Damn Hunter Life Chapter 49
“…You understood what I want, right? Tell me directly if you comprehended it.”
The person making the call was calm, but Yang Pyo beside him was terrified.
Even though managers exist to receive successors’ complaints, that doesn’t mean they should act like debt collectors demanding payment like this hyung was doing…
What’s more, Manager Park Yoon-seok was accepting it all nonchalantly.
[“Even if I’m wrong, it’s not intentional, so I’ll request corrections. We’ll recruit an authoritative psychiatry professor, and although all doctors have the duty not to leak patient information, given the nature of this matter, we’ll have them sign a strict confidentiality agreement to ensure Yang Pyo successor-nim’s information doesn’t spread, then schedule counseling sessions twice a week. Is that correct?”]
“A professor? Someone that high up? Ah, yes. The more experienced the better. Please put some care into it.”
Only Yang Pyo listening felt strange. Just from the content, it sounded like Gyeon Gang-hyeon was his guardian or something.
A person who, even if Yang Pyo didn’t have everything he needed, would take care of it and work to bring necessary things from outside.
‘Just from his way of speaking, he sounds like he can solve anything with big talk…’
But seeing him insist that such problems should be left to professionals showed he accurately understood his own limits.
“Also, share every detail of the progress with me. I’ll suspect you the moment you try to gloss over even one thing.”
[“Understood.”]
Park Yoon-seok, who had been responding readily, changed his tone just once.
[“Instead of doing as you wish, there’s one condition… would you hear it?”]
Gyeon Gang-hyeon glanced at Yang Pyo, wondering if he had heard Park Yoon-seok’s words.
Fortunately, the sound was too low for him to hear. Gyeon Gang-hyeon feigned an indifferent tone, pretending it wasn’t serious.
“What is it?”
Compared to Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s brief tension wondering if this man would finally pressure him—
The content was bland.
[“I’d like to have a leisurely conversation for once. Could you spare some time? If you let me know when you’re available, I’ll adjust to that. Let’s have tea while video calling.”]
No matter how much he pondered, Gyeon Gang-hyeon couldn’t think of anything that could be Park Yoon-seok’s intention. Enough to wonder if he really wanted tea time with a scoundrel like himself.
After brief consideration, Gyeon Gang-hyeon accepted, and the deal was made.
“Fine. Answer when this number calls. He’s my manager.”
Having finished his business, Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s form smoothly disappeared. It was a return skill.
Yang Pyo stared blankly at the spot where Gyeon Gang-hyeon had left for a while.
He didn’t know what storm had passed since yesterday. His head felt distant. At the same time, reality slowly began to return.
‘I received help from Gyeon Gang-hyeon.’
If the leader finds out, I’m dead.
When Woo Sae-geon’s contemptuous gaze came to mind, Yang Pyo felt like hanging himself immediately. Yang Pyo, who had banged his head on the dining table with a thunk, began devising ways to become strangers with Gyeon Gang-hyeon when outside.
‘Even if I pretend not to know, what if Gyeon Gang-hyeon acknowledges me first? I’m screwed…’
It was just recently that he thought he could give up anything if he could stop Kim Sang-ju, but thinking about the immediate situation kept making him scared.
No matter what, Gyeon Gang-hyeon was still that ‘Gyeon Gang-hyeon.’
Even after awakening and quitting alcohol, a troublemaker who could instantly shake up Korea for better or worse the moment he stepped out.
‘No, it’s fine. I just won’t run into him! Gyeon Gang-hyeon is a newcomer so our training grounds are separate, right?’
Just wringing his hands wouldn’t do anything but make him late.
First, he’d show himself entering the training ground to get his attendance stamped on the surveillance camera, then courageously enter the training ground…! Confidently!
One second after shouting ‘confidently,’ Yang Pyo became dumbfounded seeing white sobok in his home ground, the earth training facility.
…Not running into him, what a pipe dream. Gyeon Gang-hyeon, who was a master at deflating people, waved his hand fluttering.
It was an annoying greeting after just 20 minutes.
“Why are you here?”
“Because newcomer training ended.”
“It ended?”
“Yeah. Won Ha-ri mastered it first and went under Myo Cho-hui. So I’m automatically assigned here now.”
His explanation was natural, as if he had known this would happen. Yang Pyo finally realized.
‘This hyung approached me with even the day he’d join the other successors in mind.’
He was certain. Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s help must have also included the scheme to secure connections in advance so he wouldn’t be isolated alone in group training.
‘Now I can’t even pretend not to know…’
Despite Yang Pyo’s obvious anguish, Gyeon Gang-hyeon just grinned. Yang Pyo realized he was in Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s palm.
Surely until just now, Yang Pyo had felt great gratitude toward Gyeon Gang-hyeon. He had even felt guilty for being too ungrateful. He had been grateful yet anxious, wondering why Gyeon Gang-hyeon was doing so much for him—that was just moments ago.
Now a different feeling struck him in the face.
‘Why do I want to pinch this person’s cheek just once…’
Instead of hugging him last night, I should have touched his cheek.
Whatever, forget it. Yang Pyo just gave up. That actually made him feel more comfortable.
“Why is it just you today?”
Gyeon Gang-hyeon was so shameless, forgetting the days when he couldn’t even set foot in the training ground and acting like someone who had frequented it since the beginning of time.
“Ah, that’s because we earth attributes have been training individually all along.”
“So why? No wait, I think I know why.”
Gyeon Gang-hyeon waved his hand to stop Yang Pyo’s answer mid-sentence, then suddenly smiled bitterly as if pitying them.
Yang Pyo bristled first at that.
“I’m not being ostracized!”
“I was just going to say that a certain leader and a certain idol are terribly individualistic?”
Jin Seol-woon would have withdrawn saying he couldn’t concentrate with someone beside him. Woo Sae-geon had no concept of group training. Though he occasionally joined others’ training, it was solely to correct other successors’ skills.
“Are you hesitating because you don’t want to train?”
“I’m going to do it now.”
“Raise your attribute. What will you do if I’m faster and you’re embarrassed?”
“I’m faster!”
Yang Pyo became heated and showed himself willingly stepping onto Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s palm.
Of course, he couldn’t concentrate. Whether it was because Gyeon Gang-hyeon kept entering his field of vision, his stray thoughts naturally flowed toward Gyeon Gang-hyeon too.
‘Awakening really brought a person back like that.’
His current appearance was much better than before. People really need to work after all.
He remembered Gyeon Gang-hyeon drinking every day, with only liquor bottles seeming to multiply. Watching that hyung bring shame to successors day after day, he had concluded they could never hang out like before again.
In the past, the successors had suddenly met each other after falling from the sky.
There was no such thing as ‘recreation to become friends,’ of course. A time when only gloomy sense of mission dwelt due to gates. There was no human exchange between them at all.
“Was that person’s name Woo Sae-geon? He’s really blood-curdling. That kind of person will be our leader from now on? Suffocating…”
Back then, Yang Pyo had cautiously approached Gyeon Gang-hyeon, who seemed the most spirited among the earth attributes.
What he remembered now… was that Gyeon Gang-hyeon had a thin build even back then, before experiencing awakening failure?
And a dining scene from one day came to mind.
While eating with Gyeon Gang-hyeon in the cafeteria, two became three midway.
“I’m seeing him for the first time in almost 10 years too. I moved away after elementary school.”
Because Gyeon Gang-hyeon had called over Ja Hyeong-woo, claiming they were old friends, and seated him beside them.
Yang Pyo looked back and forth between the two with curious eyes.
“You’re successors together with a friend? That’s insane fate. I also ended up here with a friend I went to entrance exam academy with, but he’s a regular hunter.”
Whether Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s words about not seeing each other since elementary school were true, they seemed affectionate yet… awkward.
Even with Yang Pyo in front of them, Ja Hyeong-woo muttered quietly without a hint of embarrassment.
“…I waited a long time after you transferred.”
“Ah, sorry about that. Anyway, we met again now.”
“You changed your number.”
“I had some things going on then. Nothing major.”
Even sitting beside him, Ja Hyeong-woo hyung would just endlessly gaze at Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s face. Without even trying to hide his gaze.
‘So are they completely estranged now…? During Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s wild days?’
Yang Pyo’s consciousness returned to reality.
That power struggle in the maze gate was no joke. They just didn’t grab each other by the collar.
“Hey, you look idle? Whew…”
Gyeon Gang-hyeon, whose appearance had become disheveled from training, leaned his trembling body against him. Yang Pyo, taking it as sarcasm, frowned.
“Hyung looks like you need to go to a hospital?”
“Man, right now my training score is better… You’re not like this because of your phobia, huk, you just can’t do it, right? I didn’t know you were this pathetic even in practice…”
Yang Pyo, infuriated by this, deliberately moved his body away.
Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s thin body, losing its support, crumpled down like a withered plant.
His powerless lower body and ankles drooped like a mermaid who had just gained legs, and his upper body was propped up by his arms. In that state, his pale face looked up at Yang Pyo.
In Yang Pyo’s hesitating eyes, Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s lips opened…
“You just can’t fight.”
He wasn’t pitiful at all.
“I’m going to take a nap. You can’t do it, so keep training. Good luck~”
Yang Pyo angrily hit the sandbag for about an hour without rest.
‘This pisses me off! Even if I were Ja Hyeong-woo hyung, I wouldn’t reconcile with that person!’
Gyeon Gang-hyeon was the first opponent Yang Pyo felt stubborn rivalry toward, wanting to beat him. Comparing records with friends and encouraging each other while teasing felt exactly like returning to the old days preparing for physical education.
Gradually, the time spent meeting Gyeon Gang-hyeon lengthened, and the sight of Gyeon Gang-hyeon standing at the doorway with a pillow became more than a one-time thing. Yang Pyo somehow forgot a certain emotion that had always pressed down on him.
What the lonely feeling of having no friends had been like.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
