Free Web NovelJoo Seowon calmly walked over this way. From the start, it looked like he’d been watching for a chance, and the moment I stepped out of the room, he followed.
Sitting down beside the sofa, Joo Seowon stared at me in silence before clearing his throat.
“Khm.”
“......”
I motioned with my hand for him to start talking. Seowon, looking nervous as if glancing around for permission, finally forced himself to meet my eyes.
“...Before I talk, just one thing.”
“Say it.”
“I still don’t know you.”
Even though his gaze wavered several times, Seowon eventually looked me straight in the eye.
“Is it true that Guildmaster Song Hwayoung dies?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It matters.”
...What the hell is he trying to get at? Still, I answered honestly.
“Yeah, it’s true.”
“...Then are you saying the reason you don’t save Song Hwayoung is because of some greater public good?”
“If you want to phrase it that way, sure.”
“Do you ever feel pleasure... or satisfaction when you see someone die?”
What the fuck is this supposed to be?
It had been a weird question from the start, and now he just took a hard drift into left field. Feel pleasure or satisfaction at someone’s death?
“Why would I?”
It wasn’t like I was watching some bastard who wronged me die. I never got off on looking at corpses. Isn’t that obvious? At most, I’d feel nothing.
At my answer, Seowon bit his lip lightly, then exhaled with a long hoo.
“Right. You’re not a total psycho piece of shit, are you?”
“Seowon... what are you doing right now?”
“I’ll explain. No—actually, I think you are a psycho piece of shit. But as long as you’re not some thrill-killer or chasing efficiency through murder, it’s fine.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
“No?”
...Why the hell bring up thrill-killers? Seowon frowned like I was spouting nonsense. I stared at the faint crease in his brow and gave a small nod, urging him to continue.
At last, he got to the point. With a serious look, he opened and closed his mouth a few times before speaking.
“Damyeon and Cape Prime’s requests came one after the other. At first, I didn’t even realize they were connected.”
“Yeah.”
“...From late last year into the beginning of this year, there was that big incident that stirred up the whole world. You’ve probably heard the name at least.”
“......”
Cautiously, Seowon brought it up.
“You know... Witch Hunt?”
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My expression twisted without me realizing.
“The only witch hunts I know are from the 14th century, when they just branded women as witches and killed them.”
“...What the—hey, did you crawl out of hibernation?”
“You say it like some big state secret, when I’d bet more people in the world know the term than don’t. No wonder I’m thrown off.”
I could swear this had happened before too—Seowon cruising along fine, then suddenly tossing out some cryptic bullshit. I gave a halfhearted reply, and his face grew increasingly exasperated.
“No! Fuck, not the one from the 14th century! The one last year! And in that case, it wasn’t witches getting hunted—it’s more accurate to say the witch did the hunting.”
“Just explain it already...”
How the hell was I supposed to know about shit that happened last year? I’d only landed here two months ago. Listening to this was draining me in real time.
“God, this is insane. You seriously don’t know? A ton of hunters died back then! Maybe not S-ranks or A-ranks, but B-ranks and others, plenty of them.”
“Yeah? So what.”
At my question, Seowon raised his voice, then forced himself calm again and explained.
“...All the eyewitness accounts of the hunter who killed them were similar—like some witch out of the media. That’s how the name stuck.”
“So a Westerner named it? If it had been coined here, it would’ve just been another ghost story. A couple shaman rituals and poof, gone.”
“Yeah, it was Western. It started in North America anyway.”
So this whole Damyeon and Cape Prime mess started with the Witch Hunt incident? I rubbed my face with my hand and listened as he went on.
“After that case, things went quiet for a bit, then copycat crimes started popping up worldwide. Korea wasn’t an exception.”
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“Then the International Hunter Association concluded it wasn’t copycats, but the work of an organized group. The case is closed now—hunters in North America took care of it as a unit.”
So Seowon had been obsessing over something already closed? I raised my head to meet his gaze, and he explained evenly.
“Before the case was closed, two hunters from Damyeon were killed here in Korea. Damyeon didn’t trust the police to make progress, so they did their own chasing... then asked me to track them.”
“......”
“And around the same time, I got another case. Cape Prime requested protection for a foreign hunter under their wing who was offering allegiance in exchange for naturalization.”
Damyeon asked for tracking. Cape Prime asked for protection. Considering who they hired, it made more sense he was arranging an identity cover than literal bodyguard work.
The timing was suspicious, but it didn’t look related. Except if Seowon was bringing it up, then he thought it was.
“And those two were the same person?”
“...Probably.”
Probably?
My brow twitched at the vagueness. Seowon caught my look and quickly added as if to defend himself.
“I don’t know for sure. When I tracked the one who killed the Damyeon hunters, the same guy Cape Prime wanted protected showed up. But I couldn’t tell if they were actually the same person. I asked him straight up—‘did you kill hunters?’”
“He could’ve lied.”
“No... I made it so he couldn’t. ...I used my skill.”
Seowon’s Blind Spot of Trust. An A-rank skill—more than enough to work on most hunters. I tapped my knee and kept listening.
“But he said it wasn’t him. And he looked genuinely innocent.”
“Dissociative identity disorder, maybe?”
“I thought about that too—like he had multiple personalities and didn’t know. But it wasn’t that. I watched him for quite a while. Then as Damyeon’s deadline closed in, I decided to drop the case and not take the back-end payment...”
“Uh-huh.”
“...But Damyeon found him separately.”
“The Cape Prime protection target?”
Seowon nodded. So Damyeon had been running their own parallel search. That checked out.
I locked eyes with him.
“So you handed the guy over to Damyeon?”
“No. ...It wasn’t through official channels. Damyeon had given me a private commission. If I handed him over, he could’ve been killed. I was supposed to protect him.”
“So you smuggled him out?”
“......”
Seowon raised both hands, palms out, like he was showing his innocence, then answered plainly.
“No, I didn’t smuggle him. But while I had him hidden, he vanished. It wasn’t like I was slacking off... I must’ve been watching him. But then I lost the whole memory around that time. Didn’t feel like brainwashing—more like drugs. I don’t know the details.”
“......”
“That’s it. But... if it was drugs, maybe my subconscious knows. If a mental-type hunter digs in, or they use dungeon-made drugs, maybe they can pull it out.”
So according to him, the hunter he was guarding just vanished in an instant—and his memory of it disappeared too.
Hold on. Wasn’t this case already closed?
Which would mean the culprit was caught. Then why was Seowon still carrying risk now?
I tapped my knee with a finger and asked.
“But you said the case is closed. Doesn’t that mean the one who killed Damyeon’s hunters was already caught?”
“The organization’s headquarters was exposed, but they never pinned down which individuals did what. They’re still tracking members’ locations. They only nabbed the big ringleaders—lots of individuals are still wanted.”
So Damyeon just wanted the guy who killed their people. But personal revenge wasn’t even possible, was it? Especially in a case tied up in international law...
I went back # Nоvеlight # over what he’d said.
Everything else made sense, but the part about someone just vanishing? Even to me, that sounded like total bullshit. So to Damyeon and Cape Prime, it must’ve sounded like absolute crap.
And if the guy who took jobs from both sides suddenly claimed his client evaporated into thin air...
Anyone would say he smuggled him away.
Still, if his story about drugs or brainwashing was real, it explained things. Yet instead of proving it, Seowon had chosen to run from both guilds.
Doesn’t make fucking sense.
I frowned, lifted my brows, and stared at him. His eyes wavered ever so slightly.
“Then bring both of them together and tell the truth. Like you said, use drugs, whatever. Leave proof.”
At that, Seowon muttered like his energy had drained out.
“...It’s not that simple. He... was seventeen. An A-rank hunter, but...”
“......”
“He was almost ten years younger than me! How could I sell him out, for fuck’s sake. There’s a line, some ethics. Telling you this—honestly, I’m scared you’ll sell him out. I know that’d be the easiest choice, and I know how dangerous it is right now, with the second and third guilds breathing down my neck.”
He started muttering, then raised his voice, then slumped, his whole body sagging like the strength left him.
I stared at him blankly, then a thought came.
This is just because he’s thinking of his sister.
Sure, part of it was his soft nature—I mean, he’d whined to me about a Trust Covenant before.
Still... as I listened, something felt off. I leaned in, lowering myself until I caught his downcast eyes.
The sudden closeness made Seowon lift his head and try to pull back. I clamped his jaw tight, yanked him toward me in a single motion.
“Hey, what the—!”
“Just checking if you’re telling the truth.”
“...I haven’t lied once in anything I said.”
Seowon’s eyes went wide as he protested. Fair enough. He hadn’t lied.
I lowered my head, scrutinizing every detail of his face. The blink rate was normal, maybe a bit fast but steady. Pulse quick but consistent. Eyes wavering, but nothing unmanageable.
“I never said you lied. But you left some things out, didn’t you?”
“...What bullshit is that.”
Seowon scowled and shoved me back hard. Harder than usual—enough that my body tilted sharply.
Even as I fell back, I didn’t take my eyes off his face. And in that moment, I was sure.
“Ah...”
“......”
“You know where he is.”
