Chapter 58 …
That night, after all the team members had gone home, I fell back into thought.
“First, we’ve solved the problem of entering the dungeon. What remains is keeping the mana stone safe.”
As I organized my thoughts, I realized this problem was actually simpler than the others.
The only way to prevent this catastrophe.
“The reason the mana stone gets destroyed is Baek Gyeon. So if I stop Baek Gyeon from coming to the dungeon, that’s it!”
“Gwon Seo-woo! Seo-woo!”
“Huh? What is it, sis…? Aren’t you sleeping? What’s going on?”
When I knocked on his door, Gwon Seo-woo—his eyes half-closed as if he had just been about to go to bed—opened it.
Since he was clearly sleepy and not fully conscious, I spoke quickly, not giving him time to think too deeply.
“Wow, Seo-woo. Did you know this? Lately, some overzealous senior hunters keep following juniors into every dungeon raid, so rookie hunters’ average stats have been declining every year. And this social phenomenon is especially noticeable in Daechi-dong and the Gangnam Three Districts. And just at the right time, one of our team members—Piuri—happens to live in Gangnam! Did you know that? Isn’t that shocking…?”
“W-What? There’s a social phenomenon like that? That’s really strange.”
As if.
Judging by his reaction, he was definitely not fully awake yet.
“Right? You think it’s a really serious social problem too, don’t you?”
“Uh… well? Hearing it from you, sis, it kind of sounds like it is.”
“Then try contacting Baek Gyeon.”
“Yeah, Baek—… what? M-Me?”
And just like that, Gwon Seo-woo’s sleepy eyes snapped wide open.
“I mean, you never know with social phenomena like this. If Baek Gyeon tries to join the dungeon midway, make sure you absolutely don’t accept him.”
“Uh, sis… I didn’t say anything because I thought you didn’t know, but…”
Bzzzz—
At that moment, Gwon Seo-woo’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen, hesitated for a moment, then rejected the call and spoke with an oddly confident attitude.
“I haven’t met Baek Gyeon hyung in a long time. We don’t even contact each other anymore.”
“Huh?”
“So there’s nothing you need to worry about. Relax.”
“…What?”
And at those words, something strange slipped out of my mouth in my confusion. What did he just say?
“Back then… Baek Gyeon hyung threatened you, didn’t he! Even if it was a misunderstanding, how could he do something like that? I’m not so spineless that I’d stay close to someone who bullied my sister!”
“Bullied… what? Then you’re saying you haven’t trained with Baek Gyeon even once since then? What about all those times you went out several times a week when you were staying in Singa?”
“That was obviously just to meet friends. Ever since we briefly ran into each other in Sinyongsan, I haven’t met him even once.”
A strong sense of unease washed over me.
I’d assumed the two of them were getting along just fine—but that wasn’t the case?
“Then who has Gwon Seo-woo been training with?”
In the original story, Gwon Seo-woo learned countless survival techniques and combat instincts from Baek Gyeon.
Those weren’t things you could just learn from anyone. Baek Gyeon was the world’s strongest, ranked number one—only someone like him could give that kind of training to the protagonist.
“Seo-woo. I appreciate you thinking about me, but I’m really fine. And honestly, I think you absolutely should stay close to Baek Gyeon?!”
“What?”
“How often do you get a chance in your life to learn from a hunter that strong? You said you want to beat Najin, right? Then this is not the time to be doing this!”
“Sis, I can get strong enough without learning from Baek Gyeon hyung! So let’s stop talking about that—”
Bzzzz—
“….”
No matter how much I tried to persuade him, it didn’t work at all. Then the phone vibrated again. Seo-woo checked the screen once more, then simply turned the phone off.
“…Anyway! You don’t need to worry about Baek Gyeon hyung either. I’m going to sleep now.”
“Hey!”
Bang!
I tried to stop him, but he had already quickly locked his door. A few seconds later, a voice as quiet as an ant came from inside.
“…The door just slammed because of the wind!”
So what…?
Meanwhile, I stood frozen in the empty living room, completely at a loss for words.
This sudden, extreme plot twist was too much. Damn it.
“What is this? If Baek Gyeon is gone from the mentor position, doesn’t that mean the core premise of the original story has collapsed? Have I been relying too much on the original plot’s corrective force…? No.”
I stopped mid-thought, clutching my head.
“This has already happened, so let’s assume I’ll deal with it from here on out. For now, I need to think about the more urgent issue.”
The collapse of Baek Gyeon and Gwon Seo-woo’s relationship was a massive, catastrophic problem—but thinking about it carefully, there was at least one upside in the current situation.
“Baek Gyeon won’t come to the dungeon and smash the mana stone….”
Whether that was truly a good thing, I couldn’t say.
“The number you have dialed cannot be connected. Please leave a message after the tone—”
“…Ha.”
At the automated voice from the speaker, Baek Gyeon’s lips curled upward in irritation. His gaze, fixed on his phone screen, turned vicious.
“He’s hanging up on me on purpose?”
“Hunter Baek Gyeon! This marks your eleventh successful S-rank dungeon raid today—how do you feel?”
“You’ve always been accompanied only by Hunter Joo Se-min during these raids. Is there a specific reason behind this decision?”
“Please step back behind the line! You could get hurt!”
“Senior! What’s wrong? Did you get an urgent call?”
Camera flashes poured down around Baek Gyeon as he emerged from the dungeon.
While bodyguards blocked the reporters, Joo Se-min approached him from the side.
The ear-splitting noise. Flashes exploding every second. The faint smell of blood clinging to his clothes.
It was hard to concentrate—but Baek Gyeon’s eyes remained fixed on the same screen.
The very first thing that had caught his eye just minutes earlier, right after exiting the dungeon, was that headline.
▶ Hunter Kwon A-sol confirms official sponsorship contract with Baekyeom Guild
▶ [Photo] Rookie hunters entering Baekyeom Guild… “Getting scouted was the easiest part”
“So they pulled this stunt while I was inside a dungeon.”
“Pardon?”
“Joo Se-min, you can handle the interviews on your own, right?”
“Huh? Yes, of course. It’s not my first time.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you. Wrap it up appropriately and come out.”
Baek Gyeon pushed through the reporters and headed straight home.
A short while later, a familiar face greeted him as he stepped through the front door.
“What? Sindorim.”
“I heard you just came out of a dungeon. I figured you’d be scowling after seeing the Baekyeom sponsorship article. Good thing I made it in time.”
Sindorim stood up from his seat, where he had been calmly brewing and drinking green tea in the empty house.
Without sparing him much attention, Baek Gyeon passed by and took off his blood-stained outerwear.
“You look relaxed. What about work?”
“I had a brief gap. I was on my way to an emergency support mission, but the people at the accident site… passed away just before I arrived. Anyway, that’s not important.”
Shaking his head, Sindorim got to the point.
“You were going to Baekyeom, right? What were you planning to do there?”
That was why Sindorim had rushed all the way here, giving up his precious rest. Having known Baek Gyeon for over a decade, he could guess his intentions just by watching how things unfolded.
“Persuade them.”
“You’re not going to persuade them….”
“The most traditional form of persuasion has always been fists.”
“Gyeon, every time you fail to exceed my expectations like this, it’s honestly exhausting.”
Whenever Baek Gyeon clashed with the Baek family, Sindorim was the one who suffered alongside him. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to scold Baek Gyeon—he knew about the internal strife within the Baek family as well.
“I know you hate your mother and the Baek family, but the Baekyeom Guild Master has virtually zero combat ability. If you do something to him, you’ll go to prison….”
“That’s exactly the problem. Han Jae-hyun is too weak. Do you seriously think it makes sense for an F-rank hunter to be the head of Baekyeom Guild? Even your younger sibling went under him—doesn’t that bother you at all?”
“…Technically, they didn’t ‘go under’ him. They’re just sharing the training facilities. For A-sol and the others, that was probably the best option. If I could, I would’ve supported them myself, but Yeomyeong was too firm, and my family situation right now is… not great.”
“Exactly.”
“Huh?”
That was when Baek Gyeon spoke again.
Sindorim looked up—and when he met Baek Gyeon’s face, he realized his assumption had been slightly off.
“It’s a problem that would be solved if they trained under me. So why did they go under Han Jae-hyun instead?”
“…What?”
“Whether they get support from Han Jae-hyun or from me, it wouldn’t be that different. I could just let them use the training grounds in the basement of this house. And as for training itself, it goes without saying that I’m overwhelmingly better.”
As Baek Gyeon spoke, his expression slowly shifted—from displeasure to genuine confusion. After a moment of thought, Sindorim asked,
“Gyeon. You’re not seriously asking because you don’t know the reason, are you?”
“What reason.”
“Well… have you ever tried looking at your own actions objectively? Could it be that the way you treated A-sol or Seo-woo is the problem?”
“…What was the problem? I even warned him to be careful not to end up like that bastard Najin.”
“Yeah. Right. I knew it would be like this.”
