DEB 10

“Mok Huiyun.”

“….”

Huiyun frowned at the unfamiliar voice.

“Mok Huiyun.”

The faint voice called his name again. The tone sounded quite cold, making Huiyun’s fingertips twitch. Arrogant thoughts began to flood his mind.

Is this… Could it possibly be the Grim Reaper?

The folklore about the Grim Reaper escorting the deceased to the afterlife after calling their name three times was widely known through various media, and Huiyun was very familiar with it. 

Wondering if this could possibly be it, Huiyun struggled to open his eyes. His eyelids trembled with fear at the thought of having to get up before hearing the third name.

“Mok Huiyun.”

“No, don’t!”

Bam! 

At the same time as the third name was called, Huiyun sat up on the bed. Breathing heavily, he caught a familiar scent.

The smell of medicine. It was the hospital.

Then, was that voice just a dream?

As he blinked and stared at the white hospital bedspread, it happened again.

“Mok Huiyun.”

“….!”

The same voice, with the same the pitch and tone, made Huiyun’s shoulders jump in surprise. When he looked towards the source of the voice, he saw a familiar face.

“Why are you here….”

It was the handsome man who had collapsed after saying incomprehensible things at the gate. Huiyun blinked in surprise to see the man he had rescued in his hospital room. 

As he stood there in confusion, two more figures appeared behind the man in the sharp suit—one with red hair and the other with thick, dark hair that reached his shoulders. They, too, were the people Huiyun had rescued from the gate.

How did those people end up in his hospital room?

No, more importantly… why are they already awake when they were unconscious before?

Considering the time it would take for them to be treated and go through the procedures after being placed in front of the hospital, it would have taken quite a while. 

If they were able to wander around freely without even wearing hospital gowns, maybe a lot of time had passed since he fainted. 

Huiyun searched for his phone with a puzzled expression, but couldn’t see the black phone that should have been on the table where he always left it. With a perplexed expression, he looked for the phone’s whereabouts, and the man who had called out to Huiyun pulled something out of his pocket.

“Are you looking for this?”

“Why do you have that…?”

“Mok Huiyun. Age 20, hospitalized for the 105th time due to congenital Mana Hypersensitivity Syndrome. The only hunter in the family is your older brother, Huigang, and both your parents are deceased. You’ve rarely been able to engage in active activities since you were young due to illness….”

Suddenly, his personal information flowed out like water from the mouth of a stranger whose name he didn’t even know.

Huiyun blinked his eyes and stuttered in the face of the sudden situation. He couldn’t understand what was happening at all.

Who are these people in the room, how did they find their way here, how long was he unconscious, and why does that person know his personal information?

Huiyun stared at the blue-eyed man as the door to the room opened with a creak, and Huigang entered.

“Brother!”

Just in time. Huiyun wanted to ask what on earth was happening, but instead of showing surprise like Huiyun, Huigang, with a slightly uncomfortable expression, glanced at the three men in the room with a relatively natural expression and then shifted his gaze to Huiyun, raising one eyebrow as if gauging something.

With a mixture of concern and the need to speak up, Huiyun quietly called out to him, “Who are these people? Why does that person have my phone, and how does he know my information? I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Worried about causing trouble, Huigang looked at Huiyun, then at the three men occupying seats in the room, sighed, and rubbed his face with his hand, wearing an uncomfortable expression as he chose his words carefully.

“I have a lot of questions too… Huiyun. Did you rescue them?”

“What?”

“According to the guild leader, you… entered the advanced gate, cleared the gate, and rescued the guild leader and two others. Is that true?”

Guild leader?

Huiyun’s mouth fell open.

The guild Huigang had entered was Blue Flame, the second-ranked guild in Korea. 

And if it was about the leader of Blue Flame, there was only one person. The atmosphere became more awkward as his head turned around like a grinding wheel. 

Upon closer inspection, the handsome man at his line of sight was wearing thin glasses and exuded an intellectual aura.

Huiyun blurted out a name he knew. “If it’s the leader of Blue Flame, then… Kwon Jiwook?”

A heavy silence filled the room. No one explicitly confirmed it, but Huiyun was certain that the man before him was indeed the leader of Blue Flame.

No wonder he looked familiar….

Huiyun had occasionally seen his face on TV. With shaky eyes, he stared at the other two men beside him.

Once he knew one person’s identity, the identity of the other two started to become apparent from their faces.

The man with red hair was the leader of the Ash Guild, and the man with long hair was known as the world’s first and only necromancer. If there was one thing, they all had in common, it was that they were all proud S-rank hunters of Korea, which made Huiyun feel dizzy.

Deng-deng.

A bell rang in his head. Huiyun felt as though it was bidding farewell to the peace and tranquility he had longed for.

Why didn’t he realize it sooner?

He felt regretful. Even if they were S-rank hunters in Korea, Huiyun hadn’t directly encountered them, so he couldn’t easily recall their names. In fact, Huiyun had little interest in the hunter industry until Huigang awakened as a hunter.

That was also a characteristic of those suffering from mana hypersensitivity.

One side struggled to survive due to the mana overflowing in the world, spending billions, while the other side used that mana to become stars, earning tens of billions and appearing on TV like celebrities. 

It was a situation where one couldn’t help but feel envious.

So, Huiyun didn’t know much about the hunter world. Even after Huigang awakened, he had avoided it for a year, so his knowledge was limited.

Even though he has learned about gates and systems through Huigang’s story, it was difficult for him to know who were the famous hunters were and what they looked like.

In the first place, wasn’t his first meeting with them all was him stepping on them as when they fainted at the gate?

The problem was that this wasn’t an excuse, and Huiyun hadn’t brought back just one S-rank hunter, but three.

Realizing that things had taken a turn, Huiyun turned to Huigang. The warning sensors for his peaceful life were ringing fiercely, and he had only one thing to say.

“Well… I know these people are amazing, but what do you mean I cleared the gate? You know too, brother. I had another seizure and just woke up. How could I, with this weak body, enter a gate? If I had entered, I would have died due to mana overload.”

He laughed awkwardly. Then, towards the end, a somewhat self-deprecating smile appeared.

“Hunters, huh.”

Huigang’s expression darkened as he heard word. From his voice and tone, he seemed to be thinking about the past two years ago. The memory of his brother becoming a hunter and being ignored for a while. He felt sorry because it wasn’t a very good memory for either of them.

However, brother. We have to get through this crisis.

First of all, he has to send away the three S-class hunter who were creepily looking at them As I continued to act, Kwon Jiwook, tilted his head to the side. 

The atmosphere was different from when they met at the gate.

He felt softer back then… But now he felt like a cold-blooded devil was sitting in front of him.

Just as Huiyun swallowed dryly, Kown Jiwook’s mouth opened.

“That’s why it’s strange. Why did a person suffering from mana hypersensitivity enter the gate, and how did you stay alive inside the gate and go up to the third floor?”

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you were mistaken. Even if I look fine now, I would have been on the brink of death a few hours ago.”

Given the severity of the penalties that had piled up, it wasn’t just empty words. Perhaps because it was the truth, Huigang’s expression became even darker. His brother was the type who wore his emotions in his sleeve.

As I silently observed Kwon Jiwook, the red-haired man who had been silently watching the standoff yawned.

“Are you sure you didn’t see it wrong? He looks kind of frail. How could he have gotten in?”

Nice one, Ash Leader.

I inwardly chuckled at the timely unexpected support, but suddenly he felt uneasy. The sound of ‘Ash’ felt oddly familiar. Was it because of the dye color? As I pondered, Jiwook, who had been massaging his eyebrows, narrowed his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure I saw him and I even smell that person on him. I almost called his name because I thought I was mistaken…”

Smell? What?

With the ambiguous remark, Huiyun’s eyes widened. At the same time, the expressions of the two S-ranks, who had been rather nonchalant until then, sharpened.