Chapter 282

BOOM!

Two people appeared amid the thunderous roar.

I waved at the familiar face among them.

“Well, look who’s here. You fucking bastard.”

“……You.”

I’d been planning to punch him in the mouth the moment I saw him, but the sight of his face twisting with rage drew a quiet laugh from me instead.

Eyeing Park Jihoon’s tightly clenched fist, I put on a disappointed expression.

“You didn’t bring it?”

“What?”

“Melona.”¹

“You little—”

A huge hand closed around his shoulder as his face flushed red.

“There are still too many eyes on us.”

Biting his lip, Park Jihoon took a step back.

I watched in amusement as the middle-aged man beside him cleared everyone from the immediate area, then addressed me.

“Do you know who I am?”

I nodded. There was no way I wouldn’t recognize that face.

His name carried plenty of weight, and he appeared often enough in newspapers, magazines, and other media.

Park Tae Seop, Guild Master of Myeongdong Guild.

A war hero who had distinguished himself during the Great Cataclysm, and one of Korea’s top rankers.

He had survived countless brutal struggles to become the master of a major Guild. To Hunters, he was both an inspiration and a respected elder.

I used to respect him too.

Not anymore.

My good memories of Park Tae Seop had expired two days ago.

What you thought tended to show in your attitude. Reading the undisguised hostility in my gaze, Park Tae Seop spoke.

“You…… consider me your enemy.”

“I can’t exactly consider you a friend. We both know what’s going on.”

“Don’t be so quick to decide. Live long enough, and you’ll realize there are no eternal friends or enemies.”

“I don’t know about the part where there are no eternal enemies.”

I looked at Park Jihoon beside him.

“But the part about there being no eternal friends makes a lot of sense.”

Park Jihoon replied coldly.

“Your premise is wrong from the start. We were never friends.”

“We were never friends.”

I sank deeper into the chair and repeated his words under my breath.

One thing I still couldn’t understand was Park Jihoon’s sudden change in attitude.

But……

“Then again, what does that matter now? Whatever we had was already over the moment you sent those Black Hunters.”

At the mention of that sensitive term, Park Tae Seop waved a hand.

At the Guild Master’s command, the hundred or so Hunters filling the hallway receded like the tide.

Listening to their footsteps fade into the distance, I curled my lips.

“You’re not exactly being open about it.”

“It’s a disgrace.”

“And you’re irritatingly honest.”

“I’m personally ashamed of it.”

“For someone who considers himself ashamed, you gave a pretty damn despicable order.”

“……”

“Why?”

Discomfort flickered across Park Tae Seop’s face, but it wasn’t directed at me.

For the briefest instant, his gaze touched Park Jihoon beside him before darting away.

Well, well……

That reaction hadn’t been deliberate.

If it had slipped out unconsciously, he was definitely hiding something.

I thought back over everything that hadn’t quite added up.

Something stinks to high heaven. It reeks.

As I muttered to myself, Park Jihoon abruptly spoke.

“To keep you and the Peace Guild in check.”

“Keep us in check?”

“A new powerhouse emerging means a smaller slice of the pie for someone else. I’m sure the other Guilds feel the same way we do.”

On the surface, it made sense.

Korea’s Guild market was already oversaturated. Its tiers had been divided and its pecking order established. The old powers had no desire to see a new competitor emerge.

“The Peace Guild is dangerous. For now, you’re confined to Bucheon, but soon you’ll grow at a frightening pace and expand your influence.”

“So you sent the Black Hunters?”

“We did. But didn’t I already tell you? It was only a warning.”

“And I believe I already told you that your pathetic warning left someone crippled.”

“Crippled? They reattached his two severed arms without any problems. His daily life won’t be affected at all. Is that what people call crippled these days?”

“He might as well be. His career as a Hunter is over.”

“Better his career than the entire Guild.”

“What?”

Park Jihoon snorted.

“This is only the beginning. Every high-rank Gate worth entering has already been closed off to your Guild. With the surrounding Guilds shutting you out, you’ll slowly wither away and die.”

Something Team Leader Choi had told me a few days ago suddenly came to mind.

The other Guilds had snapped up every A-rank Gate.

Because of that, I’d been forced to drag the rookies from one C-rank or B-rank Gate to another, unable to gain any meaningful EXP.

“Don’t tell me that was—”

“You’re slow. Did you think it was a coincidence?”

The corners of Park Jihoon’s mouth rose. He had not only fully regained his composure, but was even relaxed enough to lean back against the sofa.

“I heard you recruited a lot of Guild members recently. What are you going to do now? At this rate, you’ll have to let them all go within a year. You’ll be lucky if they don’t sue when you can’t pay their allowances.”

“……”

I slowly relaxed my folded arms.

“You’re good at this. No wonder you’re a major Guild.”

“Well, I suppose we are.”

“But…… we’ve got a pretty decent card too. I think it’d be interesting if everything Myeongdong Guild did behind the scenes after scraping together a bunch of criminal bastards came to light. What do you think?”

I continued without waiting for Park Jihoon to respond.

“Judging by how things work around here, you’d just snatch them away if we handed them over to the police. So I figured we could play a little truth game on an iTube livestream instead.”

“……iTube? A livestream?”

“Oh, right. You don’t know we opened a Guild channel, do you? Subscribe and hit Like. Don’t forget to turn on notifications.”

“……”

“Wow, we’re already at three hundred thousand subscribers. If this blows up, we might break ten million. Half the country will probably tune in.”

The smile vanished from Park Jihoon’s lips without a trace.

“You shouldn’t start something you can’t handle.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Do you want to make every major Guild your enemy?”

“If I raise hell here, can you handle the fallout?”

“……”

Park Jihoon’s mouth snapped shut as though it had been glued.

After glaring at me with burning eyes for a while, he spat out a single sentence.

“Tell me what you want.”

“What I want?”

“We’ll accommodate your demands as much as possible. Don’t make this any bigger. Let’s negotiate and end it here.”

“Negotiate.”

“If we take this all the way, we’ll both come out wounded. You know that as well as I do.”

He was right.

If I were the only one who had to bear the consequences, I would have taken this all the way.

But the lives of countless people connected to the Peace Guild were at stake.

Someone’s friend, lover, family……

Their futures too.

I quietly licked my dry lips.

“What can you give me?”

“Money and power. And all kinds of benefits that will help the Peace Guild grow.”

“Didn’t you say the Peace Guild’s growth bothered you enough to send the Black Hunters?”

“Which is why we need to set boundaries.”

“You’re telling us not to stray outside the fence you build?”

“That’s right.”

The longer I listened to Park Jihoon’s proposal, the clearer the picture became.

What we stood to gain in exchange for handing over the Peace Guild’s prisoners and keeping quiet about the incident was substantial.

No, it was enormous.

Buildings and land. Exclusive rights to high-rank Gates currently controlled by Myeongdong Guild. Even a staggering amount of cash.

The overall deal looked good.

But……

“You left out the most important part.”

“Those terms are already more than generous enough—what?”

Park Jihoon frowned.

“What did you just say?”

“I said you left out the most important part.”

“You’re insane. You’re demanding even more?”

“To be honest, there’s no point explaining all this to me. I understand that it’s valuable, but our Guild Master and Team Leader Choi are the experts on which terms are good or bad for us.”

“Then what exactly did I leave out?”

I stared at Park Jihoon.

“An apology.”

“……What?”

“If you did something wrong, you should apologize. But the most important thing—an apology—is missing.”

His offer was packed with extravagant terms, but there was no apology.

The one thing that should have come before everything else was nowhere to be found.

“Ha.”

Park Jihoon let out an incredulous laugh. The way he looked me up and down made his anger and disbelief plain.

“Fine. I’m sorry. Happy now?”

“That’s not how you apologize.”

Crack.

The bones in Park Jihoon’s tightly clenched fist shifted with an ugly pop.

A moment later, he drew a deep breath, looked me in the eye, and enunciated each word.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s a little better.”

“Are you satisfied now?”

I gave a small nod.

“But next time you do it in person, try putting a little more sincerity into it. Bow your head politely, too.”

“……What the hell are you talking about now?”

“What good does apologizing to me do? You need to apologize to the victim and his family.”

Park Jihoon’s eyelids trembled.

“You want me to apologize to that D-rank Hunter?”

“Why? Can’t do it?”

“I already told you we’d pay him compensation. It’s more money than most Hunters will ever see in their lives.”

“That works out nicely, then. A heartfelt apology accompanied by a massive compensation payment as a token of remorse should be even more effective.”

“You…….”

I gently added one more remark as Park Jihoon glared daggers at me.

“If it hurts your pride, bring someone else along and apologize together.”

Myeongdong Guild Master Park Tae Seop, who had listened in silence until now, finally spoke.

“I’ll visit him in person and apologize. Sincerely.”

“At least you understand the basics, Guild Master. I suppose that makes you a slightly cleaner piece of shit.”

Cleaner shit.

At that moment, I couldn’t think of a more fitting—or more paradoxical—description.

But Park Tae Seop wasn’t the other suspect I had in mind.

I leaned forward in my chair and stared into Park Jihoon’s eyes.

“Bring the person who gave you your orders. Make that person apologize too.”

“……!”

A violent storm churned in his eyes.

It lasted only an instant, but that brief flash of agitation was more than enough to turn my suspicion into certainty.

“Fine. Guild Master Park Tae Seop just agreed, anyway.”

Park Jihoon continued in the calmest voice he could manage.

“We’ll go together and apologize.”

“Cut the bullshit. Bring that person here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I rose with a quiet laugh and walked toward the reception sofa where Park Jihoon sat.

“No matter how much I thought about it, I just couldn’t make sense of it.”

I dropped into the seat across from him.

With the large solid-wood table between us, I slowly studied him as he pretended to remain calm.

His solid build. The muscles visible beneath his shirt.

And the power lurking within him.

It was immense and powerful.

Even without checking his Level, I could tell how wide the gap was between him and the Team 1 Leader.

“What couldn’t you make sense of?”

“How someone strong enough to chew up that Team Leader lying over there with one hand isn’t even a deputy team leader. He’s just an ordinary Hunter.”

“……!”

“Not to mention you show up for work so rarely that you might come in once a month. And from the way you spoke to the Team 1 Leader over the phone, you were practically his superior.”

There were too many suspicious details to count.

And as our conversation continued, those suspicions had gradually hardened into certainty.

“We’re discussing terms on this scale, but the man supposedly in charge stays silent while an ordinary team member with no position does all the talking…… How am I supposed to interpret that, Guild Master Park Tae Seop?”

Myeongdong Guild Master Park Tae Seop held my gaze, then slowly closed his eyes.

That was answer enough.

I laughed quietly and looked at Park Jihoon.

“So bring that person here. I don’t know who it is, but bring them here and make them apologize first.”

Park Jihoon’s tightly sealed lips finally parted.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then we take this all the way.”

“You crazy bastard. Do you even know who that person is?”

“No. I don’t particularly want to know, either. But I do want to see that bastard come here, slam his head down, and apologize. Then I’ll be satisfied.”

Swish!

At that same instant, I shot out a hand at blinding speed.

Park Jihoon cried out in alarm.

“You bastard!”

Pap-pap-pap!

Our hands collided and tangled in an instant.

Five exchanges passed in the blink of an eye.

Crunch.

His wrist broke, and his eyes flew wide.

I seized his neatly waxed hair and slammed his head into the table.

BANG!

“Like this.”