"What?"

At the sound of the voice, Lee Jun-Kyeong turned his gaze away from the guild logo. As expected, they had started to bite right away. He had dealt with these types of punks countless times before. Hunters. Basically, they were punks who had become full of themselves and thought that they had been chosen. Thus, they looked down on ordinary people as if they were bugs. Lee Jun-Kyeong had a lot of experience provoking these types of idiots to draw attention away from their victims.

"I had come to check things out after having heard some noise, but to see you attacking an elderly man…” Lee Jun-Kyeong then pointed his finger at the broken pushcart. “Isn’t this some stuff thugs do?”

“How dare you speak informally to me?! Who do you think you are…”

Lee Jun-Kyeong interrupted, “Aren’t you the one who spoke informally to me first when I first came into the alley? Didn’t you say, ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’?”

“...”

The punks shut their mouths. At this moment, Lee Jun-Kyeong was like a completely different person. It was far from the cold-hearted Lee Jun-Kyeong that was the norm ever since he had returned to the past. His mind was clear and calm, but he was furious. He found himself, back in his past, the feeling of his past helplessness raging through him.[1] He remembered the days when he had been a powerless ordinary person before he had come to this time.

The punks’ faces began to turn red. It was clear that while they had been triggered by Lee Jun-Kyeong’s words, that wasn’t the only reason why their faces were flushed.

‘The smell of alcohol.’

They were drunk. For some reason, it felt as though he had been in the same situation before.

'Is it because that I have power now?'

Something was different from the past. Lee Jun-Kyeong finally had the power to fight against irrationality and had the ability to protect someone.

“Are you a hunter?”

Apparently, the punks had finally noticed that something was off. In the first place, ordinary people and Hunters smelled differently. It was the smell of magic power. While the general public couldn’t feel it, Hunters could generally at least tell whether someone was a Hunter or not. It was more difficult to grasp the exact level of power though. “Could you explain what is going on?” Lee Jun-Kyeong said as he approached the elderly man.[2]

“So the thing is…”

As the elderly man was about to respond to the question, the punk interrupted, gesturing to his hand, “The old man scratched my precious body with his pushcart.”

From Lee Jun-Kyeong’s perspective, it only looked like it would have been a slight bump, there weren’t even any signs of dirt on the hand he had been waving around. There were no visible wounds either.

“I was just asking the old man about compensation for the damages.”

“What the hell are you saying? Didn’t you just kick my pushcart and then throw all the blame against me?” the elderly man cried out in anguish. What they did wasn’t an acceptable response, even if what the punks said was true.

“Why did you break the pushcart?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“Shouldn’t you know it if you’re a Hunter too? Anything that attacks me is considered an enemy, hahaha. That’s why I broke it. What’s the problem here? So, you gotta be careful too. Because you’ll be my enemy too if you attack me,” said the punk, smirking.

They most likely didn’t think that Lee Jun-Kyeong posed any threat to them. He had come empty-handed with no weapons. As for the other side, he could feel a weak magical power from their arms.

‘Is that a dagger?’

Looking at the magic power it emitted, he could tell that the dagger was actually a special item.[3]

‘And, they belong to a guild.’

Their clothes had hidden it partially, but he had seen it before. It was clear they belonged to a guild from the particular pattern on their chests. There had to be something that they were confident about. It was stupid. To think some rookie Hunters who had no understanding of their opponent’s powers would be acting like this.

He snorted. “It’s excessive.”

“What?” one of the punks yelped.

“No matter how much I think about it, I’m saying y’all seem like petty thugs,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said while moving a little closer to the elderly man.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The elderly man sniffed. “Thank you…”

Fortunately, it looked like they hadn’t laid their hands on the elderly man just yet. It was a relief that all they had gotten to was destroying the pushcart and making threats.

“Haven’t you gone far enough?” Lee Jun-Kyeong said, calming his anger a little. “You should back off after having gone this far.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong was watching the punks.

Flinch.

The punks started to shake under his steely gaze.

“Who does this bastard think he is, ordering us to do this and that?!”

Lee Jun-Kyeong was once again struck by their utter inability to gauge who they were dealing with. He had already had a good understanding of the punks' power, but these idiots came out swinging without knowing anything about him.

‘While being drunk could be a factor in it…’

If it were the past, he would have been terrified and petrified, but it was different now.

Instead, it was rather funny that they would act like this while having such a low level of skill.

“This is your last warning. I’ll let it go if you both turn around now.” Lee Jun-Kyeong gave his last warning.

“You bitch!” one of the drunk punks snapped.

In the end, they made the worst decision. One of the two suddenly ran at Lee Jun-Kyeong.

Crash!

In order to make sure the elderly man wasn’t harmed, he threw the rushing punk against a wall using the punk’s own momentum. The thug writhed as the bricks broke.

Lee Jun-Kyeong remarked innocently, “Did you see it clearly, grandpa? They attacked me first.”

"Uh… uh! Behind you! Look behind..."

The elderly man was taken aback.

Swish.

Lee Jun-Kyeong swiftly dodged. Then, as he turned around, he saw that the other punk, the one who hadn’t collapsed, was holding a dagger in his hand and shrieking about.

“There’s no way… To think you’d draw your weapon in a place like this. Do you really think you can bear the repercussions?”

Hunters were allowed to carry their weapons at all times as gates could occur anywhere and monsters could attack. However, taking a weapon out whenever one wanted without cause was a felony. No matter how drunk they were, it wasn’t a decision to be taken lightly.

The thug shouted, “You’re not in a guild, right? I’m fundamentally different from a piece of trash like you!”

If anyone else had been watching, they might have been convinced that the guild was his mother—a mother who had a high-ranking politician husband.

The Hunter swung his dagger again. Lee Jun-Kyeong turned to avoid it and kicked the guy's shin with his foot.

Bang!

“Ahhhhhh!” the punk screamed as the sound of something breaking rang out. Lee Jun-Kyeong didn’t stop there, knocking the dagger out of the punk’s hand.

“Keeughk!”

As he picked up the fallen blade, Lee Jun-Kyeong stepped on the back of the thug’s neck with his foot.

“You bastard!”

As the punk who had been slammed into the wall early got up and rushed toward him, Lee Jun-Kyeong threw the dagger.

Whistle.

Thud!

Of course, the bladed edge didn’t hit the thug. Instead, it was the handle. The dagger's handle had hit the punk’s forehead and knocked him down. Since the dagger was an item, the impact was impressive, easily taking him out. The two fallen punks groaned and whined.

“Ugh…. ugh…”

The elderly man was bewildered and confused as to what to do.

“Hunter Lee!”

Just then, Lee Jun-Kyeong heard a familiar voice. Before he had entered the alley, he had stopped to contact Kim Su-Yeong. However, Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t respond to Kim Su-Yeong. Instead, he focused on the two fallen punks, whose clothes had been torn from the violent exchange. The guild logo had been revealed.

“This…”

It was ‘that guild’ that Lee Jun-Kyeong had thought of before when he had seen a glimpse of the hidden guild logo under their clothes.

***

"You dealt with it really well,” said Kim Su-Yeong to Lee Jun-Kyeong sincerely.

"Do you know who we are?"

"You bastards! I’m telling you that the old man attacked us first!"

Lee Jun-Kyeong could see the punks being taken away by the Hunters from the Hunter Association. They had a blue shield with clearly engraved stripes on their chests. Lee Jun-Kyeong stared at the guild logo. Then, as he frowned, he heard a voice.

“You really did a great job.”

Kim Su-Yeong was praising Lee Jun-Kyeong again. Before entering the alley, Lee Jun-Kyeong had contacted Kim Su-Yeong in advance. It was a clearly defined situation of Hunters persecuting an ordinary person. While something like this was a non-issue in the future, it was still a crime that could be prosecuted in the present age.

"It is a felony for Hunters to harm ordinary people recklessly,” said Lee Jun-Kyeong.

While incidents like this still may have occurred occasionally, at least for now, the Hunter Association and the majority of Hunters still respected the rights of ordinary people.

"The witness is certain… This is what the Association should do. Thank you,” said Kim Su-Yeong while looking at the elderly man, who seemed to have calmed down a little. The elderly man had already testified about the previous situation. Most of the time, in these types of cases, most people didn’t speak up as they were afraid of retaliation from the guild or the Hunters.

‘I’m glad.’

Apparently, the old man had testified without lying. While there had been many times when his heart had still been heavy even after helping, this wasn’t one of those instances.

Kim Su-Yeong suddenly said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong blinked. “Yes?”

“Weren’t you currently worrying about that grandfather getting retaliation from those punks or their guild?”

“Ah… yes…”

As expected, Kim Su-Yeong had caught on quickly.

“The Hunter Association will monitor so that sort of situation won’t occur.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong smiled slightly. “If that’s true, then I’m glad.”

He didn’t know if he could trust those words.

‘I guess I don’t have a choice but to believe it.’

He wanted to trust that the sudden events would end up handled like this.

"That guild…"

Kim Su-Yeong hadn’t finished stating everything he had prepped.

“Do you remember what I told you the other day?”

“Are you referring to the guild that reserved more than twenty low-level dungeons?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

Kim Su-Yeong nodded.“Yes, you remembered it exactly.”

It was a natural deduction.

“That is that guild’s logo.”

He already knew, even before Kim Su-Yeong had said it. That the guild in question would be the one he had already been considering. He had brushed it off earlier, as he had thought to himself, ‘it couldn’t be.’

It was a guild that had grown rapidly in the present period. It was indeed the guild that Lee Jun-Kyeong had suspected.

“The Northern Army Guild,” said Kim Su-Yeong. “It’s a guild led by another famous rookie Hunter. These days, it’s been making a name for itself through its alarming growth rate.”

“...”

"I will let you know as soon as this is dealt with. It should be fine for you to go home."

Lee Jun-Kyeong felt somewhat uneasy.

'There aren’t any issues.'

He hadn't made a mistake, nor did it escalate to a circumstance from which he would need to extract himself. Furthermore, he still had the insurance he had prepared. Lee Jun-Kyeong was contemplating various things with a hardened expression when the elderly man came to him, having finished testifying.

“Thank you, young man.”

At that moment, Lee Jun-Kyeong laughed.

***

While it wasn’t his intention, Lee Jun-Kyeong had ended up profiting from his earlier actions. Because the Northern Army Guild had members who had gotten into an incident, the guild had to cancel several of their dungeon reservations. Due to their problems, Lee Jun-Kyeong, who had been waiting for his turn, had acquired the dungeon attack rights.

[You have cleared the dungeon.]

There was a voice in Lee Jun-Kyeong’s head, informing him that he had cleared a dungeon. However, he didn’t look happy.

‘Is this not enough yet?’

He had already cleared quite a few dungeons, and his level had steadily increased. Unfortunately, he still hadn’t obtained what he needed.

‘While I was happy when I had gotten the Familiar Summoning…’

In reality, it was pretty useless, and he still hadn’t obtained any of the other abilities he had wanted. Other Hunters would have acquired more skills by this point.

‘It’s so stingy.’

He thought to himself that The Sky of the Apocalypse was a very stingy Sponsor. For a Sponsor that only sponsored one person, it wasn’t very good at holding a proper sponsorship. Considering that it had given him a chance to summon his first Familiar so quickly, it was clear that it wanted to favor him. However, it had only supplied him with just this one skill and hadn’t given him anything he had wanted since.

[<The Sky of the Apocalypse> senses your dissatisfaction.]

Just when Lee Jun-Kyeong was starting to feel resentment, a sound rang.

[<The Sky of the Apocalypse> has decided to grant your request.]

[You have been granted]

No way.

[An Authority.]

He had been granted what he had been waiting for. To think, this was the way he had been given his power. A Sponsor who actually listened to complaints actually existed. Lee Jun-Kyeong felt disbelief before he could bask in the joy of getting what he had wanted.

As the dungeon dissolved around him, as always, he heard Kim Su-Yeong’s voice talking to him.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

“What’s wrong?”

Kim Su-Yeong looked troubled.

"That is…"

He muttered with an angry expression, “It seems they have declared you to be the assailant, Hunter Lee.”

Kim Su-Yeong’s bright red face showed how angry he was as he spoke about an utterly impossible result.

"What do you mean?" said Lee Jun-Kyeong looking perplexed. Somehow, he had been painted as a perpetrator while he was clearing a gate. He was utterly astounded at the ridiculous notion, not understanding what the other man was talking about.

“Do you remember… How you saved an elderly man a while ago?”

“What about it?” asked Lee Jun-Kyeong, sincerely not understanding the situation.

“The elderly man has changed his testimony…!”

“Huh?”

“The elderly man changed his testimony, claiming that you had been the one to suddenly attack the Hunters and destroy his pushcart!” said Kim Su-Yeong, his voice filled with anger.

“...”

The light in Lee Jun-Kyeong’s eyes steeled over, giving them a completely different look from before. The air around them chilled, and his face turned frosty.

“The Association has summoned you, Hunter Lee,” said Kim Su-Yeong, his head bowed in shame. While the end result was within one of the many outcomes Lee Jun-Kyeong had considered, somehow, it had really become true.

‘What a shitty damper on the mood.’