Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The moment the question ended, answers burst out at the same time.

“One day.”

“Two days.”

“……What?”

Lee Seong-ha’s brain stopped for an instant. The different answers were one thing, but the content itself was shocking. It was real? My friend did? Without even telling me?

Then the one who broke the silence was Kang Ji-hyun, shouting in a burst of anger.

“Why is it one day?! Hey, Go Gyeol! We clearly dated for two days!”

“If we calculate strictly by the hour, I don’t think it even reached twenty-four hours.”

Go Gyeol answered calmly as he drank his tea. Kang Ji-hyun glared at him, clearly indignant.

“You know your personality is seriously filthy, right?!”

“Only matching you.”

It was both a jab that meant, “as if I could be as bad as you,” and an answer with a double meaning: “I only act this way with you.”

Having perfectly understood what he meant, Kang Ji-hyun could not bring herself to retort any further and only chewed her lower lip in frustration.

“Uuuugh…!”

Childlike anger flashed across her perfect face.

“So, why did you come here?”

Kang Ji-hyun, forcing down that childish anger, brought up the main point. Her voice was still covered in sharp thorns. Go Gyeol quietly set down the teacup he was holding. The small sound of the cup touching the table rang unusually loud.

“I’m going to create a Hunter management agency.”

At the unexpected answer, Kang Ji-hyun tilted her head for a moment. Her brow furrowed slightly as if trying to grasp his intention. Then, at a thought that suddenly occurred to her, she wore an expression of disbelief.

“Don’t tell me… you’re going to ask me to join it?”

“That’s right.”

An affirmation without the slightest hesitation. In that instant, a deep violet mana began to rise behind Kang Ji-hyun like a haze. As if her anger had taken form, the ominously surging mana was fierce enough to swallow the cottage at any moment.

“Hey, you lunatic! You’re telling your ex-girlfriend, a woman you dated for only two days and dumped first, to join the company you made? Do you think that makes any sense? Hey! Do I look that easy to you?!”

As her shout made the waves of mana grow stronger, the teacups on the table trembled dangerously. At the force that looked as though she might unleash magic on Go Gyeol at any moment, Lee Seong-ha sprang up from his seat in fright.

“W-wait! Ms. Kang Ji-hyun! Let’s talk, talk this out! This bastard Go Gyeol absolutely isn’t looking down on you, Ms. Kang Ji-hyun! Let’s resolve this through conversation, through conversation!”

Unlike Lee Seong-ha, who hurriedly tried to mediate between them, Go Gyeol was calm and relaxed, like the eye of a storm. He still leaned back in his chair and looked straight into Kang Ji-hyun’s fiercely burning eyes.

“You can’t enter the Tower without me.”

“…What?”

Kang Ji-hyun’s beautiful face twisted harshly in disbelief. At the insult, her violet mana shook violently once again.

“Exactly three months from now, the Tower will appear. Anyone can climb up to the 30th floor, but after the 29th floor is cleared, the Tower will hold an ‘Audition’ for Hunters. And only those ranked from 1st to 10th there will earn the right to enter the Tower. Are you confident you can pass that Audition?”

“Why wouldn’t I?! Where else in this world is there a Hunter as strong and outstanding as me!”

At the words that wounded her pride, she shouted fiercely. Her confidence pierced the sky, and it was by no means baseless arrogance. But Go Gyeol shattered that confidence with a single sentence.

“The Audition will be conducted through a nationwide public vote.”

In that instant, everything stopped.

The violet mana that had been burning fiercely around Kang Ji-hyun halted as though it had been a lie. As if a video being played had been paused. It was clear to see her ferocious expression turn into bewilderment, then into cold anxiety. Her fatal weakness—stronger than anyone in the world, yet unable to get along with anyone in the world—had been seen through exactly by Go Gyeol.

In that instant, the violet mana that had been surging as if to swallow the world vanished as though it had been a lie. The flames burning with fierce force died down all at once, leaving only cold ash behind.

People called her a Witch. A woman who kept others at a distance, arrogant and willful. But that was not her true self. In truth, Kang Ji-hyun was so fragile that she was like a rose that had raised sharp thorns all over her body to protect herself. The reason she loved roses so much was also because she saw herself in them. Gorgeous and enchanting, but a thorned being that wounded anyone who approached carelessly.

Go Gyeol’s words pierced the deepest, softest part of her.

“If you don’t change your image now, you won’t even make it into the top 100, let alone the top 10.”

It was a fact so clear it was cruel.

Go Gyeol was looking at her, but his gaze went beyond the Kang Ji-hyun of the present and overlaid the afterimage of the past he had already experienced.

Before his Regression, she had participated in the Audition as if it were only natural. She had believed that she could make everyone submit with overwhelming skill. But the result had been disastrous. Far from the top 100, it was difficult even to find her name on the ranking board. The public revered her strength, but pushed her away with an even greater sense of rejection.

After the first Audition, the Tower’s gate was effectively closed. The Tower held popularity votes for the top 100 Hunters, and only when someone died during a Dungeon or Tower clear would a small-scale Audition barely open to fill the empty spot. Kang Ji-hyun aimed for that opportunity every time, but under the public’s indifference, she continued to drink the bitter cup of elimination.

In the end, until the day Korea fell, S-Grade Hunter Kang Ji-hyun never climbed the Tower even once.

People laughed at her, saying it was the natural end of an arrogant Witch who ran wild believing only in her ability. Strong on the outside but rotting away inside, she could not endure that endless humiliation and mockery. Eventually, during an ordinary Dungeon clear, her once-solid mentality crumbled like a sandcastle before the monsters pouring in.

Then the last news he heard was that she had died under mysterious circumstances.

Go Gyeol remembered clearly how he had felt when he heard that news. That was why Kang Ji-hyun, sitting before his eyes now, was not simply his ex-girlfriend. Even if no Mission had been given, she was the first piece of a tragic future he had to save.

Tap. Tap.

Go Gyeol’s fingers struck the table. At that sharp sound breaking the silence, Kang Ji-hyun’s shoulders, which had been sitting proudly with her arms crossed, flinched faintly.

“What is there to think about? Wasn’t it your dream to become the strongest Hunter of the Witch line?”

In that instant, Kang Ji-hyun’s eyes widened. She could not believe that this cold and indifferent man remembered the dream she had once mentioned in passing. But that surprise lasted only a moment.

“Hmph.”

She gave a sharp snort and put her haughty mask back on. Leaning deep into her chair, she crossed her legs and asked,

“So, what are you going to do for me?”

“What?”

“You’re scouting me right now, aren’t you? Surely you’re not trying to take a talent like me without any conditions?”

Kang Ji-hyun’s finger pointed to her perfect face, then slowly slid down along the enchanting curves of her body. Even at that figure, enough to bewitch anyone, there was not the slightest change in either Go Gyeol’s or Lee Seong-ha’s expression.

“Ha.”

A dry laugh escaped Go Gyeol’s mouth.

“Kang Ji-hyun, you seem to be badly mistaken right now. This is me giving you an opportunity, not you giving me one. Do you think there’s anyone in this world besides me who would take you in?”

Grrrk.

The sound of teeth grinding could be heard clearly inside the quiet café.

“I told you not to grind your teeth unless you want dentures when you’re old.”

Kang Ji-hyun slammed the table.

“You’re the one making me grind them!”

Go Gyeol merely shrugged. After glaring at him with sparks flying from her eyes for a long while, Kang Ji-hyun finally admitted that she was at a disadvantage and opened her mouth with a sigh.

“Fine. I don’t need anything else, so promise me one thing.”

“What?”

Go Gyeol asked indifferently, lifting his teacup as though he had no interest.

“I’m the main.”

“Fine.”

At the answer that came far too easily, Kang Ji-hyun’s fine brow furrowed instead.

“…You’re not lying, are you?”

“When have you ever seen me lie?”

It had only been two days, or to be exact, less than twenty-four hours, but the Go Gyeol she had seen was the kind of man who would not lie even with a knife to his throat.

“…All right. And one more thing.”

“What?”

“I don’t want someone else being my Manager. You have to do it yourself.”

“Fine.”

This time as well, the answer came without hesitation.

A Manager, by nature, was a profession that became a Hunter’s hands and feet and handled all the unpleasant work.

Kang Ji-hyun imagined rolling this arrogant man around like a hoop the instant the contract was stamped. From coffee errands to equipment management, she would nitpick everything and torment him at every turn. A dark yet satisfied smile spread across her lips.

---

Quiet afternoon sunlight crossed the huge floor-to-ceiling window at a slant and brightly illuminated the office. Dust glittered gold in the air as it drifted, and the only thing breaking the silence was the clacking of a keyboard. Go Gyeol, who had been writing something for a long while with his eyes fixed on the laptop screen, paused his fingers and caught his breath.

BANG!

The heavy door opened roughly as if it would crash into the wall, and a man rushed in like a storm.

It was Kang Hoon, with messy hair and a flushed face. He went straight to Go Gyeol’s desk and shouted in a voice that sounded as though he might burst into tears at any moment.

“Hyung! I seriously can’t live like this!”