Just then, the elevator came to a stop. Wondering if this was where they were supposed to get off, he looked at Gong Siyoung. Without a word, the man took the lead.
It was smaller than the guild building, but this place too was full of things strange enough to make his eyes go wide.
Gong Siyoung pressed the machine attached to the door with a few sharp beeps. With a clear chime, he pushed the door open and gestured. He didn’t explicitly say to go in, but Yurian picked up the hint and stepped forward.
“Wow.”
It was comfort itself. Was this a house? This kind of place was a house? Not heaven, not a palace, but just… a house?
Yurian’s eyes widened as he kept looking around. His astonished face reflected perfectly in the mirror built into the shoe cabinet by the entrance.
“Wow, what is th—”
“‘Wow’ banned. ‘What is this’ banned. No gasping.”
Before Yurian could even finish, Gong Siyoung fired off the warning.
Pouting his lips, Yurian still obediently shut his mouth. Following Siyoung’s lead as he took off his shoes, Yurian read the room and removed his own as well.
With exhaustion soaked into his face, Gong Siyoung pointed toward a closed door.
“That’s the empty room, so use that one. We need to be up at seven tomorrow and head to the Bureau, so remember it.”
Nod, nod. Yurian dipped his head in reply and hurried over to the room. When he gently pushed the door open, a pleasant, cozy space revealed itself.
The moment he spotted the soft bed, he darted over and planted himself on it. The comfort—squishy, yet firm enough to support him—made him clamp a hand over his mouth.
‘Soft…’
He’d felt it every time he sat anywhere here, but this place really… really made everything soft.
As if there was nothing more he needed to see, he flopped backward onto the bed. It was seriously, spine-tinglingly cozy.
He rolled back and forth, savoring the bed’s comfort with his whole body. No matter how he lay down, there wasn’t a single spot that dug into him. The cushioning wrapped around him completely, and it was exquisite.
Ah, how long had it been since he’d felt like this?
When was the last time he’d ever rested this peacefully?
Maybe it was because he’d spent months running himself ragged slaughtering monsters. The calm he felt for the first time in ages made his whole body melt.
The days of barely escaping rain, wind, and cold under a tent that may as well not have existed, then stealing scraps of sleep on a hard field cot just to stay alive—those days were over.
No more staying awake all night because a monster might charge in at any moment. No more constant vigilance.
Protected by solid walls and a sturdy ceiling, in a warm and comfortable room, Yurian made up his mind.
At this point, did he want to return to his homeland?
Not even a little.
From now on, this place was his homeland.
Yurian abandoned his old home with the speed of lightning.
Clutching the rustling blanket tightly in his fists, he shut his eyes. It was warm, peaceful, and fantastically cozy.
Sleep swallowed him almost instantly.
* * *
“…He’s already asleep?”
Had it even been three seconds since his head touched the pillow?
Yurian was already fast asleep, breathing in an even, quiet rhythm. Gong Siyoung stared in disbelief.
At that point, wasn’t that less sleep and more straight-up passing out?
Leaning against the doorway as he watched the whole thing, Gong Siyoung swallowed down a sigh.
“What the hell is wrong with that lunatic…”
Did that guy not have any sense of caution?
They’d literally met for the first time today. How did he know what kind of thing someone might do to him, and yet he could just sleep like that without a care in the world? Siyoung genuinely couldn’t understand it.
Of course, that wasn’t the only incomprehensible thing about him.
Yurian was just… strange by nature. Not only his attitude, but everything about his existence felt off.
His over-the-top reactions stood out the most, but even just his appearance was far from ordinary.
White skin, even whiter hair, and vivid blue eyes. There was almost nothing about him that matched the traits of an ordinary Korean.
But if that made him seem foreign, it wasn’t quite that either.
He was similar, yet different. Beyond the shared fact that he was human, everything else felt faintly off. There was an uncanny dissonance to him, as if he didn’t belong to this world at all.
Was it because he was crazy?
Maybe that really was it…
Staring at the sleeping man, Siyoung clicked his tongue. Thinking about it only made his head hurt.
Besides, this kind of problem was more Gong Sijin’s specialty than his.
If they just got through one day, that’d be the end of it.
As he moved to switch off the light, he decided to leave the bedroom door wide open just in case. Yurian might try to run or have some other scheme in mind. He still couldn’t let his guard down.
Once he got that suspicious man to the Hunter Management Bureau, this whole mess would be over.
After the rank evaluation, no matter what Gong Sijin said, he planned to wash his hands of this.
Which meant that after tonight, he’d never have to deal with that lunatic again.
No more childlike amazement.
No more overblown reactions.
All of it would be over.
A crooked smile tugged at Gong Siyoung’s lips.
“Yeah. Just up to here…”
“It’s something an old friend left behind before he died.”
At the worst possible moment, the conversation from earlier resurfaced in his mind.
The smile vanished from his face.
The way Yurian had asked after the sword’s whereabouts—calling it a keepsake from a dead friend, saying it was a treasured blade—kept irritating him in a strange way.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Maybe it was his imagination, but only when he said that did Yurian seem oddly subdued.
Whether he was pretending not to care or genuinely didn’t care… after hearing talk about a dead friend’s keepsake, how was he supposed not to think about it?
“No. Just ignore it.”
Keepsake or not, that was his problem.
If it mattered that much, they could just buy him another sword. Or compensate him with money and be done with it cleanly.
Hell, wasn’t that guy already eating, sleeping, and resting here for free?
He should count himself lucky he wasn’t dumped out on the street. The one doing him a favor here was them.
Turning over those vaguely trashy thoughts in his head, Gong Siyoung sat down on the living room sofa and crossed his legs.
Was it because he was tired? Or because Yurian’s nonstop fussing had drained him?
He hadn’t even done much, but he already felt spent.
Without realizing it, Siyoung’s leg started bouncing. In the quiet house, only the sound of his restless foot tapping echoed.
He glanced at the clock.
Only about ten minutes had passed.
With too much time on his hands, pointless thoughts began chaining endlessly through his mind.
Did I really need to feel guilty over something like that?
No.
It was his own fault for not keeping track of it. Why should I care? Why would I be the one bothered?
Siyoung leaned back deeper into the sofa.
But Yurian wasn’t the only thing on his mind.
There were more than enough other things to worry about.
Lately, the Bureau’s control had been going too far.
It wasn’t as if their restrictions were completely without reason. The issue was the sudden surge in spontaneous dungeons over the past few months.
Spontaneous dungeons were exactly what the name implied—dungeons that appeared unpredictably.
Gates connected to dungeons appeared dozens of times a day, and not all of them posed a threat.
Some opened and then quickly closed again, and most spontaneous dungeons were easy to clear at D-rank or below.
But the dungeons appearing in recent months were different.
A-rank and even S-rank cases had started popping up with unsettling frequency.
Because of that, every domestic hunter at A-rank or above, including Gong Siyoung, was stuck on emergency standby.
In an already tense situation, the Bureau had begun requiring hunters to formally register teams.
A minimum of five members, a maximum of twelve, and the party had to include at least B-rank hunters with healing and communication skills.
Rumors openly circulated that failure to register voluntarily would result in penalties.
Calling it voluntary registration was a joke.
It was basically the Bureau announcing they intended to control hunters with military-style discipline.
How long would it be before the ugly rumor that unregistered hunters would lose their licenses became reality?
Gong Sijin wanted to cooperate as much as possible.
Gong Siyoung did not.
He had no intention of playing along with the Bureau’s authoritarian nonsense.
The hunter population was already overwhelmingly insufficient as it was. There were too few awakened individuals to begin with, and the low survival rate only made things worse.
Three years after awakening, the hunter death rate during that period approached fifty percent.
One out of every two awakened died within three years.
In a situation where even gathering three B-rank hunters was difficult, how were they supposed to gather five and run dungeons on schedule?
More importantly, why the hell should they?
What was the point of having guilds if not to gather whoever was available and clear dungeons as needed?
Today it was “voluntary registration.”
But it was obvious where this would lead with a little more time.
The people at the Bureau had always viewed guilds as thorns in their side. They’d seize this chance to tighten the leash little by little.
His head throbbed.
Sure, Gong Sijin was the guild master, and he’d probably handle it just fine…
But worrying was unavoidable.
On impulse, Siyoung picked up his phone and called Gong Sijin.
After a short ring, Gong Sijin’s voice came through.
— Yeah, Siyoung. Got home safe?
The warm voice checked in on him. Gong Siyoung skipped the pleasantries and got straight to the point.
“Hyung, while we’re at the Bureau tomorrow—”
— Yeah, no.
Gong Sijin shut him down firmly before he could even finish.
Siyoung’s eyes sharpened.
“What the hell? I didn’t even finish talking.”
— It’s obvious. You’re planning to go see the branch director while you’re there and kick up a storm about abolishing the voluntary registration system.
“Am I a kid? What storm am I causing?”
— Not a kid. A brat. Anyway, no. That day, you’re only escorting Mr. Yuri to the Bureau entrance and coming straight back. You are not allowed inside.
Gong Sijin’s laughing voice, needling him while sounding gentle, was unbelievably irritating.
Just as Gong Siyoung was about to complain again, Gong Sijin continued in a placating tone.
— Besides, you’re heading into a dungeon right after that anyway. The A-rank dungeon Mr. Yuri got picked up from? They say something about it is strange.