Chapter 263: Episode 263

“I’m a huge fan!” Ha Yerin’s eyes shone as she clutched Jin Bora’s hand tightly. Bora clearly didn’t mind the VIP treatment.

As the guilty party, I just silently flipped the meat and watched the two of them hit it off perfectly.

“Bora, can I call you that?”

“Hold it, stop right there!” Without thinking, I squeezed the tongs in my hand. “Why am I Ahjussi and she gets to be Bora? Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”

“Oh, come on, calling a woman ajumma is rude, Ahjussi.”

“…So calling me Ahjussi is you being polite?”

“Wow, it’s all done! Thanks for the food!” Dodging the question with practiced ease, she snatched up a piece of meat and dunked it in ssamjang before popping it straight into her mouth. “Mmmmmm! This is so good!” She even did a little arm-shiver for effect.

“Eat up! It’s on me today!” Bora declared.

“Thank you!”

Maybe it was because she was at that age where you can eat endlessly, but Ha Yerin devoured every slice of samgyeopsal I put on her plate like she was going into battle.

Even while she was eating, Bora kept getting calls and had to step outside. Most of the time she answered in an annoyed tone, hung up, and came back.

“Work life’s rough, huh?” I chuckled.

“…Ugh, don’t even get me started! You need to hurry up and come back to help us out.”

“Forget it for now. I’m going to enjoy this freedom to the fullest.”

Ha Yerin tilted her head. “So, what exactly is the relationship between you two?”

“Ah.” Come to think of it, we had never coordinated our cover story in front of her.

I shot Bora a quick look and silently mouthed, “Niece.” She nodded with a bright smile.

“He’s my dad’s friend.”

“Ah, I knew you were old—”

“Hey! Hold it!”

We got into a brief argument over the “concept.”

“In reality, we’re senior and junior hunters.” It wasn’t even a lie, so we settled on that. Ha Yerin just stared blankly, not quite following what was going on.

“Oh, then the senior is…”

“Of course he’s the senior here!” Bora jumped in to answer and then shot me a sharp glare. “You could’ve just told the truth. What’s with the random ‘niece’ thing?”

…Ahem. In my defense, I didn’t want to give Ha Yerin any clues about my real identity. It just ended up backfiring. The one bit of good news was that, in her mind, the name “Kim Yusin” wasn’t even a possibility.

Which made sense. As far as the public was concerned, I had died five years ago.

“Ahjussi! Aren’t you going to eat that pickled garlic leaf?”

“Can’t you see I’m saving it?”

“Give it to the high school girl.”

“Shut it! Being in high school isn’t some royal title.”

We laughed and joked our way through a fun dinner. After downing a ton of soda, Ha Yerin headed to the restroom again, and Bora casually asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m going to try contacting Seojin.”

“Ah…”

My throat suddenly felt dry. I took a sip of beer and continued. “And what I asked you for?”

“All ready. We can do it anytime. Have you decided what you’re going to ask Mr. Seojin?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a rough plan.” I set down my empty beer glass, dunked a green chili pepper deep into the ssamjang, and took a big bite. “…I hope it’s not Seojin.”

“I feel the same.”

We both let out a quiet sigh.

* * *

The next morning, I took extra care with my appearance.

I slathered on mousse and styled my hair with some volume, then put on a sharp, custom-tailored suit that fit me perfectly. I knotted a neat striped tie and strapped a luxury watch—borrowed from one of Bora’s acquaintances—onto my wrist.

Finally, I climbed into a sleek, premium foreign car, the kind people like to call a “CEO car.”

Oh, obviously, it wasn’t mine. My job for the day was to play chauffeur.

’Why am I this nervous about something like this?’

I lightly gripped the steering wheel. The leather was so smooth and soft that I didn’t want to let go. From the seat to the floor mats, everything was made of ultra-high-end cowhide, and I found myself sitting up straighter without even realizing it.

Using the rearview mirror, I checked my hair one last time and made sure the water veil covering my face was in place when I heard loud voices off to the side.

“Where’s Driver Hong, and why’d they send some snot-nosed kid instead?”

“Don’t even ask. They say he’s some kid Jin Bora pulled strings for.”

“Jesus, this is insane. Why the hell is the Tower Master’s side meddling in chauffeur assignments?”

They were clearly talking about me, but since I was only stopping by for a bit, I couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss, so I let it go in one ear and out the other.

Just like they said, I had gotten this chauffeur gig through Bora’s connections. Since Jeong Seojin was so hard to get close to, this was the only way to approach him.

Just then, I heard fingers tapping on the window. The two guys from earlier were gesturing for me to roll it down. I did as they asked.

“You’re the one driving from today?”

“Yes.”

“Not ‘yes,’ kid.” He let out a dry laugh and continued. “We’re the Chairman’s bodyguards. Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, so why don’t we at least introduce ourselves?”

Damn it. I had been hoping to avoid the whole social routine since I would only see them for a day. Instead, I rolled the window back up, then swung the front door open with a flourish and stepped out. The two of them flinched and shuffled back.

Then—

“My name is Kim Chun-chu, and I’ll be serving as Chairman Jeong’s driver! It’s an honor to work with you, sirs!” I bent at the waist and put every ounce of my being into the polite gesture.

“Now we’re talking. So, where’d you go to school?”

“Where you from?”

They started in on some pointless background check. That was when I heard footsteps approaching.

Someone was walking toward us. He wore a suit that fit so perfectly it was almost unreal, along with designer sunglasses. One hand was in his pocket, the other held a phone to his ear. His aides walked beside him, holding documents and rattling off explanations at high speed.

He had always been tall, but he somehow looked even taller than I remembered.

’…Seojin.’

A wave of tension crashed over me, and I swallowed hard. Talking to Jeong Seojin for the first time in five years was nerve-wracking enough, but if he was a demon, then I would have to kill him here today. That thought alone felt like it was tightening around my throat.

’Could I really kill Jeong Seojin?’

“Hey!” One of the bodyguards smacked the back of my head. Still bent at the waist, they glared up at me with wide eyes. “Don’t space out, bow!”

’Seriously? You hit people over that?’

I silently counted to three and bowed to Seojin along with them.

After finishing the briefing from his aides, Seojin walked up to the car. I opened the back door with what I hoped was a smooth, professional motion. Once he got in, I closed it and returned to the driver’s seat.

“We’ll be heading out now.”

Seojin nodded while looking over some documents. I stepped on the gas and smoothly pulled away from the Alchemia headquarters building.

We merged onto the road. The air felt suffocating, and sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I stole a glance at him in the rearview mirror. At some point, he had taken off his sunglasses and put on glasses instead, reading through the paperwork. With one leg crossed and his hand on his chin, he even managed to look dignified.

“I don’t recognize you.”

I almost jumped. I straightened my back and replied, “Yes, sir! I’ll be driving you from today, Chairman! I’ll do my very best!”

“I look forward to working with you.”

When we hit a red light and the car stopped, I casually reached out and turned on the radio. I had been properly briefed. They told me that during his commute, Seojin liked to listen to the morning news on the radio.

[Next up. The dispute over dungeon operation rights in Iran continues to escalate into a fierce battle of interests between China and the United States. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated that it has no intention of reversing its position, and—]

“You look young for someone in this line of work.”

’Uh, is he talking to me?’

“Ah, yes! I’m twenty-nine this year!”

“Twenty-nine…” He stroked his chin. “Same age.”

“Oh, really? So the Chairman and I are the same—”

“I wasn’t talking about myself.”

Seojin slowly closed his eyes and stayed that way for a while. I knew instantly that he had been talking about me. And just like that, the trembling stopped. The tension drained away, replaced by a strange calm.

“Actually, I’m a born-and-raised Seoul guy, so I know all the back roads. Three years ago, I did some courier work on a motorcycle.”

I knew what kind of topics interested him. Part-time jobs, medical trivia, real estate, Italian food, Exio, and so on. By poking at the right subjects, I managed to draw him into a conversation. Mostly, I talked and Seojin responded.

“Exio ticketing, huh. There was a time when I got pretty into that myself.”

“Hahaha! That’s unexpected.”

As we chatted, I subtly altered our route, deliberately not using the GPS.

“Hmm? This seems a little different from the way we usually go.” Sharp as ever, he noticed right away.

“Haha! I know every shortcut in these back alleys. At this hour, if we take Olympic-daero, the traffic will be brutal.”

“That’s reassuring.”

I steered us into a side street and let my ears drift back to the radio. It should be coming up soon. Not this overseas resource dispute stuff, but the biggest domestic story right now.

[In other news, there is growing support for the claim that the Kim Yusin Museum incident was not a simple rift event, but a premeditated crime. The fact that all security cameras were destroyed at once, and that the hunter who killed the monsters has not been identified, suggests that—]

I caught Seojin in the rearview mirror, fully focused on the Kim Yusin Museum story.

“Come to think of it, you must have known Hunter Kim Yusin, Chairman. You probably worked with him too…”

“Yes. I did.”

“What kind of person was Hunter Kim Yusin?”

I knew this was not the kind of question an employee should be asking. But it was time to show my hand and start probing.

He closed his eyes at my question. “I’m not really in the mood to talk about that.”

’…So he was going to dodge it like that.’

I glanced at him in the mirror, silently asking for more, but Seojin did not open his mouth again.

In the meantime, we were almost at our destination. As we turned into a narrow alley, the car jolted more and more over the uneven ground.

“This is odd.” Seojin looked out the window. “Is this really a shortcut…”

“Chairman,” I cut him off. “This is just my personal opinion, but I think half of Kim Yusin’s success was because of you. Without you, he might have become an excellent hunter, but he never would have become the towering, influential figure he was in the hunter world. You were the one who put him at the very top.”

His expression hardened. “…You’re not just a driver, are you?”

“At the same time, you were an ambitious man. Five years later, Unix is on the decline, while Alchemia has absorbed Unix’s capital and is thriving, monopolizing potion distribution worldwide. It’s impressive, really.”

I brought the car to a stop. We were in the middle of nowhere, an empty redevelopment lot with nothing but old concrete buildings.

“It would have been better if you hadn’t burned through Kim Yusin for the sake of that ambition.” I turned to him with a crooked smile. “Don’t you think?”

At the snap of my fingers, the magic circles etched into the car’s surface all detonated at once. I slipped out through the front windshield just in time and, watching the vehicle become engulfed in a massive blaze, began drawing up my mana.

Magic circles scattered throughout the lot activated in response to my signal. The sky, the ground, the buildings—everything around us turned blood-red, as if seen through a crimson lens. Then I triggered two more spells. Sound cut out, and the surroundings warped like ripples spreading through water.

They didn’t have any real effect; it was just magical theatrics. But humans are wired to feel uneasy in the face of the unfamiliar.

I stared into the burning car.

Smashing through the flaming frame, Jeong Seojin stepped out. His clothes were a bit singed, but his body was unscathed. Where the top half of his outfit had burned away, solid, well-defined muscles showed through.

He took a quick look around, then fixed his gaze on my face. I was wearing a new water veil.

His expression grew grave. “…Who are you?”

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