Chapter 389

For reference, the outdoor area she was approaching was in complete chaos.

"Please! Teach me!"

"Oh my, what's this? Where on earth did this person learn Korean so quickly?"

The man, an intimidating figure among intimidating figures, with black tattoos densely covering everything from his knuckles to his neck, was desperately clinging to someone's pant leg and begging.

"Judging by those tattoos, it's obvious. The one kneeling over there is that S-Rank Hunter with the fire attribute."

Seonwoo Yeon's concern had become reality. Even before his phone died, Kim Giryeo had already been struggling with the troublesome situation of receiving sparring requests from all over the world. Even after moving to Seoul, his circumstances had hardly improved.

"Well, considering that Jung Haseong perfected such a groundbreaking technique, it's no wonder everyone's going crazy over it."

While Kim Giryeo, who had been stopped at the Association's main gate, was lost in thought, the remaining S-Rank Hunters present finally spoke up.

"Hunter Kim, I apologize."

When he turned his head, he spotted Jung Haseong. Since Haseong was wearing a hospital gown, it was easy to tell that he had briefly stepped out of his room.

"The fact that things have come to this is entirely my fault."

"That's right, you brat."

It seemed he had come to deal with the situation after realizing that a fellow Hunter had suddenly found himself in a difficult spot. Whether the Awakened Jung Haseong would actually be of any help under the circumstances, however, remained uncertain.

"I got carried away and misspoke, but I never imagined a single interview would cause such a huge stir..."

The black-haired Awakened briefly explained his position, then directed a shocking statement at the foreigner on the ground.

"I do feel sorry that you came all the way to Korea, but honestly... Hunter Kim is incredibly busy. Asking him to devote an entire year to you is completely unrealistic."

"Hmm."

"Moreover, showing up like this to see Hunter Kim is improper in more ways than one."

At this, the man in the suit gave a small nod.

"At the very least, you should have tried defeating me first before making such a request."

But the instant those words left his mouth, the man who had been nodding along froze.

"J-Jung Haseong?"

"Anyway, compared to Hunter Kim's abilities, you and I are nothing but insects. And that's something no amount of effort can truly change. Still—no matter how hopeless things may seem, isn't it basic courtesy to at least meet the minimum standard before making demands?"

The situation grew even more complicated. The device seemed to have failed to translate a curse word somewhere in the middle, leaving the foreigner staring blankly for a moment. Still, despite the language barrier, the atmosphere alone was enough to understand what was being conveyed.

"What does 'insect' mean?"

A subtle tension formed between the French Hunter and me.

"Ah, right. Cases like that have become so rare lately that I'd almost forgotten. Come to think of it, Jung Haseong was also classified as one of the hopeless ones..."

Esther was lost in thought as she walked when her eyes suddenly met someone else's.

"!?"

Even amid the surrounding chaos, Kim Giryeo noticed the sorcerer's approach with his usual sharp senses. The man, his dyed hair as conspicuous as ever, shouted the moment his gaze met Esther's.

"Ah, right! What was I thinking? It's coffee time."

"Huh?"

"As you know, every office worker in Korea needs a cup of coffee after a meal... Ah! Hello, Director Esther!"

"Uh, h-hello..."

"Since we've run into each other, would you mind buying me a cup of Magic Tower coffee? Actually, there's something personal I'd like to discuss with you."

He said quite a lot, but in the end, the Alphaurin's true intention was simple.

"Giryeo-ssi, you mean you have something personal to say to me?"

Sensing that the place was about to descend into complete chaos, Kim Giryeo said something that essentially amounted to a quiet plea for rescue. Esther blinked at him several times in silence. But her hesitation didn't last long.

"Hm. Well, alright then!"

After all, she had come here because she had something to thank him for as well. And besides—while others brought enough gifts to fill a private jet and still failed to buy even a fraction of his time, he was personally asking her to share a private teatime with him. Honestly, there was no reason for her to feel offended by such a proposal. On the contrary, she couldn't help feeling a faint, sly sense of superiority.

Therefore...

"I already had my after-lunch coffee, but thanks to awakening, I can handle a few more cups now."

Esther readily accepted Kim Giryeo's proposal. Now that the two of them had made plans and left together, whatever hair-pulling fight the two remaining S-Ranks might get into at the scene was no longer any of their concern.

***

Anyway, she had never expected them to end up facing each other so suddenly.

"Would you like your coffee cold or hot?"

"Are there ever days without coffee?"

"Yes?"

"Just kidding. I'll have it hot, please."

It was a sight he hadn't seen in quite some time. Not long afterward, Kim Giryeo found himself sitting across from her in a rather familiar reception room. The faint scent of Alphaurin adhesive always lingered in the air, perhaps reflecting the host's peculiar taste. To Earthlings, however, it would register as nothing more than a pleasant fruity fragrance...

"Anyway, Hunter Esther hardly weighs anything, so there was really no need to thank me just for carrying you."

"Oh my."

"Then, I'd like to tell you what I've prepared."

At that moment, the blond man pulled something from the messenger bag he had been carrying.

Tuk.

A stack of A4-sized papers landed on the desk. The punched holes were far too rough and frayed to have been made with a proper machine. Stranger still, the pages had been bound together with a thin yet sturdy string of unknown origin. No matter how one looked at it, what lay before them was a handmade "book."

"What is this?"

"Normally, I'm not this clumsy with my hands, but since this is my first time making this kind of book, it came out a little..."

"Wait a minute. A book?"

"Well, this is actually a textbook I made for you."

Before she could question that particular word, Kim Giryeo explained himself.

"Before I say anything else, let me make one thing clear—I'm seriously planning to retire officially soon."

Retirement, huh. Up to this point, what he was saying sounded fairly reasonable.

"Aside from the occasional excessive blood circulation, I'll say it again—I'm perfectly healthy. So even if I stop hunting, I can still spare some time to teach someone. That's my choice. You're following me so far, right?"

But once a statement like that came out, the credibility of everything that followed was bound to decline.

'No matter how carefully they tried to keep it from leaking to the public, as a fellow Korean S-Rank, I know perfectly well what happened during the Island Fall...'

Still, it had been a long time since they had last met, so it felt awkward to start an argument already. Esther fell briefly into thought. To be honest, there were more than a few things she could have picked apart, but for the moment, she decided to remain silent and hear him out.

'By the way, what on earth does he mean by a textbook?'

However, his next remark was surprisingly materialistic.

"Oh, right. Hunter Esther, just so you know, even if it looks like this, what's written inside is actually extremely valuable. Please take good care of it from now on."

He spoke with absolute confidence in the value of the knowledge it contained. Truthfully, Kim Giryeo no longer had any urgent need to dig into an S-Rank Hunter's wallet—but still, in a capitalist society, the more money you had, the better, wasn't it?

Kim Giryeo had previously made a specific promise to the guild master of the Korean Magic Tower.

[If that know-how proves effective, I'll, of course, contact the Magic Tower immediately...]

More precisely, he had promised that he would first teach Jung Haseong how to control his abilities, then select Esther as the next candidate and pass the knowledge on to her separately. Moreover, when he suddenly found himself facing a crisis involving forty billion won in unpaid taxes that year, he had become even more fixated on sticking to that schedule.

'When I suddenly fell into debt, I desperately tried to get money by going after Esther's wallet...'

However, during the recent gate expedition in India, Kim Giryeo had finally obtained a unique-tier item. That had freed him somewhat from his financial worries, but since he had already prepared the materials back when he had been desperate for money, he decided to use them as an excuse to bring up the proposal now.

'Back then, Esther was so stubborn about refusing in-person lessons that I ended up trying this somewhat persistent, roundabout approach.'

A text-based medium. If he was that worried about someone else's stamina, why not at least let them study by following the material on their own? Kim Giryeo had decided to try passing on the fundamentals of curse mage training in an unconventional format.

'I'm curious whether a primitive like this can actually develop properly through this method.'

From an Alphaurin's perspective, the path taken didn't matter as long as the result was good. Besides, from the perspective of someone studying a discipline, failure wasn't necessarily a bad thing either.

'Should I just throw it out there and collect some data while I'm at it?'

The blond alien handed over the document and repeated his proposal.

"What's written here consists of my personal tips for mana management. Now, before you take the documents, please sign a contract with me first."

"..."

"As stated in the contract, for the sake of fairness to Hunter Jung Haseong, I can't give this to you for free... You only need to pay in installments, exactly the same amount Jung Haseong paid."

Now that he was no longer desperate for money, receiving it like a pension suited the alien perfectly—sixty billion won per month, including gift taxes. Of course, even for Jung Haseong, who earned his own money, it was an amount that required dipping into his savings in addition to his income. But considering that he had been born into a wealthy family and was the sole owner of such an enormous guild, it was hard to imagine that sixty billion won would truly be a burden to him. After all, this was the very essence of magical knowledge that had transformed Jung Haseong into an incarnation of fire.

'Isn't this asking too much?'

But then...

For some reason, no answer came from the other side. Kim Giryeo, wearing a distinctly Earth-like expression of puzzlement, felt a brief flicker of tension.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

After several more seconds of silence, he finally heard the other person's voice.

"Giryeo-ssi."

"Yes."

"There's something I'm curious about."

"Yes. Go ahead."

"Earlier, you flatly rejected that other Awakened in front of the Association's main gate, so why are you so insistent on teaching me separately like this?"

Honestly, it was a question Kim Giryeo had never expected.

"And don't bring up things like not having enough money for living expenses anymore. If you really wanted to, these few documents alone could fetch an astronomical price."

"Hmm."

"You know that, and I know it too, Kim Giryeo-ssi."

"Of course."

"Then why are you making this knowledge so readily available to me and Jung Haseong?"

For Esther, however, it was a perfectly natural question. As mentioned before, Kim Giryeo had always responded coldly whenever overseas Hunters requested his guidance.

'It can't be...'

Why had this Awakened man in his mid-twenties suddenly started showing favoritism? Even though he had willingly thrown himself into crises in distant countries, he usually seemed fairer than anyone else.

'Could Hunter Kim Giryeo possibly...?'

An inexplicable silence settled over the Korean Magic Tower's reception room. At that moment, Esther, sitting with her arms crossed, suddenly arrived at an entirely unexpected suspicion.

'Could he really be with the National Intelligence Service?'

Exactly. The suspicion Jung Haseong had once raised—and which had faded after Kim Giryeo himself denied it—suddenly resurfaced.

'Son of a—! What if he's turning his back on his own people even though he's supposed to be a patriot of the Republic of Korea?'

This is insane.

A moment later, a faint sheen of cold sweat formed on the back of her neck. But the thoughts running through her head were far too dangerous to voice, even partially. Esther fussed with her perfectly fine clothes as she tried to gauge the situation, and right around then, Kim Giryeo began behaving in a deeply suspicious manner.

"If you're asking why I'm only teaching Jung Haseong and you... well, that's... um..."

For some reason, instead of answering directly, he awkwardly fell silent, only strengthening her suspicions.

"..."

He must be an agent...

So that Kim guy really was the legendary special operative. No wonder he looked far older than his age. Could even the numbers on his resident registration card be fake?

Esther averted her gaze at his unfamiliar reaction. Meanwhile, Kim Giryeo, wearing an ambiguous expression, spent a long moment choosing his words.

"How... am I supposed to explain this?"

In truth, he had circumstances of his own, and soon fell into deep contemplation.

'Looking back on it now, I'd say the goal of strengthening South Korea's defenses has been almost perfectly achieved.'

Thanks to the top-ranked Hunter growing far beyond expectations, there was now enough security for him to retire. So why had he suddenly gone this far at this point?

This S-Rank-specific tutoring had originally begun as a scheme to fleece high-income earners. In other words, the real reason was a secret he could never reveal to anyone in the first place. On top of that, there had genuinely been a period when his finances had collapsed, and he had created this book while seriously considering whether he might have to squeeze money out of them by force if necessary.

'Out of every reason I can think of, not a single one would preserve the dignity of an Archmage.'

If he launched into a long explanation now, he would only end up exposing the embarrassing details of his days as an F-Rank. With that in mind, Kim Giryeo settled on a rather half-hearted answer.

"Well, I'm only doing this because I made a promise."

"..."

"I said something back then in front of a Hunter awakened to the curse attribute. How could I just go back on my word now?"

For a moment, he considered simply revealing that he was a worker who had come from an unimaginably distant and troublesome place. But the alien bearing the surname Kim barely suppressed the rising impulse and continued.

"But Hunter Esther, don't you get tired of these endless, pointless exchanges with me?"

"Yes?"

"Anyway, the fundamental reason our opinions keep clashing is because of that. My tumor."

"Y-yeah. I suppose so..."

"But I actually know a way to improve this situation. In that case, why don't we take this opportunity to borrow [Justitia]?"

Until now, he hadn't even dared to mention the item's name because he didn't want to waste money. But now, he felt that he could no longer put it off.

"Wait a minute. [Justitia]?"

"I'm sorry I got irritated last time. But after thinking about it again, I still believe that's the best way to resolve this."

"Ugh..."

"If Hunter Esther borrows it, I'll immediately cooperate with anything related to my health."

"That..."

"Moreover, by sharing this know-how with you, I can also prove that my intentions are by no means malicious."

Kim Giryeo spoke firmly, trying to convey his sincerity. But at that moment, the woman sitting directly across from him suddenly stiffened.

"Uh, I'm sorry, but [Justitia] can't be borrowed anymore."

Esther immediately explained. According to her, [Justitia] had recently been placed under review by the Human Rights Commission regarding authorization for its use, and the reason the process had begun was none other than the recent political and business scandal she had been involved in...

"Is that so?"

"To be honest, I can't really think of any other reason."

This damned world—nothing ever goes right.

The blond man was left speechless as his ambitious plan to borrow...