#7
Kim Min-su, who belonged to the lowest-ranking employees even within the Safety Management Department, which had the lowest entry barriers within the Hunter Management Bureau, still hadn’t been able to return to his office.
“So.”
Cha Do-hyeok tapped on the table made of dark brown wood. Kim Min-su gulped and politely clasped his hands in front of him. Usually, he hated going to work so much that he headed to the office with the intention of definitely quitting someday, but now he missed that space cramped with bureaucratic atmosphere so much.
“You couldn’t find him?”
“Yes. We searched all around but he wasn’t there.”
The person Cha Do-hyeok had brought out, who was supposedly caught up in the dungeon, was nowhere to be found. Whether he had hidden well in that brief moment or escaped well, not even a strand of hair was visible.
“If that person suddenly got caught up in the dungeon, the Management Bureau shouldn’t just let it slide either.”
“Of, of course. We’ll look for him too…”
Kim Min-su had more urgent work piled up than that right now. Kim Min-su thought of the tasks he had to finish today and the reports he had to submit. Even if he went back and did them now, overtime was confirmed. He wanted to glare at the person who made him work overtime, namely Cha Do-hyeok, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so and bowed his head deeply.
“Hey, stop holding the Management Bureau employee. What have you done well?”
That’s when Won-hyeok came into the guild leader’s office, sipping instant coffee.
“Don’t you knock?”
“Ah, I forgot. Sorry.”
“Hah…”
Do-hyeok sighed and gestured to Kim Min-su, who was at a loss in front of him, that he could go. Kim Min-su thought this was his chance and escaped the guild leader’s office at the fastest speed of his life.
“Hmm. Hey. Cha Do-hyeok.”
Won-hyeok cautiously watched Do-hyeok’s mood and slowly sat on the table.
“Who exactly are you looking for? What happened inside?”
Won-hyeok asked as carefully as possible. He recalled the expression that guy had shown earlier.
‘There is. Someone who seems like they’d be interesting.’
Cha Do-hyeok’s eyes when he said those words were definitely blue. And Won-hyeok knew well when the Nameless guild leader made such expressions. When a predator quietly hides and watches its prey. Cha Do-hyeok’s eyes usually turned blue at such times. It was the same when he used skills or abilities.
When he first got to know him, he thought changing eye color might be due to some item and asked about it, but Cha Do-hyeok said firmly:
‘I don’t know either. Why I’m like this. I’ve been like this since some point.’
After that, Won-hyeok didn’t bother asking about those eyes. He just thought when the eye color changed, that guy found something interesting again.
“I told you. There’s someone who seems like they’d be interesting.”
“So what seems interesting? What exactly happened in the dungeon? What did you mean by collapsing in the first place?”
“I collapsed from a surprise attack. Briefly.”
Do-hyeok had immediately tried to find and deal with the dungeon’s owner. He thought he could make it to the meeting on time if he finished quickly, so he headed straight to the cave where the guy would likely be, but as soon as he arrived, the sword demon also seemed to sense Do-hyeok’s presence and immediately launched an attack.
“Geez… Cha Do-hyeok. Please develop some caution. In terms of caution, you’re not even as good as an A-rank. You know?”
Won-hyeok spat out the nagging he always gave Do-hyeok once more. Being the only S-rank in Korea and acting like this made even that questionable. He wondered if he acted like that because he wouldn’t die easily in most situations, or if he acted like that because he trusted his own power too much.
“I don’t die easily from such attacks.”
Losing consciousness was also brief. As soon as he opened his eyes, he was about to rush out ready to beat the guy up, but something completely unexpected was unfolding in front of him. Some unknown guy jumping around with a weapon that looked like it would break at any moment. He even managed to land a hit with that pathetic weapon. On an S-rank monster, no less. And then he said:
‘I’m just a civilian, you know?’
It wasn’t funny at all. He seemed to really have collapsed, so he brought him out for now, but even that turned out to be a lie. Maybe he should fix his habit of letting his guard down, as Kang Won-hyeok said.
“Yes yes. I’m sure you would.”
Won-hyeok shook his head and poured the remaining coffee into his mouth.
“If you want to find that interesting person or whatever, at least give me a rough description. Or try drawing a picture or something.”
“A picture?”
“Yeah. To show the kids too. Tell them to say something if they happen to see him while active.”
It wasn’t a bad idea coming from Kang Won-hyeok. Do-hyeok picked up the scrap paper and ballpoint pen beside him without hesitation. How did he look again? His hair was definitely neat black, and he was wearing a navy hoodie. His face was…
Do-hyeok recalled the face of the opponent he had observed closely before the dungeon collapsed. For a man, he was quite pretty. Thinking of that appearance, Do-hyeok slowly moved his hand.
“Here.”
“Oh, right. Let me see…”
Won-hyeok’s face crumpled in real time as he received the scrap paper Do-hyeok gave him.
“…Hey, didn’t your fans definitely say that? That there’s nothing you can’t do.”
“I don’t know. I’m not interested in such things.”
“Now I know. What you can’t do. Did you call this drawing a picture?”
Won-hyeok shook his head looking at the drawing that looked like it was drawn by a fifth-grade elementary school kid. It seemed useless to show this to the guild members, but since he had brought it up, he couldn’t take it back.
“Spread it around as much as possible to make it a big rumor.”
“Uh huh. Okay…”
He should definitely say it wasn’t drawn by Cha Do-hyeok. Won-hyeok resolved to protect his friend’s image and left the guild leader’s office.
* * *
“So you were going to the store that day but turned back?”
Ha-seong asked, stabbing his spoon deep into his rice bowl.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. Why does Boss Park go around saying useless things…”
Boss Kim laughed heartily and slurped his soup.
So to explain what happened…
Ha-seong, who had experienced all sorts of things in the dungeon and returned, succeeded in secretly escaping from there. But since he couldn’t carry out the original plan of rescuing Boss Kim, he was wondering if he should really report to the Hunter Management Bureau, when he received a text from Boss Kim.
[Boss Kim: Ha-seong, what are you doing? If you’re free, let’s have dinner together.]
What kind of ghostly nonsense was this? Someone who was caught up in a dungeon with unknown life or death suddenly contacts to have dinner together. But it turned out Boss Kim was blocked by a Hunter Management Bureau employee when trying to go to the store that time and immediately returned home. Not knowing this, Boss Park from the door-to-door business had been wandering around the street entrance.
“Hah… Then you should have at least answered your phone…”
“No, the battery was dead. When you get to my age, you keep forgetting such things.”
It was fortunate that the boss was safe, but then what did Ha-seong enter that S-rank dungeon for, nearly die, and encounter some strange hunter?
Ha-seong recalled the face of the hunter he met in that dungeon. He was definitely quite skilled, and he looked familiar somehow, which had been bothering him all along. To think he had to face a hunter of all people. As soon as he crossed the gate, he erased his presence as much as possible and ran away, but he still couldn’t feel at ease.
After that, Ha-seong went around all sorts of hunter-related communities and cafes, searching intensively to see if there were any rumors about that incident. Fortunately, there was nothing noticeable, but just in case, he joined all the cafes and communities and even set up notifications. The only fortunate thing was that most of such sites allowed registration even with a purifier status.
“But Ha-seong. What’s that pig next to you?”
Ah, he had forgotten. Ha-seong glared at the boar sitting quietly beside him, now small enough to be pet-sized.
[Heh.]
The boar made a strange sound and looked at Ha-seong, acting cute in a way that wouldn’t work. As if the headache from that incident wasn’t enough, a small and insignificant lump had attached itself. If he had known that this guy had stuck to his leg when being dragged out by that unknown hunter that day, he would have removed it long ago.
“Some pig I don’t know.”
“Huh? Really? Then shouldn’t you send it to a zoo or something?”
[That’s too much! Ha-seong-nim!]
From that day on, even when told to please get lost, this pig started following him around calling him ‘Ha-seong-nim.’ That S-rank dungeon was too harsh and scary for a low-grade species like himself to live in, or something. Moreover, these days dungeons were all processed by hunters and collapsed, so there was nowhere else to live.
“Just ignore it and eat.”
“Right. You eat quickly too. It’ll get cold.”
That’s when Ha-seong was taking a spoonful of hot sundae soup. A notification rang from his phone. When he turned on the screen, it was a notification from a fairly large hunter cafe.
Title: Absurd Request Spread by Nameless Guild
Author: Anonymous
Since Nameless Guild wasn’t a subject of much interest, he was going to ignore it, but Ha-seong strangely couldn’t ignore the title that appeared in the notification preview. Moreover, the fact that it triggered his notification settings might mean it was a post Ha-seong should see. He eventually put down his spoon and entered the cafe.
Did your guild also receive the request that Nameless spread? They gave some weird composite sketch(?) and asked to contact them if you know that face.
Even though it was just posted, comments began appearing in real time below.
– It came to our guild too. But who drew that picture? lol
– I saw it too but can you even call that a composite sketch? It looked like an earthworm.
⌙ lololol earthworm so funny
– What? Is there some information Nameless spread? I didn’t get it.
⌙ Yeah. They spread some composite sketch asking to contact them if you’ve seen that person.
⌙ Really? Me too, show me the picture. I’m curious.
⌙ Wait.
Ha-seong kept refreshing and watching the comments. What was this inexplicable anxiety? And soon a new comment appeared below.
– (photo)
Ha-seong quickly clicked the image to enlarge it. The drawing skill seemed equivalent to an elementary school student, but Ha-seong felt a strange sense of familiarity from that earthworm-like drawing.
‘No way, that can’t be… How could this thing be me…’
[This is definitely Ha-seong-nim at first glance! It looks exactly like you.]
Ha-seong glared at the small pig that was looking at his phone together from the seat next to him. To think that pig would bring up the anxiety he had barely suppressed. After thinking for a while, he eventually wrote a comment.
– But are you sure it was spread by Nameless? I mean, it’s not like that guild has nothing to do, so why?
Ha-seong ignored Boss Kim’s Confucian words about not looking at phones at the dinner table and kept refreshing.
⌙ Don’t know about that. But it definitely came from Nameless.
⌙ Who spread it?
Ha-seong commented on the comment again and gulped. Then a new comment immediately appeared.
⌙ Nameless Guild Leader Cha Do-hyeok.
Fuck. He was screwed.
Ha-seong collapsed gloriously onto the table in front of his sundae soup that he hadn’t even taken a single spoonful of.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
