Chapter 7
“So, Hunter Yoon Joo-young, you live at your house, and I’ll live at mine. Okay? And please, stop with that ‘Master’ talk.”
“If I am not to call you Master, what should I address you as? Hmm… if I may be so bold as to ask permission to use your name, would ‘Ms. Seo-hee’ be acceptable?”
“…Fine, that’s better, at least.”
‘Ms. Seo-hee’ was a title I might hear occasionally when calling a customer service center, so it felt far more manageable than ‘Master.’ Honestly, being called ‘Master’ was… profoundly burdensome.
I didn’t even want to imagine it, but if Hunter Yoon Joo-young ever called me ‘Master’ in public… Just the thought was horrifying. What on earth would people think of us?
“Wait, you changed the subject again.”
It seemed Hunter Yoon Joo-young had a particular talent for steering a conversation in his favor. I tried to maintain a firm expression and met his gaze once more.
“I’m telling you again: let’s live in our own homes. You have a perfectly good house of your own, so why are you insisting on staying at mine? Besides, I don’t even have the space.”
“That is, of course, for your protection, Ms. Seo-hee. As we discussed yesterday, you are in need of a guardian.”
“…The only person who knows about my skill is you, Hunter Yoon Joo-young. And I have no intention of going around telling the world about it.”
“I trust you, Ms. Seo-hee. I know you will think and judge wisely. But I cannot trust others.”
As he spoke, he held out another neatly sliced piece of apple from the plate toward me.
I couldn’t exactly refuse a piece he’d already cut.
I had no choice but to take the apple slice into my mouth. He must have picked out good ones; it tasted excellent. I wondered if Hunter Yoon Joo-young had a hidden knack for housekeeping.
“The fact that I’ve awakened as an S-Class will be known to hunters across the country soon enough. It’s already been reported to the Dungeon Management Committee, and the ranking update is coming up.”
“Ah… come to think of it, that’s true. It’s this Sunday…”
“Yes. Even though it’s a monthly update… the appearance of an S-Class hunter always draws everyone’s attention. Even if I use a codename instead of my real name, it won’t be long before everyone figures out that I’m the new S-Class.”
I nodded, chewing the apple in silence. It was true; for every S-Class hunter that had appeared so far, word of their identity, residence, and guild affiliation usually leaked within a week.
Of course, this was often because top-tier hunters—usually brimming with pride—would step forward themselves and declare, ‘I am that S-Class.’
“An S-Class hunter is… Ah, I’m still eating. Anyway, an S-Class is a precious resource for the state. Word will definitely get out.”
“Yes. And in that process, I believe your name will inevitably be mentioned as well, Ms. Seo-hee.”
“…Mine?”
“Yes. An unprecedented awakening of a B-Class into an S-Class—and you were the sole witness at the scene.”
“Hmm.”
“Naturally, everyone will try to approach you.”
“I can’t deny that…”
Especially when it came to reporters covering the hunter industry, the ratio of ‘trashy journalists’ was high. They would likely swarm me for an interview without the slightest regard for my privacy.
In fact, during the Red Chimera dungeon incident, it seemed one of those vultures had already forced an interview out of a survivor.
“Well, even if I can’t deny that… wouldn’t it cause even more trouble if you’re constantly by my side?”
“Of course, Master’s—”
“I told you not to call me Master.”
“Yes. Your point is valid, Ms. Seo-hee… but fundamentally, the treatment of a ‘Close Associate of an S-Class’ and an ‘Indirect Associate’ is vastly different.”
“I have no intention of becoming a ‘Close Associate’ of yours.”
“We are already bound by the very close relationship of Master and Servant. How can you say such heartless things?”
“I’m telling you, I am not your master.”
Was this man teasing me on purpose?
I squinted at him, suspicious for a moment, but then I let out a sigh. No one would go so far as to claim they were a servant just to mess with someone.
“Returning to the point, ‘Close Associates’ are provided protection at the government level, or by the guild the hunter belongs to.”
“Is there really a system like that?”
“I believe it’s part of the Privacy Protection Act for S-Class hunters and their inner circles. Since S-Class hunters are so rare, the state likely wants to keep them tied down, even if it’s through their associates.”
True. I had heard that S-Class hunters received scout offers from every country and guild imaginable. These days, they even say a nation’s competitiveness is measured by its number of S-Class hunters.
That aside, Hunter Yoon Joo-young seemed to know a surprising amount about such things.
To be honest, even if we were all lumped under the title of ‘Hunter,’ the lives of high-ranking hunters and low-ranking ones were worlds apart.
Consequently, even though I kept up with hunter-related news and data, I didn’t know much about the actual lifestyles of the elite.
“You seem to know a lot about S-Class hunters.”
“Ah… yes. It’s because I know someone who is an S-Class…”
“You know one? Wow, you were a big deal even back th—no, I guess you really are a big deal now.”
He was an S-Class, after all. He was definitely a big deal.
I looked at him with newfound eyes. Come to think of it, an S-Class hunter—those beings described as living in a different realm, a different tier entirely—was sitting right in front of me.
Wow. Does that mean Yoon Joo-young can perform all those feats I saw in the ranking matches? Creating a thousand arrows in the sky, or vanishing from sight only to reappear far away?
“By the way, did your status window change when you awakened to S-Class? Well, of course it did. It had to…”
“Would you like to see it?”
“No, well, I feel like that’s being a bit too intrusive…”
Unless you were teammates raiding a dungeon together, asking a total stranger to see their status window was incredibly rude. Between the ranking matches and private disputes, hunters were understandably reluctant to share their status or skill information.
That was why I had been curious but holding back. However…
“By your skill’s nature, you can view my status window whenever you wish, Ms. Seo-hee.”
“Huh?! What do you mean?”
My skill had a function like that?
I hurriedly opened my status window to check my skills. Naturally, the contents were exactly the same as before. Master’s Garden, Target: Yoon Joo-young (S)…
“Try tapping my name there, or speak it aloud.”
“Uh…”
Like this? I tentatively tapped the area where his name was written. To be honest, I had my doubts, but the result was beyond my imagination.
<Status Window>
Name / Age: Yoon Joo-young (胤柱寧) / 24 Awakened: Y Rank: S
Awakened Skills — Stealth (S) — Mana * Darkness (A++) — Mana * Wind (A) — Shadow Dweller (S+)
Wow, I really can see everything. When I lightly touched the skill names, descriptions even popped up. I read the description for ‘Stealth’ with wide eyes.
‘Hides the user’s form and erases sound. At a high level, this skill nears the state of temporarily erasing one’s very existence…’
I had completely forgotten that prying into a hunter’s status was rude. I was simply caught up in the excitement of seeing something so fascinating.
Then, for the first time in a long while, the guest that no one in the entire world would ever welcome appeared.
— Well now, citizens of humanity, have you all been living peacefully and without a care in the world?
“Eek! Why is he showing up all of a sudden?”
Messy brown hair that looked entirely unkempt, a pair of glasses perched clumsily on a freckled nose, and a vacant, grinning face that lacked even a shred of humanity.
— It has been a while! Your administrator, the Librarian, has returned!
The being who claimed to be the ‘Manager’ of Earth.
The ‘Librarian’ had arrived.
Chapter 2: The Aspiring Normal Person and the Abandoned Gardener (1)
One day, the calamity began without warning.
Some calamities took the form of monsters; others took the form of bizarre buildings.
But one calamity took the form of a human.
— My, it’s been a while, but you all still have those same stupid expressions. You must all be so glad to see me.
“What is he talking about…?”
The Librarian—the culprit behind the third type of calamity—smiled brightly and waved from behind a crystal-clear hologram.
He was a brazen, shameless creature who seemed to know neither embarrassment nor guilt.
— Oh, for those of you denying it, there’s no need to be shy. This Librarian already knows your true hearts.
I decided to just keep my mouth shut. He was a mysterious entity with no known identity; for all I knew, he might actually be listening to the words of a bottom-tier C-Class hunter like me.
— Well, I have mountains of things I want to talk about, but I suppose I should get to the point! After all, you frail little humans must be dying to know why I’ve appeared, right?
Actually, rather than being curious, I would have been more grateful if he just stayed away.
They say no news is good news. No one was ever happy to see the Librarian, who only ever showed up to drop some ridiculous ‘Mission,’ ‘Trial,’ or ‘Whim’ onto the world.
