Chapter 24

Client

When Secretary Kim entered the room, I was lost in thought, playing with a new green crystal that Iponia had vomited out today. He spoke while glancing at me.

“Did it come out again? It’s as if it’s a hen that lays eggs.”

“Yes, there’s joy in harvesting them.”

I did reply like that, but there were light wrinkles on my forehead. By reading the Mana pattern, I could see which among the cards fed was crystallized. Then it came to mind.

[Deep Sea Swimming (Rank: D, Active)]

You could swim in the deep sea by stably maintaining the caster’s internal pressure above 7,183psi. Mana cost: 17 per second. It would be a handy skill if you had to swim 5 kilometers deep with your bare body for any reason. However, it was unlikely that would happen, and in the first place, there was a product of civilization called submarines on Earth. Therefore, there were no hunters who learned this and wasted skill slots. That was why I fed it, but…

‘This is a little dangerous.’

The moment Iponia’s crystal was broken, the skill was activated. If I accidentally broke this, it would take effect with me as the ‘caster’ once I came into contact with the flowed Mana pattern. What if the air pressure in my body on the ground rose rapidly like that? In a short time of less than a second, the body’s pressure would increase by almost 500 times compared to the surrounding pressure. My body would go bang! And burst like a balloon.

‘There’s going to be no occasion to use this, but I will have to put on a safety device.’

I made a protective layer with mana to prevent the marble from breaking and then put it in a sack where I collected the crystals. Inside it was green crystals that looked similar to each other.

“Have you gathered so many already?”

“Yes, it’s enough to play dropsies, right?”

“Dropsies? How do you know such a word again? Such a young man like you is using a lot of expressions that my father would these days.”

The moment I heard him, I felt discovered. Should I pay more attention to my words and actions?

“Huh?”

Secretary Kim looked at the window as we spoke.

“He’s not hiding under the bed anymore, and he’s running around?”

On the window frame where he looked, Iponia sat up and watched the employees of the company house coming and going through the window. It showed its back to us and fluttered once in a while, its long tail hanging under the window frame. I couldn’t understand what was so fun about it, but it stayed like that almost all day long.

“But it isn’t open to pets yet.”

“Did you name it? It’s been over a month already.”

Since the species name was Iponia, I wanted to call it Iponia, but if I did that now, I could be asked how I knew it in advance when the species was identified later. Therefore, I lied instead.

“I just call it Cat.”

“What?”

Secretary Kim’s eyebrows wriggled.

“Did you name your cat’ Cat’? Perhaps, you’d call a dog just ‘dog!’”

“Strictly speaking, it’s not a cat.”

“That’s the case.”

Secretary Kim scratched his head.

“Well…cat! Look at me. Cat?”

It was being called, but Iponia didn’t answer, not even turning its head. However, I could see its tail wriggling slightly in response to the call.

“Look, Team Leader. He also rebels silently.”

“Someday, it will know that it is his name.”

“I don’t know. Well, anyway. Should we slowly depart?”

Today was the day to visit the Constitutional Department. According to the law, an Awakened Hunter must stop by the Constitutional Office within a month and measure their level. In the case of promotion evaluation, there as combat skills in addition to measuring active mana. Still, rookie hunters who had just Awakened like me were graded by measuring only the amount of active mana.

“Before that…”

I suggested for Secretary Kim to take a seat.

“Let’s sit down for a moment.”

He sat down at the suggestion, albeit with a puzzled expression. I put up a hologram in front.

“Try reading this, please. Don’t ask for detailed sources.”

“What on Earth did you bring?”

The face of Secretary Kim, after mumbling, suddenly stiffened. Without even breathing, he started reading the contents of the document in front of his eyes. After finally flipping through the last chapter…

“Team Leader.”

His expression was seriously appalled.

“You told me not to ask, but I can’t help it. How did you get hold of this?”

I showed Secretary Kim the secret ledger of the Branch, which I confiscated from Ma Sang-Hyun a few days ago. Among them, there was a document explaining how they were commissioned for the ambush and how it was processed. No matter how much I knew, I couldn’t say that I had robbed the Branch myself, and he wouldn’t believe me, so I reasoned out that I got it through a third party.

“I proceeded through a company that handled the work more roughly than the company that Secretary Kim had commissioned.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, as it was processed more violently than the informational company he had contacted.

“No, more than that…”

After complaining for a while, he showed a slightly upset expression. “You can leave this to me, rather than the Team Leader going to find such people himself.”

“That’s because they are people with a nasty little background; I was afraid that they would use it to blame you if any situation with Secretary Kim came out. They are far more dangerous than the information companies.”

It was quite embarrassing to describe myself.

“This started because I needed it, and I didn’t want to make evidence by pulling you into this.”

“···Team Leader, but-”

He tried to protest a bit more yet eventually turned his attention back to the documents. According to the ledger’s contents, the person who requested to attack us didn’t only conceal his identity but also didn’t inform them that the target was the Celestial Dragon Guild. Since it was a frequent occurrence in this world, Ma Sang-Hyun sent ten appropriate personnel without further questions. He thought that there were only two targets, and one was a non-Awakened, so he thought it would be enough.

However, the result that returned was the disappearance of every member dispatched. Naturally, Ma Sang-Hyun seemed to be quite bothered. First, he investigated the target’s identity based on the vehicle number. Still, nothing came out because it was a rented car that we deliberately borrowed under a fake name to go to the black market.

“So this time, on the other hand, he started researching who the client was.”

He suspected that it might be a counterwork towards them. The call that requested the work came from a number that couldn’t be traced. A recorded voice could be heard.

-···It has been deposited. After finishing them, you can appropriately dispose of the bodies.

It was an artificial voice mixed with mechanical sounds and noise. This was the voice of the client. After the gang members went missing, Ma Sang-Hyun paid a large sum for the fake voice to be restored and secured a voice identification close to the original. However, there was no further progress. To find the person by voice alone, samples should’ve been secured in advance to be compared with each other. The original voice was restored, but it ended there. The account was also a kind from overseas that couldn’t be traced, and from their perspective, that would have been the limit.

However···

I spoke to Secretary Kim.

“The client who made the phone call, he seems to have been strapped for time, right?”

He agreed with my guess.

“Yes, because our trip was unplanned.”

Going to the black market was decided on that day and carried out nearly immediately. Within the time that Secretary Kim rented a car under a fake name and drove to Incheon, the client would’ve contacted the Gangdong Revival Alliance to place the request and complete the deposit. I smiled widely.

“If I were to do this, I wouldn’t have done it this way.”

Instead of putting in a direct request, I would have put one more bumper in the middle. However, he didn’t have time for that. At the time of having a week until the Awakening, the client seemed to have a clear motive and reason to kill us. When he knew that only the two of us were going out, he tried not to miss that opportunity.

“Because the time was limited, he had to make a direct call to the Gangdong Revival Alliance.”

I looked at the hologram and placed my hand toward the audio file that was successfully restored. Then the play button was pressed, and the voice we just heard played back closer to the original sound. There was still some distortion and noise, but the voice was familiar enough to our ears.

Secretary Kim’s face distorted. He swore, almost as if he were vomiting fire.

“This son of a bitch…!”

“Wait. Check this out.”

The Gangdong Revival Alliance didn’t have a sample to match the client’s voice. However, we did. I played another video. During the guild’s New Year’s Day celebration, each Team Leader took turns announcing their short thoughts and goal. When a man started to speak, I ran the program, took the voiceprint, and matched it with what I just heard.

Fortunately, I came back to 2038. If we had returned to farther in the past, this verification would’ve been difficult. Soon, in front of Secretary Kim’s eyes and mine, the results showed that the two voiceprints matched perfectly.

Crack!

Secretary Kim turned to me while sharpening his teeth.

“Are you going to turn him over right away?”

I shook my head.

“No. We have to pick the most critical moment.”

I had to pick the right moment that gave me the most benefit while also inflicting the most lethal damage to my opponent. If I turned it over now, one of those ‘clients’ could surely be blown away. However, there were areas to dig further. Was it an independent act? It seemed unlikely.

I needed to make sure that the person behind it was the one I thought. In any case, the person could detach Park Chang-hee like a lizard’s tail.

“Secretary Kim, you can hear a lot of the guild’s internal circumstances, so please dig deeper into the information about this person from now on.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, also about the sub-Guild Master.”

Secretary Kim no longer spoke or refuted my doubts. He just replied with a stiffened face.

“I will.”

“Yes, please.”

I turned my head and looked at the hologram. A man was standing at the podium, giving a presentation. The report must have been their work, right? The curse? I didn’t know that far. It wasn’t a skill that could be cast at his level. That was why it was hard to believe that this was a crime committed by only one person.

I muttered to myself.

“Is Han-seol such a great person?”

Was loyalty to Han-seol important enough for an A-class hunter to risk losing all of the wealth and fame that the Celestial Dragon Guild gave to an exploration Team Leader? The answer would be available soon.

-In 2038, this year as well, our exploration two team will secure and deploy optimized combat personnel and achieve results through near-realistic training…

The gaze of Team Leader Park Chang-hee, speaking in the hologram, stopped several times in the center of the audience seats. Seo Gyu-cheol, who had a cold face like ice, and the original Seo Jin-wook, who sat crookedly with an unpleasant expression, were sitting there.

And…there was Han-seol, faintly smiling at the podium.