By Zephyria 
The Guild Master rubbed his face in frustration, then suddenly flinched. Huh? Why am I able to wipe away tears? Wasn’t I supposed to be impaled by a magical beast and die?
Turning his creaking neck, the Guild Master finally realized.
The loud noise he had heard earlier was the sound of the Five-Colored Flower-Friend falling to its death. And beyond the settling dust stood a young man, snapping one of the beast’s wings and driving a tree branch into its head like a blade. It was the very same hunter who, until a moment ago, had been far off in the distance.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
The moment he faced the neat, handsome young man who wore a gentle smile as if no emergency had ever occurred, the presence of a boyfriend of two years became as insignificant as a shriveled squid.
“Guild Masterrrr!”
“Guild Master Noona!”
“Unnie!”
The HG guild members shared a tearful reunion with their Guild Master. While waiting for them to calm down, Kim Si-baek examined the magical beast. He wondered why a beast several tiers stronger than those nearby had appeared.
He thought it might be a sign of something, similar to how magical beasts had gone on a rampage when the rifts first opened, but upon further investigation, that wasn’t it.
‘The missing feathers on the lower belly look like traces of brooding eggs… It seems the hatchlings have broken out of their shells.’
The beast likely wandered far from home while searching for food for its young.
In the meantime, the Guild Master and the guild members were repeatedly bowing their heads in gratitude.
“Thank you! Thank you so much! We were acting like hyenas, yet you still saved us. Thank you truly!”
“Hyenas?”
“We were harvesting the magic stones from the magical beasts the hunter had hunted. We thought they were abandoned. We are sorry!”
The Guild Master bowed deeper, holding up the case containing the magic stones with both hands.
“Ah, I did leave them, so you may keep the magic stones.”
“How could we shamelessly accept them after you saved our lives!”
After a bit of a back-and-forth with the HG guild members, who looked ready to throw themselves on their knees, the commotion finally settled. Only then did they exchange proper greetings and introductions.
Since it was around lunchtime, Kim Si-baek did not refuse their invitation and shared the lunch boxes the guild members had brought. Naturally, the conversation grew longer, and Kim Si-baek was able to hear vivid firsthand accounts of the field that he hadn’t learned from the TV or Tae-un. He also heard a useless but interesting story that five years ago, radio waves had been extended inside the barriers by mages.
[I speculate that magical engineering in ‘Death and Beauty’ has developed in a different direction than in mak slecht.]
Kim Si-baek nodded in agreement.
The guild members were extremely curious about the identity of the bird perched on the crown of his head even as he moved, but they didn’t dare ask.
‘It looks so vicious, it’s a bit scary…’
Being pecked by a bird was a slight blow to their pride, but asserting one’s pride in front of a high-ranking hunter is not courage, but recklessness.
On the other hand, Kim Si-baek asked the Guild Master without hesitation.
“Is the magical beast beside you tamed?”
“Yes, yes! We’ve been together for five years already. Isn’t it completely cute?”
The magical beast, which had been handled a lot by humans like a pet, docilely accepted Kim Si-baek’s unfamiliar touch. As he stroked the fluffy down, a certain face naturally came to mind.
“May I take a photo? I want to show it to my cute younger brother who looks just like this little guy.”
“It would be an honor!”
After taking a photo of the one-horned rabbit, Kim Si-baek sent it to his phone, which was vibrating incessantly. As a bonus, his text input was slow, like a foreigner who had just started learning Korean.
“Um, but with your skill, Hunter-nim, you could go much further inside. Why are you hunting on the outskirts?”
“The act of hunting itself is my purpose.”
The divine bloodlines descended from the gods of Heart’s Desire and Creation are polar opposites to magical beasts, who are the bastards of Chaos and Chaos. Thus, simply offering the death of a magical beast to Biyendwe, the God of Death, allowed for a slight recovery of divine power. The amount recovered was independent of the beast’s danger level; since these were the lowest-grade beasts, the divine power recovered was slightly more than what was consumed during the hunt. In short, it was a strategy similar to high-volume, low-margin sales.
The guild members understood it roughly as him training. After asking for his understanding, they whispered rapidly among themselves and soon reached a decision.
“Would it be alright if we drove the magical beasts toward you? We don’t have any other special abilities, but we think we can help with a drive-hunt!”
“Hmm… that’s a good idea. Then, to avoid tedious calculations, you all keep the beast carcasses, and we split the magic stone sales 50/50? In exchange, I’ll ask you to handle the sale of the magic stones.”
“Gasp! How could you split the money with us!”
The Guild Master waved her hands frantically, rambling about how she wanted to be of even the slightest help to her savior. Since she seemed sincere, Kim Si-baek gave a thin smile. He was grateful for someone who returned kindness with kindness.
After insisting to the declining guild members, they agreed to split the sales 7:3.
“I’ll draft the contract right away! It’s not a high-grade item, so it carries a light curse, but…”
The contract the Guild Master brought out was a magical tool. In place of Kim Si-baek, who was not particularly proficient in magic, Biyendwe’s eyes gleamed.
[I analyze that this is a format where ‘Death and Beauty’ injects magical power to record and create. I predict that if the contract is not fulfilled, one will be cursed.]
In mak slecht, contracts were usually drafted using the temple of the God of Unfairness and Misunderstanding as a guarantor.
“There is no need to write a contract. A verbal agreement is enough.”
Kim Si-baek, who possessed no innate magical power, could not even sign such a contract. He had said it in that sense, but the guild members, interpreting it as a sign of trust, were instantly moved to tears.
“Your generosity is boundless!”
“Haha. You’re an interesting person.”
“We shall risk our lives to drive the magical beasts toward you!”
“There’s no need to risk your lives, but I look forward to it.”
Since explaining the situation would make him sound like a madman, Kim Si-baek simply laughed it off.
“Oh. If you happen to have a spare knife, could you lend it to me? Using a tree branch is a bit cumbersome for a drive-hunt.”
“Here it is!”
And so, the massacre of magical beasts in the low-level field began.
“Isn’t that a light saber?”
“I vote for sword qi.”
“Where in the world does sword qi exist?”
“It could be a trait that manifests sword qi!”
“Isn’t the trait something like mid-air leaping?”
While whispering about what Kim Si-baek’s trait might be, the guild members worked hard to drive the beasts toward him. The carcasses of beasts sliced in half with a single blow piled up in rows, and the harvested magic stones accumulated rapidly.
A smile never left the Guild Master’s face. Even with a 7:3 split, the proceeds from the magic stones were several times higher than picking fruits. The day she could pay off all her student loans was not far off.
‘I wish every day was like today!’
Before long, the sun began to set. They had come with no preparation for night work, and the nearby magical beasts had been nearly wiped out. For the final hunt, the guild members, led by the Guild Master, searched the surroundings.
“Guild Master! There are four beasts over there—”
Before she could finish her sentence.
K-boom! A black energy in the shape of lightning struck down from the air, and the magical beasts collapsed instantly, dying before they could even scream. Before the guild members could process the fact that their prey had been stolen, a hulking man in a fluttering black coat walked out from among them.
‘It’s… it’s the Seven Guild Master?’
The guild members were stunned. Why on earth was Tae-un here? With Tae-un’s skill, instead of interfering with the hunt of low-level hunters in a low-level field, shouldn’t he be off hunting S-class magical beasts in the deepest depths?
Tae-un, striding toward the confused group, frowned deeply. Even though they had committed no sin, they felt their hearts sink.
“You, you, you. How old are you?”
The guild members Tae-un pointed out were all men. No one complained about the blunt, informal speech used upon their first meeting. The men stuttered their answers to the sudden question, and upon hearing that they were all in their twenties, Tae-un’s face crumpled further.
“If you approach within a 10-meter radius, I’ll kill you.”
“U-understood!”
Having experienced the temper they had only heard about in rumors, the guild members grew stiff with tension. They weren’t curious about why he was acting this way, nor did they want to know. The best way to deal with a mad dog is simply to run away.
‘Sigh. It’s true that the Seven Guild Master is coolest when you aren’t personally involved with him…’
Even the female guild members, who hadn’t been singled out, quickly distanced themselves from Tae-un. As they prayed with one heart for him to please not take an interest in them, they soon experienced a shock so intense their eyes nearly popped out.
Tae-un’s face, which had been frowning as he walked briskly, suddenly brightened brilliantly…
“Hyung! I’m off work!”
A sun-like smile, as if painted in a picture, bloomed. The excited back, scurrying like a puppy that had found its owner, was heading toward none other than Kim Si-baek. In contrast, a look of bewilderment first spread across Kim Si-baek’s face.
“I wondered why I wasn’t getting any texts… How did you know I was here?”