Chapter 13. Sponsorship (2)
“Why...! Why would you do something like that?! Do you have any idea how terrified your father was?”
Yoo Han-seok knelt on both knees and hugged Yoo So-ha and Yoo Seong-ha.
His face was already soaked with tears.
He had been overseas when he heard the twins were trapped inside a Gate.
The moment he received the news, he canceled every remaining schedule and returned to South Korea.
During the private flight home, every minute had felt like hell as he imagined something happening to them.
Even after hearing they had been rescued, he couldn't relax until he saw with his own eyes that they were safe.
“I'm sorry.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
Facing their father like this, Yoo So-ha and Yoo Seong-ha felt even more guilty.
“Tae-woo, cancel everything on my schedule this month. I'll spend the next few weeks with the kids.”
“Chairman, that might be...”
Chief Secretary Choi Tae-woo adjusted his glasses awkwardly.
Then...
“Dad.”
Yoo So-ha gently pushed Yoo Han-seok away.
“You've probably already received the report, but we awakened as Hunters.”
“...”
Yoo Han-seok looked at them uneasily.
The twins' awakening.
It had already been confirmed during the medical examinations after their rescue.
“You promised.”
Promised?
Yes.
He had.
If they became Hunters before turning twenty, he would support their decision.
But he had never actually expected them to awaken.
Hunters weren't common.
They made up less than 0.001 percent of the population.
Research into artificial awakening had continued for decades without meaningful results.
And now both twins had somehow awakened.
“You two really...”
Yoo Han-seok looked as though he'd lost the entire world.
Hunters.
Even though Yoo-seong couldn't own a Guild under Hunter law, the corporation still understood Hunters better than almost anyone.
Their lives were defined by danger.
They could die at any moment.
“...But both of us won't become Hunters.”
“...Really?”
“Yes.”
These were the same twins who had gone this far because they wanted to become Hunters.
Yoo Han-seok had assumed they shared exactly the same dream.
But one of them planned to remain behind?
“Why?”
“...Mom isn't the only person precious to us.”
Their mother had already passed away.
“Dad is precious to us too.”
“You two...! You two!”
Yoo Han-seok hugged both twins again and burst into tears.
“...And there's something we'd like to ask.”
Yoo So-ha carefully brought it up.
“But not right now. We'll tell you later. I love you, Dad.”
“Uwaaaah! So-ha! I'll give you anything! Anything!”
“Hey, Yoo Seong-ha. You should say it too.”
“Ugh. I can't.”
“Yoo Seong-ha!”
“Ah, seriously... I-I love... Ah, I can't do it!”
“Even so, your father loves both of yoooou!”
It took another two hours before the exhausted twins finally escaped Yoo Han-seok's embrace.
After they left, Yoo Han-seok wiped his tears, sat down, and called Choi Tae-woo.
“Tae-woo.”
“I'm sorry, Chairman.”
Choi Tae-woo immediately lowered his head.
“This happened because I failed to watch over them properly. Whatever punishment you choose...”
Pat.
Yoo Han-seok placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Punishment? Why would I punish you?”
The foolishly emotional father who had been crying in front of the twins vanished.
Yoo Han-seok's expression became perfectly composed.
“You should be rewarded.”
Choi Tae-woo raised his head.
“I heard you were even willing to sacrifice your life for my children.”
“...!”
“Thank you. Truly.”
“There's no need, Chairman.”
“Chairman, my ass. I told you to call me hyung after work. We've known each other for over thirty years.”
“Chairman...”
I'm actually one year older than you.
Choi Tae-woo smiled awkwardly.
Pop.
Yoo Han-seok opened a bottle of whiskey and sat down.
“So, the Association Special Division saved the kids?”
“Yes. One Special Division Hunter entered and rescued them.”
“One person? He entered an abnormal Gate alone?”
Yoo Han-seok hadn't heard that detail yet.
He looked surprised, then slowly nodded.
“Well, you said it was A-Rank or higher. An experienced S-Rank Hunter could probably manage a rescue alone. The Special Division has two S-Rank Hunters. Which one was it? Park Min-ho?”
“No. It was a Special Division Hunter I'd never seen before.”
Yoo Han-seok's eyes widened.
“Someone even you haven't seen?”
“I heard he was a rookie. But I believe that's only a cover.”
“A cover?”
“He didn't look remotely like a rookie. Because...”
Choi Tae-woo continued, still sounding as though he couldn't believe it himself.
“He didn't simply rescue them. He cleared the Gate. Alone. An A-Rank or higher Gate.”
“...What?”
A Special Division rookie had solo-cleared an A-Rank or higher Gate?
It was difficult to believe.
But Choi Tae-woo wasn't someone who exaggerated or lied.
“...We owe him. A very large debt. What's his name?”
“Kim Si-hyeon.”
“Kim Si-hyeon.”
Yoo Han-seok's eyes sharpened.
“Yoo-seong repays its debts. Completely.”
That was the moment Yoo Han-seok, Chairman of South Korea's number-one conglomerate, firmly remembered the name Kim Si-hyeon.
Meanwhile, inside the Special Division office...
“So you're saying...”
Choi Ji-woong asked with obvious confusion.
“You can just do it now? You can suppress your killing... no, your presence?”
“Yes.”
“Was that... even possible?”
There was a simple reason Choi Ji-woong was so shocked.
The killing intent that had constantly poured out of me was gone.
“How did you do it? I can't feel your killing... I mean, your presence at all anymore.”
“You can just call it killing intent.”
Choi Ji-woong flinched.
Then he smiled awkwardly, apparently realizing I knew what they had been calling it.
It started after I absorbed that purple energy.
The purple light left behind by the dead Dark Elf boss.
At first, I wondered if it might be some kind of poison.
But the moment it entered my body, I knew.
It wasn't poison.
If anything, it felt like medicine.
My body suddenly felt lighter.
My stamina filled back up.
Even after clearing the Gate, I felt more energetic now than before I entered.
There was one strange detail.
For a brief moment after absorbing the energy, my vision had turned red.
But after the red color settled somewhere inside me, everything returned to normal.
I still didn't know the cause, which bothered me.
But there was an even bigger change.
Afterward, I became able to completely suppress my own killing intent.
That was why Choi Ji-woong looked so shocked right now.
“...Haah. Thank goodness.”
Choi Ji-woong sighed in relief.
“When we saw all the killing-intent suppression rings we gave you were broken, we nearly lost our minds.”
Those were rings?
“...About that.”
I was about to apologize.
Then Choi Ji-woong continued.
“They were items bought with the entire Special Division's yearly budget. I seriously wondered what we were going to do.”
“...!”
What?
“But now that you can suppress your own killing intent, it's fine. We won't need to drink Illusion of Death anymore.”
I didn't know what Illusion of Death was.
But there was no way one year's entire Special Division budget was a small amount.
Come to think of it, I remember someone mentioning the yearly budget when they gave them to me.
“Are items always that expensive?”
“What? Ah, depends on the item. Some cost a few million won. Others can't be bought no matter how much money you have.”
A few million won was the cheap end?
Had my sense of money been destroyed by living through the zombie apocalypse?
Or were Hunters in this world the ones with a strange sense of money?
“Are you worried about equipment? You don't need to worry, Hunter Kim Si-hyeon. The Special Division will take care of all of it...”
They had already spent an entire year's budget on me.
And I had destroyed all of it.
“...”
I thought for a moment.
Then stood.
“I'll leave work early today.”
“H-Hunter Kim Si-hyeon?”
I had decided.
I needed to earn money.
Kim Jin-cheol, President of the Korean Hunter Association.
His mouth slowly opened wider and wider.
Until finally...
Drip.
Drool actually fell from his open mouth.
“Min-ho.”
“Yes, President.”
Slurp.
Kim Jin-cheol wiped his mouth and looked at Special Division Director Park Min-ho.
“You used an entire year's budget on those items? I understand. No, actually, I'm sorry. The Special Division works this hard and we barely give you that much money.”
The Special Division was ultimately part of the Hunter Association.
Compared to private Guilds, their pay was poor.
“No, sir.”
But Kim Jin-cheol was actually wrong.
The Special Division's operational budget was one of the highest in the Association.
Ten percent of the Association's entire budget.
All for fewer than thirty people.
Hundreds of billions of won.
Spending all of that on equipment for a single person was completely absurd.
But if that person was the Massacre, Kim Si-hyeon?
Then it made sense.
“On top of that, this mission was a huge success. You saved the Yoo-seong twins.”
“No. Hunter Kim Si-hyeon did it alone.”
“Kim Si-hyeon...”
Returnee Code Number 007.
The Massacre.
Hunters themselves already existed outside normal standards.
Returnees were even more extreme.
They were walking time bombs with impossible-to-predict behavior.
But bombs also possessed tremendous destructive power depending on how they were used.
And the first time they deployed this particular bomb...
“Is this really true?”
It was incredible.
“An abnormal Gate became frightened and opened a path only for Kim Si-hyeon?”
According to the first investigation, the Sacrifice Gate had made an exception to its entry condition only for Kim Si-hyeon.
Almost as though the components making up the Gate itself had become afraid of him.
And today, the full investigation results finally arrived.
[It appears that an enormous amount of special energy damaged the fundamental structure of the abnormal Gate.]
An enormous amount of special energy.
In other words, Kim Si-hyeon's tremendous killing intent had seeped into the Gate and damaged its structure.
The report also explained that this was why the entry conditions began rapidly weakening after Kim Si-hyeon entered.
“Ha. His mere existence is powerful enough to destroy a Gate's structure.”
No wonder every country fought so desperately to secure Returnees.
“Good. All good. No, it's perfect.”
Of course, Kim Si-hyeon seemed unusual even among Returnees.
“But...”
Kim Jin-cheol's expression changed.
“Even so, you bastard! You're asking me for another entire year's budget? Just for buying equipment?!”
“Gah! Hyung! Why are you hitting me?!”
“You said the great Massacre can control his killing intent now!”
“But we don't know if that'll always work! If the kids drink any more Illusion of Death, they'll experience real death instead of an illusion!”
Kim Jin-cheol grabbed his face in frustration.
“Haah. I know. I know we should give him even more.”
An SS-Rank Returnee.
Britain had already given territory, noble titles, and trillions of won in support to a Returnee who wanted to rule as a king.
The United States, famous for spending two quadrillion won a year on defense, had apparently made even more ridiculous promises to secure its Returnee.
The exact details weren't public.
But the scale was said to be unimaginable.
Saudi Arabia had been the most extreme.
They had simply given their Returnee...
One hundred trillion won.
Compared to them, what was South Korea doing?
Damn it.
A Returnee had practically fallen into their lap.
And they couldn't even afford to take proper care of him.
For now, they were desperately hiding Kim Si-hyeon's existence.
But that couldn't last forever.
“...Min-ho, I'll figure something out. Just hold on a little. He saved the Yoo-seong twins, right? Yoo-seong should give us something.”
Yoo Han-seok adored his family.
After his children had been saved, there was no way he'd pretend nothing happened.
Maybe I should ask him myself.
Throw away the dignity of both Association President and Hunter.
Just beg.
At least enough to refill the Special Division's budget.
Then...
Bzzzt.
A call came through the Association President's direct number.
“It came!”
The screen displayed the personal number of Yoo-seong Chairman Yoo Han-seok.
Kim Jin-cheol answered with S-Rank reaction speed.
“Hello. Haha, Chairman Yoo. It's been too long. I heard you had a difficult time recently... What? Wait, what did you just... say?”
Kim Jin-cheol looked at Park Min-ho with wide eyes.
“Are you really... really serious?”
His tone had become so respectful that he completely forgot his position.
“You saved our children. This much is only natural.”
Yoo Han-seok was offering an enormous donation.
“Hunter Kim Si-hyeon is doing well, I assume?”
And it would be donated in Kim Si-hyeon's name.
