***
Rumble rumble rumble…
Vibrations echoed inside the Gate.
I brought my cigarette to the blue flames that had spread to the street trees and took a drag.
“Does it taste good?”
Baek Yejun, who had turned the city into a sea of fire, asked as if asking whether I was satisfied. I exhaled smoke and rubbed my eyes with the hand holding the cigarette as I responded.
“At least leave me alone during break time.”
“I told you, you only hate me? That’s too much~”
The city, which had already been in ruins, was scorched to a level close to wasteland with one use of his skill. In the process, even the nearby small fry monsters were completely annihilated, so the raid members decided to take a break for a while.
“If you think about it, I’m the one who made break time.”
“Yes, thank you.”
I was also taking a break after putting down the camera. Since filming had stopped for a while and the kids couldn’t see, I wanted to smoke a cigarette comfortably, but he was interfering.
“Camera-nim, are you close with Hunter Baek Yejun-nim?”
Hunter Kim Haeseon came over and spoke in a friendly manner. Was he the Hunter who used Confusion-type skills? One of the three suspects.
“Yes.”
When I readily answered whether we were close, Baek Yejun looked surprised and opened his eyes wide.
“We were close?”
“If you eat together, you’re family; if you fight together, you’re comrades; if you keep them by your side and see them often, you’re friends—isn’t it something like that?”
Throughout my life, whether I liked it or not, I’d always belonged to an organization. Because of that, I didn’t want to be harsh in defining human relationships. If we drift apart like this, we become strangers, and if we fight, we become fucking bastards.
“I didn’t see it that way, but you really judge by ability.”
The second suspect, Hunter Choi Gukhwa, glared with insolent eyes and tackled me. He’d been openly showing his antipathy toward Baek Yejun the whole time, so I wondered if he had a personal grudge, but.
“I am quite capable~”
“Ha! Don’t you know humility?”
Baek Yejun acted as if he didn’t care at all and provoked Choi Gukhwa’s nerves in real time.
In wartime situations, there are cases where you have to accommodate annoying comrades, but to feed him irritation while pretending to be innocent as if he didn’t know such things. It made me glad I didn’t meet him in the military.
What kind of confidence is that without even rank? Is it arrogance coming from skill or wealth?
“How did you two become close?”
“We first met at my teacher’s funeral.”
“Ah, Colonel Kim Hanseong-nim…”
It was a story I was hearing for the first time, but I stayed quiet, thinking it must be so.
Baek Yejun seemed to be from an academy that separately trained minor Espers who couldn’t be conscripted. And he must have had a connection with Kim Hanseong, who was a tactical instructor there. Everyone was nodding as if they knew, so it seemed to be a famous story.
“But today’s Gate, we can’t see the boss.”
“The ones that hide are the most annoying. Hah…”
“It feels like we’ll have to camp out.”
People gradually gathered and it became crowded, so my head throbbed and I fled to a corner.
“Ah, Camera-nim.”
I came to a corner to avoid people, but there was someone here too. This Gate has gotten cramped.
“The filming team hasn’t even exchanged names yet, right? I’m Gil Sanguk.”
“I’m Ha Seongho.”
The drone technician who was checking footage introduced himself and requested a handshake, and I lightly grasped and shook his pale hand. While at it, he also asked my age, so when I answered, he replied that he was 3 years older than me and laughed.
“Call me hyung! I’ll speak casually. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“But Seongho-ya, how do you chat away so fearlessly among high-rank Hunters?”
Since this Gate had quite a difficulty level, all the Espers gathered were experienced Hunters of B-rank or above.
“Isn’t it annoying? Some people are still stuck as Espers running errands, but those bastards wave their hands once and earn money and gain honor.”
“It was certainly incredible.”
That scene where the sky split and lightning struck with a small action seemed closer to the realm of gods than humans.
It was beyond fear to the point of being wondrous, so I understood a little why people filmed and watched.
“Earlier too, looking down on people, ignoring them. Fuck… Just wait… I’ll also soon…”
I didn’t particularly feel that way, but since he said so, there must be a reason.
“I wish they’d all just die.”
As he stroked the rosary hanging on his neck, whether he used his ability or not, the air trembled and the temperature rose slightly, then two or three stone fragments around floated up and smashed into the wall with a crash. Even if it couldn’t deal effective damage to monsters, it looked threatening enough to ordinary people.
“Did you film those people last time too?”
“Huh? Oh, well, yeah. I’m almost always assigned to Dongjak-gu Gates.”
So it was a system where you’re primarily assigned by district.
“Do you know anything about the case of Hunters disappearing in Dongjak-gu and Gangnam-gu?”
“Why are you asking that?”
Gil Sanguk looked at me with an expression that said he really didn’t know.
“I was wondering if there was any footage.”
“The association collected it all, so there isn’t any. How did you know about this when it’s confidential?”
“Someone I know is looking for a missing person.”
Baek Yejun, who’s over there laughing and shooting the breeze right now.
“I don’t really know. I’d have to have power for that.”
Gil Sanguk stood up, floated three drones buzzing, and was walking away when he suddenly turned around and said.
“Come to think of it, Hunter Choi Gukhwa came asking to see the footage before the association collected it. Said he wanted to monitor it.”
“Did you show him?”
“He acted like he’d kill me if I didn’t show him, so I showed him. Seriously, Hunters are really fuck…”
With those as his last words, he left, and I looked up at the Gate’s cloudy sky and organized my thoughts.
Gil Sanguk’s ability doesn’t seem to simply move wind but to vibrate air. Why did he lie?
***
“Let’s camp here today!”
Eventually camping was decided, so we were moving and stopped when we found a suitable spot.
Espers are so sturdy they don’t mind not lighting a campfire and lying down on the asphalt to sleep, but I was in trouble. If I wasn’t careful, I could die of hypothermia before being killed by monsters.
“To think I can’t even go to the house I bought by scraping together everything…”
Hunter Park Suheon muttered gloomily, then drew a pentagram on the ground with chalk and sat cross-legged in the middle of it.
“That’s how you rest?”
“I fucking hate lying down and sleeping in places like that.”
After muttering a bit, a geometric patterned carpet about 3.3 square meters with demons drawn on it appeared above the pentagram, looking ominous.
“…Can you make a few more?”
“Keke, you’re picky about where you sleep too? Want to come up?”
When I didn’t refuse and took off my shoes to step up, the demons drawn on the carpet ran away from around me as if they were alive.
“Kekeke, what have you been doing for even Satan to be horrified?”
“I haven’t lived uprightly.”
Somehow my back felt itchy, so I touched the back of my neck. By the way, so it was Satan. No wonder it looked ferociously terrible.
“Can I peek?”
Hunter Park Suheon said something strangely suggestive.
“Peek at what?”
“Your nightmares. I collect that kind of thing. Kekekeke.”
His ability was trauma hallucinations, wasn’t it? Should I give permission to assess Hunter Park Suheon as well?
“How much will you pay me?”
“Pfft…!”
Just as an important conversation was about to unfold, Baek Yejun, who had apparently been listening from far away while leaning against a wall, lowered his head and shook his shoulders trembling.
“Can’t we settle it as carpet admission fee?”
“You don’t seem curious about a story that even horrifies Satan.”
Ahaha! A frivolous laugh echoed from that white head. It seemed his laugh bell had been pressed on its own again.
If you’re not going to pay, shut your mouth.
“I don’t have cash, but will you take a watch?”
He offered a quite expensive-looking watch, but selling items for their proper value was also bothersome, and I already had a military electronic watch I’d been using for a long time on my wrist.
This one is even waterproof and luminous.
“Just make me one more carpet or cloth.”
“Deal.”
He sat cross-legged again and muttered something.
Soon black lines were drawn under both his eyes and a black cloak densely written with unrecognizable red letters was draped over his shoulders.
“This is thick. Is it okay?”
“You’re good at application.”
When I received the cloak, it was quite heavy and of good quality.
I was seeing black magic for the first time, and it was also my first time seeing a type that used it in such a life-oriented way. If I said I was hungry, I even felt a reassurance that he’d summon a bat from somewhere and grill it. A diligent black magician—I’d really never heard or seen such a thing.
“What do I need to do?”
“I’d like you to let out some blood. In this cup here.”
A silver cup that looked old and a well-maintained dagger were thrust forward from who knows where.
“You don’t need to fill it all, just a little…”
Slash! Drip—
I rolled up my sleeve and cut at a spot that looked appropriate. It didn’t hurt much, but seeing more blood come out than expected, it seemed to be no ordinary dagger.
“Wha, what, you have no physical resistance!? This is a low-grade item!? Healer!!”
“Huk! Oh my! What did you do!”
Come to think of it, I belatedly remembered that all the raid members were mistaken in thinking I was an Esper.
When a person got injured, Hunter Park Suheon panicked, even abandoning his concept of laughing gloomily with kekeke. I gauged whether that appearance was calculated acting or his true self.
Either way, he was the third suspect.
