Kwon Jihan spoke as if he were teaching a lesson. Since everything he said was correct from start to finish, Yoon Seo reflected on himself. If it had been Park Youngbum or Goh Heewon, they wouldn't have even suspected anything… After ten years of only dealing with those two, he had gotten sloppy. Maybe being in situations like this, where his identity was at risk, would help him stay more alert in the future. But since nothing like this had happened in the past ten years, he had grown careless and complacent.
"Alright, let's set a date. When do you want to do it? Honestly, I'd love to fight right now, but good things should be saved for later… How about after we clear this S-rank dungeon?"
"The week after we clear the dungeon."
"Sounds good."
With a pleased expression, Kwon Jihan pulled out his U-Pad and opened his schedule. The semi-transparent schedule was visible to Yoon Seo as well, and surprisingly, it was quite packed.
"Let's do it on Sunday the 29th."
Since they were entering the S-rank Yellow Dungeon on the 6th, allowing time for the strategy and completion, it was a reasonable gap.
"Alright."
Kwon Jihan grinned as he added the event to his schedule. Not to be outdone, Yoon Seo noted down the fight date in his completely empty U-Pad.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah."
"Why is Hunter Kwon Jihan so eager to fight?"
"To get stronger."
He hadn't expected hesitation, but the answer was even more immediate than anticipated.
"You mean to accumulate experience?"
"That's right. Both mentally and physically. You saw my system profile, didn't you?"
"..."
Yoon Seo fell silent. It was awkward to say whether he had seen it or not. But Kwon Jihan spoke as if he had already heard an answer.
"My skill levels up in a unique way. To level up, I need to gain experience. Fighting things weaker than me doesn't give me any, but fighting those on my level grants me a small amount. Battles against S-rank dungeon bosses, duels with S-rank Awakeners, things like that."
"…Is it really okay to tell me this so easily?"
"You don't have any friends to tell anyway."
"There's still the internet."
"Go ahead and post about it. See if anyone believes you. Everyone will think it's just some story."
That was true. Even Yoon Seo wouldn't have believed it until he saw it with his own eyes. A skill that allowed infinite growth…
"Then, why do you want to become stronger?"
Yoon Seo asked again. Unlike before, this time, Kwon Jihan didn't answer immediately.
"The reason I want to get stronger…"
For a moment, it seemed like a golden hue flickered in his gray irises surrounding his black pupils. There was no skill notification, so it must have just been a brief movement of mana.
Yoon Seo imagined what kind of answer Kwon Jihan might give. To see where his limits lay. To find out how much he could grow. Because of the instincts of an S-rank Awakener.
But Kwon Jihan took longer to answer than expected.
'Was this a difficult question for him?'
Well, he was only twenty-two. Maybe he had never seriously thought about why he wanted to be strong.
Wanting to ease the tension, Yoon Seo spoke in a considerate tone.
"If it's that hard to answer, you don't have to."
"No, it's not that. It's just that you asked something so obvious that I had to think about how to phrase it."
Obvious?
As Yoon Seo blinked in confusion, Kwon Jihan smiled loosely.
"Obviously, to protect the world."
"…To conquer the world?"
"To protect world peace."
"..."
"People with great power have a responsibility to protect the world. If you're born strong, you should protect the weak and lead the world in a better direction. Isn't that just common sense?"
Yoon Seo just blinked. He looked as if he had misheard. Those were such righteous words that he couldn't believe they had come out of this man's mouth.
"Can I use my skill?"
"Go ahead."
Kwon Jihan answered with a grin.
[The
[Confidence: 95 : Neutral: 5 : Doubt: 10]
Yoon Seo's mouth fell open.
Unbelievable.
If there was some idiot in front of him who willingly threw themselves into danger because of a sense of duty, he would have grabbed them by the collar and shaken them until they came to their senses. But that idiot turned out to be Kwon Jihan.
Yet, even as he saw Yoon Seo's dumbfounded expression, Kwon Jihan remained unwavering. His eyes were filled with certainty.
"Why are you so shocked? It's just common sense."
"How… did you end up with such a…. such a horrifying belief?"
"Horrifying?"
Kwon Jihan chuckled.
"Tell me. Did someone brainwash you? Were you kidnapped as a child by some villain who saw your potential, forced to sacrifice yourself, abused while working without even getting to buy the bread you liked?"
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
Kwon Jihan looked exasperated, but when he saw Yoon Seo's genuinely concerned face, he answered.
"Before the Cataclysm, I was just a poor kid. My classmates avoided me because I used a school meal card. My mom would leave for work and not come back for days, so I stayed alone in a messy house. But strangely, I never went hungry. There were always people who looked out for me. My homeroom teacher would give me rice balls for breakfast. The girl working at the local convenience store paid for lunchboxes my meal card couldn't cover. The lady next door and her older son would knock on my door every chance they got to bring me food."
"..."
"Of course, not everyone was kind. The neighborhood thugs would pick fights and beat me up whenever they wanted. Plenty of adults passed by and pretended not to see. Those people might have been 'the weak' by someone else's standards, but to me, they were the strong ones. Some strong people ignored the weak, while others protected them. I just wanted to be one of the latter. But before I knew it, I became so strong that every living thing on Earth ended up weaker than me. It's a bit of a hassle, but what can I do? I have to protect them. That's just justice."
Justice.
A word Yoon Seo had long since abandoned came out of young Kwon Jihan's mouth.
Kwon Jihan didn't find justice childish. He didn't speak about it as if it were a joke.
He was serious. He was sincere.
But Yoon Seo found it hard to suppress the bitter laughter welling up inside him.
The Revengers had all died screaming about futile justice. They walked into the Great Dungeon on their own feet, only to be torn limb from limb, burned alive, and crushed until not even a shred of flesh remained. Even in their agony, they screamed, hoping their sacrifice would help protect the world.
Yoon Seo had once been like them, too.
Even as a massive monster's claws shredded his body, he had believed that what he was doing was right. Even if he died here, he had devoted himself to the world, so that was enough.
Fighting with that thought, getting hurt, surviving, fighting again… And then, at some point, when he turned around, all that remained was a mountain of corpses.
People who had cried out for justice, only to die in vain.
The middle-aged man who just wanted a bowl of soup, the hyungs who loved fishing and hiking, the nunas who played the piano as a hobby and stressed the importance of running.
'Chaeyoon.'
And the friend who had always called his name in a gentle voice.
Yoon Seo's belief in justice crumbled the moment Lee Domin died.
What was the point of being treated like a hero? They were all already dead. Every last one of them was gone. What had they sacrificed for? Whether strong or weak, a person only had one life, and each life was just as singular as the next. So why… why did the righteous always have to die first? What exactly was that so-called duty they spoke of?
If it was right for the strong to protect the weak, then wasn't it unfair for the strong and righteous to be the ones who had to sacrifice themselves?
If that was the case—
'If this is justice, then I won't live justly anymore.'
That was the decision Seo Chaeyoon made on that day.
"Why do you look like that?"
"What kind of look do I have?"
"Like you're mocking me. Did my answer displease you that much?"
Kwon Jihan's ash-gray eyes locked onto Yoon Seo. Yoon Seo answered calmly.
"What does it matter whether I like it or not? That's what you believe, isn't it? I just found it childish and laughable, so I laughed. And also, quite arrogant. Leading the people of the world…."
A smirk curled at Yoon Seo's lips. It was a deeply cynical smile. It was the kind of sneer that should have been insulting, yet instead of getting offended, Kwon Jihan leaned in with interest.
"In the end, S-ranks are bound to be arrogant. But isn't the arrogance of wanting to lead the weak better than the arrogance of ignoring their suffering?"
"I don't know. Seems like the same thing to me."
"So, which one are you?"
"Me?"
When asked if he was the type to ignore the suffering of the weak, Yoon Seo nodded without hesitation. There was not a hint of shame or hesitation in his steady brown eyes. Kwon Jihan asked again.
"Why?"
It was a simple question, but not an easy one. Feeling Kwon Jihan's gaze, Yoon Seo turned to stare at the drama listings on the TV screen.
"Justice is just a fabricated word meant to impose an unfair duty on the strong."
"...."
"The world was never fair to begin with. Unfairness is as natural as stars being born, exploding, and new stars forming again. Yet only humans call this unfair. It's like saying the birth and explosion of stars is unjust. If forcing the strong to sacrifice themselves is nothing more than a natural phenomenon of the universe, then that is what's truly unfair."
"I think I get what you're saying. So that's why you hide your strength."
"That's right. I don't want to sacrifice myself anymore."
Yoon Seo made a mistake at that moment.
Saying, 'I don't want to sacrifice myself anymore,' meant that he had sacrificed himself in the past.
But Yoon Seo didn't realize his slip, and though Kwon Jihan caught it immediately, he chose not to point it out. Instead, he let it slide, keeping that little truth to himself.