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“I’m quite satisfied with Manager Im from earlier, you know?”
“Manager… Im?”
“Since you’re such a busy Section Chief, you should attend to your own matters. I’ll just get the documents from the kind Manager Im. Oh, Manager Im, would you like some coffee? I brewed it from the floor with the meeting rooms; people don’t seem to go there much, even though there are plenty of expensive options.”
‘Of course not. They’re for the executives.’
Manager Im, accepting the renowned brand coffee Han Dokyeom offered, returned to their desk with a bewildered expression and began searching for information on Lee Sanghyeon.
After printing out all the requested data for the ever-smiling Dokyeom, Manager Im sat blankly, gazing at the coffee.
Subtly, the gazes of everyone in the office had shifted. They were now discreetly watching Manager Im, a person they had never paid attention to before.
Manager Im let out a hollow laugh. It was said that one could never predict the next moment in corporate life, and indeed, their own life felt remarkably strange.
****
Han Dokyeom descended from the management team’s floor and immediately settled into the guild lobby cafe, meticulously examining the printout list Manager Im had provided. The list detailed four low-level gates, all located not far from the guild headquarters.
Every single one of these four gates fell under the purview of Instructor Lee Sanghyeon, making them, in essence, his territory, where his influence held the most sway.
All the gates were situated in Gangseo-gu, clustered closely together, ensuring that travel time between them would be minimal.
Among them, Han Dokyeom decided to visit the one closest to the guild first.
“Let’s go, Dal-i. Don’t spill that.”
Carefully attending to Dal-i, who held an XL smoothie in their small hands, Han Dokyeom casually crumpled the list and tucked it into their pocket before rising. Outside the building, the scorching sun beat down, signaling the full arrival of summer. Faint, shimmering heat haze danced above the road.
Though low-level gates belonged to the Sahyeon Guild, their low value meant they were managed by assigning tasks to others. Typically, influential hunters like instructors or Hwang Geunwoo would oversee a few, but most operations relied on hiring external hunters.
Essentially, it meant placing a supposedly trustworthy subordinate in charge of a gate. Consequently, such places were hotbeds of abuse of power, old-fashioned authoritarianism, and rampant corruption.
Now, Beom Yeonhu had found himself trapped in precisely such a den of iniquity, of all places.
“Since low-level gates start from D-rank, perhaps about five people go in at a time?”
Given that these were low-level gates primarily frequented by D-rank or E-rank hunters, the team leaders weren’t usually high-ranked either. C-rank at most?
It was unclear whether that traitorous bastard had transferred Beom Yeonhu based on his rank, or if it was an act of spite, knowing of his connection to Dokyeom. For now, only suspicions abounded.
“Ha… what am I going to do about our puppy?”
Exhaling a deep sigh, Han Dokyeom leisurely descended the guild stairs, matching Dal-i’s smaller strides. Suddenly, someone burst out from around the corner of a wall, appearing forcefully before him.
His shoulders jumped; he was quite startled. ‘What now?’
It was a man who appeared to be in his late thirties. Unfazed by Dokyeom’s startled recoil, the stranger approached him with an utterly harmless, almost pristine smile.
“Seeing you emerge from the Sahyeon Guild, I presume you’re a hunter affiliated with them?”
“Y-yes… I am?”
Dokyeom, his eyes narrowed in surprise and suspicion, scrutinized the man. He wore a suit, but it was disheveled, and his eyes were hollow, giving him an appearance that hardly suggested he was up to anything good. Yet, he seemed strangely familiar.
As that thought registered, Dokyeom suddenly recalled a crazy reporter he had seen on the news a few days prior: the one who had hung upside down from a helicopter to film a chimera! It was that mad Awakened reporter.
“Haha, Hunter-nim. This is the kind of person I am. I’m absolutely not suspicious, so don’t worry. Here, take my business card.”
With a hearty laugh, he practically thrust a business card into Dokyeom’s hand. A quick glance revealed the name ‘Ju Nohaan,’ a reporter for ‘Haeil Ilbo,’ specializing in covering hunters. Naturally, he was a character who had never appeared in the original story.
“Do you… need something from me?”
Dokyeom asked, his gaze still wary, prompting the reporter to gesture for him to come down a few steps. The man then pulled out his phone and began scrolling through something, his photo gallery filled entirely with what looked like surveillance photos. Yet, a common thread ran through the rapidly scrolling images.
They all featured pale, slender faces.
“You see, I… where was it? Ah, that day, when the Red Gate erupted. On that day, I was so eager to capture some truly impactful footage that I greedily hung upside down from a helicopter, you know? I pride myself on having filmed more than anyone else, but strangely, a nagging feeling settled deep in my chest, like something was stuck and just wouldn’t go down.”
‘What in the world is he talking about?’
Dokyeom blinked, perplexed by the incomprehensible words. The reporter, his face anxious, continued to scroll through the photo list while speaking in a surprisingly coherent manner.
“So, the day I uploaded the footage to my superiors, I felt something was off. I went home and replayed the recording. And wouldn’t you know it, I caught something strange! It was so baffling, I watched it hundreds of times, and it kept appearing every time. Ah, I found it!”
An abrupt exclamation followed his words. The hand that had been rapidly scrolling through the photos suddenly stopped. The reporter tapped the video to play it, then abruptly shoved his phone toward Dokyeom, as if urging him to watch.
“Look at this. I’ve zoomed in and saved this particular part. If you look closely here, you can faintly see Hunter Ju Uiryeong being dragged away by someone, can’t you? There’s a lot of chaos around, and the rain makes it a bit blurry, but like this! If you reverse it, you can see it much better, right?”
The phone was instantly flipped upside down. Just as the reporter said, the hazy figures became miraculously clear: Han Dokyeom’s back, grabbing Ju Uiryeong’s collar and striding through the rain.
The video skipped the middle section, endlessly replaying the moments before and after the chimera disappeared. Within the focused angle, the faint figures repeatedly vanished and reappeared: Han Dokyeom, Ju Uiryeong, and even Agon’s faint form.
“So, from that day until today, I’ve visited every guild that participated in that Red Gate incident, searching for people who resembled those figures. First, even from a distance, their faces are paler than others. And they’re taller than Hunter Ju Uiryeong but slender. The most crucial point is, I’m certain the person with long hair shown here is that person!”
The reporter’s gaze shifted to Agon, who was watching the video intently behind Dokyeom. He scrutinized Agon’s long hair, tied to one side, as if tracing it, then poked Dokyeom’s chest, pointing.
“So, I think this is you, Hunter-nim, but I wonder what you think.”
“It’s not me.”
“It definitely is, what do you mean?”
The reporter shot back just as quickly. He scratched his matted hair and tucked his phone back into his pocket. Then, he looked at Agon and Dokyeom with a satisfied smile, as if he had encountered a savior.
“I’ve gone through so much trouble trying to find you, Hunter-nim. So, if you’re in a bind, just tell me a little bit. I’ll keep it to myself, just me. I absolutely won’t leak it anywhere else. It was just curiosity. And anyway, I’ve already submitted it to my superiors.”
Han Dokyeom stared at the reporter for a moment, then suddenly smiled brightly. He called out to him, his voice gentle.
“Haha, Reporter Ju Nohaan, you hack.”
At the word ‘hack,’ Ju Nohaan’s expression momentarily stiffened, then he burst into belated laughter, clutching his stomach. He seemed genuinely amused to hear such a term to his face, waving his hand as he urged Dokyeom to keep calling him that.
“No, I truly have no other intentions; it’s purely out of curiosity. I just wanted to get rid of this nagging feeling, truly! Come on, think about it. The whole nation is chattering about Ju Uiryeong and Geon Ita’s heroics in the Red Gate incident, but from what I saw, it’s not entirely true, is it? How ridiculous is that? And how preposterous that only I know the truth. Look, this is a national fraud!”
‘What is this man even saying?’
Regardless of how others might view him, the blabbering reporter, who spoke as if his words were established facts, pulled out his business cards again and firmly pressed not one, but three into Dokyeom’s hand. He then looked at Dokyeom with eyes full of trust, as if he were a cult leader.
“I have a strong feeling we’ll meet often, Hunter-nim, so let’s definitely see each other again. You’ll gain influence and trust, and I’ll get an exclusive scoop, and together we’ll rise.”
“Yes, well. I’m a bit busy.”
Han Dokyeom casually stuffed the cards into his pocket and walked past Reporter Ju Nohaan. From behind him, the reporter’s shouts to ‘definitely call me’ echoed far into the distance.
To hell with calling him; getting acquainted with a hack reporter was like stepping into a quagmire. Reporters like him, who would stop at nothing for a story, were hunters’ number one most avoided targets, to the point where leeches were considered preferable.
*Beep, beep-*
Han Dokyeom suddenly felt a hand firmly grasp his and turned to look. Dal-i stood enchanted, staring at a bakery on the main street. The drink cup, larger than their face, had long been empty.
“Alright, alright. I’ll buy you something. I knew you ate little this morning.”
Han Dokyeom took Dal-i’s hand and quickly walked into the bakery. Only after handing them an armful of bread did he return to the sunny main street and resume walking.
Now, it was time to embark on the search for the troublesome low-level gates.
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