Chapter 99: The Lunatic Who Wrote a Contract in Blood

Lee Chae finally managed to push against Hae-jin’s shoulders.

“Representative… like this, we can’t…”

This wasn’t duty-guiding. Emotion dripped from every touch—how could it be mere task?

Hae-jin sneered, his lips pressed against my ear.

“Why? Were you hoping I’d book some nice hotel or something?”

“……No, I wasn’t.”

Even with our bodies pressed together, those words didn’t hurt at all.

He was openly displaying a burning desire that he couldn’t hide.

However, I looked around, worried that finishing the guiding here might damage his reputation as the representative.

Fortunately, the blinds were down, and the surroundings were silent without a single sound.

It was as if he had prepared everything, knowing things would turn out like this.

“What are you planning to do with me? What kind of imagination makes you look around like that?”

His face wore a smirk and his voice was cold, but his body was still burning hot.

When Hae-jin propped himself up on the sofa with one arm and gently stroked my cheek with the other hand, a lust I didn’t even know I possessed reared its head.

It was a sensation I hadn’t felt once in three years.

Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I couldn’t reject his overlapping lips.

When Hae-jin smirked as if he knew everything and began to strip off my clothes, far from resisting, I moved my body to assist his hands.

Even as I cursed myself, calling myself a madman or a dog blinded by lust, I couldn’t stop.

“Haah…….”

Once the desire erupted, it surged uncontrollably.

Even though it felt like my entire body was being devoured, I wasn’t afraid or scared; instead, I welcomed it and clung to him.

It was truly ridiculous.

The one who was starving was him, not me, so why was I the one acting more desperate?

“Hug me tighter. I can’t feel anything.”

I put strength into my body and bound him to me like someone I would never let go of again.

Whether this was guiding or just intense skinship, it was clear we were properly connected.

My senses were definitely telling me so.

However, Hae-jin frowned as if dissatisfied and pulled his body away.

The moment he escaped my arms, I felt as if something important filling my insides had suddenly dropped to the floor, and I curled onto my side, clutching my stomach.

Hae-jin stood up, walked to the window, and opened it.

The wind he stirred up had always been warm, but today it was cold.

Click, he flicked his Zippo lighter and lit a cigarette.

I knew he smoked, but it was a sight he had never shown me before.

‘They say you shouldn’t even associate with a man who smokes in bed.’

I smiled as I remembered something Hae-jin had said once.

Back then, Hae-jin was truly cute.

He wouldn’t take his eyes off me all day, and if he felt for even a second that I was thinking about something else, he would somehow know and bite my neck with his teeth.

Like a large dog, he would lick my cheeks, rub his face against mine, and growl, telling me not to look away because he was right here.

While I was briefly lost in those past dreams, Hae-jin, who had his arm propped on the window frame, looked over at me.

His gaze felt like he was rebuking me, asking if I was in a position to be having such thoughts.

Soon, withdrawing his gaze, he muttered as if to himself.

“It’s worse than what I imagined every night, so I can’t go through with it. I think I smell something unpleasant, too.”

Was the sweat from my nervousness the problem?

I had showered before coming out just like any other day…….

No, wait. What is he talking about?

As I chewed over Hae-jin’s words, anger suddenly flared up within me.

‘Even if I really did smell, saying that out loud is just wrong.’

I was about to open my mouth to say something when he locked eyes with me again.

“I don’t know what kind of bastards you’ve been sleeping with, but I’m different from those guys. You know, don’t you? That I loathe guides.”

Feeling as if his hatred was directed at me, I quietly shut my mouth.

I felt like if I kept it open, I would end up speaking my mind.

I felt like I would scream that he was a bad person and cling to him while crying, asking if he really said such things because he didn’t know why I truly left him.

I didn’t think Cha Hae-jin had changed.

That’s why I knew his behavior was just a tantrum directed at me for leaving without a single word.

Once my rising anger subsided, there was only a large dog crying from its wounds standing before me.

Extinguishing his cigarette, Hae-jin slowly approached.

He stared at me with a gaze that felt like it would pierce through my face before letting out a hollow laugh.

Then, he snatched up my shirt that was crumpled in the corner of the sofa and tossed it at me.

“Put your clothes on.”

Only then did I notice Hae-jin’s pristine state, not a single hair out of place.

Overwhelmed by a rush of shame, I hurriedly picked up my clothes and put them on.

My hands were shaking, so the buttons kept going into the wrong holes.

After finishing dressing, I sat upright on the sofa.

He suddenly spat out a curse in a low voice.

“F*ck, do you know what the most disgusting part is? It’s that even after being betrayed like that, I felt like I would die without you, so I rolled around like a madman for three years.”

‘…You really don’t know why I left.’

Thinking that he might know had just been a hope of mine.

Well, since I didn’t tell him, there was no way he would know.

The headquarters wouldn’t have revealed what they did on their own, either.

Resigned, I slowly stood up.

Hae-jin took a deep breath, exhaled, and spoke in a much more stable tone.

“Instead of the combat team where the awakened gather, go to the operations team made up of non-awakened people. Since you were a civil servant, that will suit you better.”

“…What?”

My breath caught at Hae-jin’s words telling me to go to the operations team for non-awakened people.

It hurt more than anything else Hae-jin had said today.

The only person in the world who had recognized my guiding ability had just negated my worth with a single sentence.

If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have reappeared.

Even if I were to be caught soon, I should have tried to run away with all my might.

Hae-jin picked up the intercom and spoke.

“Come up.”

A short while later, a man I had never seen before entered the representative’s office.

The natural and trivial fact that a stranger was working at Legion suddenly made me feel strange.

I knew that many things had changed by the time Legion became an official guild and the most influential group in the country, but feeling it firsthand made me feel a sense of loss.

A strange building, a strange Cha Hae-jin, and people I didn’t know filling the space…….

Time had changed many things, and Hae-jin must have accumulated memories with people I didn’t know, but perhaps I was depressed because I felt like I alone was still living in the past.

When Hae-jin jerked his chin toward me, the man’s gaze landed on me.

“He’s a new recruit, and he’ll be joining the operations team. Get his signature on this contract. The part added at the very end is private, so don’t open it carelessly.”

“Yes, I understand.”

It was a dry introduction that omitted stating names or sharing a simple handshake.

Still unable to escape the shocking fact that he had negated my abilities, I just stood there with a dazed expression.

An irritated voice pierced my ears.

“Aren’t you leaving?”

“……Yes. Well then, I’ll be going.”

I bowed politely and followed the man out.

“I am Jin Hyun-jun, the team leader of Operations Team 1.”

The man with a clean impression introduced himself that way.

I bowed my head awkwardly.

“I’m D… no, I’m Jung Lee Chae. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Hyun-jun frowned slightly as he flipped through a file.

“You’re from the University of Management for the Awakened. So you were able to join because you’re an alumnus of the Representative.”

My eyes widened. I asked back because I couldn’t understand what he meant.

“What do you mean… I was able to?”

“As you know, Legion only recruits new members through open recruitment. It means we’ve never had a nepotism-based hire like this before. So I was a bit surprised. Since the Representative is so thorough…….”

A gaze full of suspicion swept over my face.

Even in a place where awakened people gathered, I wasn’t recognized as a D-rank, and even here, I had to endure such looks because I wasn’t an open recruit.

I had lived more diligently than anyone else until now and had built up a resume I wasn’t ashamed of.

That’s why I couldn’t stand Hyun-jun’s behavior—treating me like a nepotism hire just because I went to the same school as Hae-jin without even properly checking my personnel file.

“Team leader, would you mind turning one more page in the file and looking at my grades? And I would appreciate it if you could also look at my various certifications and my career as a civil servant.”

Hyun-jun let out a sneer as if wondering how impressive it could possibly be and turned the paper.

His eyes widened with a gasp, and he looked back and forth between me and the document.

It was only natural that he was surprised, as it was a resume that wouldn’t lose to anyone.

While I was a civil servant, I clung to work desperately to escape my misery.

I took on all sorts of difficult tasks and successfully led various projects.

On top of that, I acquired almost all the certifications helpful for general administrative work.

It was because I had nothing to do but study, I only knew how to study, and I felt like if I didn’t at least study, I would go crazy and run to Legion.

I had already come out after having my guiding ability ignored by Hae-jin, so I didn’t want my honest efforts all this time to be disparaged by a team leader I was meeting for the first time.

“I believe this is a career that would have been more than enough to pass even if I had applied through open recruitment. In fact, I’ve received many scouting offers from other companies as well. If you have doubts or complaints because I wasn’t an open recruit, feel free to formally protest to the Representative and let me go. I have plenty of other places to go.”

I didn’t come here because I wanted to, I was practically dragged here, so there was no reason to receive this kind of treatment.

But do I really have anywhere to go?

My family was still living in the small city where I worked as a civil servant.

Since there was income from a stable job, my family hoped to live there.

Thanks to that, I was freed from the burden of having to take care of my family.

However, it was unavoidable that my loneliness deepened in a place where I didn’t even have the embrace of a family that would warmly accept me even if I was hurt outside.

While I was lost in those thoughts, Hyun-jun scratched his head as if embarrassed.

“Ah, no. I misspoke. That’s right. What kind of person is our Representative? He wouldn’t have hired someone who wasn’t qualified. Haha. I was very rude. I’m sorry.”

I thought he would keep his head held high and not offer a single word of apology, but my anger faded at his unexpectedly proactive apology.

“…It’s alright.”

Hyun-jun hesitated for a moment before handing me a contract.

“It’s not a general contract; it’s one the Representative personally created specifically for employee Jung Lee Chae. He mentioned there might be some strange content if you read it, but he insisted that I must have you sign it exactly as is without changing anything.”

“Pardon? Are you saying you haven’t seen the contract first, team leader?”

“Ah… I just received it and haven’t read it yet, but it’s a contract, so what could be so special about it? He probably hid it from me because salary matters are sensitive.”

A contract personally made by Hae-jin—I could picture it even without looking.

It would likely be filled with meticulous clauses designed to bind me.