Right now, all eyes were focused on South Korea’s top star, Sung Yohan. Wearing a worn hoodie and grimy training pants, carrying a child on his back, someone like himself would only be seen as a ‘rescued civilian’ or ‘porter number 1.’
“Move aside! Move! Patient coming through!”
Igyeol shouted in a deliberately urgent and desperate voice.
“The child isn’t breathing! Please clear a path! Do you want to watch someone die?!”
At that fierce cry, the reporters flinched and opened a path. Taking advantage of that gap, Igyeol slipped behind Sung Yohan’s back. He had used Sung Yohan as a human shield.
Sung Yohan sensed the movement and raised his head. His eyes visible beneath the brim of his bucket hat wavered.
“You…!”
Sung Yohan reached out his hand. It seemed like he was trying to grab even the hem of Igyeol’s clothes. But his hand cut through empty air. The reporters had surrounded Sung Yohan and thrust their microphones at him.
“Guild Leader-nim! Please give us a statement!”
“Are you injured? You don’t look well!”
“Regarding this dungeon incident, what is Sanctum’s position…!”
“Move aside.”
Sung Yohan growled low. It was a voice tinged with killing intent, something unimaginable from his usual self. But the excited reporters didn’t hear him. They surrounded him like a wall.
Meanwhile, Igyeol had escaped the encirclement. He hid his body in the darkness below the walking trail.
Freedom.
Igyeol looked back. He could see Sung Yohan, unable to move an inch, buried under countless cameras and microphones. Those eyes glaring at him with a pale face. That gaze mixed with a sense of betrayal, anger, and an incomprehensible obsession pierced through Igyeol.
‘Sorry, Paladin. If I get the chance later, I’ll send you a box of honey water.’
Igyeol grinned wickedly as he drove in the final nail.
“This child!”
At that resonant voice, the reporters’ gazes briefly turned toward Igyeol in the darkness.
“I’ll take him with me, so don’t worry and handle the rest yourself!”
“…?!”
Sung Yohan’s eyes widened as if they would pop out.
“Let’s go, kiddo!”
Thwack!
Igyeol kicked off the ground.
It wasn’t the movement of a C-rank Hunter. With the sound of cutting through wind, Igyeol’s figure instantly disappeared from sight. Like a ghost, or like light.
The reporters stared blankly at his retreating figure before thrusting their microphones back at Sung Yohan.
“Guild Leader-nim! What’s your relationship with that person just now?”
“Is that person related to Sanctum?”
“Who on earth is that person? Are they an associate?”
“Was there a child inside the dungeon?!”
A bombardment of questions poured out. Sung Yohan’s head throbbed. Along with the headache from the rebound, he could almost hear the sound of his blood pressure rising.
“Ha…”
Sung Yohan removed the bucket hat from his head with trembling hands. The grimy bucket hat that Igyeol had put on him before leaving.
He gripped the hat tightly. The hat crumpled and screamed in his grasp.
‘Running away? Not only did you throw me as bait, but you threw me to the reporters too?’
The excessive Holy Power began raging through his blood vessels again. But hotter than that was the fighting spirit surging from the pit of his stomach.
A man whose name he didn’t even know. But… a man who might be more necessary to him than anyone, no, a man who was necessary.
And a man who dared to use this Sung Yohan and backstab him.
Sung Yohan stared in the direction where Igyeol had disappeared, still holding the crumpled hat. A chilling smile curved at the corners of his mouth. Flash! Flash! Flash! Camera flashes burst.
“Don’t photograph me.”
When Sung Yohan coldly snapped, the barrage of flashes stopped abruptly. It was a charisma filled with killing intent that overwhelmed everyone present. He stared straight into the camera lens and muttered quietly, as if conveying a message to someone who might be watching TV.
“If I catch you… I really won’t let you off.”
It was a declaration of war to the entire nation, and the prelude to a terrible obsession.
***
“Huff, huff…”
Igyeol only slowed down after descending Dumang Mountain and entering the alleyways of Miyang-dong. Kang Yeongwon, carried on his back, was still sleeping soundly, oblivious to the world. Igyeol wiped away the flowing sweat and clicked his tongue.
“Whew, that took ten years off my life.”
Looking back, there was no one chasing him. While Sung Yohan was caught by the reporters, he had put enough distance between them. Moreover, with his concealment abilities, even an S-rank detection Hunter would have difficulty finding him.
“At least I survived.”
Igyeol let out a sigh of relief. But he couldn’t help the uncomfortable feeling in one corner of his heart. Sung Yohan’s final gaze. That look that was too strange to call killing intent and too persistent to call anger was stuck in his mind and wouldn’t leave.
‘He won’t really come looking for me, will he?’
Igyeol shook his head. Would the number one ranked person in South Korea have nothing better to do than come looking for a neighborhood health clinic owner? Just because they cleared one C-rank variant dungeon together. That man had caught the Boss monster by himself anyway.
“No way.”
Trudge, trudge.
Igyeol walked toward the familiar health clinic sign. The old, faded sign glowed red under the streetlight.
[Jangchun Health Clinic]
My peaceful home. Today had been far too long. Igyeol trudged along with drooping shoulders, carrying the particularly heavy Kang Yeongwon on his back as he headed toward the health clinic with dragging steps.
“Hyung!!”
As soon as he opened the shop door, Hyungil burst out making a fuss.
“Hyung, did you see the news? The Sanctum Guild was all over Dumang Mountain! Ah, damn it, I should’ve gone there! They said Sung Yohan came too!! But some crazy person yelled something at Sung Yohan in front of a bunch of reporters and ran away, that wasn’t you, right?”
“……”
“…Hyung, it wasn’t you, right?”
Hyungil asked again in a trembling voice. Igyeol silently dumped Kang Yeongwon into Hyungil’s arms.
“Lay him down. And be quiet. I’m tired.”
“Who’s this kid anyway? Hyung, did you cause trouble again?”
Leaving Hyungil’s nagging behind, Igyeol threw himself onto the sofa. On the TV news screen, Sung Yohan’s face was displayed as large as a door, surrounded by reporters, holding a crumpled bucket hat and smiling menacingly.
[Guild Leader Sung Yohan clears C-rank dungeon with mysterious companion…]
[Mysterious companion’s statement, what is the truth?]
Look at those subtitle captions. Igyeol picked up the remote and turned off the TV.
“Ah, whatever. Sue me.”
But the ticklish anxiety in his stomach wouldn’t go away.
***
“Ugh, my back…”
Igyeol groaned as he raised the shutter. Rattle! Along with the metallic sound, morning sunlight poured into the health clinic, but his body felt stiff as if he’d been beaten.
The aftermath of the Dumang Mountain dungeon remained as muscle pain, and the anxiety that he might be chased by the number one ranked person made his neck stiff. But what could he do? The Earth turns, the unemployed must make a living, and the health clinic door must be opened.
Ding-a-ling—
The wind chime on the health clinic door made a clear sound. 8 AM. The first customer stormed in as soon as they opened.
“Owner Moon! Are you open?”
It was Grandma Chunja, the neighborhood fixture. The momentum of the grandmother pushing a baby stroller like a cane as she entered was quite imposing.
“Lady Chunja, why are you here so early?”
“Early, my foot! I didn’t sleep a wink last night, not at all!”
Grandma Chunja plopped down heavily on a chair inside the shop and patted her knees.
“Yesterday, that, did you hear the boom from the Dumang Mountain area? The ground was rumbling like this, and my knee bones were all cold. I thought a war had broken out or something.”
Igyeol pretended not to know and widened his eyes in a circle.
“Ah, that news? I saw it too~ That was the sound coming from the dungeon? I woke up startled.”
“That’s right! Because of that damn dungeon or whatever, the whole neighborhood is in an uproar. They say monsters or something come out, don’t they? Oh my, how can anyone live in such fear.”
The grandmother clicked her tongue and massaged her aching knees.
“So, about that medicine I mentioned last time, is it ready? Every time it rains or the ground shakes, my knees hurt so much I can barely stand it.”
Igyeol grinned.
“Of course it’s all prepared. I even finished packaging it neatly so I could give it to you right away when you came!”
Igyeol pulled out a warm pouch box from behind the counter. It was a special extract he had painstakingly boiled all night with ‘Flame Nettle’ that he had risked his life to gather (?) in yesterday’s dungeon—no, that he had sneakily swiped while avoiding Sung Yohan’s eyes—along with ox knee root and eleuthero, which are good for joints.
“This isn’t just any medicine. It’s boiled with medicinal herbs gathered from that terrifying Dumang Mountain dungeon yesterday, so when you drink it, your knees won’t make any noise, like they’ve been oiled.”
“My, such smooth talk. Let me have a taste.”
Grandma Chunja tore open one of the complimentary pouches and gulped it down in one shot. A bitter yet ultimately warming energy went down her esophagus. The grandmother’s eyes sparkled.
“Oh? My stomach feels nice and warm~ and my knees seem to be getting smoother too.”
“I told you, didn’t I? Our medicine is different from the ingredients up.”
It was true. Medicinal herbs from dungeons had dozens of times better efficacy than ordinary herbs. Of course, the processing to remove toxicity was tricky, but for Igyeol, it was a piece of cake.
“Good, good. Anyway, Owner Moon is such a good person~ and has such good skills too.”
The grandmother opened her wallet with a satisfied face. There was no hesitation in the hand that counted out and handed over the cash.
“I’ll come again next time, so if you get something good, save it for me. Got it?”
“Of course I’ll save it for you, Lady! Take care!”
Watching the grandmother’s back as she pushed her baby stroller out, Igyeol proudly stuffed the cash into his pocket.
‘Right. This is peace.’
Whether the number one ranked person came chasing or not, the fifty-thousand won bills entering his pocket right now were more precious.
‘Let’s forget about Dumang Mountain.’
He would forget about him anyway. Hmm-hmm~ Igyeol hummed as he moved his steps toward the inside of the health clinic.
