FLIA 125

“Ha….”

He threw the recorder away nervously. He could not make this recording public. It had to contain something realistic, but this was filled with insane words. If he revealed it, people would only say it was fabricated. Especially now, when public opinion against him was at its worst. And considering the common testimony of the people at the cafe, it was better not to reveal it.

Go Jaewon drank strong liquor one glass after another. Since awakening, he hardly got drunk. To feel even a slight buzz, he had to drink at least three bottles of strong kaoliang or whiskey. Empty bottles already piled around him. It was not the amount of one or two days’ drinking, but now there was no one to stop him. The place left behind by the Golden Bug members, who had been the central pillar of the Sunrise Guild, was empty.

‘If you were really clean and had done nothing wrong, by now this place would already be the Taeyang Guild!’

Go Jaewon grabbed his head, remembering the way Golden Bug’s captain Elena had spoken, her tone not of suspicion but of absolute conviction.

Now the Sunrise Guild was desolate. When Lee Hyunmook returned, the guild members had barely held on. But after the press conference where only Go Jaewon missed, and after the news that Lee Hyunmook and the other Sunrise Team members had left the guild, they resigned or transferred away. The Taeyang Guild even paid their penalty fees for them, so no one hesitated and left one after another. Even those still left stayed only because they had nowhere else to go.

The people who once praised the guild as the best in Korea had mostly turned away. Some openly called him a traitor. Everywhere, he only received contempt and scornful looks. Not long ago, while going to work, he had been pelted with rotten eggs. The guild’s mail and phone were flooded with curses, accusations, and complaints, to the point that operations were nearly paralyzed.

But more than all that, what weighed down Go Jaewon most was what had happened today. His hand, emptying one bottle and reaching for another, trembled.

‘Monsters….’

No matter how he thought about it, his old teammates did not seem human. The most frightening was not even Lee Chanha, who surely hated him most, but Lee Hyunmook. Even before, as a high-level awakener, his aura was pressuring, but when they met at the cafe it had been entirely different.

Was reawakening really something that existed? Had Lee Hyunmook and the others reawakened too? What kind of place was the Abyss? Go Jaewon clenched his teeth. How good it would have been if Lee Hyunmook and his team had never come back alive.

His old comrades really looked like they wanted to kill him….

If he had known things would turn out like this, he would never have accepted the government’s offer back then. Regretting it, Go Jaewon drank again, his throat dry. He still felt shivers through his body. Somewhat drunk, dizzy, he shook his leg nervously.

‘Could they really kill me?’

Before, if it were his old comrades, he would have been certain they would never kill him no matter what. But not now. He anxiously looked around. He felt like Lee Chanha, Seo Yakrin, Yoon Seungryong, and Ju Hoyoung might burst in through the door saying they would kill him.

‘Could the team leader’s shadow not have been a hallucination but real…?’

No matter how much he thought, he could not shake off the idea that Lee Hyunmook and the others were severely corrupted. If they had gone insane, there was nothing they could not do. Feeling the threat of death, Go Jaewon thought. Would it be better to defect abroad than live in Korea under this threat?

If only he could spread the information that his old comrades were actually severely corrupted. He did not know how they had passed the corruption test, but Go Jaewon was convinced they were corrupted. No, he wanted to believe they were.

He was setting down another bottle when someone knocked. He jumped in fright.

“Wh-who is it! Fuck!”

Go Jaewon shouted as he clutched the Eternal Stone weapon that Seo Yakrin had once carefully made for him, holding it like his life depended on it. When the door suddenly opened, he stopped breathing, overcome with extreme fear. Fortunately, the person who came in was a stranger, but somehow familiar.

“What? You were inside? But why are you cursing?”

“…Uh, the name, Park….”

Drunk, Go Jaewon groped through his memory. The man frowned, looked him up and down with contempt.

“I’m Park Seungmin. Didn’t you get the government notice? They told me to work here starting today.”

Only then did Go Jaewon remember that the name of the first purifier to appear was Park Seungmin. Without permission, Park Seungmin walked inside and pinched his nose.

“Wow, why are you sweating so much? Ugh… the smell of alcohol.”

Acting like he was doing a favor, though displeased, Park Seungmin scattered a soft light. The room was purified in an instant. Go Jaewon stared blankly at the sight, then laughed. He threw the bottle he was holding to the floor.

‘A high-level purifier is entering my guild. Even if the sky falls, there is still a way out!’

Yes, even if it was not the strongest guild, if it had a high-level purifier, then even the Taeyang Guild would not be able to do anything. Go Jaewon forced himself to calm his anxious heart.

***

Yohan adjusted to the guild very smoothly.

Every day when he commuted, reporters swarmed around looking for another survivor of the Abyss, but they could not get past the loyal guards. More than that, with twelve new awakners joining at once, no one could pinpoint who it was. It seemed the Rift Management Bureau was controlling awakeners information much more strictly than expected.

The members of the Little Lamb Team were all around Yohan’s age. Most of them had awakened not long ago, so they had never properly gone through a rift. They were young, cheerful, and just nervous enough. Everyone felt proud of themselves for making it into the Taeyang Guild after surviving fierce competition.

“But who is that survivor really supposed to be?”

“A low-level awakener of the Physical Enhancement type? There are already four people like that among the new recruits. And how do you know that ability is even true? There are so many fake articles these days.”

“I’ve seen several people on the internet lately claiming to have reawakened.”

“Maybe he never even joined the Taeyang Guild? Honestly, if it were me, the moment I got out of the Abyss I would lock myself in my house and never come out….”

“Even if they call him a parachute, isn’t he basically a veteran with a rift debut? He came back from the Abyss.”

Whenever conversations like this came up, Yohan, who really was a parachute but not a parachute, felt awkward by himself. He also felt guilty hiding his ability from them.

The new guild members eagerly learned from the Golden Mary Team and Taeyang Rising Team, who already had much experience in rift exploration and monster hunting. From the very basics like writing expedition reports, to how to avoid corruption as much as possible, removing corruption from weapons, building teamwork, training, what to watch out for in rifts, and more.

This was something Yohan needed too. He had never worked in a guild, so he lacked this kind of basic knowledge. He knew how to hunt monsters and avoid them, but he did not know the common sense required of an awakener.

After studying and practicing hard, he fooled around a bit in the second-floor lounge or cafeteria, then pretended to go home but instead went to the meeting room. Then he returned to the guild building together with the Taeyang Team members after they finished their work. Today, when he arrived at the meeting room, Lee Hyunmook was already there.

“Yohan-ah, did you make some friends?”

His words sounded not like a lover but like a parent, or an uncle sending a child to school for the first time. He took the bag Yohan was carrying. It was the basic rift survival kit issued today, and he had been told to look it over and handle it until he got used to it. The big age gap between him and Lee Hyunmook came to mind again, but Yohan deliberately erased it from his thoughts. Anyway, as long as he looked like he was in his twenties, that was enough.

“The bag isn’t that heavy.”

Yohan took his bag back. The survival bag could hold quite a lot of supplies, but it was shaped to fit snugly to the body so it would not interfere even with rough activity.

“Really, not heavy?”

Lee Hyunmook’s eyes curved gently as he smiled. The way his lover spoke to him was always soft and affectionate, and every time Yohan heard it, it tickled inside. And Yohan liked that feeling very much.

“I get along well with the team members! The Ani-yang Team people are all good too. But somehow….”

Would it be just his imagination to say everyone seemed to especially like him?

Even in his school days, Yohan had not been unpopular. He was fairly handsome, and with a sociable and easygoing personality, he made many friends, both male and female. Aside from someone like Park Seungmin, his friends were all good people. He had also been quite liked by his teachers.

But even considering that, this time he felt he was earning people’s favor especially easily. Was it because he was a purifier? Yohan tilted his head, then quickly shook it. Stay humble. Don’t inflate your self-consciousness. That was what he always repeated to himself after becoming a high-level awakener.