VSP 115

When driving, distracting thoughts tend to easily creep in. Now that the route to Cha Dogyeong’s house was familiar, Sejun, who was driving without navigation, felt various thoughts circling through his dazed mind.

Come to think of it, what happened with Lee Dohun and Choi Hangyeol? He thought he’d heard Dohun’s voice at the end. Did Sehyun-hyung handle the situation well? What about Lee Yongseok and the Bacheon Guild, and how many survivors were there? He couldn’t understand how the body cam had been hacked in the first place or why people were suddenly talking about overseas scouting and EX-rank.

All sorts of questions were popping up in his head without any order, but the system, who knew Sejun’s every thought, slowly provided answers.

[Hunters Lee Dohun and Choi Hangyeol are both safe. They arrived around the same time as Hunter Cha Dogyeong. Hunter Ryu Sehyun also joined safely, though… he’s very angry about what happened. It’d be best for you to check on him in person later. Some who had already become nutrients for the tree couldn’t be saved, but most survivors are fine, and most of the Bacheon Guild members are safe too. We’ll have to investigate further, but since the department store dungeon didn’t appear because of the Bacheon Guild, they probably won’t be detained. They hid the information from the Association for only a short time, and the dungeon would’ve erupted anyway. They were just greedy. That doesn’t mean they’re free of responsibility, so things will probably be noisy for a while.]

“Are you rapping or what?” Sejun, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, was about to ask, but barely managed to hold himself back. In any case, it was an answer that satisfactorily addressed Sejun’s curiosity.

Even from his rough guess, he could imagine how chaotic things had been during the two days he’d been unconscious. It must’ve been a mess, with people fighting over responsibility and mourning the victims. Anyone in charge would’ve been battered from every direction.

Sehyun-hyung must be out of his mind…

Since Sejun had no way to contact Ryu Sehyun for the same reason, he gritted his teeth and thought he should quickly get a new phone after meeting Cha Dogyeong. Living without that modern essential was driving him crazy.

[There’s also public criticism asking, “How could the Association fail to notice an S-rank dungeon appearing right under its nose?” But since this dungeon couldn’t be detected by any of the Association’s systems or by any detection-type Hunters, it’s not really the Association’s fault. And because of that… Sejun-nim, signal ahead.]

The system clicked his tongue as Sejun, distracted by the explanations, belatedly hit the brakes.

[I know your reflexes are impressive, but please be careful not to cause an accident.]

“Uh, yeah…”

[You already have a lot to think about, so let’s leave it here for now. You can go over the details later when you have time.]

Maybe trying to be considerate, the system suggested he take some time instead of cramming everything into his head at once.

As the wait at the intersection grew longer, Sejun anxiously tapped the steering wheel and bit his lip before finally asking,

“I can find out everything else later, but tell me just one thing.”

[What is it?]

“Is Hoya okay?”

[Yes.]

He had hesitated before asking, and the system’s answer was refreshing.

[He stayed by your side the whole time you were unconscious.]

That part caught him off guard.

“Hoya did?”

Sejun asked back in bewilderment, but the system still responded coolly, “Yes.”

The question “why” naturally arose in Sejun’s mind. Hoya, by his side? Why? Hoya hated being around Sejun more than anything, he hated being summoned by Sejun unless it’s necessary.

And since Sejun had been short on mana, even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have maintained the summon that long. There was nothing more unfamiliar than hearing that Hoya had stayed by his side.

For a moment, Sejun even wondered if the system was lying. But he quickly dismissed it.

There was no reason for the system to lie about something that could easily be found out, and if what he said was true, it explained why Sejun’s mana had dropped to barely twenty by the time he woke up after two days.

Even just maintaining a simple summon drained mana when it came to Hoya, so even with the help of the ring, it made sense that Sejun’s mana had run out. But that wasn’t the real issue. The real question was why Hoya had done that.

The light changed. While Sejun continued driving on instinct, his expression was blank because of all the question marks floating around in his head. He finally couldn’t hold back and asked,

“Why?”

[Why else? He must’ve been worried.]

“Hoya was worried about me?”

That made no sense. Why would Hoya worry about him? Hoya hated him.

…But in a corner of Sejun’s mind, an image of Hoya in the Taeseong Department Store suddenly appeared. Hoya looking at him, seemingly checking his condition from time to time, and the expression Hoya made when Sejun was in danger.

Sejun instantly became confused. No way, that couldn’t be. His long-standing doubt continued to hold him back.

“Hoya must hate me.”

[There’s no summoned creature in the world that hates its own summoner. If he hated you, he wouldn’t have made a contract in the first place.]

A contract.

Suddenly, the moment when he signed the contract with Hoya came to Sejun’s mind.

Actually, it was a very strange process to call it a contract.

Right after he awakened as a hunter, Hoya had naturally appeared before him, almost as if they’d promised to meet.

The contract with Hoya went so smoothly from beginning to end, as if it were something meant to happen, and Sejun thought that all summoners made contracts with their summons like that.

Only later did he realize that other summoners had to run all over the place searching for the creatures they wanted to contract with, hunting them down to make them their soldiers, treating contracts and cancellations like caging and releasing animals. That discovery had shocked him.

‘What? You didn’t hunt? Then how did you make a contract?’

That was the question people asked him, wondering how he’d contracted with Hoya.

‘…You hunt them? Why?’

To Sejun, the idea of “hunting” a summon to gain it was so unfamiliar that he couldn’t help but ask back. Even after that, he never really understood what people meant by “summon hunting.”

Hoya was his only summon. He had contracts with spirits too, but those felt more like borrowing their power. His bond with Hoya felt like they only had each other.

Naturally, the thought of canceling his contract with Hoya had never crossed his mind. It was physically impossible, but more than that, he had never wanted to. Even if he couldn’t handle Hoya properly.

It wasn’t that Hoya was too strong to let go, but that Sejun never had that choice in the first place.

He blamed himself for a long time, wondering why Hoya was tied down to someone like him, and he thought it was natural for Hoya to hate him.

But after everything that happened this time, a new thought crossed his mind. Maybe he had been wrong from the start.

[I’ve told you more than once that Hoya-nim doesn’t dislike you.]

Well, sometimes he really did found you hopeless… … but the words the system added struck Sejun’s heart. There was no need to feel resentful about that. When Sejun caused countless accidents, Hoya had genuinely found him hopeless.

But that was the same way his mom used to call him hopeless before smacking him on the back, so there was nothing to say. …What was important to Sejun was that Hoya didn’t hate him.

[From what I see, you’re both just bad at this. Since your mana has recovered, how about spending some time with Hoya-nim?]

“…Would Hoya even want that?”

[He absolutely wouldn’t mind.]

The system’s confident words gave Sejun a feeble courage. He still didn’t think Hoya would want to talk, but he thought it was worth trying.

“Hm.”

He felt a bit anxious. He had gotten a general explanation about Cha Dogyeong and Hoya’s situations from the system, but he didn’t know what was going on with Lee Dohun, Choi Hangyeol, and Ryu Sehyun… There were so many faces he wanted to check on right away, but he felt like he didn’t have enough time.

As Sejun was tapping the steering wheel with his hand in impatience, the system tried to calm him down.

[Sejun-nim, things will go wrong if you rush them.]

“…Yeah.”

Sejun barely managed to calm his seething stomach. Many things came to mind, they all felt urgent… …but the most urgent was right before his eyes.

Just then, Cha Dogyeong’s house came into view in the distance. In the quiet neighborhood, only the soft sound of Sejun’s car echoed.