110. Catching Our Breath

Thanks to the materials Yujin had gathered, Mr. Park Haneul’s devotion had been proven. That said, it didn’t mean the whole affair was over.

“My apologies to you both, but — would you mind waiting just until the paperwork clears approval?”

— You can just ring my Master’s cell phone later.

“The thing is, we’ve never had a case of a dead person coming back, you see.”

The Hunter Association was a public corporation that ran on government funding. Its people weren’t quite civil servants, but the place was a textbook bureaucracy, the apex specimen of an organization that processed everything strictly by the manual. A case like Fafnir’s had never come up before, so even the higher-ups made no secret of their bafflement.

“Administration, huh.”

Yujin let out a dry, helpless laugh.

I never imagined administrative red tape would be what ate up my time.

After that, Fafnir went on drowning in paperwork hell, filling out his own death certificate among other things.

— To think I’d be signing a certificate that acknowledges my own death.

“Normally a family member does that for you. Count it as a rare experience, courtesy of me.”

— Hmph. You’ve got no family either, Master, same as me.

“Wow. Springing a low blow about my folks out of nowhere is a bit much.”

The two of them traded idle nonsense back and forth. Without a running conversation like this, the tedium simply wouldn’t lift.

“Head Yang. Couldn’t we just leave the paperwork to Fafnir to fill out?”
“As I said, since a dead man returning is a first, we’ll need a guardian present.”

— You heard him? Mr. Guardian.

“Agh.”

Yujin ruffled his hair.

I’ve got a mountain of things to do, and here I am losing time in the most pointless place.

But then. Hold on a second. Yujin’s eyes went wide as he caught what Fafnir was writing on the document.

“Why does the second half of your resident registration number start with a 2?”

— Why even ask something so obvious.

“No. I mean — if it comes up as 2, that means… you’re a woman.”

— What? Master. You didn’t even know that?

“…Whuh.”

Shiiit.
This is for real?!!!!
Big Bro — no, Big Sis. What in the world are you even saying!!

Yujin clamped his lips shut with superhuman restraint. If he hadn’t, the scream clawing up his throat would have torn loose.

No way.

Don’t laugh! You old geezer!!!

Obviously I thought he was a man.

His back was clammy with sweat.

Mr. Park Haneul was a woman?
I genuinely had no idea.

Before the regression there was barely any self-awareness to speak of.

In his past life, Mr. Park Haneul had been a taciturn undead, an earthbound spirit chained to the ground by vengeance, unable to depart the world. With most of his emotions burned away, he’d been deeply loath to talk about himself.

Heh. This one time, he didn’t miss the taciturn Mr. Park Haneul of his past life one bit.

Don’t go talking so easily like it’s someone else’s problem.

Ugh.

My head hurts.

Yujin pressed his fingers hard against his temples and kneaded.

Even after the little incident (?), the documents still left to fill out were piled up like a mountain. In the end, the paperwork was only finished after the sun had slipped beyond the horizon.

“Didn’t get the reward money, huh.”

Yujin grumbled briefly.

In principle, Mr. Park Haneul was a dead man, so even with his contribution acknowledged, no reward could be paid out. Family might have changed that, but just like Yujin, he came from orphan stock, with no kin or relatives to receive it.

— It’s fine. Being thanked is enough.

“Really?”

— I’m already a corpse. What would I even do with coin for the road.

“I was thinking of putting up a monument, at least. ‘Park Haneul, the righteous one who held back the Monster Wave. Rests here!’”

— Th-there’s no need to go that far!!!

Yujin chuckled, looking thoroughly satisfied at Fafnir’s violent reaction.

Kuhuhuhu.
Now that feels better.
This is how you pay someone back for clocking you one!

Pipe down.

Yujin shoved away Kronos’s thought-projection.

That’s a cheap shot.
Beating a man over the head with the facts.

A bitter smile hung at the corner of his mouth as he stepped out of the Hunter Association’s main hall.

The next day, Yujin met up with the Scraps.

“Boss. We finished registering the mercenary company.”
“Surprising. They cleared it for you in a single day.”
“Looks like the person in charge had already seen the articles about the Black Company. It went straight through.”

Meanwhile, some people had spent the entire day wrestling with a mountain of documents. Yujin felt a pointless pang of envy.

“It’s all thanks to the weight of your name, Boss, that we got every bothersome step waved off.”
“Well done. Clever of you to think of cashing in on my name.”
“Hah, thank you.”
“Big Bro. That doesn’t sound like praise, though?”
“No. You lot are free to drop my name too, depending on the situation.”

Fame, or whatever you wanted to call it, was just one more thing you had to know how to put to use. Making the most of what’s in your hand is a skill in its own right. Money’s no different. You could be sitting on untold riches, but leave it parked in an account and you get back an absurdly tiny pittance of interest. Roll over your deposits. Buy up some real estate, even. One way or another you have to put money to work for it to grow; leave it sitting, and it might as well be dead.

“Bro. I heard something shocking, you know?”
“What is it.”
“So it turns out — you’re twenty-three, Bro.”
“Did I never mention it.”
“Mmmmm. Then that makes me the older one — your Big Sis.”
“Want me to call you Big Sis?”

At Yujin’s cynical reply, Kang Minyeong shrank back.

“No. I think I’d die if you did.”
“If it really bothers you that much, just drop the formalities with me yourself.”
“Mmmmmm. I’ll respectfully decline. I’m comfortable like this. Bro.”

Your speech is wobbling all over the place even now, though?

Beside her, Lee Seongmin had been desperately holding back his laughter when Kang Minyeong pinched him in the side.

“Gyaaaack!!”
“Junior. Gotten awful big for your boots, haven’t you?”
“Say it straight, would ya. My height’s the one that’s always been bigg— gweck!!!”

The mood turned rowdy and boisterous. Kim Mijeong, whom Yujin had sent along to accompany the Scraps, didn’t bother to hide her displeasure.

“I said I’d stick close to you, but babysitting a bunch of brats is a bit much, isn’t it?”
“If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to go back to the Rakshasa Guild.”
“Ah. I’m a 6th-Rank Hunter, you know. I’ll earn my keep, so take me to a battlefield.”

Ms. Kim Mijeong. The ones doing the babysitting look like the Scraps, not you.

The bigger the group got, the louder the noise grew.

The second she’s out of sight she’ll get up to something else.

The one thing that could keep Kim Mijeong tethered was interest. To make use of that mad dog, you had to keep feeding her bait to her taste.

Once Kim Mijeong sees what those kids are really made of, she’s sure to find it interesting.

It just didn’t show, overshadowed as they were by Yujin. The Scraps were developing at a rate that left ordinary Hunters far behind.

Their leader, Kang Minho, already handled mana like an extension of his own limbs.

Fill out his level and he’ll hit 4th Rank without ever feeling the wall.

Kang Minyeong and Lee Seongmin were no different. Under Yujin’s guidance, they’d awakened the potential within their unique traits, and in the daily grind of pushing forward, they’d been knocking on the wall.

Though they don’t realize it themselves.

That was just a turn of phrase.

The ‘wall’ that stood from 4th Rank onward was, in the end, just a way of describing the enlightenment of channeling mana. In exceedingly rare cases, someone grasped how to load intent into their mana before ever reaching 4th Rank, and the instant they met the level requirement, they climbed straight to a higher Rank.

Chang Wufei, the head of the Heavenly Martial Gate, is the prime example.

China’s foremost Hunter. Among the Seven Great Families, he was also the master of the ‘Heavenly Martial Gate,’ a power that stood shoulder to shoulder with House Romanov.

Ah. No need to look that far afield. In life, Fafnir had been a powerhouse who’d reached the realm of 6th Rank.

He, no, she had been able to wield her Dark Fighting-Aura even after taking the stat-throttled Draconian corpse from the Ancient Proving Ground as her body.

I seriously cannot get used to this.
The end times. The end times, truly.

He’d learned Fafnir’s true gender only after several decades, and a day on, the shock still hadn’t faded.

Yujin shook his head from side to side, shaking off the stray thought that clung to his chest along with it.

“Seongmin. Did you put the mercenary company ad up on Hunternet?”
“Yes. Boss. But I’m not getting my hopes up much.”
“That’s something we’ll only know once we get there.”

The Scraps Mercenary Company was the Hunter enterprise they’d registered the day before, a mercenary group operating under the umbrella of the Black Company.

Someone had pointed out that the name looked a little too shabby for a mercenary company.

“It’s better than a black company, ain’t it.”

At Lee Seongmin’s barbed reply, Yujin couldn’t find anything more to come back with either.

Hmph. What’s wrong with the Black Company?

Bah. Kronos, when did you get the hang of modern culture! Keep this up and you’ll be using a smartphone before long.

The Scraps Mercenary Company held its launch ceremony and recruitment drive in the hotel seminar hall, the same one where the previous day’s demonstration ceremony had taken place.

A table had been set out for the interviewers. Yujin took the center seat, and the Scraps lined up on either side of him.

“My eyes aren’t playing tricks on me, are they?”
“Junior. You’re seeing it right.”
“The number of applicants is staggering. Boss.”

A rough count put them in the hundreds. Scattered among them were a few giving off the formidable mana wavelength unique to Hunters who’d crossed the ‘wall.’

“Wonder how many of them are worth using.”

— Twelve at 4th Rank. One at 5th Rank.

“5th Rank?”

This time even Yujin let surprise show.

The Black Company was the organization standing behind the Scraps Mercenary Company, the hot potato soaking up every bit of domestic public opinion at the moment. He’d expected applicants to come flocking, but he hadn’t counted on a talent as strong as 5th Rank turning up.

“Whoa! Boss!”
“What’s got you so worked up.”
“Over there, that person. That’s the Hunter from back then!”
“Minho. Could you maybe put in a subject when you talk.”
“The Hunter who ran from your domain, Boss. The one who said he was with the Black Wolves mercenary unit.”

Ah. That guy who fled without a backbone to his name? What did the one who ran from the Necropolis think he was going to get, crawling all the way out here?

“Let’s start the interviews.”
“Yes. Boss.”

I’ll find out once I hear it straight from the man himself.

Yujin folded his arms and watched the waiting Hunters through languid eyes.

“I applied because I see real potential in the Scraps Mercenary Company!”
“Next.”
“Good day. My name is Byeon Huiyeong. My current Rank is…”
“Next.”

Thanks to the application essays collected in advance, he could check each applicant’s unique trait. The ones with potential he took in; the rest he sent back without so much as a few words exchanged.

“What on earth is the standard he’s picking by?”
“No idea. We don’t even know why Bro said he’d train us.”
“Seems he’s got his own measure for reading people.”

The Scraps munched away at the snacks laid out for them. Since it was Yujin doing the picking, they figured some deeper intent lay behind it and watched things unfold.

But then.

“Ah. You!”
“Hey there, friend. Good to see you again.”

When he spotted Min Sangjin, leader of the Black Wolves team, he couldn’t sit still. It had been only a few days since they’d traded blows out in the borderlands. They’d known Min Sangjin was on the mercenary-company application roster, but coming face to face with him in the flesh, the tension showed plainly on the Scraps’ expressions.

“So it was you.”
“It was you, was it? The Hunter who handled those undead.”
“That’s right.”
“You know, back then I strained my eyes trying to get a look at your face and couldn’t. Now we finally meet properly.”
“And how do you find my handsome face?”
“Worth playing hard to get, I’ll give you that. Anyway, take me on, would you.”

Yujin waved a hand back and forth.

“I don’t know. When a 5th-Rank Hunter I fought just a few days ago asks to be taken on as a subordinate, doesn’t that raise suspicion?”
“It was a commission. That’s just how mercenaries are, isn’t it.”
“And your reason for wanting to join the Scraps Mercenary Company?”
“You’re impressive, sure, but these kids are nothing to scoff at either. Latch onto a promising outfit early and there’s all the more to gain, isn’t there.”

For all the roughness of his speech, the substance of it was remarkably reasonable. What it came down to was that he’d seen Yujin’s potential and wanted to come in under him. There was even a bold decisiveness in him, bowing his head to an opponent he’d crossed swords with only days before.

He’ll do nicely.

“I like you. You’re hired.”
“Boss. You sure that’s all right?”
“Doesn’t bother me. You’re the ones leading the mercenary company.”
“…!”

Kang Minho’s eyes went so wide they looked about to pop out.

Don’t worry so much. A little provocation is what makes you grow faster.

The Black Wolves, was it. With those guys in the mercenary company, the Scraps will get spurred on all the more.

To avoid being devoured, you have to grow strong. You’ll sweat plenty in the process, of course.

The Hunters who joined the mercenary company came to twenty in all. Counting the Scraps, that made twenty-three.

“Um, Boss. We’ve set the mercenary company up as you told us, but.”
“Hard to actually get it running right away, though.”
“Yes. We don’t have a proper company building, and we haven’t hired any office staff for the desk work either.”
“Ask Director Im about that. He’ll have a basic structure laid out.”

He’d given the order before the Saint’s Tears demonstration, so the rough preparations should already be in place.

“When did you even get that far…”
“Don’t go thinking about putting the newly joined Hunters to work just yet. They’re friends who hopped on for the name value anyway.”
“Understood. Boss.”
“Getting the Scraps Mercenary Company truly running starts after all three of you have crossed the wall of 4th Rank.”
“Looks like we’ll have to work harder.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Yujin lightly clapped Kang Minho on the shoulder.

“Boss. We’ll head back to the borderlands, then.”
“Yeah. Go on ahead.”
“Do you still have business to attend to?”
“There’s something I want to test.”

The idea had come from Kronos after the war with the Rakshasa Guild ended. He meant to research how to create an undead Priest.

All the better.

A war with the Seven Great Families is unavoidable as it is; earning the Constellations’ loathing is nothing next to that.

Yujin chuckled.