The Struggles of the #1 Rank - Chapter 29
“How is training with Chan-hee going?”
“It’s not good.”
Joo-ah answered Jae-rim’s question without the slightest hesitation.
Her short, clear answer actually caught Jae-rim off guard.
“Ah… Chan-hee is a little strict with training, isn’t he?”
“Not a little. He’s extremely strict.”
At her straightforward response, Jae-rim smiled faintly.
“That just means Chan-hee is paying a lot of attention to you, Hunter Seo Joo-ah. Don’t take it too personally. The training is meant to minimize the dangerous situations you might face in the Tower.”
At his calm explanation, Joo-ah sighed and leaned back against the sofa.
“I know. That’s why I’m putting up with it and continuing to train.”
Chan-hee had already returned to the dormitory. Joo-ah had stayed behind to continue training until the end.
After some time had passed, Jae-rim visited the special-class room. As usual, he planned to work out in the training room before going to sleep.
Joo-ah had just finished training herself, so she was taking a short break on the sofa.
She turned her gaze toward Jae-rim, who was checking the weapons in his inventory.
“Are you not taking the medicine Hunter Yoo Chan-hee gave you?”
Jae-rim’s hand, which had been checking the condition of his high-grade longsword, paused for a moment.
Joo-ah casually added,
“The medicine you take before sleeping.”
She clarified in case he didn’t know which medicine she meant.
Of course, she had no idea what else Chan-hee might have given Jae-rim besides sleeping pills.
“I didn’t take it.”
Jae-rim answered while tapping his inventory, acting as though his hand hadn’t paused at all.
Joo-ah looked puzzled.
“Why not?”
Jae-rim turned his head to look at her. His soft brown eyes were the same shade as Joo-ah’s.
He spoke in a quiet voice.
“I don’t want to force myself to fall asleep that badly.”
“Are you uncomfortable with taking medicine?”
Joo-ah asked, then continued with a smooth smile.
“Or do you have an aversion to sleeping itself?”
Jae-rim’s expression tightened slightly.
Perhaps that alone was enough of an answer.
Joo-ah continued looking at him with a faint smile.
She had always used Purification magic on Jae-rim without his knowledge, but the effects usually lasted only a short time before he woke up again.
It wasn’t simply because Joo-ah’s abilities were weak. Purification was determined solely by the purity of a Hunter’s mana.
Joo-ah’s mana contained not even the slightest impurity.
Therefore, there had to be another reason why her Purification magic didn’t take hold deeply in Jae-rim.
Perhaps the resistance buried deep in his heart was pushing her magic away.
Was it a conflict between his basic desire to sleep and the guilt that made him feel he shouldn’t be allowed to sleep peacefully?
The loud sound of police sirens echoed through the otherwise quiet space.
Joo-ah shifted her gaze toward the window inside the special-class room.
Ever since Hunter Kwon Eun-young, formerly ranked number one, had vanished without a trace from the hospital, police cars had been passing through the streets day and night.
She suddenly remembered a post that had appeared on Community for All, which had been activated earlier that day.
People were describing the current situation as one in which a weapon with incredible capabilities had broken down and been stolen by someone else.
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant comparison, but it wasn’t entirely wrong either.
The country was in a state of emergency not because a person named Kwon Eun-young had gone missing, but because a weapon perfectly suited for eliminating monsters had disappeared.
Joo-ah had been gazing indifferently out the window when she suddenly turned to Jae-rim with a peculiar expression.
“Now that I think about it…”
As she slowly parted her lips, Jae-rim turned to face her.
With a meaningful expression, she continued,
“You said you admired Hunter Kwon Eun-young, a member of the elite unit, didn’t you?”
At Joo-ah’s question, Jae-rim looked as though he had heard something completely unexpected.
He furrowed his brows with an awkward expression.
“…How does Hunter Seo Joo-ah know that?”
He looked quite embarrassed, but he didn’t deny it.
Joo-ah shrugged lightly before answering.
“Hunter Choi Yeon-joo told me. She said you’re a devoted fan of Hunter Kwon Eun-young from the elite unit.”
It was rather embarrassing for him to admit it himself, but Joo-ah found his flustered expression even more amusing.
He seemed completely unaware of the conversation Joo-ah and Yeon-joo had shared at the banquet.
Jae-rim turned his gaze forward and let out a small, incredulous laugh.
“She told you all sorts of things.”
He ran a hand over his neatly arranged hair as he replied. The tips of his ears had turned slightly red.
Joo-ah tilted her head and asked,
“Hunter Choi Yeon-joo said Hunter Kwon Eun-young once saved your life. Is that true?”
Jae-rim looked as though he desperately wanted to avoid this subject. However, under the clear gaze of Joo-ah, who was waiting for an answer, he sighed and finally spoke.
“That’s right. Hunter Kwon Eun-young saved my life three years ago.”
Joo-ah’s eyes widened.
“Three years ago? On the day Hunter Kwon Eun-young last climbed the Tower?”
The phrase three years ago actually covered a fairly broad period, but for Joo-ah, it immediately brought to mind the battle against the Administrator, where her team had been annihilated.
Jae-rim smiled faintly and nodded.
“That’s right.”
His answer came easily, but his expression didn’t look particularly peaceful.
As Joo-ah watched him quietly, a deep shadow fell over her face.
Three years ago, the Gate to the 999th floor of the sixth Tower had opened for the first time.
That day, she had been dispatched after receiving a summons from the Special Awakener Association and had witnessed countless Hunters dying.
As the highest Tower, it was home to monsters with absurdly powerful levels.
She was accustomed to Hunter deaths.
It was common for a Hunter she had greeted warmly that morning to appear as a corpse just a few hours later.
Even so, there was one memory from the final day she climbed the sixth Tower that remained particularly vivid in her mind.
‘…I don’t want to grant your wish…’
A lone Hunter sat hunched over in a darkness-shrouded space, crying.
‘What am I supposed to do, being the only one who survived…?! We promised we’d stay together until the end…!’
Four teammates who had climbed the Tower with him lay collapsed around him. Anyone could tell from their pale faces and the lifeless atmosphere.
The rest of his team had been completely wiped out.
The Hunter who had survived alone looked utterly devastated, as though he had lost his mind. His desperate screams had caught Eun-young’s attention and stopped her in her tracks.
Grrrrr…
The monster that had killed his teammates stood right in front of him.
With the final Special Skill containing his teammates’ wishes, the man could have safely left the Tower.
‘I don’t want to… survive like this…’
Yet he merely stared blankly at the monster charging toward him, as though he had given up on everything.
He seemed to have neither a reason nor the will to continue living.
‘Don’t you feel sorry for your teammates? They pooled their strength together even in the face of death just to save you, and you’re going to throw everything away so meaninglessly?’
That was why she had no choice but to intervene.
After killing the monster that had been about to attack Jae-rim with a single shot from her Taser Gun, Eun-young did something she normally wouldn’t have done. She interfered in someone else’s affairs.
‘I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice anymore. Survive until the end and leave the Tower. Get out, train, work yourself to the bone, and raise your level. Climb the Towers your teammates wanted to climb in their place!’
‘…’
‘That’s the reason you’re still alive.’
Without giving him a reason to live, he seemed ready to die at any moment.
Back then, Jae-rim’s face had looked that unstable.
Joo-ah wore a hollow expression.
To think that the Hunter she had met back then was Jae-rim…
Everything had happened in such a dark, chaotic space that she hadn’t had time to recognize his face properly.
Besides, Jae-rim had only been B-rank at the time.
‘But I heard his rank rose quickly because he had the number one-ranked Hunter as his role model.’
Yeon-joo’s words from the banquet suddenly came back to her.
Joo-ah looked at Jae-rim awkwardly. Noticing her gaze, he slightly furrowed his brows and asked,
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
At any rate, her meddling must have helped him, even if only a little, for him to have come this far.
Joo-ah shook her head as if nothing were wrong, then changed the subject.
“Hunter Kwon Eun-young suddenly disappeared. You must have been really surprised, too.”
She had said it without thinking.
Unfortunately, when people had time to waste, the topics that spread most easily were the ones everyone loved to gossip about.
It was unfortunate that this particular subject concerned her.
“Nothing will happen to her.”
However, Jae-rim’s answer was unexpectedly serious.
“Hunter Kwon Eun-young is strong. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
He was simply saying that Eun-young would return safely.
Yet, for some reason, Joo-ah felt as though he was comforting her about her own situation.
A quiet atmosphere settled around them.
BOOM!
At that moment, a powerful explosion sounded outside. At the same time, the emergency watch on her wrist began to flash.
【Third Tower, Floor 300 Gate occurrence. Hunters, respond immediately.】
Jae-rim turned his head to look at Joo-ah. She looked back at him.
Their gazes met directly.
This time, it was truly Joo-ah’s first emergency summons.
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