Chapter 73

“Don’t you remember even the rough details?” Eui-rim pressed.

The indifferent shrug he received made Eui-rim’s stomach churn. As an external support hire, that healer would never have operated independent of the strike leader. What on earth had Kim Si-hoon been doing during the breach? The negligence was staggering.

“A party member displayed erratic behavior, and as the raid leader, you didn’t even bother to verify it?” Eui-rim asked, appalled.

“Hey, shit happens! Is there a law saying a guild master has to babysit every single adult in the party?” Si-hoon shot back, glaring. “Healer Kang, you never used to talk like this. Why are you suddenly interrogating me? Has cozying up with Seo Hae-gun made you completely fearless? Huh?”

Why is this conversation circling back to Seo Hae-gun again?

Feeling it wasn’t even worth dignifying with a reply, Eui-rim exhaled a weary breath. Kim Si-hoon smirked nastily, jerking his chin toward Hae-gun, who was cleaving through three ghouls at once across the hall. “You think you’re special just because Seo Hae-gun gives you a bit of attention, but unless you’re an official guild member, you’re just a disposable toy. No matter how much you try to seduce him with your face, everyone knows his type is Lee Seonha. The whole industry knows those two are practically married, so what do you think you’re going to—”

“Do you have feelings for me by any chance?” Eui-rim interrupted flatly.

At the blunt, deadpan question, Kim Si-hoon’s mouth clamped shut in a rigid, frozen line.

Eui-rim had blurted it out merely to choke off the obnoxious stream of insults. Yet seeing the man stiffen to such an unnatural, mortified degree made the ensuing silence suffocating.

…Ah. Dammit.

Seo Hae-gun had been telling the absolute truth.

No matter how clueless Eui-rim was in matters of romance, he wasn’t an idiot. When someone radiated such clumsy, defensive panic, denying the reality was impossible.

Drawing a slow, measured breath, Eui-rim quietly took three steps back. He simply did not possess the psychological fortitude to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the man right now.

“W-Why the fuck would I like you?!” Si-hoon sputtered, turning bright red.

His bellow was loud enough to pierce through the wet crunching of cleaved skulls. Bristling with indignation like an animal struck dead center in the bullseye, Si-hoon was the very picture of shameless outrage.

“If anything, you were the one with feelings for me, Healer Kang!” Si-hoon shouted.

Has he completely lost his mind?

“Me?” Eui-rim asked, horrified.

“Feigning ignorance is pathetic! What, now that you’ve got an S-rank to back you up, you’re playing innocent? You had eyes for me, which was why you were always smiling so politely and volunteering for my raids every single time!” Si-hoon roared.

That was because you sexually harassed the other healers, so I took the assignment to shield them! Because I was used to brushing off garbage!

Calm down, Kang Eui-rim. What’s the point of arguing with someone whose brain chemistry is fried? Whatever logic I offer, he will twist it into an excuse. There’s no reason to waste breath disputing delusions.

“I don’t like men,” Eui-rim stated flatly.

Surely I can say that much. Sorry, but I have zero interest in you.

“Bullshit. You don’t like women either,” Si-hoon shot back instantly.

“How could you possibly know that?” Eui-rim countered.

“I’ve watched you since you were twenty years old, Healer Kang! You think I wouldn’t know that?” Si-hoon barked.

You’ve been watching for a disgustingly long time. What are you, a stalker?

“…Let me rephrase, then,” Eui-rim said, staring at him like he was an insect. “Guild Master Kim Si-hoon, you are completely outside my preferences.”

“I’m not your type?” Si-hoon demanded, flabbergasted.

“Not in the slightest,” Eui-rim confirmed.

“Ha, fuck. Unbelievable… Then what kind of bastard is your type?” Si-hoon demanded with a sneer.

“My type?” Eui-rim asked, bewildered.

“Yeah!” Si-hoon barked.

This isn’t a blind date at a café—is it normal to be having this conversation in the middle of a dungeon?

Eui-rim bit his lip, darting an embarrassed glance toward Cheongho. Over there, three hunters were hacking through waves of rotten flesh for their lives, while on this side, two grown men were bickering over romantic preferences. The sheer absurdity left him mortified.

I should have stayed beside Seo Hae-gun. Can’t I just run over to the frontline right now?

“Don’t tell me your type is actually Seo Hae-gun?” Si-hoon demanded, his eyes bulging.

Misinterpreting Eui-rim’s glance toward Hae-gun, Si-hoon inhaled sharply, his voice rising in pitch. The three steps of space Eui-rim had carefully opened closed in an instant, Si-hoon’s bloodshot eyes boring into him with feral intensity.

“Why aren’t you answering? Seo Hae-gun is your type? I didn’t think you were like that, Healer Kang—are you that shallow about faces?”

God. Could I knock out an A-rank hunter by smashing the pommel of this hunting knife into his temple? Or better yet, mana conservation be damned, I want to freeze time and kick him square in the groin.

Had Eui-rim been even a C-rank, he would have thrown a fist already. His restraint wasn’t born of maturity, but of biological reality: the bone density gap between a D-rank healer and an A-rank vanguard was like that of a toddler against an armored rhino.

Inhaling deeply, Eui-rim looked straight into Si-hoon’s bloodshot eyes. “Yes. He is my type.”

“Huh?” Si-hoon gasped.

“I said he’s my type. Seo Hae-gun-ssi is my ideal type. If I were to date a man, I’d date Seo Hae-gun-ssi. I’m not into men, but if it’s Seo Hae-gun-ssi, I could date him without a second thought.”

Craaash!

“Ah, Guild Master! Watch where you swing! My head almost split open just now!” Chaeyoon shrieked.

Startled by Chaeyoon’s shriek, Eui-rim jerked his head over to see Hae-gun’s handaxe buried handle-deep into the reinforced concrete wall. Watching the Guild Master silently kick away an incoming ghoul without turning around, Eui-rim swallowed a terrified groan.

…Right. With an S-rank’s hearing, this distance is practically whisper range. On top of that, in his irritation to shut Si-hoon down, he had enunciated every word like an announcement. I’ll have to buy him coffee later to apologize. Maybe two cups loaded with whipped cream will soothe his temper.

“Fuck. What do I lack compared to that pretty-boy bastard…?” Si-hoon muttered under his breath.

Right then, a subterranean rumble echoed like rolling thunder. The jagged concrete debris from the breached wall began levitating one by one, suspended in the air like floating meteorites.

Glancing sideways, Eui-rim saw Si-hoon’s face contorted in murderous rage. The venom burning in the man’s eyes was so raw that even Eui-rim, who had known his foul temper for years, felt a chill freeze his veins.

In the next second, the boulder-sized debris shot forward like artillery shells. Hurtling directly toward the trio entangled in the melee—aimed squarely at Seo Hae-gun’s back—the shattered masonry fell like a meteor shower.

“Guild Master Kim Si-hoon, stop!” Eui-rim screamed.

Yet the catastrophe unfolded in that exact microsecond.

Just before Eui-rim could unleash 〈Rewinding Hand〉—

Boom!

The concrete projectiles hurtling toward Hae-gun violently contorted in midair, whipping around in an impossible arc to slam straight back down upon Kim Si-hoon and Eui-rim.

A concussive shockwave slammed across Eui-rim’s frame. Gritting his teeth, he pressed himself flat against the back wall. As the thick dust cloud gradually settled, the tremors shuddering through the corridor finally died.

…I explicitly told him not to use skills in this domain. He never listens, does he? It didn’t just nullify the kinetic force—it redirected the entire backlash directly back at the caster.

“Eui-rim-ssi! Are you alright?” Chaeyoon yelled, scrambling over the rubble.

Sprinting over in a panic, Chaeyoon looked him up and down. Eui-rim pulled back his sleeve to reveal the faint shimmer of the barrier bracelet. “Yes. Thanks to the Black Sapphire, I wasn’t touched.”

Though Kim Si-hoon, who took the full brunt of the kinetic backlash, certainly wasn’t so lucky.

Only then noticing Si-hoon pinned underneath the collapsed masonry, Chaeyoon let out a startled yelp. The rubble had entombed him like a gravel cairn, and she had inadvertently planted her boots right on his chest. Stepping down awkwardly, she scratched her brow.

“What should we do with him?” Chaeyoon asked.

“He’s knocked out cold, so leave him there for now,” Eui-rim replied calmly. “He won’t die from this. For all his faults, he is still an A-rank hunter.”

Of course, for an A-rank awakener to lose consciousness, the concussive trauma must have been massive. Any B-rank or lower would have been crushed to paste.

Unfortunately, there was no active healer present. In an emergency, a high-grade potion could revive him, but Eui-rim harbored zero affection for Si-hoon that would justify squandering a billion-won draught on him.

“This is why I said we should’ve brought rocket launchers!” Ahn Moonhyuk roared, driving his halberd through another cluster of ghouls. Watching Hae-gun hack away with mechanical savagery, the burly hunter shouted again.

“With a launcher, we could have pulverized fifty of these bastards in one blast!” Moonhyuk shouted.

“How could you fire high-explosives in a subterranean hospital?” Chaeyoon snapped. “What if you collapse the bedrock and bury us all? Oppa, please use that lump on your neck for thinking for once in your life!”

Chaeyoon snapped at Moonhyuk instead of Hae-gun, then cleanly pulverized the skulls of two lunging ghouls in a single backswing. Her follow-through was so crisp that the iron club in her grip looked like a slugger’s bat in a pennant race.

Wiping black gore from her cheek with the back of her glove, she gave Eui-rim a bright nod. “Hang in there a little longer. We’re almost through the wave.”

“…I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” Eui-rim murmured.

“Why are you always apologizing? Who could have known skills would be nullified?” Chaeyoon teased with a grin. “Bashing skulls is great for stress relief anyway. Besides, I got to witness something truly historic.”

“Something historic?” Eui-rim repeated warily.

“It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever heard anyone declare to our Guild Master’s face that he’s their ideal type,” Chaeyoon said with a smirk.

…It wasn’t just Seo Hae-gun who heard? Did I really scream it that loudly?