“Kwon Sa-yoon! Are you out of your mind?”

Flutter, flutter.

With the indignant roar, dozens of documents flew in all directions like flower petals scattered by the wind. Though he was furious, it seemed he hadn’t lost all his fear, as he managed to throw the documents while avoiding my face. I glanced at the papers that greeted me the moment I entered, then picked one of them up. I wondered what it was, but it seemed to be a collection of printed articles and comment reactions that had come out after my interview.

“Anyone would think I’ve actually become a celebrity. Kwon Sa-yoon has hit the jackpot, getting treated like a celebrity despite being the head of a criminal guild.”

“Keuk.”

“I was just talking to myself, why are you getting all flustered?”

It was a one hundred percent genuine monologue, yet the man who had pushed forward the crazy plan to recruit the head of a criminal guild into Noah had a guilty conscience and his face flushed red. I scanned through the printed comments. The reactions were not so different from what I had expected.

Half were enthusiastic, half were critical.

Isn’t this pretty decent?

To get this kind of reaction after an interview like that, it seemed the majority of people were letting it slide, thinking he’s great so they’ll put up with it because of his achievements. However, regardless of their reactions, Bae Min-cheol, with the mentality of a sunfish[1] that couldn’t stand even one malicious comment among a hundred positive ones, braced himself on his desk, glared at me, and then pressed a hand to his forehead.

“In my final years… I should just die rather than suffer like this.”

“It is about time for you to die, isn’t it?”

“You insolent…!”

A vein popped on the forehead of the incensed Min-cheol. The average lifespan of hunters is short. Theoretically, hunters were said to enjoy a lifespan three times that of a normal person, but most hunters died young before even reaching fifty. Those who should have died at one hundred and fifty at the earliest were dying without living even half that, so it could certainly be called an early death.

The cause of death wasn’t just Gates. Even without Gates, hunters die early. Considering that the oldest hunter to have died of natural causes was sixty, it was a fairly reliable piece of information.

Experts pointed to the excessive use of abilities as the reason why hunters, despite having their lifespans extended by a god’s blessing, died so young. The continuous, long-term strain on the heart accelerated physical aging and disrupted the body’s rhythm, leading to death. When I heard that information, I had sneered. How could an ability that only increased theoretical lifespan while eating away at actual lifespan be called a blessing? That was when I was young, unable to adapt to the villain life, and my antipathy towards gods was at its peak.

“I shouldn’t even bother talking, I really shouldn’t. Why did I ever think of bringing a thing like this into Noah.”

As I was reminiscing about the past for the first time in a while, the Association President let out a groan. He had lived as a hunter, so he must have experienced things far worse than this countless times, yet his act of being weak was pathetic. I sat down on the sofa, even though the Association President hadn’t offered, and draped my arm over the backrest. Min-cheol didn’t even look at me as I lounged about arrogantly, as if he were afraid of catching bad luck.

“You told me to do the interview, right? So I did it, and you’re damned if I do, damned if I don’t…”

“Try to use that tongue of yours a little more nicely.”

“My face is nice, does my tongue have to be nice too?”

Min-cheol couldn’t rebut the shameless remark.

Say what you will, it was a fact that my face was nice.

Instead of getting angry, he was just crumpling an innocent document when I, with a small laugh, ended my act of teasing him and leaned my upper body forward.

“The Desert’s Punishment, you really got it, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t you say you’d only do the interview if I put that up?”

“I always assume the worst-case scenario. Of course, I had considered the path where our dear Association President fails to persuade Aiden. But you really kept your promise, so things have become much easier.”

“What were you planning to do if I hadn’t been able to persuade Aiden?”

“First, the person sitting in that seat would have changed. How can a person who can’t even keep one promise be the President of the Korean Association? Your shoulders must be heavy, so I would have had to lighten your load.”

It was a statement that didn’t match his light, airy voice. The Association President, at my unhesitating remark about my plan to replace him to his face, let out a hollow laugh and pressed his forehead. A wave of anger surged, but there was no rage to be spat out.

Because if I really set my mind to replacing the Association President, it would happen.

In the first place, the only reason he had been able to be the president until now was because I hadn’t had any particular interest in the Association. That was also the reason why Min-cheol wasn’t as afraid of me as my reputation would suggest.

He had never directly witnessed me murder anyone, and in front of him, I was nothing more than a troublemaker who caused headaches and accidents. That was why he had brought me into Noah with a somewhat light heart. He knew deep down that my disposition wasn’t terribly evil, and he thought that if I stepped into the light, my goddamn personality would also be diluted by the good influence of good people.

But now he saw that wasn’t the case.

My habits were rotten from the start.

Min-cheol looked with a complicated expression at the person who, having lived as a criminal for so long, had a moral compass that was skewed somewhere, and groaned again. I looked pathetically at him, who was now suffering on his own, wondering about my expulsion and what the media reaction would be, all because he himself had done the absurd deed of making me a member of Noah.

Why did you do something so ridiculous in the first place?

I had adapted now, but the bewilderment I felt when I first received the call from the Association to create a new guild and join Noah was still unforgettable. It seemed the bewilderment I felt then was now being transmitted very well to him.

As expected, it seems the world works by cause and effect.

Well, if the world really worked like that, my own later years wouldn’t be very peaceful either.

“Stop your whining and look at this.”

I graciously threw him another topic so the Association President could escape from his past mistake. He checked the envelope that had been thrown onto the desk. After glancing at me with a suspicious eye, he took out the document inside the envelope, and his expression hardened.

“Scorpion is active again.”

The document I threw him contained information on Scorpion and the tracks of the Scorpion follower group that had been in Korea. It was a group that could no longer be found, having been cleaned up by the Scorpion headquarters bastards.

Since I’m in Korea, they would have cleaned this place up first.

The timing of the Korean group’s disappearance coincided exactly with the time I entered Adelia’s Tomb. I tapped my fingertips together a few times, changed the angle of my head, and leaned the back of my neck against the top of the sofa backrest.

“Since The Desert’s Punishment is a relic of the Scorpion god, the Scorpion bastards will participate in the auction. Given the class of the item, they won’t try to handle things as sloppily as this time. They’ll send at least an executive. The plan to track and annihilate the Scorpion headquarters begins there.”

“What do you need?”

“This is why I like a quick-witted Association President.”

He was like a Doraemon with a pocket full of mysterious items. Min-cheol, who unhesitatingly produced whatever was needed with just a word, made my eyes curve into a smile. I hummed and opened my mouth.

“As Sa-yoon of Swallow, Sa-yoon of Noah, I will catch Scorpion and build up my record. I’ve found a transformation artifact, so I’ll be wearing that. Make me an ID with that appearance. I catch the bastards trying to steal my things, and the Korean Association builds up its achievements with the World Hunter Association and gains fame. It’s killing two birds with one stone. It’s a plan that’s good for my sister and good for my brother-in-law,² so I’d like you to prepare all the necessary expenses, items, and justification for this trip to San Francisco…”

In other words, I would just be bringing my body, so he should take care of all the other additional matters.

As I spoke, wiggling my toes in a good mood, the Association President’s expression, which had been hardening as my words continued, trembled.

“How many people are you taking?”

“Who knows. I haven’t decided exactly yet. Three? Four? Could be five.”

“…For how long?”

“We need to watch their movements for a week before the auction, and after the auction, we’ll need another week to hunt down the Scorpion bastards, so a minimum of two weeks, a maximum of a month.”

“So you’re telling the Association to start by forging an ID, and then secure auction tickets, expenses, and items for up to five people for a month.”

“Ah, I’ve prepared my own ticket, so four business class tickets will be fine. No need to be moved.”

I said, showing him the black ticket Mijeong had given me from my pocket. The Association President’s lip curled up. I smiled back brightly. Finally, the Association President threw all the documents on his desk at me, and a roar that could have pierced the soundproofing artifact of the office erupted from his mouth.

“Get out, you leech of a bastard!”

The Association President glared, looking at me as a father would look at a delinquent son-in-law who wanted to marry his precious, doted-on daughter. I knew that even as he said that, Min-cheol was prepared to offer me a hundred billion won for the sake of raising his status within the World Hunter Association, so I burst out laughing.

He was the very definition of a prepared slave.

Well, what can you do? A pumpkin had rolled into his lap³ and was offering to bring wealth and fame to the Association. He had to endure a small loss.

It’s just that the pumpkin had a bomb attached to it that could go off at any moment.

That was really the only risk factor, so he should be grateful to me. Thinking this, I left his office as he was throwing a fit. Zzzing. I felt a long vibration and took out my phone. A vibration longer than a normal notification meant it was a call.

“What’s up?”

It was a call from Gyeongjin, who rarely called. That meant one of two things.

Either something suspicious had been found in Scorpion’s movements that required quick confirmation, or there was news related to Han Geon-joo or Lee Jaehee.

Deep down, I was hoping for the latter. I smiled at Gyeongjin’s next words.

• Han Geon-joo and Lee Jaehee are out, hyungnim. Yan and Chan-hee went too, and they said they succeeded in capturing them with just twenty men. They knew they were in the wrong, so they were captured without much of a reaction. Should we take them to the villa as is? Or will you come?

“Tell them to wait, we’ll pick them up.”

Unfortunately, I hadn’t had a chance to test if the cage could go into the inventory with a person inside yet, but I could just pick up a rival guild member on the way and test it out.

No, wait.

“Min-cheol! Hand over a criminal on probation!”

Since I was at the Association anyway, I went back into his office and made the request. I quickly and easily obtained a person on par with one of the Four Perils⁴ and returned to the guild, beaming.

I was on Scorpion’s tail, and all that was left was the chase. At such a time, the person I had been waiting for with longing had appeared. I was uncharacteristically lucky. Thinking that everything was going so well, I hummed a tune.

It was a lullaby-like hum that only came out when I was in a good mood.