“Calm down Nari! We have to save them! We can’t harm them! We need to take them in and get witness statements and an explanation of the situation!” the Lord of Chaos tried to dissuade her.

“Shut up! If he hadn’t done unnecessary things, this wouldn’t have happened! Just die quietly like this!”

“Aaaah!! The rank 1 has gone crazy!!”

Min Jaeyun stepped back in shock. Once again, a bloody battle broke out just like the one between Nari and Kang Ihyeon in the studio apartment! Rude wildly swung the black half-scissors and Min Jaeyun ran around frantically to avoid them…

But unlike with Kang Ihyeon, this time there was no one to help Min Jaeyun. That’s right, there were no complaints from the downstairs neighbors!

This game of tag continued for quite a while. In the end, faced with overwhelming power, Min Jaeyun had no choice but to bow his head.

“Mr. Rude! Please spare my life. Mr. Rude!”

Min Jaeyun was lying flat on the floor, hugging Rude’s legs. His brazen attitude from a moment ago was gone, replaced by a terrified expression as if he was about to cry.

“I’ll do whatever you say! I’ll do anything, I’m begging you like this. If you tell me to be a dog, I’ll be your dog! Yes!! From now on! I’m Rude’s dog!!”

“Ah, no, you don’t have to go this far…”

Min Jaeyun prostrated himself on the floor. Rude, who had been about to use violence, was even more flustered and dumbfounded by the situation. Min Jaeyun started making dog sounds while lying flat on the floor.

“Woof woof! Woof!! Woof!! Woof!! There!! Tail wagging, wagging! I’ll keep the secret well, I, I’ll be your mutt…”

Rude lowered the black half-scissors. A damp air filled the library.

“No, well.”

[This is your fault Nari, the Lord of Chaos pointed a finger at her.]

“I’m sorry…”

Rude held out her hand. Min Jaeyun took Nari’s hand while sobbing.

“Seriously, don’t ever do that again.”

“Yes… sniff, I was wrong…”

Min Jaeyun sobbed while tightly grasping the handkerchief Rude handed him. Rude cleared her throat with a ‘ahem’.

‘Did I go too far? But he’s a high school student…’

[The sight of a twenty-five year old chasing down a high school student to kill them isn’t very pleasant, the Lord of Chaos shook his head from side to side.]

“Sorry. I went a bit overboard.”

“Ah, no it’s okay. I was in the wrong too.”

“Right. Who wouldn’t be shocked if someone just blurted out their secret right in front of them like that? You know that’s a crime, right?”

“I’m so sorry. I, I really will keep the secret. I won’t do it again. I’ll definitely keep it…”

Sniff, Min Jaeyun got up, wiping his nose with his sleeve. Nari finally faced Min Jaeyun directly. Sharp eyes with red irises were hidden behind black half-rimmed glasses, creating a relaxed atmosphere.

The charming mole next to the corner of his mouth also contributed to that atmosphere. While Rude was blinking, thinking that the impression resembled someone, Min Jaeyun looked at Rude with a tearful expression.

“Th, then, you have to keep my secret too. My Hunters in Hiding act…”

“Sorry but I can’t do that.”

“Wh, why?! I’m keeping your secret…”

Min Jaeyun looked at Rude with a wronged expression. Rude sighed heavily and rubbed the back of her head before speaking.

“I have to write work logs, and especially for sensitive issues like this, I have to write a detailed report and submit it.”

“Th, then just leave my name out of it!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if I keep it a secret, government officials will soon come to investigate and thoroughly search the school, so it’ll all be exposed. Do you think Korean government officials are stupid enough to not catch onto a Hunters in Hiding act? They’re really scary.”

Sniff, Min Jaeyun sobbed and blew his nose into the blanket with a ‘hmph’.

‘Ew, gross…’

Min Jaeyun, who had been confident until just a moment ago, fiddled with the edge of the blanket in a dejected manner.

“Don’t look down on me. I got my secret exposed to someone like you too. There’s a limit to playing Hunters in Hiding. You went too far.”

“Ah, no way. If I get caught, my grandfather will scold me. If he finds out I’m doing this, he really won’t leave me alone.”

Seeing the crestfallen Jaeyun, Rude frowned and sighed deeply, crossing her arms. After all, there was no Hunters in Hiding without a backstory.

The friends who want to be Hunters in Hiding for cute reasons like ‘I wish I had a lot of money and no one knew me’ can’t keep up their concept for long.

It took quite a bit of effort to hide one’s identity. Just look at Nari who has to pay Hunter pensions and national pensions separately, and can’t get a cell phone under her own name so she has to make work calls using the temple’s office phones or borrow Kang Ihyeon’s phone…

[Our Nari has to receive her salary in cash too, so the guild gives her cash receipts, the Lord of Chaos pats the back of your head.]

“…”

Recalling that fact with dead eyes, Rude looked up for a moment then came to her senses.

“Then why did you report it?”

“What?”

“If you were going to let it slide, wouldn’t it be better to not report it, pretend to be a regular person and leave without permission? You’re the one who processed mana into mana stones, right?”

At Rude’s question, Min Jaeyun blinked and rubbed the back of his head. He hesitated as if pondering how to answer, then shrugged.

“Well, if I didn’t report it, everyone would die. This school is already so run-down that everyone treats malfunctions as a given.”

“Just for that?”

“What do you mean just?! The teachers and kids can’t die! Do you know how shocked I was this morning when I came to school and the mana stone energy was gone?! Someone definitely stole it. My demon heard those delinquent 2nd years giggling about stealing it and selling it on the black market!”

Rude looked at Min Jaeyun who was speaking in an agitated manner. Rude, who had a devastated expression as if contemplating something, was about to open his mouth when a ringtone sounded from his pocket.

“…I need to take this call for a moment.”

“Oh, okay.”

Rude, who didn’t look particularly happy, checked the name on the screen and headed outside the library. It was Kang Ihyeon.

Rude thought that he had almost felt upset after hearing what that kid said just now, but this guy always cuts in at the right timing. Rude took a position in the hallway in front of the library.

“Yeah. What is it?”

[Um, Mr. Rude. I don’t mean to doubt your abilities at all. Absolutely not, but… Did you really rescue all the students?]

When Rude answered the phone in an irritated tone, Ihyeon’s cautious voice came from the other end of the receiver.

“Why, did something happen?”

[Ah, no, no. That’s not it! There’s a friend I know who goes to this school, and I don’t see him. Well…]

There was the sound of Kang Ihyeon moving to a place without people around, then he muttered in a small voice.

[It’s probably a 3rd year student named Min Jaeyun. I heard he usually doesn’t… go to school much, but I know he came today.]

“He’s with me right now. I want to ask you something first, according to the rules, is it because of him that the temple can’t clear this gate this time?”

Rude’s eyes narrowed. Min Jaeyun, demon, a familiar impression, and grandfather. The fact that there were restrictions on this school’s gate subjugation even though the ‘Temple’ was the most outstanding guild in the central region. Something clicked in his mind.

[Yes, that’s right. Hunter Min Jaewon…]

“Grandson?”

Rude sighed heavily at the affirmation he heard from the other end of the receiver. When it is confirmed that a guild member’s immediate family is trapped in a gate, that guild member is excluded from the raid.

And that guild implicitly does not participate in the gate raid. Except for special cases like now.

The reason is in case the guild member makes an extreme choice. It’s apparently a case that actually happens from time to time.

Either they don’t even care about the lives of anyone other than their family, or they give up their own life along with their family who lost their lives during the gate raid. Or they kill all the guild members when their guild fails the raid.

Anyway, people trapped in gates, whether hunters or civilians, are bound to develop PTSD.

Moreover, when it involved one’s own family, Nari knew no one who could make a rational judgment.

“He’s healthy with all limbs intact. Don’t worry, he’ll go down with me when the job is done.”

Rude, who roughly grasped the situation, pressed between his eyebrows with two fingers, thinking he had gotten caught up in a headache-inducing matter. Ihyeon let out a sigh of relief as if it was fortunate, and Rude threw out his words in passing.

“He’s a much better kid than me. It’s really funny. We’re the same type but one is a bad guy and the other is…”

[What?]

“Ah, it’s nothing. Anyway, if the emergency treatment is all finished there, you have a long-range attack strong enough to destroy one school building, right? Prepare that.”

[I do have one, but why?]

Kang Ihyeon kept asking, as if he had only been hearing incomprehensible words for a while. Rude, who had been cutting off the other person’s words, erased his expression and continued.

“I’m going to destroy the school building now.”

[This is the timeline separator]

Lifting her heavy body and arriving at the classroom. Nari’s desk always had distinct marks of being slashed with a box cutter.

The shoes in the shoe cubby disappeared at a rate of one pair every three days, so later she just started wearing indoor slippers to school.

During breaks, she would put in earphones that played no music and lay face down on the desk with the distinct box cutter marks, and the gossip of her classmates would clearly reach her ears.

‘Hey, why does she keep reluctantly coming to school? She should just die following her mom.’

‘◼◼◼ takes care of her so she comes. Hey, honestly isn’t ◼◼◼ way more of a waste? I don’t know why he takes such good care of her.’

‘Are the two of them in that kind of relationship?’

‘Crazy… It really seems possible so it gives me goosebumps. But ◼◼◼ is also going to ◼◼ soon, so she won’t come anymore since there will be no one to take care of her.’

‘Please don’t come. Honestly, I hate seeing her miserable face every day. As if she’s the only one whose mom died? But honestly, isn’t it cheap even if her mom died?’

High school student Nari heard all those words as they were. For some reason, she couldn’t help but hear them. If she didn’t hear them, it felt like she would imagine the contents herself and hurt herself.

She endured school like that for a full 3 years. Enduring persistently without even knowing the reason why.

And honestly, the Nari at that time wished a gate would open so everyone would just die. Of course, including herself.

“What’s with the lower floor goats?! Do you know what a hassle it was to rip this off? Look at this dress shirt!”

“Ah. You’re back?”

Rude, who had been lost in old memories, turned his gaze at the huffing sound beside him. Min Jaeyun, who had ripped off the evacuation route map placed in each hallway, was waving his tattered sleeve at Rude.

“But why did you tell me to rip off this map?”

“I’m going to destroy the school and rebuild it. You can do that much, right? Get rid of the workshop to hide that you’re a Hunter in Hiding, and take the opportunity to build new safety devices too.”

“What?! Gasp, thank you so much! I’m really grateful, but I can’t do this much. I’ve never done it before.”

“I’ll help you.”

Rude carefully looked around the inside of the school. What was so brilliant about the school life of ordinary people, what was so good about it? Beautiful memories when you look back? Nari had nothing like that.

The sense of doing it for teachers and friends was something Nari, whose school life had turned into hell since the 2nd year of middle school, would never understand in her lifetime.

Rude’s face was chilly. It was an attitude of not feeling much emotion about this situation.

“Something like this shouldn’t happen at school.”

But regardless of her own feelings, she knew there was an absolute proposition when dealing with underage students.

“I’m an adult. I’ll take responsibility.”