By Zephyria “Who is J?”
“Hmm~”
Gyu-Gyu, drawing out the end of his words, shook his upper body back and forth, grinning.
“What if I don’t want to tell you?”
“You will have to tell me.”
As Jung-bin clenched his fist tightly, the Black Chain constricting Gyu-Gyu’s upper body tightened even further. Before he knew it, another strand of the chain had appeared, wrapping around his neck as if to strangle him. Gyu-Gyu shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
“Alright, alright. But! Answer just one thing for me. Then I’ll tell you right away.”
“I’ll decide after I hear it.”
“Ah~ it’s nothing much….”
Gyu-Gyu rotated his stiff neck once.
“Why are you looking for J?”
“Because it’s an order from above.”
Jung-bin, who answered briefly, gestured as if it was his turn now. Gyu-Gyu made a sound like ‘ing’ and frowned.
“Hey, think about it excluding orders. Do we really have to find J?”
The lamp hanging above his head swayed precariously. Jung-bin stared silently at Gyu-Gyu’s still feebly smiling face and answered coldly.
“What is the intention of your question? Don’t beat around the bush and just get to the point.”
“No… it’s funny.”
Gyu-Gyu, sneering, blew air to lift his bangs. Beneath the disheveled white and yellow hair, brown eyes gleamed.
“Is it really necessary to hunt down J like this, like catching a rat?”
“……”
“Just look at Ham Seok-jeong. That human who got so chewed out by the higher-ups for not being able to stop me from going abroad… is it even possible that she’s entrusting the task of finding J to me, of all people?”
Ban Gyu-min. The fifth S-rank Awakened in Korea. All the S-ranks who had appeared before him had chosen to remain in Korea and build their nesting. But he was different. Ban Gyu-min did not stay in Korea and declared that he would become a freelance Hunter traveling around the world. Naturally, the country was turned upside down, and Ham Seok-jeong visited Ban Gyu-min every day, wearing down the doorstep, to persuade him.
In front of the silent Jung-bin, Gyu-Gyu continued to babble, as if he wasn’t expecting an answer in the first place.
“It’s also funny that you’re looking for J because of Doomsday. Looking for J because of Doomsday, which we don’t even know when, where, or how it will come? Can’t we stop Doomsday without J?”
“……”
“Why. Are you trying to throw someone who barely survived the Rift back in there?”
Gyu-Gyu, who asked in a sarcastic tone, smiled gently. Jung-bin couldn’t say anything. Ban Gyu-min’s tongue was as sharp as a snake in the Bible.
“Huh? You two are from the same era, aren’t you? The first S-rank, the second S-rank. Aren’t you close?”
“……”
Enough to awaken memories that had been locked away deep in his heart.
9 years ago.
Jung-bin stood in front of the mirror and took a deep breath. Neatly cut hair and a neatly dressed police academy uniform. It was when he was checking his clothes again to make sure there were no wrinkles anywhere. The bathroom door burst open, and a middle-aged man with a sharp, tiger-like impression stuck his head in.
“Jung-bin, are you ready?”
“Yes, I am!”
“Oh my, it’s good to see you so disciplined.”
The man who laughed heartily, chuckling, was Song Jo-heon, a fairly well-known A-rank Hunter. As Jung-bin nodded obediently, Song Jo-heon opened the door wide as if to tell him to come quickly.
“Let’s go quickly. We can’t keep such a busy person waiting for too long.”
“Yes!”
“Remember what I told you? Don’t stare for too long, and don’t try to dig up this and that.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, he’s not that picky, so it’ll be fine.”
There was a strange awkwardness in his words. However, Jung-bin didn’t show it and quietly followed behind him. After passing through a long corridor, a door appeared.
“We’re here.”
Song Jo-heon carefully opened the door and entered a spacious conference room. In the middle of the oval table, a young man was sitting crookedly, flipping through a thick file. A mask that completely covered his face and a black combat uniform with blood dried in places.
He could tell right away at first glance. He was J, the hero who saved the country.
He seemed to be focused on reading something, without even the slightest interest in who came in. Jung-bin straightened his back and saluted sharply. Song Jo-heon also smiled brightly and bowed his head.
“J! This is Jung-bin, the newly Awakened S-rank Awakened. Please say hello.”
“Huh?”
Only then did J’s head turn to Jung-bin. It felt like their eyes met beyond the mask. J put down the file he was reading and asked lightly.
“Oh…. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one years old.”
“Younger than I thought.”
A strangely modulated voice, making it impossible to guess gender or age, flowed out. Was it just his imagination that he seemed to be in a good mood? Jung-bin unknowingly examined J carefully.
J, who was often mentioned on TV and radio, was a reliable hero of this country. But compared to that reputation, the masked young man in front of him was….
‘Can I even call that person a young man?’
Jung-bin had always had good observational skills. In his view, J was not an adult no matter how he looked at it. At most, he was a high school student somewhere between a boy and a young man. While he was confused, wondering if he was even a minor, J got up from his seat and strode over.
Meeting his gaze from a slightly lower height, J suddenly reached out his hand.
“Hello, I’m J.”
“Ah, I’m Jung-bin. It’s nice to meet you.”
Jung-bin, who had been mindlessly observing J, quickly shook his hand at Song Jo-heon’s touch, which poked him in the side. The hand with protruding bones was firm but soft. After shaking hands a couple of times, J, who had pulled his hand away, asked sociably.
“What’s your Awakening ability?”
Jung-bin glanced at Song Jo-heon, who was standing next to him. When he nodded slightly as if allowing it, Jung-bin answered faithfully.
“Restraint. I can subdue opponents.”
“Monsters?”
“Awakened.”
“Wow, that’s good. Criminals who have Awakened have been increasing a lot these days, which has been a headache.”
“That’s right. Haha, I Awakened just when it was needed. Well, J. You’ve heard that a Rift has appeared in Danyang, right?”
“Ah, yes.”
“We have a helicopter ready. Shouldn’t we go quickly?”
“Yeah.”
J, who answered nonchalantly, scratched his head and waved his hand sociably at Jung-bin.
“It was nice meeting you today. See you next time.”
“Ah, yes! I enjoyed it too.”
After a brief greeting, J opened the window wide and jumped out suddenly. A cool breeze swirled in through the gap. Song Jo-heon patted Jung-bin’s back, who was staring silently at the open window.
“Hey, don’t be too interested.”
“Yes?”
“I’m telling you not to be too deeply interested in J.”
Song Jo-heon shrugged his shoulders at Jung-bin’s puzzled face.
“What we need now is a hero. The more you know about J, the more awkward it will be, so I’m telling you in advance. Keep a moderate distance. But don’t be completely hostile.”
“……”
It seemed like he couldn’t manage his expression. Song Jo-heon, who was clicking his tongue and leaving the conference room, muttered quietly.
“It can’t be helped. Someone with power has to sacrifice until things stabilize a bit. The country is in this state….”
Jung-bin glanced at the file left alone on the desk. It was left open, and the contents were clearly visible.
Marsh Toad: It is important to prevent it from spitting out the mountain☆☆☆ Target the head and mouth first.
Red-tailed Wyvern: It’s a headache if it joins the company! You must pierce the neck first to prevent it from calling its comrades.
What J was reading was a list of numerous Monster names and countermeasures written in pressed handwriting, as if he had written them himself. Jung-bin suddenly felt a stuffiness in one corner of his chest. He felt like he would start to doubt what he shouldn’t doubt if he looked any longer, so he quietly turned around and followed Song Jo-heon.
Jung-bin stared silently at Gyu-Gyu. The lamp that had been swaying precariously had stopped moving at some point.
“I have to find him even if it’s not an order.”
“Why?”
He remembers the back of him jumping off alone. He also remembers the back of him always heading to the Rift alone. And he also remembers himself as a child who turned away from it. The strange discomfort he had ignored back then remained clearly in his memory.
He couldn’t repeat the same thing again now, after so much time had passed.
“To protect him.”
“……”
Jung-bin slammed the steel table and stood up from his seat, looking down at Gyu-Gyu.
“So please answer me. Who is J?”
“Hmm, well. Don’t you know?”
He had even dredged up old memories to answer, but all he got in return was an insincere denial. Jung-bin frowned and raised his index finger, and the Black Chain was about to tighten around his neck even more tightly.
“You’re really impatient. I caught the tail! …It was cut off, though.”
Gyu-Gyu quickly added.
“Dig into Lee Sa-young well.”
“Why?”
“I dug pretty hard in my own way, and I narrowed down a few J candidates, but…. All the information is cut off at Lee Sa-young and Wave Guild. That crazy brat is spreading false information and making people annoyed.”
Hearing his words, a memory flashed through his mind for a moment.
Lee Sa-young, looking at J’s name in front of the memorial stone on the day the rankings were updated. At that time, he had clearly threatened that everything that came out of the Rift was his. Jung-bin scanned Gyu-Gyu, who was humming a tune, with suspicious eyes.
“By the way… why are you suddenly being so cooperative?”
“Huh? Because it seemed like Jung-bin was on J’s side.”
The chain that had been wrapped around his neck crawled back to the table on its own and wrapped around Jung-bin’s wrist again. Gyu-Gyu must have Awakened after J disappeared. Jung-bin asked suspiciously.
“Do you have a connection with J?”
“Ah, well, it’s nothing special.”
Gyu-Gyu smiled brightly.
“A long time ago, that friend killed a Monster that was trying to destroy our church.”
“……”
“Well, I also repay favors~”
Gyu-Gyu closed his eyes and started humming the song again. It was a song that Jung-bin had never heard before. All the moments I’ve walked through were not natural, but grace….
Meanwhile, the hall where only the Hunters were left without Jung-bin was like an 8-ton truck with a broken steering wheel.
“Yes, number 7! Number 10! Number 2! Number 7! Number 11!”
Perhaps even the brakes were gone. The paddles were being used non-stop, and the prices were skyrocketing.
“Hey, don’t bid on the weapon association I pre-empted. Aren’t you putting down the paddle? Huh?”
“Yeah~ what are you going to do about it.”
“First of all, I cut off the phone lines to prevent foreigners from bidding.”
“Good job. Die!”
In the middle of a battlefield similar to super hamsters running towards each other with weapons, Cha Eui-jae, who unintentionally became the protagonist who threw fire into a gas tank,
“…This is fun.”
Dangling like a wet towel and becoming Lee Sa-young’s support while shaking his legs,
‘Why isn’t that crazy brat Jung-bin here at a time like this….’
He was missing Jung-bin more than anyone else….