TFGSR 04

Chapter: 04

“Huh? It’s a student?”

The two people who raised their heads at the sound of the door were a man and a woman.

Hadn’t Jena said everyone had gathered here for the first time in a while?

‘……Is this really all of them?’

At one point, more than a hundred people had been registered with this guild.

And now there were only these three people?

“Jena, who is it? A friend of yours?”

“She’s wearing a school uniform. Besides, our Jena doesn’t have anything like friends.”

“She’s not my friend. She’s actually our guild’s new recruit.”

“……A new recruit? Seriously?”

As soon as she finished speaking, the two of them became frantic.

The man seemed to fold the blanket that had been sprawled across the sofa, but instead he simply rolled it up and tossed it onto the folding bed. The woman slapped the pile of documents on the desk into alignment. Each time she did, the peeling sheets covering the desk wobbled along with it.

‘Is this really something that can be fixed just by tidying up?!’

Jeyeon watched the scene with eyes that had half given up.

Then, suddenly, her gaze stopped on the two faces.

‘Huh?’

Wait.

That face.

‘They’re Jisu and Hoyeon, aren’t they?’

Kang Jisu and Jeong Hoyeon.

The two had been among Seongyeon’s original guild members.

Their faces were still the same.

Only, the hardships of the years that had passed had been laid over them in their entirety.

Around their eyes.

In their complexions.

In their smiles that somehow looked exhausted.

‘……You two, too.’

They could have cursed the guild and left.

But they had stayed with Seongyeon until the very end.

Jeyeon was grateful.

And she was sorry.

Just looking at this office was enough to tell her that the process must not have been easy.

But at the same time, she had a question.

‘But why are they living like this?’

Back then, both of them had been high-ranking players in the overall rankings.

Among Summoners, they had been ranked immediately below Jeyeon herself, the strongest of them all.

Ten years had passed, so their levels should have risen even further. Even if they only ran high-ranking dungeons, they should have been earning a considerable amount of money.

‘And the guild master is the youngest member.’

She had even surpassed Ryu Seongho, who had been the vice guild master at the time.

‘Did he leave the guild back then? This is frustrating.’

There were mountains of things she wanted to ask.

The problem was that, in Lee Sihyeon’s body, she couldn’t ask even one of them.

Meanwhile, the three people were also silently watching the new recruit, unsure of what to make of her.

“Maybe she’s a little shy around strangers?”

“She’s not like that at all, unnie.”

“Then I guess she’s disappointed after seeing our office.”

“Well, the office-tour videos from the big guilds have been really popular lately. If she’s seen those, this must be even more shocking.”

“Ah, it’s not like that.”

Only then did Jeyeon realize they were all looking at her and opened her mouth.

“There are just so many things I’m curious about that I don’t know what to ask first.”

“Oh, so that’s what it was!”

“Questions are always good. Feel free to ask anything!”

Kang Jisu and Jeong Hoyeon looked at her expectantly, their eyes shining.

It was understandable.

It had been a very long time since someone had actually come to Seongyeon of their own accord saying they wanted to join.

……Actually, it was the first time.

And toward those sparkling eyes, Jeyeon asked quite earnestly:

‘First, let’s ask about something I’m actually allowed to ask.’

“How did you manage to go completely bankrupt like this?”

“……?!”

A shocking silence descended over the room.

But Jeyeon didn’t stop.

“And did the two of you have a really hard time?”

“……Why do you ask?”

“You look older than your actual age.”

“…….”

“No, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just feel sorry for you.”

The two of them froze with their eyes wide open.

Inside, Jena screamed.

‘That makes it worse!’

It wasn’t wrong, and there clearly wasn’t any malice behind it, so there was nothing Jena could even say.

The first to recover was Jeong Hoyeon.

“Haha, we did have a pretty rough time making money. I guess it shows on our faces.”

“Yes.”

It was an immediate agreement without even the slightest hesitation.

A small voice escaped Jeong Hoyeon’s mouth.

“Bad kid…….”

He was smiling, but his eyes were moist.

Ahem.

At that moment, Kang Jisu covered his mouth with his fist and cleared his throat.

It was a signal that he would step in instead.

“Seongyeon went completely bankrupt because there was a traitor in our guild.”

A traitor.

At that word, Jeyeon spoke without realizing it.

“……Seong Jeyeon?”

“This again……”

Just as Jena glared and was about to say something, Kang Jisu shook his head.

“No. It was someone who used to be Seongyeon’s vice guild master.”

“……The vice guild master? Seongho?”

“How do you know that name?”

“……Uh, well.”

“Well, he’s the chairman of the Association now. I suppose you would have heard his name.”

Kang Jisu’s gaze briefly drifted into empty space.

He looked as though he were remembering something.

Then, when he looked back at her, his face had hardened with a frightening coldness.

The Kang Jisu Jeyeon knew had never made an expression like that.

“Ryu Seongho, who is now the chairman of the Korean Awakened Association. That bastard is the traitor.”

Jeyeon couldn’t say anything.

Ryu Seongho.

The Seongho she had entrusted with everything behind her back while she was inside the Tower.

Ryu Seongho.

Jeyeon rolled the name around in her mind once more.

And every time she did, a familiar voice followed.

<I can’t fight beside you like Taewon does. So I want to support you, even if it’s from outside the Tower. Because you’re the hope of our humanity.>

He had been the one who said that.

<You protect the Tower. I’ll protect our guild. If you’re Seongyeon’s dad, then I’m the mom, aren’t I?>

He had made that promise so firmly.

Jeyeon finally managed to speak.

“……Is it because he left the guild?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you call him a traitor. Isn’t that because he left?”

People could move to another place when they found a better position. Maybe they had simply parted on bad terms.

Jeyeon hoped it had ended there.

“There’s no way.”

Kang Jisu immediately crushed that hope.

“Ryu Seongho held a press conference exposing a conspiracy involving Jeyeon and Seongyeon Guild.”

“……What?”

“Right after Gitaewon’s interview ended, as if the two of them had planned it together.”

The atmosphere in the office sank heavily.

Jeong Hoyeon was the first to break the silence.

“Damn it!”

He scratched the back of his neck and deliberately raised his voice.

“If it weren’t for that bastard, we wouldn’t have ended up like this. Seriously!”

He spoke in an exaggerated manner, throwing curses into his words like exclamations.

But despite the fact that he was supposedly joking, there was no laughter in his eyes.

Kang Jisu continued.

“That was the decisive blow. An insider had confessed, after all. From there, the government designated Seongyeon Guild as a national traitor.”

Jena gritted her teeth.

“They confiscated all of Seongyeon’s assets and imposed a fine worth tens of billions of won. If we wanted to preserve the name Seongyeon, we had to pay all of it back.”

“Is that really true?”

“Look it up on the internet later. You can find all the records.”

“I’m telling you, I got old paying off debts because of that traitor. This hyung wasn’t born looking like this.”

Hoyeon added jokingly.

But Jeyeon couldn’t laugh along.

Even when she had torn her own heart out with her hands, it hadn’t hurt this much.

Jeyeon’s hand rose to her chest and tightly clenched the fabric of her shirt.

Heat welled up behind her eyes.

‘No.’

She couldn’t cry here.

Lee Sihyeon was a new recruit who had come here for the first time today.

What kind of new recruit burst into tears just because she heard about the guild’s past?

Jeyeon clenched her teeth and lowered her head.

She even held her breath as she swallowed back the tears rising inside her.

At the end of her tightly focused gaze, she could see Jisu and Hoyeon’s shoes.

Worn down from years of use.

Dirty.

Tattered.

If they had simply abandoned Seongyeon, these were debts they wouldn’t have had to bear.

If they had simply let go of the name, these were hardships they never would have had to endure.

But they stayed.

They stayed, and this was what they had become.

‘Who am I to you?

What was Seongyeon to you?’

Why had they done all this just to protect a mere name?

Her throat burned.

“Sihyeon?”

After the careful call came the sound of the three of them whispering among themselves above her head.

“Hey, didn’t we get a little too heavy in front of the kid?”

“We should tell her, though. What if she joins without knowing anything and finds out later? She might think we deceived her.”

“That’s true, but this probably wasn’t something we should have told her on her first day……”

After a brief silence, Jena’s voice came, much gentler than before.

“Sihyeon. You don’t have to join just because you came all the way here. You can go home today, think about it carefully, and decide later.”

“Yeah. As you heard, our situation is like this, so it’s better to be careful.”

Jeyeon raised her head.

She met the worried gazes of the three people.

‘You idiots.’

Instead of trying to hold on to the new recruit who had come to them after so long, they were trying to send her home.

They couldn’t even bring themselves to deceive one young girl.

Jeyeon forcibly pushed down the pain and covered it up.

Now was not the time to fall apart.

For the people who had believed in her and endured all this, she had to stand back up.

Jeyeon slowly breathed in.

Then breathed out.

And smiled brightly.

“A Summoner would go anywhere other than Seongyeon? I’m joining right now.”

The faces of the three people visibly brightened.

“Really? You really mean it?”

“Even after hearing all that?”

“Yes. Even so.”

“Sihyeon, welcome!”

“All three of us are Summoners, so feel free to ask us anything.”

“Then, to celebrate Sihyeon joining us, let’s go eat something delicious. My treat!”

“What’s gotten into you, Hoyeon oppa?”

“We got a new youngest member. How could I just sit around? I can work one more part-time job tomorrow.”

“Oh, Jeong Hoyeon, you’re surprisingly dependable today.”

Jeyeon quietly watched the scene.

It was almost like some family from an old drama.

‘Ah, I think I’m going to cry.’

The three of them were clearly having such a warm and cheerful time, but the more she listened, the more heartbreaking it became.

Unable to hold herself back, Jeyeon spoke.

“Seongyeon will be different now. I’m going to make it the number-one guild again.”

I’ll make sure you live in comfort.

The three of them, unaware of the circumstances, already felt full just from hearing the youngest member’s ambitious declaration.

Jeyeon smiled too.

And behind that smile, she quietly pressed two names deep into her heart.

They had spent ten years building themselves up.

It must be quite sturdy by now.

But something can always collapse in an instant.

Seongyeon had already proven that.

‘Gitaewon. Ryu Seongho.’

You two will have to come down, too.