<Episode 60>
The Birth of Korea’s First S-Rank Hunter.
It was a simple sentence, but the implications behind it were anything but simple.
There were very few countries that possessed an S-Rank Hunter.
Perhaps because the long-awaited existence had finally appeared, the Management Bureau doctor standing before Hyunwoo could not hide his excitement and raised his voice.
“You’ve probably already seen it in your status window, but Lee Hyunwoo… no, I should call you Hunter Lee Hyunwoo now, shouldn’t I? Hunter Lee Hyunwoo, you have awakened as an S-Rank Hunter!”
“…I see.”
“You’re calmer than I expected. I thought you’d be a lot more surprised. Well, that’s fine! You said your previous memories are blurry, but it could just be a temporary symptom. Let’s proceed with a detailed examination and keep monitoring your condition!”
The doctor smiled reassuringly and told him not to worry too much.
After rattling off a long list of future examinations and schedules, he left the hospital room.
Only then did silence return.
‘So this is the Hunter Management Bureau hospital ward…’
The room, surrounded by pure white walls, was filled with nothing but the pungent smell of disinfectant.
Without complaining, Hyunwoo quietly closed his eyes.
An overwhelming fatigue had washed over him.
A few days later, once the Bureau determined his condition had stabilized, they officially announced to the world that an S-Rank Hunter had awakened.
After that, the world began paying attention to him.
News outlets featured his name every day.
High-ranking officials whom he had only ever seen on television came to visit, praising him as“the hope of South Korea”’ while eagerly taking photographs.
Yet even as time passed, his memories remained shrouded in a hazy fog.
His life before awakening.
It certainly existed, but felt frustratingly indistinct.
“…Well, it doesn’t really matter.”
Hyunwoo muttered flatly.
There probably wasn’t anyone waiting for him in his past.
Perhaps not even family.
The day before, someone claiming to be the director of his orphanage had visited and left behind a single box of belongings.
It wasn’t particularly surprising.
Despite all the media frenzy, not a single family member or relative had come to visit him.
Hyunwoo gazed out the darkened window.
A sudden awakening.
And a gap in his memories.
Everything felt detached from reality.
***
Being confined to a hospital room made time crawl.
Then, on the day he was told all examinations had been completed and that he would be discharged in two days, an unexpected visitor arrived.
“…You’re saying you’re my father?”
“That’s right. The child in this photograph is you. Cute, isn’t he?”
Hyunwoo’s eyes remained dry and emotionless as he looked down at the photograph.
In it, an unfamiliar woman and the man standing before him were smiling happily while holding a young child.
“I suppose I’m introducing myself rather late. My name is Park Seongcheol. I currently serve as Chairman of the National Defense Committee. Though titles aren’t really important.”
The middle-aged man standing before him wore a perfectly tailored suit.
He forced a smile that awkwardly mixed sorrow and joy.
“Circumstances forced me to separate from your mother early on. I should have found you much sooner, but your surname had changed, so I had no idea. In any case, I’m truly sorry for finding you so late.”
‘A lie.’
Hyunwoo merely nodded indifferently.
Seeing such a lukewarm response, Park Seongcheol grew anxious and hastily pulled forward the arm of the child standing behind him.
“Ah, Jaemin! You should say hello. He’s your older brother.”
“…Brother?”
A boy with a slight build was dragged out from behind Park Seongcheol.
Sharp eyes.
Firmly pressed lips.
A face eerily similar to his own reflection in a mirror.
The resemblance was unsettling.
When their eyes met, the boy reluctantly gave a small nod.
Wrapping an arm tightly around Park Jaemin’s shoulders, Park Seongcheol continued.
“Hyunwoo, would you like to come live with us from now on? If you want, we can make you part of our family–”
“That’s alright.”
Hyunwoo cut him off.
“As soon as I’m discharged, I plan to move into the Bureau.”
“There’s no need to rush. We can spend some time talking about all the years we missed and–”
“I’ve already made up my mind.”
For a brief moment, a crack appeared in Park Seongcheol’s perfect smile.
He stared at Hyunwoo silently before forcing the corners of his lips upward.
“…I see. If that’s truly what you want. But if you ever change your mind, contact me anytime. Here’s my personal number.”
Hyunwoo never accepted the slip of paper he offered.
In the end, Park Seongcheol placed it on the table and left with Park Jaemin.
Silence once again filled the hospital room.
“He abandoned me before, and now he wants to play father.”
There was another reason Hyunwoo had rejected his offer.
He pulled out the orphanage box he had shoved beneath the bed.
Among the worn clothes and miscellaneous items lay a faded envelope.
“…A suicide note.”
It was the final letter left behind by a mother he could not even remember.
The Bureau Director had told him she was a C-Rank Hunter who had “died honorably” inside a gate.
But the truth was different.
—
“…Every day is hell.:
‘Park Seongcheol abandoned me coldly in pursuit of power.’
‘I hate him so much that I can barely endure it.’
‘So I’ve decided to enter a gate and choose death.’
—
She had chosen a gate as a convenient tool to end her own life.
—
‘…My beloved child, Hyunwoo.’
‘Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if you had never existed.’
‘Isn’t that a terrible thought?’
‘Forget a mother pathetic enough to think such things.’
‘At least you should be happy.’
‘Goodbye.”
—
His name was mentioned only briefly at the end.
As Hyunwoo rubbed that section with his fingertips, he slipped the letter back into the envelope.
He couldn’t remember his mother.
He didn’t know whether she had loved him.
Or whether she had truly hated him.
But there were tear stains throughout the letter, accumulated over time.
Those stains made one thing clear.
Even within his blurred memories, a version of himself that had loved his mother still remained.
That was why he could never follow Park Seongcheol.
The man who had abandoned her.
‘Maybe this is for the best.’
‘Now that I’ve awakened as an S-Rank, I won’t need something like family anymore.’
Hearing movement outside, Hyunwoo quickly shoved the box back beneath the bed.
And so, he went from being an ordinary sixteen-year-old boy to becoming Korea’s first S-Rank Hunter.
***
I returned to my lodging and collapsed onto the bed.
‘…He abandoned him without hesitation, then suddenly started acting like family the moment he awakened as an S-Rank.’
The story Hunter Lee Hyunwoo had personally told me far exceeded anything I had imagined.
What’s more, Park Seongcheol had apparently thrown away his position as Chairman of the National Defense Committee and secured the post of Vice Director of the Management Bureau as soon as Hyunwoo began working as an S-Rank Hunter.
His intention to climb to the pinnacle of power by exploiting his son was painfully obvious.
Lee Hyunwoo had spoken calmly, saying that neither his mother nor father existed within his memories anyway.
But that calmness only made my heart ache more.
After hearing about his past, I finally understood why people often confused Lee Hyunwoo and Park Jaemin.
“…To bring Park Jaemin down, we need more concrete evidence.”
There was footage of him.
But it was merely blurry, low-quality video taken from a distance.
That was the result of the Hunter Management Bureau and the government suppressing media coverage to cover up their own mistakes.
Still, I had a feeling that if we dug deeper, we would find something.
The Park Jaemin in that footage looked like a child who had just awakened and was intoxicated by his newfound power.
“Do you have some kind of plan, nya?”
“…First, I need to secure allies.”
A smile crept onto my lips.
Fortunately, there was someone at our shop who would want the truth more than anyone.
***
“…Wait a second. What exactly are you talking about? What do you mean there’s another culprit?”
Early the next morning, I brought Yoon Se-ah, who had been lingering around the shop since dawn, up to the second floor.
She let out a disbelieving laugh after hearing me say that the culprit was someone else.
“I already told you. I saw Hunter Lee Hyunwoo with my own eyes.”
“What if the person you saw wasn’t Hunter Lee Hyunwoo?”
“What? That sounds like some kind of word game–”
“Just a moment. Watch this footage first.”
I played the video we had viewed in the secure archives yesterday.
It was a copy of the Incheon Gate footage that Lee Hyunwoo had given me that morning.
“This is CCTV footage from that day that was never released to the public.”
Though puzzled, Se-ah leaned forward to look at the screen.
“You said the person who killed your fiancé was Hunter Lee Hyunwoo, right? But that’s physically impossible. Look.”
At the back of the footage, near the shimmering gate entrance, Lee Hyunwoo could be seen preparing to enter.
Seah’s eyes trembled.
“Hunter Lee Hyunwoo entered the gate immediately upon arriving at the scene. He was an S-Rank Hunter, and there were more urgent matters that required his attention.”
“B-but then what about the person I saw? It was definitely Hunter Lee Hyunwoo!”
“Could you look at this corner of the screen? The man wearing the cap.”
When I tapped the corner, the image enlarged smoothly.
A man wearing a cap disappeared from view after spitting on the ground.
Seah gasped.
“Ah! That was him! That Hunter uniform with the red pattern on it. I thought that was Hunter Lee Hyunwoo, but how could there be two of them…?”
“They’re different people. You saw Hunter Lee Hyunwoo entering the gate yourself, didn’t you?”
“Then who is that man?”
At her urgent question, I glanced around.
It was still early.
Even Ari hadn’t arrived for work yet.
Just to be safe, I lowered my voice and whispered.
“Hunter Park Jaemin.”
“What? That’s impossible. The Park Jaemin I know is–”
“I know. The current him is completely different. But what about the him from back then?”
I stopped the video and brought up a photograph.
It had been taken years ago when Vice Director Park Seongcheol proudly announced his son Park Jaemin’s A-Rank awakening before a crowd of reporters.
‘Most of the records had already been buried. Finding even this much was difficult.’
Seah had no idea how much effort it took to find photographs from the beginning of his awakening period.
“This is…”
The newly awakened Park Jaemin in the photo looked completely different from the polished image he projected today.
Natural black hair.
Sharp eyes devoid of warmth.
At a glance, he resembled Lee Hyunwoo enough that it was difficult to tell them apart.
Quietly, I watched her reaction.
I had worried that a blurry CCTV recording and a five-year-old memory might not be enough for her to recognize him.
But then…
“Ah, f’.”
Huh?
Did I just hear that right?
“One look at his face and I know exactly who he is. That f’ing bastard. Seriously, how did I not realize it? That piece-of-shit human trash!”
Seah’s expression was terrifying.
How many swear words had she just packed into a single sentence?
Apparently, it still wasn’t enough, because she continued muttering curses under her breath.
“…M-Ms. Se-ah?”
Startled, I instinctively leaned backward.
Seah immediately grabbed my hand.
There was a faint madness gleaming in her eyes.
“What do you need me to do? Just say the word. If it’s to catch that bastard, I’ll help with anything.”
I nodded with an awkward smile.
And just like that, I began seriously gathering evidence to expose Park Jaemin’s crimes.
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