Chapter 44
Saebyeok silently followed Park Woo-jun.
For a moment, Kang Suho’s expression hardened, but Saebyeok didn’t notice.
As soon as Woo-jun let go of her wrist after moving to one side of the lobby, he spoke in a frustrated tone.
“Why on earth did you let that guy into your house?”
“I told you before. After helping him twice, I kept worrying about his younger brother…”
“That’s a ridiculous excuse.”
Saebyeok tried to give the same explanation as last time, but Woo-jun cut her off.
Then, with an unbelieving look, he pressed her again.
“You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”
“……”
Maybe the excuse about worrying for young Sihoo was just too weak.
“If you’re really worried about that kid, I’ll take him.”
“What?”
“I’ll send him to my parents’ house. They’ll feed him well, dote on him, and raise him lovingly. You’ll be busy with hunter work, Saejin isn’t planning to quit the restaurant, and that little kid would be left all alone in an empty house, right?”
“……”
“Wouldn’t it be better for my parents to look after him instead of leaving him alone? Don’t you think?”
Saebyeok was at a loss for words.
The logic was so perfect that she couldn’t think of a counter-argument.
‘I worked so hard to convince Kang Suho to stay at my house…!’
If he heard about this, he might actually consider it seriously.
So she had to break Woo-jun’s argument somehow.
But how?
“See? You can’t even answer, which means it’s not really about the kid.”
“Woo-jun.”
“You don’t know anything about that guy, so what were you thinking letting him in your home?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you know what he’s after?”
“I let him in. Kang Suho said it was burdensome, but I insisted. What could he possibly be scheming?”
“Then why?”
“……”
“Is it something you can’t tell me?”
“……”
“Han Saebyeok, why… haaa…”
After pressing her, Woo-jun finally sighed and rubbed his gaunt face.
The playful, bright face he usually wore now looked dark and heavy.
“What on earth can’t you tell me, even me?”
He seemed both frustrated and anxious.
“Saebyeok. Han Saebyeok…”
He gripped her shoulders, bowed his head, then looked up at the sky before exhaling another sigh—like a lover trying to delay a breakup they knew was coming.
From his actions, Saebyeok could sense how uneasy he was.
‘I guess it really was too much to expect him to just accept this blindly.’
If the situation were reversed, she’d probably feel the same.
If Woo-jun suddenly brought home a stranger one day and only said, “I just felt like it,” she’d also think, Has he gone crazy?
Instead of appealing to “humanitarianism,” she needed to give him a reason he could accept.
“You’ll keep this secret, right?”
“Tell me.”
Hope quickly filled his eyes.
His grip on her shoulders even tightened as if urging her to hurry up and confess.
“I can see status windows.”
“…That’s nothing, every hunter can see those.”
“No, not mine.”
Saebyeok pointed to his side.
“Other people’s status windows. Every hunter’s in this building.”
“What…?”
“And…”
Finally, she pointed toward Kang Suho, who was waiting for paperwork to be processed while staring at them from afar.
“The status windows of people who are about to awaken.”
Woo-jun’s eyes widened as if they would pop out.
“‘Base Defense,’ normally A-rank but listed as C-rank right now since it’s variable. It gets re-measured every time you go into combat.”
To prove she wasn’t lying, Saebyeok recited the detailed information she could see from Woo-jun’s status window.
“The description’s pretty poetic. ‘You’re strongest when you have something to protect. Don’t fear the number of things you must protect—your bunker will just grow larger to match.’ Wow, you really are the textbook definition of a tank, huh?”
“You’re saying… you can really see all that?”
“Want me to read something else? Titles? Or this time, your passives?”
When he muttered in disbelief, Saebyeok began listing other details.
<Title: Shield of the Crusader (A: Variable)>
Reputation is greater than honor, fidelity is harder than love, and trust is stronger than power. So long as your comrades believe in you, your shield will block any danger.
Unique Active Skills:
Base Defense (A*)
Skull-Cracker! (A)
Crusader’s Roar (B)
Justice Formation (B)
Vanguard’s Resolve (C)
Unique Passive Skills:
Value of the Shield (A)
Crusader’s Stamina (B)
Saebyeok read out every single description word for word. Woo-jun had no choice but to believe her.
He had told her what his skills were before, but never in this much detail.
“You believed so easily that I’d become S-rank, but this you just can’t accept, huh.”
“Becoming S-rank is something I could at least imagine—it’s within the realm of possibility. But this…”
“Wait… your shield attack skill is really called ‘Skull-Cracker!’?”
One name stood out, and Saebyeok couldn’t help but stifle a laugh.
<Skill: Skull-Cracker! (A)>
Is there anyone who doesn’t know that the most effective defense is offense? Forget the chatter—let’s start by smashing their skulls in.
Whenever Woo-jun fought, everyone in Korea knew he would shout “Skull-Cracker!” as he bashed his enemies with his shield.
The Association’s one and only assault captain yelling “Skull-Cracker!” every time he crushed a monster’s head had become such a meme.
She’d thought it was just for laughs—but the actual skill name was really “Skull-Cracker!”
“I thought you were just joking around, but it’s real… Pfft.”
“Don’t laugh, I’m serious right now!”
Saebyeok kept giggling, and that eased Woo-jun’s grim expression a little.
“Focus, please.”
Though he tried to steady himself, even he couldn’t hide a faint smile.
“So, you can also tell which people are about to awaken?”
“Yeah.”
“And you brought that guy in because he’s about to awaken and you want to ‘invest’ in him?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he know?”
“Yeah, I told him everything.”
“And instead of leaving for somewhere else, he signed a contract with you…”
“Yeah.”
Woo-jun glanced at Kang Suho with a conflicted expression.
Since the two kept talking while pointing at him and then looking his way, Suho was staring back with a visibly uneasy gaze.
“So that’s really all there is to it?”
“I told you, yes.”
“Haa…”
This sigh carried an entirely different, complicated weight.
“Does it really have to be him? Couldn’t you find someone else instead?”
“No. He’s going to awaken as a really high rank.”
“Even so, it’s not like he’ll be S-rank… so maybe you shouldn’t—”
She bit her lips, unable to bring herself to say the truth—that he really would be S-rank.
And then—
“Whoa! It’s starting!!”
One of the staff suddenly shot up and shouted.
All the Association employees rushed out into the wide lobby where Saebyeok and Woo-jun stood.
“Turn up the volume! Someone raise the sound on that monitor!!”
A man who looked like a deputy director barked orders, and an intern fumbled with the remote.
Translated international news began to play.
[Translation: At last, one of the five calamity beasts has reached the coast. In the U.S.!!]
A human hunter looked tiny standing before the massive sea serpent.
Watching it glide over the ocean was one thing, but now that it had reached civilization, the sheer scale of its size was overwhelming.
[Translation: The hunter stepping forward to face Jörmungandr is Franco from Seattle! Ah, true to hot-blooded Franco’s nature, he’s charging straight into battle! Will the one-hit man show us his legendary strike…?!]
[KWA-AAANG!!]
With an earth-shaking boom, Franco was the one sent flying from Jörmungandr’s tail strike.
He skidded for several kilometers, gouging the ground, before slamming into a hotel.
The tall building collapsed onto him, and then Jörmungandr’s tail smashed down again.
[KWAGWANG!!]
The sound was so deafening the speakers nearly tore.
Moments later, healing hunters rushed desperately toward the site.
[Translation: What… what is this…?]
The whole world froze as if turned to ice.
‼ Global Announcement ‼
<Tutorial: Calamity Beast Raid> begins now.
A message appeared before all of humanity.
