Chapter 288

In the back seat of the spacious limousine, Lee Jungryong held Go Jun’s arm and sent his mana flowing into it.

Go Jun’s limp body twitched, then strength returned to it.

He opened his eyes with difficulty, letting out a faint groan. Lee Jungryong asked, “Are you conscious?”

“……I’m sorry. I should have kept him occupied longer.”

Go Jun lowered his head, his face rigid.

His earlier attack on Jin Taekyung had not been impulsive.

Go Jun was Lee Jungryong’s Disciple and Head of Security. A man with his exceptional composure and self-control would never have done such a thing unless ordered by the master he respected above all others.

Jin Taekyung. I need to see what that bastard is truly capable of.

What would you have me do?

“I’ll buy as much time as I can. Make him show everything he has.”

I never liked the bastard. It seems I’ll finally get to teach him a proper lesson.

He should not have said that last part.

After speaking so boldly, he had failed to withstand even a single blow. He could not bring himself to face Lee Jungryong.

“You exchanged blows with him yourself, so you must have felt it. Tell me exactly how strong he is. Leave nothing out.”

It did not take Go Jun long to answer.

“He’s strong.”

Jin Taekyung had stormed Myeongdong Guild alone. Go Jun had known from the start that he was not someone to take lightly.

But even after taking a mana-infused punch squarely, Taekyung had not fallen—or even retreated a single step. Go Jun had never imagined anyone could possess such absurd toughness.

“I struck him cleanly on the jaw, but he was harder than rebar. I’ve never seen anyone like him.”

Taekyung had not been wearing armor or protected by defensive magic. Go Jun could not understand how he had emerged so completely unscathed.

The bigger problem was that Jin Taekyung did not merely possess exceptional toughness.

“His strength and speed both surpassed mine.”

“What if you had gone all-out from the beginning, Team Leader Seok?”

After a brief hesitation, Go Jun answered stiffly.

“……It would still have been difficult.”

He remembered Taekyung’s lightning-fast hands.

Before he knew what was happening, his arm had been trapped and his foot driven deep into the ground. He had hastily raised his arm to shield his face, but the fist behind it had struck with such monstrous force that it smashed straight through his guard and into his face.

“I don’t know how, but Jin Taekyung has extensive combat experience. He’s on an entirely different level from ordinary Hunters who only fight monsters.”

“And?”

“Pardon?”

“There’s something you haven’t said yet, isn’t there?”

“…….”

“I believe I told you to leave nothing out.”

The moment Go Jun met Lee Jungryong’s gaze, he understood.

Lee Jungryong had reached the same conclusion.

“You already suspected it.”

“Yes. Today, that suspicion became certainty.”

“You mean…”

Lee Jungryong’s voice sank low.

“There’s no doubt about it. Jin Taekyung has learned a mana cultivation method.”

“……!”

A mana cultivation method.

A faint ripple disturbed Go Jun’s unwavering gaze. That was how shocking Lee Jungryong’s words were.

“An insignificant F-rank Hunter became this strong in barely half a year. People keep babbling about reawakening and faulty measuring devices, but that’s nothing more than ignorant nonsense.”

Go Jun muttered as if groaning.

“But how……? Aren’t mana cultivation methods among the most closely guarded secrets?”

“Top secret? That phrase is meaningless. As long as someone knows a secret, it can never be absolute.”

“Could Team Leader Choi be responsible?”

Lee Jungryong shook his head.

“That boy Minwoo never learned a mana cultivation method. Neither did Kim Hwajong, who has remained by his side since childhood.”

“Isn’t it something no one knows about? If the Guild Master…”

“Who?”

Go Jun’s words died in his throat. He froze.

The moment he met Lee Jungryong’s dark, sunken gaze, he realized he had said something he should not have.

“I believe I told you never to utter a word about my older brother.”

“I-I’m sorry. It was a slip of the tongue…”

Go Jun’s voice quivered like a wounded bird.

The revelation that Taekyung had learned a mana cultivation method had rattled him enough to break an unspoken taboo. Cheon Taemin, the Guild Master of Ares Guild, was someone who must never be mentioned.

Thud!

Both of Go Jun’s knees struck the floor. He bowed his head deeply.

“Please forgive me, Vice Guild Master.”

“Forgive you? These things happen.”

“…….”

“Get up.”

Even after carefully lifting his knees from the floor and sitting back down, Go Jun could not look Lee Jungryong straight in the eye.

He had spent years at Lee Jungryong’s side and had seen and learned many things.

To Go Jun, Lee Jungryong inspired both respect and fear.

Faint fear now colored the face that was ordinarily as expressionless as a machine.

“Team Leader Seok.”

Lee Jungryong broke the suffocating silence.

Go Jun lowered his head even further.

“Yes, Vice Guild Master. Please speak.”

“You’re going to be very busy from now on. If you run your mouth as carelessly as you did today, you’ll put me in a very difficult position.”

“I’ll remember that. I’ll never forget it.”

“Strengthen our surveillance of the Peace Guild. Find out whether they have anyone useful, too.”

Go Jun cautiously raised his head.

“Are you planning to expand the security team?”

“Yes. We can’t go on like this. We must prepare for any eventuality.”

“Yes. I’ll put it into action as soon as we return to the Guild.”

“And…… keep a close watch on the executives’ movements. Include the status of our overseas branches.”

“I’ll carry it out without a single omission.”

Lee Jungryong’s position within Ares Guild was already secure.

But not everyone followed him as blindly as Go Jun did.

There were always those who harbored discontent, and they watched Lee Jungryong’s every move with suspicion.

The security team, on the other hand, was little more than Lee Jungryong’s private army.

Paid enormous salaries and taught mana cultivation methods, its members offered their absolute loyalty to one man alone: Lee Jungryong.

Yes. Things have been too peaceful for too long.

Lee Jungryong turned toward the window. Beyond the spotless glass, the Han River stretched wide into the distance.

Only thirty-some years ago, its waters had been filled with the corpses of humans and monsters. Now they were clear and clean, as though nothing had ever happened.

Older brother. The world has changed so much.

Lee Jungryong did not speak the thought aloud.

His gaze was already retracing the distant past. Burning cities and dying people. Monster legions charging forward, overturning heaven and earth…

And amid that hellscape, one man had shone alone.

Do not take so much as a single step out from behind me.

Lee Jungryong had been thirty then, filled with cynicism toward the world. The moment he met that man, he was captivated.

Though they did not share a single drop of blood, Lee Jungryong regarded him as an older brother and always looked up to him with both respect and fear.

Even now, past the age of sixty, those memories and emotions remained vivid.

Lee Jungryong was staring silently out the window, lost in thought, when Go Jun’s voice brought him back.

“We’ve arrived.”

At the same moment, the limousine door slid open. Before them stood a skyscraper tall enough to pierce the clouds, surrounded by a forest of buildings like guards protecting a king.

Dozens of waiting Hunters bowed to him. The lapels of their suits bore the emblem of Ares Guild.

“Welcome, Vice Guild Master Lee Jungryong!”

Their shout was perfectly synchronized, as though measured with a ruler.

A faint smile on his lips, the man in power stepped onto the red carpet.

This was a world where even white-haired old men wore wireless earbuds and watched iTube.

Whenever snow fell and icy roads formed, nursing homes shut down, while Old Man Kim and Granny Park chatted through a voice-chat app and played online Go-Stop.¹

If magic was a mysterious realm of unknowable origins, the internet was the culmination of twenty-first-century civilization.

With a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone could learn what was happening anywhere in the world as easily as reading the palm of their hand.

In a world like this, information about the most famous person among billions was even easier to find.

Tap. Tap-tap.

Cheon Taemin.

His name completed itself after I typed only the initial consonants.² It even ranked higher in searches than heaven.

People were more interested in the man who had stopped them from nearly going to heaven than in heaven itself.

I was no different.

Muttering inwardly, I tapped the search result that read “Cheon Taemin—Profile.”

The face I had seen hundreds—no, thousands—of times since elementary school filled my phone screen.

Thick eyebrows and chiseled features. He looked like a handsome Greek god reincarnated.

And…

“He looks like him.”

“Now that I see them side by side, they really do look alike.”

“Whoa. They’re identical.”

They looked alike. So much so that I understood why people said blood would always tell.

Im Kkeokjeong, Song Song, and I stared openmouthed, looking back and forth between the phone and Team Leader Choi.

“Ahem.”

Only when Team Leader Choi finally cleared his throat uncomfortably did we come to our senses.

No, not yet. Come to my senses, my ass.

What the hell is going on?

Things were getting spectacularly insane now, whether in Murim or the modern world.

When Park Jihoon stabbed me in the back and Lee Jungryong appeared out of nowhere, I’d been certain nothing could surprise me anymore…

But this was shock and horror in its purest form.

Not the President’s grandson, but Cheon Taemin’s.

A president’s term lasted five years. Cheon Taemin had no term.

The achievements and Fame attached to his name would remain immortal, passed down through the generations.

He had driven a sword into the Demon King’s heart and saved all humanity. What more needed to be said?

Humanity’s hero. The world’s greatest Hunter, recognized across the globe.

Unprecedented and unmatched. The very definition of both.

Team Leader Choi was Cheon Taemin’s only grandson through his daughter.

Cheon Taemin had only one daughter, and there was no information about any other relatives. Team Leader Choi was probably his sole heir.

Good God. Cheon Taemin’s heir.

The thought alone gave me goose bumps.

I opened my mouth, my voice trembling.

“Team Leader Choi.”

“Yes, go ahead.”

Team Leader Choi answered as though he had been waiting for me to speak. He even looked relieved that the awkward silence had finally been broken.

“If it isn’t too rude, may I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Then can I keep calling you Team Leader Choi?”

“What?”

Team Leader Choi stared at me in disbelief.

“What exactly were you planning to call me instead?”

“Mr. Choi Minwoo. Minwoo hyung.³”

“I refuse.”

“There’s one more option…”

“Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Please adopt me. I’ll call you Dad. I’ll be a good son.”

Team Leader Choi’s face flushed bright red.

If I had actually been his son, he looked ready to strike me from the family register on the spot.

A moment later, he let out a deep sigh.

“……This isn’t the time for jokes.”

“I’m not joking. I mean it.”

“Mr. Jin Taekyung!”

Team Leader Choi continued in a low, stern voice.

“Didn’t I tell you everything? What kind of situation I’m in?”

“You did. We all heard you.”

Im Kkeokjeong and Song Song nodded.

An hour earlier, after Lee Jungryong had left, Team Leader Choi had told us everything while we were still reeling from the shock.

His true identity. Everything that had happened until now. And why he had been forced to act as he had.

“Lee Jungryong is an extremely ambitious man. He considers me a thorn in his side and has always kept me under surveillance. He made me move from one overseas branch to another to prevent me from setting foot in headquarters.”

Team Leader Choi said he had been surrounded by watchful eyes.

Lee Jungryong had assigned him to dead-end posts to prevent him from producing any notable results, and even then, he had been transferred to a new posting once a year. They called them overseas branches, but it had been little different from exile.

“Cheon Taemin—no. Did the Ares Guild Master simply stand by and watch?”

“As I said, my maternal grandfather…”

Team Leader Choi bit down hard on his lip.

“He’s an extraordinary person. My memories are from when I was a child, but he definitely isn’t someone who thinks like an ordinary person.”

Butler Kim, who had been standing quietly at attention, added, “He was that way in the past, and he remains so now. I served the old master for many years, but not once did I understand his true intentions.”

Was this the dark side of the hero no one knew?

Team Leader Choi sighed and continued.

“Even after I submitted my resignation and left Ares Guild, they must have kept watching me. Later, I founded the Peace Guild… but recruiting even one ordinary mid-rank Hunter proved difficult.”

It was something I had not known until hearing his story, but Im Kkeokjeong and I had not been the Peace Guild’s first members.

Several high-ranking Hunters had joined before us, only to transfer to other Guilds after receiving generous contract offers out of nowhere. Some had even abruptly gone off the grid before they could sign their contracts.

It was probably Lee Jungryong’s doing.

No matter how much money you had, a Guild without Hunters was no Guild at all.

With Ares Guild tightening the screws from every direction, Team Leader Choi had begun searching for people through the Hunter Office.

That was when Im Kkeokjeong and I appeared on his radar.

Fortunately, there had been no significant pressure this time.

Two low-ranked Hunters probably didn’t seem worth bothering with.

And that had been Ares Guild’s miscalculation.

No one could have imagined that an F-rank Hunter who seemed useful only as a porter would create a storm like this.

“This incident is no different. When I heard that you had encountered Lee Jungryong, Mr. Taekyung, I thought it had happened because of me.”

“So?”

“Pardon?”

I vigorously scratched the back of my head.

“So what are you trying to say, Team Leader? You still haven’t said it clearly.”

“The difference in strength is too great for us to make an enemy of Ares Guild.”

“Everyone knows that.”

“Things like this will keep happening.”

“More detail. Be precise.”

Team Leader Choi gritted his teeth.

“I’ll terminate your contracts. If you cut ties with the Peace Guild, Ares Guild won’t bother any of you.”

His voice seethed with emotion. Team Leader Choi closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

I stared at him for a moment, then spoke.

“I don’t want to.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t want to.”

“…….”

“They’re dinosaurs. We’re ants. We’re weak, so let’s back off before we get hurt worse. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

“Mr. Jin Taekyung.”

“Then it’s simple.”

Team Leader Choi stared at me with wide eyes. I spoke slowly, enunciating every word.

“Let’s get stronger.”

No.

“I’ll make you strong. I will.”