Eunseong sat with his back ramrod straight in the desk chair and lightly patted his own cheeks.
Click.
Not long after, the executive office door opened and Kang Mujin walked in. He was wearing the dark, standard-issue shirt and trousers distributed to guild members, but the natural bone structure hidden beneath couldn’t be concealed. He must have come up after only a quick shower — droplets of water still clung to the ends of his black hair, trickling down along the line of his neck.
“You called for me, sir.”
It was a low, composed voice. But the chill running beneath it settled the air of the executive office into something cold. Composure and hostility coexisted within a single voice. Eunseong, who had been lost in thought, felt his heart lurch at that sharp, oppressive weight — but outwardly he rested his chin on his hand with an arrogant air and held his gaze.
What — why does he look at me like that! Don’t flinch. Don’t flinch! I outrank him!
He tried to hypnotize himself inwardly, but it was no use. Under the pressure of Kang Mujin’s dark, menacing energy, his bold resolve to change the future shrank. He felt like his head could fly off his shoulders at any moment.
To hide his trembling hands, Eunseong laced his fingers together and lowered them beneath the desk. He had completely forgotten that it was a transparent reinforced glass desk, visible from any angle.
“Sit.”
The tension made the words come out stiff. Even at Eunseong’s brief invitation, Kang Mujin didn’t so much as glance at the sofa. He stood rooted to the spot and merely dipped his head mechanically.
“My clothes haven’t fully dried. I’ll stand.”
“…….”
It was perfectly respectful phrasing — yet the blunt refusal radiating from his entire body, as if drawing a hard line, came crashing across. Eunseong kept his expression still and, without a word, jerked his chin toward the top of the desk. There, the Lord of Darkness he had taken out earlier gleamed with a dark luster.
“Take it.”
Kang Mujin’s gaze moved naturally to the desk. At the pulse of mana radiating from the jet-black scabbard, his pupils dilated almost imperceptibly. An S-Rank item. The highest tier — something even rankers burned with desire to get their hands on.
“Your sword — was broken.”
Eunseong added it with a forced air of indifference. The real reason — that he was looking out for his favorite character because it was pitiful to see him fight with a worn-out weapon — couldn’t make it past his lips.
Kang Mujin’s eyes darkened deeply. Before the regression, this person had never given him anything in his entire life. And yet after the S-Rank elixir, now it was an S-Rank weapon. With each thing directed his way, it felt as though something was being fitted around his neck and drawn tighter.
…There must be a reason for giving me this.
Kang Mujin’s mind went cold as if doused in ice water. This would mean he was being sent into a dungeon dangerous enough to require laying down his life. He found himself wanting to know the true intention behind all these baits being cast his way one after another.
The longer Kang Mujin’s silence stretched, the more desperately Eunseong prayed inwardly.
Please, don’t be suspicious, just take it and go. That thing is incredibly rare. I picked it out especially for you!
But contrary to his desperate inner pleading, Kang Mujin alternated his gaze between the sword and Eunseong before opening his mouth.
“…May I ask the reason.”
The sudden question made Eunseong blink blankly. He wanted to shout that this is just what being a fan feels like — but he held it back, knowing that would get him labeled a lunatic on the spot.
Eunseong sank deep into the backrest and subtly crossed his still-trembling legs.
“Does there need to be a reason?”
Is he telling me not to ask. Kang Mujin ran his tongue along the inside of his lip, stepped up to the desk, and picked up the sword. His hand tightened around the grip. Murderous intent seethed up to the tip of his throat — but right now, when he needed to build the power to bring Zenith down, he had no choice but to quietly swallow that feeling.
“…I’ll accept it with gratitude.”
Knowing nothing of what was going on inside Kang Mujin, Eunseong was internally dancing with joy at the fact that he had taken the sword.
“Which dungeon’s boss would you like?”
“What?”
“You’ve given me an elixir and now an S-Rank weapon — I’ll bring back results to match.”
At Kang Mujin’s composed declaration, Eunseong’s thoughts ground to a halt for a moment. Results. He had given him a good weapon simply so he could fight without getting hurt — so how on earth did the conclusion leap in that direction?
The image of Kang Mujin in that wretched state inside the dungeon flashed through his mind. Eunseong’s heart dropped.
No! He just finished recovering, and now he’s saying he’ll go back into a dungeon?
Eunseong wanted to grab Kang Mujin by the trouser leg and drag him back. But he didn’t forget that he was Baek Eunseong right now.
Eunseong clenched his back teeth and said firmly.
“No raids for the time being.”
A brief silence fell. And within that silence, Kang Mujin’s eyes shifted in an unsettling way.
If this were the Baek Eunseong he knew, there was no way he would pull a Hunter he had just given an S-Rank weapon to out of active duty. If he wasn’t being sent to a dungeon, he wondered if he was being tasked with a private disposal — and asked as much.
“…Then who am I to dispose of.”
Eunseong recoiled inwardly and hunched his shoulders. What on earth had the original Baek Eunseong been doing on a regular basis for Kang Mujin to come to such an extreme conclusion like this?
Don’t get blood on your hands, don’t get hurt — just rest!
Eunseong chose his words as carefully as he could.
“Rest for a while.”
“…….”
It was a short answer, but not a bad one. Kang Mujin, however, did not take the word rest at face value.
Rest. How dangerous of a mission is he planning to give me.
Kang Mujin gripped the sword handle hard enough to crush it. Before the regression, there had never been a single time he had been given an item in a one-on-one setting like this. What on earth had prompted this man’s change of mood? He wanted to dig into Eunseong’s schemes — but he was still a powerless guild member. Nothing more than a lower-ranked Hunter scraping along the very bottom.
Kang Mujin slowly raised his head and met Eunseong’s gaze.
“Then I’ll be on standby at the dormitory.”
Silence filled the wide executive office after those words.
“…Thank you for the consideration.”
The voice that followed was low enough to be dangerous. But to Eunseong’s ears, only the word “consideration” landed. Under the mistaken belief that Kang Mujin had accepted his concern without resistance, Eunseong gave a satisfied nod.
At that slight, easy nod, Kang Mujin’s jaw tightened. His teeth ground together, and the muscle below his ear twitched faintly. He pulled his gaze away before his boiling revulsion could show, pressed his lips into a firm line, and turned away in silence.
Click.
Only after the executive office door had shut completely did Eunseong release the breath he had been holding. The moment Kang Mujin’s retreating figure disappeared beyond the door, the smile he had been suppressing rose up irresistibly. The corners of his mouth tugged on their own, and he pressed both palms flat against his cheeks and rubbed.
“This isn’t bad at all. I get to see Mujin, and I’ll never have to worry about money for the rest of my life!”
Eunseong burrowed deep into the plush leather chair and savored this intoxicating power.
“…Wait. I’m a Hunter, aren’t I? That means I have to go into dungeons too, doesn’t it?”
Baek Eunseong was the head and the face of Zenith, South Korea’s number one ranked guild. Someone like that staying cooped up in headquarters and skipping dungeon raids? The press and the association would never let that slide.
Knock knock.
Before he had time to sink into despair, a knock landed with mechanical, perfectly even rhythm. Eunseong startled and reflexively straightened his back and composed his expression.
“…Come in.”
He deliberately kept his voice low to conceal the trembling. The door opened without a sound. A man with his hair combed back without a single strand out of place walked in, carrying approval documents tucked under his arm.
It was Choi Taejun, head of the Zenith Guild’s secretarial office.
A man who had never awakened as a Hunter, yet ran Hunters more efficiently than anyone. He always moved with clockwork precision — and in the original story, he was a spy planted in Zenith by the final boss.
What exhausting thing has he brought in this time.
In the original, the Baek Eunseong had played the authoritarian in front of Chief Choi, only to end up being thoroughly used and discarded. The Chief Choi in Baek Eunseong’s memories was no different — he had maneuvered Baek Eunseong into moving in whatever direction he wanted.
Eunseong deliberately ignored the gaze coming from behind those coldly gleaming glasses lenses, propped his chin on the glass desk, and looked down.
“I have a report for you, sir.”
Chief Choi extended the documents in a dry voice. The crisp rustling of paper turning sounded unusually sharp.
“I’ll be briefing you on the raid for A-Rank Dungeon ‘Black Thorn Valley,’ scheduled for tomorrow.”
Black Thorn Valley. The moment he heard that name, a deep crease formed between Eunseong’s brows.
To Eunseong, who had read through the original dozens of times, it was a dungeon whose name alone was enough to turn his stomach. The mana traps laid across the floor were nearly impossible to detect, and packs of mutant monsters lurked in every narrow, twisted gap of the valley. It was also a place where Kang Mujin had come close to dying multiple times in the original.
“Place C and D-Rank Hunters at the front line to break through the mana traps. After that, deploy B-Rank Hunters…….”
Eunseong opened his mouth without waiting to hear the rest.
“Cancel it.”
Putting lower-ranked Hunters at the front line was no different from using their lives as stepping stones to push through the raid.
Chief Choi’s fingertips, mid-turn to the next page, froze in midair. He pushed his glasses up with his middle finger and stared fixedly at Eunseong. The boss who had always pushed dungeon raid schedules through with almost excessive force had just ordered a cancellation. It was a first.
“May I ask the reason for canceling the schedule?”
Chief Choi’s voice carried a heavy undercurrent of suspicion.
“I’m going to manage the guild.”
To keep Chief Choi — who had been by Baek Eunseong’s side for so long — from seeing through his shallow performance, Eunseong kept his words as brief as possible. He didn’t have the composure to say much more anyway, not with his nerves wound this tight.
“If there’s perhaps a different strategy in mind…….”
“There isn’t.”
Eunseong lifted his eyes sharply, chin still resting on his hand. His heart was pounding out of sheer fear, but Baek Eunseong was not someone who would offer excuses here.
“Do as you’re told.”
“…Understood. I’ll revise the schedule in full and issue a standby order.”
On the surface, it was a compliant answer — but behind the glasses, his eyes had sunken into deep suspicion.
