Only after barely managing to focus and make out Representative Seo’s face did Cha Seohu knit his brows.
“...What.”
Still having his chin held, Cha Seohu rolled his eyes to look around and asked in a low, incredulous voice,
“Why are you here.”
It was something he had wanted to ask even before collapsing.
Representative Seo raised the corner of his mouth the slightest bit, then lowered it again. Slowly releasing his face, he took a step back and folded his arms.
“I don’t believe I’m under any obligation to report to you wherever I may be.”
“Cut the bullshit. You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
Snapping back irritably, Cha Seohu straightened the upper body he had been holding at an angle all the way up.
He scrubbed his face with both hands, checked the time on the clock hanging on the wall, then glared at Representative Seo again.
“How did you know and come here? I never said I was going into the Rift, and I never said I was at Circle Guild. No, forget that.”
In truth, if Representative Seo put his mind to it, finding out where he was would have been easy enough.
Not just Representative Seo—even Eun Woojeong had tracked his location on his own and followed him all the way to Circle Guild, hadn’t he? He had even gone into the Rift after him.
There were plenty of ways to find out even without being told, so there was no point arguing about that.
Cha Seohu changed the question.
“I understand that you came all the way here on your own. But why did you prepare healers? Don’t even think about giving me some easy excuse like you brought them just in case. Since when do you go around dragging along a bunch of annoying manpower like healers?”
Getting up from where he was, Cha Seohu looked down at one arm.
It was the arm that had been buried in Cha Sahyeon’s shadows and injured so badly it had practically been reduced to mush.
Naturally, the flesh had twisted as if from a severe burn and blood had burst from it, and because of Cha Sahyeon’s skill, even though he was S-rank, the wound had healed agonizingly slowly.
On top of that, considering that the body he had woken up in had been a “Supporter” rather than a “Dealer,” the situation had been even worse.
The large hospitals with several healers on standby had been far away, and even if they had contacted the area afterward and gathered healers, he would not have held out.
If Representative Seo had not been standing by with healers, Cha Seohu would have died just like that.
He had survived only because multiple healers had latched onto him and treated him.
That was why he understood it even less.
The Representative Seo Cha Seohu knew was not a man who moved without a reason. Whenever he acted, there was always a clear cause, and a goal.
How had he known that Cha Seohu, who had entered the Rift, would come back out injured?
And even if he had known, why had he brought not one healer, but several? As if he knew that was the only way Cha Seohu could be saved?
Of course, if he answered that it had simply been a coincidence, that Cha Seohu had gone into a dangerous place so he had merely made thorough preparations in advance, then Cha Seohu would have had nothing to say. Whether he believed it was a separate matter.
“......”
Representative Seo did not open his mouth easily. He simply looked at Cha Seohu.
A cold silence settled over the small room. Cha Seohu waited for his answer while suppressing the anger boiling inside him, but in the end he exploded first.
“Ha! Right. Sure. Is this kind of thing from you anything new?”
With a frustrated expression, Cha Seohu raked his hair back roughly and said with a cold stare,
“If you’re going to hide things, then hide them properly. You make it obvious every single time, and whenever I ask, you’ve never once given me a straight answer. And I’m the only one who gets jerked around by it.”
“Jerked around?”
Representative Seo, who had been quiet the whole time, finally spoke.
“You’re the one who got jerked around? That’s news to me. Why don’t you tell me when exactly you were jerked around?”
“Don’t get sarcastic. Do I look like I’m standing here because I want to have a debate with you?”
“A debate. That’s an amusing thing to call it. When have you ever had anything resembling a debate with me? Our conversations are always like this—either you question me, or you ignore me. Isn’t it always one of those two?”
Representative Seo’s voice, pointing that out, was calm as usual, but his actions were not.
Unfolding his arms, he walked closer to Cha Seohu and lowered his head.
“You should behave nicely, Cha Seohu. I’m sure I taught you that when you ask an adult for something, you do it with manners.”
“Fuck off. I’ll treat you like an adult when you act like one.”
Without caring in the slightest about the oppressive gaze on him, Cha Seohu sneered and turned his head away.
“Forget it. I don’t have time to waste on the same pointless argument every time. If you have no intention of explaining, then get out.”
Cha Seohu was just about to turn and walk out of the room first.
At that moment, Representative Seo, who had been watching him in silence, moved in an instant.
“Ugh...!”
A large hand seized Cha Seohu’s chin again. Unlike before, the grip was rough enough to hurt.
“I let it go because throwing a tantrum is cute in its own way, but Cha Seohu, you should speak properly. If you knew what kind of state of mind I’ve been in, and how long I’ve been enduring it, you wouldn’t even dare make that childish protest that I’m not an adult.”
“Let go...”
Face twisting at the corners of his eyes, Cha Seohu grabbed his wrist. But in a Supporter’s body, pushing him away was impossible.
As if to make a show of it, Representative Seo dragged Cha Seohu’s face closer and whispered low at close range.
“Don’t ever come back injured like that again. This is an order. And it’s a warning that I won’t let it slide anymore. You know what happens after the warning is over. Be careful while I’m still giving you freedom.”
With that warning, Representative Seo let go of his face.
Staggering back, Cha Seohu rubbed around his throbbing chin. It had not bruised or anything, but the skin had turned red, leaving a mark behind.
Straightening his disheveled tie, Representative Seo passed by him.
“I’ll send someone new in place of the ones who fainted. Don’t even think about trying to move separately.”
Click. Behind Cha Seohu, he heard the sound of the door opening and closing.
Only after Representative Seo left and he was alone in the room did Cha Seohu let out the long breath he had been holding in. He had only just woken up, yet from the fatigue, his eyes ached and wanted to close on their own.
He was still rubbing his stinging cheek and turning over the warning Representative Seo had thrown at him when—
Knock, knock.
A neat knock sounded.
Cha Seohu flinched, but there was no way the Representative who had just left would come back and knock. Fortunately, the voice from the other side of the door belonged to someone welcome.
“Hunter Cha Seohu. Are you alright?”
Turning around, Cha Seohu immediately opened the door.
“Vice-Guildmaster.”
Relief appeared on both Cha Seohu’s and Ryu °• N o v e l i g h t •° Sunghyun’s faces at the same time as they looked at each other.
“That’s a relief. I heard from the former guildmaster that you’d collapsed again, so I was worried.”
“I’m fine now. Vice-Guildmaster, you’re... alright too, aren’t you?”
Remembering Cha Sahyeon’s shadow skill and the nightmare, Cha Seohu asked carefully.
Ryu Sunghyun gave an awkward yet bitter smile.
“Right after I woke up, I was a little... confused, but I’m better now. Hunter Kwon Taehyuk and Guildmaster Song woke up safely too. They’re all waiting in the guildmaster’s office.”
“Let’s go right away.”
He had been planning to check on everyone’s condition anyway, so he was grateful that Ryu Sunghyun told him first.
As Cha Seohu immediately nodded and stepped out of the room, Ryu Sunghyun quietly followed behind. His gaze briefly went to Cha Seohu’s face, where a faint reddish tint still remained, but he deliberately said nothing and pretended not to notice.
When they returned to the guildmaster’s office, the inside of the room had, in the meantime, been tidied up more than before.
In the middle of that wreck, Song Jiwon was pouring tea into teacups, somehow. In front of Song Jiwon sat the sofa Cha Seohu had been lying on earlier, with Kwon Taehyuk and Song Jiwoon seated there. Beside them, Eun Woojeong was standing with his back against the wall.
The moment Kwon Taehyuk, who had been drinking tea before Song Jiwoon, spotted Cha Seohu, he let out a breath of relief.
“Hunter Cha Seohu.”
“I’m fine, so please don’t get up.”
Stopping Kwon Taehyuk, who looked about ready to spring up at once like a puppy running to its owner, Cha Seohu walked over to them first.
Fortunately, Kwon Taehyuk and Song Jiwoon both looked exhausted and worn out, but there was no sign of trauma severe enough to make them lose their reason. Their bodies, too, were unharmed.
Looking around, Cha Seohu asked,
“Did the district kids go back?”
The answer came from Song Jiwon.
“That man called Representative Seo. When the healers he brought left, he had them taken along as well.”
Cha Seohu recalled what Representative Seo had said before leaving.
He had said he would send someone new in place of the ones who had fainted. Had he meant he was taking Kwon Seoyul and Hyun Dowoon away?
And “someone new” probably meant he would send one of the other siblings besides the two who had gone back.
Sensing that things were going to get complicated again, Cha Seohu clicked his tongue inwardly, then turned to Kwon Taehyuk and Song Jiwoon.
“I’m really glad you’re safe.”
“We’re the ones who came out fine without a single injury thanks to you, Hunter Cha Seohu. I heard that you were the one who suffered. That you almost died...”
Song Jiwoon trailed off before he could finish.
There was unmistakable self-reproach on his darkening face. Guilt that he had failed to protect a Supporter, and that while Cha Seohu had been getting hurt, they themselves had been fine.
Cha Seohu shook his head firmly.
“It was a situation that couldn’t be helped.”
To begin with, the reason they had gotten dragged into the Rift at all was because of him, because he was chasing those cult bastards. He did not want them feeling guilty like this.
“Well, isn’t that true?”
Just before Cha Seohu could say more, Eun Woojeong cut in with a sneer.
“What’s the point of having a whole pile of S-ranks? You were all getting healed by Mr. Cha Seohu’s skill, and you still couldn’t protect a single thing.”
“Why don’t you stay out of this?”
“Me? Why? I was the one who dragged every single one of you out of the Rift to the very end. Don’t I have at least this much right to speak?”
As if he had no interest in wasting any more time on a useless conversation, Eun Woojeong pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against and jerked his chin toward Song Jiwon.
“Anyway, enough of that. Why don’t you tell us what that guy is. What I saw inside the Rift was pretty damn interesting.”

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