Chapter 317
No matter how insane an old-fashioned bastard the association chairman was, he probably had no intention of ruining a relationship that had only just begun to cooperate, so Kwon Taehan’s mediation, laughably enough, really was just advice.
Whether impure feelings were mixed into his intention or not, it was not as if we had seriously put up conditions and cooperated anyway. It was a relationship where we had lightly poked at each other from both sides, practically at the level of gossiping behind someone’s back, so who would expect incredible courtesy?
Of course, I could understand the point that had made Kwon Taehan, who had just been sitting there, snap. Unfortunately, if one included his life before Regression, Kwon Taehan had lived as a bastard without parents for quite a long time.
'It must be some kind of deficiency.'
I ate the snack like it was nothing and observed the two of them. Anyway, even if I stepped forward now, it was not something that would be resolved.
“Before I founded my guild, you kept telling me to join the Association. While pointing out the problems with guilds. But the Hunter Association, which supposedly cares so much about the safety of the people, does not actually guarantee the safety of its own members, does it?”
“Ahem.... I don’t know where Hunter Kwon heard such things, but....”
“You shouldn’t think everyone is unaware of the Association’s internal circumstances. There are many people who know, but they simply do not say everything. You shouldn’t personally make that kind of offer... to Hunter Seo either, Chairman. It would be one thing if you had placed a request from an untraceable source and made Hunter Seo consider whether or not to cooperate as an industrial spy.... Of course, that would not be right either.... But if the association chairman says something this openly and directly to an ordinary guild member who isn’t even a guild master... it really creates trouble.”
There were parts where his words cut off here and there, but contrary to my expectations, Kwon Taehan spoke calmly from beginning to end. There was logic inside it too.
'Unexpected.'
Well, it was not as if Kwon Taehan was in a position where he could not say this much. I accepted that quickly.
“I didn’t pressure him.... I was just trying to speak frankly with Hunter Seo about the future. And Hunter Kwon, you didn’t join the Association anyway, did you? What was it, a one-person guild?”
“So what I’m saying is....”
“I also think our Association could have plenty of problems. Hm? That’s why I, huh? I’m holding this kind of education with our minister present, saying I’ll look for various directions for improvement. And in that process, it would be good to hear what young Hunters have to say.”
“But just now, you were talking about Haeseong Guild’s information....”
“Ah, that is another story. Shouldn’t we look at the ultimate goal? Hunter Kwon, you must still be young and not know, but yes. What I said about his parents could have sounded plenty unpleasant. But Hunter Seo’s attitude, you see.... I was offended too. So we were giving each other advice for mutual improvement, and receiving advice, but if you take issue with that and trip me up over it, wow.... I’m a little hurt.”
The association chairman continued on and on. Kwon Taehan looked several times for a moment to cut in, as if frustrated, but in the end, he closed his mouth again at the association chairman’s words.
'By the way, the association chairman tried to recruit Kwon Taehan?'
After that too, while I let the association chairman’s endless words go in one ear and out the other, I glanced at Kwon Taehan.
In the original work, Kwon Taehan turned his back on the Association one way or another. As for me, I had cooperated with Kwon Taehan until the middle, so I removed the bastards who got on my nerves, including the association chairman, in my own way.
'Aha?'
Could this have been the problem?
Had the reason he had been fidgeting restlessly from beginning to end since earlier been to stop me from coming into contact with the Hunter Association chairman?
'Fuck, even when he helps me, where does he get off....'
Well, no matter how desperately Kwon Taehan tried to stop me, dealing with the Hunter Association was already a fixed part of the sequence. For the sake of what was ahead too.
Believing there would be a period when that could be done legally was practically delusion.
After watching the two of them continue the conversation for a while, I checked the time and rose from my seat.
“Yes, I understand what Hunter Kwon is trying to say too, but what I mean....”
“I’ll be going now. I’ll contact you at this number.”
He talked so much that if I left him like this, it seemed there would be no end. I cut off the association chairman and roughly wrapped up the situation.
Leaving behind the association chairman, whose words had been blocked, I lightly tapped Kwon Taehan and jerked my chin toward the door. I wondered what I would do if he stayed there alone even after I left, but maybe because his purpose had been to stop me anyway, Kwon Taehan followed me to the door surprisingly obediently.
Just before leaving through the door, Kwon Taehan looked back at the association chairman and said firmly, with a face that looked as if he hated this to death.
“There will be no reason to contact you.... Neither for me, nor for Hunter Seo.”
Fuck, where did he get off ruining my work?
Before the door closed, I grabbed it and said,
“I’ll contact you!”
“Hey, Seo Jeh....”
Before Kwon Taehan could continue, I immediately closed the door. Whoosh, I felt the light resistance of wind pushing against the door.
As soon as the door closed, Kwon Taehan whipped around to look at me and, maybe because his spirit had suddenly risen, began arguing.
“...What the hell were you thinking, listening to the association chairman? What scheme are you plotting this time?”
What a funny bastard.
Putting his suspicion aside, who was he to interfere like this? It was not as if I had just said I would drag the association chairman out and cut off his head right now. I irritably swept my hair back and looked at the bastard.
“Taehan, fuck. Whether I was thinking something or not, is that any of your business?”
“You’re not thinking of doing something good for the Hunter Association. And if you’re not going to be loyal to Haeseong either.... No, don’t tell me you joined from the start to do this....”
What was he talking about now?
I looked at Kwon Taehan in disbelief and said,
“I don’t know what database you’re using to predict my behavior, but if you have something to say, say it properly. Don’t blur it vaguely.”
“What?”
“Fuck, Taehan. No matter how long it’s been since you left school, you should at least learn how to speak coherently.”
That aside, if we were going to fight, it seemed better to clearly move elsewhere. If I so much as cursed him out here, the association chairman behind the door would obviously find it interesting.
“You....”
“Go somewhere else and talk. You want to talk here?”
“.......”
Leaving behind Kwon Taehan, who had no answer, I went around nearby, searching for an empty room. Maybe because everyone had gone outside, there were surprisingly many vacant places.
When I picked a conference room that looked suitable and opened the door, Kwon Taehan surprisingly followed me obediently into the room.
As soon as I closed the door with a bang, I turned back toward Kwon Taehan. When the bastard’s eyes met mine, he reflexively turned his head to the side.
“Taehan.... I’ll explain this for your sake.”
“.......”
“When I grabbed you and fought with you in Australia, the conversation ended there, just like you said. If, as you said, my memories are incomplete, then instead of cutting off the front and back and making me infer things, you should explain from beginning to end. If you don’t want to explain, then at least keep your attitude consistent. Hm?”
“.......”
“Decide clearly whether you dragged me here because you wanted a conversation or because you wanted to warn me. If the goal was a warning anyway, you can just grab me by the collar and threaten me like back then.... As it happens, my body is kind of a mess right now too.”
I did not mean that my condition was bad; it was related to my rank dropping, but there was no need to bother explaining that.
Maybe he wanted to argue against my words, because Kwon Taehan opened his mouth with a furrow between his brows, but then he got stuck on something weird again and left the point.
“Body? Why is it?”
Instead of explaining, I roughly jerked my chin and continued.
“You don’t need to know. So, Taehan. What’s your point? Even that association chairman earlier at least had a conclusion to what he said. Why did you call me?”
Then Kwon Taehan moved his lips for a long while before leaning his back against the wall. I looked at him crookedly and waited for him to continue.
As Kwon Taehan thought for quite a while with his mouth firmly closed, the Kwon Taehan in my memories overlaid itself on him.
What did this bastard usually think at times like this?
I stared straight at Kwon Taehan. Even while feeling my gaze, Kwon Taehan pressed his mouth shut again. I waited for him for about three seconds, then roughly shoved his shoulder.
“Talk. Are you protesting?”
I had not pushed with particularly strong force, but Kwon Taehan’s body was pushed back sharply.
Only then did he seem to come to his senses, because Kwon Taehan’s gaze slowly turned toward me. Kwon Taehan stood there looking at me for a long time, as if we were facing off, and finally opened his mouth slowly.
“...Back then, after hearing what you said, I thought about it. Because there was nothing I understood.”
“Yes.... Did you think deeply?”
I was curious how deeply one had to think to hesitate this long.
Kwon Taehan pressed his mouth shut again, then said, as if repeating the words to himself.
“The fact that you have even incomplete memories... is proof that things have changed from before.”
“Yes, that’s the same thing as what you said earlier.”
Come to think of it, how was Kwon Taehan so sure that I had no memories? Anyway, I had killed Kwon Taehan every time and usurped his Regression.
'Did I not act like I knew him at all?'
But no matter how thorough I had been, surely at some point, it would have shown.
“So I tried to find out. I said I would. By comparing how your actions had changed, what your goal was.... And if you really had memories, what you would do from now on.”
“.......”
Kwon Taehan covered the area around his chin and mouth with his hand and muttered softly.
“...I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
Ha.... This frustrating bastard.
I laughed lightly and swept my fallen hair back.
“Taehan.... Then do you think I know?”
“What?”
“I’m saying I don’t know what you’re thinking either.”
I took my gaze off Kwon Taehan and quietly looked up at the ceiling.
Kwon Taehan’s principles of action?
'Do I give a damn? The conclusion will be the same anyway.'
Still, even if the way the bastard acted frustratingly was annoying, if I thought of it as trial and error early in the Regression, it was not to the point that I could not understand why he was acting this way.
Accepting it was, of course, a separate matter.
Because a relationship where only one side remembered was definitely fucking awful.
I lowered my gaze and quietly stared at the bastard. Anyway, the fact that Kwon Taehan had chased after my actions and tried to understand me was something I had fully expected too.
From the moment Kwon Taehan felt a sense of wrongness from me, the bastard must have struggled hard to learn about “me.”
What my goal was, and how I acted to achieve it.... Yes, well, he must have tried hard to find those things out.
'Did he get any results worth being satisfied with?'
If he had gone after Joo Seowon’s side, then even if not one hundred percent, he could have reached about half of the correct answer.
'Judging by the look of it, that seems to have failed.'
In fact, the fact that the bastard had obediently stepped into this place at all was the problem. If he suspected me, hated me, felt a disconnect from me, and thought of me as a completely different person, he should not have followed me so meekly.
Without knowing how I might act differently this time, what the hell was he trusting to be this obedient? If he had noticed that I was different this time, it was only natural that he should change his own attitude too.
'But he didn’t.'
This... wariness and hatred of Kwon Taehan’s, too, was ultimately only an extension. It came from the certainty that no matter how differently I acted, I was still the “Seo Jehyun” he knew.
And Kwon Taehan, amazingly, repeated the same thing every time.
Even if he declared that he would not trust me and tried pretending he hated me... in the end, despite having memories, Kwon Taehan moved together with me every time.
Why?
In truth, I already knew the answer. In the deleted rounds, I had seen the tangible evidence with my own eyes.
Anyway, Kwon Taehan had no family, no friends, nothing precious, and no meaning in life, so he had no choice but to cling to the one relationship that had formed. After all, Kwon Taehan was... a bastard who could not live alone.
Kwon Taehan was ultimately tamed by me to a certain extent.
So much that, like this, even at this very moment, he could not kick open this door and leave.