boy crouched and sitting there.
“Sob…”
And he was trembling and sniffling.
“Hey there.”
When Ha-seong called to the child, the boy flinched and trembled as if even more frightened.
“I’m not a bad person. You could say I’m in the same situation as you. So you don’t need to be scared.”
“Sniff…”
Whether those words worked, the child slowly raised his head. As expected, his big eyes were filled with tears, probably from crying out of fear.
“Were you on this bus too?”
“…Mom, with mom.”
The child nodded and sniffled. When Ha-seong asked “Where’s mom?”, the child turned his gaze inside the bus. Probably the child’s mother was among the people who had collapsed unconscious. By the way, this is interesting. This little guy wasn’t unconscious, and didn’t even show signs of struggling in this dungeon.
“Little guy, are you okay? Don’t you feel nauseous or anything?”
“Mm…”
The child, who seemed a little calmer than before, nodded once more. Normally when ordinary people are inside dungeons, they can’t endure long and faint, but this child was maintaining consciousness. Then well, there’s one possibility.
Ha-seong nodded to himself while stroking the frightened child’s hair. He tried talking more after that, but whether the child was still scared, he wouldn’t open his mouth at all. To experience such an accident at such a young age, this child’s situation was really pitiful, and because he overlapped with someone in his memories, he couldn’t just leave him alone. Ha-seong had no choice but to plop down next to the child.
“Little guy. Do you like pigs?”
“…Pig…?”
Ha-seong slightly lifted the pig that had come to his side and showed it to the child. It had gotten quite big so it was heavy though.
“It’s a pig…”
“Kyu?”
The pig made a cute sound in its own way and approached the child friendly.
“It’s cute…”
As expected, little kids are weak to cute and pretty things. When he put the pig in front of the child, his expression was gradually brightening.
“Are you feeling a bit better now?”
When the child’s eyes were no longer flowing with tears, Ha-seong carefully asked. Then the boy who had been hanging his head low looked Ha-seong in the eyes and nodded.
“That’s a relief. Don’t worry. Really strong hunters will come to rescue you soon.”
Of course, that was also his own wish. Come quickly and rescue us, you guys. What the hell are the hunters doing? Ha-seong grumbled internally while not forgetting to pat the child’s back.
“Hy, hyung…”
At that moment, the child hesitated as if he had something to say. Ha-seong gently stroked his head, saying it was okay and to speak slowly.
“Hyung is also… a hun, hunter, right?”
When asked this type of question, he should answer no like a knife, but seeing this child’s pure and clear eyes full of expectation, strangely his mouth wouldn’t open.
“Uh… why do you think that?”
“Because hyung didn’t collapse like our mom and other people… Also… you have a pig friend…”
“The pig isn’t my friend.”
The child stared at Ha-seong with even more sparkling eyes than before. Innocence that showed no trace of bad intentions. Ha-seong somehow didn’t have the confidence to properly meet those eyes, so he turned his gaze away.
“Then hyung will rescue us? Me and mom… and, other people too…”
“…”
Ha-seong stared at the ground with a quite serious face. Rescue, huh. That was a word he had heard countless times in his past life. The job of rescuing someone. It was the work that Hunter Do Ha-seong had made his profession. But now he had quit that job. The mission to rescue someone, the passion – Ha-seong no longer had those.
“I want to go home quickly… Go back and eat the curry mom made…”
The child muttered while hugging his knees.
‘I want to go back.’
At that moment, fragments of memories buried somewhere in his memory spoke to Ha-seong. Old memories slowly echoed in Ha-seong’s mind.
“Little guy. What’s your name?”
“Min-chan… Kim Min-chan.”
Ha-seong, who had been looking only at the ground, turned his gaze to the back of the child crouched without any energy.
“I see. Min-chan.”
Ha-seong soon seemed to make up his mind, vigorously stroking the child’s head as he stood up.
“When you go back, tell your mom this. That you want to get an awakener aptitude test. Looking at you, it seems like you have talent.”
“What’s that?”
Ha-seong mumbled “there’s such a thing” and lifted the child into the bus.
“Stay close to mom. Even if there’s noise, don’t come out. If you close your eyes and count to a hundred, you’ll be able to go home.”
“Really…?”
“Yeah.”
Ha-seong erased Min-chan’s presence and firmly locked the door. That child was definitely born with awakener qualities. That’s why he could be so fine even in this dungeon.
Ha-seong saw the child sitting quietly through the window and slowly took a step.
[What will you do?]
The pig slowly followed beside him. Ha-seong cleared away the grass, twigs, and obstructing things in front of him and finally opened his mouth.
“I have to get out. From here.”
No matter how he thought about it, being late on the first day was a bit much. Of course, that was that, but he couldn’t coldly ignore that child’s words.
After boldly declaring he would never touch hunter work again, in the end it was Do Ha-seong who was moved by a young child’s pure wish. Maybe it was because of the people he couldn’t save in the past, especially the many who died at a young age before they could even bloom. Ha-seong couldn’t turn away from Min-chan.
Yeah well, honestly speaking, Ha-seong had also survived thanks to hunters’ sacrifice when he was young. Seeing that, he had thought hunters were heroes, that he definitely wanted to become like that. Young children still needed the existence of heroes by nature. Though he himself didn’t want to become such a grand hero.
[But Ha-seong-nim, you’re not a hunter.]
Ha-seong narrowed his eyes and glared at the pig. That guy is quite sharp when you look closely. It seemed like it might know that he used to be a hunter. Still, well, that wasn’t what was important right now.
He had said he would get out of here, but as the pig said, Ha-seong was currently not in a hunter state. Fighting monsters and conquering dungeons wasn’t particularly difficult, but the problem was that citizens or quickly arriving hunters might witness Ha-seong’s combat.
Ha-seong became more cautious. Hadn’t he unluckily run into Cha Do-hyeok just recently? And that wasn’t the only problem. How could he quickly find the owner monster in this humid place with sunken ground and dense forests?
Let me organize my thoughts first.
Ha-seong muttered like that, stopped walking, and leaned his back against a flat tree. About a minute would be enough time to think. While Ha-seong was pondering, the pig also approached his side.
It was when Ha-seong was displaying terrifying concentration. The pig felt something strange and looked back.
“Oh, that’s right. That would work.”
It was when Ha-seong looked at the pig after thinking of some brilliant plan.
[Ha-seong-nim, behind us…]
The pig opened its already big eyes even wider and trembled with a start. What’s with that reaction? Ha-seong turned his head following the pig’s gaze. In that split second, Ha-seong also felt it.
The presence of something touching his back.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
