Chapter 254

Chapter 254

There had been a group of students who truly liked the teacher named Seo Gio.

‘Two boys, two girls.’

Their personalities were all different.

One was taciturn, one was delinquent, one was cheerful, and one was calm. They were children who differed to extremes, yet they got along very well.

‘If you ask whether there were any students I especially remember, they’re the first ones that come to mind without question.’

A man asked Gio as he sat in a lounge chair.

“Is the coffee okay?”

“Of course.”

One of the boys Seo Gio remembered was Seo Seohui.

“Personally, I like this kind of instant coffee because it’s sweet.”

“Then that’s a relief. You didn’t seem like the type to like something like this, so I was a little nervous.”

At the remark tossed out like a joke, Gio tilted his head and asked,

“Then what do I seem like I would like?”

“Hmm, coffee brewed by a professional barista, or luxurious flower tea?”

“I like those too, of course.”

“Then I’ll take it to mean you’re not picky.”

“Every food has its excellent aspects. Mr. Seo Seohui, your thought is correct.”

As he spoke, Gio thought,

‘A child’s palate doesn’t change even when they become an adult.’

It seemed he still couldn’t feel the true taste of burned-bean water.

In the past, with the face of a taciturn model student, he had once said that there were so many delicious things in the world, so why did you have to drink bitter coffee.

Even now, whether he was serving instant coffee because of that preference, or simply because they were sitting in the Association lounge...

“...”

In any case, he liked that he could recall old memories after a long time.

‘A lot has changed in the world, but there are also things that do not change.’

He was in quite a good mood.

“For what reason did you wish to speak with me?”

“Personally, I’ve held favorable feelings toward Hunter Seo Gio.”

“I understand very well what you wish to say.”

“Was I really that obvious a guy?”

“No matter what, the things I do do suit Justitia’s tastes quite well. I simply didn’t expect it would be enough to catch Mr. Seo Seohui’s eye.”

“When you say it that directly, it’s a little embarrassing... well, it is true.”

Seo Seohui sat before Seo Gio with a grown-up appearance. In the past, Seo Gio had sat before him as his teacher. Now their roles were reversed.

Looking about his late twenties, Seo Seohui continued.

“By the way, Hunter Seo Gio, you don’t seem very afraid of me.”

“Shall I be afraid for you? If you want, I can do that for you.”

“There’s no way I’d want that. It’s just that most hunters I meet don’t speak to me comfortably, so I said it once. Since a grand name like ‘Symbol of Eternity’ got attached to me...”

“That must be troublesome.”

“...”

Seo Seohui blinked, then answered a beat late.

“...You’re the first person to say that.”

“Why is that? I heard the Association President is also your friend.”

“Ah, well... I mean that aside from my peers, there wasn’t anyone who said that.”

“I said it because I thought you wouldn’t particularly like such a grand name.”

“To be honest, that’s right. It isn’t a title I welcome.”

“And yet you don’t throw it away because it has value worth holding onto.”

“Oh...”

Seo Seohui shrugged, deliberately exaggerated.

“You’re more candid than I expected. I thought you were the type to keep distance and observe rather than speak directly.”

“I thought you weren’t someone who would sulk just because I spoke a few candid words, so I said what I was thinking as it was.”

“Ah, of course. I like candid people.”

“Because you don’t have to use your head?”

“You know me very well.”

Rubbing his chin, he asked,

“I’m asking with courage, but... did we know each other?”

“Hmm...”

Gio mulled over the question, then smiled.

“What unique courage.”

“No matter how I think about it, Hunter Seo Gio is a person whose reactions are very hard to read.”

“So you decided to ask outright?”

“I’ve been told I’m a unique person quite a lot, but I figured I couldn’t be as unique as Hunter Seo Gio.”

“As you thought, it’s something I hear often.”

“Then you don’t intend to answer my question?”

“Don’t you already know the answer?”

“...”

After a silence, Seo Seohui laughed.

“...I’m sorry.”

He looked tired.

More precisely, he had already been tired, but it felt like he had peeled off one layer of the mask he wore to hide it. With an awkward smile, he said,

“It seems you were someone I was extremely close with.”

“You were.”

“Since you didn’t seem well known within Korea, did we meet overseas? Or if you really stayed only within the Collection Merchant, then when I visited there... we might have crossed paths...”

“...”

“...I’m truly sorry. If I consider Hunter Seo Gio’s age, then the time we built familiarity would have been when the world was more chaotic. Back then, there were also many times the Association President ‘handed out promises’ too freely. You seem to already know, but... this thing called ‘promise’ is, well, very broad...”

He looked utterly exhausted.

“Is it all right for you to show me a side that doesn’t seem like Justitia’s guildmaster?”

“...Are you teasing me? Well, I just thought—what’s the point of putting on airs in front of someone who belongs to ‘Promise.’ And it doesn’t seem like Hunter Seo Gio would exploit this.”

“You seem quite used to strangers acting familiar. More than being flustered, you look tired, and you don’t seem very shocked. It must have happened often, forgetting people like this.”

“Lately it seems less so, but yes. To be honest, I can’t be sure of this either. Among those entangled in promises, sometimes the very existence itself gets erased...”

“Are you saying you even forgot what you forgot?”

“Yes. Once again, I’m truly sorry.”

Seo Seohui asked carefully,

“...Could the reason you only recently began to become known within Korea be related to a promise...? If so, I and my friends will do our best to compensate you. And of course, to the Collection Merchant that ended up being misunderstood...”

“That’s not the case.”

It seemed he had grown far more self-reproachful since the last time.

“Because it is true that I was actually hiding my presence.”

“...Then it seems I happened to come across a good connection by chance. To think I built that level of familiarity with talent the Collection Merchant kept wrapped up so tightly.”

“It was truly a good connection. At least, that is how I remember it.”

“I have no excuse for erasing such a connection like this.”

“You can speak more comfortably.”

“...More comfortably? Ah, even more comfortably than now...?”

For the first time, he looked surprised.

“...Were we that close?”

“Close enough to speak informally.”

“No way.”

“It’s true.”

More precisely, it was Seo Gio who spoke informally, but still.

“Would you believe me if I said we were close enough that I even knew your family circumstances?”

“...That? That, we—no. Wait a moment. When you say ‘your,’ how many people are you talking about...?”

“If my memory hasn’t changed too, then including Mr. Seo Seohui, it would be four in total. You were always together.”

“...”

Seo Seohui looked dumbfounded.

“...We forgot a connection that precious?”

“I was a little surprised about that as well.”

He had thought they had built quite a few memories that were too precious to forget, but he hadn’t expected they would forget every memory of this teacher.

“But it must have been used somewhere more valuable.”

And so he felt sorry for them.

“You’ve worked very hard.”

“...Uh...”

“Because I don’t enjoy going out, and I have difficulty interacting with strangers, I only learned quite recently that you were in a situation like this. It must have been difficult for you until now.”

“...”

“I felt regretful, thinking you must have suffered so much in places unknown to me.”

After a long silence, Seo Seohui smiled awkwardly.

“...I don’t know from where, with what memories... and to what extent we offered to the promise.”

He seemed a little excited, too.

“...I want to talk in more detail. What kind of connection we had, how Hunter Seo Gio has lived, why you revealed yourself only now... I have so many things I’m curious about.”

“You don’t need to rush.”

There was no reason to.

“Haven’t you lived well even without the existence called ‘me’ until now?”

“Hearing that makes me even more curious. Hunter Seo Gio, you speak as though you were a rather important existence to us.”

“No, it could be that I alone remember you as a very private and intimate connection. A memory that has vanished will not return easily, so I think it isn’t bad to leave it as it is.”

“Thank you for saying that—I feel much more at ease. Still, are you not... disappointed, that we forgot you?”

“I’m a little disappointed. I’m human too, and we were close in our own way.”

But he understood.

“Even so, I am not an existence you absolutely need.”

“Are you drawing a line? Now I’ll be the one who feels disappointed.”

“I would be grateful if you think of it as trivial sulking. You may not know, but I have never agreed to you erasing your memories of me...”

“...”

Seo Seohui’s face stiffened slightly.

“...Have you ever died?”

“It doesn’t seem like you recalled something, so I’m curious why you would ask that.”

“There’s no way we would have offered memories of a living friend to the promise without their consent. Unless they had died and become a memory—but that would be too cruel to each other... so we promised not to do that.”

“My, I misspoke.”

“...”

Seo Seohui rubbed his face, then put on his usual smile.

“...Could we perhaps move somewhere else and continue this talk? I wanted to confirm how entangled we are in promises, but it seems you were an even greater VIP than I imagined to be talking in a place like this.”

“I’m sorry, but my companions are waiting. In particular, Guildmaster Bisavol is extremely attentive to my safety, so I don’t want to make him worry. More than anything, wouldn’t it be better for us to organize our thoughts our thoughts and speak again?”

Gio blinked and looked at Seo Seohui.

“Ah, and...”

It was a thought that suddenly came to him.

“Did you only offer up your memories?”

“...Yes?”

“It seems that is something I will need to think about too.”

Gio stood up.

“I’ll see you later.”

“Then... when you have the time, may I arrange a meeting?”

“I think I’ll only have time after the matter with this dungeon is finished.”

“That gives us one more reason to subdue the dungeon quickly.”

“I would only be grateful if you say so.”

Giovanni personally didn’t like that dungeon. If someone as capable as Seo Seohui would help, it was something to be grateful for.

“Please enter carefully.”

“You too, Hunter Seo Gio.”

Gio left the lounge as is, and met Juhyeon, who had been waiting.

“Did you finish your conversation well?”

“Yes, it was a very beneficial conversation.”

“You look like you’re in a good mood.”

“Because I met a welcome connection after a long time.”

Then he asked the bright red snake hanging around Juhyeon’s neck,

“Do I have a hole in me?”

“...”

The snake tilted its head.

“I don’t know.”

“As expected, this seems to be a problem I need to think about.”

“A hole? That would be difficult for a human to accomplish.”

“In the process of fate being shaped, won’t anything be dug into?”

“How interesting.”

“Me too.”

Gio looked at Juhyeon.

“Let’s return to the Collection Merchant now.”

“Shall we?”

Because they had to establish countermeasures for the dungeon.

* * *

“...”

Left alone, Seo Seohui soon opened his mouth.

“...Did you hear?”

[I heard.]

Association President Dan Haera appeared beside him as a translucent hologram.

[There are many possibilities.]

“He didn’t look like someone who could be exploited.”

[If Haewoon heard, she’d nag again about being insensitive to safety.]

“You felt something similar too, didn’t you? That’s why you’re reacting like this.”

[Because he’s someone from the Collection Merchant...]

Dan Haera continued slowly.

[Because I thought he might truly be someone who died.]

She still remembered a portrait that had been snatched away by a collector at an auction.

Yes, it was time that could not be easily forgotten. When she saw it, her breath caught and the muscles around her eyes trembled. Dan Haera at the time had clearly been shaken.

[I first saw him at an auction.]

“...Is it that portrait after all? The Black Cloak?”

[I can’t be sure. It could be the Black Cloak itself, or it could be an accessory of the Black Cloak.]

“The mystique of the Black Cloak is too large for an existence that was human to hold, so the latter is more likely.”

[It could have gathered the dead Hunter Seo Gio and made him into the form of a portrait. It’s already been revealed that through the Black Cloak’s heaven, it can operate souls.]

“Then it also explains why Hunter Seo Gio’s timing of appearance and the Black Cloak’s timing of appearance roughly overlap. The gap in rank and persuasiveness would be different, so we should treat it as a separate existence.”

[It could be a half-assimilated existence too. If Hunter Seo Gio is truly the Black Cloak’s hands and feet.]

“He didn’t feel non-human, but perhaps the mimicry is just that excellent...”

[Or he could simply be human.]

Dan Haera continued.

[When I saw the portrait, it was a faint sensation, but I definitely felt fate. I instinctively realized it was an existence I had promised to erase. So I wanted to buy that portrait...]

“But it was snatched away by Guildmaster Bisavol.”

[So I only thought he might truly have been dead. The method is bizarre and rare, but in today’s world, it isn’t that people never come back from death.]

“Are you sure that portrait was Hunter Seo Gio himself?”

[Yes, of course.]

She could recognize that much.

[Because he would be the connection I erased.]

It was instinct.

But why was it? At some point, she forgot the portrait’s face. No, she even forgot that fact.

Still, if she had been shaken by seeing a portrait yet didn’t know the face, then wasn’t that simply forgetting what it looked like?

[Hmm, thinking back, it does seem it might have been a face like that...]

“If you’re saying that, then it seems we weren’t the ones who erased the memory of his appearance. They said none of the auction participants remembered the portrait’s face.”

[Right. Everyone remembers the piece from back then as a portrait painted over with black paint. They don’t even know if the hair was black, blonde, or red.]

“I think I heard a story that the Collection Merchant also did something.”

[Then it seems I wasn’t the one who offered the memory of the portrait’s face to the promise. No—could there be a connection? Realizing it had been erased from us, he might have erased everything about himself...]

“The feeling that he’s an increasingly unique person is really hitting me.”

Seo Seohui laughed.

“If he truly died and came back to life, then I understand why the collector clings to him like that. If a beloved son, cherished enough to tell no one, became a portrait, then combined with the original taste...”

[It’d be enough to make his eyes roll back.]

“But I’m curious—how did we come to meet Hunter Seo Gio? It would have been while he was alive, not after he died, but since days when all four of us gathered weren’t common, it would basically have been during major disasters. Was Eunhye still just a civilian then?”

[Perhaps one of us met him first and that connection spread. If you go by that, you or Haewoon would be more likely than me or Eunhye, since we don’t move around much.]

“Even if her awakening was as a tamer, the 분위기 was like a priest, so maybe it was Haewoon’s side...?”

But Hunter Seo Gio didn’t seem to have much lingering attachment to this connection.

“...”

[Seems like you feel disappointed.]

“...We chose to erase it—what do you mean, disappointed.”

[At least, you don’t look like you feel good.]

“Because the conversation was enjoyable after a long time.”

Because she thought he was clearly a good person.

“Thinking that such a person has been acting like he doesn’t know us... I feel a little disappointed.”

Selfishly, that is.

(Continued in the next part)