Is This Something I Should Be Interrogated For?

“Miss Yoo Seol-a of the Sword Emperor family, correct?”

“Yes.”

I was currently in an interrogation room at the Hunter Association.

Why, you ask—

‘Couldn’t they have kept this quiet….’

After the Gate incident was resolved, the police and the Hunter who’d escorted us to the shelter reported what had happened to me during the follow-up proceedings.

Given their positions, I understood that they had no choice but to report it.

Still, couldn’t they have shown me the bare minimum of consideration?

The police owed me their lives, and the Hunter should have shown me some consideration out of guilt for suspecting me.

With no such consideration, I was being interrogated in this room as if I’d committed a crime.

“According to the witnesses, you underwent a temporary awakening. Is that true? Are you hiding anything?”

“I’ve told you the same thing in every interrogation so far. It was a temporary awakening, and I’m not hiding anything.”

This was already my third interrogation.

The Association probably kept bringing in different people to question me because they couldn’t believe in something called a temporary awakening, but I was on the verge of getting truly fed up.

They’d practically dragged an innocent citizen here by force. Was it really right to keep asking me the same questions for hours?

I wanted to flip the interrogation table over right then and there.

“It would be best to tell the truth. If you keep denying it, Miss Yoo Seol-a, you’ll be held responsible for all the consequences.”

“Is this an attempt to pressure me into confessing? In the Republic of Korea, a liberal democracy? Is this truly how you treat a member of the family of the hero who saved this country?”

It was obvious they were trying to use me as leverage to get something from the Sword Emperor family.

When Yoo Seol-a investigated the Hunter Association in the story, it was already steeped in corruption, so the possibility wasn’t entirely out of the question.

Above all, they were treating me—Yoo Seol-a—like this, so I couldn’t help but be certain.

They intended to use me to pressure the Sword Emperor family and get something out of them.

“There’s no getting through to you. I’m giving you another chance to think it over. Give it some serious thought, Miss Yoo Seol-a.”

Bang!

The Association official who’d come into the interrogation room slammed the door shut and left.

He seemed to think that would scare me, but it was pointless.

Neither Yoo Seol-a nor I were so easily frightened that something like this would scare us.

If I kept standing firm and dragged things out, someone from the Sword Emperor family would come to get me.

Unlike that obnoxious man I called my father, the elders treated Yoo Seol-a like the late Sword Emperor himself.

‘More importantly, this is boring~.’

But not knowing when someone from the family would arrive, all I could do was stare blankly into space.

That lasted only a little while—

“No way! What are you doing here!?”

“You’ve made quite a mess while I was away, haven’t you, Hunter Management Division?”

There was a commotion outside.

‘What’s going on?’

◈

“When exactly are you going to release my fiancée? Do you people realize this is illegal?”

After being questioned as a witness, Kim Hye-seong grabbed one of the Association officials and lodged a forceful protest.

The reason was his fiancée, ‘Yoo Seol-a,’ who was suspected of being an unregistered Hunter.

“The idea of a temporary awakening is so unusual that we’re investigating it thoroughly. We ask for your understanding.”

“Haaah!”

Frustrated, Kim Hye-seong let out a long sigh.

‘I hope Miss Seol-a is all right….’

He was worried about his fiancée.

Startled!

But while he was worrying about her—

Kim Hye-seong’s body gave a slight shudder.

‘That’s an incredible killing intent! Who’s walking around the Association exuding this much killing intent!?’

He’d felt a tremendous killing intent inside the Hunter Association building.

Kim Hye-seong turned toward the source of the killing intent. A beautiful woman in a black suit was heading toward the counter, her heels clicking against the floor.

‘Is she having a bad day?’

Of course, he could understand that much.

He assumed the woman in the suit might be like that, too, since some Hunters got extremely irritable when things weren’t going well.

But—

‘Huh? That badge on the right side of her suit—that belongs to the Sword Emperor family, doesn’t it?’

Kim Hye-seong saw the badge on her suit, engraved with a sword and crown, and couldn’t take his eyes off it.

‘Could it be that the Sword Emperor family heard what happened and sent someone?’

Kim Hye-seong wondered if the woman in the suit had come from the Sword Emperor family to help Yoo Seol-a.

Otherwise, there was no reason for her to show up at this exact moment, exuding so much killing intent.

The woman in the suit noticed him watching her—

‘Isn’t that Young Master Kim Hye-seong, the young lady’s fiancé?’

She was none other than Yoo Seol-a’s personal maid, Yura.

‘No. Right now, I need to focus on getting the young lady out of the Association.’

Yura had come on a mission from the elders of the Sword Emperor family to free Yoo Seol-a from the Association’s detention.

It might have been nice to meet her fiancé, Kim Hye-seong, but she had to prioritize her mission, so she hurried past him toward the interrogation rooms.

Just as she was nearing the interrogation room where Yoo Seol-a was likely being held, with so many Association officials around—

“Please stop. Only authorized personnel may enter beyond this point.”

An Association official stepped in front of Yura.

She frowned, and killing intent began to pour from her.

“Move. Unless you want to die.”

Yura was an active Hunter affiliated with the Sword Emperor family.

Naturally, she was a Hunter ranked somewhere between B and A, and the rigorous training she’d undergone with the Sword Emperor family had made her different from ordinary Hunters.

Even against several Hunters of the same rank from the Association or private guilds, she wouldn’t go down easily.

—That was why she could speak so boldly to an Association official.

“I already know our young lady is here. Do you people in the Association intend to make enemies of the Sword Emperor family—and of every citizen in the country?”

“The Sword Emperor family got here sooner than I expected.”

At Yura’s threatening words, one of the Association officials stepped forward.

“…You’re the head of Hunter Management.”

The man was the head of Hunter Management, the department that kept track of every Hunter’s identity in Korea.

“It’s been a while, Hunter Jeong Yura.”

Naturally, he knew who Yura was, too.

Rubbing his rough, stubbly chin, he approached her in a subtly familiar tone.

“I know why you’re here, Hunter Jeong. You’ve come to retrieve the Sword Emperor’s granddaughter, haven’t you?”

“Where is the young lady? Is she in there?”

Yura stared coldly at the man who’d approached her in such a friendly manner and asked where Yoo Seol-a was.

The only reason she’d come here was to rescue Yoo Seol-a.

“You’re certainly impatient.”

“Let the young lady go while I’m still asking nicely. I could turn this place to ash, Chief Kang Hyeon-seok.”

“Do you still think the Sword Emperor family is at the top?”

At Yura’s threat, Chief Kang Hyeon-seok tipped his head back as if looking down at her, his expression full of confidence.

“What do you mean?”

“Hasn’t the Sword Emperor family been declining ever since the Sword Emperor died? You have no S-rank Hunter to take his place. And the Black Dragon Unit, which was the core of the family, was wiped out as well.”

At Chief Kang Hyeon-seok’s words, Yura glared at him even more fiercely.

With the death of the symbolic Hunter known as the Sword Emperor, the Sword Emperor family had been reduced to little more than a family with many B- and A-rank Hunters.

And during the attempt to conquer the Red Gate, the Black Dragon Unit—the Sword Emperor family’s elite Hunters—had died alongside the Sword Emperor, leaving the family without its most skilled Hunters.

No one said to their faces that the Sword Emperor family was on the decline, but many already believed it was no longer a prestigious Hunter family.

That was why some lowly division chief at the Association was acting so confident.

—But he’d overlooked one thing.

“It seems you’ve forgotten that I used to be part of the Black Dragon Unit, Chief Kang Hyeon-seok.”

Yura herself had been part of the Black Dragon Unit.

“If I wanted to, I could break through the people blocking my way and take the young lady with me. The only reason I haven’t is that I don’t want to tarnish the Sword Emperor’s name.”

As one of the elite Hunters, Yura was highly skilled even among A-ranks.

That meant she could cause a scene here and take Yoo Seol-a with her.

But because she didn’t want to tarnish the Sword Emperor’s name, she was showing them the bare minimum of courtesy as she dealt with them.

But if they crossed the line, she wouldn’t be able to hold back any longer.

“This is your last warning. Bring Miss Seol-a here while I’m still asking nicely. Unless you want this entire floor burned to ash.”

“Are you threatening the Association?”

“You were the ones who crossed the line first. You’ve locked the young lady up and subjected her to a forced interrogation on some flimsy pretext—and insulted the Sword Emperor family.”

Her killing intent began to grow stronger.

It was as if she meant to burn down the entire floor where the interrogation rooms were if the Association refused to comply.

“That’s enough, Yura.”

Just then, a voice called out to stop her.

“Young lady!”

It was Yoo Seol-a.

And standing beside her was a middle-aged man with a tall frame and enormous muscles.

“Chief Kang, you sure made a big mess while I was away, didn’t you? And not in a good way.”

“C-Chairman of the Association!”

He was none other than the chairman of the Korean Hunter Association.