#34
Thanks to Yu-han, Ha-seong safely escaped from the office and killed some time after that. He had planned to tattle on Lee Hyeon-woo’s misdeeds when Cha Do-hyeok returned, but it seemed he had gone quite far to the ‘mountains’ for his business trip and would be away for a long time.
To begin with, Do-hyeok’s direct team was useless without Do-hyeok anyway. Thanks to that, he enjoyed the feeling of somewhat stealing his salary before going back into the office. If he stayed away too long, that gang would probably make a fuss about discriminatory treatment or whatever, so even if he was slacking off, he planned to do it inside.
While organizing his thoughts on how to investigate the gate that was supposedly artificially influenced, Ha-seong slowly entered the office.
“Oh? Ha-seong-ssi.”
Just then, Lee Hyeon-woo, who had been stealing his salary just like Ha-seong in the conference room, stood up with a smile and gestured. It was a signal to come here for a moment. Looking around, the two people who were always stuck together weren’t visible.
“Why?”
“Ah, well, I have something I want to say to Ha-seong-ssi.”
Why is he suddenly acting like this? Where did that annoying bastard who had been spewing sarcastic and rude words day and night go? Hyeon-woo scratched his head awkwardly while gauging Ha-seong’s reaction.
“What is it?”
Ha-seong narrowed his eyes and hesitated for a moment before sitting across from Hyeon-woo. Then he also sat down and cleared his throat.
“Ahem, well, that is… I’m sorry.”
“Pardon?”
“After Yu-han said that and you left, I thought about it and I think I went too far.”
Oh ho, look at this guy. Ha-seong swallowed his laughter internally and stared at Hyeon-woo as if to say ‘let’s see you try.’
“Actually, there was a hyung I really looked up to on the purifier team, and he left here not long ago. Since Ha-seong-ssi came in as his replacement, I think I became a bit sensitive. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Ah.”
“I wanted to apologize, but you kept not coming into the office, so I was waiting.”
Where is he putting on this unconvincing act? If you’re going to do fake acting like that, it’ll never work. Because Do Ha-seong is the biggest expert at fake acting! As Ha-seong who had acted the sad struggle of a purifier who wanted to become a hunter but couldn’t due to lack of ability, distinguishing whether this was acting or real was a piece of cake.
“Thank you for saying that.”
He wanted to smack his head and ask where he was trying to sell his snake oil, but he became curious about why this guy was suddenly acting like this. He needed to know the rotten ulterior motive behind suddenly changing his tune to apologize and even putting on a lousy act within just a few hours.
“I’ll accept Hyeon-woo-ssi’s apology.”
Ha-seong grabbed Hyeon-woo’s hand firmly with a benevolent smile that would never appear again. Seeing his expression waver for a moment, Ha-seong became even more certain that this bastard was lying.
“Ah, then since it’s Ha-seong-ssi’s first time joining our purifier team, let’s go out together.”
“Now?”
“Yes. You haven’t done any purification work as a purifier for Nameless Guild yet, right? Usually when a newcomer joins, the seniors show them directly – that’s the custom. It’s a bit late for Ha-seong-ssi, but fortunately there’s a low-grade gate case today. If we go out now, it’ll be perfect timing.”
Was there such a custom? He hadn’t heard anything particular from Do-hyeok or Yu-han. Well, whether it was real or not didn’t matter. Ha-seong’s purpose was to find out that dirty scheme. Who knows? If he played along appropriately and got picked on a bit, he might be able to use that as an excuse to get back at that bastard.
“Yes. Let’s go out then.”
Ha-seong grinned and followed behind Hyeon-woo. The location wasn’t very far from Nameless’s office. Perhaps because it was a gate that had been predicted in advance, the surroundings were strictly controlled, and thanks to that, not a single civilian was visible.
When Hyeon-woo and Ha-seong showed their purifier licenses, the Management Bureau staff controlling the area silently cleared the way. Walking forward a bit more, the entrance to a dungeon that was familiar to the point of being sick of seeing it came into view.
They said it was a low grade, and indeed the energy he could feel was weak.
“Well then, it’s still being conquered, but I’ll show you how Nameless does purification.”
He had heard that each guild had different purification styles. But that bastard’s purpose was definitely not that.
“Would you like to get closer to the gate?”
Ah, now he roughly got a sense of what he was trying to do. Ha-seong let out a small sigh and approached closer to the gate. Probably…
“What should I do now?”
Ha-seong asked in a pure voice without a single trace of suspicion.
Thud-
He felt his back being pushed, and Ha-seong’s body leaned forward. Even as his body slowly crossed over into the gate, Ha-seong maintained an indifferent expression with the thought ‘I knew it.’
“Idiot.”
With Lee Hyeon-woo’s laughing mutter from behind as the finale, Ha-seong completely entered inside the dungeon.
“Ah, that fucking little shit, really.”
Ha-seong cursed harshly for the first time in a while and let out a deep sigh. That bastard must really hate Ha-seong. Enough to screw him over this much.
“I was just playing along appropriately.”
Even though he had noticed all of Hyeon-woo’s schemes, the reason he stayed still was because he thought it would be better to go with the appearance of getting picked on a little. That way he could expose that bastard’s misdeeds to others in all their naked truth. Of course, Hyeon-woo would probably try to frame it as Ha-seong’s fault, saying it was a simple accident or that Ha-seong violated control duties, but Ha-seong had a trump card.
“I’ll tell Cha Do-hyeok everything.”
What else would he use his friendship with the Guild Leader for? Even though Ha-seong was on Do-hyeok’s direct team, Hyeon-woo probably didn’t know they were the kind of relationship that shared secrets and even made certain deals.
“Should I hide for a bit then?”
Anyway, this was a predicted dungeon and the grade didn’t seem that high. Since the Nameless team had stepped up, it would be resolved quickly, and until then Ha-seong slowly moved his feet with the thought of hiding his body. When he got out, he would really smack Lee Hyeon-woo’s head this time. He’d bring the pig too and make it bite his butt.
Come to think of it, since it had come to this, should he secretly do some farming? Since the grade was low, there wasn’t much worth getting and it would probably fail properly, but wouldn’t a little bit be okay? While thinking such thoughts and walking while looking at the ground, something caught on his foot.
Ha-seong stopped his thoughts and looked at what had caught on his foot.
“……”
What caught Ha-seong’s eye was a creature similar to a hedgehog, slightly larger than a shoe.
“Mm.”
Ha-seong narrowed his eyes and continued making eye contact with the hedgehog. He had definitely seen this guy somewhere before. A monster with steel spines that could shoot out those spines indefinitely. Right, he remembered.
But the problem was why this monster was here.
Because this guy was an A-grade monster. One that only inhabited A-grade or higher dungeons. Just as Ha-seong was furrowing his brow, the cute-looking monster bristled its spines.
“Ah, shit.”
Ha-seong quickly moved away from it and deployed his shield. Sharp steel spines hit Ha-seong’s shield and fell away.
For a hastily deployed barrier, it seemed to have held up well fortunately. Ha-seong first retreated further back, further away. If it was the monster Ha-seong knew, that guy probably wouldn’t attack unless you got close or threatened it.
Ha-seong hid behind various scattered debris and thought. The appearance of an A-grade monster meant this place was at least an A-grade or higher dungeon. According to Lee Hyeon-woo, this dungeon’s predicted grade was at most C to B.
Then had Lee Hyeon-woo lied? That probably wasn’t it. If so, that bastard would have been a real piece of trash delinquent, but to begin with, even from Ha-seong’s perspective, this dungeon’s energy wasn’t that much or high in density.
Then, that is, there was one hypothesis he could consider.
“The grade went up.”
At that moment, Ha-seong suddenly recalled the dungeon where he first met Do-hyeok. That dungeon had also artificially risen in grade, hadn’t it? There was a high possibility it was the same now.
Then it was definitely worth investigating.
After taking a deep breath, Ha-seong came back out from behind the debris. First, he needed to search the dungeon interior comprehensively. To do that, he had to move forward, but that hedgehog monster was still firmly blocking the middle of the path.
Since it was a small guy, it seemed like he could pass by without necessarily fighting, but that was also uncertain. Because even when Ha-seong moved just a little bit, it raised its spines higher. If he passed by like this, a spine would definitely get stuck somewhere.
“I really hate getting hurt.”
Ha-seong stretched out his right hand with his palm facing upward. He brought his thumb and middle finger together in a gesture like when flicking someone’s forehead and strongly applied force to his fingertips.
Then, perhaps sensing something ominous, the hedgehog also bristled its spines even more aggressively.
“Since you won’t move, I have no choice.”
[Activating Trait Air, Skill ‘Air Gun’ (S).]
At the same time the status window appeared, Ha-seong flicked his finger. Then a sharp wind sound was heard, and a few seconds later, the small hedgehog instantly lost consciousness and flew far away. Like shooting with a gun, Ha-seong accurately hit that monster with his skill even from a distance.
That wasn’t all. From the skill’s shockwave, the road became distorted and the surrounding debris broke beyond recognition and flew away with the monster.
In short, everything around there collapsed.
“It’s been a while so my sense is off.”
Ha-seong dusted off his hands and looked around just in case. Before using the attack skill, he had checked the surroundings with a search skill in advance, but fortunately there were no hunters. Still, just in case, after checking once more, Ha-seong slowly took his steps.
The spot where the small but strong A-grade monster had just been was broken beyond recognition of its original form. All of that was the effect of a single attack. Ha-seong thought he should have collected at least one A-grade monster spine while casually leaving that place with an unconcerned expression.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
