Chapter 6: The Man Named Ju Yiryeong

#6

[Oriax, the Demon of Lemegeton, reveals their true name to the opponent.]

[Oriax, the Demon of Lemegeton, snarls for them to remove their hand from the seal!]

When the demons of Lemegeton reveal their true names, they can make their opponents see their ‘scripture.’ Geon Ita must have seen Oriax’s words, undoubtedly.

Geon Ita, who had been staring into thin air, let out a low rumble in his throat. It was a hollow, mirthless laugh.

Indeed, skill or no skill, the Geon Ita before him was nothing short of a final boss to Dokyeom at this moment.

Geon Ita was a difficult individual. Dokyeom had set him up that way. From the moment he was created, he moved and acted as if he were a living creature independent of Dokyeom’s control.

Geon Ita lacked a clear sense of purpose; his actions varied based on his whims, desires, or even the day’s weather and circumstances.

He wasn’t arrogant, yet he didn’t prioritize good either. He was a man who straddled the line between good and evil according to his own subjective judgment.

Thus, his sole motivations were interest and caprice. At least, that was how he was at this particular time.

Dokyeom saw Geon Ita’s lips part slightly. His mouth, which had been forming words, was on the verge of uttering a sound.

“Mr. Ita!”

Someone grabbed Geon Ita’s clothes from behind, pulling him back.

“Were you bothering someone else again? I explicitly told you not to. And what am I supposed to do when you suddenly disappear like that? I clearly told you not to leave me alone!”

The person who had pulled Geon Ita back was a man with a pale face and soft brown hair. Dokyeom thought he seemed frail.

He looked incredibly young, delicate enough to inspire a desire to protect him. There was a fresh, vibrant aura about him, like someone who had just reached adulthood.

Above all, he was quite handsome.

“Let go.”

Geon Ita replied coldly, without even turning his head. His tone was incredibly low, yet sharp. The pale man flinched, quickly releasing Geon Ita’s clothes and backing away.

“Ah… I’m sorry. I got carried away in my haste… But please, don’t leave me alone next time. Did you forget our promise?”

“Promise?”

Geon Ita’s eyes curved into a crescent shape. It was a smile filled with utter mockery. The young man, who had been staring blankly at the sight, quickly lowered his head.

His gaze, unable to find a place to settle, drifted aimlessly.

“Ah… um, by the way, who is this person? Is this someone you know, Mr. Ita?”

Eventually, his gaze landed on Dokyeom. It was then that Geon Ita’s fingertips, having lost interest, finally dropped from Dokyeom’s chin.

“Some bastard I don’t know.”

“Yes, I don’t know this bastard either.”

Dokyeom retorted, quoting Geon Ita’s words verbatim. Geon Ita’s gaze briefly touched him, but then quickly, without a trace of lingering interest, moved away.

“Uh… Mr. Ita isn’t a bad person, but he sometimes acts like that. I’ll apologize on his behalf. You’re the Hunter who worked inside today, aren’t you? Oh, but you have a Lemegeton seal…?

“Perhaps Mr. Ita was just curious. It’s rare to find someone with a Lemegeton seal, after all.”

The man left behind in Geon Ita’s wake prattled on to Dokyeom. His glances at the seal were peculiar, somehow.

It was indescribable, yet it seemed as if he was trying to confirm something. Knowing it was polite to agree in such situations, Dokyeom simply nodded vaguely in affirmation.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like we’ll ever see each other again… But why grab someone’s chin out of nowhere? Ah… it still hurts. It’s not like an E-ranker has business with him anyway.”

“You’re E-rank… ?”

“Yes, I am. Why?”

At the mention of E-rank, the man’s eyes widened. He kept glancing at the seal, seemingly unable to believe it.

It made sense. Those born with a demon’s seal from the Lemegeton ranks were typically high-grade.

“Ah, I apologize. That must have offended you. My name is Ju Uiryeong, a Hunter belonging to the Uwha Guild. I’m an A-rank Hunter.”

Dokyeom’s eyes blazed.

Ah-ha.

His lips twitched, perhaps because the impure emotion that had been simmering in his chest suddenly surged. The way he deliberately stated his A-rank status, and the subtle shift in his tone as soon as he learned Dokyeom’s rank, showed that he hadn’t shed his arrogant habits even here.

This bastard.

Dokyeom, too, smiled and politely stated his name.

“I am Han Dokyeom.”

“Han Dokyeom…?”

Ju Uiryeong tilted his head, as if he had never heard the name before. Which was likely true.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ju Uiryeong.”

Dokyeom offered his hand for a handshake, a smile friendlier than anyone else’s gracing his lips.

“Yes? Ah… yes, you too.”

Ju Uiryeong, who had been responding with an awkward expression, subtly contorted his face the moment he saw Dokyeom’s hand. Dokyeom’s hand was stained with monster blood, and beneath his fingernails were black remnants—whether corpses or filth, it was impossible to tell.

The clean, slender hand and the soiled one scrutinized and defined each other’s status, representing two extremes in position and form.

While one was struggling with poverty in an E-rank body, the other had seized an A-rank Hunter’s body and was basking in the world’s favor.

‘Ju Uiryeong.’

The protagonist of the novel ‘A World of Supporting Characters,’ who assisted Geon Ita, and also the pen name used by the novel’s author.

Dokyeom still remembered that day vividly. The name that had instantly caught his eye in the very first scene of the novel, which he had read immediately after receiving a plagiarism report from a core reader.

Every supporting character born and moving within that novel bore a resemblance to the characters in Dokyeom’s own story. Only their names differed; their appearances, personalities, backgrounds, and even their abilities were uncannily similar.

This was because Ju Uiryeong, who had subtly approached Dokyeom, had first inquired about and shown interest in his characters.

However, among all those characters, there was one who had uniquely escaped that imitation. That was ‘Han Dokyeom.’

Why had only ‘Han Dokyeom’ been spared? The reason was simple: Dokyeom had never mentioned Han Dokyeom to that bastard, Ju Uiryeong. Moreover, he wasn’t a prominent character in the story.

‘Dokyeom, I didn’t abandon you.’

‘I was merely keeping you hidden.’

‘Han Dokyeom’ was Dokyeom’s creation, meticulously crafted second only to Geon Ita. And the reason he had to be treated as an extra in the early parts, without detailed settings or descriptions, also held a significant narrative purpose.

Dokyeom had kept it hidden and concealed for the sake of a single word: ‘twist.’ For later.

‘Han Dokyeom’ was a hidden iceberg, and this novel was a catastrophic turning point.

It was truly fortunate.

“I… it’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Han Dokyeom.”

Until their body heat met and formed a handshake, the wide smile on Dokyeom’s lips never faded.

‘It was truly fortunate that ‘Han Dokyeom’ had not caught that bastard’s eye.’

A breeze from somewhere carried a demon’s whisper to his ear: to cultivate the ‘power’ to crush them from their roots.

Dokyeom hoped this ‘skill’ obtained from Geon Ita would prove to be good news.

****

It was two days after encountering Geon Ita and Ju Uiryeong. This morning, as soon as Dokyeom woke up, he spread a notebook in his room and fell into deep thought, gazing at the lines drawn on the blank pages. His phone, lying beside him, blinked intermittently.

His room, which had been like a pigsty, had become a reasonably habitable home thanks to two days of sweeping and cleaning. Four-fifths of the day’s wages he received from being deployed to the gate as a guerrilla Hunter went to overdue rent, and his refrigerator was finally stocked with edible food.

The pouring sunlight was still but a speck, yet he was satisfied that it briefly filled his tiny home before passing, making life bearable.

The problem, however, was what exactly *this* was.

[Overdue date has passed. Deposit immediately.]

The message appeared on the screen of his old-model phone. The sender was ‘Gwangmyeong Guild,’ a guild Dokyeom had never heard of, whose members spoke with the tone of common thugs.

Dokyeom looked down at the message with a complex expression. As he propped his chin, sunlight shimmered on his pale cheek.

The messages had been continuously arriving since yesterday. After reviewing the detailed conversation history, he understood why ‘Han Dokyeom’ was so destitute he was practically starving.

At first, he had let out a hollow laugh in disbelief, but now, ‘Han Dokyeom’s’ gullibility infuriated him. It wasn’t just ordinary gullibility; it was abyssal.

It was probably the guild ‘Han Dokyeom’ belonged to, but since there was no contract when he searched the room, it was likely an illegally established guild or a malicious one that exploited Hunters by extorting their earnings.

‘Han Dokyeom’ had handed over more than two thousand (currency units) to this guild. And that was in just two and a half years.

“No, Dokyeom, you really… hah.”

‘Han Dokyeom, what on earth have you been doing until now, you gullible idiot?’

As mentioned, the problem was that he had no idea where this Gwangmyeong Guild was located. Staying put felt unsettling, but going there to cause trouble was risky, fearing repercussions. After all, he was a powerless E-ranker.

Tap-tap-

The pen, clutched in his long fingers, tapped against the notebook.

“…Right, let’s just settle down first and then deal with this.”

There were still mountains of things for ‘Han Dokyeom’ to resolve. He hadn’t even properly untangled the first thread, so there was no need to poke around and deliberately sow seeds of conflict. Yes, it wasn’t too late to raid, capture, or overturn the exploitative guild after he had established himself.

Dokyeom deleted all messages containing threats, blocked the number, and then tossed his phone aside.

Only then did the white background of the notebook catch his eye. The lines drawn on the pure white surface evoked memories of the day he encountered Geon Ita, as well as the skill that had blossomed at that very moment.