Hunters are all hard drinkers.
Even an F-rank Hunter—the lowest classification—has physical abilities and a metabolism far beyond those of an ordinary person.
There’s a reason people say some Hunters don’t drink, but no Hunter can’t drink.
“Hic. One more glass.”
Well, there was one here.
Miss Song-i’s eyes were already half-glazed as she shook her empty glass furiously.
“One more glaaass!”
She’s pretty even when she’s drunk… No, that’s not the point. Isn’t this getting a little dangerous?
I looked at Miss Song-i with concern.
She must’ve drunk too fast.
The moment the drinking party had begun in earnest, she had chugged an entire bottle of soju1 straight from the bottle and had been like this ever since. Every now and then, she slurred incomprehensible things about someone having no damn tact and rotten luck clinging like a curse.
Is something bad going on?
While Im Kkeokjeong was filling her glass, I leaned toward Team Leader Choi and whispered.
“Team Leader. Did something happen to Miss Song-i?”
Team Leader Choi answered with an awkward expression.
“……Something did happen.”
“I knew it.”
“Very recently, too.”
“Oh. Ah.”
Miss Song’s misfortune was my misfortune. Just sitting there and watching her was breaking my heart.
“Whew. I hope things work out for her.”
“……”
“……”
Team Leader Choi, and even Butler Kim, who was sitting beside him, stared at me with strange expressions.
This was starting to feel weird.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“People can be like that when they’re young.”
It was an oddly lukewarm answer, but that wasn’t important right now.
Crack.
“Drink! Today, we drink ourselves to death!”
Miss Song had opened her third bottle of soju1 and was going wild.
“Ha-ha-ha! This is why I like Miss Song so much!”
Like a fish in water—no, like a bandit who’d found booze—Im Kkeokjeong egged her on from beside her.
“Shouldn’t we stop her?”
“Ah, Miss Song-i?”
“Yes.”
Team Leader Choi shrugged.
“It’s fine. It’s not like I’ve only known her for a day or two. That’s just how Miss Song gets when she drinks.”
“Even so… No, wait a second.”
I fixed Team Leader Choi with a penetrating stare.
He’d seemed suspicious for a while, and now I’d finally caught him.
“How do you know what Miss Song is like when she drinks?”
“Because I’ve drunk with her.”
“……”
Was this bastard making fun of me? Did he think I was asking because I couldn’t figure that out?
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean…”
Now that he’d put it that way, I had nothing to say. When I thought about it, who was I to question the relationship between them?
Just as I found myself at a loss for words, Team Leader Choi suddenly spoke.
“You’ve heard of Ares, right?”
“Of course.”
Ares, the god of war.
The name of a god from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. These days, though, it was famous for something else.
“Who in Korea doesn’t know the Ares Guild?”
The pride and joy of Korea’s Hunters.
Hundreds of Guilds existed in Korea, but only one stood at the top: the Ares Guild. From the early days of the Great Cataclysm to the present, their achievements had been too numerous to count.
They’re legends. Plain and simple.
They appeared in educational comics, educational animations, movies, novels, and all kinds of other media. They had even made it into textbooks.
The Ares Guild held a position in Korea comparable to a living King Sejong2 or an active Admiral Yi Sun-sin.3 No, perhaps even higher.
They’re famous all over the world, after all.
If you asked most foreigners, “Do you know King Sejong? King-God-General Yi Sun-sin?” they’d probably think, What the hell is this Asian bastard talking about? But the Ares Guild was different.
“Do you know Ares?”
“Oh, yes!”
Even a tough-as-nails Texas grandpa would slap his twin pistols and know what you meant. That was the accepted academic consensus.
“Why are you asking about the Ares Guild?”
Team Leader Choi swallowed a mouthful of beer before answering.
“Because I used to be there.”
“Oh. I see… Huh?”
What had I just heard?
I blinked for a while before finally speaking.
“You used to belong to the Ares Guild?”
“I was a Team Leader. Though I was pretty far down the ladder.”
The Ares Guild had high standards. They selected only the best and trained them to become even better. Team Leader Choi had called himself low-ranking, but the fact that he’d made Team Leader there was already incredible.
Though right now, he just looked like a lunatic to me.
“Then why did you leave?”
Money, honor, status.
It was the best job any Hunter—or any man—could dream of. And he had kicked it all away and left!
“Were you ostracized at work or something?”
Team Leader Choi thought about it for a moment before answering.
“That might have been the case. Miss Song was the only person who treated me normally.”
“……Then was Miss Song in the Ares Guild too?”
“She was on my team. I found out about her drinking habits during team dinners.”
I swallowed hard.
These people are total elites.
My gaze moved back and forth between Team Leader Choi, who was sipping his beer, and Miss Song, who was drinking straight from the bottle, before stopping on one person.
“Could it be that Butler Kim also…?”
“Me?”
Butler Kim smiled kindly and waved a hand.
“I retired a long time ago. Ha-ha-ha.”
“What?”
So he was a former Hunter.
Suddenly, I remembered the sense of incongruity I had always felt whenever I dealt with Butler Kim. I had also never once tried to assess him with my Qi Sense.
Who is this man, really?
Just as I was about to raise my Qi Sense, Im Kkeokjeong, who had been enthusiastically inhaling meat and liquor whether or not we were talking, spoke up.
“Oh, the burner went out. Miss Song, do we have another gas canister?”
“Hic. That was the last one.”
“Aw, we can’t let the momentum die. Should we just eat it?”
Im Kkeokjeong grumbled as he flipped a piece of meat that was still mostly raw. Butler Kim smiled gently at him.
“That won’t do.”
The next moment, two things happened at once.
Snap!
Butler Kim snapped his fingers.
Fwoosh!
A wave of scorching heat burst forth. Blue flames surged precisely up over the grill, heating the plate and cooking the meat in an instant before vanishing.
“This is…”
Im Kkeokjeong and I shouted at the same time.
“A mage!”
“It’s cooked incredibly well!”
“……”
“What? Taekyung, hurry up and eat.”
Forget it, old man.
I shook my head back and forth.
More importantly, who would’ve guessed Butler Kim was a mage? No wonder something about him had always felt strange.
“You really had me fooled.”
Butler Kim picked up a well-cooked piece of meat.
“I had no intention of fooling you. As I told you, I’m already a retired has-been.”
Has-been, my ass.
If Butler Kim was a has-been, half the mages still active today ought to bow their damn heads.
At least B-rank.
He could summon flames with a single snap of his fingers and control them precisely enough to cook the meat just right without burning or undercooking it. Judging from the circumstances, he had probably belonged to the Ares Guild as well before retiring.
If he had been active during the Great Cataclysm, too…
……This guy’s a big shot.
On top of that, he was an incredibly senior one.
I asked cautiously, “Um, which Hunter training center did you graduate from?”
“Nonsan.4 What about you, Mr. Taekyung?”
“Gasp. Me too. The 28th Regiment, 1st Battalion.”
“Really? What a coincidence. I was in the 28th Regiment, 1st Battalion too. Which company were you in?”
“Second Company.”
“Then perhaps it isn’t a coincidence but fate. Ha-ha.”
There was nothing more to discuss. I rose from my seat and bowed deeply at the waist.
“Nice to meet you, Senior.”
There’s a saying in Korea about school ties, regional ties, and blood ties.5 Hunters were no different.
The chance of awakening was 0.1 percent—one in a thousand. With odds that slim, it was rare for anyone you knew from ordinary life to awaken. The Hunter training center might not seem like much, but it was where a Hunter’s network began.
“You don’t have to go this far. Please, sit down.”
“You can speak casually with me.”
“I don’t really stand on ceremony…”
Just as Butler Kim and I were creating a warm atmosphere between Senior and junior, Team Leader Choi, who had been watching quietly, suddenly cut in.
“Butler Kim. Why don’t you do as Mr. Jin Taekyung says?”
What an ill-mannered bastard. How dare he tell such a distinguished Senior what to do…
Hmm. I guess he can.
Come to think of it, Team Leader Choi was the bigger shot. He employed a former Ares Guild mage as his butler.
What kind of family does he come from?
Was his grandfather the President and his father the prime minister?
As my curiosity continued to grow, Team Leader Choi went on.
“I think it’s time we sorted out everyone’s forms of address. You’re the face of our Guild, after all. We can’t keep calling you Butler Kim or Uncle forever, can we?”
Butler Kim considered it for a moment before answering.
“I’ll follow the Young Master’s wishes.”
Team Leader Choi nodded and swept a stern gaze over everyone present.
“Then from now on, we’ll all address Butler Kim as Guild Master. No objections, correct?”
Im Kkeokjeong and Miss Song answered.
“Man, this meat is incredible. Is it because it was grilled with Magic?”
“The booze is going in. Booze! Down it goes, down it goes!”
“……”
Team Leader Choi gazed at the two of them with regret before turning his eyes toward me. I had raised one arm conspicuously.
“What does that mean?”
“I have a question.”
At least this guy is a little better.
Team Leader Choi spoke with an expression that seemed to say as much.
“Go ahead.”
“Wasn’t Team Leader Choi the Guild Master?”
“……”
Looking as if he had been betrayed, Team Leader Choi pulled something from inside his coat and handed it to me. I took it and examined it.
It was a business card.
“I have this.”
“What does it say?”
“Choi Minwoo, Team Leader of Team 1, Peace Guild.”
“Yes. I’m the Team Leader.”
“Oh.”
“Butler Kim is the Guild Master. I’m the Team Leader. The other three are team members. Do you understand now?”
I didn’t know whether Butler Kim was a boss in name only or a public figurehead, but I nodded anyway.
If I didn’t, Team Leader Choi looked like he might cry.
“Did everyone else understand?”
At Team Leader Choi’s question, Im Kkeokjeong and Miss Song answered.
“Wow, even the liquor tastes amazing. Is it because we’ve got magically grilled meat to go with it?”
“How long are you going to make me do the shoulder dance? It’s dislocated! Dislocated! Dislocated!”
“……”
Hey, are you crying?
Footnotes
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Soju is a Korean distilled alcoholic drink commonly served with meals. ↩ ↩2
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King Sejong was a fifteenth-century Korean ruler best known for overseeing the creation of the Korean alphabet. ↩
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Admiral Yi Sun-sin was a Korean naval commander celebrated for defending Korea during the Japanese invasions of the late sixteenth century. ↩
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Nonsan is home to Korea’s main Army recruit training center. ↩
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School ties, regional ties, and blood ties are traditionally regarded in Korea as major sources of social connections and influence. ↩
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