17. The Arahan Guild (1)

“Ah. Mr. Park Seonguk.”
“Mr. Park Seonguk? That’s awfully short talk for someone speaking to his senior.”
“Be grateful I’m not cursing you out, that’s all.”

Bad blood that went all the way back to the orphanage.
Park Seonguk had been a piece of trash who slipped under the director’s nose to prey on the other children.

“Looks like your nose is doing better now?”

Yujin curled his hand into a fist, and Park Seonguk took a step back before he could stop himself.

Back at the orphanage, the bastard had been about to lay hands on a little kid.
Yujin had walked up with a smile playing on his lips and smashed his nose flat with a single punch.

A beat too late, Park Seonguk realized he’d flinched backward, and his cheek twisted.

“Tch, fuck.”

He spat the curse out through a face contorted and boiling over with rage.

“You. You’ve grown a bit while I wasn’t looking, huh?”
“Shot up about twenty centimeters, yeah.”
“Seeing you loiter around the Pantheon, guess you’re some kind of two-bit Hunter too.”
“Yeah. Been one week since I awakened.”

Park Seonguk drew his left shoulder back a touch, throwing his chest out unnaturally.

“You know what this is?”
“Take your sorry excuse for a dance to a club.”
“You little shi… you see the Arahan badge and you’ve still got no fear.”

The very guild he’d brought up so often while taking Fafnir under his wing had just popped right out into the open.

What a hell of a coincidence.

Our country doesn’t have Hunter families. Only guilds.

To formally declare a Hunter family, you had to satisfy three conditions.

1. A family’s secret mana cultivation method
2. The family’s guardian star
3. The family head at 7th Rank or above

Arahan only meets the third one, I’d bet.

A family’s secret mana cultivation method meant a technique forged from a Hunter’s own enlightenment, not something passed around as a skill book.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you could whip up just because your Stellar Rank happened to be high.

On top of that.

Why else would they say that, of all the conditions for founding a family, reaching 7th Rank was the easiest one to satisfy?
It was the reason no Hunter family had emerged on the Korean peninsula in all these long years.

Anyway.

So this guy was with Arahan.
I never saw him back when I was at war with Arahan in my past life.
Must’ve died off quick while running with them.

Either that, or he was such a trifling little nobody that he’d never lodged in Yujin’s memory.
Whichever it was, what a dull, paltry life.

“Newbie. Who’s this one over here?”
“Ah. Team Leader Jeong. A junior I knew back in the day.”

The man addressed as team leader wedged himself between the two of them and ran a quick eye over Yujin.

“So you’re an acquaintance of my team member Park Seonguk. A pleasure.”

He held out a business card, smooth as you please.

Yujin only stared at it blankly, making no move to extend his hand.

“You’ll make my arm fall off at this rate.”
“I’ve got no card to give in return. No reason to take one.”

Hearing that, Jeong Jinsu broke into an easygoing, affable smile.

“Young man. Keep my card on hand and you might find help when you hit a tough spot.”
“The 5th Strike Force is the bottom of the barrel, isn’t it. Could someone like you even help me?”

The 5th Strike Force, where they parked the newbies.
If you asked whether the team leaders were newbies too, the answer was no.

Hunters who hit a ceiling on their growth potential, or dropped out from injury and the like.

He’d called himself Park Seonguk’s team leader, hadn’t he.
Which camp this fellow belonged to, Yujin couldn’t say, but he poked at the sore spot openly.

The faces of Park Seonguk and the rest of the team flushed scarlet.
The mood was a hair’s breadth from blowing.

“Gwahaha. This kid’s got nerve, I like it.”

Jeong Jinsu laughed heartily as he calmed his team down.

“I’m in charge of Arahan’s newbies, so that’s not wrong, either. Still, I scouted every one of them because they’re outstanding talents.”
“I don’t know about that. Seeing you took in human garbage like Park Seonguk, I can’t say I agree with ‘outstanding.’”
“Why, you insolent…!”

The way his whole body trembled, one more nudge and he looked ready to lunge.

“Hmm. In that case, how about this?”

Jeong Jinsu put on an affable smile.

“Our newbie friend looks like a Hunter himself, so why don’t you have a sparring match with our newbie.”
“You want me to go bare-handed against a guy who’s obviously the Martial type?”
“Gwahaha. Out of the question, naturally. I only meant, since you’re an old acquaintance of our newbie anyway, that he’d show you his skills.”
“Well, not a bad idea.”

The flow of the conversation broke for an instant.
Jeong Jinsu asked again, a trace of suspicion in his eyes.

“You mean that? Truly?”
“Let’s do it. That sparring match, whatever you call it.”

Yujin grinned, his gaze fixed on Park Seonguk.

A three-minute walk from the Pantheon.

The Arahan Guild had bought up an entire building on Yeouido, the prime, gold-dust real estate of Seoul.
A high-rise soaring up into the sky.

Jeong Jinsu led the way to the gymnasium newly built beside it.

“In here, you can test your mettle to your heart’s content without worrying about other people’s eyes.”
“I see.”
“If you like, you may use the armaments stocked in the guild’s training hall, so feel free to look around.”

He was telling a Priest job class to go find himself some armaments.
He’d taken Yujin for a beginner Hunter and was babbling whatever came to mind.

“I’m the Priest line. So I’ll pick a fighter to stand in my place.”
“Do as you please. Though there doesn’t seem to be anyone here to serve as your champion.”
“My champion is this fellow.”

An eerie light shimmered out of the Ring of Black Darkness, and a giant three meters tall abruptly appeared.

— A fight?

“Yeah. Just thought I’d do a little sparring.”

Fafnir looked at the Arahan emblem mounted in the center of the gymnasium and clenched his fists hard.

“Ohh. Junior. Looks like you pulled a pretty good unique trait, huh?”

Park Seonguk mocked him in an exaggerated tone.
He seemed to have mistaken Fafnir for a summoning- or spirit-related unique trait.

— Master. You can’t already be carrying out my revenge — so why are we here?

For Fafnir, the place was as good as enemy territory.
Maybe that was why he deliberately tuned his thoughts so that only Yujin could hear.

“Wouldn’t your own drive pick up if you at least knew who the enemy you’ll have to face from now on is?”

— Hmm. Well, if that’s it.

“And while I’m at it, advertise the performance of the Mid-grade Potion.”

— That looks to be my master’s real aim, somehow.

Instead of answering, Yujin chuckled to himself.

Well, if you’ll think of it that way, I’m grateful.

The Arahan Guild has a line out to House Romanov.

Fafnir’s business aside, there was no avoiding bad blood with the Arahan Guild.

Didn’t expect to get acquainted this soon, though.
If anything, all the better.

Cutting off the train of thought, he gazed steadily at Park Seonguk standing across the training ground.

“Heh heh. Cheon Yujin, looks like once you’re actually up here you get the shakes. You’ve frozen stiff.”

Gleaming armor.
A necklace shimmering with magic power, and several rings fitted onto his fingers, each one boosting his stats.

— Every one of them looks to be at least Rare grade.
— I’d imagine so.

Sizing it up roughly, he looked like a walking sports car.

— Fancy supplying a newbie with items like that.
— They’re the nation’s number-one guild.

Before the regression, Arahan had risen to stand as Korea’s first Hunter family, cementing itself as a colossal power that swayed both politics and business.
If only they hadn’t gone head-to-head with Yujin and gotten themselves wiped out, they’d have held their position for a good long while.

So they joined hands with Romanov to become a Hunter family and blew the whole thing up out of proportion, huh.

— You all right? Could be you’ve made too great an enemy on the pretext of avenging me.

“If I can’t even get over an opponent like this, that’s a problem.”

He meant it.
The enemies Yujin had faced before the regression were the Seven Great Families that spanned the entire world.
He was confident he’d surpass a measly domestic number-one within a few years.

— For my sake, you’d go this far…

He seemed to have gotten the wrong idea about something, but Yujin let it slide.

“Cheon Yujin! I’ll show you what’s whaaat!!!!”

Park Seonguk charged straight at Fafnir.

— How would you like it done, Master?
— Don’t finish it in one blow. To show off the potion’s effect, he needs to take a fitting amount of injury.
— Truly cruel. From the way you talk, he seems to be someone you know.
— He’s bad blood, so don’t spare your hand.
— Heh heh. It’s been a while since real combat — let me loosen up a bit.

Fafnir kicked off the training-ground floor lightly and rushed straight in as well.

— Thud. Thud.

With every fall of his foot the floor rang out, and the distance between the two of them closed in an instant.

Park Seonguk’s narrowed eyes read Fafnir’s movement precisely.

“A close-range power type, looks like — but if I don’t get hit, that’s the end of it.”

Park Seonguk, who’d been charging at full speed, wrenched his body sharply aside.
Sliding as if skimming the floor, he bored in alongside Fafnir.

Loading all his weight and strength into the spear-tip, he drove it out fast.
A more perfect thrust than any he’d managed before.
A gleam of exhilaration shone in Park Seonguk’s eyes.

Ohh.

Watching the spar, Jeong Jinsu let slip a short gasp of admiration too.

Sharper than in training.

The heart of the Kairak Spear Art lay in unleashing explosive force in a brief instant.
Even to the eye of Jeong Jinsu, who’d handled rookie training at Arahan for years, it was a near-perfect strike that drew out the subtlety of the spear art.

It’d be a problem if it’s settled too fast, though.

Park Seonguk was a promising young talent Jeong Jinsu had recently poured his effort into training.
This junior or whatever, who’d crawled out of god-knows-where, was beneath Jeong Jinsu’s notice, but he’d hoped Park Seonguk would learn more from a sparring match that felt like the real thing.
That was the true reason he’d let a Hunter with no pedigree like Yujin all the way into the training ground.

I’d like him to put up a bit of a fight before he goes down.

Just as Jeong Jinsu was thinking that.

— You think you can land a hit on me with an attack that slow?

Those rhombus-shaped pupils held a blue ghost-flame, and it tracked Park Seonguk’s movements precisely.

— Shhk!

The spear-tip that should have caught Fafnir square in the chest sliced through empty air.
He twisted his body slightly aside, and the blade only grazed his flank.

“Wha—, wha?”

— A pitiful sight indeed. A shoddy attack with no thought for what comes next.

Fafnir brought his right arm in and clamped down on the spear-shaft shimmering at his flank, holding it fast.
Park Seonguk, unable to hide his fluster, threw his strength into his arm, but the spear pinned at his side showed no sign of coming loose.

If anything.

— In a real fight you’d already be a dead man.

Fafnir gave the shaft a brutal yank, and Park Seonguk came dragging along like a fish that had bitten the hook.

Park Seonguk, riddled with openings.
Fafnir curled his fist to end it in one blow, then caught himself.

ah.

He told me to break one of his bones.

He bled off just enough of the force he’d gathered and drove his fist into the arm.

— Crack!

Even with the protection of the armor, the left arm exposed to Fafnir’s monstrous strength bent the opposite way.

“…?!”

Eyes shot with blood, Park Seonguk stared, transfixed, at his limp left arm.

“When I broke your nose, you bawled your eyes out. You grow some endurance now that you’re with Arahan?”
“You son of a bitch!!”

Park Seonguk made to leap straight for Yujin, but Fafnir cut him off.

— You’re not getting past.

Three meters of Eldritch Dragon barred his way.
He worked his footwork once more, and just as he tried to shake Fafnir off and open a path to Yujin, a thick leg moved from above downward.

— Thud!

The foot hammered the sparring field, throwing off Park Seonguk’s center of gravity.

“Ah!”

A groan burst from Jeong Jinsu’s mouth.

At that same moment, Park Seonguk, who’d just dropped low as if to skim the ground, pitched forward, unable to master his own momentum.

— Use the same technique twice and it’s all laid bare for me to see.

Fafnir pointed out Park Seonguk’s mistake in a gentle, easy tone.

— Crack!

“Kraaaaaah!!!”

— Only carve it into the body and a fellow remembers not to make the same mistake twice.

He broke the leg that had worked the footwork.

One arm and one leg bent at grotesque angles, bone jutting out.
The sparring field would only deploy for a genuinely life-threatening “fatal wound.”
A whole arm or leg torn clean off might be another matter, but a mere fracture wouldn’t earn Park Seonguk its protection.

“Stop!”

Jeong Jinsu climbed up onto the field and waved his hand roughly.

Just like that, the fight came to an end.

How dull.
To think he’d step in this fast.
And I’d only just begun the bastard’s character education.

Just as Yujin was clicking his tongue in disappointment, Jeong Jinsu checked Park Seonguk’s arm and leg with a frantic air.

“Krgh, ugh, ugghhh.”
“Thank goodness — there won’t be any lasting aftereffects.”
“T-Team Leader.”
“I’ll fetch a Priest right away, so hold on just a little.”
“There’s a Priest right here, though?”

Yujin waved his hand, brazen as anything, and anger flickered across Jeong Jinsu’s face.
He’d meant to bolster his newbie’s confidence and gotten thoroughly burned for it.

But what was there to do.
It was Jeong Jinsu himself who’d put Yujin up on that stage.

“…You. Do you know that a 1st-Rank healing spell can hardly mend a fracture?”
“That much is common sense.”
“Then I’d like to know just what method you’ll use to heal our newbie.”
“I happen to have a Mid-grade Potion.”

The Mid-grade Potion, obtainable now and then from a gate’s monsters.
A high-priced consumable running over ten million won apiece.

“You’d use that precious Mid-grade Potion to treat a newbie?”
“Looks like you haven’t heard the news that they’ve succeeded in mass-producing the Mid-grade Potion this time around.”

Yujin held out a Mid-grade Potion.
Having checked the item information, the light in Jeong Jinsu’s eyes trembled.

— Pop!

He uncorked it and splashed the potion over Park Seonguk’s arm and leg.

“Hold him still. Otherwise it’ll set crooked.”

Better focus, unless you want to watch a guild newbie turn into a cripple. Right?

— Crrk. Crk-crk.

The broken bones knit back together, and the torn wounds began to close.
Park Seonguk’s face settled into a far more comfortable expression.

“Junior. That potion — where did you say you got it?”

In the light of Jeong Jinsu’s eyes, an undisguisable glint of desire flickered.