"Ngghhh......."
Cheonho Guild, eighteenth floor, D-Grade hunter team.
Team Leader Kang Ho-seok was fiddling with his smartphone and groaning.
He entered the number he had pressed dozens of times already and placed the call once more.
-The customer's phone is switched off. After the 'beep'.......
"Fucking hell......."
Kang Ho-seok set the phone down irritably.
Why had he bought the man a phone? He had bought it so that the man would answer when called.
But if he did not answer like this, what meaning was there in having bought it?
What meaning, indeed.
He had dug a hole for nothing.
"Fuck......."
Information about Cha Geon-mu had been known within Cheonho Guild to Kang Ho-seok alone.
But even that had faded as time passed.
By now it had spread that the man called Kim Jin-hyeok had changed his name to Cha Geon-mu.
The mobile number was still known only to him, but a good many guild team leaders had already staked out positions in front of Geon-mu's home.
'Could he be dead?'
Someone had feared Geon-mu's ability so much that they assassinated him?
It was not an unheard-of story.
If someone feared their own rice bowl being taken, this was a world where such a thing could easily happen.
'Should I go and look for him?'
But he had no idea where to go.
Kang Ho-seok too knew only a part of the publicly available information.
While he was racking his brains, a young woman's voice called his name.
"You are Mister Kang Ho-seok, correct?"
The voice was courteous and flat in tone.
Kang Ho-seok turned his head.
A woman with chestnut hair, whose impression was as cool as the tone of her voice, was standing there politely.
From the crispness of her bearing, he knew she was not a Cheonho Guild employee.
"That would be me. And you are......?"
"Team Leader Woo Hyo-jeong, Enforcement Division, Awakened Management Bureau."
"Goodness. How do you do?"
Kang Ho-seok shot up from his seat and held out his hand to her.
He did not know who this Woo Hyo-jeong was.
But he knew what a team leader of the Awakened Management Bureau was.
The Awakened were all superhuman.
With as many different Patron Stars as there were, the Awakened all had their own individuality, and with it came intricately tangled matchups.
What the Awakened Management Bureau needed to manage them was money, and absolute power.
At the Bureau, which pursued those two things, a team leader post was a position open only to hunters of A-Grade or above, and only to the very best among them.
"Might I ask why you are looking for me?"
"Is there any need to bandy words? I have come looking for a person named Kim Jin-hyeok."
"Kim Jin-hyeok...... you say?"
Kang Ho-seok tilted his head as if he had no idea, but Woo Hyo-jeong was not swayed by the gesture.
"Let us not make this tiresome for either of us. You were monopolizing the trial at Tapgol Park, had it taken from you by Mister Kim Jin-hyeok, and then helped that same Mister Kim Jin-hyeok change his name to Cha Geon-mu, did you not?"
"......You came knowing all of it."
"The Bureau's informants are not to be underestimated."
It was not that Kang Ho-seok took the Awakened Management Bureau lightly.
It was only that he had never imagined they would appear like this and make demands so brazenly.
'This woman looks like trouble. What do I do?'
She would certainly demand the information only Kang Ho-seok had, or a chance to meet the man.
Kang Ho-seok did not want to share even the smallest scrap.
"For what purpose have you come?"
"I wish to meet Mister Cha Geon-mu. Could you arrange a meeting?"
"Do you realize that what you are asking is extraordinarily brazen?"
"I do."
Woo Hyo-jeong answered at once.
"I intend to meet Mister Cha Geon-mu for the national interest. Hunters may hold the upper hand over the state, but in this matter we cannot step back."
Kang Ho-seok knew what she meant.
Her words meant that they feared an enormous piece of raw stone, one that could become anything, being drained out of the country.
"In that case, if our guild recruits him, there would be no need for a state body to step in, would there?"
"I understand that you spoke with him while delivering the settlement for the goblin corpses to Cheonho Guild. And I know the outcome as well."
"He says he has no intention of joining a guild. That will apply to the state too."
"That is something we will only know once we meet."
Woo Hyo-jeong did not retreat an inch.
She's young. Should I raise my voice a little and put her in her place?
It was then.
A ringtone sounded on Woo Hyo-jeong's phone, and she checked the caller.
"I will step away for a moment."
"Yes, please do."
Woo Hyo-jeong rose from her seat and took the call.
At that same moment, a message appeared on Kang Ho-seok's phone.
It was a text from Byeon Ho-jun.
[Byeon Ho-jun: Woo Hyo-jeong. That woman is meeting with you, isn't she?]
Kang Ho-seok sent a reply immediately.
[Byeon Ho-jun: That woman is a contractor of the <Lady with the Scales and Sword>.]
"!!"
Kang Ho-seok was startled.
But at the same time, he could make sense of the situation.
The boldness to walk in through Cheonho Guild's front door and ask after Cha Geon-mu's whereabouts.
The reason she could seize a team leader's post at the Awakened Management Bureau despite her youth.
Hearing the name of her Patron Star made her presence land all at once.
[Byeon Ho-jun: I trust you know her ability as well.]
[Kang Ho-seok: Yes, I know it.]
[Byeon Ho-jun: Do not even think about bluffing.]
I said I know.
He was already on guard, but thanks to that he understood she was someone to be guarded against all the more.
Woo Hyo-jeong came back from taking her call.
Without thinking, Kang Ho-seok looked into her eyes.
The black irises most East Asians had.
Within them, very faintly, gold rippled.
Why had he only noticed now, the fool.
"My apologies. It was an important call."
"Not at all. So, what would you like me to do for you?"
"The request is simple. Would you arrange a meeting for me with Mister Cha Geon-mu?"
Kang Ho-seok scratched his head as he spoke.
"Well, now. The desire to help you...... frankly, I don't have it, but even if I did, I couldn't help you right now."
"Why is that?"
"I am currently out of contact with Cha Geon-mu. It has been over two weeks with no word."
"Are you certain of that?"
Golden light flickered across her irises.
It was the greatest weapon the contractors of the <Lady with the Scales and Sword> possessed.
Kang Ho-seok nodded.
"I am certain."
"......I see."
Woo Hyo-jeong did not press any further.
Her ability had shown her clearly that it was the truth, so there would be no point.
RING-RING-RING-
The phone in Kang Ho-seok's hand rang.
At the old-fashioned tone, Kang Ho-seok and Woo Hyo-jeong looked down at the phone at the same moment.
The caller's number, and the name written beside it.
The instant he saw it, the blood drained from Kang Ho-seok's face.
The name read like this.
[Kim Jin-hyeokCha Geon-mu]
"What remarkable timing."
Woo Hyo-jeong looked up at Kang Ho-seok and asked.
"Will you arrange the meeting now?"
There was no way to refuse.
***
The reunion of Kang Ho-seok and Cha Geon-mu was awkward.
"Brother, have you been well?"
"Uh, yeah......."
Cha Geon-mu was perfectly at ease, but Kang Ho-seok was another matter.
'This bastard seems different from when I first met him.'
His was a profession that worked the body, so he naturally saw a great many men's physiques.
But this was the first time one had made him observe the body itself as closely as Geon-mu's did.
"How tall are you?"
"It was a hundred and seventy-six centimeters, I believe."
"It was?"
"I have probably grown a bit more. I did some training."
Could a man grow taller from a mere few days of training?
He now stood at about a hundred and eighty centimeters, more than four centimeters taller.
At a hundred and eighty Geon-mu was not excessively tall, and his frame was the standard build of someone who exercised moderately.
'His body is remarkable.'
The outline standing out through his T-shirt was like looking at a piece of sculpture.
He had seen the bodies of knights who held the vanguard countless times, but he had never seen one as packed and solid as Geon-mu's.
"Why do you keep staring at my body?"
"Huh? Ah, that's......."
"For the record, you're not my type."
"......You're not mine either, punk. I'm a taken man."
"The one who's taken you isn't a man, I hope?"
"I married a woman I met as a campus couple at university, punk."
Geon-mu chuckled, and Kang Ho-seok sighed.
"So what have you been doing all this time? Why do you keep your phone switched off?"
"I did some training in a place with good air and good water."
"What are you, a hermit? What kind of Awakened trains in the mountains?"
"A hermit...... Well, it is not far off."
The concept of internal force did belong to that side of things.
A question rose in Kang Ho-seok's head, but he ignored it.
"So did you set me up on a blind date?"
Geon-mu gestured with his eyes toward the woman seated beside Kang Ho-seok.
For a blind date, her expression was stiff, and there was a strange combative current in the air.
The woman introduced herself by name.
"I have come from the Awakened Management Bureau. I am Team Leader Woo Hyo-jeong."
"Pleased to meet you, Woo Hyo-jeong."
Geon-mu answered with a smile.
His rude manner had not changed at all.
"That is unexpected. Most people are busy lowering themselves when they hear Bureau team leader."
"That sort holds what they have half-heartedly, so they hate to lose it."
"And you have nothing at all, so you have nothing to lose?"
"The opposite. I have so much that losing some of it does not show."
Geon-mu smiled easily, and Woo Hyo-jeong frowned.
She had seen plenty of people look wretched from bending too far, but Cha Geon-mu was the first to look wretched from refusing to bend.
Her irises turned gold for an instant.
[<Judge Eye> has been activated.]
Name: Kim Jin-hyeok
Level: 24
Patron Constellation: None
Titles: <Untouchable Man>
Traits: <Exceptional Dexterity (C)> <Great Azure Internal Energy (A)>
.
.
.
'What is this person?'
Woo Hyo-jeong could not believe what she was seeing.
'He was certainly Level 1 when he was at Tapgol Park, and he raised it to 24 in under a month? And what on earth are these specifications?'
She had assumed it would be around 10 at most.
Killing eighty goblins raised it about that much.
And it did not end there.
Every single line of Cha Geon-mu's status window was full of things to be astounded at.
But the most unexpected of all was that he had no Patron Star.
'I was curious what Patron Star he had, and there is none?'
If he were practiced enough at concealing his identity to evade the ability of the <Lady with the Scales and Sword>, it would have been plastered over with question marks.
Geon-mu's Patron Star was clearly absent.
'This only becomes more of a maze.'
The suspicion crept in that it was not absent but concealed.
'This woman is looking at my status window.'
He was seeing her for the first time today, and the reason he could tell was thanks to the messages that had appeared in front of him.
[<Myriad Phenomena (S)> sees through.]
[<Judge Eye (A)> is watching you closely.]
[Part of your stat window is being exposed.]
[You can block the information through <Myriad Phenomena (S)>.]
Her ability was to see Geon-mu's own stats and ability values.
Perhaps because his grade was higher, it seemed he could even block the technique with which Woo Hyo-jeong was spying.
'Shall I block it?'
Geon-mu decided to leave it be.
Checking the information she could see, it was nothing important that had been exposed.
Instead, Geon-mu decided to look into her information as well.
Geon-mu's ability dug far deeper than what she could see.
Name: Woo Hyo-jeong
Level: 82
Patron Constellation: <Lady with the Scales and Sword>
Lineage: Human
Titles: <Judge><Devil Slayer><One Guided by the Light>
Traits: <Judge (S)>,<Hatred of the Wicked (A)>, <Light of Radiance (A)>.......
Strength: 380
Agility: 344
Perception: 410
Stamina: 371
Magic Power: 310
'Stats are a different thing altogether at Level 82.'
Not only did they surpass the specifications of Nandi at Level 50, there was something beyond even that.
Geon-mu read the information on Woo Hyo-jeong and made light of it.
"When a beauty stares at me that intently, it makes me shy."
"......My apologies."
When Geon-mu grinned, Woo Hyo-jeong apologized politely.
"The reason I have come to find you, Mister Cha Geon-mu, is none other than that you have not yet received your Awakened grade assessment."
"You had not updated your mobile number either, and the most recent person you met was Awakened Kang Ho-seok, so I sought his cooperation in finding you."
"Which means you used whatever means you could to find me."
Cha Geon-mu's expression twisted.
"If you had quietly sent a notice and waited patiently, I would have gone of my own accord. You touched my Brother in order to meet me like this? For that, isn't the reason far too trivial?"
At the sharp observation, Woo Hyo-jeong nodded in agreement.
"That is so. In truth, there is another reason we wished to meet you first, Mister Cha Geon-mu."
Woo Hyo-jeong took a document out of her briefcase and handed it to Geon-mu.
It was a contract.
"It is because we wish to contract with you on behalf of the Awakened Management Bureau."
Kang Ho-seok, who skimmed the contract Woo Hyo-jeong had held out, muttered.
"......A contract through a state-run guild."
That was the contract the Bureau ordinarily made.
But at his words Woo Hyo-jeong shook her head.
"No."
She pointed near the title of the contract and stared hard at Cha Geon-mu.
"The Awakened Management Bureau intends to make a direct contract with you, Mister Cha Geon-mu."