I Possessed The Villain In a Hunter Novel And It Fits Me Perfectly

The call with Im Haekyung ended quickly. If Im Haekyung had told me to return immediately, then in any case, it was probably meant as a warning. I leisurely moved my steps, then paused for a moment.

'There’s someone here.'

Coincidentally, it was someone I knew.

Name: Kang Sojeong

Age: 30

Rank: -

Title: -

Main Skills: -

Growth Limit: -

No, was it a stretch to say I knew her? We had once been scammer mates, that was all.

The Shanghai auction where I had gone to get the heart of Aquarion, which had now fallen into becoming the armor on my wrist. The scammer I had run into there by chance.

'I remember she bought the elixir.'

If I said running into her here really seemed like coincidence, there was one thing that came to mind. A little while ago, Tae Hyunjin had thrown in a comment to me about armor or whatever.

There were three people in total who knew I had taken Tae Hyunjin’s sword. Me, Joo Seowon, and this scammer. It did not seem likely that Tae Hyunjin had found Joo Seowon and interrogated them, so naturally, only one option remained.

When our eyes met, she must have recognized me too, because she lightly waved her hand.

“Hi.”

Kang Sojeong was leaning against the wall with a cigarette in her mouth, looking down at me from above the emergency stairs.

“This is a no-smoking area.”

“That’s why I haven’t lit it.”

What, then was she chewing it like a dog treat?

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Kang Sojeong for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, good work.”

“Jehyun.”

What was this now?

When I glanced at Kang Sojeong, the bastard raised the corner of her mouth in a grin and said,

“You became famous.”

“Well, somehow.”

“Judging by the news I’ve been hearing, you seem to be living pretty interestingly. I was glad to see you in the articles.”

“Why?”

We did not have the sort of relationship where she would be glad to see me. When I asked because I was genuinely curious, Kang Sojeong put the cigarette back into the pack and replied.

“I just said it. Though since you’re kind of a crazy kid, you might wonder why words like that are necessary.”

She really talked in an amusing way. I stopped in place and stared quietly at Kang Sojeong.

“Looks like you’re moving around with Hunter Tae.”

“.......”

At my words, Kang Sojeong paused for a moment. Her gaze, which had gone down briefly as she looked at the cigarette pack, slowly came back up. I met those eyes and continued speaking as if it were nothing.

“You said you were sick back then, but seeing that you’re still alive, it looks like the elixir did its job properly. You said you hated Hunters, but seeing as you’re moving around with Hunter Tae, you must have another purpose. Enough for an unawakened person to come all the way here.”

“You talk like you made some great deduction.”

As if. This was simply listing facts. Kang Sojeong leisurely leaned her body against the wall and crossed her arms. As if waiting for my next words.

'Is she really expecting a deduction or something?'

Honestly, whatever Kang Sojeong did was none of my business, and I was not particularly curious either. After that auction, we had no reason to contact each other separately. Still, well... if I had to consider something that was related to me.

“You have malice toward the Hunter Association, don’t you?”

Yes, it was definitely this side.

At my words, Kang Sojeong let out a short laugh, pahah, then slightly furrowed her brow.

“What makes you so sure?”

“.......”

“Malice? If anything, that seemed more like you.”

Kang Sojeong lightly mimed making a phone call with her hand and added,

“You made a call just now. About the Hunter Association.”

Pretending she knew.

Fuck, as if I was an idiot. I had already pulled up the Status Window, checked everything, and then made the call.

I could see that she was making a strong move based on having vaguely heard the last words. I only raised one eyebrow and asked back,

“What did I say?”

“Hmm.... Should I pretend not to know?”

“Well, go ahead and pretend you know. You don’t know anyway.”

“You should have checked your surroundings carefully when making a call.”

I looked blankly at Kang Sojeong and thought. This side, certainly, had been someone I had first met back then, but... there were several coincidental circumstances that caught my attention.

Immediately after returning from Shanghai, I had made Joo Seowon gather a little data on Kang Sojeong. It was not because I meant to do anything with it; I was collecting information as insurance. If I checked the organization that had laundered her identity or the principles behind her actions, I could respond quickly if a related crisis ever arrived.

Kang Sojeong’s profile discovered that way was unexpectedly simple. She had worked at the Hunter Association before, but she had not been a field worker. She had been an office worker, and her length of service was short. Since she had said she was sick, the reason she resigned was probably that.

The really interesting part was something else. Among the information Joo Seowon handed me, I quickly sorted out the parts related to the Association. Because even if she was terminally ill, going that far to obtain an elixir made her a crazy bastard, so I guessed there must be another reason. And since the rest of her life had been entirely uneventful, the probability was high that it was connected to the Hunter Association, the only special event among them.

I already knew the Hunter Association treated Hunters like consumables. It was not a story known to the world, but I had information from the “original work.” To find that out, I compared the total number of Hunter Association employees with the number of hires and resignations. Including contract workers.

Well, of course, I was not the one who did it. I had Joo Seowon do it.

The result gained that way was naturally a fucking mess. No matter how much they erased records, the records that had already been printed and released to the public would not all disappear. That was why they were floating around as conspiracy theories in some corner of the internet.

At first, I suspected Kang Sojeong’s illness might have also come from something like that, but since she had not been a field worker, that hypothesis was quickly discarded.

'Do we look further from here?'

'No, this is enough.'

After that, I did not dig any deeper. Just finding evidence that the Hunter Association was doing fucked-up things was enough. Tracing everything one by one to find Kang Sojeong’s direct motive would have been excessive waste of manpower.

And so, I forgot about it for a while... until I later caught one interesting thing.

Among Sung Uijae’s personal circumstances, what I felt was most useful was not a simple incident or past, but the bastard’s nature. Sung Uijae, who had agonized constantly after awakening as an S-rank. Calling an S-rank Hunter a monster was closer to a kind of praise, but the bastard kept finding it unpleasant. As if his own humanity had been denied.

'Well, not that it matters.'

Excluding special types like Kwon Taehan, S-rank Hunters had ultimately taken one step away from humanity. This could not be helped. To begin with, their abilities surpassed humans, so it would be ridiculous if only their instincts remained human.

In any case, Sung Uijae did have one goal of his own. To find the lover of the Hunter Association Hunter to whom he owed his life in the past. Since I intended to shift Sung Uijae’s debt from that Hunter to my side, I had obtained information about this too through Joo Seowon.

In the middle of that, one piece of information I had found earlier caught my eye.

The records of the Hunter Association Hunter said to have saved Sung Uijae coincidentally overlapped with Kang Sojeong’s period of employment at the Hunter Association. The detailed information had all been erased by the Hunter Association, so I could not find it out, but it fit together quite... neatly, didn’t it?

Was an extreme story like a terminally ill lover really that common?

It did not matter even if it was not true. Sung Uijae’s memories from that time would be incomplete anyway, so this much coincidence would be enough to plausibly piece it together. Of course, it was something I had only kept in mind because it had been pushed back by priority.

'But to run into her again like this.'

And at an event hosted by the Hunter Association, no less.

How very interesting!

I smiled brightly and replied to Kang Sojeong.

“Do you have something to say to me? You keep trying to grab a weakness....”

“.......”

“Even if you heard something, it’s not a weakness.”

Kang Sojeong lifted her chin and looked at me, then crookedly raised the corner of her mouth.

“If you had enough information power to snatch Hunter Tae’s sword at the Shanghai auction, that must mean it’s considerable. I thought maybe it was possible because you had Haeseong behind you.... But back then, you and your friend moved around alone, so it probably wasn’t thanks to Haeseong.”

“So?”

Kang Sojeong, who had laced her fingers with both hands, said plainly,

“I want to bring in internal information from the Hunter Association. Do you not take outside requests?”

“Why not ask Hunter Tae?”

“If the guild itself moves, it’ll stand out too much. And there’s something you’re misunderstanding. I’m not close to Hunter Tae. As you know, Hunter Tae is a crazy person, right? You too, though.”

Was that so? I had thought a personality that shitty was about average for Hunters.

Anyway, this request was something I could not accept from the start. Because I did not have Joo Seowon, who would move personally and obtain information for me.

'Unless I attack it from another side.'

To begin with, if the goal was to make the Hunter Association collapse, that was something I was already doing right now.

“Then why did you stick beside Hunter Tae?”

“Because there was something I needed. Did you think I was playing friendship games at this age?”

If it was something she needed, then she probably meant the authority to attend a place like this, where one could go in and out of the Hunter Association without suspicion.

I nodded roughly.

“I understand. Still, it’s difficult right now.”

“Why? Because of the pay?”

“I don’t move for money.”

“Then?”

“The manpower that could extract information for me has been cut off.”

At my words, Kang Sojeong slowly furrowed her brow. Did she not understand what I said?

“It’s not like you were the one searching for it proactively anyway. Wasn’t your friend’s side the one finding it?”

“I haven’t worked with them for a while.”

“What?”

At that, Kang Sojeong asked back, as if confused.

“Really?”

“Why would I lie about that?”

If I did not want to, I could simply say I did not want to.

“It’s been quite a while since I even saw their face. Go ask them separately. Though I don’t know if you’ll be able to find them.”

“.......”

After a moment, Kang Sojeong, who had been quiet as if thinking about something, asked with an expression even more incomprehending than before.

“Anyway... your friend is here too, aren’t they? I saw them. Then did the two of you come under different affiliations?”