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Chapter 8. Surprisingly Bothering Me
* * *
‘Ah. I’m screwed.’
Doun had a gut feeling. His bluffing act had failed spectacularly. Even to his own ears, this wasn’t right – he could feel how bad it was. What must it look like to other people… Cold sweat seemed to be flowing down his back. As soon as he grasped the situation, resentment toward Samin began to surge.
‘Why did that bastard have to tell me something like this…!’
Though the bad acting was his own doing, it was Samin who had instigated it. If he hadn’t told him those weird threatening lines in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.
To make matters worse, instead of backing down, his opponent was busy laughing. As if everything Samin had said about it being effective was all lies.
“Hey there, Magnetic hyung-nim, are you messing with me right now? Ahahaha! This person is really interesting!”
The man who had introduced himself as ‘Mulmiyeok,’ an internet broadcaster, was laughing while desperately trying to keep the conversation going. After all, what was in front of him was Magnetic, someone whose face was supposedly hard to see.
‘Is his personality more four-dimensional than I thought?’
He didn’t understand why Magnetic had picked a fight with him in that robotic textbook-reading pronunciation, but he had to drag out the time somehow. Even just thinking about the wasted time he’d already spent waiting made it worthwhile.
Just thinking about his real-time viewer count from earlier still made his stomach burn. Whether it turned out to be porridge or rice, he absolutely had to go home with at least one episode worth talking about on his broadcast.
‘When else am I going to meet these guys if not now?’
Even if it meant shaking his tearful rattle, he couldn’t let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that had come to him slip away. But his tearful efforts turned to bubbles before they could even properly shine.
This was because Slope, who had been watching the strange standoff between the two from behind, suddenly butted in.
“We’re heading out, so could you move aside?”
“No, wait, just let me talk with you for a moment…!”
“Please.”
Though he said “please,” his expression was anything but. His tightly closed mouth and twitching facial muscles were menacing. He had specifically mentioned Magnetic, but his interview request had clearly been directed at all the Yeoun Guild members. Yet for some reason, not a single person was responding properly.
“You’re not going to move?”
When Samin raised his eyebrow with a tone that was neither polite nor informal, the hunter ‘MulmiyeokTV’ involuntarily stepped back. And he grimaced as he watched the Yeoun Guild members brush past him.
‘Fuck, fuck. What’s so hard about saying a few words to me? These nobodies are acting all expensive. Fucking bastards.’
Though he was hurling colorful curses internally, he couldn’t openly grumble. If something happened here, it would be him getting buried, not those bastards.
While opinions in the hunter world might be divided, Magnetic and the Yeoun Guild members had a solid support base. Especially Magnetic and Slope – they just hadn’t debuted yet, but they had fans almost on par with celebrities. Though there were also many antis busy trying to tear them down.
Compared to them, he was just a fringe hun-tuber with barely 40,000 subscribers.
‘Ugh, if only my phone hadn’t broken, I could’ve somehow tried to leverage a live broadcast. Those guys would’ve at least pretended to be considerate if I said I was broadcasting!’
He’d been lucky to enter the same dungeon as Yeoun Guild, hoping to get some scraps, but in the end he couldn’t even get a proper haul and would only end up with unnecessary phone repair costs. He tousled his hair and kicked a random tree branch lying on the ground.
“Ugh! Fuck!”
Why was life so unfair? He had to somehow package this incident as provocatively as possible to use on his broadcast, but no matter how much he racked his brain, there was nothing memorable. Only Slope’s menacing face glaring at him and Magnetic’s voice speaking like a broken robot.
* * *
“Today I think I learned a new fact about Doun hyung.”
Samin muttered as he walked down the mountain path from the tower back to the pension.
“…I think I know what it is, so don’t say it.”
“Ah. Don’t say it? Okay okay. If our hyung tells me not to do something, I have to not do it.”
He deliberately made a “hup” sound of closing his mouth and giggled, looking annoyingly smug. Sounds of trying to suppress laughter could be heard from the guild members following behind, making Doun finally burst out.
“No, that’s why I said I didn’t want to do it from the beginning!”
“I didn’t know our hyung’s acting skills would be at that level…”
As Samin drew out his words, Doun, who had been finding him irritating, became curious about just how terrible his acting had looked to others. He hesitated then carefully broached the subject.
“Hey. Was it really that bad earlier?”
“Earlier? It was legendary bad acting. Even AI these days wouldn’t talk like that, would they?”
That bad? Doun gaped at being told he was worse than artificial intelligence. He’d thought it wasn’t that bad, but it must have been more of a mess than he’d imagined. His face grew hot with embarrassment and he wanted to hide somewhere.
“You should’ve put on a fierce expression and lowered your voice. How could you read it like a textbook?”
“You’re the one who egged me on from the side! You even poked my ribs!”
“If you’d shown me your acting skills once when I told you to practice beforehand, I would’ve just told you not to do it…”
“So this is my fault?”
“No. It’s Samin’s fault. I’m the one who should die. Hyung, just kill me. It’d be even better if you read a farewell letter at my funeral as clearly and precisely as you did earlier.”
Samin continued to tease Doun about his acting skills until they reached the pension, bickering enough that the other guild members following behind occasionally had to watch Doun’s mood.
By the time they finally arrived at the pension, Doun was glaring at Samin with clenched fists.
“One more word and I’ll beat you up. For real.”
In the past, he would have gladly offered up his back saying ‘how much could it hurt when hyung hits me,’ but this was after he’d seen the power of those white fists with his own eyes.
“Hup.”
Samin made the sound of closing his mouth while pulling up the corners of his lips. He even raised both hands up as if surrendering, and only then did Doun finally turn his head away with a huff.
“I thought Doun was finally going to give him a proper beating.”
Jang Hyeonseong, who had been watching from behind, clicked his tongue in deep disappointment.
The sight of Samin getting beaten was extremely rare. Though Samin’s treatment within Yeoun Guild was terrible, he was still the guild master and a large-framed 2nd-ranked close combat fighter. It wasn’t easy to readily hit such a guy.
Even sub-guild master Choi Jiyoon only smacked his back a few times when she really couldn’t contain her frustration or when it was just guild members around. So every day since Doun joined the guild had been exciting. Because an existence who could seriously beat up Samin at any time had appeared.
“What? Did you want me to get hit by Doun hyung?”
Samin narrowed his eyes and glared at Jang Hyeonseong.
“You should’ve teased him in moderation. Isn’t Doun too nice? If it were me, I would’ve started establishing hierarchy right away.”
He’d gotten carried away because he liked how Doun got worked up and responded to his words, so he’d teased him a bit too much. Samin, who was belatedly reflecting on himself, leaned slightly toward Jang Hyeonseong.
“…Hmm. Was I being too much? In your opinion?”
“Man, what’s the point of asking me that? Go ask him directly.”
“Huh?”
Samin made a stupid interjection, then his eyes lit up as he immediately stuck to Doun.
“Hyung, hyung. Doun hyung. Did I tease you too much? Is that why you’re angry?”
Jang Hyeonseong was dumbfounded by how he actually went to ask after being told to ask directly. But there was a problem on the other side too.
“Huh? I’m not really angry… I was just embarrassed because you kept doing that…”
Doun’s momentum from just moments ago when he’d threatened to beat Samin up with his fists had deflated. Though he’d said that, now that Samin asked him directly, his heart had clearly softened.
‘The kid’s too gentle, that’s the problem.’
A gentle personality like Doun’s was perfect for getting scammed. Jang Hyeonseong resolved as he entered his room to wash up that he’d do his best to help Doun avoid getting scammed by random people, at least while he was in the same guild.
‘But with a guy like Kyung Samin stuck to him, hasn’t he already been scammed in a way?’
The thought suddenly occurred to him, but he immediately erased it from his mind. Though Samin might be playful and immature, he wasn’t the type to take advantage of Doun. Rather, he’d be busy offering up his liver and gall bladder.
Jang Hyeonseong shook his head, dismissing it as needless worry.
* * *
The Yeoun Guild members were gathered in the front yard with peaceful faces. As if wondering when a dungeon had even burst open. Watching the food sizzling as it cooked, the moments from earlier when they’d been beating up disgusting monsters in the dungeon felt like a dream.
“Is there still time left before the dungeon disappears? I’m really curious about the rewards.”
Do Hyeonwoo was muttering while staring blankly at buttered corn when it happened.
“Crazy. That Mulmiyeok guy or whatever we met earlier is totally insane, right?”
“You can tell from his way of speaking. He’s that type.”
“I was a bit worried he might talk about us on his broadcast, so I looked him up a little, and this bastard’s hun-tube videos are all just crazy… If anyone’s thinking of looking him up, absolutely don’t. Really the worst. Ugh!”
Kim Chansol flipped his phone over and frowned.
To think they’d almost gotten caught by a guy who received a million won donation and filmed a mukbang eating monster innards inside a tower as a reaction. Just being in the same place as him made him nauseous.
“Come on, let’s stop talking about weird guys and have a toast? It’s fortunate that even though a dungeon suddenly burst open, we conquered it well without anyone getting hurt, and let’s continue conquering towers safely in the future!”
Samin quickly suggested a toast, seeing this as his chance. There was no point in bringing up the hunter who’d mentioned Timer again – it would only make Doun uncomfortable.
“Cheers!”
Swept up in the atmosphere of everyone clinking glasses saying they’d all worked hard, Doun also grabbed a paper cup that caught his eye. Then Choi Jiyoon, who was standing across from him, clinked glasses with him saying “Cheers!” with a smile.
Though it was just a simple toast, it felt like he’d now properly settled in as a member of the guild. Feeling elated, Doun gulped down the drink in his paper cup, then his eyebrows twitched.
‘…Is it just me?’
He thought he felt a fizzy carbonation, then a pungent yet sweet taste lingered on his tongue. Doun stared at his paper cup. The color was definitely cola, but why did it taste like soju?
‘Not only have my eyes gone bad, now my tongue too?’
Doun was seriously worrying about his condition when Hong Chan, sitting next to him, started pouring soju over cola.
“Hm? Did I add too little soju?”
“Chan, don’t you even know the soju-cola ratio? Should noona mix it for you?”
“No, I definitely mixed it right earlier… That’s weird.”
Hong Chan kept tilting his head in confusion. His cup and Doun’s had definitely been switched. Relieved that his tongue wasn’t the problem, Doun found the long-missed taste of soju fantastic.
‘The doctor didn’t say to absolutely never drink, and he did say to control it when I really had to drink… On a day like today, it should be fine to drink, right?’
Doun swallowed his saliva. Having quickly rationalized it, he quietly filled his glass with soju. Everyone was busy grilling meat and chattering about dungeon conquest rewards, so they didn’t notice Doun’s stealthy movements. Not even Samin, who was standing closest to Doun grilling meat.
‘Damn, I need to feed Doun hyung meat, but why won’t it cook!’
Samin glared at the bright red charcoal. His attention was entirely focused on the meat. The memory of that weird squid-like guy bothering them in the dungeon and making Doun anxious was still vivid.
To comfort such a Doun, he needed to feed him lots of delicious food and coddle him, but that still wouldn’t be enough. Yet this clueless beef seemed to burn quickly sometimes but other times wouldn’t cook well, slowly melting his patience.
“Hyung. The meat’s almost done. Just wait a little longer.”
“…Okay.”
Doun nodded while sipping his alcohol alone. Doun could grill meat by himself too. But he liked Samin’s kindness in insisting he’d grill it himself and telling hyung not to lift a finger.
Doun looked down at his plate, which was piled high with food the guild members had told him to try. Then he started deliberately making an empty space on one side.
‘I should put what Samin gives me here…’
Doun’s cheeks gradually reddened as he stared blankly at the appetizing meat cooking. Whether it was from the flames, the alcohol, or because of Samin was unclear.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
