Chapter 11

Before he could be bodily hoisted onto the man’s shoulders, Eui-rim pushed himself upright from the curb. Si-hoon offered a vulgar wink, his leering grin widening. This guy hasn’t changed a single iota. Then again, having only jumped three years into the past, expecting moral growth from this thug was pure foolishness.

“See? You’re fine. Stop acting like a prima donna and get upstairs,” Si-hoon commanded.

Brushing off his designer trousers, the man jerked his sharp chin toward the glass entrance of the guild building. Taking it entirely for granted that Eui-rim would fall in line, his swaggering departure was the epitome of arrogance.

Eui-rim watched Kim Si-hoon’s retreating figure with a quiet, resigned sigh. In his heart, he wanted nothing more than to hail another taxi and bolt straight home, but thoughts of whichever innocent colleague would be forced into the Isolation Ward stayed his feet. For the sake of the person inheriting this nightmare, he needed to establish clear raid parameters so the transition wouldn’t become a death trap.

As Eui-rim forced his legs to follow, Kim Si-hoon began cheerfully whistling an off-key tune ahead of him. Tone-deaf on top of everything else. Rubbing his throbbing temples with both thumbs, Eui-rim followed the man into the White Noise headquarters.

Stepping inside the White Noise Guild headquarters after so long felt eerily true to his memories. True to the guild’s pretentious branding, the synthesized trill of songbirds and the ambient trickle of indoor water features echoed from concealed speakers, manufacturing a faux-tranquil atmosphere—even if its Guild Master was the very antithesis of peace. Staff members scurried past with heads bowed, whispering in hushed, nervous tones, terrified of triggering their master’s volatile temper.

Escorted up the private elevator by a silent administrative secretary, Eui-rim arrived at the executive suite. Surveying the office—blindingly whiter than a surgical cleanroom—the civil servant clicked his tongue in distaste. No matter how many times I step in here, I’ll never stomach this decor. Not only were the marble walls and plush carpeting a stark, blinding white, but every piece of Italian leather furniture and artistic fixture had been uniformly bleached, rendering the aesthetic suffocatingly clinical and self-absorbed.

“I’m planning on breaching the dungeon this Friday,” Kim Si-hoon declared without preamble.

Slumping into his high-backed leather throne with an insolent sprawl, Kim Si-hoon gestured dismissively toward the low sofa across from him. Eui-rim crossed the plush carpet in silence and perched cautiously on the edge of the cushions.

Because he had already lived through this precise confrontation once before, an unsettling sense of déjà vu took hold, filling in the gaps of his faded memory.

“This Friday?” Eui-rim echoed, keeping his tone flat.

“Yeah. It’s not like you have a bustling social calendar anyway, Healer Kang,” Si-hoon drawled, propping his feet up on the glass table. “We mop up the dungeon over the weekend, take Monday off, and blast the official press release out first thing in the morning.”

Mmm. Hearing it a second time around, it remains the itinerary of an absolute thug.

The exact same wave of outrage he had swallowed three years ago coiled in the healer’s gut. Choking back the profanities rising in his throat, Eui-rim forced a tight, polite smile onto his face. You selfish bastard. Did it ever occur to you that public support healers work standard municipal hours? As long as you get your glorious weekend press cycle, everyone else can just drop dead, right?

This was precisely why self-absorbed sociopaths who had never worked an honest day in a functional organization should never be handed executive authority. The man possessed zero empathy or basic professional courtesy, genuinely convinced the universe revolved around his whims.

In his past timeline, Eui-rim had quietly conceded to avoid a catastrophic feud between the health center and the guild. Exhausting as it had been, he had lacked personal plans just as Kim Si-hoon presumed, consoling himself with the meager bump in civil service hazardous-duty pay.

Now, however, the circumstances were fundamentally altered.

To begin with, he had urgent personal business requiring leave this Friday. More crucially, it was doubtful whether he would even remain an employee of the municipal health center by week’s end. With his restorative abilities completely eradicated, continuing as an active healer was an impossibility. He intended to submit his formal resignation to Director Lee first thing tomorrow morning—meaning he had zero obligation to dance to this tyrant’s fiddle.

“What’s with that look? You don’t like the plan?” Si-hoon barked, his eyes narrowing into venomous slits. “Why do you have such a sour look on your face?”

“What if the strike team enters next Tuesday and clears the gate by Thursday?” Eui-rim proposed calmly. “Distributing the official press release on Friday morning would generate far greater public engagement heading into the weekend.”

Eui-rim was attempting to negotiate a reasonable timetable with his eventual successor in mind. His former, pushover self might have sacrificed his own weekends to maintain the peace, but he refused to saddle whichever poor junior colleague replaced him with this abusive schedule.

“Ah, seriously, Healer Kang! A veteran civil servant like you should know the media game better than that!” Si-hoon snapped, clicking his tongue in exasperation. “Entering on Friday builds organic suspense over the weekend. Breaching the boss room on a random Thursday completely kills the narrative momentum! When we emerge triumphant on Sunday night, every major news outlet on Monday morning will be plastered with White Noise’s triumph!”

What on earth does a combat hunter even do with that much vanity coverage? Did he truly expect the nation to fall to its knees in worship over a routine B-rank dungeon raid? The man’s grandiose delusions knew no bounds.

When Eui-rim maintained a stony silence, Kim Si-hoon’s sharp features contorted with venom. Because the conversation wasn’t bending to his absolute control, his volatile temper was already showing cracks.

“Why are you playing so hard to get today of all days? Did you suddenly sprout a social life? You don’t even have friends to meet, Healer Kang,” Si-hoon sneered, leaning forward aggressively.

The arrogant presumption of having cataloged his entire personal existence drew a dry, humorless scoff from Eui-rim. Kim Si-hoon seemed entirely convinced that no human obligation could exist unless approved by his grace. That smug, sneering visage reeked of such narcissistic entitlement that it crossed past infuriating into absurd comedy. As Eui-rim stared at him, the corners of his mouth twitched. Just as he was mentally reciting a mantra of patience for the sake of his successor, a remark Seo Hae-gun had once tossed at him surfaced in his mind unbidden:

—“Why’d you live such a dull life?”

Had the Cheongho Guild Master witnessed this pathetic display, would he have scolded Eui-rim for living such a timid life? Or mocked him for being pointlessly accommodating to a petty tyrant? Either way, the S-rank hunter would have looked upon this scene with profound disdain.

Eui-rim gave an indifferent shrug. “I apologize, Guild Master Kim, but Friday is impossible. I have an immutable prior engagement.”

“Right. That’s why you need to—wait, what?!”

“Furthermore, I will not be accompanying White Noise into this dungeon or any future raids,” the younger man stated with serene finality. “It would be far more productive to conduct strategic briefings once the department appoints my successor. You see, I am resigning from municipal service.”

“W-Wait a damn second! Shut up! Just shut the fuck up for a second!”

His pitch spiking into a frantic screech, Kim Si-hoon thrust a trembling hand across the coffee table. Through the gaps between his splayed fingers, a turbulent storm of disbelief and fury churned in his narrow eyes.

“You have plans this Friday?” Si-hoon demanded, his voice cracking.

“Yes. Therefore, I will be taking my accrued annual leave starting that day.”

Understanding that civil service protocols required a mandatory processing period before an official discharge was finalized, Eui-rim’s strategy was to exhaust his remaining paid leave immediately.

“You don’t even have friends, so who the hell could you possibly be meeting?!” Si-hoon snarled, slamming a fist onto his desk. “This is pure bullshit! You’re throwing a childish tantrum right now, aren’t you? Trying to make me jealous over some made-up appointment?!”

Has he completely lost his mind? What on earth would I gain from your jealousy? It wasn’t as if the man’s emotional hysteria came with a pay raise or civilized treatment.

When Eui-rim shook his head in unmistakable, visceral disgust, Kim Si-hoon’s face turned genuinely ugly. Crumpling his sharp features like crushed aluminum foil, the man hissed with bare malice.

“Ah, seriously! Did you hit puberty ten years late?! Why the hell are you quitting your government post?! Did someone scout you? But who in their right mind would scout an unremarkable D-rank healer like you…? No, wait. You turned me down when I offered you a contract with White Noise, and now you signed with someone else behind my back?! Fuck! Are you looking down on me?!”

Having asked his own paranoid questions and fabricated his own deranged conclusions, Kim Si-hoon began leaking mana into the room. One by one, decorative porcelain vases and crystal tumblers began levitating into the air, trembling violently under the influence of his volatile telekinetic aura.

Where on earth did this man spend his youth? Hadn’t he bragged about pushing thirty? By every conceivable standard of human maturity, he behaved worse than a spoiled, tantrum-throwing adolescent. What was truly chilling was that the guild master seemed entirely convinced his theatrical outrage was logical and dignified.

Eui-rim let out a quiet, defeated groan and rubbed his closed eyelids. Even upon discovering that his entire status profile had mutated into an error-riddled mess, he hadn’t felt this profoundly depleted. The soul-crushing exhaustion crashing over him was nearly on par with the weeks he had spent dodging the apocalyptic gaze of the Shadow.

“Hey, Kang Eui-rim. Are you going to answer me or just sit there?!”

The murderous glare in Kim Si-hoon’s slit eyes was razor-sharp. If he aggravated the volatile hunter any further, the man looked ready to abandon all professional pretense and violently trash his own office.

What an uncontrollable child.

“Why on earth would I look down on you, Guild Master Kim? It is nothing of the sort. Nor have I received any recruitment offers from rival guilds,” Eui-rim answered with measured composure.

“Then why the hell are you pulling this stunt?!” Si-hoon demanded, teeth bared.

“I require a complete medical respite. My physiological condition has deteriorated beyond normal limits,” the healer stated evenly.