“It was suspicious from the beginning. Sending the rank 1 to the north full of national secrets, I thought they were trying to dig up information, but Rude said there were no wiretaps.”

Rude simply nodded beside him.

His ‘Wait, is this a YouTube moment?’ skill was capable of detecting even wiretapping devices.

The fact that it didn’t go off meant that wiretapping wasn’t the purpose.

“Then the real purpose was to deal with that gate, but there’s no way the Gunshin guild leader would involve the Holy War just to have that gate dealt with. The only conclusion is that someone with considerable power deliberately sent them here. And the only one with that much influence is you. Right?”

Lee Ji-sung grinned.

His sunglasses shone brightly under the fluorescent light. Kang Ihyeon slightly frowned before speaking again.

“Looking at the people treated yesterday, there seemed to be a lot of ‘long-neglected’ diseases. There were only one general doctor and pharmacist here, not healers.”

In Kang Ihyeon’s judgment, the diseases the Gunshin guild members had were illnesses that could be cured with about a month of professional treatment, just like ligament damage that could be repaired with extracorporeal shock wave therapy.

“The supplies were pretty bad too, and the corn soup I gave yesterday was past its expiration date.”

“You found that out already.”

Rude added that the packet was found thrown on the floor of the car.

Anyway, it was clear that Gunshin’s ‘Owl’ was being neglected by the south. Kang Ihyeon spoke again with a tone of conviction.

“Is Gunshin deliberately sending powerful and vocal people to the north? And making it so they can’t come down?”

“Ah.”

Lee Ji-sung smiled wryly as if he had no choice and fiddled with his sunglasses.

With his arms crossed, Lee Ji-sung looked at Rude and Kang Ihyeon and lowered his voice.

“I guess it can’t be helped. Let’s keep what we discuss here off the record. I’ll believe you when you say rank 1 can detect wiretapping. Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s wiretapped now anyway.”

Lee Ji-sung sighed deeply and took off his sunglasses. His sharp eyes pierced through them.

Leaning his arms on the table, he smiled and said,

“You know our Gunshin guild leader is a former soldier and a non-awakened ordinary person, right?”

“Was that the case?”

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

At Rude’s question, Kang Ihyeon just nodded.

Lee Ji-sung grinned, somehow feeling like he knew their partnership well just from that.

He took a sip of the instant coffee in front of him.

“But he’s a parachute appointment.”

“A parachute appointment?”

“So he has almost no organizational leadership. There’s a lot of discontent too. An ordinary non-awakened person to begin with, he looks down on hunters too. I guess it bothers him. So he sends all the high-ranking or vocal hunters up top, to make it hard for them to leave if possible.”

Internet usage was also being controlled here.

In that state, people of relatively high rank were all being sent only upwards. And they made it difficult for them to come down if possible.

It was unimaginable for Kang Ihyeon and Rude, who had only worked under the excellent leadership of Kang Sujin.

However, it was the kind of thing that was bound to happen somewhere.

Lee Ji-sung said with a frown,

“Our work is different from the south. When we do well, it’s not very noticeable, but when we do poorly, it’s glaringly obvious. They’re deliberately sending us so we don’t build eye-catching achievements.”

“Then there must be internal discontent.”

“Of course, that’s why the Owl people consider Jeong Su-ho and me as their de facto leaders. So Jeong Su-ho will always be a thorn in the guild leader’s side.”

Gunshin’s only S-rank and the nation’s top production class hunter.

The result of the Gunshin guild leader’s actions to protect his own safety is ironically making the top gradually become the center of ‘actual combat power’.

“But you know, even if we want to deal a blow to the guild leader, our Su-ho can’t leave the base due to his status condition. So I pulled all sorts of strings to call you guys to take care of the gate instead.”

“And what about Jeong Su-ho’s opinion in that process?”

“I didn’t ask, you know?”

At Rude’s question, Lee Ji-sung spread his hands with a ta-da. Rude’s expression darkened.

Bang, he slammed the desk once and said,

“Is this punk joking around now…!”

“Oh why, he said he wants to go down too.”

At the mention that Jeong Su-ho wants to go down, Rude’s fingers twitched.

It seemed like he had sorted it out in a state of ‘I don’t know, I’ll let it go~!’.

But separate from that, it seemed to take time for his heart to ‘truly’ let it go.

[Our Binnari, how deep must her inner wounds be. The Lord of Chaos comforts you.]

“Anyway, I’ve said everything in detail, so that’s enough, right? Now don’t touch our Su-ho. He won’t be able to handle the status condition even if he goes there anyway. I’m telling you two to have fun and come back.”

“That won’t do.”

“Ah, why again!”

“Because why would the Gunshin guild leader have approved it? If we destroy it, it means Jeong Su-ho can’t manage a grade 2 gate.”

Haa… Sighing deeply, Lee Ji-sung rested his chin on his hand.

There’s no way the Gunshin guild leader really aimed to have Rude and Kang Ihyeon, an external force, destroy a grade 2 gate when sending them north.

The goal must have been to have Rude and Kang Ihyeon destroy the grade 2 gate to reduce Jeong Su-ho’s power, and use that as an excuse to lower the voice of the ‘Owl’.

Anyway, Kang Ihyeon sighed deeply, thinking that he had gotten involved in quite a political and complicated matter.

Then, in a perplexed tone, he brought up the topic again.

“But how could Lee Ji-sung not know this fact that even I know?”

“No, I really didn’t know?”

“How could that be?! My aunt called you a hundred-year-old fox?!”

“Haha… You guys really are recklessly straightforward. I’m more used to the flowery speech of guild leaders and noble ladies, so I’m not used to you guys.”

Saying that, Lee Ji-sung sprawled on the table.

Pouting his lips unlike his age and tapping his index finger on the table, Lee Ji-sung said in a quiet voice,

“Su-ho… wants to enter that gate alone.”

Only then did Rude, who had been playing with his hands on the table as if he was uninvolved, suddenly raise his head. He had a perplexed expression.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m telling you. He’s almost obsessed with it. Always solo play, but he keeps coming back defeated!”

He didn’t seem to like Kang Ihyeon and Rude coming up this time either, Lee Ji-sung said as he took out a few documents from his inventory.

It was the gate ‘Labyrinth of Crete Island’ that Rude had seen yesterday.

Kang Ihyeon carefully examined the gate report.

Lee Ji-sung continued in a grumbling tone,

“It might be because of trauma. You know, that gate was the first training ground Su-ho went to.”

He gradually continued his explanation.

At the age of 15, Jeong Su-ho, who had joined Gunshin from the start as an S-rank, was immediately assigned to the north despite hoping for the south due to the Gunshin guild leader’s ‘check’, he said.

And in the first grade 4 gate he entered, the ‘Labyrinth of Crete’, there…

“He lost all his guildmates to the boss monster. It jumped to grade 2 in the middle.”

“Oh no…”

“No matter how much of an S-rank, it was too much for Jeong Su-ho alone to handle. He barely escaped and discovered he had a status condition, and after that, he tried a few more times but kept getting additional status conditions and couldn’t destroy it.”

“Then what, is he going to handle the damn annoying thing alone?”

Rude, who had been doing self-threading with a thread created by his mental strength, spoke up.

The Jeong Su-ho that Binnari knew, once fixated on something, was terrifyingly obsessive.

And if what he was fixated on this time was that ‘anger’, it made sense that he would insist on handling it alone.

“Then shouldn’t we go together instead? If we completely handle it, he’ll be extremely angry later.”

“No, but it’s enough if just the status condition is resolved. That’s why.”

While they were arguing back and forth about whether or not to take Jeong Su-ho…

Kang Ihyeon, who had been carefully reading the documents, spoke up.

“No, we need to take Jeong Su-ho.”

“Huh?”

Kang Ihyeon pointed to the document with his finger.

Specifically, the part describing the boss monster – ‘Minotaur’.

“Looking at it, it’s a Greek-Roman mythology type gate. The boss monster also… inflicts status conditions through curses.”

Gates also often imitated specific mythologies, following archangels, the 12 Olympians, the 72 demons, constellations, and so on.

“Among them, monsters of Greek-Roman mythology use a skill called a curse, and status conditions caused by curses aren’t resolved simply by clearing the gate.”

Lee Ji-sung’s eyes widened.

Kang Ihyeon slowly explained that status conditions are divided into several types according to their nature.

It was common knowledge that status conditions based on one’s mental state, like Rude’s ‘anthropophobia’, were impossible for healers to treat, while status conditions temporarily acquired in a gate were generally lifted when the gate was destroyed.

However, he explained that even status conditions acquired in that gate differed in how to remove them depending on how they were inflicted.

“There are various skills that inflict status conditions on the opponent, and among them, the ‘curse’ skill is quite powerful. This absolutely follows the system of the one who inflicted it undoing it, so it won’t be lifted even if you die unless the person who inflicted it directly removes it.”

“What…?”

“I guess the high-class priests here didn’t know as much as me. Still, since Su-ho contracted with a Greek-Roman mythology constellation, he should have known. Why he…”

Kang Ihyeon trailed off. Another possibility connected in the minds of the three.

The reason Jeong Su-ho insists on solo play. The reason he didn’t mention the curse.

“If he had known, we would have tried to find a way together somehow.”

“And if we failed then, we would all just return with status conditions. So…”

He challenges it alone countless times to reduce the probability of other guild members getting status conditions.

The more he tries, the more his own status conditions will increase, but if Jeong Su-ho, the only S-rank, can’t destroy it, the chances of other guild members destroying it are also low.

What kind of feeling is it to keep challenging despite knowing the chances are slim?

Amidst the silence that fell over the conference room, Rude’s low voice was heard.

“Bring Jeong Su-ho. Right in front of me. Right now.”

[This is the timeline separator]

“Wow, what a windfall.”

“I know, I heard Kang Ihyeon brought it this time. That person, unlike how he looks, seems to take care of things like this too.”

In front of the barbed wire fence, two guild members checking the status of each gate with binoculars smiled as they shared high-proof vodka.

Such items were precious in the barren northern region where supplies were not properly delivered.

Moreover, he even took care of all the people in one go, so from the standpoint of the Gunshin people, Rude and Kang Ihyeon were no different from angels descended from heaven.

“Hey, but we can’t get caught by the captain with this. Got it? Leader Ji-sung might let it slide, but the captain will never overlook it.”

“Of course. Keep a good watch, gasp!”

At the gasping last word, the other guild member looked to the side.

Jeong Su-ho was staring at them with glowing blue eyes.

The two guild members trembled.

Was it because he was an S-rank?

Anyway, he was only twenty-five years old, but his presence was immense.

“We, we’re sorry. Captain! We really only drank a tiny, a really tiny bit, you know?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s true! We won’t even touch it now. We’ll throw it away, we’ll throw it away!”

Jeong Su-ho, who had opened his eyes ominously, slowly approached them. They just tightly closed their eyes, powerless.

‘We’re doomed. We forgot that the captain moves silently…! But it was happy, even if just for a moment!’

Instead of concluding that they shouldn’t drink in the future, they reached the conclusion that they should drink more carefully in the future.

Before Jeong Su-ho reached them, a brrring sound was heard.

“Ca-captain…?”

And after checking the message, Jeong Su-ho deeply furrowed his brow and quickly turned around and walked away.

The two guild members tightly hugged each other, then made a dumbfounded expression.