25
* * *
The first guild dinner at the chicken restaurant had brought Doun a little closer to some of the guild members. Doun had always believed in the saying that alcohol reveals true feelings. He’d experienced countless drinking sessions where hidden thoughts would slip out without people realizing it when they were drunk.
‘Everyone is more… than I thought.’
He had actually sat down at this gathering prepared to hear the guild members drunkenly voice their unfavorable opinions about him. But contrary to his worries, he only found himself troubled in a completely different direction.
Kim Chansol getting excited about the increasing number of likes, Seong Suyeon pleased that the guild master was unusually generous with buying drinks since he was trying to act nice in front of Doun.
Kim Siwon using his skills to cool his face as the alcohol hit him, Do Hyeonwoo and Hong Chan mixing bomb shots to pass around the table while occasionally asking if Doun needed his cola glass refilled. Even Kim Minhyeok complaining to Doun that his dog liked his mother more than him these days because he’d been too busy with work.
‘They don’t seem to think badly of me.’
Whenever they happened to make eye contact with Doun, they would give him thumbs up or look at him with the satisfied expression of someone discovering hidden emergency funds. Each time, Doun would awkwardly respond with a nod.
“Jesus, how many more bottles of soju did these crazy bastards order while I was gone? How are you all planning to get home?”
Samin, who had rushed out of the restaurant saying he needed some fresh air, returned after quite a long time. His voice sounded strangely hoarse, but Doun dismissed it as his imagination.
When the dinner finally ended, Samin skillfully loaded the guild members, who were sprawled out like wilted kimchi, into taxis. Doun, who was also completely sober since he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol like Samin, offered to help, but was flatly refused.
‘If those guys see hyung’s face, they’ll pounce on him to go for a second round. Do you want to be mixed in with those drunk idiots, hyung?’
Doun considered it briefly but shook his head. It wasn’t that he disliked the guild members, but his social energy for the day had run out long ago.
Seong Suyeon, who was sober due to his detox skill, regretfully got in a taxi because he couldn’t drink more, but all the other fairly drunk guild members were Samin’s responsibility.
“Yes, driver. This friend lives at Lake Tower in Hyobeom-dong… Ah, yes yes. That’s the place. Please take good care of him.”
Samin stuffed the last remaining Kim Minhyeok into the back seat of a taxi, generously prepaid the fare, and sent him off without hesitation. Watching this scene from a distance, Doun was swept by a strange emotion.
The more he looked at Kyung Samin, the stranger this person seemed.
Though younger than himself, he was supposedly a guild master. Even when the guild members jeered at and mistreated him, he took care of them attentively. He grumbled that they were like enemies, but unless you were an idiot, you couldn’t miss that he genuinely cared for the guild members from how he treated them.
The way he quickly and efficiently cleaned up the chaotic drinking session showed this wasn’t his first or second time doing it.
“Phew. That damn Ppomi talk. I’m sick to death of it. Hyung, did I keep you waiting long?”
“…No.”
“How was the dinner? Was it okay? Or worse than you thought?”
“…It was fun.”
Honestly, at first he was just embarrassed and wanted to go home, but as time passed, it quickly became fine. Everyone was kind and warm.
“I parked the car over there. Let’s head out too.”
“Yeah.”
The two headed to the parking lot. As they walked down the alley, leaving behind air faintly mixed with food smells, Samin rummaged through his back pocket.
The call taxi had arrived earlier than expected, and while loading the guild members into taxis, he felt the card he’d thrown to Kim Chansol to pay with instead. When he put her in the taxi, she’d returned it to him, and the receipt was crumpled up with the card.
“Geez. Today everyone really made up their minds to bleed the guild master dry. Just how many bottles of soju is this?”
Samin unfolded the receipt and joked around, then climbed into the driver’s seat of the parked car and opened the passenger door from inside to welcome Doun.
“Ta-da. Get in quickly. Before I sent the kids off in taxis earlier, I stopped by and turned on the air conditioning in advance. It’s completely cool.”
“Earlier you asked Siwon to cover for you briefly – you went to do this?”
“Yes. I was worried hyung might be hot. Get in quickly!”
It was completely unexpected kindness. Doun hesitated for a moment, then quickly sat in the passenger seat before the cold air could escape. The seat was ice-cold from however long the air conditioning had been running. Just when he was feeling a bit sticky from the muggy summer night air, this unexpected consideration was appreciated.
As he fastened his seatbelt at Samin’s gesture, he glanced at Samin gripping the steering wheel. He already felt bad about getting help with the backlogged tower conquest for free, and now getting treated to chicken made him feel sorry, so he carefully brought it up.
“The dinner bill… should I contribute something?”
He couldn’t gauge exactly how much it came to, but just calculating the bottles scattered all over the floor and the one-chicken-per-person menu, it must have been quite a bit. At Doun’s expectant gaze waiting for an answer, Samin was dumbfounded and frantically protested.
“What are you talking about? Hyung, did you forget what I said? Our guild building is mine, I told you! A symbol of Kyung Samin’s wealth bought with cold hard cash without any bank loans! Yeoun Building! Self-owned!”
Samin’s roar echoed through the car as he nearly got branded as an incompetent person who couldn’t handle a single dinner bill over one misplaced joke.
“Why are you suddenly yelling like that.”
Though he responded in an even tone, Doun was inwardly shocked.
‘He bought a building in a prime location with cash without loans?’
Even without knowing much, that had to be at least tens of billions to hundreds of billions of won. Suddenly he felt an enormous distance from Samin.
“It’s because hyung keeps taking my jokes seriously. How much could the dinner bill have been for you to offer to contribute?”
“I was just thinking and suggesting it.”
“Are you that worried about me?”
“I don’t know. Geez.”
Doun responded in a sulky tone. Who was worrying about whom?
‘I shouldn’t worry about that guy anymore.’
Making that resolution to himself, he looked out the window, which was full of twinkling lights. Maybe because the chaotic dinner had left such an impression, he could hardly believe they had conquered floor 45 today, setting a new record for what had seemed like it would remain unexplored territory.
‘Honestly, today was incredibly hectic…’
To make up for the one-year gap, Doun had watched Yeoun Guild’s floor 45 conquest videos enough to memorize them before entering the tower.
Since the automatically recorded videos often went out of focus or switched to random places, he had to keep imagining and running simulations of how the guild members dealt with the magical beasts off-screen.
But there were many things that were impossible to figure out from videos alone. In the end, there was no choice but to check directly. While organizing the information he’d gained from today’s conquest in his head, Doun suddenly threw a question at Samin, who had become quieter while concentrating on driving.
“What do you think about videos being saved when you enter towers?”
“Suddenly?”
Samin’s eyes widened briefly, then he muttered nonchalantly.
“That’s probably filmed by some inexplicable alien power. At least if humans were filming it, they wouldn’t film it so shittily.”
“There are definitely things that are hard to confirm from conquest videos. There are too many variables…”
As Doun muttered to himself, lamenting the amount of information that couldn’t be captured in videos, Samin grumbled that he was dissatisfied with a different aspect.
“Do you know how pissed off I’ve been watching hyung’s conquest videos all this time? I don’t know what that creepy alien bastard or whatever filming the videos is, but that guy has no sense of style. I couldn’t bring myself to tell hyung this, but when I saw hyung using skills on the training floors, I was so dumbfounded I was speechless.”
“Why were you speechless…”
“Because not even half of hyung’s awesome moments get captured in the videos.”
Doun had to pretend to cross his arms. It was to deal with the goosebumps that had risen on his forearms. As he surreptitiously rubbed his forearms, he muttered with a small sigh.
“I really think I’m going crazy. I’m starting to get used to your nonsense from hearing it so much.”
“What? You can’t adapt this quickly? I’m anxious because I feel like once hyung gets used to it, you won’t react to anything I say.”
“You have plenty to be anxious about. Anyway, the nonsense…”
Maybe because they’d coordinated together in the tower once, Doun himself felt that many of his barriers had come down. Not only were his words coming out more comfortably than usual, but he’d also developed a small sense of camaraderie.
Perhaps because of that, he wanted to be helpful to the guild quickly, but found himself dissatisfied with the automatic recording videos that weren’t of much help.
‘Is it impossible for the videos to be filmed in more detail? There are limits to me speculating alone based on just videos…’
Everything is recorded the moment you enter a tower, and the videos are even uploaded to a separate space. However, the principle behind how the videos are filmed remains in the realm of mystery that no one has accurately figured out yet.
The top of towers that can’t be observed even by satellites and machines. And the strange abilities granted only to hunters.
Countless scientists, physicists, and other intellectuals had researched to find the source of this anomaly that appeared one day without warning, but nothing had been clearly revealed.
Even though it had already been three years since towers appeared and mutants called hunters emerged on Earth.
“But I am curious. Who made the towers?”
At Samin’s question as he tapped the steering wheel with his index finger, Doun answered.
“Like you said, some aliens probably made them. Taking videos to watch humans.”
“Ugh. That’s really disgusting to imagine. They’re not even perverts. What’s up with that.”
Though it didn’t seem like something someone who’d figured out other people’s phone numbers to bombard them with texts should say. Doun didn’t bother pointing it out. If he pointed out everything one by one, even staying up all night wouldn’t be enough for that guy.
Samin drove while observing the speed limit, treating Doun in the passenger seat like a precious shrine. After whining that he didn’t want to part ways in front of the apartment complex, he finally got out of the car and muttered to Doun looking down at him.
“Ah, the effect has completely worn off. Now hyung doesn’t even blink an eye at most things. I need to work on my aegyo more.”
“Stop saying weird things and hurry up and go.”
“I was going to go straight home and sleep anyway. Hyung should go in and get good rest too. Let’s prepare well for floors 46 and 47 that we’re entering the day after tomorrow. Us.”
Us.
Thinking that he was casually included in an expression referring to a group that included himself, his cheek twitched. He worried whether his expression management was working properly.
Just a few weeks ago, if someone had hinted that something like this would happen to him as he lay powerlessly on his bed, he wouldn’t have believed it. He had thought he wouldn’t go anywhere near towers, that he’d rather just die in his sleep.
‘Us…’
Now even common personal pronouns without much meaning made him feel moved for no reason. Looking down at Samin’s face pensively, Doun slowly nodded.
“Got it. I’ll prepare well for the conquest, so hurry up and go.”
“Yes. I’m really going. I’ll contact you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
Samin, whose face was dripping with regret, pouted his lips slightly and slowly started the car.
Doun stood a little away from the apartment complex and watched Samin’s car disappear for quite a long time.
Even though the air conditioning breeze that he’d turned on in advance because he might be hot had disappeared, one corner of his heart still felt cool. He felt like the heavy something that had been weighing on his chest had disappeared.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
