<Episode 56>
‘That voice… is that Ms. Seah?’
It seemed that Ms. Seah was making a phone call behind the building. But the contents of the conversation were anything but ordinary.
“No! How is this my fault? You should’ve given me accurate information from the start!”
Although she was trying to keep her voice down, the boiling anger within it couldn’t be concealed. However, after hearing whatever the other person said, her voice quickly lost its momentum.
“…Not yet. They haven’t permitted me to make items. But from what I heard, if I hold out a little longer, it seems possible.”
Permission to make items? Was she talking about our shop?
I pressed my ear tightly against the wall.
Soon, a chilling conversation drifted through the gap in the window.
“I need to be able to make the items before I can poison them or anything! Right now, all I can do is package things!”
Poison?
Was she planning to poison our shop’s items?
The moment I heard those words, cold sweat ran down my spine.
I rushed over and blocked her path just as she finished the call and was about to leave.
“Ms. Seah, did your call go well?”
The color instantly drained from her face when she saw me.
Clearly flustered, she hurriedly hid the hand holding her phone behind her back.
“…B-Boss. What are you doing here?”
“Turns out there are a lot of ears around the Hunter Management Bureau. You were having quite an interesting conversation.”
She took a hesitant step backward and bit her lower lip hard.
She had deliberately come all the way behind the building to make that call, and she looked unable to believe she’d been overheard.
But only for a moment.
As though she had never been startled at all, she instantly changed her expression.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just having a phone call with my mother.”
If I hadn’t heard the conversation properly, I might have wondered if I had misunderstood.
Her tone was natural.
“I-If you don’t believe me, you can check for yourself. The only person in my recent call history is my mother!”
She confidently held out her phone.
Her expression was a mixture of indignation and resentment that I would dare suspect her.
Instead of checking the phone, I shrugged.
“No need. I’m sure you saved whoever it was as ‘Mother.’ If I called from your side, you’d already have your story straight.”
“You’re awfully suspicious. I don’t know what you think you heard, but aren’t you forcing things a bit?”
Her rough breathing had already steadied.
The confidence of someone who knew the call history had been cleaned up and the other party had already been warned.
She was convinced that the only evidence I had was what I’d overheard moments ago.
‘Like I’m stupid enough to just stand there and listen.’
Without hesitation, I played the recording on my phone.
The audio quality wasn’t great, but despite being separated by a window, the contents were clear.
[—(static) …I can’t make the items yet. But from what I heard, it should be possible if I hold out a little longer. (static)… I need to be able to make the items before I can poison them or anything!]
“After hearing this recording, you can’t seriously claim you were talking to your mother.”
“Ugh… Isn’t recording someone like that illegal?”
“The illegal thing is what ‘you’ were trying to do. Not only did you fabricate a relationship with Hunter Lee Hyunwoo, but you were also planning to poison our shop’s food?”
As I took a step forward, she turned around and tried to run.
But panic got the better of her.
Her feet tangled, and she fell flat onto the ground.
I slowly walked toward her and raised my hand.
Thinking I was about to hit her, she squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face with her arms.
“P-Please spare me!”
Clicking my tongue, I simply took the phone from her hand.
Who knew who she might contact otherwise?
I needed to keep it.
“T-This is…”
“Don’t even think about running away. Unless you want whatever messages are left on this phone to become public.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Ms. Seah glared at me.
The angelic face she’d worn before had transformed into something venomous.
Not that it scared me.
I slipped the phone into my pocket and shrugged.
“Think whatever you want.”
“…Ugh.”
Apparently, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the phone and flee.
She bit her lip repeatedly.
“You’ll regret this once you find out who’s backing me.”
“Now I’m really curious. Just how impressive is this person behind you?”
I told her to stop entertaining stupid ideas and follow me.
After hesitating for a moment, she trudged after me with heavy steps.
“…Unni?”
When I returned to the shop with Yoon Seah, Ari, who had been baking fish-shaped pastries, widened her eyes.
The moment she saw Seah standing there with her head lowered, Ari immediately caught on.
“Sorry! We’ll be closing early today. Something urgent came up.”
Fortunately, all the reservations had already been fulfilled, and only a handful of dine-in customers remained.
Seeing the serious atmosphere, the customers quietly took the hint and left.
“I’ve locked the doors. Now talk.”
We firmly locked the first-floor entrance and sat around a table on the second floor.
Seah nervously glanced toward the staircase leading downstairs, but eventually her shoulders slumped in defeat.
“…I’m sorry. I think I really lost my mind for a while.”
“Ms. Seah, I’m not here to hear an apology. I’m giving you one final chance to tell the truth.”
I could take this recording to the police or the Hunter Bureau’s security team immediately.
Or I could play it directly for Hunter Lee Hyunwoo.
I could even leak it to the media and make it public.
This meeting was the last kindness I was willing to offer.
Confess the truth and ask for forgiveness.
Realizing that, she finally began speaking.
“T-To be honest, the restaurant experience listed on my résumé was fake. I was actually an aspiring actress.”
“…What?”
Ari’s voice rose in shock.
Seah continued calmly.
“I never managed to debut. My fiancé died suddenly.”
“After that, I didn’t want to do anything anymore. But one day, someone called Manager Han came to my house.”
“Manager Han? Who is that?”
She slowly shook her head.
“I don’t know much about her. But she said she wanted to help me. She claimed she knew who killed my fiancé.”
At first, Seah had tried to slam the door in her face.
But the concrete proposal she offered gradually tempted her.
“She told me she’d provide the information I needed if I infiltrated this shop and uncovered the secret behind its items. She said they planned to expand into that line of business.”
“That’s a lie. Earlier, you talked about poisoning things.”
At the mention of poison, Ari sucked in a sharp breath.
She had already suspected Seah was lying, but apparently hadn’t realized things were this serious.
“I-I wasn’t really planning to poison anything! I just went along with what they were saying because I needed information!”
She grabbed my sleeve desperately.
I shook my head firmly.
“That’s not the important part. The important thing is that you entered our shop with ulterior motives.”
“T-That’s true, but I really had my reasons…”
“And what exactly are those reasons? What does your fiancé’s death have to do with our shop?”
Her hand slipped from my sleeve.
Her shoulders trembled slightly as she spoke in a low voice.
“The person who killed my fiancé… was Hunter Lee Hyunwoo.”
What?
Without realizing it, I clenched my fist beneath the table.
“So now that the ‘we were going to get married’ story didn’t work, you’ve come up with another lie?”
“I understand why you don’t believe me! But I saw it with my own eyes. I saw him brutally kill my fiancé with a massive sword.”
She said she had survived only because she was hiding behind the rubble of a collapsed building.
If he had noticed her, she believed she would have been killed too.
“…I tried to forget it, but I couldn’t. My life was ruined, while he continued living perfectly well. That shouldn’t be allowed.”
She said she had spent her days crying, drowning in depression and lethargy.
Then, Manager Han’s proposal reignited the flames of revenge she thought had long since died.
“Manager Han told me Hunter Lee Hyunwoo often came to this shop. She said it would be a good opportunity for me too.”
“Then the part about applying to the Busan branch was a lie as well.”
“…No. That part was true. Though I never intended to work there if I got accepted.”
She had planned to get familiar with us through the face-to-face interview, then naturally apply to the main branch afterward.
“I never imagined the recruitment posting would be canceled before I even got interviewed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have shown up here so recklessly.”
Even so, her story still didn’t add up.
If Lee Hyunwoo had murdered her fiancé, why had she claimed to be someone who had promised to marry him?
As if she had anticipated the question, Yoon Seah gave a weary smile.
“Because I can’t kill him myself.”
“I wanted to disguise myself as someone important from the memories he lost.”
She said it didn’t matter whether the lie worked immediately.
As long as she managed to make him pay attention to her, she believed she could manipulate the situation from there.
“The reason I’m being honest now is that I want you to know what he really is.”
“What do you mean…?”
“Don’t get close to him.”
“He’s a cruel man who kills anyone who stands in his way.”
The moment our eyes met, a rumor Hunter Kang Min had once told me resurfaced in my mind.
“They say he was obsessed with clearing gates and killed anyone who got in the way… civilian or hunter, it didn’t matter… It’s a rumor that circulates among hunters. Don’t believe it. It’s complete nonsense.”
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