The relaxed voice, with not a trace of tension or fluster, continued as calmly as ever.

“This one’s a little like that. I’m sure there wasn’t any bad intent.”

“For someone without bad intent, the language was pretty rough....”

“Even so, from what I heard from a distance, it sounds like you were the one who started picking a fight. If you came here to do something good, you should try getting along with people too. I know you’ve got an aggressive personality... but you should at least pick your targets.”

“I wasn’t planning to fight anyone on this side anyway. Murder would be a problem for me too.”

After saying that, Chase held my gaze for a moment, then let out a short laugh and walked off. Only after he turned the corner and disappeared completely did the hand that had been covering my mouth fall away.

“Hey, even if you are a psychopath, you can’t go around fighting just anybody.”

I had already known through the news that Sung Uijae was coming here too.

I just hadn’t expected to run into him again at a timing like this.

I rubbed around my mouth, turned, and faced Sung Uijae.

“It’s been a while.”

“I kept contacting you. You’re the one who didn’t look.”

“Ah.”

After he’d started saying bullshit last time, I blocked him and then completely forgot to ever undo it. At my lukewarm reaction, Sung Uijae’s eyes narrowed.

“You didn’t block me, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The way you answered that so obediently tells me you did block me.”

I didn’t think we’d even met that many times, so why the hell was he this quick on the uptake?

“Undo it.”

“You only ever send pointless things anyway, so if that’s all it is, wouldn’t it be better to just make social media accounts and post there?”

At some point, Sung Uijae had stopped acting like talking to me was the goal and started acting like he was just sending texts because he had nowhere else to dump useless nonsense.

Like sending me blog posts about the top five hidden scenic [N O V E L I G H T] spots in Korea and then asking, 'Does it look similar in person?' that kind of thing. Of course, I never replied to texts like that.

'No, seriously, what the hell was I supposed to say about some palace tour in Korea in the first place?'

Sung Uijae answered without embarrassment.

“I don’t know how to use social media. And it’s not like I want to talk to random people.”

“I understand. If you made one anyway, all you’d get is hate comments, so for the sake of your mental health, it’s probably best to restrain yourself.”

“We haven’t seen each other in a while, so why are you talking like this from the start?”

At Sung Uijae’s words, I nodded and pressed hard at my stiff eyes and the space between my brows.

“...Is something wrong with your condition?”

The voice asking that sounded like he was trying not to believe it, but there was an unnecessary amount of suspicion in it. I flicked a brow and slowly rubbed down my face.

“I’m fine.”

“Then why were you fighting with Chase Holt? Come on, you always have to consider weight class first. ...No, forget it. Come to think of it, you do this even to me and the Haeseong guild master, so....”

Clicking his tongue like he understood, Sung Uijae took a step back. I ignored him and checked my phone again. Maybe something else had come up on Im Haekyung’s side, because there was still no reply.

“Hunter Seo.”

“Yes?”

At Sung Uijae’s low voice suddenly calling me, I lifted my head belatedly.

“But seriously, why are you here?”

What the hell was this now.

Right as I started genuinely wondering whether he was picking a fight too after Chase, Sung Uijae continued explaining.

“Holt definitely spoke to you because he wanted to start something, but even I think it’s strange. You’re... not someone who should be in a Gate like this. The Gate rank is way too high. In the first place, wasn’t the support request sent to the Haeseong guild master?”

“The Haeseong guild master told me to go.”

“...They sent you? Why? Did you have some huge fight recently?”

Did that count as a fight? It was closer to Im Haekyung getting angry unilaterally.

'Well, more than being angry, it was really that they were using me while neatly keeping the justification on hand too.'

I just shrugged instead of answering, and Sung Uijae suddenly looked around with a serious expression before lowering his voice.

“Are you still seeing them?”

“Seeing who.”

“The Haeseong guild master. I’m asking if you’re still keeping that relationship going.”

“......?”

I furrowed my brow slightly and tilted my head.

“Yes?”

“This is driving me crazy. Break up already. From what I can tell, you’re honestly not exactly a good person either, but if the two of you are together, you’re the one who loses out just... just very, very slightly more.”

“...What?”

It took me a second to understand the bullshit Sung Uijae had suddenly thrown out.

“Ah... right.”

The last thing he’d said to me the last time we spoke had been that nonsense about whether I was really dating Im Haekyung, so it seemed he was still misunderstanding things in that direction.

“So you’re seriously going into an S-rank Gate because of that? If it were me, I’d never do it.”

“I was just planning to go in, stay put, look after a few injured Hunters, and improve public opinion a little.”

“.......”

I had no particular intention of correcting a misunderstanding he was insisting on having, but the fact that he was worrying in a way that didn’t suit him was funny enough that I kindly explained the situation.

“I hit someone with a car, so public opinion’s fucked. Guild Master Im said they’d clean that up for me, so they sent me here to go do something nice.”

“I saw the articles too. You really hit them?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t one of those sudden-acceleration accidents?”

“Yes.”

At my answer, Sung Uijae stared at empty air in silence for a moment. Around the time that strange silence was starting to get boring, he spoke again.

“So it’s true that you hate S-rank Hunters?”

“No?”

“Then why did you do that?”

“They weren’t answering their phone.”

“You don’t answer my messages. So it’s okay when you do it, but not when someone else does? What kind of bullshit logic is that?”

I checked the time and cut him off roughly.

“Then I’ll be on my way.”

“What?”

“The meeting starts at two, so I need to sleep a bit before then.”

“.......”

“My condition’s fine. I’m just sleepy.”

“You really are... the weirdest, most emotionally barren bastard I’ve ever met.”

Saying that, Sung Uijae laughed under his breath like he couldn’t believe it, then abruptly grabbed my cheek hard with one hand.

“You should’ve graduated from getting temperamental when you’re sleepy and hungry by the time you were five. Aren’t you twenty-five now? Young, sure, but still.”

“Yes, I’m young.”

“Stop picking fights with Hunters, and don’t say anything at the meeting in a little while either. I’m sure the Haeseong guild master already told you to keep your mouth shut anyway.”

“Are you going into the Dungeon?”

“I have to. I’ll do my job too.”

With that, Sung Uijae let go of my face. He kept looking at me until the very end, then abruptly turned and left.

When I went back to the lounge and opened the door, I saw Joo Seowon half-lying against the sofa.

“Seo Jehyun?”

“So you weren’t asleep.”

“.......”

I sat down in a chair, tossed my things roughly onto the table, and leaned back. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“What were you doing out there?”

“Ah, nothing much. Someone just started shit.”

“What?”

“I’m too sleepy for my brain to work right now. I’ll explain later.”

“Hey, wait...!”

As soon as I said that, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was already almost time for the meeting. I rubbed my face to half wake myself up and glanced over at Joo Seowon.

Whether they’d been awake the whole time or just hadn’t slept at all, I didn’t know, but they looked perfectly fine, staring at their phone.

“...You’re up?”

“Yeah.”

I got up, straightened my clothes, and gathered my things.

The whole way to the meeting room, Joo Seowon had gone quiet again. Whatever they were thinking about alone, most of it was bound to be useless thoughts.

'They think too damn much, seriously.'

I looked at Joo Seowon for a moment, then pushed open the meeting room door.

The first thing I saw was the chief official of Australia’s disaster response organization, the kind of face I’d only ever seen on the news.

'Are those all members of parliament over there?'

With the multinational Hunters gathered in one place alongside the person who had guided me here, the overall picture looked pretty awful.

'This is organized as hell.'

Well, our country probably went through a meeting like this too. It was only that I hadn’t seen it because the person who had attended it later instantly teleported me away with a Teleport Box.

I seated Joo Seowon in one of the empty assigned seats and sat beside them.

Before long, the empty seats filled one by one, and the meeting truly began. For the record, neither I nor Joo Seowon had anything to say. That had never been the point in the first place. We were just supposed to sit there quietly.

“It would be best to split the entry into a total of three waves. We should send the first suppression and search team in first....”

“It would be better to send high-rank Hunters in from the start and handle it that way. Early suppression is the most important thing, and if we get it wrong, the first-entry Hunters could be seriously injured.”

“But if S-rank Hunters get injured or die, that becomes a much bigger issue. There are already precedents of other Hunters dying after entering S-rank Dungeons....”

At that moment, Chase suddenly snatched up a microphone. The screeching feedback sound threw the room into silence for a moment.

“Isn’t this just because all of you are scared of being in the first entry? I’ll go.”

“....... ”

At Chase’s bold declaration, the room went quiet once again.

“My Skills work on most things. Unless it’s a truly ridiculous edge case.... So, can I put together the first-entry team myself?”

“...How would you like to do that?”

“First, my crew. I’ll take all the Hunters who came with me... and then I want to take a few Hunters from other countries who seem like they’d have good synergy with us.”

“Which Hunters from other countries do you mean...?”

At that, Chase calmly looked around the room and spoke.

“We don’t have a healing-type Hunter, so we need one. Hazel Moore?”

“...Hazel?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Good. And... just in case, it’d be nice to have a Hunter capable of flight for reconnaissance. Diego Sanchez.... The rank’s low, but the experience is solid, right?”

“Yes, I... am fine with that as well.”

I lazily watched the team being assembled one by one, and the moment I lifted my head, Chase’s eyes met mine in what felt like a suspiciously convenient coincidence.

“And that one too.”

What?

Before I could even say anything, Joo Seowon grabbed my arm tightly under the desk. Judging by the force in their grip, they seemed to want to say something, but unfortunately I still hadn’t learned telepathy, so I had no way of knowing what they meant.

I thought about it for a second, then gave the answer that seemed the most likely to work.

“Ah, no thanks.”