Chapter 53
Elodie noona.
When you were still following me around as my bodyguard as a member of the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs back when I was young, I was quietly worried because you always seemed so indecisive despite your size.
I suppose the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs really is the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs.
The thugs who had surrounded us from every direction moments ago had vanished without a trace.
That wasn't all.
It seemed even the barrier that bone-mask woman had set up had been blown away in its entirety by that insane beam just now.
The lights in the darkened buildings began coming back on one by one, and the sound of car horns and people's voices started reaching us from far away.
It also seemed she'd reported the incident before coming here.
Wooooooong──!
Before we knew it, even a police riot squad had arrived below the building.
“As of this moment, you are hereby considered caught in the act of a special kidnapping targeting a man! Surrender immediately!”
“This is your warning! There are no restrictions on the use of force at the scene of a serious crime involving a man! You there, the woman in the mask, get down here at once!”
People who would normally have written ten pages of reports before even drawing their guns were now raising their muzzles in unison, as though they had been possessed by some American crime drama.
At the end of all those gun barrels stood the bone-mask woman atop the streetlight across from us.
Watching the police evolve from the people's staff into the people's cudgel the moment a man was involved, I thought:
‘Is it over now?’
But.
“It seems I underestimated you far too much.”
A low voice rang out.
“Doctor Seo Jihoo.”
“⋯?”
At that moment.
“Where do you think you're going!”
Gaeun, who had been beside me, shot forward.
She closed the distance to the woman who had shown signs of fleeing in an instant, then reached out her hand.
But.
Bang!
“Huh⋯?”
Only wisps of smoke scattered between the fingers that had grabbed at empty air.
The person who had unquestionably been there moments ago had vanished as though she had never existed in the first place.
“She disappeared⋯?”
A small voice came from behind us, bewildered.
“I-I don't think tracking her will be easy⋯.”
“Elodie noona?”
I turned my head.
The white-hot heat around her seemed to have subsided, and noona carefully opened her mouth while catching her breath, her head-sized breasts heaving.
“I-I don't know exactly how she learned it, but that person was using ninjutsu from the Japanese kunoichi tradition.”
“Kunoichi⋯? You mean ninjas?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Her messy pink hair bobbed slightly.
“They're still one of Japan's top-tier professional Hunter specialties. They're truly frightening when it comes to infiltration, erasing traces, and deceiving an opponent's perception⋯.”
Kunoichi.
One of the Hunter fields representing Japan.
If you considered only direct combat power, they could not be called the strongest without question, but they were never the sort to fight that way in the first place.
Stealth.
Disguises.
Decoys.
Escape.
They vanish before being caught, and leave misleading traces when pursued.
“The seniors might be able to do it, but I'm not good at following someone's trail or finding a hidden presence. Especially the kunoichi's signature stealth movement⋯ I can barely catch them⋯.”
Honestly, I could understand that.
Just imagining her chasing a ninja across rooftops with that body more than two meters tall, her head-sized breasts bouncing around, was impossible.
‘No matter how hard I imagine it, I just can't picture it⋯.’
On top of that, an assassin might only be pretending to retreat to draw our attention away before taking advantage of an opening to snatch the target in a pincer attack.
If I pursued her only to have her attack from the opposite side, it would all be over.
So staying by my side like this was probably the right answer.
But.
“Jihoo, I'm sorry⋯.”
“Yes?”
“I-I should be more dependable as a woman⋯!”
Her eyes welled up.
I couldn't help sighing.
Even after all this time, absolutely nothing about her had changed.
“Good grief, noona.”
“Y-yes⋯.”
“I told you before, but you're so big and dependable that just standing beside me is enough. So please stop worrying about such pointless things.”
“⋯!”
“If you hadn't been here this time, I really would have been in serious trouble. I'm the one who should be thanking you.”
Her enormous body stiffened.
Soon after.
“S-so that's how it is⋯.”
The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly.
“Thaaank you⋯.”
That was easy.
Despite being that huge.
“By the way⋯.”
That was when Gaeun cut in.
“If she's from the kunoichi tradition⋯ could she be with the Japanese branch of the Life Resources Administration?”
“The Japanese Life Resources Administration?”
When I asked about the unfamiliar term, my junior blinked.
“Ah.”
Her face took on a look of realization.
“Come to think of it, you're a Korean man, so you must have been too busy dealing with the Korean Life Resources Administration to have time to learn about the situation at other countries' branches.”
Well, she wasn't wrong.
A sizable turd had landed right beside me, and I was already run off my feet cleaning it up. I wasn't some international shit-cleaning expert who needed to know the color of the neighboring country's turds, too.
At that, Elodie noona looked troubled and turned her gaze away.
“T-this might be a little vulgar⋯ or perhaps dangerous⋯ for a man to hear⋯.”
“Noona.”
“Uuugh⋯.”
“I've already dealt with the Korean Life Resources Administration.”
“⋯I-I suppose you have.”
Then, as though she had given up, she opened her mouth.
“Actually, the Life Resources Administration is run a little differently in each country.”
“Run differently?”
“Mm-hmm. The headquarters' system is the same, but its character changes completely as it blends with the local Hunter society.”
According to her explanation, it was like this.
The Korean branch was relatively close to the original model.
White uniforms.
Bureaucracy.
That obnoxious system of managing genes and bloodlines as numbers, which I knew all too well.
China, on the other hand, had been deeply entangled with the local Murim forces for a long time, and now the Demonic Cult's connections and organizational network had effectively infiltrated the Life Resources Administration itself.
And then there was Japan.
“In Japan, Hunters from the ninja tradition have handled things like protecting and tracking men from long ago. They're so specialized in stealth movement that the Life Resources Administration took an interest in them, too⋯.”
“And they became kunoichi?”
“Y-yes.”
For a moment, I could not say anything.
So that was their concept.
No, this was an international organization, not some brothel's themed room.
Korea was uniform play.
China was Murim play.
Japan was kunoichi play.
There were all sorts of preferences when it came to squeezing one man dry.
‘They wouldn't deliberately operate differently by country, would they?’
Comparing the reactions of men in each region.
Extracting data on which method was most effective for squeezing them dry.
The thought that the Life Resources Administration might genuinely do that made it even more frightening.
“Well, we still don't know for certain whether she was with the Japanese Life Resources Administration or whatever. In any case, today's incident is over, so we can breathe a sigh of relief.”
The greatest danger had been driven away.
The police had arrived, too.
Elodie noona was here.
The barrier had been destroyed.
Most importantly, my body was still intact today!
Of course, a strange unease lingered.
Even so, I was relieved simply to have survived, and was just about to head downstairs when—
[An unexpected quest has occurred!]
“⋯Huh?”
A completely different, bright-red status window blocked my view, accompanied by an alarm.
***
Hyeonmu Guild.
One of South Korea's four major guilds.
In terms of pure combat power, it ranked in the middle-to-lower range among the four.
It had no particularly dazzling record in combat and was sometimes even rated the weakest.
Even so, if you asked South Koreans which guild they liked best, an overwhelming number of people of every age and gender would name Hyeonmu.
The reason was simple.
Hyeonmu was the guild that had changed the image of Korean Hunter society.
Once upon a time, being a Hunter simply meant being good at fighting.
Gangsters.
Political thugs.
Private mercenaries.
Human weapons that threw fists first over dungeon interests.
Those images had been so entrenched that some citizens had viewed Hunters as little more than legitimate thugs rather than heroes.
Hyeonmu turned that around.
Hunters could not merely be good at fighting.
They had to know how to put on a show.
They had to know how to speak.
They had to know how to be loved.
Under that philosophy, it drew in broadcasting, advertising, entertainment management, sports, fashion, and every other industry.
It turned famous Hunters into stars, then made those stars the faces of the Hunter industry.
Thanks to that, it became the guild that was not the strongest, but the most loved.
No one could easily deny that assessment.
“Come on! Everyone, hurry!”
In the heart of Gangbuk.
A gigantic high-rise that looked as though dozens of broadcasting, advertising, and entertainment companies had been merged into one.
Hyeonmu headquarters.
Today, everyone's attention was focused on the top floor.
“We're creating the perfect setting. Understood?”
“““Yes, ma'am, understood!”””
The guild master's office was already a battlefield.
Dedicated staff were a given.
A famous art director.
An advertising film director.
A space designer.
Even a top actor with a commercial shoot scheduled in a few hours had been dragged in to adjust the angle of a cushion.
“Move the sofa ten centimeters to the right!”
“Impossible! At that angle, the natural light from the entrance will highlight Madam's smile lines when she walks in!”
“What?!”
“Lighting team! Add another reflector!”
“A doctor might dislike an overly flashy interior. Let's go with a calmer, more intellectual atmosphere.”
“Then should we put an anatomical model over there?”
“Are you crazy?! We're inviting a man and you want to put a skeleton in here?”
“I meant we should make it sophisticated, like an operating room!”
The place where South Korea's greatest stars were born.
At its very pinnacle, countless experts were completely redoing a room for the arrival of a single man.
The reason was simple.
For Yoon Mi-ja, this was the day the bait she'd finally laid would pay off.
“Heehee.”
She sat in a plush chair and covered her mouth with the back of her hand.
“That's my Gaeun.”
A pleased smile.
“When she suddenly said she wanted to become a doctor, I wondered what had gotten into the girl⋯ I never imagined she'd snatch up a man and bring him home.”
Of course, strictly speaking, she had not brought back anything yet.
She was merely bringing a close senior to the guild once.
But in Yoon Mi-ja's mind, several stages had already been completed.
“But what should I do?”
She blushed faintly.
“What if Jihoo's eyes turn to me instead of my granddaughter?”
The surrounding staff's movements halted for a moment.
“Oh, honestly. What could this old grandmother, who might live another 200 years, possibly have that he'd like~.”
“⋯⋯.”
No one answered.
More precisely, they did not have the courage to answer.
“Jihoo is a delicate man, just as one would expect from a doctor!”
Then Madam's expression suddenly turned serious.
“The moment the room's symmetry is off, or he spots even a speck of dust, his doctorly sensitivity might make him see me as a dirty, insignificant old hag who has already gone through menopause!”
“We'll correct it immediately!”
“Send the cleaning team back in!”
“Art Director! Is the vase in the right place?”
“No! Three centimeters to the left! Men are sensitive to symmetry!”
No one knew what that was based on.
But everyone was completely serious.
And so, just as preparations on a national-event scale were continuing over a single office—
Bang!
The door opened.
“Madam!”
Everyone's gaze turned.
“They say Mr. Jihoo has arrived in the first-floor lobby!”
“⋯!”
A man who, introduced by her granddaughter, had crossed Hyeonmu's threshold of his own accord, without anyone forcing him.
And he was a doctor.
Tall, too.
With a sturdy build.
Already the hottest man in Korean Hunter society, having saved even the guild masters of Baekho and Geumseong.
The corners of her mouth rose on their own.
But then.
Swish.
She composed her expression as though nothing had happened.
“Everyone.”
A quiet voice.
“Clear out.”
“Pardon?”
“From this moment on, no one is to make me look like a woman who has spent three hours turning the room upside down just because a man is coming.”
“⋯.”
“I am the guild master of South Korea's Hyeonmu Guild.”
She slowly straightened her posture.
“Elegant.”
She crossed one leg over the other.
“Dignified.”
She lifted her chin slightly.
“A woman not swayed in the slightest by a mere man.”
At that moment, the elevator arrival chime rang.
Ding.
“⋯!”
Yoon Mi-ja's shoulders twitched.