Eunseong held his breath the entire way out through the gate. Every time the crushed monster flesh and pools of blood entered his vision, he felt like he was going insane. With his face drained of color, he forced himself to stare only at the empty air ahead and walked as fast as he could without running.
The guild members caught sight of Eunseong approaching with bloodshot eyes and hurriedly parted to either side. The sight of him walking in that pristine white suit now splattered with filth was terrifying — like someone on their way to tear a person apart.
At the gate entrance, a vehicle bearing the Zenith Guild emblem was waiting. Eunseong quickly climbed into the back seat and yanked the door shut behind him. The driver’s shoulders went rigid at the startlingly loud slam.
“Take me to headquarters.”
Eunseong let the polite phrasing slip out before he realized it, then turned his gaze to the window without another word.
The driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror went into turmoil. It was a tone of courtesy that would have been unimaginable under normal circumstances. The driver was seized by all manner of terrible thoughts — what capital offense he could have possibly committed to deserve this, whether he’d be fired first thing tomorrow.
Looks like someone’s going to end up dead again today….
Pale as a sheet and trembling, the driver pressed down on the accelerator.
Once the car began to move, Eunseong finally let out the breath he’d been holding and sank into the plush seat. He pressed his fingers to his temple and stared out at the scenery rushing past the window.
…What is going on.
Relief at being alive washed over him, and at the same time he fell into thought over why he had become Baek Eunseong. But the smell creeping steadily up his nostrils quickly pulled his attention elsewhere. The desire to strip off these reeking clothes and wash himself dominated his mind completely.
Several dozen minutes later, the headquarters of Zenith — South Korea’s number one guild, towering as if to pierce the sky — came into view.
The moment Eunseong stepped into the executive office, he staggered and ran toward the bathroom inside.
“Ugh—! Cough, blaaargh—!”
He’d thought he’d managed to hold it together remarkably well, but the moment he was alone and the tension broke, everything inside him came up. Even as bitter stomach acid rose from his now-empty gut, the convulsive heaving wouldn’t stop. His face flushed red from the repeated dry heaves, eyes welling with tears.
“…I’m dying.”
He was completely drained from the relentless retching. Gripping his burning throat, he rinsed his mouth out repeatedly with water. Only after washing his face with cold water did he manage to collect himself.
When Eunseong looked up and confirmed the face revealed between his damp strands of hair, his eyes went wide.
Pale skin that gleamed with an almost translucent clarity, now even more so with the moisture. Eyes that were cool and still, sunken like a winter’s day. A face so devastatingly beautiful it barely seemed human.
“…Wow, this is a little unfair, isn’t it? You were going around doing all that with this face?”
But the admiration was brief. More than the unfamiliar beauty in the mirror, the smell still clinging to the tip of his nose brought reality crashing back in.
Eunseong quickly stripped off the suit and flung it into the corner. He turned on the shower to wash off the filth, but the stench, now intensified and thickened by the water, stabbed mercilessly at his nostrils. He knew it needed to be dealt with, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it — he flung a towel over it and looked away.
“Hah… now I can breathe again.”
As the warm stream of water flowed down from his head, his rigid body slowly began to unwind. Thoroughly washed, Eunseong changed into a loose shirt and trousers, slid his feet into plush slippers, and stepped out of the bathroom.
Drained of all energy, Eunseong dropped himself onto the sofa. The office, walled with glass instead of solid walls, was dark without a single light coming in from outside.
Beyond the wide glass panes, the night view of Seoul was visible. Countless lights rippled quietly beneath the night sky. The scenery seemed to whisper that everything that had happened in the dungeon was nothing but a dream.
But the horrific sight of Kang Mujin’s shoulder being ripped apart was never false.
Mujin must have been in so much pain…. He drank the elixir, so he should be fine now, but… on the inside, he must be in a terrible state.
Knowing the original story as well as he did, he felt for him all the more. Though Mujin now stood alone at the edge of a cliff, before long, trustworthy companions would come to stand by his side.
Then a thought drifted in without warning, and his mind went blank.
Kang Mujin… he has regressed, right?
The look in his eyes back in the dungeon kept nagging at him. The dark hostility had been too frightening to dismiss as mere wariness. On top of that, he hadn’t registered it at the time because everything had been so hectic, but Kang Mujin had definitely spoken to him without honorifics.
Not even “Baek Eunseong, sir” — just Baek Eunseong.
That was not a way a mere guild member could speak to the head of a guild. No matter how much of a piece of trash Baek Eunseong had been, it didn’t add up.
It does seem like he’s regressed.
That was how it felt — but he couldn’t be certain. Even without having regressed, Kang Mujin had more than enough reason to despise Baek Eunseong. What the original Baek Eunseong had done, Eunseong knew better than anyone.
But if it was after the regression, then Kang Mujin would remember everything — which meant Eunseong would have to carry the weight of every wrong the original Baek Eunseong had committed as well.
Eunseong let out a short breath and tilted his head up to stare at the empty air. He didn’t have the strength to move a single finger, but there was something he needed to do right now.
“Status window.”
Nobody was watching, but he felt oddly embarrassed and whispered it quietly. A translucent, pale blue holographic panel materialized in the air. A neatly organized system window filled his vision.
[Basic Information]
Name: Baek Eunseong
Rank: A
Title: Tyrant of Zenith
Unique Skills: Tyrant’s Guidance (A+), Lightning Spear of Ruin (SS)
The number one ranked guild’s head was only A-Rank.
Zenith was no ordinary guild. Backed by enormous capital, it commanded countless guilds under its umbrella — it was the equivalent of a conglomerate in the Hunter world.
Baek Eunseong was someone who had reached the top through politics and capital rather than ability. Because of his conduct, he’d been sneered at for buying his way into that position — but to Eunseong now, that overwhelming financial power was actually a welcome thing.
Eunseong looked at his second unique skill, ‘Lightning Spear of Ruin,’ and clicked his tongue with a bitter twist of his lips. It was an SS-Rank magic in the truest sense of instant-kill — condensing enormous mana into the form of a lightning bolt and driving it down.
Baek Eunseong always used the Hunters as bait, then finished off the boss with this skill at the end.
His unique skills alone were broken, but Baek Eunseong was ultimately a man specialized for the final blow. A thoroughly villainous method, that was for sure.
“Haah….”
Confirming the status window made it all the more certain.
Laughably enough, not even the faintest thought that he might be able to return to his original world crossed his mind. He couldn’t explain why. But instinctively, that was how it felt.
This was not a dream. It wasn’t a temporary accident he’d stumbled into for a brief moment. The stench of blood that had clung to his nostrils, the squelching of monster corpses under his feet, the mana churning unfamiliarly within his body — all of it had been far too vivid.
There was no way back.
Eunseong accepted that fact with an oddly calm composure. He was Baek Eunseong now. The Tyrant of Zenith. The villain of the original story. And the man fated to die at Kang Mujin’s hands.
So what he had to do now was clear.
Help Kang Mujin, and survive.
“Well, at least I can give him gear in abundance.”
Eunseong let out a hollow laugh as he looked at the rings on his fingers. Among them, he lightly touched the silver ring. Despite looking like an ordinary piece of jewelry on the surface, it was in reality an absurdly broken item beyond imagination.
[Silver Ring of Endless Void (SS)]
Rank: SS-Rank
Category: Accessory (Ring)
Options:
— Subspace storage capacity: Infinite
— Time flow inside halted
— Cannot be used by anyone other than the designated owner
Current Owner: Baek Eunseong
According to the original story, this ring would one day end up on Kang Mujin’s finger. The items that would pour out of it were on an entirely different level from anything that had come before. It was essentially a cheat code the author had handed to Kang Mujin — a reward for all the hardships he had suffered before the regression.
Eunseong gazed quietly at the ring as the thought of those items crossed his mind, then let out a small laugh.
“Well, giving it to him now would only make him suspicious. I’ll hold onto it for a while.”
It was newly thrilling to realize that something worth enough to buy an entire country was sitting on his finger. He planned to hand it all over to Kang Mujin eventually when the time came — but until then, this enormous wealth was entirely Eunseong’s. And its purpose was about to change.
I have no idea why I suddenly became Baek Eunseong, but I’m going to make sure my favorite character walks nothing but a flower path! I’ll treat him well no matter what, praise him, give him only the best items. That way he won’t… kill me, right?
Knowing the original Baek Eunseong’s fate, he was a little uneasy. No matter how well he treated him from here on out, it wouldn’t erase everything that had already been done. Still, he decided to lean on the small hope that if he kept looking out for him, maybe the future could change.
Thinking over what to do first, he suddenly remembered Kang Mujin’s broken sword from the dungeon earlier. He quickly rubbed the silver ring, and the list of items stored inside unfurled before him in a cascading scroll.
“Wow…….”
There was an extraordinary lineup of items that left him slack-jawed. Even just skimming through visually, they were all A-Rank or above.
“Letting all of this collect dust. Baek Eunseong is unbelievable. Let’s see…. What kind of sword would suit Mujin?”
He browsed the item list with the giddy excitement of a child on a treasure hunt.
“This one looks good.”
He gave the listing a light tap, and the air shimmered — then a sleek longsword sheathed in a jet-black leather scabbard dropped onto his lap with a thud.
[Lord of Darkness (S)]
Rank: S-Rank
Category: Weapon (Longsword)
Options:
— Dark-attribute attack power increased
— Additional damage on dark-attribute attacks
— Ignores 50% of target’s defense
— Mana greatly increased
— Attack speed increased
This would be more than enough to hold Kang Mujin over until he obtained the sword he used in the original story. High-rank equipment typically came with binding penalties, but this ‘Lord of Darkness’ series was a rare set of items that could be traded freely.
His mind made up, Eunseong rose from the sofa, placed the sword on the desk, and pressed the direct intercom to the secretarial office.
— Yes, sir.
“Has Hunter Kang Mujin returned to headquarters?”
— I’ll check on that for you.
Eunseong lightly tapped his fingers on the desk as he waited.
— Just confirmed his return.
“Send him up to the executive office now.”
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. It was unusual to be directed to bring a lower-ranked Hunter to the executive office — but a calm confirmation followed shortly after.
Eunseong let out a long breath. The thought of meeting Kang Mujin again made his heart beat a little faster for no good reason.
Don’t be nervous. You’re Baek Eunseong now — head of Zenith, the number one ranked guild. So Mujin doesn’t get suspicious, be as detached and cold as possible!
