Free Web NovelJoo Seowon frowned the instant he heard my question. Before he could even snap back asking what the hell I meant, I felt his hand shove at my chest.
I took a step back, looked straight at him, and shrugged.
“Are you fucking with me?”
“Just think of it as me being considerate.”
“Considerate...!”
Joo Seowon’s eyes went wide like he’d just heard some total bullshit. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He raked his fingers through his hair irritably and let out a sigh, then clenched and unclenched his fist as he stared into empty space.
“Considerate, my ass. Do you even know what that word means? Of course you don’t.”
Cursing on an exhale, Joo Seowon shoved my chest hard again. Normally, getting shoved with that kind of force would’ve actually hit, but the fact I was fine made it sink in again—my body’s toughness really had gone up.
I caught his wrist, dropped his arm back down into the air, and said,
“Nice welcome for someone you haven’t seen in a few days. Weren’t we kind of awkward before I went into the Dungeon?”
“.......”
“Of course, I’m the same as always.”
At that, Joo Seowon twitched slightly. I watched him, and naturally my mind drifted to the ‘god’ I’d met inside the Dungeon.
Which one of my desires had that bastard wanted to poke at, that it changed its face like that?
While I fell into thought for a moment, Joo Seowon slowly dragged a hand down his face and shook his head.
“...I’m the same too.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t answer like that.”
Then what do you want me to do? After seeing him for the first time in a while, I acted cute for a second and then he was already losing his shit again. I patted Joo Seowon’s shoulder roughly and sat back down on his bed.
“...Your body.”
“What about it?”
When I asked back at the random question, Joo Seowon scrubbed his face hard.
“You said you’re a fiend-merged Hunter. When you merge, a rejection reaction.... Fuck, I don’t know either. Is this time really real? You lie so much I can’t trust anything.”
“When have I lied that much.”
Joo Seowon would start talking calmly, then slam the gas and blow up—then he’d calm down again and just stare at me.
‘My condition?’
I couldn’t even clearly tell whether my body was in a good state or a bad one. In terms of energy, I had more than enough, but this wasn’t exactly a normal state.
I pulled the wrist guard I’d been using as a suppression tool out of my pocket and strapped it back onto my wrist.
Compared to when it just sat obediently in my palm, I was definitely more unstable. Still, the fact it worked at all was a relief.
‘I’ll have to modify it again.’
Joo Seowon watched what I was doing, then spoke in a lowered voice.
“If... your condition gets worse, what are you supposed to do?” freёwebnovel.com
“I’m fine.”
“Do you know other cases? Did you expect this? That prophecy Skill... yeah, did that Skill tell you something so you did it?”
“I didn’t expect it, but I’m fine.”
“And it’s not just anything—it’s fiend merging.”
His tone was calm, but it sounded like if he got the chance, he’d jump in and tear into me immediately.
“My current condition is fine. Whether I get fucked later or not, I don’t know.”
“.......”
“Anyway, I think the priority right now is something else.”
“What’s your ‘priority,’ then?”
Only then did I meet his eyes.
“If you’re a fiend-merged Hunter, reporting it is mandatory. If I’m going to get caught someday anyway, it’s better to just report it in advance.”
“No. Don’t.”
The answer came out firm. When my eyebrow twitched at the absolute certainty—no hesitation at all—Joo Seowon rubbed his forehead and continued.
“Just don’t. The odds of getting found out are low anyway. There aren’t many fiend-merged Hunter cases. If you just avoid Hunters who have Insight-type Skills, you won’t get caught most of the time.”
“And if information leaks?”
“If there’s no evidence, it’s just a tabloid rumor. And it’s not like you’re going to be exposed to the media that much.”
“Hm.”
That part wasn’t really something I could control anymore.
‘If I get tangled up with Kwon Taehan, I’ll end up in the media no matter what.’
When I just stared at him without answering, Joo Seowon seemed to think I’d already made up my mind and was only asking for opinions, because he started trying to persuade me.
“...There are way too few past cases. It’s obvious they’ll grab that as a handle and latch on the second anything happens. Look at Im Haekyung. Forget what kind of person they are—”
“A person? Are you close with Im Haekyung?”
“...I’m not close. How would I be close. What I mean is, even Im Haekyung gets dragged for everything just because they’re a mental-type Hunter. If you get mislabeled as a fiend-merged Hunter, you’re just straight-up fucked.”
“Yeah?”
“Im Haekyung at least acts all gentle on the outside. You, fuck, if you did even one interview you’d be—!”
What is he even saying?
At this point he was being plenty smooth—there was no losing-his-shit like this. When I looked at him with a baffled expression, Joo Seowon squeezed his eyes shut like he was even more about to explode.
“You seriously don’t know what the problem is again.”
“What?”
“Anyway, don’t report it. Just... find a suppression orb in the background, or whatever. Yeah. Do that instead. You’ve got money.”
“Thanks for worrying?”
When I said it calmly, Joo Seowon asked again, looking uneasy.
“You’re not going to report it, right?”
“Fine.”
“.......”
“Why {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} are you reacting like that?”
Whether he looked suspicious or not, I meant it.
If I reported it in advance, there’d be no chance of getting exposed later—but I’d get a tag stuck on me. That was why even Sung Uijae had tried to use it as leverage.
‘Maybe finding a suppression orb really is better, like Joo Seowon says.’
I decided to put it on hold for now, and brought up something else.
“Ah, this is....”
“What.”
“It’s nothing major, but you know Ryu Taeyoung, right?”
“I know him.”
“He contacted me.”
When I said it flatly, Joo Seowon nodded. It wasn’t a huge issue, but there was something in what Ryu Taeyoung said yesterday that felt slightly off.
“It was about Cheonmyeonggyo.”
“Ryu Taejun?”
“Yeah. But I think he thinks I’m the one who brought Ryu Taejun into Cheonmyeonggyo. Like he lost his mind looking for his brother.”
“Wait. What happened to Ryu Taejun?”
“I don’t know. I left him on Jinsando. If Cheonmyeonggyo suits him, he’ll become a religious guy.”
“.......”
I waved my hand as I gave Joo Seowon a rough answer to his pointless question.
“Ryu Taejun—whatever. That’s not even important now.”
“...What do you mean he’s suspecting you?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Ryu Taeyoung is convinced I’m connected to Cheonmyeonggyo, and it seems like he saw some kind of evidence. I think he saw a photo of me with Ryu Taejun.”
“Where? You’ve never met.”
“It got caught when we went into Jinsando.”
“.......”
But the important part wasn’t the photo.
‘The problem is, I don’t know if there’s someone inside Cheonmyeonggyo going around impersonating me, or if he’s just insisting some guy with a similar build is me.’
The fact that Jin Haedo knows me was something I already knew.
So did Jin Haedo order this?
‘Why?’
Would there be a reason to deliberately plant that kind of misunderstanding in Ryu Taeyoung?
As I sorted through the questions in my head, I gave up cleanly and said it out loud.
“Seems like there’s a Cheonmyeonggyo believer running around claiming they’re me. Or a believer claiming I’m a Cheonmyeonggyo believer. Do you get what the difference is?”
“I... get what you’re saying. But why?”
“Fuck if I know. Seowon.”
“.......”
After closing his mouth for a moment, Joo Seowon paced in front of me a short distance, thinking.
“Want me to look into it?”
“That’d be great. But don’t get too absorbed. Priorities.”
“Priorities, priorities.... Fine. Then what’s the priority right now? Just tell me the single most important thing in the end.”
Yeah. Right now, the most important thing wasn’t Cheonmyeonggyo.
By now it was late February. What was left was Song Hwayoung dying, and Kwon Taehan awakening. In the original, I wouldn’t face Kwon Taehan immediately, but....
‘It’s fine to pull the timing forward a little, isn’t it?’
There was the drawback that I still lacked control, but my current stats weren’t bad.
Before answering Joo Seowon, for the first time in a long while, I pulled up my Status Window.
Name: Seo Jehyun
Age: 25
Rank: B(-)
Titles: Transcender of Space-Time
Seed of the Great Apocalypse
One Who ■■s ■■
Cave Giant’s Avatar
Main Skills: ■■ ■■(EX), Mental Strength (S), Mimic (S), Agitation (A), Cave Giant’s Ability (B)
Growth Limit: EX
‘It’s fucking long.’
After the unnecessarily long Status Window, there was an even weirder line tacked on.
Unapproved possibility search complete.
Current ‘ability use’ is unstable.
That had to be the same kind of message as what I’d seen in the Dungeon.
I tapped my knee with my hand and said lightly,
“I think I need to measure my Rank again.”
“Awakening Rank?”
“Yeah.”
“It went up?”
“Yeah.”
When I said it calmly, Joo Seowon went quiet for a moment, then lowered his voice.
“You’re not deciding to stop playing the F-rank game, are you?”
“Wow....”
In a different sense, he was seriously impressive. After living together for months and seeing all that evidence I wasn’t some weak nobody, he still didn’t have even a shred of doubt that I wasn’t F-rank.
And the fact my Rank had actually gone up, just like he said, made the situation even more absurd.
“What is it?”
Joo Seowon asked back with a furrowed brow, and I answered with a faint smile.
“No, I just suddenly thought you were impressive.”
