The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low Chapter 9

Meanwhile, in a narrow alley near the house, two men wearing the same long padded coats had entered. One of them, holding a radio, muttered.

“It seems like this is the target’s house, but there’s no particular movement.”

“What? Mr. Mingicle warned us so much…. For all that, it’s surprisingly quiet? Didn’t they just go to bed?”

The man sitting on a trash can lid, chewing gum noisily, crouched down. As the streetlight poured over his back, the letters ‘PADO’ written in white on the back of his long padded coat gleamed into view.

“Hey, it’s cold. Let’s wait another 30 minutes… and if there’s still no movement by then, we’ll pull back.”

“Copy that.”

“Let’s buy some fish-shaped buns on the way back.”

“Good idea. Ugh, what kind of unscheduled overtime is this, out of nowhere.”

“Tell me about it.”

That last agreement came from an unfamiliar voice. Before the two startled men could react, a plastic bag was abruptly thrown over their heads.

Whump! Something heavy struck their stomachs. The man holding the radio let out a “Hurk!” and doubled over. It was hit so hard that cold sweat poured out from a single kick. Crazy… it hurts like hell! But the pain was so intense he couldn’t even thrash around recklessly. An unfamiliar voice muttered.

“At this level…”

“Ghk, wh-who are you…”

“Ah, sorry.”

Thwack! This time, a sharp pain hit the back of his head. As his consciousness faded to black, the unfamiliar voice came through gently.

“I hit too lightly.”

‘Fucking hell, they said we just had to watch…’

What kind of logic is that—if you hit lightly, you hit again? I don’t need this kind of kindness. With that last thought, the man rolled his eyes back and passed out.

“…Done?”

Wijae checked the condition of the two fallen men. Pulse… beating fine. Breathing… the plastic bag’s surface was moving up and down, so they were breathing well. After confirming they were properly unconscious, Wijae peeled off the “Delivery Family” plastic bag he had put over them before the deed.

He had thought one hit as lightly as possible would do, but since they were Awakened, they were tougher than expected, so he had needed to land one more blow. Wijae crouched down beside the men and muttered.

“Sorry. I’m going to go through your wallets.”

After offering his apologies to the unconscious men, he searched their long padded coat pockets. Fortunately, without needing to exert any more force, he found a wallet in the first pocket he checked. Any business cards? As he quickly flipped through the contents, Wijae grinned. There was one.

PADO Guild Combat Support Team 1

Rank B Woo Changhyeok

‘PADO Guild…’

Since the long padded coats the men wore also said ‘PADO,’ it seemed this was not a fake business card. It was also a name he had heard several times from the regular Hunters at the hangover stew restaurant.

First, Wijae carefully placed the wallet back in the pocket, then set the business card he had taken out on the ground. Then he pulled a pen from his apron pocket,

Click. In his left hand, he scribbled crooked characters:

Touch them and you’re dead

Where should he put it so they would see it right away? Looking around, Wijae decided to just place it in the man’s hand. After propping the two unconscious men up against the wall side by side, he calmly left the scene.

∞ ∞ ∞

When he returned to the shop, the old clock was already pointing to 11:45.

“Ah, I’m tighter on time than I thought.”

Thanks to the consecutive uninvited guests, he had to diligently prepare from now until opening time. Fortunately, Wijae did not sleep, so staying up all night was not a big problem. After putting on a hairnet and sanitary mask, he suddenly looked down at the apron he was wearing.

The logo, right in the center, was proudly showing off its white presence like a “fucking” logo. Lee Sayoung’s insolent figure naturally drifted up in wisps.

“Saw everything, didn’t you, you apron-wearing bastard.”

“Ladle too.”

…Damn it. Wijae irritably threw off the “fucking” apron. Instead, he took out an apron with a cute toad printed on it and put it on, then slapped both cheeks with his palms, making a sharp sound. Every moment counted until opening. Wijae washed his hands three times, scrubbing thoroughly, then retrieved the meat that had been soaking to drain the blood.

As he mechanically went through the familiar tasks, all his thoughts eventually converged on Lee Sayoung, who had surged in like a wave. Why had he bothered to tell him his name? Confidence that they would meet again? An expression of intent for him to look into it? Either way, he did not like it.

Wijae tapped the skimmer with a dubious expression.

‘Somehow, it feels like I’m losing.’

Besides, though he had expected the bastard to keep clinging annoyingly, it was also strange that he had let him go so easily. Was it confidence that he could find him no matter where he hid, or something like that.

‘Go ahead and try to find me for a hundred days. Let’s see if you can.’

He had already had his tail caught once, but that was the house where Grandmother and Haeun mainly lived, so he just had to avoid going there except when absolutely necessary.

He probably wouldn’t think I’m boiling hangover stew at a hangover stew restaurant. Wijae drained the blood and shook off the moisture. What mattered now was gathering information. You had to know your enemy to find a way to deal with them.

As he filled the pot he had drained with fresh water, Wijae spoke in clear, precise pronunciation.

“Hey Nextbi, search for Lee Sayoung.”

—Searching the internet for Lee Sayoung.

Before long, Nextbi displayed the search results on the phone screen.

“…What?”

Is this really a search for Lee Sayoung? Wijae widened his eyes and stared at the screen for a long while, moving his hands mechanically. There were so many search results that the scroll bar had become infinitesimally small. Who the hell is this bastard!

“Birth of the Republic of Korea’s Third S-class Awakened!”

“The New Rank 1, Lee Sayoung—Who Is He?”

“[Cheon Su-jin Column] Can the New No. 1 Fill J’s Void?”

“Lee Sayoung Speaks for the First Time Since Awakening… ‘PADO Guild Will Operate as a Small Elite Force'”

No… he was this famous?

Wijae paused his work for a moment and carefully read through the article and post titles one by one.

“Unshakable No. 1 Lee Sayoung, Controversy Over Attitude at Official Appearances…”

The fact that that ill-mannered gas-mask concept addict was an S-class Hunter was consistent with what Wijae had felt firsthand, so it was not surprising. But—that bastard was the current Rank 1 of the Republic of Korea?

‘Why is it that every time I run into someone, it’s the No. 1?’

Wijae pressed his forehead with his wrist instead of his wet palm. No, why on earth was the so-called strongest man in the country beating people up in a back alley? Is life that idle?

In the old days, Cha Wijae would have thought, “If that kind of bastard is No. 1, Korea is totally screwed!” But now, his own fate was so miserable that he had no time to think about Korea’s future. In fact, eight years ago, Korea had been in even worse shape than it was now.

‘At this level, it has become a lot more livable.’

He had planned to quietly spend the rest of his life boiling hangover stew. But was the problem from the start that the shop wasn’t just any hangover stew restaurant, but one with many regular Hunter customers? Wijae traced his memories toward the root of all evil, like salmon swimming upstream against a flowing river.

No—who would have known so many Hunters would come to this hangover stew restaurant? Wijae had simply seen the sign on his benefactor grandmother’s shop reading “Restaurant Aunt Wanted” and gone there. If the problem was that he had gone despite not being an aunt, he had nothing to say.

Finding it odd that every customer who came was a Hunter, he searched online and found that there were more than a few posts praising it as a famous spot among Hunters. He regretted not searching beforehand, but by then he had already been reborn as a god-given master of hall service. After this incident, Wijae made it a habit to search for anything on the internet.

“My luck is also atrocious.”

In truth, Wijae felt wronged. He had never imagined the hangover stew restaurant he had taken a job at to hide his power and live an ordinary life would be such a place, and he had never even dreamed that the person who would expose his well-hidden abilities would be the current Rank 1. Why did coincidences with the probability of getting struck by lightning on the street only happen to him?

Letting out a deep sigh, after a moment Wijae took out the meat at the right time and rinsed it in cold water. Thoughts of Lee Sayoung naturally led in a chain to today’s events. As he carefully reviewed the day, Wijae suddenly paused.

‘Both the spine-shooting bastard and the Rank 1 coming all the way to this alley to deal with it—both are odd.’

There were more than one or two questionable points. Wijae set down his work for a moment before prepping the other ingredients and brought his phone over.

He kept entering keywords like “spines” and “porcupine” into the search engine, but the content he was looking for did not appear. Those spines were clearly not the kind of size or shape that could be hidden, yet there were no sightings—not even similar search results.

That meant one of two things: either the information was still circulating under the surface, or it was being controlled from above.

Either way, it was familiar to Cha Wijae. This was an era where Hunters formed a nation’s military strength. When information about a particular Hunter was deemed related to national interests, quite a few cases treated everything concerning them as state secrets. J himself was the prime example not so long ago.

Wijae’s mind spun quickly.

‘The risk factors right now are… Lee Sayoung finding me, and Grandmother and Haeun’s safety being threatened.’

In the latter case, it bothered him that PADO Guild had found the address of the house where Grandmother and Haeun lived in order to track him down. But PADO, thanks in part to Guild Master Lee Sayoung’s name value, was even more famous than he had expected, and with so many eyes on them, they would not recklessly touch civilians. They would be under the Agency’s surveillance and restraint anyway.

‘Well, I’ve also given a warning.’

That left only Lee Sayoung finding out his whereabouts. Wijae chopped radish and sighed again as he pondered. Fortunately, he had been wearing a mask, so more than half his face had been covered, and he had not given his name.

What that bastard knew… Wijae gazed blankly at the “fucking” apron he had hung up. That damned apron and the ladle that had been used in the hangover stew restaurant for over five years—which had met a glorious death in Lee Sayoung’s hands today—were all.

‘There’s a possibility he could extract information through Haeun, but since we’re not blood relatives, nothing will show up on the records either.’

But what if, by an incredible stroke of happenstance—just in case—Lee Sayoung came to this hangover stew restaurant? The thought had crossed his mind, but Cha Wijae merely chuckled.

“As if.”

That immature brat, who wandered around wearing a concept-addict gas mask, would never set foot in a place where those who had tasted the alcoholic flavor of life lost their minds over hangover stew, now would he?

Filling a large pot with water, Wijae gazed into the pitch-black dawn darkness.

Only a few months had passed since he started hiding his power, and already a crisis had come. Nothing in life ever went the way he wanted.