S-Rank Healer Gets Kidnapped First Chapter 33

“Who?”

Cha Seohae asked back with a frown. He seemed to be making sure he had heard correctly.

“Ah, well, you see….”

The guild member hesitated, glancing around cautiously. He seemed to have belatedly noticed me standing behind Cha Seohae and was wondering whether it was okay to continue speaking.

Seeing him fidget uncertainly, I let out a deep sigh.

I even turned my head away to show that I wouldn’t get involved and that he could speak freely.

Cha Seohae saw me turn away and muttered irritably,

“Of all times, they had to come now.”

It was almost lunchtime. Unless they had made plans to eat together, it was an awkward time to visit.

Still, those were merely words. He didn’t look particularly surprised by the sudden visit.

Apparently, he had already expected the Association to come looking for me sooner or later.

I had more or less expected it too.

I just didn’t think they would be this bold.

The Association I saw from the outside was even more arbitrary than when I had seen it from within.

Once they had a goal in mind, they really were willing to act this recklessly.

Should I go meet them or not? If I go, I can make my position clear, but that’s exactly what the Association wants, and I don’t want to give them what they want.

While I continued pondering with my head turned away, I noticed a door at the end of the hallway.

There’s a control room here?

It was a door I had never noticed before.

It was tucked away in a corner, so it was easy to overlook unless you were specifically paying attention.

I stared at the door for a moment. A sign reading “No Entry Except for Authorized Personnel” was attached to it, along with yellow tape that somehow made it even more eye-catching.

“What do you think? Want to come?”

Cha Seohae asked me after saying that he would be leaving soon.

His voice brought my attention back from the door.

“It should be fine if you come with me. We have to maintain peace publicly, after all. More importantly, it would be impossible for them to do anything in here with only a small number of people.”

Cha Seohae sounded confident that no matter what kind of enemy came, they wouldn’t be able to do as they pleased inside this place.

I was grateful that he was trying to reassure me.

“No, I’m not going.”

“Really?”

He didn’t seem disappointed, as though he hadn’t particularly expected any answer from me.

However, after thinking for a moment, he asked,

“You wanted to give the Association a piece of your mind before, didn’t you? If not now, who knows when you’ll get another chance to see them. Are you sure?”

He seemed to be referring to the time when we had discussed whether or not I should reveal my rank.

I remembered how boldly I had wanted to reveal my rank back then.

Compared to that time, I had definitely become much stronger.

But after seeing Cha Seohae’s abilities, it was difficult for me to feel confident.

There were plenty of strong people out there. There had to be an unbridgeable gap between me, who had only just begun mastering an S-rank skill, and those who had spent years fighting in the field.

I had to narrow that gap somehow, doing everything I could.

I steeled myself and told Cha Seohae,

“There’s something I need to do here.”

And somehow, I also felt that I would meet them someday anyway.

 

***

 

Cha Seohae left the training room alone and went down a few floors.

Normally, guests who came to see him were brought to the 44th floor.

But there was no reason to bring an unimportant guest, especially an Association member, to such a high floor.

What are they trying to do?

That was why Cha Seohae’s thoughts were filled with Moon Yeonhee rather than his guest.

There had been something unusual in Moon Yeonhee’s eyes when she looked at the control room, so he deliberately didn’t try to persuade her.

He hadn’t intended to take her with him in the first place. He had only asked out of courtesy.

Before long, he arrived at the room where his guest was waiting.

“Oh my, look who it is! How long has it been?”

As soon as the door opened, an excited, cheerful voice greeted Cha Seohae.

The person greeting him was Jang Jeong-in, smiling brightly.

He wasn’t wearing combat gear, but ordinary casual clothes. It seemed he had deliberately removed anything that might be perceived as a potential threat.

Though as long as he was a Hunter, he could pull out a weapon at any time.

“I thought it would take you longer, but you came surprisingly early.”

“Should I thank you for considering this early?”

“No. I thought you wouldn’t come at all, so whenever you came it would have been early.”

Jang Jeong-in shrugged.

Despite his cheerful smile, he was already trying to get under Cha Seohae’s skin the moment they met.

I never expected us to have a normal conversation anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Thinking he might have to endure a tedious war of words, Cha Seohae unconsciously sighed.

“Oh? But where’s Yeonhee?”

“What?”

“Yeonhee. There’s no way you don’t know about her, considering your team leader has caused such a commotion.”

“…….”

“But I thought it was strange that Yeonhee didn’t come even though I did. Did your guild member fail to deliver the message?”

Cha Seohae’s lips curled slightly at the irritating words.

If his goal was to provoke him, Jang Jeong-in had succeeded.

“Get to the point.”

There seemed to be no reason to listen to any more nonsense.

When Cha Seohae showed no interest, Jang Jeong-in became even more dramatic.

“Eh? You want to get straight to the point?”

“There’s no need for pleasantries between us. What? Is there some reason you can’t just get to the point?”

Cha Seohae smiled faintly at Jang Jeong-in.

“For example, are you buying time?”

“Buying time? I came here alone.”

Jang Jeong-in answered calmly before dropping heavily onto the sofa.

“You kidnapped Yeonhee and won’t even show her to us. This guild really is an unpleasant place. Since you’re insisting that I get straight to the point without any pleasantries, I suppose I have no choice. Send Yeonhee back.”

“…….”

“We may have a new A-rank Healer, but Healers are valuable personnel. There are plenty of places that need them besides us. Someone who should know that is acting like this. Naturally, it’s troublesome when a large guild that should have a Healer behaves this way.”

“…….”

“Oh, right. You don’t have one anymore, do you?”

Cha Seohae stared at Jang Jeong-in expressionlessly.

Jang Jeong-in’s eyes, which had been curved pleasantly, slowly opened.

“You do understand that doesn’t justify kidnapping her, right?”

“…….”

“But our Association President is willing to quietly bury this incident out of the goodness of his heart. We came here politely, without resorting to violence, and we only want to take Yeonhee back, so just show her to us—”

“Polite?”

Cha Seohae cut him off with a mocking laugh.

“Your team leader did what he did to her, and now you’re talking about manners?”

“Ah, regarding the matter involving our team leader, I’ll ask the Association President to make sure you receive compensation.”

Jang Jeong-in raised both hands above his head as if he agreed with that point.

“How about it? Isn’t this polite enough? We tried to resolve things through conversation without violating proper etiquette, and I even came here unarmed.”

“…….”

“If you need a Healer, come to the Association. We’re always waiting.”

“…….”

“Of course, we can offer you a better Healer than Yeonhee. Since she’s S-rank, she deserves treatment befitting her rank, right?”

Cha Seohae frowned at Jang Jeong-in’s subtle remarks belittling Moon Yeonhee.

Although Yeonhee had told him about how the Association treated her, seeing the perpetrator sitting there without even realizing what he had done made his head ache.

“Still no answer?”

“What?”

“Don’t you realize that even if you came fully prepared, you wouldn’t pose the slightest threat?”

For the first time, Jang Jeong-in’s expression cracked at Cha Seohae’s blunt words.

The harmless smile disappeared, replaced by cold eyes glaring at him.

“The moment you appointed Do Juyeon as your team leader, the difference in power was already settled.”

“Hah.”

“You know what position Do Juyeon held in this guild, right? Why do you think he never became Master?”

Jang Jeong-in bit down hard on his lip.

That wasn’t a question expecting an answer. Its sole purpose was to insult the other person.

“After spending so much money managing and supporting him, what if that’s all you got? Can you really say that you’re above us and that you came here out of generosity?”

“…….”

“Look at the situation. We’re the ones showing you mercy, not the other way around. You’re the one in a position where you have to force yourself to be polite.”

“Shut up!”

“What? You were the one who started provoking me. I only said one thing, and you’re already getting angry?”

Cha Seohae replied leisurely.

At his relaxed expression, Jang Jeong-in took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

He couldn’t afford to ruin things here.

But his resolve was rendered meaningless.

His faintly stiffened face made his raised smile look unnatural.

“Stop lying and bring Yeonhee here. Ask her yourself in front of me. Don’t come back with some answer you forced out of her through threats.”

“You really think that? That’s pathetic.”

Cha Seohae spoke meaningfully, still completely at ease.

His confident attitude suddenly made Jang Jeong-in feel something was off, and he slowly asked,

“…Did Moon Yeonhee really say she wanted to stay here?”

“Well, I have absolutely no intention of sending her back.”

As though he considered any further argument a waste of time, Cha Seohae casually drew his gun.

“If she won’t leave, I’ll send her out myself, so—”

BOOOOM!

A sudden explosion made both men turn toward the window.

“What the….”

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, they saw a shocking sight.

As though an explosion had occurred, the building across from them had been destroyed. Black smoke rose from every collapsed section.

Cha Seohae merely watched the scene in silence.

Seeing how calm Cha Seohae remained, Jang Jeong-in let out a hollow laugh.

“You heard something from Yeonhee, didn’t you?”

Cha Seohae didn’t answer. He merely shifted his eyes downward.

“Yeonhee told you that whenever the First Unit attempts to escape from the scene, they always use a decoy to draw attention away, right?”

“Did she?”

“Otherwise, how could you not even move after seeing an explosion like that?”

“We have a shield. Even if that building collapses, we won’t be harmed.”

Even as he said that, Cha Seohae recalled what Moon Yeonhee had told him earlier.

“It’s obvious why they came here. They’re just demanding that you be handed over, right? So if things don’t go their way, some completely unexpected incident will happen. Stay calm. It’s a method the First Unit often uses when they want to divert other people’s attention.”

That really was unexpected.

The scale was certainly large enough to shake someone mentally.

If Moon Yeonhee hadn’t warned him beforehand, he probably would have panicked and scrambled around.

The confusion among the guild members would be even greater.

“Isn’t something serious happening to the person who came with you?”

“I told you. I came alone—”

“You made all kinds of threats about taking this to the news, so you expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true. We came here to resolve this peacefully…!”

“That was Kang Sihyeon’s doing, wasn’t it?”

“…What?”

Cha Seohae carefully observed Jang Jeong-in’s tone and the way he handled his gaze.

The momentary flicker in his eyes, and the way his tightly closed lips opened again.

From those reactions, Cha Seohae confirmed that Moon Yeonhee had been right about Kang Sihyeon.

“You came because your face is already all over the news, which means there was no personnel change. That means the Association President doesn’t completely approve of everything you’re doing.”

“Ugh…!”

“If you actually blew up the building, you couldn’t rule out the possibility that Baekyang would report the Association first. You couldn’t take that gamble. You were loudly promising to pay compensation. If you went back after causing nothing but expensive damage, wouldn’t you get in trouble?”

“So the explosion wasn’t real. It was an illusion created by Kang Sihyeon.”

“How the hell do you know all that? Stop running your mouth!”

“I’m just giving you some advice. If you plan on breaking into someone else’s base next time, don’t come around with a face that’s already famous.”

He pulled the trigger and shattered the window.

CRASH!

A strong wind rushed in through the broken window.

“Now, if your plan has failed, leave quickly. Headquarters doesn’t like bloodshed.”