Chapter 4

Chapter 4

-sold for the highest price in history….

An office of barely ten square meters, full of dust.

A yellowed curtain hung over the window. That curtain blocking the sun was faded yellow adhesive film, giving off a murky air as though the weight of years had settled over it. In the center, two characters were stamped in vivid red: “Daily Loans.” They gave off an ominous impression, like a blood-red brand.

“System. Does it have to be this place?”

【The base must be close to the Tower, so this is the most suitable location.】

“What exactly is that damned base supposed to be?”

Just when he thought he had somehow finished the “secure funds” Mission, a new Mission had started again.

Without hesitation, the System designated the next objective.

It was the old building right in front of him.

Amid a forest of respectable buildings, this place alone seemed to be moving backward through time.

The System had instructed him to use this place as a base.

Go Gyeol could not understand why. No, he had earned hundreds of billions of won, so why did he have to set up a base in a ragged place like this?

As always, the System answered his question with emotionless text.

【Base: An important point that serves as the foundation for activity.】

A laugh slipped from the corner of Go Gyeol’s mouth. As if he had asked because he did not know the dictionary definition.

“Forget it. Let’s clean.”

Steeling himself, he walked to the window.

The tightly shut window opened with a CREEEAK of rusted hinges.

Sunlight poured in and, like a spotlight on a stage, illuminated the dance of dust filling the room.

He silently picked up a broom. He swept away the accumulated dust, then wiped away the old stains embedded in the floor, walls, and ceiling with a damp mop.

If this had not been a Mission to “personally clean the base,” he would have called someone long ago for this grueling labor.

At last, the rag that had wiped away the final grime became a black lump and was thrown into the trash bag.

He even peeled off the unsightly [Daily Loans] adhesive film stuck to the window.

Then sunlight filled the interior without obstruction, making the space shine as though it were new.

But that peace lasted only a moment. A rough shout and a loud crash shattered the silence.

“Hey, damn it, Go Gyeol, you bastard!”

Even at the sound of the door being thrown open hard enough to break, Go Gyeol was not startled. He smiled faintly and turned his head toward the sound.

“You’re here?”

Go Gyeol’s calm voice became kindling.

Lee Seong-ha strode toward him with eyes blazing in fury.

“What the hell did you tell the head priest?!”

“The truth.”

Go Gyeol was composed.

“That you were going to become a Hunter again. He seemed pleased.”

At those words, Lee Seong-ha was dumbfounded.

Go Gyeol looked at him as though he were pathetic.

“You didn’t cause a scene at the church, did you?”

“Do you think I’m crazy enough to do that there?!”

“Then it’s fine.”

Go Gyeol shrugged and acted as if he had no more interest in the matter.

“Ah… that lunatic.”

Lee Seong-ha tore at his own hair, unbecoming of his neat cassock.

He followed Go Gyeol, who was moving a box placed in the hallway, and spoke as if pleading.

“Please. Why does it have to be me? If you need a Hunter, there are other options.”

“Give me an example.”

“Yuk Jeon-il.”

In that instant, Go Gyeol’s expression froze cold.

“You still remember that name.”

“How could I forget? He was the bastard who followed you around like your shadow.”

“I told you to shut up.”

Go Gyeol roughly tore open the box and took out the tools.

Despite his sharp reaction, Lee Seong-ha appealed to him, clinging to his last hope.

“Go Gyeol. Think about this rationally. Me, who spent a long time away from combat and lived as a priest, and even when I was active in the field, I was only A-Grade. Versus Yuk Jeon-il, who’s a natural-born S-Grade and still active. Who do you think would be more useful?”

Go Gyeol stared at Lee Seong-ha and spoke firmly.

“You.”

“……Ha. Lord.”

A despairing sigh flowed from Lee Seong-ha’s mouth. He roughly scratched his head again, then finally dragged a hand over his face as if giving up.

“…So you’re really going with the water-ghost strategy and dragging me under with you?”

“I’m trying to save Korea.”

Lee Seong-ha glared at Go Gyeol, who answered almost humming, then sank to the floor.

“Hey, your cassock will get dirty.”

“A clean freak did a deep clean on this floor. What’s there to worry about?”

As if he had never been angry, Lee Seong-ha slowly looked around the now-clean office and said,

“To think Go Gyeol of all people would do something like this.”

“It’s not that impressive. But you came earlier than I thought.”

At Go Gyeol’s words, anger rose in Lee Seong-ha again, and he ground his teeth as he answered.

“Because thanks to some bastard, I got fired from the priesthood.”

“From what I can see, the head priest seemed to think, ‘This is my chance!’ and accepted right away. Just how much did you torment him?”

Lee Seong-ha snorted and ignored Go Gyeol’s words. His gaze turned outside the window.

“But isn’t this office way too shabby?”

“I know.”

“Then why did you choose this place?”

“…It’s a Mission.”

“Ah….”

The atmosphere turned awkward in an instant.

Lee Seong-ha quickly changed the subject.

“Ask the System when it’s going to let me go.”

“It says it has no intention of doing that at all.”

The moment Go Gyeol oiled the creaking door hinge and firmly tightened the screws—

[Mission: Personally clean the base! Complete.]

[Reward: 2 Gold granted.]

[Current Funds: 16 Gold]

Lee Seong-ha asked Go Gyeol, who was checking the System notification that had now become familiar.

“Why are you standing there blankly?”

It was when he was checking the now-familiar System notification.

The reward window disappeared, and a new Mission window appeared.

[Mission 5. Decorate the base cozily.]

[Mission 6. Recruit a Hunter. [Confirm]]

A recruitment Mission, quiet since Lee Seong-ha.

Go Gyeol, who had wondered if he might have to clear the Tower with Lee Seong-ha alone, quickly pressed the [Confirm] button. And in the next moment, a low curse slipped from his mouth.

“…Shit.”

“Why?”

Lee Seong-ha, standing beside him, tilted his head. Go Gyeol clenched his teeth without realizing it.

“A recruitment Mission… appeared.”

“A recruitment Mission? Why are you cursing if one appeared? Who is it?”

Go Gyeol spat out the name syllable by syllable, as though uttering a curse.

“Kang. Ji. Hyun.”

Silence fell. Lee Seong-ha seemed to chew over the name, then cried out in shock.

“Kang Ji-hyun?! That ‘Witch’ Kang Ji-hyun?!”

Go Gyeol closed his eyes.

It was a name that exhausted him just to recall. S-Grade, and her epithet, “Witch.”

That nickname had not been given solely because of her trait. The woman herself was a disaster.

“You… are seriously in trouble.”

Unlike his sympathetic voice, the corners of Lee Seong-ha’s mouth had risen high.

“Shut up, Lee Seong-ha.”

“What changes if I shut up? But… seriously, what are you going to do?”

At Lee Seong-ha’s worried words, Go Gyeol urgently called the System. Desperation clung to his voice.

“System! Can the Mission be changed?”

【Mission changes are not available.】

“What about giving up?”

【Mission abandonment is not available.】

“…Damn it.”

Go Gyeol squeezed his eyes shut. His mind went blank.

Of all people, why did it have to be Kang Ji-hyun?

Although he could not hear the System’s answer, Lee Seong-ha grasped the entire situation just from Go Gyeol’s distorted expression and gave a malicious grin.

“You have something with the Witch, don’t you? Now that I think about it, weren’t you two classmates?”

At that one sentence, Go Gyeol’s gaze sank coldly.

“Aren’t you going to church?”

“Huh? You bastard, whose fault is it that I can’t go?!”

Treating Lee Seong-ha, who was shouting and hurling curses at him, like an invisible man, Go Gyeol silently began putting away the tools.

“The System didn’t give a time limit, did it? Then….”

He would think about it later.

Problems that could not be solved immediately were better pushed aside for a while.

---

Go Gyeol assembled office furniture for a long time.

When he had a lot to think about, keeping his hands busy was one of his habits.

His hands moved quickly and precisely. Since he had bought only the cheapest and simplest assembly furniture, it did not take long to finish.

One desk, one bookcase, a metal cabinet, and a four-seat sofa. The office, furnished only with the bare minimum, was still empty.

“Doesn’t it feel a little bare?”

Lee Seong-ha, who had somehow taken a seat on the freshly assembled sofa, asked.

“I only bought the essentials for now. I’ll fill it in slowly later.”

He did not know the System’s standard for “coziness,” but if he continued adding things like this for now, the Mission would be completed someday.

After finishing the assembly, Go Gyeol sat in a chair.

“Haa.”

Once his concentration ended, another sigh came out.

“Good grief, you’ll make the ground cave in at this rate.”

Then a sweet yet nutty smell struck his nose. When he lifted his head, Lee Seong-ha was holding out a “Seong-ha-style Café Mocha” made by emptying in two sticks of instant coffee mix and cocoa powder.

“Is it because of Kang Ji-hyun?”

True concern lingered in Lee Seong-ha’s voice.

“Yeah. That’s part of it, but.”

“But?”

“Never mind.”

Go Gyeol pressed hard between his brows.

In truth, even without the System, Kang Ji-hyun had been one of the Hunters he had originally intended to recruit. Only, the timing was not now.

Meeting her now was like walking into hellfire of his own accord.

“You can’t change it to someone else? There are plenty of promising Hunter prospects in our country.”

“Do you think I’d be like this if I could?”

Seeing Go Gyeol’s expression, as though the world had collapsed, Lee Seong-ha’s eyes suddenly shone at a thought that came to him.

“You said you were a successful Hunter Manager before the Regression.”

“Yeah.”

“Who were the Hunters you handled back then? Were there S-Grades too?”

In an instant, Go Gyeol’s brow twisted sharply.

At that single question, fragments of the past he had sealed away flashed past like a panorama.

The faces of Hunters who turned their backs on their homeland’s destruction and emigrated to safer countries, sneering at him as a “useless manager” until the very end. Their contemptuous gazes were as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.

“Why are you asking that?”

His voice turned as cold as a sheet of ice.

“No, just. I was curious how amazing the people managed by someone like you must have been.”

“No need to be curious. They were all trash.”

Go Gyeol tossed the words out and rose from his seat. He no longer had the time, or the mood, to keep chewing over the past.

“But why did you tell me to come wearing a cassock?”

Lee Seong-ha asked, as though only now curious about the main point.

“Because there’s something to do.”

“Something to do?”

“Yeah.”

Go Gyeol lightly brushed off the dust, then put on the jacket he had left on top of his bag.

The first thing Go Gyeol had resolved after his Regression was to save the Hunters who had died pitifully or become villains.

A person who possessed the “Curse” ability, which had shown exceptional performance in the Tower, but had become a villain because of an unfortunate life.

He had to meet that person, the one all the people had pitied, saying that if someone had only reached out a hand, they would have become the most popular Hunter in the Tower.

Recalling again the date and time from an article he had seen before, he jerked his chin at Lee Seong-ha.

“Let’s go.”

---

The steep alleyway was so narrow that two adult men could barely pass through it.

On both sides, shacks without even fences stood in precarious rows.

The roofs were so low that even Go Gyeol, who was 176 centimeters tall, had to lower his head, and they were covered not with tiles or cement, but with dark gray tarps that looked polluted by industrial grime.

Lee Seong-ha blocked his nose and grumbled. The air of the shantytown, with its terrible dust, moldy smell, and gloomy aura all mixed together, was suffocating.

“Shh.”

As if he had arrived where he wanted, Go Gyeol stopped walking. In front of him was a shabby door covered with old, yellowed vinyl instead of glass. Without hesitation, he knocked on the door.

“Is anyone there?”

There was no answer from inside. But Go Gyeol did not stop and kept knocking.

“Isn’t no one home—”

It was before Lee Seong-ha could finish speaking. After who knew how long he had knocked—

With an unpleasant CREAK, the door opened, and the face of a very small child peeked out.

“Who… are you?”