108. The Changing Future

The Saint’s Tears demonstration had been the promotional unveiling of a groundbreaking item set to reshape the currents of the Hunter industry, and yet the Arahan Guild hadn’t taken part.

‘I’d reckoned he had some angle in mind, but I never imagined he’d set it off this spectacularly.’

Baek Seonghyeon sank into his thoughts, both eyes squeezed shut. His cell phone had been off for a good while now, and he’d pulled the line clean out of the office telephone. If even one of them were left on, the stillness he’d worked so hard to make would shatter on the spot. That much was certain.

‘A truly splendid declaration of war.’

If only he weren’t the one on the receiving end, it was a trump-card move he’d have wanted to applaud. By using Kim Mijeong to expose the secret pact between the Rakshasa Guild and Arahan, every means Baek Seonghyeon currently had on hand had been blocked off in a single stroke.

‘I can’t even begin to understand how he reined in that mad dog.’

Kim Mijeong was a cadre the Rakshasa Guild had taken on under a fixed-term contract, a headache of a creature who wouldn’t lift a finger unless something piqued her interest. She’d only ever been useful because her ability was outstanding.

It was already hard enough to believe that a 6th-Rank-peak Hunter had been taken prisoner by Yujin. That she’d gone so far as to break her contract, willing even to make enemies of both the Rakshasa and Arahan, was harder still to comprehend.

‘However did it come to this.’

“Suspected Rakshasa–Arahan collusion” was the name the articles pouring out right after the press conference had pinned on it. Ordinarily he’d have mobilized the full might of the Arahan Guild to crush it flat, but with the press and the whole Hunter industry’s attention fixed on the Saint’s Tears demonstration, it couldn’t easily be buried either. And the Mad Dog Kim Mijeong’s notoriety only lent the rumor more credibility.

‘It’s a suspicion that’ll sink on its own once time passes, there being not a shred of proof…’

Just as a mountain doesn’t sway no matter how fiercely the wind blows, disturbances great and small might arise, but the great mountain that was Arahan would never crumble. The weight of that name, the nation’s number-one Hunter guild, was nothing to take lightly.

‘A pity that I can’t repay Cheon Yujin his debt right away, though.’

The Arahan Guild had to throw itself into clearing the suspicion, so for the time being it couldn’t make a move. And the Rakshasa Guild had taken just as heavy a blow: the Mad Dog’s betrayal, and most of its 150 combatants fallen in the borderlands. For a while yet, managing even its own turf around Busan would be all it could handle, so by what means would it lay a hand on Yujin?

— Knock, knock.

“What is it?”
“A summons from the Master.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”

Baek Seonghyeon smoothed his rumpled attire until it was immaculate, then headed for the building’s top floor.

“You’ve come?”
“Yes. Master.”
“Have a seat over there. Let’s talk a while.”

A suit pulled so taut it looked ready to split at any moment, beast-like eyes large and round, sideburns trailing all the way down to the jawline. A man like a wild animal in the most literal sense, Arahan’s Master, Lee Shinwoo, gestured easily toward a seat.

“Friend. Been a while since it was just the two of us like this, hasn’t it?”
“It has, Master.”
“Come on. Why so stiff? I told you to speak easy when it’s just us.”

Lee Shinwoo and Baek Seonghyeon were business partners, and friends, who’d built the impregnable fortress that was the nation’s number-one Hunter guild with their bare hands.

“I can’t do that.”
“Because of how enormous the harm the vice-president did to the guild?”
“Yes.”
“Honestly, when I first heard the report, training be damned — I felt like coming out and tearing you to pieces right then and there.”

A gate capable of admitting 6th-Rank and above had formed in Namhae, South Gyeongsang. Lee Shinwoo had monopolized it under the guild’s name, deliberately putting off the clear and using it as a training ground. A 7th-Rank-peak Hunter pouring out his full strength could cleave a river and shatter even a mountain, so inside the gate there was no need to hold back. The monsters that cropped up from time to time were a help to his combat experience as well.

“My apologies, Master.”
“Forget it. Thanks to that, I found the opening to push past the wall.”
“Have — have you finally grasped the hem of enlightenment?”
“The very moment my fury reached the crown of my head, I grew calm instead.”

Saga was the art that defined Lee Shinwoo, a powerful martial discipline that took wrath as the wellspring of its power. In exchange, it carried the penalty of degrading the user’s capacity for emotional control, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to lose his reason mid-fight.

“All this time, I’d only ever tried to master that fury.”
“So you had.”
“Then I got the report mid-training, and the fury I’d kept fairly well suppressed exploded in an instant.”

— Kreee-grrk.

A grisly sound rang out as muscle ground against muscle. A crimson current spun ferociously about Lee Shinwoo’s fist as its axis, reducing the interior of the office to a shambles.

“Ironic, isn’t it. The very instant my fury crossed its limit, enlightenment came.”

Just as a surfer doesn’t resist the wave’s power but yields to it, rather than clamping a leash on a fury seething like an active volcano, he decided the direction in which to let it run. The enlightenment had come to him at the very moment fury seized hold of his mind.

“It’s thanks to you.”
“If I’ve been of use to the Master, I am only glad.”

Before the regression, Lee Shinwoo had shut himself away in the gate for over a year of secluded training, yet had emerged without ever catching the first thread of enlightenment. It would be several years from now before Saga’s true power awakened. Such was the butterfly effect spun out by the miracle called regression, a storm raging in a place Yujin couldn’t even guess at.

“Vice-President Seonghyeon. Have you readied a countermeasure?”
“I’ve promised the Daehan Party we’ll clear out the waters around Ulleungdo.”
“Those ruling-party bastards. They’ve gobbled down plenty already, and still they open their maws begging for more.”
“I’ve greased the Goryeo Ilbo and the Seou Ilbo as well, so results should come soon.”

Before cutting off all contact with the outside, Baek Seonghyeon had already handed down every response directive to the secretarial office. He’d laid out the whole policy the moment he heard the news of the Saint’s Tears demonstration, so even without him there’d be no disruption to operations.

It was just that the bomb Yujin had set off had landed far harder than expected.

“Did you mention the matter of my relationship with Park ██ as well?”
“I did not.”
“They wouldn’t be likely to know. He and I are half-brothers, after all.”

Lee Shinwoo and the Rakshasa Guild’s Master, Park ██, were brothers who shared the same mother.

“Is there anything I can do to help, separately?”
“Devote yourself solely to your training.”
“Heh. Next time you see me, I’ll have become an 8th-Rank.”
“And I’ll spend that time clearing away the obstacles in Arahan’s path.”

Lee Shinwoo gave Baek Seonghyeon’s shoulder a light pat.

“That reminds me. Was there no separate word from House Romanov?”
“My apologies. Since the keystone was destroyed, there’s been no progress in our dealings…”
“Don’t worry. Once I complete my 8th Stellar Rank, the conversation will change.”

Lee Shinwoo’s Constellation was Odin, the guardian star of House Romanov, one of the Seven Great Families, and Dmitri’s Constellation as well. The god of magic and knowledge, and at once the warrior god who presides over ‘madness.’ Behind his overture to House Romanov lay his Constellation.

“Understood, Master.”
“I’ll leave the guild’s operation in your hands, same as ever.”
“Yes.”

Lee Shinwoo tossed a cube of ice into his mouth and bit down hard, crunch.

The Black Company had revealed itself to the world at the press conference.

“A business federation?”
“This Cheon Yujin fellow. Turns out he’s all hot air.”
“How’s he supposed to push into Kaesong, of all places?”
“And what about the monsters that keep cropping up in the borderlands?”

Some treated his declaration as nonsense.

“Is investment a possibility?”
“Set up a meeting with Representative Cheon.”
“There’s no way to reach him.”
“Family, acquaintances — there’s got to be something, surely!”
“We looked into it, but apparently he’s an orphan…”

Those who recognized the Black Company’s potential set their eyes ablaze and tried to make contact with Yujin.

“Master! Long time no see!”

— Oh. Your form’s gotten even better.

A long-haired woman approached, waving her hand. Jang Miseon was one of them, too.

“I’m busy.”
“Aw, come on. Cheon Yujin. We’ve met before — aren’t you being a little too stiff?”
“I’ve no intention of joining the Phoenix. And I’m not taking investment.”
“It’s not a recruitment pitch. My guild master asked me to pass along that he’d like to form an alliance.”

An alliance, hm. That was unexpected. It was a bold proposal to maintain an equal relationship, not to bring the Black Company under his wing or bind it with money.

I hadn’t expected the guild ranked right after Arahan to extend its hand first.

‘Well, that fellow was famous for his good instincts.’

I’d worked alongside Phoenix’s guild master, Kim Yeongsu, in my past life too.

There’s even a saying that the reason the small-but-elite Phoenix Guild secured the nation’s number-two spot was Kim Yeongsu’s instincts and his eye. He himself never managed to complete his 8th Rank, so he was overtaken by the Dawn Guild, but the man’s instincts alone were tremendous.

“Fine. Did you bring the documents?”
“Uh, well, the thing is.”
“Not a shred of preparation.”
“No, see, I was only told to pass the message along to you, old man.”
“I’ll come pay the guild master a visit later on.”
“Yahoo!”
“But why have you hauled all your luggage along?”
“I’m coming with you. The guild master’s already given me his permission.”

The next Sword Saint, Jang Miseon, joining my side?

Not bad at all.

I’ll drill her good and proper and make her into something useful.

‘I can take the Phoenix Guild in later as a cooperating arm of the Black Company.’

Yujin spoke of his ambition to bring the nation’s current number-two Hunter guild under his wing as though it were nothing.

“Erm, business partner. Do I have to fight the Kaesong man-hunters too?”
“Just bring popcorn. There’s nothing for an alchemist to do.”
“Are you serious?”
“Worry about running the factory and producing the Saint’s Spirit.”

Just because I’d declared war didn’t mean I had any intention of launching one right away.

My forces are still lacking, you see.

That’s exactly why I set a two-year time limit.

‘Even counting her, it’s not enough.’

The man-hunters’ three captains were all 6th-Rank-peak Hunters, and they’d tamed a fair number of mutant monsters besides.

Go at them head-on and I’d lose ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

On top of that.

‘How am I supposed to trust someone whose leash I’ve only forced into my grip?’

Kim Mijeong’s staying with the Black Company hadn’t been half of her own will. She’d exposed the secret pact between the Rakshasa and Arahan, so once the situation settled even a little, it was certain that one of the two guilds would come for her life.

‘Whether by putting a bounty on her head or moving in themselves.’

‘She’s also taken an interest in me.’

She was the kind to flip her eyes back in her skull the instant she fixated on something, which is exactly why she’s called the Mad Dog.

Had Yujin not realized that Kim Mijeong’s object of interest was himself, he wouldn’t have bothered even attempting to take her prisoner.

“Boss. Shall we get ready to head straight back?”
“Ah. Minho. There’s a separate job for your team.”
“Say the word.”
“Go to Seoul and register a mercenary company.”

A mercenary outfit. Unlike Hunters, whose main trade is hunting monsters, it’s an organization whose chief purpose is carrying out commissions. The technical term is PMC, short for Private Military Company. Before the Great Cataclysm, they say there were almost no mercenary outfits in Korea, but ever since Hunters appeared, the trade has grown quite active as well.

“A mercenary outfit, you say.”
“Your team has to take on one of the Black Company’s pillars too.”
“And that pillar is the mercenary side.”
“Right. Recruit some people under my name, while you’re at it.”

The Black Company was bobbing up and down at the top of the real-time search rankings, so it was perfect. No need to do any separate promotion.

“I’ll do my utmost not to smear your name, Boss.”
“Don’t be too tense. You’ll do fine.”
“Bro. Why don’t I get told anything?”
“Minho. I’m counting on you.”
“Aah! Bro!!!”

Pretending not to notice Minyeong’s shouting, he sent the Scraps off.

— Is the Master going back to the borderlands now?

“No. I’ll be stopping by the Association first.”

— You’ve got more business there?

“It’d be a problem if legal trouble cropped up over the land the Necropolis is settled on.”

The borderlands’ old name was the DMZ. By the letter of the law, it’s a region people aren’t allowed to enter, not that there’d be many humans around to lay claim to that land.

But just in case, I mean to hash it out with the Hunter Association, a government body.

‘Before the regression, there was trouble over the Kaesong Industrial Complex side of things.’

There was no one bold enough to come tackle it directly. Still, it’s a convenient pretext for picking a fight, so best to head it off well in advance.

— Surely. Who’d quibble over a thing like that?

Mr. Fafnir.

I’ve been through all of this before the regression, so don’t go talking so blithely.

Before the press conference, Yujin had already arranged a visit to the Hunter Association through Chairman Jin of the Seongcheon Group.

— Thorough as ever.

“There’s a lot to do, so let’s get going.”

— Understood.

With Fafnir in tow, Yujin set off for the Hunter Association.