Chapter 110

I stared at Joo Seowon for a beat and explained.

“I opened a line of trade with Im Haekyung.”

“What kind of trade?”

“Why are you asking so much?”

“Because the fact you made a deal with Im Haekyung itself looks like a problem.”

“We’ll see.”

Since this morning he’d been making things impressively difficult. I added a short clarification.

“I already had some things to talk over with him. Personal matters.”

“Didn’t Song Hwayoung tell you not to get mixed up with Im Haekyung?”

“I’m not planning to get mixed up right now anyway.”

“...Then when? After Song Hwayoung dies?”

“Whenever. Later.”

Seowon looked at me with a complicated expression, then scrubbed his face hard with both hands.

“...Ah, fuck.”

“What’s with you?”

“I don’t know.”

He tossed aside the laptop he’d been working on before I came in and flopped onto the sofa.

“Haah... I’m losing it.”

“What are you ‘losing it’ about?”

I walked closer and looked down at him where he lay. He reflexively dropped his gaze to avoid mine.

“You feeling guilty? Why keep dodging my eyes?”

“Even without guilt, it’s not easy to keep eye contact with you.”

With that, he shut his eyes tight. I was about to leave him and head to my room, but then I remembered the SH work had piled up thanks to this morning’s mess, so I sat on the floor with my back against the sofa.

I wasn’t about to go fetch my own laptop, so I flipped open Seowon’s and asked,

“What’s the password?”

“Why.”

“To work.”

“You have your own.”

“Too much trouble to go get it.”

Propping himself up on an elbow, he reached over and typed the password himself.

“Don’t go into anything weird.”

“If there’s weird stuff on here, that’s on the guy who put it there.”

“...There is no weird stuff!”

Ignoring him, I skimmed through the tasks that had come in by email. From behind me came a pointless question.

“...Doesn’t sitting like that make your legs uncomfortable?”

“Yeah. I was thinking of cutting a little off anyway.”

“The way you talk...”

I sent off what I could as fast as possible, then opened an online map to look up Jinsando’s location.

'Can’t see the interior.'

Looked like they were using an entire island. Watching the screen over my shoulder, Seowon asked,

“Are you... going in there?”

“Dunno. Looks pretty dangerous, so I don’t want to rush in.”

“Could you maybe be selective about dangerous places? It’s like—if this isn’t about your restrictions, then it’s just a hobby to you, isn’t it?”

“You sound just like Im Haekyung.”

“...Then maybe have the self-awareness that that’s how it objectively looks.”

We’ll see. I leaned my head back to meet his eyes and tugged up one corner of my mouth.

“Wanna go together?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“...Because I value my life.”

“I value mine plenty.”

“Don’t talk bullshit.”

The longer our eye contact lasted, the more he retreated; he lay back down and closed his eyes.

“Gonna sleep?”

“No.”

So he was just going to keep them closed?

I lifted my hand and brought it close to his face. Even with his eyes shut he must’ve felt the shadow block the light, because a tiny twitch ran through his facial muscles.

Seen like this, he really was an odd one.

“Worried about me?”

Grinning, I asked, and he scrunched his brows even with his eyes closed.

“Shouldn’t I be? Today you dragged someone in and suddenly beat him like a madman. Fuck, I can’t keep you next to me.”

“If we’re nitpicking, I’m the one keeping you next to me. And I kept it controlled.”

“Bullshit...”

“For the record, I appreciate your worrying.”

I meant it, but for some reason it rubbed him the wrong way; he snapped his eyes open and shot back,

“If we’re nitpicking, I’m worried about the people around you. And I’m the ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) most worried about me!”

“I worry about you every day. I worry my ass off for the share the covenant takes, so cut it out.”

“Ah, shit.”

Leaving the curse hanging, he shut his eyes again. I looked at him for a moment, then turned back to the laptop.

Jinsando... If I was going to hit it, there was no way I could go alone. I’d need at least one person to help.

With that thought, I closed his laptop.

Before heading upstairs, I tapped his cheek with the back of my hand where he was still lying on the sofa.

“Seowon, I’m going.”

He’s not a kid; he’ll manage. In the dimmed light I caught a glimpse of his slightly reddened ear, then headed to my room.

***

Around the same time, at Haeseong Guild HQ.

Im Haekyung kept things as simple as possible. In an ocean of data, pulling the personal info on one cultist was a very easy job.

'Name Bae Hogyeom, twenty-seven... young. C-rank hunter?'

By the time he learned the C-rank hunter he’d taken from Seo Jehyun’s place had no listed relations, things got even simpler. Instead of “storing” the hunter, Haekyung released him outside.

Seo Jehyun wasn’t interested in the man himself—he only wanted his information. If not, he wouldn’t have entrusted him to Haekyung.

Through a Haeseong hunter with an appraisal-type skill, Haekyung quickly located the “something” affixed to the C-rank hunter.

“If conditions aren’t met, it causes pain. It ramps up the longer it goes.”

“An item?”

“Seems like a skill.”

It took roughly an hour to dismantle the skill already in place. An hour later, Haekyung sat with the hunter and had a thorough conversation.

About who “Believer Kim” was, why he’d gone to see Seo Jehyun, whether he’d actually stabbed him—

'I’ve heard enough.'

It wasn’t enough to clear every doubt, but having multiple intel sources secured was a worthwhile thing in itself.

After the talk, Haekyung immediately laid several layers of brainwashing on the C-rank hunter and erased all of these memories. Since it was a skill cast directly by an S-rank hunter, it wouldn’t be easily undone.

As long as he didn’t encounter someone whose mental-type ability surpassed Haekyung’s.

'There shouldn’t be... anyone.'

It took less than three hours to wipe him and slip him back into the crowd.

Only after finishing that tedious task did Haekyung finally start to mull things over.

He held a high opinion of his own worth—but that came less from arrogance than from an unusually precise objectivity about himself.

There was no mental-type hunter who could surpass him. It was a fact everyone glossed over with a “sure, sure,” but Haekyung felt it every time.

Once he got used to mana, certain things became obvious. The flow of mana, differences in the amount each hunter held, or... the absolute total of mana, for example.

'It’s hard for anyone to have more mana than me.'

So there was no mental-type skill Haekyung couldn’t break—logically speaking.

The human mind is pliable. If you want to go beyond simple behavior control and delve in to tweak the finer parts, it takes extremely delicate work.

So at first, he’d assumed it was just Seo Jehyun’s durability problem. An impulsive mind with a strong ego housed in a relatively low-rank Awakened—digging wrong could easily cause damage.

But the “restriction” he’d confirmed today on Seo Jehyun was the first of its kind even for Haekyung.

It pressed down on the mind with razor precision. Deleting memories, imposing physical penalties, and constraining actions outright—an extreme, inhuman method.

'Who the hell could lay something like this?'

He couldn’t believe an individual had done it, so he quickly concluded it was the work of a group.

Which doubled the questions.

Odd as Seo Jehyun might be, he was still just a low-rank twenty-four-year-old hunter. What could be so important that someone would plaster this many restrictions on him?

And if there was an organization that had fabricated everything from “Seo Jehyun’s” identity to his restrictions, then who were they?

'Do they even exist?'

Haekyung already knew the sources behind most issues, domestic or foreign. He collected information specifically to achieve that.

But if Seo Jehyun was evidence that there existed a group with capabilities Haekyung didn’t know about, then the story changed.

Following the thread of his thoughts—both logically and with a sharp intuition—he arrived at a question that felt like a conclusion.

'Could they be related to the Upheaval?'

In other words... the hypothesis that someone had created the appearance of Gates and the Awakened.

From the beginning of the Upheaval, Haekyung had carried that doubt. Every change has a proper cause. Even for abnormal weather, you can list its causes in detail.

But this “Upheaval” had no proper cause.

Overnight, a space connecting to another world—what people called Gates—appeared. Monsters poured out of them, and some people “awakened.” At first, everyone questioned it; now it’s treated as natural.

How is none of that suspicious?

'If there’s no natural cause, then the cause would have to be artificial—but is that even possible...'

While everyone worried about today, Haekyung had the rare luxury of looking far ahead—because he had the ability to do so.

That all of these questions exploded out, and that the trigger was Seo Jehyun’s appearance, was particularly curious and... truly, fascinating.

In that sense, Haekyung wanted—if at all possible—to keep Seo Jehyun close and observe him.

Of course, a few problems came with that.

First and foremost... to put it nicely, Seo Jehyun’s personality had very serious issues.