“If the Association tries anything funny, leave immediately. There’s no need for you to humor those bastards, hyungnim.”

Jongsik, who had been unable to hide his anxiety during the entire drive, opened the rear door while offering this advice. Sa-yoon thought his concern was becoming pathological and flicked his finger against Jongsik’s forehead. Ugh! Jongsik clutched his forehead and stepped back.

Oops, too much force.

Sa-yoon realized he’d forgotten to control his strength when he saw the red welt rising on Jongsik’s forehead. He’d meant to tap him lightly, but ended up gifting his loyal subordinate a sizable lump instead.

“Hyungnim!”

Jongsik cried out, seemingly aggrieved at being struck for offering sincere counsel.

“Why do you keep worrying so much? Do you think I’m going somewhere to get beaten up?”

“That’s why I contacted the Association as well. I asked them to stop you if you cause trouble.”

“Hmm.”

Thwack!

Sa-yoon hit Jongsik’s forehead once more. This time, he deliberately didn’t hold back.

This kid always has a mouth problem.

He should stop at one sentence, but he always says ten and earns himself a beating. Sa-yoon gave Jongsik a dismissive look as tears welled in his eyes, then pulled a potion from his inventory and tossed it to him.

“You don’t need to worry. Go back and work with your feet up.”

“Normally in this situation, wouldn’t you say ‘put your feet up and rest’?”

“With the guild split in two, do you even have time to sleep?”

Jongsik laughed awkwardly at Sa-yoon’s deliberate drawl.

“I guess you’re right. Haha.”

He scratched his head sheepishly while glancing at Sa-yoon before getting into the car. He seemed to have sensed that staying any longer would earn him another hit.

So he’s getting better at reading the room.

Sa-yoon looked at him with mild surprise before turning away. Once an Association employee confirmed Jongsik’s car had departed, he approached Sa-yoon.

“Are you Kwon Sa-yoon from the Swallow Guild?”

“Yes.”

“If you could show me your guild badge and hunter license, I’ll help verify your identity.”

At this request, Sa-yoon took out the guild badge and license provided by the Association and handed them over. The employee examined them without much suspicion and nodded.

“Your identity is confirmed. I’ll guide you to the conference room.”

The employee bowed slightly and led the way into the building. Sa-yoon followed at a leisurely pace, fingering his rings.

He felt the new pairing ring that Jaehee had brought him, sitting atop the Fate Pairing from Palshillo that he had never removed since putting it on.

‘Since Gyeongjin was so insistent, I’ll connect just this once. I agree we don’t know what the Association might do.’

The pairing ring had been handed to him with those words, as if Jaehee had caught Sa-yoon’s habit of suspicion from spending time together.

‘What kind of pairing is it?’

‘It’s a summoner’s pairing. While you’re wearing it, you can summon Rai once whenever you want. I’ve linked it, and I’m wearing the other half of the pair. Let me know if it’s uncomfortable.’

Was discomfort even an issue when he could summon an S-rank familiar at will? Sa-yoon had eagerly accepted the pairing and put it on. He couldn’t care less whether Jaehee watched with cold eyes or not.

Sa-yoon was humming a tune while twirling the reassuring pairing on his finger when the Association employee glanced back at him.

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

“I have my reasons.”

Perhaps he could surprise those waiting for him in the conference room. The thought that he could summon Rai and pretend to have gained summoner abilities amused him enough to continue humming until the employee announced their arrival. Sa-yoon narrowed his eyes at the massive, firmly closed door before him. Using his heightened senses to detect the presence inside the conference room, Sa-yoon identified about three powerful auras and smiled.

It seemed he was fourth in line.

Four is a nice-sounding number.

It reminds one of the character for “death,” after all.

Sa-yoon grinned as he opened the closed door. The gazes of the hunters inside the conference room immediately turned to him. Hmm, all familiar faces. As the three hunters widened their eyes in shock, Sa-yoon enjoyed their heated stares while wiggling his fingers.

“Nothing but familiar faces, isn’t that right?”

There weren’t many domestic hunters Sa-yoon recognized. Their common trait was that they had all either been threatened with death by Sa-yoon, been attacked by him, had their weapons taken, or been stabbed in the back. So how could their reactions possibly be moderate?

“You bastard…”

A table crashed over as a man with a closely shaved head moved like lightning to grab Sa-yoon by the collar. Though it happened in an instant, no one was surprised. Even Sa-yoon, who had been grabbed, remained unfazed.

“Hello, Taeseok. Did you get a tan since I last saw you? Why didn’t you come to the festival? I was waiting for you.”

The man’s face twisted hideously at Sa-yoon’s gentle voice. Sa-yoon cackled with satisfaction at finally seeing the face he’d missed at the festival. He had gone to the festival expecting to see him, but was told the man who convulsed whenever he saw Sa-yoon had not attended, which had been quite disappointing.

Sa-yoon often endured his boring life by amusing himself with teasing him.

Wasn’t it rather cute how this full-grown man kept crawling back, spouting pathetic principles even after being trampled?

“Nothing’s changed about you except that oily tongue of yours, you bastard? What makes you think you can set foot here?”

“You’re hurting my feelings, Taeseok. I was invited by the Association too, you know.”

“A bastard who’d normally tear up that invitation, what whim brought you here? Do you think this matter is as trivial as you seem to think?”

The voice, like a train whistle boiling over, struck Sa-yoon’s eardrums intensely. Sa-yoon grimaced at the sound reverberating throughout the conference room. The man with the fierce expression ground his teeth and lifted Sa-yoon up. As the man stood over 2 meters tall, Sa-yoon’s feet left the ground.

“Shall we do this?”

Sa-yoon smiled and grabbed the man’s hand clutching his collar. For a moment, a blue light flickered in his deep black eyes.

“That’s enough.”

A man set down his tea to mediate the situation. It was Lee Han.

“We didn’t gather here to fight. You’re all being rash. You should know what kind of meeting this is.”

Lee Han’s gaze turned to Taeseok. His attitude clearly indicated he was blaming Taeseok for causing a disturbance, not Sa-yoon who had appeared after being invited by the Association. The man frowned at that look, glared at Sa-yoon, and opened his mouth.

“What are you plotting?”

“Who knows?”

“Kwon Sa-yoon.”

As Sa-yoon shrugged his shoulders, a heavy voice settled in the room. The man’s thick eyebrows, as if drawn with charcoal, made his expression even more fierce.

“Don’t mess around. Even splashing should be done in waters you can play in.”

The man warned in a voice so low it sent chills down the spine, then released Sa-yoon as if throwing him away. Despite the strong force, Sa-yoon stood upright without staggering and smiled.

This was why it was fun.

He neither retreated at the first sign of danger nor attacked with mediocre skills. He was the only one who genuinely confronted Sa-yoon while possessing skills worthy of challenging him. Indeed, the grudge of a guild master who had lost a guild to Sa-yoon’s hands was different.

What rotten luck.

Of all the guilds to be caught up in the forced quest, it had to be Taeseok’s.

Sa-yoon flashed a smile at the man who had returned to his seat while glaring at him.

“That’s too bad. If you want, I can face you after the meeting is over.”

He meant it sincerely. He was willing to make all the time in the world for him, but when he spoke gently, the frowning man remained silent. Though he was clearly keeping his mouth shut, Sa-yoon could almost hear a voice telling him not to act rashly.

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

A relatively higher-pitched voice rang in Sa-yoon’s ears as he pulled out a chair from one of the empty seats and sat down, crossing one leg over the other and resting his chin on his hand. He turned to look at the owner of the voice. A woman with purple hair pulled up high and secured with a hairpin smiled at Sa-yoon.

“I didn’t expect to see noona here.”

“My, are you saying merchant guilds aren’t hunters?”

“I didn’t go that far.”

Sa-yoon chuckled at the woman’s glib response. He had thought she’d gone abroad, but apparently she was still in Korea.

“You were cute when you were a little kid, but starting around age twenty-one, your personality went bad, and now you’ve become an ungovernable rascal?”

“I wonder who I take after.”

“I only taught you for two months, what nonsense is that?”

The woman waved her hand, dismissing the absurd notion. Thanks to her, Sa-yoon recalled memories from long ago. Though Bumyeong was now Korea’s largest merchant guild, eight years ago when Sa-yoon was nineteen, it had been a newly established guild. That’s why it had been willing to trade even with the young Sa-yoon.

Mijeong, who was the guild master of Bumyeong at that time, had provided information to Sa-yoon, who had just come out of the field and didn’t know much about the hunter industry, and taught him various things about trading. He had called her “noona” based solely on her appearance, but nearly fainted when he learned she was in her late thirties.

Life’s connections were indeed strange. They had met briefly for trades afterward, but after the Bumyeong Guild expanded its trading scale and spread overseas, he hadn’t been able to meet the busy woman—until now, when he unexpectedly encountered her here.

While he was thinking that she wasn’t among the Noah members he had expected, the conference room door, which had closed after Sa-yoon entered, opened again.

It was Noah’s fifth member.