C5
Moving
As soon as Gwanghyeon remembered that he was currently still affiliated with the Geumseong Guild, his first thought was that he needed to inform them of his intention to leave.
There was no other choice.
There was absolutely nothing Gwanghyeon could gain by remaining in the Geumseong Guild now.
Team 16, which he had belonged to, only handled Gates up to D-rank at most.
Continuing to work there would be nothing more than a waste of time for the current Gwanghyeon.
‘Since I’ve already packed my things and left, why don’t I finish what I was planning to do earlier?’
He immediately opened the map app on his smartphone.
He wanted to think about where he should find a home that would be good for his children.
‘Something worth considering would be…’
After thinking for a moment, Gwanghyeon remembered an area with decent facilities that was also close to an elementary school.
It was the place he had once promised himself he would move to if he ever had some financial breathing room.
In the end, however, he hadn’t gained enough financial freedom until his children were already grown, making that promise meaningless.
‘This time, I’ll really live here with Seojun and Seoyoon.’
Gwanghyeon nodded, checked the direction on the map, and headed straight there.
After arriving, Gwanghyeon visited a real estate agency and looked at several places.
Fifty million won wasn’t a small amount of money, but it wasn’t enough to get a particularly nice home, either.
Furthermore, he couldn’t spend all fifty million won. He needed to keep some money aside for living expenses.
So he had no choice but to compromise and settle on a reasonably sized villa.
‘Six hundred thousand won a month?’
The monthly rent wasn’t exactly cheap.
It was an amount his former self could never have afforded.
But the current Gwanghyeon wasn’t particularly worried.
After all, money was no longer something he needed to worry about as long as he could earn it.
“The place has already been cleaned, so you can move in immediately.”
The fact that he could move in right away was something Gwanghyeon liked quite a bit.
He didn’t hesitate for long before nodding.
“Yes. I’ll sign the contract right away.”
The next day.
Seojun and Seoyoon put on their backpacks and walked out of the single room with Gwanghyeon.
In truth, they had packed everything they owned, but they didn’t have much to begin with, so it was more than enough.
“Dad, why are we taking our backpacks? It’s vacation right now.”
Seojun tilted his head in confusion.
Gwanghyeon smiled warmly.
“We’re moving. The three of us.”
“Moving…? Again?”
Seojun flinched at his father’s words and lowered his head with a gloomy expression.
Meanwhile, his younger sister Seoyoon was happily shouting, “Wow! Wow! We’re moving!”
But that was because she was still too young to understand.
Seojun knew that his father suggesting they move wasn’t exactly a good sign.
He couldn’t help thinking that way.
Seojun had noticed for a long time that every time they moved, their home became smaller and smaller.
They had gone from an ordinary apartment to a cramped house, then to an even smaller studio, and now to this single room that was even more miserable.
He was already worried about what kind of place they would be moving into this time.
“Dad… can’t we stay here?”
“Hm?”
Seojun had asked his father the same thing the previous time they had moved.
But back then, his father had simply told him that circumstances had made it unavoidable and asked him to understand.
Seojun didn’t have much hope that he would hear a different answer this time.
But instead of giving him a serious look and simply informing him that they had to move, his father, Gwanghyeon, smiled and tried to persuade him.
“Let’s go take a look first, Seojun. If you don’t like it after seeing the place, we’ll come right back.”
“Huh? Uh… really?”
“Yeah. If Seojun doesn’t like it, we don’t have to move.”
At those words, Seojun slowly nodded as though he understood.
Whatever else might be true, his father wasn’t someone who lied.
Soon, after taking a taxi and arriving at their destination, Seojun understood what his father had meant.
“Ah… Dad, this is it?”
“It’s better than where we’re living now, right?”
The new home was easily three times larger than their previous single room, and even at a glance, it was much cleaner.
Without even needing to think about it, Seojun nodded at Gwanghyeon’s question and gave a short answer.
“Fucking awesome.”
At his reaction, Gwanghyeon’s face lit up with happiness, and he broke into a huge grin.
Seojun pinched his own cheek once as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, while Seoyoon continued jumping up and down in place, shouting,
“Wow! We’re moving!”
The three family members felt happiness and began looking forward to an even happier future in this home.
Jung Hongseok, the head of Geumseong Guild’s Fourth Branch and a B-rank Hunter.
After responding to Team 16’s request for assistance, he arrived at the scene and immediately approached team leader Park In-gu with an incredulous expression.
“B-Branch Manager, you’re here?”
“Team Leader Park, what the hell are you doing? Why did you call me here?”
“Haha… well, you know we’re supposed to request assistance immediately if we encounter a problem during a Gate raid.”
Jung Hongseok shouted irritably at Park In-gu, who answered while sweating profusely.
“What problem?! It’s not like you discovered a double dungeon, and there hasn’t been a Gate mutation! It’s just an ordinary D-rank Gate, isn’t it?”
“I-I’m sorry. It’s just that…”
As they had feared, Gwanghyeon’s departure from Team 16 had caused serious problems with their Gate raids.
A team’s vanguard was normally made up of two or three Hunters.
Originally, the vanguard of Team 16 consisted of Park In-gu and Choi Gwanghyeon.
However, under the pretext of commanding his team members as team leader, Park In-gu had always avoided actually taking the lead.
In practice, Choi Gwanghyeon had been almost solely responsible for moving at the very front and checking for monsters.
With Choi Gwanghyeon gone, Park In-gu had no choice but to handle the vanguard position alone.
Park In-gu briefly explained the situation, and Jung Hongseok sighed.
“Haa… Can’t you just handle it yourself?”
“Well… you know how dangerous it is to go out as the vanguard alone.”
The vanguard was the most dangerous position because they were the first to encounter monsters.
When he had been pushing that responsibility onto Gwanghyeon, Park In-gu hadn’t given it much thought.
But now that it had become his own responsibility, he naturally became extremely cautious.
As a result, the Gate raid was delayed excessively, and when it became clear that they couldn’t finish within the allotted time, they had no choice but to request assistance.
“Isn’t there anyone else on the team who can be assigned to the vanguard?”
“No. The rest are all attackers and healers.”
“…Let’s finish the raid first, then we’ll talk.”
Thanks to Branch Manager Jung Hongseok joining them, they were fortunately able to complete the Gate raid within the allotted time.
After finishing the raid, Team 16 returned to the branch office, and only team leader Park In-gu was summoned by Jung Hongseok again.
“From now on, don’t ask me to provide assistance for something this ordinary.”
“…”
“Why aren’t you answering? Are you planning to keep calling me over?”
“Th-that’s not it.”
Park In-gu hesitated for a moment before carefully opening his mouth.
“We’re probably going to continue having trouble with Gate raids because we’re missing one member. I’m going to have to handle the vanguard alone every time…”
“What? Isn’t that person coming back?”
“He submitted his resignation yesterday.”
Park In-gu recalled what had happened the previous day and rubbed his still-sore cheek.
Jung Hongseok also noticed that his face was considerably swollen, but he didn’t ask about the reason.
“Why didn’t you stop such an important member from resigning?”
“Well… I’m sorry. That’s why I’m asking. Could you possibly send one person to our team…?”
“You know very well that’s not possible. All the other teams are complaining about being understaffed these days, and you know how difficult it is to recruit new people.”
Since it was something he already knew himself, Park In-gu couldn’t answer.
After watching him for a moment, Jung Hongseok slapped his hand down on the desk and said,
“Why don’t you try getting the person who submitted the resignation to come back instead?”
“What?! I… th-that…”
Park In-gu couldn’t easily answer and trailed off.
To be honest, he was somewhat afraid of Choi Gwanghyeon now.
Even Park In-gu himself found it strange that he, a C-rank Hunter, was afraid of E-rank Hunter Choi Gwanghyeon.
But there was definitely something different about Choi Gwanghyeon.
Even if Choi Gwanghyeon returned, Park In-gu would never be able to treat him the way he had before.
Moreover, if the branch manager found out why Choi Gwanghyeon had submitted his resignation, there was no way Park In-gu could avoid disciplinary action.
“Why?! Again! What’s the problem?!”
Jung Hongseok became irritated at Park In-gu’s hesitation and suddenly shouted.
Startled, Park In-gu frantically waved his hands and shook his head.
“N-No, no! There’s no problem. I just don’t know if he’ll listen if we contact him and ask him to come back.”
Jung Hongseok was annoyed for a moment, but since there was some truth to what Park In-gu had said, he sighed and nodded.
“Haa… I suppose that’s true. You must have already tried hard enough to persuade him, Team Leader. He probably left despite that.”
Park In-gu began sweating profusely.
In reality, he hadn’t even attempted to persuade Gwanghyeon.
But he felt that, for now, he should simply agree with the branch manager and let the matter slide.
Besides, no one was going to check whether he had actually tried, so what did it matter?
“Th-That’s exactly what I meant.”
“There’s nothing we can do, then. I’ll contact him myself and try persuading him.”
“…What?!”
“Ah, don’t worry. I’m confident in my ability to persuade people. I’ve managed to convince guild members who wanted to leave to stay several times before.”
Park In-gu realized that the situation was taking a strange turn.
But it was already too late, and he couldn’t think of any way to stop Jung Hongseok.
“I’m sure he’ll be expecting us to contact him by now. I know there are plenty of people who submit their resignation in the heat of the moment and regret it later. Haha!”
Looking at Jung Hongseok’s confident smile as though he was telling Park In-gu to leave it to him, Park In-gu nodded with an expression of complete resignation.
After properly finishing the move and spending some enjoyable time with his children, Gwanghyeon began thinking about his plans for the future.
There was nothing particularly urgent right now, but he felt more comfortable knowing that he had at least made some plans in advance.
‘What options do I have?’
One straightforward option was to join a major guild.
With Gwanghyeon’s current abilities, joining one of the four major guilds that every Hunter in Korea dreamed of wouldn’t be particularly difficult.
Simply joining one of the four major guilds guaranteed various welfare benefits, and the basic income was relatively high as well.
Even if he simply lived an ordinary life there, he could consider a comfortable future practically guaranteed.
‘But that’s not enough.’
He knew it wasn’t a bad option, but Gwanghyeon decided not to settle for that alone.
He decided to aim a little higher.
‘Right. I earned 100 million won in bounty money just by hunting a villain alone. So there’s really no reason I need to join a guild…’
As he thought about it, Gwanghyeon suddenly realized something.
It was merely a thought that flashed through his mind, but somehow, it seemed like a pretty good idea.
‘Wait. Going around hunting villains… That might actually work.’
As his thoughts began to fall into place, a slow smile appeared on Gwanghyeon’s face.
He stood up, intending to look into the idea.
Just then, his phone suddenly began ringing.
“…Huh?”
It was a call from an unknown number.
Wondering who could possibly be calling at this hour, Gwanghyeon answered.
“Hello?”
—Ah, is this Choi Gwanghyeon’s number?
The voice sounded somewhat familiar.
Gwanghyeon tilted his head and replied,
“Yes, speaking.”
—Nice to meet you. I’m Jung Hongseok, the head of Geumseong Guild’s Fourth Branch.
Ah.
Now he remembered.
Having recognized who was on the other end, Gwanghyeon immediately replied.
“Fuck off.”
