Chapter 123 - Chapter 120: Episode 118 - A New Breeze
Beside the highway.
In the middle of a vast, blue plain, a park had been built out of nowhere.
With a large monument in the center covered in rows of names, it was clear at a glance that this was a place for commemoration and mourning.
The cold gravestones, bearing the names of those long gone, were the only proof left.
At the edge of the park stood three tombstones.
Each one bore a name.
My own, my mother's, and finally, my father's...
In front of them stood a man tightly holding the hand of a small girl, while a woman watched the two of them.
The man gazed at one of the names and spoke with a wistful expression.
"Father... I've come to visit."
The father I had missed so dearly had already gone to a distant place where I could no longer reach him.
The last time I saw him was a month before my wedding to Yu-rin.
I never imagined that my father, who was so healthy back then, would pass away within a few years.
That was why I didn't want to believe the words that had come from Sophia's mouth.
But now, I had to accept it.
This cold tombstone was the proof.
The proof that I have only one family left.
Feeling the touch of a small palm, Seon-ah was lost in these thoughts.
"I'm sorry... This child... I... I can only say I'm sorry, Father..."
The daughter born between me and my mother.
The thought made my chest heavy.
I was reminded once again that I had committed a grave sin against my father.
Although it happened because of Sophia, I had no intention of making excuses.
Sophia had offered me a contract, and I had accepted it.
It was no different from something I had wanted myself.
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Recalling how I created this child just to serve as a vessel for Sophia, I felt a deep sense of guilt toward Yena.
However, knowing Yu-ra was watching from behind, I couldn't tell the truth.
"Appa..."
Perhaps sensing Seon-ah's heart, Yena called out to him with a pitiful look.
Hearing that weak, small cry, I raised my right hand to soothe her and stroked her hair.
Caught in a mix of complex emotions, Seon-ah just stared at the tombstone, lost in thought.
"Now that I think about it... I've become a father now. I thought I wasn't prepared for anything yet... I wonder if Father felt this way, too..."
It was a heartfelt statement, heavy with Seon-ah's desolation.
But there was no one left to answer.
Worries are for the living, after all.
Watching this, Yu-ra felt as if her heart were being torn apart.
The sight of the Min-ah family, ruined by her own daughter, Yu-rin—the horror of it was clear in a single glance. Knowing that, she couldn't help but feel guilty as she looked at the four of them gathered there.
Seon-ah spoke again in front of his father's grave.
"Father... someday... if I get the chance..."
'I will get Mother back.'
He swallowed the final words into his heart.
To be honest, it was nearly impossible, so Seon-ah kept the rest to himself.
The three of them couldn't leave the tombstones for a long time.
Their complex emotions kept them rooted to the spot.
Yena, too, looking at the grave of her grandfather, Hyeon-tae, couldn't help but realize her own situation.
That she was a child who shouldn't have been born in either the Demon World or on Earth...
She couldn't help but feel the crushing reality of that fact.
The field staff of the Hwaryong Guild always felt anxious whenever they heard a new recruit was coming.
No matter how short-handed they were, the news of a rookie joining didn't bring joy; it brought a headache.
Since their work was a matter of life and death, an incompetent recruit could get everyone killed.
To put it bluntly, they preferred experienced hunters hired through headhunting over rookies.
Even if the newcomer held a higher rank, they still preferred the experienced ones because their lives were on the line.
In a job where your life is at stake, shallow pride about seniority had long since been tossed aside.
I'm sure it was the same everywhere in the industry.
There was only one reason I was thinking about this.
Because a new recruit was coming today.
I was so surprised by the rumor that it was a man that I urgently contacted the HR department at headquarters.
When a colleague in HR confirmed the rumor was true, I finally started to wonder if headquarters had lost their minds.
Thinking that this giant guild had finally failed to withstand the changing times and was implementing a male hiring quota, I even wondered if I was the one who had gone crazy for failing to read the room.
I started working as a hunter at twenty-two, built up six years of experience, and now at twenty-eight, I was standing in the field as the deputy team leader of the vanguard team for the Hwaryong Guild's 3rd Suppression Unit.
Of course, I knew well that my promotion was fast only because the majority of the high-ranking Hwaryong hunters who participated in the expedition had died.
I always tried my hardest to become someone worthy of the position.
Because in this industry, you had no choice but to die otherwise.
That was why I knew even better that this job, with its 15 percent annual mortality rate, was absolutely not for a man.
One might underestimate a 15 percent mortality rate, but there were many other obstacles.
Even excluding the death rate, cases where people became disabled, unable to handle daily life due to injuries, or suffered mental breakdowns were commonplace.
Considering that, it would be more accurate to calculate it by adding the annual death rate to the retirement rate.
The retirement rate due to disability is 20 percent.
Combined, 35 percent of personnel retire or die annually.
Even the hunters themselves didn't know how the industry survived with so many people dying or retiring every year.
However, I was certain it was because veterans kept staying in their roles, and the return rate of retired hunters had been quite high for several years.
Most retired hunters had more mental aftereffects than physical ones.
Since healers could fix most external injuries—even reattaching a severed limb—that wasn't the main issue.
However, healing mental trauma was nearly impossible because mental-type ability users were rare, and reversing psychological damage was incredibly difficult.
Even so, it was common for hunters with mental disabilities to return.
The reason was more realistic than one might think.
Hunter work pays better than you'd think.
Even as a rookie, you take home ten times the monthly salary of a regular office worker every time a gate is cleared, so it's impossible not to be greedy.
If you return to society due to a mental disability and take a regular job, you notice that your spending habits have grown and your income has plummeted, so you return to the front lines.
Having witnessed many times the astonishing situation where greed overcomes mental illness, I couldn't help but chuckle at the thought.
Originally, people with a history of mental illness weren't allowed to be hunters, but after a large number of high-ranking hunters died in the expedition project a few years ago, the government enacted a law to fill those vacancies.
The one who spearheaded that grand project was Park Yu-ra, the former representative of the Hwaryong Guild to which I belong.
As a result, there were many cases where physically and mentally weak men couldn't endure it once they entered.
Besides that, the fact that they are the primary target of monsters is the scariest thing.
I actually remembered a man who joined in the class before mine when I first started as a rookie.
Was his name Kim Hyo-won...?
I recalled the name of that senior, who now existed only as a name in this world, registered as an accidental death.
His story of being kidnapped by a vampire—a high-ranking monster among monsters—was honestly shocking.
When I heard that the vanguard team leader of a lower-gate suppression unit, composed of C-rank or lower hunters, had used a man from the supply team as bait and made a mistake, I realized that monsters weren't the only obstacle for men working as hunters.
They should have gone in with the clearing team, but they used an innocent supply team member as they pleased just to get 20 percent more money.
Greed.
It was something to be wary of, whether it was someone else's or your own.
The biggest lesson I learned while crossing the line between life and death during my six years of work was that one must abandon greed.
Otherwise, someone would become a victim.
Or they would ruin themselves.
It was one of the two.
This hunter job was a position where it was impossible not to be greedy.
If greed dominated the heart even for a moment, the victim was highly likely to be a male hunter.
"Team leader... they say a new recruit is coming this time..."
"I heard vaguely, too... A man?..."
"Haa... to be honest, it's good that a healer-type ability user, which is said to be rare, has applied to the vanguard team, but I'm worried about whether they will draw too much aggro when we enter the gate."
When clearing a gate with a healer, monsters were intelligent enough to target the hunter using healing abilities first.
It was natural; they were intelligent beings, just like us.
I imagined how much aggro would be drawn if you added the fact that they were a man on top of being a healer.
If monsters that smelled a man's scent targeted him intensively, a difficult situation could arise.
Furthermore, since they were humanoid creatures that looked the same but had slightly thicker skin, hair, and hide, I had a hard time killing monsters at first.
I was worried about whether the new male recruit would be shocked to see such monsters dying in front of his eyes, and whether that would cause the team's performance to drop, putting our own lives at risk.
Just for the single reason of being a man, everything was a worry.
"Yeah... if it weren't for the fact that he's a man... he might have been a bit reliable..."
"Team leader Kim Soo-ah... are you a lesbian?... Don't come near me..."
To shake off the heavy atmosphere, the deputy team leader made a joke.
The team leader laughed like crazy and tried to slap the deputy team leader's back.
"No, are you crazy? Who are you talking to? I'm your superior."
"It's only a two-class difference, anyway."
It was a prank they could only play because they were close.
They couldn't have become this close in the past.
After many of the B-rank or higher hunters in the Hwaryong Guild died due to the expedition incident, a new wind blew, and most of the remaining high-ranking hunters changed jobs or retired.
Among them, the two who were close in class, got along well, and had joined the guild as rookies from the beginning, naturally became close.
While those two were joking around.
Someone knocked on the door of the 3rd Suppression Unit's vanguard team office.
"May I come in? This is Manager Kim Seora from the HR department at headquarters."
Finally, the moment had arrived.
It was clear that the HR manager had come directly from headquarters with the person we had been talking about.
Team leader Kim Soo-ah's eyes narrowed.