Kwon Taehan coughed repeatedly before finally regaining his senses.
“How... what happened?”
“The Dungeon Boss? Dead. We can leave now.”
“How? You....”
He started to say something naturally before abruptly shutting his mouth.
It was easy enough to guess what he had wanted to say. Since he could see my Status Window, he had probably been about to point out that I was only B-rank.
I answered calmly.
“My water-type Skills had good compatibility with this place.”
“But this is still an A-rank Dungeon.”
“Yeah.... Guess I was lucky too?”
After replying indifferently, I immediately reached out and pulled Kwon Taehan to his feet.
“Let’s talk outside first.”
“.......”
Once outside the Dungeon, police officers managing the situation were waiting as expected. One of them hurried over, greeted Kwon Taehan, and asked about the personnel status inside.
In a hoarse voice, Kwon Taehan answered,
“There’s nobody else.”
“Ah, so it was just the two of you.... Yes, understood.”
Kwon Taehan nodded, then turned to look at me.
Instead of answering, I simply closed my eyes once before opening them again.
At that moment, the officer held out a phone.
“Hunter Kwon. Starting from this incident, we need all Hunters to fill out personal information after a clear for our personnel records. If you could enter it here... yes, just fill out that section.”
“Ah.”
Kwon Taehan nodded and obediently started filling out the information before suddenly glancing at me. When our eyes met, he hesitated for a moment before speaking evenly.
“...Want me to fill yours out too?”
It was obviously an attempt to investigate my identity.
Still, I answered without much reaction.
“Seo Jehyun.”
Kwon Taehan already knew my name from my Status Window, but he pretended not to and obediently wrote it down anyway.
Then, after looking at the name he had written, I laughed like I found it amusing.
“...What.”
“You spelled my name correctly?”
“What are you talking about?”
“When people hear it out loud, they usually write it with the wrong ‘Jae’ character.... But you wrote it properly. Jehyun.”
“.......”
At those words, Kwon Taehan’s body stiffened slightly.
It was obvious he was trying to act calm as he asked,
“...Want me to rewrite it?”
“What are you talking about? You wrote it correctly.”
“.......”
“Write the next thing too.”
“...How old are you?”
At Kwon Taehan’s question, I lightly grabbed his shoulder and lowered my head slightly.
“How do you not know? We’re friends.”
“...What?”
Watching Kwon Taehan become instantly overwhelmed with confusion, I let out a quiet snicker before adding,
“We’re the same age.”
“.......”
“Oh, you need the first part of my resident registration number too. Birthday’s February 25.”
“.......”
“What are you doing? You have to write it.”
After that, Kwon Taehan continued filling out all the personal information I dictated before handing the phone back to the officer.
After exchanging greetings with the police, Kwon Taehan started walking toward his car, only to suddenly freeze and turn around again.
After casually greeting the officers myself, I calmly climbed into Kwon Taehan’s car.
“...Why are you getting in?”
“I didn’t bring my own car. Give me a ride home.”
“What?”
“You any good at driving? Feels like you probably suck.”
Even while wearing a dumbfounded expression, Kwon Taehan still got into the driver’s seat first.
“...What’s your address?”
“I already told you. While we were filling out the information.”
“How am I supposed to remember that?”
“I remember your address. Are you just stupid?”
“.......”
I looked at Kwon Taehan like he was pathetic before personally entering the address into the navigation system.
Kwon Taehan looked like he was trying to come up with a rebuttal, but eventually gave up and grabbed the steering wheel.
Right as they were nearly at my house, Kwon Taehan finally spoke.
“...How did you get here today? Did you know I’d be there?”
“What kind of obvious question is that....”
SCREECH—
The car abruptly stopped.
“Fuck, Taehan. Drive safely.”
“...You’ve got something going on, don’t you.”
“What?”
“That time didn’t feel like coincidence either.... And this—”
Kwon Taehan muttered with a strained expression, like he was forcibly swallowing down the words trying to spill out.
“Your Title too... it’s weird.”
I let out a short laugh before sharply turning my head toward him.
“Taehan, you’re way weirder.”
“What?”
“You mutter to empty air like a complete lunatic.... Shouting about saving the world, demanding to know why nobody stopped this from happening in the first place.... What exactly are you doing?”
“.......”
“And just now you even wrote my name correctly.... Ah, maybe that part was luck?”
It seemed he had instantly lost the ability to respond, because Kwon Taehan’s lips pressed tightly shut.
Staring directly into his wavering eyes, I continued,
“People who are overly suspicious usually tend to be doing suspicious things themselves....”
As I deliberately trailed off, unease slowly spread across Kwon Taehan’s face.
I quietly watched him before speaking again.
“I’ll let it slide.”
“...What?”
“I’ll overlook the fact that you’re acting blatantly suspicious.”
“.......”
“Let’s not suspect each other, okay?”
I twisted the corner of my mouth upward.
Kwon Taehan immediately turned his head away with a complicated expression.
***
After that, Kwon Taehan and I continued running into each other often.
Usually inside Dungeons, occasionally outside them.
Even outside the Dungeons, though, the relationship itself did not progress much.
Still, the pattern of our encounters was always consistent.
I did not know whether Kwon Taehan realized it, but...
I only appeared during his moments of crisis.
Always intervening at exactly the right level.
Honestly, Kwon Taehan’s crises happened more often outside Dungeons than inside them.
Whenever Hunters or civilians died, people demanded accountability.
And when the target happened to be an S-rank Hunter, the public’s standards became especially harsh.
There was nothing special hidden inside their microphones or cameras, yet Kwon Taehan reacted to them like he was being strangled every single time.
It happened again when the overwhelming crowd pushed him toward the edge of a panic attack.
“H-Huh? What?”
“Huh? It’s raining!”
Suddenly, rain began pouring down from the sky.
At first only a few drops fell, but within moments it became a violent downpour.
The reporters standing there without umbrellas or raincoats hurried off in panic to throw waterproof covers over their cameras.
But Kwon Taehan alone did not look around in confusion.
Because he already knew what had caused the rain.
Pouring Rain(A) is activating.
It was Seo Jehyun’s Skill.
After blankly staring at the Status Window, Kwon Taehan hurriedly started moving.
“Hunter Kwon! The interview—!”
The reporters all tried chasing after him, but between the disorganized crowd and the torrential rain, they quickly fell behind.
Kwon Taehan did not bother looking back at them.
Instead, he frantically followed the Status Window, circling through alleyways.
“Fuck, where are you?”
A rough curse slipped out of his mouth, something you normally would never hear from Kwon Taehan.
And then—
his body was suddenly yanked into a car.
“Seo Jehyun!”
This time he had not even looked at the Status Window, yet somehow he still guessed it was me immediately.
Though honestly, there had never been much room for error here.
“What.”
“The rain.... You did it, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t you check the weather forecast?”
“Don’t lie to me. There wasn’t any rain forecast today.”
Of course, Kwon Taehan had never actually checked the forecast.
His certainty came entirely from the brightly glowing Status Window right in front of him.
Without answering, I pulled the car out smoothly.
The car slid backward across the rain-slick road before instantly leaving the alley behind.
“If you use Skills that openly outside... people will notice.”
“Who’s going to suspect me?”
“Anyone would be suspicious.”
“You worry about weird things.”
I replied shortly before pressing the accelerator.
VROOOOM—
The car lunged forward aggressively.
Kwon Taehan reflexively grabbed the handle before quickly letting go again.
After all, even if he got thrown out of the car right now, he would not die.
No—maybe it was more accurate to say he could not die.
Perhaps realizing that himself, Kwon Taehan fell silent for a while.
The sound of rain striking the windows had already disappeared.
After a long silence, Kwon Taehan finally spoke.
“I thought about it.”
“Go on.”
“What you said before. About needing to redefine the goal.”
“Me?”
I raised an eyebrow before quickly understanding.
“Right. Because all S-ranks are monsters.”
At my words, Kwon Taehan slowly began speaking.
“You said I should change the objective. Instead of clearing Gates to protect civilians... I should focus on killing the lifeforms inside the Gates instead. You said that suited me better anyway.”
“Mm, that’s true, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. The two things are completely different....”
Kwon Taehan trailed off before continuing in a firmer voice than before.
“If my purpose changes like that, then I’ll keep getting my priorities wrong. What if I start enjoying killing? I don’t want to live like that. Even though I am killing right now... killing.”
“Yeah, you are killing, just like you said. You’re just not killing people.”
“I don’t really know how to explain it.... But I think I still need my own beliefs. Even if you’d laugh hearing it, I still need to think I’m saving people so that....”
“So that?”
“So I can endure it.”
That final sentence came out clearly.
I turned to look at Kwon Taehan.
“Anyway, I have a goal. The world’s going to be destroyed.... So we have to prepare to stop that.”
“Destroyed? That’s some pretty vague nonsense.”
“You probably won’t believe me.... But things are absolutely going to end up that way.”
“You a pessimist? You seem more like the optimistic type.”
“.......”
As the traffic light changed, I started driving again toward a very familiar address.
Kwon Taehan’s home.
After a brief silence while driving, I spoke in a flat tone.
“I figured you’d say that.”
“...Say what?”
“That you’d separate the two things.”
I frowned slightly before lowering the windows a little.
Because both the driver’s and passenger’s windows opened slightly, wind rushed into the car and messed up both our hair at once.
Blankly, Kwon Taehan asked,
“Why?”
“Because you’re kind.”
At my casual answer, Kwon Taehan’s hand twitched slightly.
“...No, not really.”
“Does being kind mean producing good results? Or does it mean having good intentions?”
Cutting off Kwon Taehan’s nonsense immediately, I asked the question.
At those words, Kwon Taehan slowly raised his gaze again.
I continued naturally.
“I was taught both counted as kindness. But after actually living... I think the latter’s the real thing.”
“I don’t think so.”
“No, Taehan.... The latter is kindness. The former is just—”
“...Just what?”
Watching Kwon Taehan ask like an idiot, I let out a small laugh.
“Just luck.”
“.......”
Right then, they arrived in front of Kwon Taehan’s house.
Ever since being driven out over security concerns, Kwon Taehan had been living in a detached house, and somehow reporters had already swarmed the place completely.
Looking at the now-silent Kwon Taehan, I casually shut off the engine and spoke.
“And because I’m kind, I’ll ask you this. Your house is a complete disaster right now, we know each other a little, the whole world already knows all your information, but you barely know a few details about me.”
“.......”
“But right now, my intention is to rescue an S-rank Hunter in distress. An S-rank Hunter in distress? Ah, that sentence really is funny.”
“.......”
Click.
The car’s interior lights turned on.
I looked directly at Kwon Taehan.
His gaze had barely left me this entire time.
I slowly curled one corner of my mouth upward.
“Make your choice, Taehan.”
“.......”
“Want to come to my place?”