109. The Belated Reward

A large building stood across from the Seoul High Court. It housed the main hall of the Hunter Association, an institution founded in the wake of the Great Cataclysm.

— The years really do mean nothing. To think a building like this would spring up right in the middle of Seoul.

“Anyone listening would think you were seeing Seoul for the first time in thirty-five years.”

— Hmph. You try dying once and coming back, Master. Everything feels brand new.

At Fafnir’s sour tone, Yujin huffed a quiet laugh. The feeling was familiar and strange at once, and Yujin, who had turned back time himself, found himself caught up in much the same sentiment as Fafnir.

— Wheeeen.

The doors slid apart to either side. He stepped through without hesitation, and a spacious lobby opened up before him.

— The inside’s so wide, yet why are the doors so cramped?

“You ever stop to consider that you’re the big one here?”

— Master. A careless word has a way of wounding people, you know.

“And what happened to ‘I’m rather fond of this body’?”

The guards watched Yujin’s party with tense expressions. Every step Fafnir took sent a heavy thud— thud— rolling through the hall, so naturally every eye in the place fixed on them.

“Why’s there an undead in the Association?”
“Ah. That undead! That’s that guy’s summon, isn’t it?”
“Cheon Yujin?”
“Whoa. No way. The press conference articles were just going up.”
“So he came straight to the Association the second the press conference ended?”

The people who recognized Yujin and Fafnir stole glances and traded whispers, and the guards let their postures slacken.

Moments like this, you realize being famous isn’t all loss.

— Everyone just loves talking about other people.

“That’s how folks are.”

— If they’re going to talk, they ought to do it to your face, honestly.

I wouldn’t be so sure.
Just the sound of your footsteps is enough to kill any urge to come closer.

Not long after he’d entered the lobby, a staff member came running toward Yujin.

“You’re Hunter Cheon Yujin, yes?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“I’m Yang Seongsu, head of the Development Division. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

After a brief handshake, Yang Seongsu guided the two (?) of them toward the elevator.

“The Development Division is on the fifth floor.”

The doors opened. The instant Fafnir strode confidently inside, a warning beep— shrilled out.

— Hm?

“You get on without even knowing how much a Draconian weighs, what did you expect?”

— Hold on. What do you mean it can’t even handle me on my own!

“What do you think? You’ll have to walk up.”

— You… %$#∂$@!!! That’s way too rude!!!!

Fafnir spewed curses for a good while, then stomped off toward the stairs, fuming.

What’s gotten into him.

“A very… distinctive summon you have there.”
“I grant him a great deal of autonomy, you see.”

Yang Seongsu let out an awkward little laugh.

Once the small commotion had passed, Yujin got straight to the point of his visit to the Development Division.

“I’d like to be granted development rights over the borderlands — and beyond that, over Kaesong.”
“As it happens, I read the article. Quite the grand ambition you have.”
“I only said it because I believe it’s achievable.”
“There shouldn’t be any procedural issues. Enough time has passed since the war for the old DMZ that ownership is hard to claim there.”

And besides, who would want an erosion zone where monsters poured out endlessly, Yang Seongsu added with a hearty laugh.

“But the Kaesong side’s a different matter, isn’t it?”
“Ah. The Kaesong Industrial Complex had exchanges right up until the Great Cataclysm, so that could be a complication.”
“I’m telling you this just in case, Representative Cheon.”

Yang Seongsu fidgeted with both hands, and an emotion flickered in his eyes. It passed through suspicion, then unease, before his gaze settled on Yujin with the firmness of a man who had made up his mind.

“This may be out of line, but allow me to say one thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“The man-hunters are no easy enemy.”

A long scar carved its way across the back of his hand, and even as he spoke, Yang Seongsu kept absently fingering the old wound.

“This scar. I took it during the First Monster Wave.”
“So you saw active duty.”
“I’m a desk man now, but. In any case, I once crossed paths with the man-hunters back then.”

His wrist trembled faintly. Even now, his body hadn’t forgotten the terror of decades past.

“Monsters who handle monsters. I can’t think of any other way to put it.”

The man-hunters didn’t tame just any monster. Hobgoblins, Orc Lords, Lizard Kings. By bringing commander-class monsters like these to heel, they pressed even the lesser beasts beneath them into service as their underlings.

“It was the man-hunters who scorched part of Paju and turned it into a slum afterward.”

Back then, the Association’s Hunters could do little more than cling to their lives. Had the monsters’ advance not slowed for reasons no one could explain, it would not have been a scar left on the back of his hand; it would have been Yang Seongsu’s life.

“The monsters the man-hunters take in are different from the enemies that come out of gates.”
“They act strategically. Not on instinct.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because I fought them recently.”

Well, to be precise, he had folded in a fair measure of his pre-regression experience. Back when he had fought them at Yeonpyeong Island, all he had really seen was them recklessly hurling Ogres and Trolls into the sea.

“Do you truly believe it’s possible to drive out the man-hunters?”
“As I said a moment ago, I said it because I believe it’s possible.”

Yujin answered without a shred of hesitation.

“In my first year as a Hunter, I brought down the Rakshasa Guild and the Mad Dog.”
“I heard as much from the press conference footage.”
“Add two more years to that, and there’s no reason I couldn’t take down the man-hunters, is there?”

At the sight of Yujin so brimming with confidence, Yang Seongsu bit down hard on his lip. And then he reached his decision.

“Those words. I’ll believe them.”

He lifted the fog of suspicion that had clouded his eyes.

“From here on, you needn’t trouble yourself over the paperwork.”
“What do you mean?”
“Anything concerning you, Hunter Cheon Yujin — the redevelopment up north, all of it — I’ll push it through.”

Yang Seongsu was a first-generation Hunter, and a veteran besides, with long years of service at the Association behind him. He commanded a fair measure of respect within the organization, and he had laid down more than a few lines to the higher-ups as well.

‘Shining talent and an unbreakable will. How long has it been since I saw a Hunter who has both.’

He wanted to help. They had spoken only briefly, yet Yang Seongsu had already taken the true measure of the man before him.

And what was more, if the man-hunters could truly be driven out, just as Yujin had declared, it would settle a debt thirty-five years old. From where Yang Seongsu stood, he had no choice but to help.

‘What’s he on about? I knew that old fellow’s story long ago.’

Why else would he have asked Chairman Jin to introduce him to Yang Seongsu, the head of the Development Division? He had known full well what this man went through during the Monster Wave.

‘He told me the Kaesong Industrial Complex matter gave him no end of grief.’

Before the regression, the man who had done the most to help when Yujin sought recognition of his dominion over the Kaesong region had been Yang Seongsu. Something about a deep grudge against the man-hunters had driven him, and the retired old fellow had mobilized every last connection from his past to lend Yujin a hand.

‘And now he’s still on active duty, which is even better.’

He would skip the tiresome formalities, or smooth them over. Yujin swallowed a laugh.

‘Heh. Regression really is sweet.’

He let Kronos’s grumbling go in one ear and out the other. This was the one who had forged the Relic that carried the regression power, no, the Constellation standing behind it, and yet here he was, carping like this every single time.

“If you need anything more, tell me anytime. I’ll help with all I have.”
“I’ll ask that of you again when it’s time to subjugate the man-hunters.”
“I’ll be waiting for your call, Hunter Cheon Yujin.”

The two clasped hands. Then Yujin let out a short “Ah—” and changed the subject.

“This isn’t about the redevelopment, but there’s one thing I wanted to ask yooou.”
“What might that be?”
“The, the list of Hunters who fell during the First Monster Wave. I heard you were the one who compiled it, Head Yang.”
“That’s right. I was on active duty then. Ah, I did mention that, didn’t I.”
“Do you, by any chance, also take reports of people who were left off it?”

— Shhhk!

Behind him, the eye-light of Fafnir, standing guard over Yujin, flared violently.

“My ability is bringing the dead back to life.”

At Yujin’s unruffled words, Yang Seongsu swallowed hard.

— Gulp.

“Is it all right to speak so freely of your secret, Hunter Cheon Yujin?”
“The Association already has a rough idea anyway, doesn’t it.”

That Yujin had routed the Rakshasa Guild was by now fairly common knowledge, thanks to the Madam working things from the shadows. A rumor, once it takes on flesh, swells like a snowball rolling down a slope. Between the testimony of the mercenaries and the Rakshasa survivors who had made it out of that battle, a good many of Yujin’s undisclosed abilities had come to light.

“What could be more certain than hearing it from the man himself.”

Yang Seongsu didn’t bother to deny it much, either.

Let’s keep this moving. No need to keep our cards close to the chest.

“My summon is a Hunter who died during the First Monster Wave.”
“He doesn’t look like a person.”
“I bound a soul that had already become an earthbound spirit into a monster’s body.”
“I don’t know which Constellation you serve, but you’ve truly been granted an extraordinary ability.”

Ugh.
Don’t go saying things like that so carelessly.
I’m afraid Kronos will hear it and get a swelled head.

“Pardon me, but — your summon, there. What is his name, if I may ask?”

— …It’s Park Haneul.

Fafnir spoke slowly, as though savoring the old name he had buried along with his return to life.

Letting out a short “Hmm—” of thought, Yang Seongsu parted his lips.

“So it was him.”
“A name you know?”
“He was a famous Martial-line Hunter during the Great Cataclysm. I’d heard he vanished without a trace.”

— As you can see, it wasn’t of my own will that I disappeared. It was forced on me.

Fafnir muttered in a self-mocking tone. Yujin held out a USB drive.

“This is the material that let us find Mr. Park Haneul after he’d become an earthbound spirit.”
“…This is something the Association should have done. Thank you.”
“It’s just a collection of the material I searched through to find a powerful soul.”
“Let me step out and verify it for a moment.”

Yang Seongsu rose from his seat, USB drive in hand.

— Master.

“Don’t say a word.”

— You cast off your old name for the sake of revenge. If you do this—!

“Things have already passed the point of no return with Arahan. Nothing changes even if they learn your identity.”

There were two reasons he had been given a new name in place of Park Haneul. A severance from the past, and revenge. Because Baek Seonghyeon had wiped out most of the records after the Monster Wave, the name Park Haneul had been hard to trace. Even Yujin, combing back through his pre-regression memories now and then, had found the material quite difficult to turn up.

— Even so—!

“No. I’m sorry I couldn’t reclaim your honor and your name sooner than this.”

The talk of Kaesong and the borderlands development mattered too, but reclaiming Fafnir’s honor carried a weight every bit as great.

‘It was something I never managed before the regression.’

Yujin tightened his jaw, forcing back the bitter smile that threatened to surface.

This meeting with Park Haneul had come more than ten years earlier than in his past life. Before the regression, Park Haneul had lingered in that dead land with most of his memory and feeling lost, burning with nothing but vengeance. Even had his honor been restored then, the pre-regression Park Haneul would have felt nothing at all.

‘And there’d been no room to spare for it, either.’

Toppling Arahan had been well and good, but lurking behind it was House Romanov, head of the Seven Great Families, and it had moved at once to check Yujin. With the Sorcerer King Dmitri stepping in personally, Yujin had been left no time to spare for reclaiming Mr. Park Haneul’s honor.

‘It’s different now.’

Across both lives, before the regression and after, Park Haneul had been the most trustworthy servant and comrade he had ever had. Yujin wanted to reclaim the honor of the man once called Park Haneul, now Fafnir.

— Master. Why go this far?

“Of course I would. You’re my Great Warrior, aren’t you.”

To explain the real reason, I’d have to go all the way back to before the regression.
I can’t tell you everything, so make do with this much.

“I’ve checked the material you gave me.”
“And?”
“I cross-verified it, and it’s all genuine.”
“That’s a relief. I was worried what I’d do if the Hunter Association wouldn’t acknowledge it.”

Baek Seonghyeon, that bastard, had done the job cleanly. He had wiped out nearly all the information on Mr. Park Haneul, so completely that ‘obliteration of the record’ was the only term that fit. It hardly seemed possible to erase the first Hunter in the country to reach 6th Star after the Great Cataclysm this thoroughly, and yet he had managed it.

“Now then, Hunter Park Haneul.”

— Call me Fafnir. I place no great meaning in the name I bore in life.

“In this place, I will call you Hunter Park Haneul.”

Yang Seongsu bowed at a full ninety degrees.

“It was thanks to you, Hunter Park Haneul, that my whole team wasn’t wiped out.”

— Uh, um. What do you mean by that?

“It was you, Hunter Park Haneul, who held back the monsters’ advance.”

Yang Seongsu had fought on the very front lines of the First Monster Wave. For reasons no one could explain, the monsters’ southward advance had slowed, and thanks to that the country had been able to regroup and defend most of its ground.

“It’s far too late, but — let me thank you now, even so.”

The greeting brimmed with sincerity. Fafnir held his silence for a good long while, then at last let a stray thought drift out.

— …Think nothing of it.

A reward decades in the coming. Fafnir thought it had been a thing worth the wait.