# Chapter 57
There’s something called ‘karma.’ It’s a Sanskrit word meaning one’s accumulated actions, and Lee Hwan was seriously contemplating whether it was now being applied to his life.
Perhaps it was because last month, he bought all three remaining pieces of homemade milk cream cake at a café near his home. Since it was fucking delicious, whoever arrived too late must have despaired, thus generating bad karma.
Or maybe the problem was that time he forced his way onto a packed bus during his morning commute. Who knows if the person who got squashed ruined something important because of that memory?
Otherwise, he couldn’t understand why annoying things kept happening to him.
“No, it’s fine, I’m telling you to just let me off here!”
“It’s against traffic laws, okay?”
This was already the umpteenth time they were arguing. Lee Hwan quietly closed his eyes and covered his ears at the same time.
The road was completely jammed that morning. It seemed there had been an accident up ahead, and as luck would have it, they were stuck in the middle of the road, unable to either get off or move forward, trapped in the bus.
He had been working as a Supporter for 4 months now. If he wasn’t going to get along well with everyone anyway, the less attention he received, the better. But due to all the misunderstandings that had accumulated, he was now noticeable even when he did nothing.
He tried his best not to draw attention, but situations like this never helped.
“Haah…”
He felt like bursting through the bus door and bouncing across the roofs of the gridlocked cars to get to work. If he were to actually lose his mind, he might really do something like that.
But such absurd fantasies always played out excitedly only in his head before stopping—just like his morning fantasies of finding Taesung and smacking his head repeatedly until his memories returned.
Amusingly, these fantasies had recently evolved to the point where he was now applying medicine to the crown of Taesung’s head after his memories had returned. Though it sounded quite strange, Lee Hwan was finding considerable joy in such imaginings. With reality being so harsh, he used his thoughts to both vent his frustrations and indulge in hopeful scenarios.
‘Hmm… no. A bald spot would be too much. That face with that hair being ruined isn’t right.’
Lee Hwan started imagining Taesung’s hair flying off from the impact of his shoe attack, then hurriedly erased that image from his mind. No matter how much he disliked him, this was going too far. He couldn’t destroy that high-quality, abundant hair like that. Not even in his imagination…
Screech—clunk.
While Lee Hwan was engaging in these absurd thoughts, the bus managed to inch forward a few meters. As the packed bus swayed, people groaned. Lee Hwan also barely snapped out of his daydream and took his phone out of his pocket.
‘There’s… a problem on the road, so I’ll be late… No, no. More serious. On my way to work… there’s been an accident on the road and I’m stuck in the bus…’
As he tapped on his phone, it suddenly dawned on him. Everyone taking this route would be late anyway. Realizing this made him feel somewhat better.
Lee Hwan carefully composed his message, sent it to his immediate superior, and closed his eyes again. In his hazy mind, Taesung was now grilling an apologetic steak for him.
The office, which he arrived at quite late, was in complete disarray. As Lee Hwan had thought, several seats were still empty, and taking advantage of both the team leader and section manager’s absence, people were gathered in small groups to one side.
However, it didn’t seem to be due to people being late or the accident. From his seven years of social experience, this was entirely company business. As evidence, they were all drinking coffee—something they rarely touched normally—while exchanging meaningful glances. It looked quite significant.
Though he initially sat at his desk pretending not to care, Lee Hwan became extremely curious about what was going on. But as a self-imposed outsider at work, he had no one to casually ask. A quick glance around revealed only people he was awkward with.
‘It’s my own fault…’
Even though he had efficiently handled his work, he had always been on the periphery, and far from feeling strong camaraderie, he was surprised he hadn’t been let go three months ago.
Is it true that you can’t undo a wrongly buttoned first button? Like his relationship with Taesung that had deteriorated so badly, and his unfortunate entanglement with Naru’s dark side. Everything just kept getting worse, with nothing improving.
‘Ah… there I go again.’
His mood sank again. As he was about to dwell on the situation and become depressed, Lee Hwan suddenly pinched his thigh hard with his index finger and thumb. His red lips parted slightly, trembling in pain.
‘Aaaah! Urgh, mental purification. Mental purification.’
Unable to actually cry out, Lee Hwan muttered to himself as if engaging in self-hypnosis.
Perhaps from experiencing too many shocking events recently, he’d developed a bad habit. Whenever he had a moment, his thoughts would drift to the negative side, surprising even himself.
He had already resolved to quit this kind of thinking when he abandoned his shut-in lifestyle in his teens. He couldn’t revert to the mindset he had corrected with cringe-worthy phrases like “Mom would be sad” spoken aloud.
Lee Hwan took a deep breath and thought: Fine, if they won’t tell me, I’ll eavesdrop.
Then, gathering the energy of an excluded Awakened’s anger, he strained his ears hard. Snippets of conversation began to brush against his eardrums.
“…No, but if that’s not pushing someone out, what is it?”
“How could someone not even thirty try to take a leadership position by pushing someone out?”
“Why couldn’t they? They’re a celebrity and a VIP.”
VIP? As soon as the familiar word came up, Lee Hwan unconsciously rolled his chair slightly closer in that direction. If they were talking about a Kang under thirty who could create such a topic here, it was obvious who they meant.
“Whatever the reason, I heard there was a huge commotion almost every day for a while.”
“With the assault team divided like that… if there’s trouble with the advance team, it makes their position awkward.”
“If Team 1’s field schedule is being delayed, it means more than just one or two people were affected.”
However, at the subtly prickly tone, his chair rolled back to his desk with a rumble. Lee Hwan furrowed his brow, ducked back into his place, and rubbed his ear with a blank expression.
Wait a minute? Assault team. Team 1. Advance team. VIP.
Did he mishear something? Why would they be talking about Kang Taesung here?
Just as Lee Hwan was about to ponder this, the conversation abruptly stopped. As if this wasn’t the place to continue such talk. Afterward, he felt the gazes of those who had been chatting sweeping across the back of his head, but Lee Hwan kept his eyes fixed on the monitor without showing any reaction.
‘I’ve insisted I’m not that weird of a guy, so they’re probably not suddenly talking about me.’
In the Support Team, the prevailing view of him was still, at best, someone’s illegitimate child, or at worst, a spy from the higher-ups. It seemed that a rumor about someone from headquarters bringing that news had spread, especially around Team 2…
It was completely absurd why a company would send a spy to its own division, but every time he heard these circulating stories, he couldn’t confront members of other teams to deny it, so Lee Hwan usually just ignored it now. He figured people just needed someone to chew on like squid when they were bored.
Still, this time it was clearly about Taesung, not him. Moreover, even from that brief conversation, he could naturally infer some information, albeit fragmentary.
Something had changed in Assault Team 1. Enough to cause a stir in all departments related to Gate operations.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve heard about the Assault team…’
Lee Hwan suddenly recalled the time before his regression with a touch of nostalgia, clacking the Enter key to pretend he was working.
Unlike the Support Team, which was divided into Teams 1, 2, and 3 purely for operational convenience, the Assault Team was strictly assigned based on function and skill. The more crucial Gate operations were concentrated in Team 1, while Team 3 was mainly responsible for cleanup operations with relatively lower risk.
Of course, while management positions might be separate from skill and affiliation, power structures naturally adjusted according to the importance of each team’s duties—just as Kang Dongha’s influence had reached only as far as Assault Team 3.
That’s why Taesung, who was merely a twenty-something rookie at the time, had such a strong presence.
By this period, he was already not only part of the Naru family but also one of the rare S-class Hunters in the country with professional experience. Regardless of his age, he practically led the advance team, which was composed of the elite within Team 1. His quick situational judgment, powerful abilities, and uniquely overwhelming presence were well-known even within Naru.
Nevertheless, because of his youth and Kang Dongying’s tantrums, his voice within the team was quite weak, which shows the power of that authority…
In any case, Taesung eventually took the advance team separately but never commanded the entire Team 1 until the end. Even that happened years later from now, just before Lee Hwan joined.
Perhaps it was because public opinion within the Assault Team was already tilted in his favor, so there was no need to take a leadership position at such a young age. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to step into political battles.
‘But now he’s pushing someone out?’
He’s even younger now than he was then, so what’s this talk about pushing someone out? Moreover, if field operations were being delayed as they heard, it meant the team was falling apart internally. This was too large-scale to be caused by Taesung alone.
Is that even possible? Naru isn’t some small corner shop. It’s a massive corporation representing South Korea, and one young Taesung couldn’t possibly shake up Team 1 of the rather influential Hunter division. It was nonsense.
Even Kang Dongha didn’t have a proper position until he went to the research institute because he wasn’t old enough, so would they give Taesung a leadership position if he wanted one?
This commotion must be completely misunderstood or influenced by someone else.
‘Really now.’
Then he’d have to find out. Not because he wanted to defend anyone, absolutely not, but because it would bother him to let this go without knowing.
Lee Hwan made excuses to himself, though no one had said anything, and began typing a message on his computer.
