Chapter 173 · 13 min
Chapter 173
Chapter 173
The day of the official departure ceremony.
“When are they coming out.”
“I think they said the departure was at ten.”
“I still only see the attendants.”
Gangwon Province, where the aftermath of the Great Catastrophe still hasn’t been fully dealt with. Near Hwanseongul in Samcheok, which served as at least somewhat of a place people could live, people gathered beyond the barricade in the danger zone.
Even in such harsh terrain, it was common for reporters and sightseers to swarm whenever a famous guild set out to raid. Among the people holding cameras were journalists, but there were also those who had come all the way here out of fandom for a specific hunter.
“...”
Choi Raon—once called the Flop Girl—was one of them.
“...Has the Collector still not come out...”
As she waited with anxious impatience, a woman who recognized her spoke to her.
“Oh! Unni!”
“Huhk...!”
“What is this, it’s been forever!”
“Ah, you scared me.”
Choi Raon clutched her pounding heart. Maybe because she’d left the safe zone of Seoul alone and come to infamous Gangwon Province, her body seemed tense.
Fortunately, the one who spoke to her was one of the fans who had once toured the whole country with her to take direct hunter photos. The woman—camera in hand—grinned as she looked Choi Raon up and down.
“After you got dragged off by that Black Cloak hunter, you deleted your account and disappeared—looks like you found a new light and salt, huh? Since you’re here, is it hunters again?”
“Uh... yeah, hunters. But why are you even here? What happened to the well you used to dig?”
A fan like Choi Raon, whose feelings cooled so quickly, wasn’t the kind welcomed by the same fan club, but the woman had a similar temperament, so they’d been able to become close.
And they were acquaintances from the days they’d played around on the idol boards. In other words, they’d become friends while stanning idols. Choi Raon remembered the woman had last been stanning a male idol and felt puzzled, but...
“...”
“...Ah, sorry...”
“...No, it’s fine...”
Why else would someone who’d been stanning a civilian idol bring a camera and come all the way here?
‘Your well burst too, huh.’
She hadn’t heard any news of a group imploding, so maybe her favorite had done something and left her heart hollow. She, too, was the type sensitive to flaws in whoever she stanned.
‘Not that there are any flaw-free celebrities in the world these days...’
Usually, the “flaws” that cooled people’s hearts were character controversies backed by decisive evidence. A video of abusing their manager, an audio file of looking down on and badmouthing others, things like that.
Even if it was a world where most celebrities had those “flaws,” Choi Raon couldn’t easily keep her affection once she saw the ugly side of someone she’d loved. Unless there was a reason she could accept—or a face so good there was no need to accept anything...
She knew she was being a bit much.
‘Still... I don’t know how everyone endures after seeing that stuff.’
Out of basic decency, she didn’t ask, ‘What the hell did that bastard do?’ She was curious, but there were things you could say and things you couldn’t. Why shove salt into someone else’s wound?
“...Ahem.”
“Khm.”
The two of them tacitly didn’t dig deeper.
“Then who did you come to see?”
“Ah...”
“It’s fine, I made a new account too.”
“That’s not it.”
The woman answered with an embarrassed expression.
“Hunter Sanarae...”
“Huh?”
“I’ve got a new kid that’s embarrassing no matter where I take him. With that face, he’s always causing trouble, so he can’t even get famous because they’re always covering up incidents—he’s a crazy bastard.”
“Huh...?”
“Ha, fuck—just cross the line. Cross it just once. I swear I won’t let it go.”
“Whoa...”
Choi Raon didn’t know a hunter named Sanarae, so the woman’s reaction was strange, but she roughly understood the context. It sounded like there was a hunter who liked causing nuisances while skirting the line without quite crossing it.
Around then, the woman asked.
“So who did you latch onto to come all the way here? Didn’t you take a half-day off to come?”
“No, I took a day off.”
“Damn, you must’ve really latched on. Who is it? What guild? Since you don’t even know our Narae, it’s not Haeryeong. Eunwol? Or the Sun Church?”
“The Collector.”
“The Collector...?”
After glancing once beyond the barricade where only attendants were still clearing the way, and once toward the distant hotel where the hunters would be staying, the woman asked cautiously.
“Don’t tell me, Hunter Seo Gio...?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“Of course. His name’s been hot lately.”
“I met him last time too.”
“...Ah!”
The woman’s face turned startled.
“The Flop Girl.”
“Thanks for not yelling it out loud.”
“No, are you insane? No wonder your silhouette felt familiar.”
“Hunter Seo Gio saved me in the dungeon too.”
“Damn... you really hit the jackpot.”
Even if it was a jackpot you hit in a situation where you nearly died, living with your life on the line was just what modern people did. It wasn’t as if she’d been permanently disabled, and if you only got threatened and your life was saved by the person you stan, it was something others might envy.
The woman scrunched her face up tight.
“I’m jealous. My account’s a pitiful mess that could burst anytime.”
“He’s that close to the line...?”
“Kind of... in every direction... he goes fucking wild...”
“How did you even latch onto someone like that.”
“I’ve been in denial about stanning him for over two years.”
“But back then you were stanning a different idol, weren’t you?”
“Exactly—fuck. It’s fucking bullshit.”
The woman looked truly wronged.
“When I came to my senses, I realized I was licking that bastard’s photos.”
“Well, that’s how a stan accident usually goes.”
There were stan accidents that stabbed your heart honestly from start to finish like Choi Raon’s, and there were also stan accidents like the woman’s—saying, ‘No? No? That’s not it?’ while diligently collecting photos with your fingers.
“...Oh, looks like they’re coming.”
“Huh? You can see that? Where are they coming from?”
“The attendants are clearing space.”
“Ah, yeah, they are.”
When a raid proceeded officially, the Association often sent people to provide convenience.
Those people were commonly called “attendants,” and if you watched how attendants—long used to welcoming raid hunters—moved, you could tell what was about to happen.
“Looks like they’re going to move by teleport, since they’re making an open area. If you’ve got a method like that, you don’t need to walk all the way here.”
“It’s not a super close distance from the hotel where the raid party stayed. And if they’re as neat as possible before entering the dungeon, it’s better for showing the public too...”
The woman, scrubbing her camera lens, nodded.
“Then see you later, unni. Let’s eat together after.”
“Sure. There’s a knife-cut noodle place right up front. They sell dumplings too...”
“Ah, dumplings are great. That place knows what it’s doing. It’ll be filling.”
They gave each other a thumbs-up, then went their separate ways. When the crowd was packed with reporters, sightseers, and personal fans like now, fans also had to move busily to find their own way to survive.
The first to arrive were the Sun Church priests.
“It’s the Sun Church!”
“Priests, please, just one interview!”
“What do you think about the failure of the last raid!”
“Priest Ahn Seohui, please look this way!”
“Priest!!”
Sure enough, it was already noisy.
‘Wow, can I even make it back after getting good shots of this...?’
Choi Raon was a veteran direct-shot fan with quite a long and rough career, but even for her, this level of hunter stanning was unfamiliar. Seo Gio was the first hunter she’d ever used a day off to film at a departure ceremony.
Fortunately, it seemed the hunters were entering group by group in order; right after the Sun Church, another guild’s hunters didn’t come in. Choi Raon relaxed a little and decided to watch the situation.
“...”
Choi Raon couldn’t help but admire a bit.
‘As expected of priests—such a sacred atmosphere.’
Even in this commotion, they carried a neat, clean air without the slightest agitation. Their spotless white priest robes, perhaps for combat, were interwoven with sturdy gear, raising mobility by binding the fluttering cloth.
Then she made eye contact with a priest who had green eyes, and when she awkwardly dipped her head, the other side returned the greeting lightly. As she watched the priests pass by in a daze, next came the procession of the Eunwol Guild.
“Sunbae-nim, it’s Eunwol.”
“I heard they have so many healers...”
“I heard the raid field this time is covered in poison. That must be why, right?”
“In cases like that, healers are cheaper than potions. It’s not just a quick ache and done.”
“Hunters really live hard lives...”
“But they make a lot of money in return. It’s an equal exchange. You could call it the price of their lives.”
Hearing the reporters’ conversation, Choi Raon turned her gaze back to the Eunwol Guild.
‘They kind of feel similar to the priests who just passed.’
Choi Raon was an ordinary person who couldn’t sense presence, but even so, the unique air of believers was impossible to miss. Similar to the Sun Church priests yet dressed a bit lighter, they followed after the Sun Church wrapped in pure white robes.
‘Their faces are hard to see...’
They were even more tightly covered than the Sun Church priests, and Choi Raon blinked.
‘Is that white robe Eunwol’s uniform? This is my first time seeing people cover their faces that much at a departure ceremony.’
A departure ceremony exposed to the media largely served as guild promotion. In a world where image mattered, they usually tried to show off a flashy look, but Eunwol—carrying an atmosphere similar to priests—felt extremely ascetic.
‘Come to think of it, did they say Eunwol is the guild that supplies manpower to the Sun Church and the Moon Church? I should’ve looked into it more before coming.’
Temple attendants were people who, like practicing a vow of silence, erased their presence as much as possible while tending to priests. If Eunwol was a guild with many such people, that atmosphere made sense.
“Ah, this time it’s Daecheong.”
“I did hear Daecheong was joining.”
“You’re not filming Daecheong?”
“Over there, nothing fun will happen.”
“Come on, still...”
“Daecheong is too bland.”
“Then I’ll film them.”
The hunters of the guild called Daecheong all wore blue uniforms. It was different again from Eunwol earlier, which seemed characterized by white cloaks, but people’s attention wasn’t very high.
‘Daecheong... I feel like I’ve heard that name somewhere, but is it not that famous?’
Maybe it was her imagination, but fewer flashes seemed to go off than before.
‘If the name feels this familiar, then at least once it must’ve collaborated with a guy I used to stan... weird, I can’t remember at all.’
Around then, another guild’s members appeared.
“That’s Haeryeong.”
“Wow, still as free-spirited as ever.”
“They hate feeling stifled, so clothes, whatever...”
“Does Haeryeong not have a uniform?”
“Of course they do. They’ve got a black uniform, they just don’t wear it.”
“Doesn’t their guildmaster say anything?”
“They’re the kind of guys who ignore orders without blinking if it’s not combat-related. All sorts of troublemakers gathered there.”
“That’s terrifying, seriously...”
“That reporter assault incident last time was them, wasn’t it. No different from animals, I’m telling you.”
Following the reporters’ conversation, Choi Raon heard a familiar voice.
“-Hunter Sanarae-nim! Please look here just once! Hunter-nim, please...!!”
It was the woman who had just wished her luck and gone her own way.
A man reacted to her voice. Among the hunters strolling along like a pack of beasts, one person walked notably neatly; curious, Choi Raon followed him with her eyes, and his face was quite flashy.
‘...He looks like a romance-fantasy knight commander. Guess her face-stan genes are still going strong...’
His blond hair was long and straight, almost reaching the end of his tailbone, and the color was vivid. His expressionless face didn’t show any emotion, yet it wasn’t oppressive either. Combined with his mannerisms, he looked refined—quite showy, despite that tidy exterior.
Soon, perhaps realizing his fan’s desperate plea, the man turned his head toward where the sound came from.
“Huh?”
Then, after confirming his fan, he broke into a bright smile on his languid, pale face.
Did life flicker into those pitch-black eyes for an instant? The smile was so bright that Choi Raon—who had been watching her friend’s favorite without thinking—flinched.
“Noona! We meet again?”
“Naraeyaaa...! Our Sanarae is so handsome!!”
“Wow, I’m touched. Should I let you take pretty pictures?”
“Just trust noona!!”
After coming right up to the barricade and fooling around with all kinds of antics, Hunter Sanarae waved his hand lightly and returned to his pack. Since this must happen often, the fellow hunters looked both sick of it and used to it.
She heard reporters talking.
“Hunter Sanarae still has great fan service.”
“If it were me, I’d give good service too—to a fan who chased me on a weekday, in the morning, all the way to Samcheok, Gangwon Province.”
“I heard even without that, if he’s got a fan who adores him, he gets caught easily...”
“Could be image management, could be affection deprivation, could just be that he finds the squealing reactions fun. There are plenty of reasons for that punk bastard’s diligent fan service, aren’t there?”
“Anyway, hunters these days probably have to be good at that too. It’s a brutal job.”
“You little brat—young as hell, and you’re saying ‘hunters these days’ and shit. Focus your lens properly.”
Listening, Choi Raon thought to herself.
‘So that’s what he’s like normally.’
A languid, pale, yin-energy guy doing that kind of aegyo—yeah, it was the kind of impression her friend would like.
‘But, how should I put it. It did feel a little dangerous...’
His behavior was tidy like a knight and he smiled easily, but those pitch-black eyes like dead fish felt chilling somehow. Even his smiling face—eyes curving thin like a crescent moon, fox-like or snake-like—was a little creepy.
He didn’t show any particular behavior like that, but he didn’t look entirely sane either...
“...”
It was an overly rude thought toward a hunter she’d just met.
‘Just do your own job. Why are you judging someone’s impression...’
And then.
“...Oh, oh! Oh! It’s the Collector...!!”
Choi Raon’s face lit up and she raised her camera. The familiar feel and weight snapped her mind sharply awake.
“Sorry, I’m going forward a bit! Sorry!”
“Ah, what the...”
“I’m really sorry! Please move just a second...!! Just once, please!!”
Some people were annoyed, but many, seeing how desperate she was, understood and nodded. Their looks were full of, ‘Ah, her main is here,’ sympathetic understanding. Warm human kindness nearly made Choi Raon burst into tears.
Finally making it right to the front of the barricade, she set her camera stance properly and gasped.
“Waaah...!”
Maybe because it was the guild with her favorite, but it looked like an even cooler procession than all the previous guilds.
At the very front of the Collector hunters—each wearing different uniforms harmonizing black and white—stood a platinum-blond hunter. Her light and salt, who had drawn her into this harsh Gangwon Province and made her wait with a clenched heart.
‘Holy shit, the Collector’s uniform is insane...!’
She’d only ever seen him wrapped in a black cloak, but perhaps to respect the guild’s image, Hunter Seo Gio was wearing a black-and-white cloak. Even the Collector’s formal suit visible beneath it suited him perfectly.
‘Wow, wow, seriously... did he just get off work at the Louvre.’
He looked like something that needed to be designated and preserved as cultural heritage.
“...Se, Seo Gio Hunter-nim!! Seo Gio Hunter-nim...!!”
When she forced herself to raise her voice confidently, Hunter Seo Gio responded.
“Ah.”
“!”
“Ms. Choi Raon?”
“Huhk...!”
Like Hunter Sanarae earlier, Hunter Seo Gio came up to the barricade and looked at Choi Raon. With her favorite standing right in front of her, she could feel her heart pounding. Choi Raon covered her mouth.
“I, I, um... um...”
“Did you come to see me? I am grateful.”
“P, photo... just once...”
“Do as you wish.”
“Thank you...!”
By the time she came to her senses, Hunter Seo Gio was waving as he moved away.
“...”
“...”
A woman had come up beside Choi Raon before she knew it and asked.
“Did you hit the jackpot?”
“...I did...”
“Me too.”
“Yeah, it looked like it...”
“This is why you stan.”
“Good thing I took the day off.”
It was still morning, but it had already been a worthwhile day.
* * *
“...”
A woman with pink hair stared at Seo Gio like that.
“...”
“Ms. Yeongwon? What is it?”
“No, just...”
The woman’s name was Jung Yeongwon.
“I was just taking in the view.”
A friend of Yoo Seong-woon’s, and a gardener belonging to Eunwol.
(To be continued in the next episode)